Hello, my friends! I hope you are all reading something wonderful. This has been such a great year for books, and it’s only the first week of February! (It is February, right? My other guess is 42.) I have some bad news and some good news for you. The bad news is that the release date of My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Vol. 2 by Emil Ferris has been moved again, from April to the end of May. The good news is that I have read it, and it is sooooo great! Just you wait. I feel like it should be a national holiday or something when it comes out. We’ve all been so excited about it for so long! And wow, do I wish I could draw like Ferris. I can only draw stick figures!
At the top of my list of books to acquire today are Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender, Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott, and Dinner on Monster Island: Essays by Tania De Rozario. And on this week’s episode of All the Books!, Danika and I talked about great books we loved that are out this week, including Smoke Kings, The Teeny-Weeny Unicorn, and How to Live Free in a Dangerous World.
2024 is the tenth year of the Read Harder Challenge! Join us as we make our way through 24 tasks meant to expand our reading horizons and diversify our TBRs. To get book recommendations for each task, sign up for the Read Harder newsletter. We’ll also keep you informed about other cool reading challenges, readathons, and more across the bookish internet. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations plus community features, where you can connect with a community of passionate, like-minded readers in a cozy and supportive corner of the internet. Sign up today!
Today, I am doing a round-up of several exciting books from the first Tuesday of February 2024. Below, you’ll find titles (loosely) broken up into several categories to make it easier for your browsing convenience. I hope you have fun with it! And as with each first Tuesday newsletter, I am putting asterisks *** next to the books that I have had the chance to read and loved. YAY, BOOKS!
Biography and Memoir
Be Not Afraid of My Body: A Lyrical Memoir by Darius Stewart
Dinner on Monster Island: Essays by Tania De Rozario
How To Live Free In a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir by Shayla Lawson
Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F*cking Up, and Figuring It Out by Gracie Gold
Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Queer Histories by Diarmuid Hester
Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti
Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America by Joy-Ann Reid
Fiction
Significant Others by Zoe Eisenberg
Fourteen Days: A Collaborative Novel edited by Margaret Atwood
The Adversary by Michael Crummey***
Self-Portraits: Stories by Osamu Dazai, Ralph McCarthy (translator)
Redwood Court by DéLana R. A. Dameron
Set for Life by Andrew Ewell
The Women by Kristin Hannah
Float Up, Sing Down by Laird Hunt
Antiquity by Hanna Johansson, Kira Josefsson (translator)
Ways and Means by Daniel Lefferts
The Road from Belhaven by Margot Livesey
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
Dixon, Descending by Karen Outen
Greta & Valdin by Rebecca Reilly***
Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford
Corey Fah Does Social Mobility by Isabel Waidner
Middle Grade & Picture Books
The Teeny-Weeny Unicorn by Shawn Harris***
Zips and Eeloo Make Hummus by Leila Boukarim, Alex Lopez***
Ten Little Rabbits by Maurice Sendak
Mystery and Thriller
Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra***
Smoke Kings by Jahmal Mayfield***
What Is Mine by Lyn Liao Butler
The Essential Harlem Detectives by Chester Himes
Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead by Jenny Hollander
The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller
Nonfiction
Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin
Wrong Norma by Anne Carson
The Thefts of the Mona Lisa: The Complete Story of the World’s Most Famous Artwork by Noah Charney
Radical Reparations: Healing the Soul of a Nation by Marcus Hunter
Alt-Nature by Saretta Morgan
Romance
Bride by Ali Hazelwood
The Last Days of Lilah Goodluck by Kylie Scott
When Grumpy Met Sunshine by Charlotte Stein
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
Sci-fi, Fantasy, and Horror
The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
Your Shadow Half Remains by Sunny Moraine
Tales of the Celestial Kingdom (Celestial Kingdom, 3) by Sue Lynn Tan and Kelly Chong
Young Adult
Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender
Out of Body by Nia Davenport
Even If It Breaks Your Heart by Erin Hahn
No Time Like Now by Naz Kutub
Ways and Means by Daniel Lefferts
I Hope This Doesn’t Find You by Ann Liang
ASAP by Axie Oh
The Absinthe Underground by Jamie Pacton
Relit: 16 Latinx Remixes of Classic Stories by Sandra Proudman
This week: I’m currently reading The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch and God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer by Joseph Earl Thomas. I’m also considering a reread of The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier, because the snow and cold have put me in the mood for a book about the end of the world. If you have never read it, I am jealous of any of you who read it for the first time. And speaking of snow and cold, I started watching the new season of True Detective. It has everything I love. Just really dire things happening to people isolated in the cold weather, getting scared by creepy, murdery stuff. And I love Jodie Foster so much. The song stuck in my head right now is “Ice Cream (Pay Phone)” by Black Pumas. And here’s a cat photo: Look at this ridiculous little laundry basket case.
That’s it for me today, friends. I am sending you love and good wishes for whatever is happening in your life right now. Thank you, as always, for joining me each week as I rave about books! See you next week. – XO, Liberty