Welcome back, y’all! And thank you for all the going away well-wishes in my previous Get Rec’d as I announced my departure from bookselling. I still have plenty of recommendations to dish out!
This one is definitely non-fiction heavy, but that’s okay!
Have you received any good recs lately? Want to pass one along to us? Let me know in the comments below!
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All the Living and the Dead
If you like more macabre non-fiction a la Caitlin Doughty, this one will be right up your alley.
A compelling and compassionate exploration of the death industry and the people—embalmers, detectives, crime scene cleaners, executioners—who work in it and what led them there.
Embarking on a three-year trip across the US and the UK, journalist Hayley Campbell—inspired by her longtime fascination with death, thanks to a childhood surrounded by her father’s Jack the Ripper cartoons—met with a variety of professionals in the death industry to see how they work.
Along the way, Campbell encountered funeral directors, embalmers, a man who dissects cadavers for anatomy students, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending 62 lives. She sat in a van with old gravediggers who have already dug their own graves. She raked out bones and ash with a man who works in a crematorium. She dressed a dead man for his coffin, held a brain at an autopsy, visited a cryonics facility in Michigan, and went for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective. Through Campbell’s prodding, reverent interviews with these people who see death every day, Campbell pieces together the psychic jigsaw to ask: Why would someone choose a life of working with the dead? Does being so near to lifeless bodies alter your perspective? Does an antidote to the fear of death exist?
A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death. And in the vein of Caitlin Doughty and Mary Roach, Campbell sharply investigates her—and our—own fascinations and fears through her encounters with this series of extraordinary people.
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Fox and I
I actually had a customer at the bookstore recommend this one to me. It seems very much in the vein of Sy Montgomery.
A solitary woman’s inspiring, moving, surprising, and often funny memoir about the transformative power of her unusual friendship with a wild fox, a new window onto the natural world, and the introduction of a remarkable literary talent.
Catherine Raven left home at 15, fleeing an abusive father and an indifferent mother. Drawn to the natural world, for years she worked as a ranger in National Parks, at times living in her run-down car (which lacked a reverse gear), on abandoned construction sites, or camping on a piece of land in Montana she bought from a colleague. She managed to put herself through college and then graduate school, eventually earning a Ph.D. in biology.
Yet she never felt at home with people, and though she worked at various universities and taught field classes in the National Parks, she built a house on a remote plot of land in Montana and, except when teaching, spoke to no one. One day, she realized that the fox who had been appearing at her house was coming by every day at 4:15. He became a regular visitor, who eventually sat near her as she read to him from The Little Prince or Dr. Seuss. Her scientific training had taught her not to anthropomorphize animals, but as she grew to know him, his personality revealed itself—and he became her friend. But friends cannot always save each other from the uncontained forces of nature.
Though this is a story of survival, it is also a poignant and dramatic tale of living in the wilderness and coping with inevitable loss. This uplifting fable-like true story about the friendship of a woman and a wild fox not only reveals the power of friendship and our interconnectedness with the natural world but is an original, imaginative, and beautiful work that introduces a stunning new voice.
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The Pocket
As you can imagine, we talk about books at lot on the SBTB Patreon Discord. Someone mentioned this fascinating book and I definitely think it’s of interest to the Bitchery.
This fascinating and enlightening study of the tie-on pocket combines materiality and gender to provide new insight into the social history of women’s everyday lives—from duchesses and country gentry to prostitutes and washerwomen—and to explore their consumption practices, sociability, mobility, privacy, and identity. A wealth of evidence reveals unexpected facets of the past, bringing women’s stories into intimate focus.
“What particularly interests Burman and Fennetaux is the way in which women of all classes have historically used these tie-on pockets as a supplementary body part to help them negotiate their way through a world that was not built to suit them” —Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian
“A riveting book . . . few stones are left unturned.”—Roberta Smith’s “Top Art Books of 2019”, The New York Times
“A brilliant book”—Ulinka Rublack, Times Literary Supplement
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The Violin Conspiracy
If you like more of heist or whodunnit mystery or love any kind of music-focused setting, check this one out!
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK! • Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise—undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world—when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world.
“I loved The Violin Conspiracy for exactly the same reasons I loved The Queen’s Gambit: a surprising, beautifully rendered underdog hero I cared about deeply and a fascinating, cutthroat world I knew nothing about—in this case, classical music.” —Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and Hour of the Witch
Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.
When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he’s lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray must not only reclaim his precious violin, but prove to himself—and the world—that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
I’d like to recommend THE GHOST VARIATIONS by Kevin Brockmeier. It’s a collections of 100 short stories that are technically about ghosts, but rather than being scary most are funny, meditative, strange, or just a curious thought experiment. Each story is only a page and a half long.
Another fabulous book I read this year was THE SENTENCE by Louise Erdrich. It takes place largely in a bookstore during the first year of the pandemic, it’s by and about Native Women, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
The Violin Conspiracy has been a top recommendation for me this year for all kinds of readers. I really loved it!
If you’re in the mood for a new cozy mystery with a different historical setting, I can recommend The Socialite’s Guide to Murder by S.K. Golden. The heroine is a hotel heiress in the 1950’s who has agoraphobia and hasn’t left her father’s hotel. She’s adored by most of the staff and is great at finding things as she knows the hotel so well. When an artist with a swanky exhibition is murdered she sets out to solve it.
The mid-century New York setting was fun and different, and I liked Evelyn in spite of myself (I’m not usually a fan of preening heiresses but she’s more than she seems). The mystery was fairly anticlimactic but it was a quick read and I enjoyed the setting and characters a great deal. This is first in a series by a debut author and I’ll be watching for the next one.
The Socialite’s Guide to Murder (A Pinnacle Hotel Mystery) https://a.co/d/5br7c5u
I really enjoyed All the Living and the Dead. I didn’t even know some of the jobs existed.