Category: Read This Book

In the spring of 2020, Jonathan Corcoran and his partner contracted COVID-19 and bunkered down to weather through this as-of-yet-unknown illness in the middle of New York City. While he was quarantining, Corcoran received the news that his mother had died. 

Corcoran grew up in a small town in West Virginia. His mother tried to hold the family together as Corcoran’s father gambled away what little money they had. When he managed to get into Brown University, Corcoran thought he could be free to live his life as a gay man without ever coming out to his family and friends back home. But when he had just turned 20, his mother found out he was gay and disowned him.

No Son of Mine follows Corcoran’s experience as a gay, Appalachian man trying to come into his own, in spite of his homophobic family. But even with the difficulties he faced, his story is also full of love. He met his husband, Sam, when they were in college, and they’ve been together ever since. His chosen family of friends shows up for him time and time again.

Corcoran’s portrait of his mother—and the rest of his family—is full of a love that seems to never lose hope that his loved ones might change. He extends forgiveness and understanding, only to find himself back in the same cycle of hurtful conversations and not-so-subtle threats. No matter what happens in his life, his mother always looms in the background, leaving him voicemails and promising that this time it will be different. This time she’s really sorry. 

No Son of Man examines the complex truths that make up a family; how can you love someone who you also know will always hurt you in the end? How do you maintain boundaries in the situation? When do you know that it’s worth giving someone you love another chance?

I’ve said this before, but I truly believe that poets write the best memoirs. The essays in this book range from harrowing to heartbreaking to hopeful, and each one is deeply eye-opening. Lawson has a way of making every place and every feeling palpable to readers.

The author is one person who seems to have crammed a hundred lives into their single existence. One essay takes place in Egypt. They and their young woman friends are single and not dressed as modestly as is typical, and they come a little too close to learning exactly how dangerous that could be. They describe with intimate detail a performance piece they experienced in Japan, and reading their description made it feel like I was also there.

Many of the essays are also explorations of being Black in whichever particular city and country they are in during that story. They write about being in Venice, Italy, and the gondolier who was smitten with them while not fetishizing them. They write about being married and living in Roosteren, Netherlands, and constantly battling white saviorism, thinly veiled racism, and food that sounds absolutely terrible. They write about being Black in Harare, Zimbabwe, and being in a car full of other “Black” people driving recklessly in the dark and the realization that, while they could get in trouble, it will not be from a white cop because there, the police are “Black” too. The story about when they were in France at a beautiful dinner party and opted out of the white people shenanigans really resonated with me.

They also write about becoming disabled over time, about love and community, about loss, and about learning and unlearning, especially around gender as a construct and their own identity. Lawson’s travels could easily make them seem unrelatable to folks who have not had such access; however, each essay exudes connection and cultivates understanding.

Before there was Sailor Moon, there was Sailor V. The series first appeared as a one-shot in the manga magazine RunRun in 1991. I wonder if author Naoko Takeuchi could have possibly known then that she was about to launch one of the most popular manga series of all time. And it all started right here, with a young 13 year-old girl named Minako Aino, who just wants to find a boyfriend and fall in love.

What she finds instead is a white cat with a crescent moon on his forehead. What’s more, this cat can talk. He says his name is Artemis and that Minako is actually Sailor Venus, a guardian of the planet Venus whose duty it is to protect Earth. Whaaaat? With the help of Artemis and her magical pen that helps her transform into the Soldier of Justice: Sailor V, Minako fights against the Dark Agency and protects the world from evil. So much for searching for a boyfriend after school!

As Minako learns more about her true identity and her mission, she discovers that there are other Sailor Guardians like her, and so the ending of this series expertly sets up the beginning of the series we all know and love, Sailor Moon. Sailor Venus realizes that to truly save Earth, she will have to set out to find her companions, the other four Sailor Guardians, as well as the Moon Princess.

Sailor Moon diehards, if you’re wondering why you maybe missed this manga series before, it might have been because it was never released in English in the ’90s. In fact, English-speaking fans didn’t have an opportunity to read a translated version until 2011. Now with the Eternal Editions, you can read the whole Codename: Sailor V series in two volumes. And I just have to say, these are absolutely stunning.

Everyone talks about how Naoko Takeuchi’s manga, featuring strong (but beautifully flawed) teenage girls (and talking cats), is so empowering and uplifting. But I feel like we’re not talking enough about how gorgeous her illustrations are. I had to own all of these Eternal Editions (both Codename: Sailor V and aaallll the Sailor Moon volumes) because each one features all-new holographic cover illustrations and giant colored images throughout. It’s so gorgeous. If I could, I would buy two so I could cut up one and put it all over my wall. Unfortunately, I’m not a 13-year-old girl anymore, so that’s not really socially acceptable home decor…but I’ve thought about it.

If you’ve never thought about picking up Codename: Sailor V before, this edition is the one to get. Start the best-selling manga series where it all began, and learn a lot more about everyone’s favorite Libra Sailor Guardian, Sailor Venus (yay Libras!).

I first read Tessa Fontaine’s memoir, Electic Woman, back in 2019. I fell in love with her writing style, her beautiful descriptions and vibrant characters. Now she’s back with her debut novel, The Red Grove, which centers around a community in the California Redwoods that provides a sanctuary for women seeking a safe haven from domestic violence.

Luce is a teenager living at the Red Grove with her mom, Gloria, and her little brother, Roo. Luce’s whole world revolves around the Red Grove and its teachings. Luce knows all the statistics about women experiencing domestic violence from men. All of the stories, facts, and figures swirl around in her head, making her grateful that in the Red Grove, it’s said that it’s impossible for a man to hurt a woman.

Gloria works as a psychic to help support the household, but when one of her clients collapses and dies while visiting her house, the man’s family believes that she might have had something to do with his death. When Gloria disappears, Luce starts to try to track down where she went. She talks to Grove elders, calls back a mysterious journalist, and begins uncovering secrets that all of the adults around her never told her.

The Red Grove is this immersive story that takes the reader into this community that seems so perfect on its surface. They have their own history and traditions, all set against the peaceful backdrop of California’s giant redwoods. As Luce’s world unravels, we learn more and more about the characters around her and the role they play in the community. Underneath all of that is the thrum of a quiet power that the reader keeps wondering about; is it magic, or do these hints of the fantastical have a scientific reason behind them?

It’s the twenty-third century: Korea has long since united and has cultivated the pinnacle of space exploration. Korea is the genesis of the Alliance, which is the space military that oversees the safety and order of the solar system, also referred to as “the solar.” Ocean Yoon is a space pilot who has had a major demotion because of a past incident and we find her working on a much lower-class ship than she once did. When Ocean was eight years old, she was sent away from the Jeju province in Korea to the diplomat school, where she was expected to train to be a diplomat until she was 18. She dropped out of this program a year before graduation to join the Alliance. Ocean’s older brother had taught her how to fly spacecraft. As a person who loves to drive and also sometimes misses the satisfaction of driving a manual, I was tickled by the care and focus that the author takes when talking about how Ocean flies the spacecraft. I had never thought I would encounter a manual spaceship, but I am absolutely delighted by it.

Teo Anand is the younger son of a hugely wealthy family, perhaps the wealthiest family in the solar. The Anand family’s companies are responsible for a lot of terraforming and designing a lot of tech, especially the tech used by the Alliance. Ocean and Teo are unlikely friends and as such, their friendship is kept secret. Their bond is the kind that can only be formed from shared trauma.

Ocean is part of a ragtag crew on a Class 4 ship, definitely not the class of ship that sees any action. The Captain, Dae, is a bit sketchy and very money-focused. She hires on a new medic, who is from the group of people that handle death and death rites. His name is Haven Sasani, and his people have very strict rules around physical touch — that is, it is forbidden to touch him. His people are also looked down upon by everyone else in the solar.

Dae takes on what is supposed to be a fairly underwhelming mission to go to a place where there is a bunch of abandoned technology and do some diagnostic work. Everything goes horribly wrong. Meanwhile, Teo, as a member of the Alliance, is part of the crew on a ship that is escorting Seonbi, an elite group of scholars, to Mars. Everything goes horribly wrong.

This book has a lot of moving parts and is beautifully choreographed. It was an incredibly fun read that I enjoyed, and I hope you do too.

This is my first ever Emily Henry novel. I’ve heard lots of good things, and I’ve been meaning to pick up her books in the past. Several of them are on my TBR. So what made me pick up this one? First of all (and this is completely true), I have been loving the Funny Story merch over at Out of Print. Like, I kinda want this sweatshirt, but I couldn’t buy it before I read the book, right? Secondly, have you seen this book’s Goodreads rating? It’s incredibly high. I had to know what everyone was talking about. With how much people are loving this book, odds are you’ve already had one or two or three people tell you to read this. Well, let me be the fourth.

Daphne and Miles are roommates, but they couldn’t be more different. Daphne is an introverted, straight-laced children’s librarian. Miles is a scruffy bartender who is seemingly friends with everyone in Waning Bay, Michigan. They really only have one thing in common — both of their exes are about to get married. To each other.

Yep, Daphne and Miles met each other and became roommates because of their connection to the same chaotic break-up mess. Daphne was once engaged to Peter, and she moved to Waning Bay to start a life with him. But on the night of Peter’s bachelor party, Peter realizes he’s actually in love with his best friend Petra. And so he leaves Daphne to be with Petra. Petra, who was dating Miles. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, Petra and Peter invite Daphne and Miles to attend their wedding. Will the nightmares never cease?

Daphne certainly feels like she’s living in a nightmare, living in a town where she has no friends, afraid she’s going to run into her ex every time she leaves the house, living with a man who is wallowing in misery just as much as she is. The only thing Daphne has going for her is her job as a children’s librarian. It’s truly her dream job, and she refuses to leave Waning Bay before she helps the library with their big Read-A-Thon. After that, she’s totally out of here though.

But then there’s Miles, who turns out to be way more charming than Daphne first gave him credit for. He’s determined to help Daphne fall in love with Waning Bay so that she’ll stay. But what if she falls in love with more than just the town? What if she falls for her roommate, her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex-boyfriend? Could things get any messier?

There’s so much to love about this book. Yes, you’ve probably guessed there is a cute little love story. But the part of the book that really hugged my heart was Daphne’s journey to rediscovering herself post-breakup. This is so much more than a romance. This is the story of a woman making friends, thriving in her job, learning more about who she is and what she cares about, and generally just coming into her own. This was such an empowering story in ways I couldn’t have predicted.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s World of Wonders is one of my most recommended books of all time. Ever since it came out in 2020, I’ve been sharing it with anyone who will listen. With its beautiful illustrations of plants and animals — combined with Nezhukumatathil’s personal essays — it’s the perfect book for any lover of the natural world.

Bite by Bite continues this tradition, but this time, Nezhukumatathil is writing about her favorite foods. In one essay, she describes some of her favorite memories shared with friends and family eating shave ice. In another, she shares her experience feasting upon different varieties of watermelon at a watermelon festival. I especially loved how Nezhukumatathil describes her love of fruits of all kinds — jackfruit, Saba banana, pineapple, mango, lychee, miracle fruit — she treasures them all.

As she shares her memories around her favorite foods, each essay celebrates Nezhukumatathil’s life. She has such a unique way of giving readers glimpses of her life, giving us details about her family’s love of mangos or parties of all kinds featuring lumpia. Every dish or ingredient holds a special place in her heart.

With its illustrations, Bite by Bite is the perfect gift book for any food lover. Fumi Nakamura illustrates the foods featured in every chapter, making each essay feel unique. And if you’re an audiobook lover, you will fall head-over-heels in love with Nezhukumatathil’s performance. Her warm and inviting voice is so calm and restorative. It’s like you’re at the farmer’s market and she’s sharing about her favorite finds with you as you peruse the different stalls. She possesses such a personable tone as she shares her memories with listeners.

Looking for a thoughtful Mother’s Day gift? Go beyond the tried and true flowers and chocolate and give the gift of reading with Tailored Book Recommendations! Our bibliologists are standing by to help your mom find her next favorite read, delivered right to her inbox or doorstep. And with gifts starting at just $18, there’s something for any budget! Head to mytbr.co/gift to send the gift of reading to the book nerd in your life!

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, cultural critic, and MacArthur Genius but before he was any of these things he was, and will always be, an Ohioan. On the surface, this book is about basketball, Ohio, poverty, and incarceration; however, it only takes a couple pages for readers to realize that it’s about so much more. There’s Always This Year is about belonging and survival and connection and above all, love. It’s a blend of memoir and exploration that is bursting with love and told in such palpable earnestness that a reader doesn’t need to be from Ohio or know a thing about basketball in order to feel a flicker of love bloom in their own heart by sheer influence of Abdurraqib’s writing.

This is a book about home, and home is sometimes the place where a person is born and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes home isn’t even an actual place, but instead the idea of home is personified in a sports team. The author writes about basketball in the way that basketball should be written about — the sport itself, especially in the Black community, is itself about love and connection and promise and hope. One cannot write about basketball in Ohio without diving into the sheer depth of hopes and dreams that folks had tasked LeBron James with fulfilling. The author writes about this in ways that are both beautiful and devastating. Abdurraqib also writes about his own history of struggle and incarceration in a place he loved so much but didn’t seem to love him back sometimes.

This book is a great read that pushed and pulled my heart with every page.

Anisa Ellahi wants to be a translator of great literature, but that world doesn’t really open up to her until she meets Adam. When Anisa invites Adam to meet her parents, she’s immediately shocked by how quickly he’s able to pick up Urdu and speak the language fluently to her family. In fact, he speaks Urdu better than she does. How is this possible? What is his secret?

His secret, friends, is The Centre. Have you ever wished you could learn to speak a language fluently in less than a month? Read it, write it, listen to it, speak it, everything? Well, then set Duolingo aside because The Centre is your answer. Of course, there’s a catch. Or a few catches, really. First of all, you can’t just walk into the Centre. The program is extremely elite and invite-only. It also costs upwards of $20k to take a course. If you’re able to get in and you’re able to pay the exorbitant price, you’ll be forced to cut yourself off from the outside world. Every day, you’ll listen to language recordings and meditate without any contact with any other of The Centre’s learners. If you can do all of that, you will leave speaking the language of your choice fluently.

During Anisa’s time in the Centre, she chooses to learn German, and she spends her days listening to recordings of a man speaking German, telling his full life story. At first, she can’t understand a word he’s saying. Then, suddenly, when she enters the listening booth, she realizes she understands every word he’s saying and she remembers everything he’s told her since the beginning of the recordings. After Anisa leaves the circle, she’s able to translate works of German literature, and her translation career becomes so successful that she decides to come back to the Centre to learn Russian.

Sound good? Well, Anisa soon learns that it might just be too good to be true. As Anisa becomes more enthralled by The Centre and what it’s capable of doing, she starts to look into how the program works. And the answers to her questions will surprise you. You won’t see this ending coming.

As someone who has always loved learning languages, I found this premise so intriguing, and the story definitely delivered. The Centre is a book that celebrates literature and the joy of learning languages. But it’s also a dark, unsettling novel that will give you the creeps and leave you with so many thoughts about classism, the elitism of higher learning, and more. Read this book, friends! You won’t regret it.

I know that when I pick up an Amanda Montell book I’m in for a good time. Her previous books include Wordslut and Cultish, both of which have this delightful tone like Montell is sitting across from you with a cup of coffee. You’re going to have a fun conversation, but Montell isn’t going to hold back. She’s going to put the truth out there.

The Age of Magical Overthinking tackles ideas around how human beings try to “manifest” a reality that is most likely not going to happen. The chapters are organized around thought fallacies, like the “Sunk Cost Fallacy,” which can keep us holding onto projects, goals, or relationships that aren’t working for us. Or the “Halo Effect” which can make us always assume the best about our favorite singers and other celebrities. 

Like her other two books, The Age of Magical Overthinking is conversational. Its witty asides and healthy dose of snark make for a perfect pairing with Montell’s ideas. She presents her subject in a funny, accessible way that doesn’t go light on the research. She balances fun and substance to perfection. I especially love how she uses stories and interviews to communicate her ideas. She has this down-to-earth way of telling a story that makes your eyes become glued to the page.

For audiobook fans, I can’t recommend the audio edition enough. Montell reads the audiobook herself, bringing to life her snappy prose, dialogue from her interviews, and funny anecdotes. Her performance enhances that feeling that she’s sitting down with you over drinks talking about all of her ideas around magical thinking, manifesting, and the positive vibes that people try to put out into the world.