Indie Reads for the Book Club

Another question for you and your book club activities: do you prefer to have snacky, appetizer-like items or more substantial dinner-type things? I could personally go for either, so today I’m hitting you with my latest food obsession: Rose tteokbokki. It’s basically just tteokbokki with cream/milk added. I have to admit that I “cheat” and use the frozen pack from Trader Joe’s and just add the dairy component, but if you want a more detailed recipe, click here.

In the ’80s in a national forest in New Mexico, bodies are found that belong to two children and a young woman. How they got there remains a mystery for 30 years until two women try to figure out what happened. Now, each woman — librarian Laura and detective Jean — has their own reason for solving the cold case. Laura is trying to keep busy as a way to keep her mind off her cancer treatments, and Jean is trying to prove that she shouldn’t retire yet. Even with their baggage, they’re both willing to risk it all to give a voice to the slain.

This collection of essays from different writers looks at Black history, nature, and Black folks’ relationship with the outdoors. Starting with an archival object — like Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 almanac and a statue of Haitian revolutionary François Makandal — each of these essays reaches back generations and crosses thousands of miles to tell the story of how Black people have related to the land they’ve lived on, even as that relationship has been marred by colonialism.

The structure of this one is interesting. It’s basically a collection of flash fiction pieces that come together to make a novella. Each miniature story shows another aspect of the apocalypse in a ridiculous way that juxtaposes things like pop culture with the trappings of the end of the world. *Bonus points for the inclusion of Barbie as a character.*

Here’s another collection of stories, this time from the author of the bestselling Strange Weather in Tokyo. In these eccentric tales, Kawakami explores the very human need for love and wonderment. A goddess uses her spiciness to control followers, a con man shape shifts, a woman has a string of husbands until she’s able to return to the sea, and more.