Category: In The Club

I love the freshness of this gyro recipe — whose chicken you can replace with tofu if you’re meatless. The recipe involves marinating a chicken breast in Greek yogurt, minced garlic, oregano, salt and pepper, baking it at 375, and letting it cool before dicing into cubes. The cucumber salad topping needs cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, lemon, parsley, and the tzatziki sauce Greek yogurt, minced garlic, lemon, dill, and salt. Then you need lightly toasted pita bread, of course.

There’s a lot of crunchy freshness going on here, and side note, but all bodies are summer bodies. Enjoy!

It’s barely been a year since Titus Crowne became the first Black sheriff in Charon County, VA when there’s a school shooting. And before he can talk down the young suspect and get him to surrender, he’s shot by Crowne’s deputies. The subsequent investigation leads to Titus uncovering that the shooter — and other Black kids like him — were victims of abuse by the slain teacher. As he continues down his path of inquiries and finds secrets, bodies, and a killer, he must contend with the deep-seated racial vitriol of his surroundings.

We stan a gun-totin’, revenge-gettin’ queen, and 16-year-old Bridget is exactly that. After her raggedy father dies from a snakebite, Bridget must cross the Kansas prairie with no money and her one mule. When she reaches Dodge City, her red hair attracts one of the women who runs the Buffalo Queen Saloon, a respected brothel run by women. She takes to being a “sporting woman,” a sex worker, even enjoying her time with the other women. Like, she really enjoys it, and comes to realize her sexuality through them — particularly the gender-bending gunslinger Spartan Lee. But the peace she’s found through the Buffalo Queen eventually becomes unsettled.

Oliva — whose family has an intimate relationship with the U.S.-Mexian border and who has worked as a translator for people coming into the U.S. — lays out the complexities of immigrating to the United States. She reflects on how refugees’ trauma must be mined and packaged for the immigration system, ponders who should be considered worthy of American citizenship, explores how many immigrants are not immediately welcomed but end up handling our most precious industries, like food harvesting, and more.

I’ve seen this messy book referred to as belonging to the millennial genre, and I appreciate how millennials are seen as quintessentially messy. I truly love that for us. Here, 21-year-old Rachel is about to be granted her degree in English in 2009, just as the recession fosters job insecurity. She develops a crush on Dr. Byrne, her married English professor, and her friend James encourages her to pursue him. James also has a makeout session with Dr. Byrne that Rachel walks in on. Interestingly enough, Rachel doesn’t feel a type of way about it. Instead, she gets closer to James, and the novel follows them and all their messy decisions.

This is such a good idea for a light-feeling food that also feels kind of fancy. I love the combination of shrimp, sriracha, Kewpie mayo, and crispy rice. It’s also fairly simple, as all you need are:

-Shrimp

-mayo

-scallions

-rice

-breadcrumbs

– soy sauce

And a little technique!

Here, Snorton details the rich history of Black transpeople, especially how they have been cut out of the narrative of trans and queer history. By using the narratives of enslaved people seeking freedom, Afro-modernist literature, journalism, and other sources, Snorton shows just how much race has determined how topics like queerness and gender have been represented.

In this unique collection, Rose documents the many voices of queer people across the country. Various members of different queer and trans communities — from activists to artists to healers — speak on their experiences. We hear about the dire issue that is Black mental health, disability healthcare, the issues Pacific Islander writers face, and more — all illustrated through colorful and interesting artwork that embodies each individual.

This award-winning book shows how the U.S. has been in the business of homophobia. Many know, for instance, of the Red Scare, but the Lavender Scare of the ’50s was a similar moment in U.S. history when queer people were considered a threat to the country. Through declassified documents, interviews with people who worked in D.C. at the time, and a lot of research, Johnson details just how damaging this persecution was. He also highlights how it led to the Gay Rights movement.

This collection of essays is essential reading for any intersectional feminist, queer history, Black history, or social justice reading list. In it, Lorde dissects the various ways each social justice movement — of the time, and now in many ways — falls short of their purported goals. She speaks about her experiences as a Black queer woman, and all the ways Western patriarchy is damaging. But she also offers a way towards healing, too.

This is more of a good idea for summer than a recipe-recipe. You just need a fresh, ripe pineapple, tequila, pineapple juice, simple syrup (or agave), and lime juice. Soak your cut up pineapple over night in the liquid and stick popsicle sticks into each piece the next day. Sprinkle with tajín. For a visual, check out Bustle’s instagram account.

Similar to Taylor’s latest release, The Late Americans, Filthy Animals explores the messy personal lives of young creative people living in the Midwest. Following a stay in a psychiatric hospital, a queer mathematician meets a dancer and enters into a tenuous open relationship with him and his girlfriend. Other stories show the same situation from different perspectives and bring in characters connected to each other, but also struggling with their own relationships.

Keiko Furukura has never quite fit in, but since she was 18 and applied to a convenience store job in Tokyo on a whim, she feels like she at least has some things figured out. Like, she knows how to dress and act when she’s at work in order to look like she belongs, even if there is a “real” her that exists outside this persona. But now at 36, the normalcy she thought she’d maintained since her teenage years starts to crumble once her younger sister gives birth, and those close to Keiko start pressuring her to achieve society-set milestones. Giving in, she attempts a deal of sorts with a questionable co-worker, and though her life now appears to be “normal,” to her it feels like anything but.

Grace Porter has thus far adhered to her strict (and financially supportive) father’s path for her — at only 28, she’s just achieved a PhD in the very white male-dominated field of astronomy. Despite the accomplishment, she doesn’t feel quite fulfilled. And when she goes on a trip to Vegas with friends to celebrate, she totally shakes up her life. By getting married one drunken night. When she wakes to her new wife, Yuki, she decides to stray from the path her father has set, and even her supportive group of friends, to try to make a go of it in New York with Yuki.

I discussed this book not too long ago, but it also fits here perfectly. Ro is freshly 30 and is suspended in the past and is slowly becoming even more unmoored from the present. She has a distant relationship with her mother, her boyfriend broke up with her to colonize Mars, and her bestie is getting married. All she has left is the giant octopus named Dolores that she cares for at her lackluster job at the mall aquarium. But Dolores has been sold to a wealthy investor and will be moved soon. As Dolores leaves Ro’s life, all of Ro’s childhood trauma comes bubbling back to the surface.

I randomly decided to try a Japanese sweet potato when I came across some in a grocery the other day and subsequently wondered where they’d been all my life. If you’ve never had one, they have a drier, fluffier texture than the usual American variety, and are really sweet. Like, sweet sweet (they low-key taste like cake!). I had prepared them as I’d seen before, which is just by cutting them in half and air frying/roasting them, but now I’m going to shimmy my way on back down to the store to try a recipe like this one by Marc Matsumoto. Glazed sweet potatoes are a popular sweet snack in Japan, and are relatively healthy (especially considering what I usually get into).

You’ll need:

Japanese sweet potatoes, oil, brown rice syrup, and black sesame seeds. Matsumoto shows how to prepare it.

This one had me by the throat! It’s a historical YA novel that’s part murder mystery, part haunting, and an immersive look at what life was like for queer Jewish people in the late 1800s. We follow Alter, who now goes by the name his parents gave him instead of the Americanized “Alex.” After having lost his dad on the way to America, he, like so many other Jewish immigrants living in Chicago, is trying his best to survive. He lives in tenement housing with three other young men his age and works at a printing press, scrimping as much as possible to bring his mother and siblings over from Europe. His life gets interrupted when a close friend of him dies, and the police, not wanting to tarnish the image of the Worlds Fair, want to brush it aside as an accident. But Alter knows better, and soon starts to lose his mind as he becomes possessed by his deceased friend’s dybbuk. He has to once again lean on Frankie, a friend from a past life that he had tried to leave behind. A friend that he might want be a little more. Together, they try to free Alter from the dybbuk before it completely takes over.

The award-winning author of books like The Good Lord Bird, Deacon King Kong, and others, writes about his mother’s life. McBride and his 11 other siblings were raised in poverty by a mother who regularly avoided questions about her past, insisting that she was “light-skinned” when asked about her race. Turns out that she was the Polish-born daughter of an Orthodox rabbi who escaped the pogroms of Eastern Europe with her family. Once in America, she’d have to flee, still, from her abusive father, and would find solace in Black neighborhoods. McBride speaks of her life — her struggles, her accomplishments — as he does his own.

Here’s another memoir! This time about the half Hawaiian Chinese, half Jewish niece of shoe designer Steve Madden. T Kira Madden grows up at the conflicting intersection of being privileged, biracial, and queer, witnessing firsthand all of the ugly that can come with the lifestyles of the wealthy. Though she lives the lavish life of a daughter within a shoe mogul family, her father’s alcoholism leads to him physically abusing her mother, which is followed by her mother struggling with a drug addiction. Meanwhile, T Kira is left to her own devices. Eventually, she finds her tribe — that is, of fatherless girls — which grants her the support and understanding she had missed in her younger years.

Maybe as a coping mechanism or something else, I feel like there is always some form of gatekeeping that goes on within communities that are targeted and othered. Tamkin explores this within the Jewish community by sifting through the last 100 years of Jewish American life. From the Sephardic Jews who arrived in America in the 1600s, to Ashkenazi Jews who immigrated in large numbers to the U.S. in the early 1900s, and the civil rights era decades later, Tamkin gets to the bottom of what makes a “bad Jew” and what makes a good one. Turns out, the concept of what constitutes as Jewish within the community has shifted through the years.

Though the year feels like it’s zooming by, it also feels like people are super ready for summer. Or, I guess maybe people are always super ready for summer, it’s just that this time, I am too. Either way, I’m looking forward to trying this spicy watermelon lemonade! I’ve never thought to make lemonade spicy, but I have enjoyed the spicy margaritas I’ve tried, and lemonade has similar sweet/tart vibes going on.

Looks like you’ll just need:

– watermelon, cut up

– 4 fresh lemons for juicing

– 1/2 jalapeño

– sugar

– water

Then blend and garnish!

Before we get to the books, don’t forget to check out First Edition, the new podcast started by Book Riot co-founder Jeff O’Neal. It explores the wide bookish world, with interviews, lists, rankings, retrospectives, recommendations, and much more, featuring people who know and love books. Subscribe to First Edition on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your podcatcher of choice.

This is definitely one of our most-anticipated books of the year. With a premise that involves top women gladiators fighting for their lives within a corrupt prison system, it’s understandable. The author of Friday Black tells the bloody story of Loretta Thurwar and “Hurricane Staxxx,” two women who are friends, lovers, and popular Chain-Gang All-Stars. As All-Stars, they’ve fought against other prisoners in lethal battles to win shortened sentences through a highly contested program that’s run through the controversial Criminal Action Penal Entertainment organization in a (not so) alternative United States. Loretta nears the day she’ll finally be free, but the burden of all she’s done — and still has to do — weighs heavily on her in this damning look at America’s prison industrial complex and culture of violence.

The bestselling author of Cutting for Stone is back with a family saga spanning more than 70 years. The story of a girl who would come to be known as Big Ammachi — which essentially translates to “Big Momma” — twists and turns, intertwining as the waterways that her and her would-be family live by in Southern India. Big Ammachi’s family, part of a Christian community with a long history, will be as gifted as they are cursed, with the curious incidence of drowning being a common theme reoccurring through the generations. Starting in 1900, we experience the change and advancements time brings as Big Ammachi experiences them.

Alex is a certified mess, but I have to admit she’s also pretty bold in ways I could never be. After she commits a faux pas at a party, the older man she has a lil something going on with sends her on her way with a ticket back to where she came from. But she’s not ready to leave the bougie part of Long Island and all the potential ways its inhabitants could support her. So she drifts from place to place, using her people-reading skills to melt into each new social situation, seamlessly fitting in..until she doesn’t. Alex is the type of person who has random thoughts about how easy it’d be to steal things she comes across, so while she is pretty morally reprehensible, the narrative of seeing rich people’s worlds shaken up a bit makes for an interesting read. The premise of how she’s able to so easily pass in new social groups says a lot about privilege and race, I think. It also reminds me of a story from awhile back about a woman who pretended to be a German heiress. Supreme mess.

Kuang only writes bangers, and in this one, June witnesses the death of Athena Liu — who just finished a novel that promises to be a masterpiece about Chinese laborers’ contributions to the Allied forces during WWI. June decides to take Athena’s manuscript and claims the story as her own. To take full advantage (because, you know, stealing someone’s book wasn’t enough), she also lets her publisher rebrand her with an Asian-sounding name and an author photo of someone who is racially ambiguous (if you hadn’t guessed, June is white). The book is successful, but June can’t shake the feeling that it could all come tumbling down, and that the truth of Athena is about to be exposed.

*Bonus*: Kuang is interviewed here by author Zakiya Dalila Harris (The Other Black Girl) about the book and what inspired it. Here’s an excerpt I had to include:

“Kuang: “I really like the novelist John Banville and I was reading some interviews he’d done, and he mentioned that once he tried writing in an alternate voice, like a crime thriller, and suddenly he’d written paragraphs and paragraphs, and he thought to himself, ‘John, you slut.’ That’s how I felt drafting the first 3,000 words of Yellowface. It was just pouring out and I thought, ‘Becky, you slut. What are you doing?'”

Kuang, if you’re reading this, this paragraph makes us friends now.

In the late 1800s, Pirbhai, a young Indian boy, becomes a worker indentured to the British in his desperation to find work. He’s taken to East Africa to work on the East African Railway, where he’s pressured to commit an act that will haunt him and his family for generations. His children grow up in a Uganda that is starting to divest from British rule, and eventually his descendants have to leave because of Idi Amin’s South Asian expulsion. They end up in different parts of the world, with some eventually finding each other again in Canada. This covers five generations of a family with lives spread out over four continents as they reckon with what they’ve done and lost in the name of survival.

I’ve never heard of an Earl Grey pie, but it honestly makes so much sense. I love tea-flavored things, and am itching to try this. If you do, let me know how it is!

In addition to typical pie ingredients, you’ll need:

Pastry Cream

Earl Grey standard tea bags

Whole milk

Vanilla paste

Chocolate Ganache

Susan Burton’s life was turned upside down when her 5-year-old son was killed by a car in South L.A. Without access to professional mental health care, Burton turned to self-medicating with drugs. Because her struggles with addiction took place during the War on Drugs, she eventually landed in prison, and was in and out for the next 15 years. In all that time, she was never offered any kind of rehabilitation or help with her illness. She sought out a rehab facility on her own, underwent recovery, and set out to help women with similar challenges. In this memoir, she speaks about her experiences with addiction — including the systemic issues that lead to more incarceration rather than education and true recovery — and her organization A New Way of Life. This book, and Burton, have been recognized as vital to prison reform and social justice overall.

“Let’s deflate something monstrous, / and take its air inside us.”

From Ghana to Tuskegee, this debut poetry collection by award-winning Xan Phillips follows the Black body as it is subjugated to the horrors of enslavement and other atrocities across different settings and time periods. But through it all, they also illuminate the ways that joy is reclaimed in intimate and queer spaces.

Beautiful cover aside, I’ve seen this described as a fantasy novel that is perfect for frequent and infrequent fantasy readers alike, as its magic and world building feels a little easier to get into. Here, Kiah, who is essentially adopted by the queen of Alfajiri, sets out on a journey to discover more of her past. Accompanying her are her two close friends, and as the three journey on and learn about Kiah and the true nature of things, the structure of Alfajiri is threatened. Now the people of their country must choose between following the heir, or contending with an empty throne.

It’s the mid 1900s in the south, and 16-year-old Nell is married off and whisked away to Boston. Though she likes the idea of being independent, shy Nell lives in a time when the weight of the world rests on women’s shoulders, and opportunities are few. Once she has three children, her body feels the consequences, and her emotionally abusive husband Henry withdraws from her. She seeks comfort in another man, Charles, who she meets at church, and who she becomes pregnant by. Child Bride follows Nell as she does the best she can in a harsh and segregated world.

I’ve been feeling more domestic lately (I made bread from scratch the other day!), so I may just get a mortar and pestle to make this fresh pesto. I also may not, because…time, but I bet this would still be delicious with store bought pesto. Between the burrata and roasted garlic, I know this will have me acting up.

All you need is burrata, pesto (or pesto ingredients, if you’re fancy), lots of fresh garlic, a little fresh parmesan, bread, olive oil, salt, cherry tomatoes, and lemon (I think).

There’s a Goodreads review that kind of sums up the book and gave me a ki:

“i too am 1 octopus best friend away from a full mental breakdown.”

If that sounds odd, I will say that it is basically what this book is about. Ro is newly in her 30s and mentally stuck. She’s estranged from her mother, her boyfriend just left on a mission to Mars, and the only thing left of her father is Dolores, the giant octopus he brought back from an expedition before he died. As her best friend starts becoming distant because of wedding planning, Ro starts drowning herself in sharktinis (Mountain Dew plus gin and a lil jalapeño), and seeking companionship in Dolores whenever she’s at her dead-end mall aquarium job. But Dolores gets sold to a wealthy investor, and is set to live a new life in a private aquarium, and now suddenly Ro is confronting childhood traumas and trying to regain some connection to the rest of herself and the people around her.

This one takes place in New York and follows Bobby Singh, an immigrant and single parent who is trying his best to achieve the American Dream. When his introverted daughter Angie finds one of her wealthy classmates stabbed in a football field, police think Chiara Thompkins, a Black runaway, is responsible. But we already know things aren’t always quite what they seem, and what gets revealed about the community, families, and even Angie’s own part in things is shocking.

Native Hawaiian poet Brandy Nālani McDougall’s latest collection will be out this June. In it, her words flow from mountains to sea, from mother to child, using Ōlelo Hawai‘i and English in a way that feels effortless. She shows the fight for her native land, which is strongly tied to her fight for native bodies, as both are at risk for destruction as a result of American imperialism. She speaks out against the environmental crisis caused by tourism as she does the harmful medical system that disregards Native Hawaiian treatments in favor of apathetic care.

Gothic horror, family dynamics, and the horrors of colonialism all merge in this YA novel. When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam, she realizes she’ll have to continue pretending to fit in. But as she tries to be the straight enough, Vietnamese enough daughter to her estranged father, she also starts noticing odd things about the French colonial house he’s restoring. And the five weeks she has to survive in the house may be too full of bug body parts, ghost brides, and paralysis for her to keep her sanity.

I am super intrigued by this cream cheese garlic bread, which has a whole sweet and savory thing going on. I’ve never tried it, but I love stepping outside of my usual, food-wise and tend to like the flavor combinations in Korean food, so I’m looking forward to trying this. Plus, it’s a perfect kind of hand food for book club meet ups. Let me know if you like it!

For it, you’ll need the usual bread ingredients, like flour, yeast, and salt, as well as powdered milk, egg, butter, garlic, honey, sugar, and cream cheese. For a full list of ingredients and instructions, check out Taste of Home.

Ah Boon is born in beautiful coastal Singapore just as British rule on the country starts to lessen. His main concerns are simply to impress Siok Mei, a neighbor girl his age. He gets his chance once he realizes his innate talent for locating islands with plentiful fish, but it’s this talent that becomes an obligation for him as his village — and his entire country — is brought into a new era of Japanese invasion, World War II, and the longstanding effects of colonialism. Through it all, Ah Boon and Siok Mei must contend with coming of age in a quickly changing and grief-filled world.

Follow a Black American family through the years and across states as they contend with a father that goes missing. In the ’70s, as his teenage daughter Trinity and wife Deborah prepare to celebrate his 37th birthday, Oz Armstead disappears. The family have a funeral with an empty casket, and the narrative bobs and weaves through the ’60s all the way to the ’90s, as Trinity and Deborah begin to understand that Oz was not exactly the husband or father they thought he was.

Gorgeous covers aside, I’m looking forward to this one because I always appreciate these reconsidered narratives where certain characters — especially female characters who were previously thought of as villains — are given their own stories. Here, Clytemnestra, Helen of Troy’s twin sister, takes center stage. We see how the Spartan princess contends with Agamemnon killing her husband, forces her to marry him, and then sacrifices their daughter to the gods. It’s the loss of their daughter that starts the gears of revenge, and I don’t know about y’all, but I love a good “they had it coming” tale.

It’s 1915, and a big steamer trunk full of dangerous secrets follows around young Adelaide Henry. She leaves her California home in flames after her secret kills her parents. The new life she tries to make for herself in Montana, courtesy of the government’s homesteader program in which she’ll become a “lone woman,” is promising, but the territory she must conquer is very cold, both personally and literally. Soon, she finds her new neighbors are harboring secrets of their own, and she may have to do some things she doesn’t want to to survive.

Yes, you read that correctly. The YouTuber got the Filipine dessert recipe from Mayumu by Abi Balingit, a book that just came out this February. I’m all for experiencing new flavor combinations in desserts and am looking forward to trying this one. The NYT also has the recipe from the author of the cookbook. A part from the usual ingredients for chocolate chip cookies, you just need soy sauce, bay leaves, and apple cider vinegar.

Award-winning poet Jones builds on the idea of his own identity, showing how to carve out one’s own space means to constantly adjust and kill the old selves. Starting in the south, we read vignettes of Jones’ life as a Black gay boy turned man, and his struggles with familial and romantic relationships. With a blend of poetry and prose, Jones shows how the dynamics of gender, race, sex, and power converge on a Black boy coming-of-age.

In poetic stories, Smith examines the dissolution of her marriage and its effects on her and her children. While at first focusing on the personal, she eventually expands to larger discussions of gender roles, which can be pervasive, even in seemingly progressive households.

Harjo was the previous United States Poet Laureate and has been a poet for 50 years. In Catching the Light, she distills her experiences as a poet living through the ’60s, as a mother, and as a Native American into poetic episodes that show the importance of the art form. She honors the brokenness that has led to the most beautiful poetry, and details how it has aided the fight against erasure.

Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who writes her coming-of-age story in Ordinary Light. When she was a girl, Smith spent a summer in Alabama that forever altered her view of the world. Up until that point, she’d grown up with California comforts, but hearing her family’s history with picking cotton and their involvement in the Civil Rights movement created another version of Blackness for her. It’s by considering these contradictions, as well as her new positions on faith and her mother’s illness, that Smith paints a picture of a girl becoming herself.

Since it’s warming up a bit in some places in North America, the Southerner in me thinks it’s iced tea time.This recipe is so simple, it’s more of a reminder or an introduction instead of a recipe. I’ve been enjoying hibiscus iced tea for a while, but never knew it was called Jamaica in Mexico or sorrel in Jamaica. You can add sugar, ginger, and other things, depending on which country’s tea combinations you prefer.

So this is about some mess of the highest caliber. Egan totally destroys the image of a glamorous, fun American 1920s and exposes it for the hate-filled time that it was. There was a grifter, D.C. Stephenson, who helped to usher in a kind of new age for the KKK. He became the grand dragon in Indiana, and helped to increase enrollment for his branch. Everyone from judges to ministers signed up to terrorize Black people, Jewish people, and whomever else they deemed as different enough form themselves. But when he sexually assaulted a woman, Madge Oberholtzer, she ended up exposing his crimes before her untimely death. Because of her, he was sentenced to life. When I say she deserves her flowers! This is one of those nonfiction books that has a bit of a quicker pace for those of us who are more accustomed to reading fiction. It’s also a good one to read to show how so many discriminatory practices have been able to thrive, even today.

Here, Chung reflects back on her life with her adoptive parents — when paychecks had to stretch and she constantly felt like an outsider as the only Korean person around. It’s when she starts to have her own family that she can really see how different things were from how she thought they were. Her parents start having health complications — her father dies of diabetes and kidney disease, and her mother has cancer — and she sees how frustratingly incompetent the health care industry is in this country.

Odell gets into the thing that runs our lives once we become adults: time. And, surprise, surprise, she finds that the clock was built for profit, not necessarily to help people (capitalism strikes again, in other words). Our very concept of time is worth exploring because, even when we are meant to be caring for ourselves, we are pressed by time. I always like to look at things that are taken as a given, and I suspect that the concept of time factors into cultural differences a lot, so this is an interesting read.

Seletzky had to have had one of the most interesting fathers. He was a member of the Black Power movement and an undercover agent for the Memphis Police Department. He would go on to work for the CIA, and he was in the room when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated (he’s in the picture of the assassination). Seletzky tells the story of her father’s life, and looks at his alliances with nuance. I really like learning more about people who are not quite “big” historical figures, but can speak to major times in history. I feel like it just gives things greater context.