Dear Emma Southon,

Thank you for writing Agrippina! My friend Alice of the For Real podcast recommended it to me by quoting small passage from it until I was charmed into acquiring it, and that’s in a year when my nonfiction consumption was heavily regulated (by myself) (I am a heavy regulator of myself) and I had to make very hard choices about what nonfiction to read and not read. But I am super glad that I spent a nonfiction chit on Agrippina because it was delightful. I loved it as a book, but even more than that, I loved the project that you are doing of making history accessible, friendly, and funny. I loved the companionable language you used, and how you invited the reader to feel engaged not just with the people from history but with the challenges of uncovering this history. Also, you made me laugh. More people should write books like this, except honestly a lot of classicists aren’t that funny. If any of your peers are going “hem hem she should be more Serious” please know that they are buttheads and you are doing awesome. I loved your book.

Kind regards,
Jenny

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Dear Yoon Ha Lee,

Thank you for the matchless gift of Kel Cheris and Shuos Jedao. They are the quintessential match-up of stern stoicism and absolute ferality, and I fucking live for their uneasy alliance/?friend?ship? (Would we call them friends? I cannot decide. Uneasy allies, anyway!)

I often find it a challenge to read books with a lot of worldbuilding, but I’m so glad that my pal Renay evangelized enough that I picked up Nicefox Gambit a few years back,¹ because it has brought me so much joy. This month, I finally picked up Hexarchate Stories, and while everything in it was terrific, I felt the most exquisite happiness reading “Glass Cannon.” Evidently my heart had been longing for more content in which Cheris finds Jedao maddening and they do murdery adventures together. When my family goes fake-camping (like, in cabins and shit) later this year, I am planning to bring the whole Machineries of Empire series on that trip and do a big reread. I am indescribably excited about that prospect.

Thank you once again for writing these books and creating these characters. I love them so much.

Kind regards,
Jenny

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