Books Are My People Weekly Newsletter
out today, paperback releases and more!
A warm welcome to any new subscribers! You can learn more about me by visiting my introductory post here.
Books Are My People: A Podcast Companion Newsletter
(click here to listen to the most recent episode of my book recommendation podcast.)
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I'm Jennifer Caloyeras and I love books. And I love sharing books! I even love writing books. And making books! And teaching people how to write books!
Did you catch this week’s episode of Books Are My People: a podcast for book lovers? I interview librarian, instructor, artist and friend H. Maria Armijo. Click here to listen.
Visit H. Maria Armijo's website
I also got a guest author book recommendation from Angela Brown, author of Olivia Strauss Is Running Out Of Time
Happening This Week:
Paying Subscribers:
We have a Book Social zoom meetup to share what books we’re reading and loving this Thursday, January 18th at 5 pm PT. I will send you a reminder email you with a link to attend later today. I so look forward to virtually seeing / meeting you!
Paying subscribers, we’re inching closer and closer to reading Land of Milk and Honey by C Pam Zhang for our Read With Me selection! Thursday, January 25th I’ll release the schedule of events. The first video drops February 5th. If you’re champing (did you know it’s “champing” and not “chomping?”) at the bit to start reading, don’t read past the first three chapters!
As a gift to you in the new year, now through January 31st I’m offering 20% off full-year subscriptions!
In writing and arting news: My friend Matthew is teaching this class: Untangled: Moving Past Fear in Knitting and Writing. I SO wish I could take it! Perhaps you can! Tell him I sent you! (We went to graduate school together at the University of British Columbia for our MFA in Creative Writing.)
Let’s move on to the books!
Out Today:
The Fury by Alex Michaelides (Author of The Silent Patient. )
Every year, Lana Farrar, a reclusive ex-movie star and one of the most famous women in the world, invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.
But this year, the trip ends in murder.
key words: mystery, Greek island, movie star
City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter
I’m sold on the cover alone. A rich and riveting debut spanning four generations of Eastern European Jewish women bound by blood, half-hidden secrets, and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years.
key words: Jewish folklore, spirituality, LGBTQ+, Poland
*Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino (author of Parakeet)
At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Her name is Adina and she knows she is different. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of earthlings.
key words: difference, loneliness, observational fiction
Where You End by Abbott Kahler
An unusual form of amnesia upends the lives of identical twins, forcing them to face the indelible, dangerous shadow of the past.
key words: twins, coma, the past, storytelling,
More: A Memoir of Open Marriage by Molly Roden
A memoir of love, desire, and personal growth that follows a happily married mother's exploration of sex and relationships--outside of her marriage.
key words: Brooklyn, open marriage, mother of young children, self-discovery, memoir
The Curse of Pietro Houdini by Derek B. Miller
Pietro Houdini, the self-proclaimed "Master Artist and confidante of the Vatican," rescues Massimo, an orphan of the war in Rome and trains him to become his apprentice in smuggling masterpieces of art.
key words: 1940’s, orphan, Italy, art smuggling, historical fiction
Read alike: City of Thieves by David Benioff and All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Isn’t She Great by Elizabeth Teets
An anthology of the most beloved female-centric comedies and the audiences who adore them. From 9 to 5 to Romy and Michelle to the iconic Elle Woods, the essays in this collection build on our devotion to these films and continue the conversation around funny women and how these characters have shaped so many talented writers.
key words: television, film comedy, essays, women
The Best That You Can Do: Stories by Amina Gautier
Primarily told from the perspective of women and children in the Northeast who are tethered to fathers and families in Puerto Rico, these stories explore the cultural confusion of being one person in two places--of having a mother who wants your father and his language to stay on his island but sends you there because you need to know your family.
key words: short stories, diaspora, identity, connection, family dysfunction
Read Alike: We The Animals by Justin Torres
The young English narrator has grown up unhappily in London, pretending to be someone else and obsessed with a locked private garden. On the eve of her twenty-first birthday, at a party near that garden, she meets its charismatic and mysterious new owner, Marcus, thirty-three years older, who sweeps her off her feet. Before long they are married at his finca in Mallorca, and at last she has escaped into a new role - but at what price? On their honeymoon in Croatia, Marcus reveals there is something she can do for him--a plan is in place and she can help with "a favor."
key words: international espionage, London, Mallorca, Croatia, Paris, Cap Ferret, suspense, CIA
The Last Fire Season by Manjula Martin
A woman’s complicated relationship with fire in Northern California.
key words: memoir, natural history, California, fire, ecology
Read Alike: H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald
Paperback Releases
Horse by Geraldine Brooks (This one is on my to-read list)
Based on the true story of a winning thoroughbred, this is a braided story about four characters: Jarret, an enslaved groom living in Kentucky in the 1850’s and the horse he cares for, Martha, a gallery owner living in New York City in the 1950’s, Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia living in Washington D.C. and Theo a Nigerian-American art historian studying a racing horse from the past.
The Faraway World by Patricia Engel
A collection of ten exquisite, award-winning short stories set across the Americas and linked by themes of migration, sacrifice, and moral compromise.
The New Life by Tom Crewe (This one is also on my to-read list!)
In the summer of 1894, John Addington and Henry Ellis begin writing a book arguing that homosexuality, which is a crime at the time, is a natural, harmless variation of human sexuality. Though they have never met, John and Henry both live in London with their wives, Catherine and Edith, and in each marriage, there is a third party: John has a lover, a working-class man named Frank, and Edith spends almost as much time with her friend Angelica as she does with Henry.
Shortly before the book is to be published, Oscar Wilde is arrested. John and Henry must decide whether to go on, risking social ostracism and imprisonment, or to give up the project for their own safety and the safety of the people they love.
*Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey
Maggie is broke, her graduate thesis on something obscure is going nowhere, and her marriage only lasted 608 days, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée(TM). A tender and bittersweet comedy that lays bare the uncertainties of modern love, friendship, and our search for that thing we like to call "happiness". This is a remarkable debut from an unforgettable new voice in fiction.
Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy
In New Orleans, Sister Holiday is a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun who puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test in this crime novel. (book one in a series.)
I leave you with a little monoprint / collage I made last night. I’m still under the weather with my winter cold situation. I’m steeped in tea. And cough drops. I’m open to any other suggestions.
Like what you read? You can buy me a coffee!
This post contains affiliate links to my Bookshop.org shop which not only supports me, but independent bookstores as well. Please consider purchasing books through these links as a way of supporting Books Are My People.
Hope you're feeling better. Love that you have pieces which will be in print! Congrats and also really enjoyed the Podcast with Maria. Thank you for for getting me back into reading.
Sorry you are still ill. Vicks fixes everything ( not really) but I find it comforting. Love the mono print.