Author: Erica Ezeifedi

I don’t know what took me so long to include pistachio cake, but here we are. Both of my parents love pistachios, so I guess it’s in my DNA — it’s just a flavor/ingredient I love in any and all my sweet things. This recipe is for a bundt cake that I think will go well with any variety of book club coffees and teas. Enjoy!

Now for some books!

When the apocalypse hits in 2011, Candace is a millennial living in Manhattan and working as a production assistant for a company that makes specialty Bibles. The zombies in Severance, made by what’s called “Shen Fever,” aren’t the usual kind, though. Instead of mindlessly chasing humans, they’re mindlessly completing simple tasks that were part of their daily lives pre-infection until their bodies give out — retail workers keep folding clothing, for instance. The world halts, Candace flees and eventually finds a group of survivors who are looking to start a new civilization elsewhere, but she’s got a secret she has to keep from the leader of the group.

The critique of late-stage capitalism, the new, quirky take on zombies, even the pink cover all make this feel super duper representative of millennials. Plus, I like the phrase “coming-of-adulthood” that’s part of the official book blurb.

A man wakes up in 2010 knowing that a tragedy has befallen the world, but can’t remember his own name. As he tries to survive the new landscape, he meets a young boy named Clay who looks well taken care of. Clay is mysterious and hesitant to answer the man’s questions, but through him, we learn of the main character’s past life, and even sometimes wonder if the world is really as over as the protagonist thinks it is.

This takes place over three days in a post-apocalyptic world that has been rocked by what is basically a zombie plague. We follow Mark, who is a member of a civilian team of workers in lower Manhattan who are trying to clear the area of “malfunctioning stragglers.” These stragglers aren’t the same infected that have been cleared out by the army, but a seemingly less dangerous type that are in a catatonic state, unable to adjust to the new forlorn world. Of course, things don’t go quite according to plan.

Once an ancient, arctic virus is accidentally unleashed by researchers, the entire world changes. Suddenly, ways of life all over the world must be altered and humans’ ability to adapt is tested. But adapt we do, and in that adaptation, our capacity for empathy and creativity are held on to steadfastly — people fall in love in the midst of tragedy; animals develop skills that help us connect more meaningfully to them; and loved ones go on cosmic quests.

I can think of at least five people at the top of my head who’d I’d recommend this book to. In it, Tawwab, a licensed counselor and popular relationship expert, uses research and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) methods to help you identify not just how to establish healthier boundaries with people, but also the root causes of any already existing unhealthy boundaries.

Setting this book as the book club read could make for an interesting meeting. It’s fairly short — at 222 pages — and is part memoir and part yoga instructional. It could be a nice, short intro into the new year for the book club, and you could make your meet-up part yoga session, if you’re feeling cute. Apart from the yoga poses taught, Stanley discusses how her journey as a fat, Black yogi has been. As you probably guessed, she’s been met with stereotypes regarding her race and size. The book club can combine this one with Yoke, her collection of personal essays, for all the goodness.

Price is a social psychologist who leads us away from the lie of laziness with Laziness Does Not Exist. In it, he takes it way back to the beginnings of the present scam that measures self worth based on productivity. Turns out, people in general do more today than they did during any other era in history. So I guess we don’t spend as much time getting avocado toast and overpriced lattes? Huh.

Discuss this one as a way to explore learning how to balance your work load and manage expectations.

Financial education is not as prevalent as it should be, especially for those living in a capitalistic society that runs counter to their best interests. Aliche tries to remedy that by detailing a practical process of 10 steps that is designed to help guide people to financial security by managing debt, budgeting, and more. She writes from the perspective of someone who experienced being in quite the predicament financially, which makes her all the more relatable.

These are some bougiely-cut potatoes (yes, I made that word up, but it feels right) that look extra crispy and wonderful. I also like how you can add whatever toppings you like. @thatdudecancook shows the technique here.

This is my first book of the year! Deanna Rayburn used to hold me down on my historical mystery/romance needs back in the day. I hadn’t read her in a while, though, so it was nice to read her writing in a different genre (somewhat, it’s still mystery). In this one, Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie are older ladies who have spent the last 40 years as elite assassins for a secrete organization called The Museum that hunts down people like Nazis and dictators for termination. After the organization sends them on a paid vacay, they soon realize they’re the latest to be put on a hit list. Turns out there’s someone at The Museum who has turned in a report detailing how they’ve been freelancing, and unless they can clear their names, The Museum’s assassins will keep on coming.

This was so unputdownable for me that I didn’t even mind the flashbacks, which are every other chapter. I usually don’t care for flashbacks, even in books I like, because I don’t like being taken out of the present. I may be alone in that, though!

In this collection of essays, Irby talks about being 40, moving to a Republican town in Michigan with her wife and step kids, and all the things that come with that. Like, literally, all the things — her stories of everyday life include everything from friend dates to the lack of cartilage in her knees. Reading this feels like sitting down with that one homegirl who always has a funny life story to share.

I discussed this book as one of my faves for 2022 in the In Reading Color newsletter, it’s that good. It’s a YA retelling of Carrie, but I couldn’t really tell you how closely it stays to the source material since I haven’t read the original. My guess is that it strays a bit, since it’s about a (mostly) white-passing mixed girl named Maddy who lives in a small Georgia town where high school prom is still segregated in the year of our lord 2014. One day it rains, causing her hair’s natural texture to show. Maddy gets bullied with this revelation, some of which goes viral. To save her school’s reputation — thereby securing her own future at a future college — another student offers up her Black boyfriend to accompany Maddy to the prom to show how “progressive” the school is now. Ish gets real once a couple white students push Maddy too far…I love how this had segments of a podcast discussing the massacre at the high school. We learned more about the incident as we learned more about Maddy, and that narrative structure kept me hooked.

This is a memoir that is unlike any you’ll ever read. Machado summons fairy tale and horror tropes to tell the story of domestic abuse within a same-sex relationship. I think this is especially affecting — juxtaposing narratives most of us are familiar with will make the details of the abuse she suffered feel all the more familiar and therefore devastating. This is inventive, poetic, and raw, and Machado will have you turning the pages with a quickness.

In addition to being a fabulous shade of purple, courtesy of ube extract, these cookies are also not too sweet — a quality I admire in a cookie. Janelle Eats details the recipe for the Filipine cookies on her Youtube account and website.

Now that you’ve got warm cookies, let’s get to the books!

This isn’t standard cozy fare for me as it’s a little on the serious side, but I still think it works. Mukesh tries to carry on in a London borough after having lost his wife. He spends his time doing regular life stuff like grocery shopping and going to Temple, but he also worries about his granddaughter Priya, who has withdrawn into herself.

Then there’s Aleisha, a teenager who works at the library and has found a list of books she’s never heard of in a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird. Naturally, she decides to read them and through them discovers an escape from home life. When Mukesh comes to the library, he’s hoping to find a way to connect to his granddaughter. What he finds is a teenage girl who shares a book list with him that opens him up.

Here’s another library one! Honestly, library and bookstores are such perfectly cozy settings. This is more my usual speed for cozy readings as its a cozy mystery. In it, Marvey is a librarian who has moved from Brooklyn to a small town in Georgia. She’s still getting used to the quirky town when she finds a dead body in a bookstore. She gets involved in the murder investigation once her friend becomes a suspect. As a librarian, she’s an expert researcher and knows a thing or two about crime from all the mystery novels she’s read. She also goes around asking if everyone has a library card, which is precious.

Nora Walker comes from a long line of women who have a special, magical connection to the woods. It’s this special connection that lets Nora know that when Oliver Huntsman — the same Oliver Huntsman who disappeared from a camp weeks ago during a terrible snowstorm — shows up, something is amiss. The woods shift uncomfortably around the boy, who should be dead, and Nora starts to seek out the truth surrounding Oliver’s survival. She cares about him, but he has more than a few secrets. This is a kind of wintery fairytale that’s atmospheric with beautiful writing.

Ellie is all about Christmas, even outside of its usual season. Her job she likes…less. She’s desperate for a career change, which comes in the form of CEO Rosalind Caldwell’s need for a new personal assistant. As Caldwell tries to save her Christmas party with the new girl snd Christmas enthusiast Ellie, Ellie develops a big crush on her assertive new boss…