Author: Vanessa Diaz

Audiobooks 10/15

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date October 14, 2020

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk

In a magical world reminiscent of Regency England, Beatrice Claybourn wants nothing more than to be practice magic as a profession. But in this society, women are fitted with a collar that will cut off their powers as soon as they’re wed—and wed thus must. When Beatrice locates a rare grimoire that will help grant her wish to do magic, another sorceress swoops in and take the book right out from under her. Beatrice strikes a bargain with a spirit to get the grimoire back, one that ends with her kissing the stealing sorceress’ very attractive brother. Beatrice is faced with an impossible choice: does she give into love, wed this lovely man, and in doing so safe her family from penury at the cost of her hopes and dreams? Or does she follow her heart and turn her back on everyone she loves?

Read by Moira Quirk (The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley, Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir)

The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow

I had to sneak in at least *once* witchy read, and this one comes to us from the author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January (go read that one too!). It’s 1893 in New Salem and witchcraft is a thing of the past. But when the Eastwood sisters join a group of local suffragists, they find themselves tapping into the old ways to change the course of history.

Read by Gabra Zackman (I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara, Sadie by Courtney Summers, Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage)

Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark

This dark fantasy historical novella puts a supernatural twist on the Ku Klux Klan, as if it weren’t already scary enough! The regular ol’ awful human racists are known as “Klans,” and hiding among them are literal, actual demons known as “Ku Kluxes” who ride across the nation spewing fear and violence. Maryse Boudreaux and her fellow resistance fighters are on a mission to hunt those that hunt them armed with blade, bullet, and bomb. Then Maryse senses something awful brewing in Macon, and the war on Hell is about to reach a whole new level of terror.

Read by Channie Waites (The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark, I’m Not Dying with You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal, Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel Jose Older)

Latest Listens

Notes From A Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi

Some know Kwame Onwuachi as a contestant on Top Chef, but there is so much more to his fascinating story. By age 27, he’d both opened and closed Shaw Bijou, one of the buzziest fine-dining establishments in America. This restaurant was the embodiment of his culinary vision. From the flavors on his menu to the lighting fixtures and the diversity of his kitchen staff, Onwuachi poured his very soul into executing every element of that vision to perfection. And just like that, it was gone.

To get to that moment in Onwuachi’s journey, he takes us back to his childhood in the Bronx where he learned to cook in his mother’s kitchen. We follow him when he’s sent to Nigeria to “earn respect,” and when he returns to the US and succumbs to the allure of the streets. Even in his lowest moments—blaming himself for his parents’ separation, enduring his father’s violent temper, dealing and spiraling in his drug use—food remains a constant. It is eventually the thing that pulls him out of his haze and redirects the course of his life as a truly talented and intuitive chef.

His food is a mouth-watering mix of familiar and inventive (do not read this while hungry), from his mother’s étouffée to his gourmet riff on steak and eggs (several recipes are included much to my delight). But it’s Onwuachi’s resilience in the face of so much adversity, some of his own creation and a lot of it systemic, that leaps off the page. He is honest with himself and us as readers about his mistakes and shortcomings while also confronting the racism pervasive in the restaurant space. You might go into the book expecting to grieve the loss of his restaurant, and you will for a moment. But you’ll also recognize that Onwuachi is the definition of hustle, that the closing of one door was indeed the opening of another.

This very candid memoir wasn’t just a breath of fresh air and an explosion of flavor, it was a state of the union of sorts regarding the culinary world’s treatment of people of color and a call for the industry to change. It’s read by Onwuachi, which you already know I’m here for; his narration was so natural, and filled with the care you just know he puts into his food.

TW: child abuse

From the Internets

Parade shares their top audiobook pics for 2020. You know I stay audio booking, and I’ve only read two of these!

BuzzFeed’s picks for horror audiobooks that will haunt you for weeks. There are a lot of these lists right now, but this one really is hot fire! I added 85% of them to my TBR.

Over at the Riot

Appalachian Audiobooks That Taught Me How to Say Goodbye

Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with with all things audiobook or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the In The Club newsletter and catch me once a month on the All the Books podcast.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.

Vanessa

In The Club

In the Club 10/13

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date October 13, 2020

Sponsored by Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions About Small-Town America edited by Nora Shalaway Carpenter.

Rural people and culture have been casually mocked, stereotyped, and deeply misunderstood. Now an array of short stories, poetry, graphic short stories, and personal essays, along with anecdotes from the authors’ real lives, dives deep into the complexity and diversity of rural America and the people who call it home. Fifteen extraordinary authors—diverse in ethnic background, sexual orientation, geographic location, and socioeconomic status—explore the challenges, beauty, and nuances of growing up in rural America. You’ll find yourself visiting parts of this country you might not know existed—and meet characters whose lives might be similar to your own.

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. Hello, lovely people of the club! It’s still October and that means it’s still an excellent time to read about things that go bump in the night. Last week we did witches, this week we’re casting a wider net.

To the club!!

Nibbles and Sips

I (still) have apples to go through and had a craving for apple pie the other night, but could not muster the energy to make a full-blown pie. That’s when I remembered the glory that is a crumble! I peeled a couple of apples, tossed them in sugar, cinnamon, and flour, then topped them with a mixture of flour, butter, and white and brown sugar the consistency of wet sand. All it took was about 45 minutes in a 375 degree oven and boom! Deliciousness. Here’s a similar recipe with measurements & stuff.

Books

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado

A lot of people think of Dracula as the first vampire book, but Carmilla both predates Bram Stoker’s classic by decades and helped inspire it. Carmilla is a lesbian vampire who lurks in the shadows, waiting to prey on unsuspecting women. After a carriage accident, she meets Laura, a lonely woman in a remote mansion in a central European forest who soon learns her new companion is both a seductress and a monster. In the original text, le Fanu 100% writes Carmilla’s queerness as the source of her villainy, an unfortunately common occurrence in literature. In this 2019 version, Carmen Maria Machado reclaims this queer narrative by rewriting the story entirely while someone also remaining mostly faithful to the original work.

Book Club Bonus: This piece is a more in-depth exploration of Machado’s reclaiming of the lesbian vampire narrative and should serve as an excellent source for book club discussion.

frankenstein in baghdad by ahmed saadawi book cover

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, translated by Jonathan Wright

Imagine if the story you know as Frankenstein was set in US-occupied Baghdad and the titular scientist was an oddball scavenger, one who creates a corpse by stitching together the human body parts he collects. He’s not just playing Build-a-Corpse for fun; he’s doing it so the government will recognize the parts as people and allow the slain a proper burial. Then that corpse goes missing, a monster who though shot cannot be killed and needs human flesh to survive.

Book Club Bonus: In case you’re not picking up on this yet, this work of dark humor and horror is a scathing critique of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Unpack that!

Lobizona by Romina Garber

In this work of YA fantasy, Manuela is undocumented and running from her father’s Argentine crime-family, so she keeps a low profile and rarely leaves her small Miami apartment. When her surrogate grandmother is viciously attacked and her mother arrested by ICE, Manu goes searching for answers about her past. The search takes her to a secret world straight out of Argentine folklore where brujas and werewolves exist, and down a path that reveals the terrifying truth of Manu’s heritage. It’s not just her residency, but her very existence that is illegal.

Book Club Bonus: Get ready for a “who’s the real monster here” discussion.

Suggestion Section

Bustle recently highlighted the new Alice Hoffman book, Magic Lessons. Why yes, I am bringing this up just to shove it in your faces again because it really is that good. So much to talk about in book club, as is often the case when unpacking the origins of the witch hunt.

As holiday season approaches with no end to this pandemic in sight (please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong), it’s going to take a concerted effort to stay connected. Whether you’ll be gathering with your small quaranteam book club or keeping in touch with loved once via virtual means, start making some fun holiday plans now! I know I for one am thinking of coordinating a holiday romance read + a Downton Abbey dinner date, but the possibilities are endless.

The L.A. Times book club will explore the work of Octavia Butler next. Her work is getting a “this speculative fiction feels a little too real” bump on the bestseller charts lately which is both incredibly awesome and extremely terrifying.

Read more books by Native writers. That’s all.

Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter and catch me once a month on the All the Books podcast.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.

Vanessa

Audiobooks

Audiobooks 10/08

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date October 8, 2020

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman (fiction)

If you’ve been rocking with me for a minute, you know that I only just read Practical Magic last year. I was immediately obsessed and saved Hoffman’s The Rules of Magic for this year’s October witch reading, inhaled that, and am now elbow deep in this prequel to both of those reads. Here we go way way back and learn the story of the OG Owens witch Maria, and find out what the deal really is with the Owens curse.

Read by Sutton Foster (Older: A Younger Novel by Pamela Redmond, and she’s also also the star of the Younger TV adaptation!)

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (fantasy)

This book, yo! What a feat. In 1714 France, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to avoid the arranged marriage and small-town life that await her. That bargain is seemingly the answer to her prayers: she’ll live forever and on her terms—but will henceforth be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Read by Julia Whelan (Educated by Tara Westover, Beach Read by Emily Henry, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid)

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam (mystery/thriller)

In a total departure from Alam’s previous work, this chilling 2020 National Book Award finalist book follows a middle-class white family on vacation in a remote part of Long Island. Their plan to relax and escape both the city and their problems is disrupted when the owners of the rental, an older Black couple, come knocking in the middle of the night after a massive blackout has left the city in the lurch. There’s no cell phone service, no updates, and the two families are forced to navigate the crisis together. But can they trust each other?

Read by Marin Ireland (Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson, Anxious People by Fredrik Backman and my latest listen, too!)

Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas (historical mystery/thriller)

Lady Sherlock is my favorite Sherlock! In this fifth book in the Lady Sherlock series, Charlotte Holmes investigates a murder case that implicates Scotland Yard inspector Robert Treadles. I inhaled this book in two days: I’ll take any excuse to read a mystery set in Victorian England, especially when the protagonist is an empowered woman living on her terms and who never, ever turns down a slice of delicious cake.

Read by Kate Reading (A Study in Scarlet Women and the rest of the book in the Lady Sherlock series, The Witching Hour by Anne Rice)

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade (romance)

Can I get an amen for fat positive romance?? This is a rom-com set in the world of TV fanfic. April Whittier is a a scientist who writes fan fiction of her favorite show and cosplays in her free time. When she goes on an unexpected date with Marcus, the show’s star and her celebrity crush, she has no idea that he secretly posts fanfiction of his own.

Read by Isabelle Ruther (Vampire Valentine by Lynsay Sands, Another by Fiona Cole)

White Tears /Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad (nonfiction, essays)

This feels like an excellent companion read for Mikki Kendall’s Hood Feminism in its examination of the ways in which modern feminism movements have excluded women of color. “Discussing subjects as varied as The Hunger Games, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the viral BBQ Becky video, and 19th-century lynchings of Mexicans in the American Southwest, Ruby Hamad undertakes a new investigation of gender and race. She shows how the division between innocent White women and racialized, sexualized women of color was created and why this division is crucial to confront.” Time to do some examination.

Read by Mozhan Marnò (The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd, The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali)

Latest Listens

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

I went from never having read Alice Hoffman to fangirling her unapologetically in the course of a year. This book was added to my TBR the very day I finished Practical Magic, but something made me wait to read it until this year and it was such perfect timing.

The Rules of Magic is sandwiched between Magic Lessons and Practical Magic with a setting at the cusp of the 60s in New York. Susanna Owens has three children and it’s clear from the very beginning that they’re very, very unique. There’s headstrong and difficult Franny; shy, beautiful, romantic Jet; and Vincent, a charismatic trouble seeker. Susanna has set down rules for her children from the get-go: “No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And, most importantly, never, ever fall in love.” But when the siblings visit their aunt Isabelle for the summer in in the small Massachusetts town where she lives, they finally begin to understand the truth of who they are and the stock them come from.

I went into the book expecting fall and witchy vibes, and I got all of that in droves. I also got an enchanting, heartbreaking, and inspiring story full of fierce and complicated women, the unshakeable bonds of sisterhood (and siblinghood in general), plus that deep, deep kind of love that follows you even when you try to deny it, and of course: magic. I am diving right into Magic Lessons right away, I just must have more of this story.

As I teased earlier, this one is read by Marin Ireland. She does a phenomenal job at voicing each of the characters. She gave me chills in the quiet moments of sadness and grief, then gave me courage when she embodied the bravery and resilience of the Owens women.

From the Internets

at Audible: baseball listens to get you pumped for the World Series (Go Dodgers!)

at Audiofile: favorite male narrators reading mysteries and more (the female edition will follow), plus audiobooks set in other worlds

Libro.fm has shared a database of crowdfunding for independent bookstores. For the billionth time, this pandemic really @%#! sucks.

Over at the Riot

6 Audiobooks to Celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.

Vanessa

In The Club

In the Club 10/07

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date October 6, 2020

Sponsored by The End of the Day by Bill Clegg

Bill Clegg returns with a deeply moving, emotionally resonant second novel about the complicated bonds and breaking points of friendship, the corrosive forces of secrets, the heartbeat of longing, and the redemption found in forgiveness.

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. It’s our first newsletter of October and you know what that means: it’s bruja season. Today I’d like to recommend some newer witch books for book club! All of these are 2020 releases and approach their subject with fresh takes, books that examine the terrifying origins of witch hunts, gendered magic, witchcraft as feminism, and the power of sisterhood.

To the club!!

Nibbles and Sips

This weekend I took a drive to a local farm for the opening weekend of their harvest festival and went hard in the paint on autumnal delights: pumpkins, apple cider, a hard loganberry cider, marionberry jam, pumpkin butter, caramel, apples, an actual caramel apple, and assorted produce. I have lots of cooking and baking plans for that haul, but first on the list: baked apples. Odds are you have most of these ingredients in your pantry, or at least a close enough substitute. Whip up a batch for book club and join me in the Fort of Fall Feelings.

Back on my Bruja-ja

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

That haunting and gorgeous cover seems to be asking me how I’ve summoned the audacity to not have read this book yet. So I picked it up this week! Immanuelle is a young biracial woman living in Bethel, a rigid, puritanical society where her very existence is blasphemy. She does her best to keep her head down, but a mishap lures her into the forbidden woods. That’s where she finds a journal that once belonged to her dead mother that proves she once consorted with witches, leading Immanuelle on a path of grim discovery into the Church’s twisted history. Rioter Alex Acks described it as the sort of horror fiction that’s “feminist and wrathful and takes blood revenge for the way society is built on the lives and bodies of women.” I’m both triggered and sold.

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow (October 13)

This upcoming witchy read comes to us from the author of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, one of my favorite reads of *checks what year it published because time has lost all meaning* 2019. It’s 1893 in New Salem and witchcraft is a thing of the past. But when the Eastwood sisters join a group of local suffragists, they find themselves tapping into the old ways to change the course of history. BRB, gonna go study some witchcraft.

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

I’d ask you what you’re doing with your life if you’ve never read Practical Magic or The Rules of Magic, but really: how lucky are you?! Here we are in the witchiest month of the year and you have not one but three bewitching (hehe) books to curl up with. Out just this week, Magic Lessons is the prequel to Practical Magic and takes us back to Maria Owens’ origin story and the curse that haunts the Owens women. Yes, these books are about witches, but that gift is beautifully wrapped in fierce feminism, the unshakeable bonds of sisterhood, the deepest kind of love, and a healthy dose of fall vibes.

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

I keep talking about this book because it is one of the most unique witch books I’ve read in a long time, and because the hole it left in my heart has not yet been mended. Yadriel is a trans boy who wants more than anything for his super traditional Latinx family to accept his true gender. To prove that he’s a brujo, he performs the sacred coming-of-age ritual wherein brujx come into their powers; with the help of his cousin/bestie, he plans to use those powers to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. Problem: the ghost he ends up summoning isn’t his cousin, refuses to leave, and also happens to be a Hottie McGuapo. This book is full of non-italicized Spanish and is inspired by lots of different Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) rituals. It shakes up the gendered magical powers narrative on so many levels, and that’s what I want you to discuss.

Suggestion Section

Jenna Bush-Hager has selected Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind for her October book club pick. A huge congratulations to Rumaan Alam on being a National Book Awards finalist!

You don’t need a big ol’ group to start a book club- grab a buddy and make it a party of two.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.

Vanessa

Audiobooks

Audiobooks – 10/01

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date September 30, 2020

Sponsored by the audiobook edition of Overstated by Colin Quinn, read by the author.

In Colin Quinn’s Overstated, the comedian and star of Red State Blue State and Unconstitutional, calls us out state-by-state, from Connecticut to Hawaii. He identifies the hypocrisies inherent in what we claim to believe and what we actually do. Overstated skewers us all: red, blue, and purple. The audiobook, read by the author, is ultimately infused with the same blend of optimism and practicality that sparked the US into being.

Hola Audiophiles!

Welcome to October! It’s the spookiest month, the scariest month, and not just because it’s when yours truly was born. I don’t know about you, but I’m officially starting to read and watch all of the witch things. Mwahahaha! I love this time of year.

Ready? Let’s audio.

New Releases – Week of September 29 (publisher descriptions in quotes)

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, read by Anisha Dadia (YA fantasy) – In the first book of Novik’s brand new Scholomance series, El is a student at said Scholomance, a very unique magic school that’s always trying to kill its students in one way or another. There are no teachers, no holidays, and all friendships are strategic. El has one goal: to make it out of the school alive, a goal that’s complicated by all the monsters and cursed artifacts, plus the fact that everyone in the school thinks she’s an evil witch. They don’t even know about that pesky prophecy, the one that says she possesses a dark power that can level mountains and kill millions.

Narrator Note: I just finished this book and loved Anisha Dadia’s narration! She really leaned into the unlikable, bristly but ultimately well-meaning thing and nailed what I imagined El would sound like.

Furia by Yamile Saied Mendez, read by Sol Madariaga (contemporary YA) – Camila is living a double life in Rosario, Argentina. At home, she’s a model daughter and sister living under the weight of her family’s expectations, abuse, and double standards. On the field though? She’s La Furia, a powerhouse soccer player with mad skills. When her team makes it to a nationwide tournament, she gets the chance to really show off her talent. Her dream is to get a scholarship to play for a North American university, but a lot stands in her way. the boy she once loved is back in town and oh yeah, minor detail: her parents not only don’t know she plays fútbol, but would strictly forbid it if they did.

Narrator Note: Sol Madariaga also reads Romina Garber’s Lobizona, another buzzy 2020 YA release set partially in Argentina. Love to see it!

Sleep Donation by Karen Russell, read by Allyson Ryan (fiction) – Welp, this sure doesn’t help my insomnia-related anxiety! Karen Russell has dreamt up (ha) a world plagued by lethal insomnia. Trish Edgewater, whose sister Dora was one of the plague’s first victims, is a top recruiter for the Slumber Corps where she convinces people to donate their sleep to an insomniac in crisis (ummm, call me?). Slumber Corps is supposed to be at the forefront of the fight against this disease, but are they really? “When Trish is confronted by ‘Baby A,’ the first universal sleep donor, and the mysterious ‘Donor Y,’ whose horrific infectious nightmares are threatening to sweep through the precious sleep supply,” Trish’s faith in the organization is put to the test. The book even comes with a Nightmare Appendix!

Narrator Note: You know Allyson Ryan: her most recent work includes Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Long Bright River by Liz Moore.

Latest Listens

I am dead, gone, and shooketh by my latest listen. That listen is Alyssa Cole’s When No One Is Watching and lemme tell you: believe the hype.

The thing is: it’s best enjoyed if you go in knowing as little as possible. I know I teased the plot in this very newsletter last month when it released, but picture me in a black suit donning some shades and pretend I’ve just done a Men in Black on you. Poof! Your memory is gone. Now go forth, listen, and be wowed.

What I will do is discuss the narration by Susan Dalian and Jay Aaseng. I absolutely loved both of their performances! Susan Dalian is so natural; I believed the fear and paranoia in her narration so much that I wanted to reach out and be like, “Hey friend, you okay?” She gave her characters warmth, charm, and “try me again” energy as appropriate and then turned around with the biiiiiig Karen vibes when needed, too. Jay Aeseng’s voice is rull, rull nice, and thank you sweet baby cheeses because he did not once speak in “Black voice.” Their combined performances, though they never once interacted with one another (each chapter is told from one of two character’s perspectives) somehow still conveyed such chemistry. Best of all: the tension. Oooh the tension! It takes skill to make tense moments feel real in audiobook narration and they both nailed it.

Go forth, and yell “howdy doody” at folks who are doing the most (you’ll see!).

From the Internets

Over at Get Literary: What’s That Audiobook?: Watch Your Favorite Authors Play the Audiobook Guessing Game – I love Ruth Ware sharing her deductive reasoning and Tembi Locke’s many facial expressions (relatable). That reminds me: I need to read From Scratch!

What audiobook should you read next for Hispanic Heritage Month? Libro.fm has a quiz to help you decide.

Audible rounded up audiobooks featuring unlikely heroines.

Audiofile suggests some cozy romances for fall and how glad am I that my hold on You Had Me at Hola just came in?! ALSO it must be said: 1) That yellow book you may have scrolled right past is the follow-up to Book Riot faveThe Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, and 2) pretty please and por favor: look past that… questionable cover.

Over at the Riot

You need to keep learning, I need to keep learning. Let’s all keep learning with these nonfiction audiobooks to teach us some things. I recently talked about Amanda Leduc’s Disfigured, I want to hand that book out to people on the street!

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.

—Vanessa, Queen of the Pumpkin Domain

In The Club

In the Club 08/30

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date September 30, 2020

Sponsored by our 1-year subscription to Audible giveaway. Ends tonight!

We’re teaming up with Podium Audio to give away a 1-year subscription to Audible! Simply subscribe to Podium Audio’s Sci-fic and Fantasy newsletter for a chance to win, but hurry – the contest closes tonight!

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. September is over (weren’t we all just grooving to Earth, Wind, and Fire??) and once again I insist that time has ceased to have all meaning. October is my birthday month and I love witchy season, so I’m not too mad. I just need Portland to get with the autumnal program and go back to cooler temps so I may blissfully don my chunky knits.

Enough about me, let’s talk libros. To the club!!

Nibbles and Sips

The second the weather began to cool* here in Portland, all my cooking reluctance magically vanished and I was DTC (down to cook). I immediately made one of my favorite labor-of-love recipes: Persian jeweled rice. It’s bursting with so many mouthwatering flavors—sweet caramelized onions, a melange of golden raisins, dried apricots and cherries, the delicious warmth of cinnamon, cardamom, and allspice—all nestled inside a bed of fragrant basmati rice soaked in saffron with a luscious buttery crust and topped with warm almonds and pistachios. WHEW. It’s so good. Here’s the recipe I use, and a similar one without the paywall that I haven’t tried. Enjoy!

*Me: “Yay fall!”
Fall: “Oh you thought you had me? Byeeeeee!”

Books

The innanets are overflowing with lists of Latinx lit for Hispanic Heritage Month! Por ejemplo:

Zoraida Cordova shares some books by Latinx author she’s loved recently over at Apple Books
BuzzFeed: Here Are Some Incredible Book Recs From 6 Latinx Authors
Epic Reads: 17 Books with Latinx Representation You Should Read
HuffPost: 15 New Books By Latinx Authors To Add To Your Bookshelf
Parade: In Honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, Here Are the 20 New Fall Books From Latinx Writers

There’s a lot of great lit on these lists, make sure to check them out! Below you’ll find a few from my own reading or TBR that I think your book clubs would have a good time discussing.

The Book of Lost Saints by Daniel José Older – This is a multigenerational Cuban-American family story about a woman named Marisol, a woman who lived during the Cuban Revolution and disappeared without a trace. “Now, shaped by atrocities long-forgotten, her tenacious spirit visits her nephew, Ramón, in modern-day New Jersey.” This prompts Ramon to go looking for answers about his family’s painful history, just as Marisol intended. The journey brings with it romance, a murderous gangster, and a discovery of the lost saints who helped his aunt survive imprisonment.

The Book of Anna by Carmen, translated by Samantha Schnee – Real talk: I have tried to read Anna Karenina several times and failed, each time as a teenager so maybe now it would be different in my 30s? What I do know is that I am very interested in this book by Mexican writer Carmen Boullosa, a novel told from the perspective of Anna K’s son in the years after her tragic fate with the Russian Revolution on the horizon.

cover image of Loteria by Cina Pelayo Loteria by Cynthia (Cina) Pelayo – It’s spooky season, so let’s do a little light horror, shall we? First, you should know that La Loteria is an iconic Mexican card game, a little like bingo but with images instead of numbers. As for this book, I read it earlier this year and it really got under my skin, but not so much with and graphic, gory, in-your-face horror. The terror here is more of the dark fairytale variety (expect monsters, ghosts, vampires, and werewolves) but the best part is the format: it’s a collection of 54 (very) short stories, one for each of the images in the Loteria deck.

Note: This appears to be out of print at the moment, so try your libraries and secondhand shops, or check Cina Pelayo’s website down the line for availability!

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina María Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses – Fasten your seatbelts, folks: we’re leaving Gentle Horrorville and headed straight for Dark and Twisty Town. Bazterrica book imagines a world where widespread animal disease has now made the consumption of human mean legal (gulp). Marcos runs a slaughterhouse for humans, though he’s trained not to think of his specimens as human and is barred from personal contact with them on pain of death. But when he’s gifted a live specimen of the finest quality, he’s drawn to her irresistibly, “tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.” This isn’t horror so much as dystopian literary fiction but dios mio! This sounds twisted and skin-crawly AF.

Suggestion Section

GMA’s October book club pick is The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, a book I recently added to my TBR! Time-travel + a magical library that sits between life and death filled with all the lives you could have led = my kind of read.

at Salon: how Emily Dickinson, Octavia Butler, Joan Didion, Jericho Brown, and other authors helped one reader survive this quarantine.

Remember last week when I mentioned Carole Bell’s post on fat representation in romance and said this would be a great topic for book club? Well booya! Carole also wrote a follow-up post with very thoughtful and detailed recommendations of fat positive romance novels.

Apparently Jane Fonda is dropping in on virtual book clubs as she promotes her new book on environmental activism, What Can I Do? All the winners of the nationwide search have been selected, but Jane and Greenpeace have provided these book club discussion questions for all to unpack and enjoy.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.

—Vanessa aka La Pumpkin Spicy

Audiobooks

Audiobooks – 09/24

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date September 24, 2020

Sponsored by Size Zero by Abigail Mangin.

Condom dresses and space helmets have debuted on fashion runways. A dead body becomes the trend when a coat made of human skin saunters down fashion’s biggest stage. The body is identified as Annabelle Leigh, the teenager who famously disappeared over a decade ago from her boyfriend’s New York City mansion. This new evidence casts suspicion back on the former boyfriend, Cecil LeClaire. Now a monk, he is forced to return to his dark and absurd childhood home to clear his name. He teams up with Ava Germaine, a renegade ex-model. And together, they investigate the depraved and lawless modeling industry behind Cecil’s family fortune.

Hola Audiophiles! Portland finally got that rain we were promised and it’s been glorious to breathe clean air again. Fall is my absolute favorite and I’m digging the atmospheric weather! I am relishing the soothing sounds of rain coming in through my window.

Before we dive into new releases and such, I have to take a moment to honor Breonna Taylor. The news of that terrible decision should not have surprised me, but I really did hope this time might be different. If you’re looking for ways to help, here’s a link to the Louisville Community Bail Fund.

Ready? Let’s audio.

New Releases – Week of September 22 (publisher descriptions in quotes)

And Now She’s Gone by Rachel Howzell Hall, read by Je Nie Fleming (mystery/thriller) – “Isabel Lincoln is gone. But is she missing? It’s up to Grayson Sykes to find her. Although she is reluctant to track down a woman who may not want to be found, Gray’s search for Isabel Lincoln becomes more complicated and dangerous with every new revelation about the woman’s secrets and the truth she’s hidden from her friends and family.” I’ve waited far too long to read Rachel Howzell Hall, going to have to remedy that very soon!

Narrator Note: Didn’t I *just* say that Je Nie Fleming is a narrator I want to get to know more after reading and loving The Boyfriend Project? The universe is listening. That sample sounds so good!

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix, read by Marisa Calin (YA mystery/thriller) – I only just read my first Garth nix this year (Sabriel, it was so good!) and immediately placed this new book on my TBR when I was done. In an alternate 1983 London, Susan Arkshaw is searching for father, a man she’s never met. She thinks a local crime boss might have the answers she needs, but before she can get any info out of him, she’s turned to dust by a young left-handed bookseller named Merlin. That’s right, the booksellers of London don’t just sell books: they’re also magical beings who protect the Old World magic ways! Booksellers Merlin and Vivien happen to be looking for the person responsible for their mother’s murder, and it turns out their search overlaps with Susan’s.

Narrator Note: Marisa Calin’s audiobooks include Daughter of the Siren Queen by Tricia Levenseller, The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe, and the Shadow Chronicles series by Paula Brackston.

Miss Meteor by Anna-Marie McLemore and Tehlor Kay Mejia, read by Kyla Garcia, Almarie Guerra (YA science fiction/fantasy) – Lita Perez wants to enter the Miss Meteor beauty pageant and her ex-best friend Chicky Quintanilla wants to help her, and not just because there’s never been a winner who looks like either of them in the pageant’s history. “So to pull off the unlikeliest underdog story in pageant history, Lita and Chicky are going to have to forget the past and imagine a future where girls like them are more than enough – they are everything.”

Narrator Note: Kyla Garcia and Almarie Guerra sound like the perfect combo for this book. Kyla is no stranger to Tehlor Kay Mejia’s work as she read both of the books in the We Set the Dark on Fire series, and we love Almarie Guerra from books like Zoraida Cordova’s Labyrinth Lost.

The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi, read by Laurie Catherine Winkel and P.J. Ochlan (YA fantasy) – Yesss the band is getting back together! The follow-up to The Gilded Wolves is here to take us right back into Chokshi’s dark and glamorous imagining of 19th century Europe. Séverin and his motley crew might have successfully thwarted the Fallen House, but that win came with a terrible price. “Desperate to make amends, Séverin pursues a dangerous lead to find a long-lost artifact rumored to grant its possessor the power of God. Their hunt lures them far from Paris and into the icy heart of Russia where crystalline ice animals stalk forgotten mansions, broken goddesses carry deadly secrets, and a string of unsolved murders makes the crew question whether an ancient myth is a myth after all.” I want it, I want it now.

Narrator Note: Laurie Catherine Winkel and P.J. Ochlan are back reprise their roles! I know I poked fun at some of the accent work in The Gilded Wolves, but you know what, it’s 2020. Bring on the silly. I love the silly. I’ll take aaaall the silly.

Latest Listens

No new listens this week, mostly because all the books I’ve listened to lately don’t come out for at least another month! So instead I’ll do a backlist bump and recommend a favorite from a couple of years ago: Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood.

When Patricia Lockwood was 30 years old, a crushing amount of medical debt forced her and her husband to move back in with her parents. Living with your parents as a married couple might be interesting enough for the average person, but Lockwood’s case is unique: her dad is a Catholic priest, a role he took on after getting married and having kids thanks to a super obscure loophole. I don’t know quite how to describe this man to you: he’s quirky and loud and kind of a scene-stealer, a man whose convictions are at once comically admirable and maddening in their rigidity.

All this talk of religion might put some of you off, but I encourage you to keep going. Lockwood reflects on her complicated relationship with her family, reflections on father and early life in the church, and her decision to leave the community with thoughtful reflection and care. Then on the next page, she’s poking fun at the whole experience with some of the most hilarious writing I’ve read in years. She narrates the book herself and thank sweet baby cheeses for that: I can’t imagine anyone else reading the parts of her parents just so. I hear her take on her Southern mom’s voice in my head every time I talk about this memoir and it is gold.

Warning: there is discussion of Lockwood’s sexual assault in the book (her poem “Rape Joke” went viral in 2013 and is many people’s introduction to her writing). Her experience isn’t documented in graphic detail, but the discussion she has with her parents about the assault is heartbreaking and cracked me wide open.

From the Internets

at Audiofile: Turning to Historical Mystery Audiobooks to Help Us Keep Perspective in These Historic Times

at Audiobooks.com: 5 Fall Activities to Pair with Audiobooks (Is 2020 the year I finally learn how to knit?!?)

Over at the Riot

Six Audiobooks Written and Read by Latinx Authors

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa

In The Club

In the Club 9/23

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date September 22, 2020

Sponsored by the Award-Winning Bestseller: Athena's Choice.

What if a viral pandemic put women in charge of the planet? Athena Vosh lives just like any other teenager from the year 2099. She watches reality shows with her friends, eats well, and occasionally wonders to herself: what would life be like if men were still alive? It has been almost 50 years since an experimental virus accidentally killed all the men on earth. However, a controversial project is currently underway to bring men back. There’s just one catch. The project has been sabotaged. “One of the Best Books of 2019” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. What. a. week. After so much heaviness, at least I was able to go outside this weekend. I’ve never been so thankful for rain as I was on Saturday morning! I treated myself to a pumpkin foods retrieval mission at Trader Joe’s and could practically hear people singing “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” as they all greeted one another almost comically and loaded their carts with all the autumnal fare. Sunshine, pumpkin stuff, and air that’s safe to breathe will do that to people.

I say all that to say that a)the pumpkin brioche bread, maple butter, and pumpkin butternut bisque are all extremely delicious and worth the purchase, and b)whatever “silly” thing is bringing you joy right now, I wish you some more of that.

To the club!!

Nibbles and Sips

You know I love fall. The second I pick up on even a hint of a cool breeze, your girl is busting out the hoodies and warm autumnal beverages. So today’s sip tip is the super simplest: te de canela! Cinnamon tea is a staple in many Mexican households, one I grew up with and love today both for its taste and how yummy it makes my apartment smell. Bath & Body who?? I have your fall smells right here.

The recipe: throw Ceylon cinnamon sticks in some water and boil (I use one stick per 8 oz of water). Once the water comes to a boil, turn off the heat and let it steep for 15 minutes, then strain and serve. I like to add a tiny bit of milk and honey or agave, but the milk is just a me thing.

Note: Not all cinnamon is good for you, apparently! Here’s a quick breakdown of the potential health benefits of cinnamon, but also why you shouldn’t use the Cassia variety. Go with Ceylon cinnamon (aka “true” or Mexican cinnamon).

Ladies First

Friday’s news of RBG’s passing brought heaviness, worry, terror, and sadness for all of the reasons. My thoughts go out to anyone else who sat there crying on their couch like I did. To honor RBG’s legacy, today’s club recs are biographies, histories, and memoirs by and about the women of the Supreme Court.

Before you proceed, two things. First, I haven’t read any of these myself but think it’s important to read up on these women and their contributions. Second, none of these women are perfect or above reproach. We can (and should) honor what they achieved while also reviewing their record with a critical eye.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron de Hart – This recent and extensive biography is the result of fifteen years of research and interviews documenting the central experiences that shaped Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s approach to justice, advocacy for gender equality, and jurisprudence. “At the heart of her story and abiding beliefs is her Jewish background, specifically the concept of tikkun olam, the Hebrew injunction to “repair the world,” with its profound meaning for a young girl who grew up during the Holocaust and World War II.”

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor – Current Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the US Supreme Court. This memoir is her personal recounting of a life that began in a Bronx housing project and led her to the federal bench.

Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court by Sandra Day O’Connor – Sandra Day O’Connor broke up the boys club by becoming the first woman named to the United States Supreme Court. In her own words: “I called this book Out of Order because it reflects my goal, which is to share a different side of the Supreme Court. Most people know the Court only as it exists between bangs of the gavel, when the Court comes to order to hear arguments or give opinions. But the stories of the Court and the Justices that come from the ‘out of order’ moments add to the richness of the Court as both a branch of our government and a human institution.”

Elena Kagan: A Biography by Meg Greene – This biography covers Elena Kagan’s early life, college years at Princeton, Oxford, and Harvard (no big deal) and her extensive legal career, including a job as a clerk for a federal Court of Appeals judge and for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. It documents her rise to the bench and provides an “overview of Kagan’s legal thought and writings that reveals the basic tenets of her philosophies.”

Suggestion Section

Next up in Tor.com’s Terry Pratchett Book Club: a discussion of Mort.

EW’s Quarantine Book Club picked up a book from my TBR: Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi.

Stephanie Yeboah talked to Bustle about fat phobia, fat representation, and her book Fattily Ever After, which reminded me of Carole Bell’s recent piece for Book Riot about fat representation in romance. This would make for an excellent book club topic – more representation isn’t necessarily better if the rep isn’t good.

OH LOOK it’s the white hot center of my interests: a Book Club candle with all the warm and lovely scents of fall!

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa

Audiobooks

Audiobooks 09/17

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date September 16, 2020

In the Club 091620

Post author By Vanessa Diaz
Post date September 16, 2020

Sponsored by Come On In by Adi Alsaid, published by Inkyard Press.

This exceptional and powerful anthology explores the joys, heartbreaks and triumphs of immigration, with stories by critically acclaimed and bestselling YA authors who are shaped by the journeys they and their families have taken from home—and to find home.

Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. It’s Mexican Independence Day! That’s right: it’s the day that everyone thinks is Cinco de Mayo (insert facepalm here). To celebrate, I’ll be doing my very best grito at midnight*, cooking some delicious Mexican food, and of course sharing some works by some fantastic Mexican authors for you to read in your book clubs. Let’s kick off Hispanic Heritage Month with a bang then, shall we?

To the club!!

*probs closer to 9PM because I am an old and midnight is past my bedtime

Nibbles and Sips

Today I’m going a little left and recommending two food shows instead of the usual nibbles and sips, shows that made my mouth water, my soul long to travel, and my heart swell with pride for the stock from which I come. Both of these are on Netflix, and they are:

Show: Chef’s Table: BBQ
Episode: Rosalia Chay Chuc

Show: Street Food: Latin America
Episode: Oaxaca, Mexico (watch the whole thing though, it’s fantastic)

Both of these shows feature some truly inspiring Mexican cooks making food their way, the old way, folks who have remained steadfast in their culinary approach in a world urging them to change with the times. The entire Street Food series is fantastic, but Doña Vale is, I think, my fave. That lady oozes strong IDGAF energy and I hope to someday try those scrumptious-looking memelas!

Mexican Authors to Add to Your List

I’m coming in hot and recommending not one title, but an author, and that author is Silvia Moreno Garcia. I don’t know how to talk about her without sounding like a starry-eyed fangirl, but let’s face it: that’s precisely what I am. She’s given us vampires in Mexico City in Certain Dark Things, a folkloric jaunt through Jazz Age Mexico with the Mayan God of Death in Gods of Jade and Shadow, a coming-of-age thriller set on the coast of Baja California with Untamed Shore, and my favorite read of 2020 so far: the gothic horror masterpiece that is Mexican Gothic. This isn’t even her entire catalog! Give this woman her flowers, please.

Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America’s Stolen Land by Noé Álvarez – Noé Álvarez, the son of working class Mexican immigrants, was a first-generation college student in search of a sense of belonging. That’s when he first heard about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, a series of epic marathons through what were once Indigenous lands wherein participants seek to renew cultural connections to those lands. At 19, Álvarez dropped out of school to embark on a four month, 6,000 mile journey from Canada to Guatemala. This book is the story of that journey, a tale of pushing limits, self discovery, and pondering the heartbreaking history of this stolen land.

Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo – For shame! I confess that I have not read what many consider to be theeeee great Mexican novel. One of the best pitches I’ve seen for the book is one I saw in The Guardian of all places, where the book is described as “a ghost story stuffed into another ghost story stuffed into a coffin made of dust, memory, and soil.” It’s about a man named Juan Preciado who travels to his recently deceased mother’s hometown and comes across a literal ghost town on the way.

Suggestion Section

Reese Witherspoon chose Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez as the September YA pick for her book club! It made my heart happy to see Yamile share her joy.

This Electric Literature profile on Yaa Gyasi’s latest release Transcendent Kingdom reminded me what a perfect book club pick this novel would be—just ask Barnes & Noble and The Today Show’s Jenna Bush Hager (that second link includes lots of good book cub questions). It examines issues like addiction, grief, faith, mental health, and race. I have so many thoughts on this one and I’m not even all the way through.

Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk

The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow

Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark

Notes From A Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu, edited by Carmen Maria Machado

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, translated by Jonathan Wright

Lobizona by Romina Garber

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman (fiction)

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (fantasy)

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam (mystery/thriller)

Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas (historical mystery/thriller)

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade (romance)

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad (nonfiction, essays)

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow (October 13)

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

White Tears /Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad (nonfiction, essays)