Happy Friday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got a couple new releases and some nonfiction written by people who we’re more used to as writing fiction. I don’t know how it was where you are this week, but it was cold in Colorado (and technically not even that cold, but I’m not adjusted to the winter yet!) so I spent all week cuddling with a warm, sleepy cat and drinking how tea. There are worse ways to get through it. Stay safe (and warm) out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Tuesday!
Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge is in its ninth year, with a set of 24 tasks that invite readers to expand their worldview through books. Read one book per task, or do some multi-tasking by counting one book for multiple tasks. It’s all fine! The point of the challenge is to push yourself to expand your horizons. Thank you to Thriftbooks for sponsoring Read Harder 2023.
To find the tasks and subscribe to our newsletter for tips and recommendations, visit Read Harder 2023.
Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here’s somewhere to start: NDN Collective and Jane’s Due Process.
Bookish Goods
Sci-Fi Reader Enamel Pin by ReadingZing
I love a good pin in general, but this one caught my eye because it is just so tiny and cute! You can tell how small it is compared to the fingers it’s resting on in the picture. Adorable. $11
New Releases
The Tatami Galaxy by Tomihiko Morimi
The unnamed protagonist of the book is a disaffected junior on the verge of dropping out from a prestigious university in Kyoto, where half his problem was joining the film club, where he clashed with its dictatorial jock of a president. His other mistake has been in his best friend, a diabolical creep named Ozu. But he might have a second chance to set his life on a better course as time is rewound and he has the opportunity to start over as a freshman.
The Poison Season by Mara Rutherford
The island of Endla is covered with the bloodthirsty Forest and protected from the outside world by a lake of poison. Life there is the only thing Leelo has known, but she begins to question the way her community lives when her younger brother faces exile by his next birthday. She also knows how her people are to treat outsiders, but when she sees a young man about to drown in he lake, she does the unthinkable and betrays her community by saving him.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Many SFF writers don’t write only science fiction. Some of them even write nonfiction! And here’s a couple of examples:
Freedom in the Family by Tananarive Due and Patricia Stephens Due
Tananarive Due’s mother was involved in the civil rights movement at its height and fought for justice — and instilled those values in her daughter. Together, they’ve written a memoir about the movement, its achievements, and the future of justice in America.
A Spectre, Haunting by China Miéville
Anyone who has ever read China Miéville’s work or listened to him speak is completely unsurprised that he’s thought deeply about Marxism and Communism. He has now written a guide to and new reading of Marx and Engels’s Manifesto of the Communist Party. (And he was recently on Chris Hayes’s Podcast Why is This Happening? to talk about it.)
See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.