The Witches Are Coming
The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West is $3.99! This is a Kindle Daily Deal and is being price-matched right now. A bunch of us were excited for this one on a previous Hide Your Wallet. While this nonfiction may be a cathartic read, it also might be a little heavy right now.
The firebrand New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Shrill–soon to be a Hulu series starring Aidy Bryant–provides a brilliant and incisive look at how patriarchy, intolerance, and misogyny have conquered not just politics but American culture itself.
What do Adam Sandler, Donald Trump, and South Park have in common? Why are myths like “reverse sexism” and “political correctness” so seductive? And why do movie classics of yore, from Sixteen Candles to Revenge of the Nerds, make rape look like so much silly fun? With Lindy West’s signature wit and in her uniquely incendiary voice, THE WITCHES ARE COMING lays out a grand theory of America that explains why Trump’s election was, in many ways, a foregone conclusion.
As West reveals through fascinating journeys across the landscapes of pop culture, the lies that fostered the catastrophic resentment that boiled over in the 2016 presidential race did not spring from a vacuum. They have in fact been woven into America’s DNA, cultivated by generations of mediocre white men and fed to the masses with such fury that we have become unable to recognize them as lies at all.
Whether it be the notion overheard since the earliest moments of the #MeToo movement that feminism has gone too far or the insistence that holding someone accountable for his actions amounts to a “witch hunt,” THE WITCHES ARE COMING exposes the lies that many have chosen to believe and the often unexpected figures who have furthered them. Along the way, it unravels the tightening link between culture and politics, identifying in the memes, music, and movies we’ve loved the seeds of the neoreactionary movement now surging through the nation.
Sprawling, funny, scorching, and illuminating, THE WITCHES ARE COMING shows West at the top of her intellectual and comic powers. As much a celebration of America’s potential as a condemnation of our failures, some will call it a witch hunt. To which West would reply, so be it: “I’m a witch and I’m hunting you.”
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A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness is $2.99! This is the first book in the All Soul’s Trilogy. Many readers say this is a fantasy novel filled with romance and adventure. However, others didn’t like the characters and found the hype to be overrated. I know some of you loved this book, while others hated it, but I always love the discussion the Bitchery has in the comments. Have any of you watched the series?
A richly inventive novel about a centuries-old vampire, a spellbound witch, and the mysterious manuscript that draws them together.
Deep in the stacks of Oxford’s Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.
Debut novelist Deborah Harkness has crafted a mesmerizing and addictive read, equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense. Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos. This smart, sophisticated story harks back to the novels of Anne Rice, but it is as contemporary and sensual as the Twilight series-with an extra serving of historical realism.
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Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear is $2.99! This is the first book in a beloved (and very long) historical mystery series. I read this one and here are my thoughts: I wish it focused on the mystery more and wow, it will bum you out. Have you read them?
Maisie Dobbs isn’t just any young housemaid. Through her own natural intelligence and the patronage of her benevolent employers, she works her way into college at Cambridge. When World War I breaks out, Maisie goes to the front as a nurse. It is there that she learns that coincidences are meaningful and the truth elusive. After the War, Maisie sets up on her own as a private investigator. But her very first assignment, seemingly an ordinary infidelity case, soon reveals a much deeper, darker web of secrets, which will force Maisie to revisit the horrors of the Great War and the love she left behind.
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RECOMMENDED: Bad Blood by John Carreyrou is $3.99! More nonfiction! I wrote a Lightning Review of this one because I didn’t want to either spoiler anything or regurgitate things from the news, but I gave it an A-:
Bad Blood will officially be known as the slump-breaker.
I devoured it.
The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of pressure and threats from the CEO and her lawyers.
In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.
For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at The Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company’s value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.
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I loved the All Souls Trilogy. It is not light reading but I found it very satisfying. The Masie Dobbs series is very good as well; however, for me several books ago the story line took a different turn and I stopped reading them. Your preferences may vary.
I just one clocked so hard for Lindy West…
I just nabbed UNSOULED by Will Wight free on Amazon. It was in my “keep an eye on” list at the recommendation of Ilona Andrews. https://ilona-andrews.com/unsouled-by-will-wight/ I’m willing to risk a series binge for free. (I also got books 2 and 3 for free. If I get hooked, I won’t complain about full price for the later books.)
I’m off to listen to the Audible samples to see if I want to whispersync…
@RKS What foul WTFery is this? Only book 3 whispersyncs!
It’s interesting that Lindy West’s analysis of the patriarchy is on sale alongside BAD BLOOD. Imho, one of the reasons Elizabeth Holmes was able to mislead investors, officials, and employees for so long was that she stacked her board of directors with a bunch of horny old white men who were simultaneously as ignorant about blood-testing methodology as they were eager to reward the cool, blonde, conventionally attractive Holmes. Reading both books side-by-side should be…instructive (if also rage-stroke inducing).
Tangentially related (and I know that there’s a widespread feeling that Harlequin Presents is a very retrogressive line, but) I just read the following line in Caitlin Crews’s latest HP, THE ITALIAN’S PREGNANT CINDERELLA: “Then again, this is how men tell stories about women they can’t control, isn’t it? Whores. Witches.”
I love the design and colors of Lindy West’s book.
@Sandy H: The quality of the Maisie Dobbs series has been… um, variable. I, too, walked away for awhile mostly because I was so sick of Maisie’s incessant navel-gazing, the poor mystery plotlines, and the general dire atmosphere. But I recently came back to them in audio and can say that there’s improvement on most fronts as Maisie heads towards the WWII years. Still too much detail and navel-gazing, and I wish Winspear would give Maisie a break in her personal life, but I’ve decided to continue.
Overall, I really liked A Discovery of Witches and would recommend it. For some reason, tho, I never got around to continuing the series. Maybe I need to add it to my quarantine reading list.
I’m always up for some ADOW discourse:
Three cheers for A Discovery of Witches!! I fully admit that the book is paranormal romance catnip for me, so I may be biased.
Book 2 is less about the heady rush of falling in instalove with your dark and dreamy soulmate and more about “Oh hell, I’m in love with a guy I barely know in a REALLY complicated and dangerous situation and… oooh shiny history!” It’ s complicated, the leads are stressed as hell, and the way they have to learn to be married together is fascinating. And then Book 3 is just satisfying as all get out.
I”m half way through the TV series right now and trying to draw it out as long as I can because it is DELICIOUS. I have no idea if it would make any sense to someone who hasn’t read the books, but if you have? Toe-curlingly good.
Bad Blood reads so smoothly that it’s only afterwards, thinking about it, that you realise the skill of the author in cobbling together a cohesive piece of writing from dozens of interviews and perspectives. It’s an amazing story, but it’s also such good writing. A high recommendation from me!
I stopped reading the Maisie Dobbs series, which I had loved at first, after the author smashed Maisie’s private life. What I found painful was what those losses meant not just to her but to people who were dear to Maisie. I don’t want to go into detail because it’s definitely spoiler territory, but I just couldn’t read any more of the books because that tragedy colored everything afterwards for me. It’s somewhat similar to why I stopped reading Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley books.
I’m one of the ones who hated “A Discovery of Witches”
It’s a good premise, but the execution is lacking. In short, the heroine is awful (as soon as the hero shows up, she stops having agency and let’s him do all the thinking and acting for her. All. Like down to basic bodily function level decisions) and the hero’s a jackass. Also there’s a lot of unnecessary padding.
And because the premise has promise, it’s truly annoying how bad the book is.
Bad Blood, however, was great. Highly recommend it
Not romance, but very relevant for our times: Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein is $1.99 on Kobo and Amazon. About disaster capitalism in the wake of crises. There’s an 11 week hold at my library for the ebook so seems like lots of people are picking it up nowadays.
I, too, stopped reading the Maisie Dobbs series because her personal life was so unhappy – I think I stopped at book 9 or 10 because I could see what was coming and just didn’t want to go there. In my head, I created an alternate ending for her personal life and imagine that it ended the way I wanted.
Even aside from the personal life stuff, my mom also read them and she labeled them “gloomy and depressing.” The ones I read all very much dealt with the psychological and emotional wounds of WWI.