Books Are My People Weekly Newsletter
out today, paperback releases and more!
Welcome to my weekly book recommendation newsletter. You can learn more about me by visiting my introductory post here.
The newsletter was a little delayed today because we’ve been riding the high of my 18-year-old’s big hockey tournament win in Las Vegas! They played five games in three days and played with so much heart and through so many injuries. It was such an exciting win and I am thrilled for them. My kiddo is sitting in the very front row all the way to the left.
I was even able to sneak in half of Stephen McCauley’s You Only Call When You’re In Trouble in between games.
Episode #119 of Books Are My People is here with John Evans from Diesel Bookstore.
Happening this week:
Please note: Because my Read with Me series is happening in February, there will be no Thursday posts this month. Thursday posts will resume in March!
Online Writing, Reading and Art Events This Week (three things I love!)
Tuesday, February 20th, 7 - 8:30 pm GMT Woodland Drawing Session with Odd Orange. The cost is around $3 US. I am signed up, but I am also still driving home from Las Vegas, so I hope I get home in time to participate! Sign up here.
Thursday, February 22nd at 4 PM pt Art Hang Party on Youtube. I missed last week’s Valentine’s Day art hang, but I will be here this week.
will be drawing negative space animals. Using negative space is a great way to work on your artist’s eye.
Friday, February 23rd 3:30 - 4:45 PST Write In with Gotham Writers (Free) Learn more here.
Saturday, February 24th 10:00 am - 11:30 am CST “100 Words” with Jami Attenberg, author event. $35 ticket includes her new book about writing. Click here for more information.
What’s Coming Up For Paying Subscribers:
February: Next week marks the last week of this dark culinary adventure. I’ll be sending out a survey about when you’d like to have a culminating zoom. Yes, there will be a bookish giveaway!
March: We’ll be reading The Expatriates by Janice Y.K. Lee and watching The Expats series on Prime and talking about them on a zoom at the end of March. Read the book. Watch the show. Do both. Do neither!
We will also be voting in March on what book we will be reading in May for Read With Me.
April: RYOB (read your own book) and we’ll talk about it over zoom at the end of the month.
Purchasing a book through my Bookshop.org link is an easy way to support this free newsletter.
Out Today:
Ours by Phillip B. William
In this sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town named Ours. Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.
key words: reimagined history, bipoc, 1830’s
Slow Noodles by Chantha Nguon
A haunting and beautiful memoir from a Cambodian refugee who lost her country and her family during Pol Pot's genocide in the 1970s but who finds hope by reclaiming the recipes she tasted in her mother's kitchen.
key words: memoir, food, Cambodian refugee
In this razor-sharp crime novel, two estranged twin sisters hunt down their elusive mother--and face down the darkness they tried to escape.
key words: suburbia, mother-daughter relationship, dual timeline, suspense
Mrs. Gulliver by Valerie Martin
An inventive tale of female subversion and agency in a patriarchal world, with two brilliantly crafted protagonists to root for. Spirits of the star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet, as well as the devilish denizens of the magical island in The Tempest, haunt this steamy tale of passionate love, found and lost, and found again.
key words: 1950’s, Verona Island, love
Splinters by Leslie Jamison
In her first memoir, Jamison turns her unrivaled powers of perception on some of the most intimate relationships of her life: her consuming love for her young daughter, a ruptured marriage once swollen with hope, and the shaping legacy of her own parents' complicated bond. In examining what it means for a woman to be many things at once--a mother, an artist, a teacher, a lover--Jamison places the magical and the mundane side by side in surprising ways.
key words: memoir, relationships, motherhood
The Still Point by Tammy Greenwood
Dance Moms meets Little Fires Everywhere in award winning author Tammy Greenwood's addictive new novel set in the hyper cutthroat world of ballet girls and their mothers as they compete for a prestigious prize.
key words: ballet, California, competition
This American Ex-Wife by Liz Lenz
In this exuberant and unapologetic book, Lenz makes an argument for the advantages of getting divorced, framing it as a practical and effective solution for women to take back the power they are owed.
key words: divorce, empowerment, the institution of marriage
The Turtle House by Amanda Churchill
Moving between late 1990s small-town Texas to pre-World War II Japan and occupied Tokyo, an emotionally engaging literary debut about a grandmother and granddaughter who connect over a beloved lost place and the secrets they both carry.
key words: family, Asian-American, literary
The Bloodied Nightgown by Joan Acocella
The Bloodied Nightgown: And Other Essays gathers twenty-four essays from the past decade and a half of Acocella's career, as well as an introduction that frames her simple preoccupations, "life and art." In agile, inspired prose, the New Yorker staff writer moves from J. R. R. Tolkien's translation of Beowulf to the life of Richard Pryor, from surveying profanity to untangling in the book of Job. Her appetite (and reading list) knows no bounds.
key words: essays, literature, arts criticism
Out in Paperback:
Sink by Joseph Earl Thomas
A wrenching, redemptive coming-of-age story about the difficulty of growing up in a hazardous home and the glory of finding salvation in geek culture, now in paperback.
What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jimenez
A Puerto Rican family in Staten Island who discovers their long-missing sister is potentially alive and cast on a reality TV show, and they set out to bring her home.
I haven’t been doing much art lately, but I did complete this monoprint, part of a series I’ve started based on little moments and memories. This piece was inspired by my volunteer transcription work at the U.S. Library of Congress, where I transcribed some of Walt Whitman’s nurse’s notes during his final days. In these pages, I learned that one of his last meals was mutton broth, which I’ve tried to capture here. These are all just little studies, not final pieces, but I’d like to add some writing to accompany each piece. I will be working on these studies for my hundred day project.
Like what you read? You can buy me a coffee!
Books Are My People: A Podcast Companion Newsletter
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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! 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.
I love your monoprint! Are you using a gelli plate? Seems trickier in a notebook!
Thank you so much for mentioning ART HANG PARTY! 🤗💖✨ See you on Thursday!