Welcome back to Wednesday Links! How are we all doing?
I can start to feel fall in the air and I’m so ready. Also, I’m eager for this jam-packed month to be over.
Before my partner and I go grocery shopping, we pick the 3-4 meals we plan to cook in the next couple weeks. I found a harissa-spiced cauliflower soup recipe in the Cookish cookbook and I’m looking forward to that the most. I love a soup season and one of my favorites to make (if you want recs) is the red pepper soup from Smitten Kitchen. So easy and tasty!
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Donna Herren, who is half of the romance-writing duo Kit Rocha, has a GoFundMe up to assist with medical treatment costs. If you’d like to donate or share the link, you can find it here.
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I will warn that this next article is emotional and deals with drug addiction, but I was really captured by the compassion in it. Meet Jessica, a volunteer with the Never Use Alone hotline. The article was inspired by a This American Life episode, which is equally as powerful.
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Need more things to read? Amanda over at the Talk About Swoon instagram account has dozens of sapphic romances that should be on your radar.
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Maya put this one on our radar! Anna Biller, director and costume designer of the movie The Love Witch, wrote a Gothic novel inspired by the Bluebeard legend. Lots of worlds colliding and interests intersecting!
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
Chatelaine had a corn chowder recipe in their fall issue that I want to try: https://chatelaine.com/recipe/soup/elote-chowder/
The fourth paragraph of “talk_about_swoon” certainly started my thoughts whirling. I agree completely with not leaving poor reviews for reasons that have nothing to do with a story. However, scolding potential readers, or suggesting that only people with the same background /experiences are able to enjoy a book does not welcome new readers. Shouldn’t a well-written book create characters and emotion that resonate in each reader?
I made the Easy pumpkin roll with cream cheese recipe from Natasha’s Kitchen. It is glorious .
It’s still warm where I live but I’m getting cravings for stew and casseroles.
https://natashaskitchen.com/pumpkin-roll-recipe/
@LML: I see this more as a commentary on white readers claiming they “can’t connect” with characters of color and labeling a book as bad, rather than “this experience isn’t shared by me and maybe I’m not understanding those nuances.”
@LML: Certainly a good book will resonate across lived experiences. This paragraph:
“Please note: if you’re reading outside of your lived experience, do not leave a poor review that you “couldn’t relate/connect.” Likely, that book wasn’t written for you and that’s why. When I see a queer BIPOC book and the first 5 reviews are bad reviews by white readers, we have a problem. Examine that.”
…to me, seems to be to be calling out the very coded language of White readers saying they “couldn’t relate/connect” to a book. That particular language has been used in reviews longer than I’ve been reviewing, and what it most often means is something along the lines of, “This book did not match my lived experience, and I didn’t like that, nor did I like the feelings that difference engendered in me, and so the problem is the book (not me, never me, I’m not the problem, it’s the book and possibly also Taylor Swift, but never me, not me, no no).” It’s a way of avoiding the self reflection and inward interrogation of WHY that person couldn’t connect, especially if there is no specificity to support the original statement.
That’s a fun looking list! I’ve already read or TBR’d a few of them, but definitely also some new ones i’ll have to give a look. Fall Into You, for one, was really good and also is really a perfect seasonal match for this time of year! (At least in the Northern hemisphere)
I dunno. It says some books likely aren’t written for you. Scolding readers for not seeking out particular books and then saying they aren’t for you because they’re outside your lived experience is kinda contradictory and off-putting. Maybe your explanation, Amanda and Sarah, is the intention but that’s not what’s coming across.
@SB Sarah, @Amanda, This quote: “I have lived a thousand lives and I’ve loved a thousand loves. I’ve walked on distant worlds and seen the end of time. Because I read.” of George R.R. Martin efficiently sums up my reasons for reading. I think it is criminal to denigrate a book for the flimsy, can’t connect, self reflection avoidance reasons you mention. I suspect the author talk_about_swoon is irritated beyond belief with ignorant comments, that perhaps those warning comments are necessary and reasonable, and it is solely my problem that to me the comments felt like a keep-out sign.
I may be misinterpreting, as I’m certainly not infallible. It’s also interesting to me that the one line has created such different responses. I interpreted that as a “this book is aimed at readers who aren’t me or like me,” but not as a keep-out sign or a warning.
I want to share this because it made me happy. I was working out of town the last couple weeks and in my lonely down time was talking a lot with one of the cute young security guys. He was often on his phone when I saw him so I asked him if he knew he could read library books on his phone. He did not. I showed him libby on my phone and described how it works. The next day, his boss asked me to show him, too. Two more library patrons! Go, me!
That is awesome, @Vicki! Not all heroes wear capes…
I made this apple crisp from Sally’s Baking Addiction, and it was so good:
https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/apple-crisp/
“The Red Scholar’s Wake” is SO ROMANTIC. I had no idea how this sci-fi romance with mystery and intrigue in which the couple are a space ship and a tech scavenger was going to work, but it really does and I wanted more of Rice Fish and Xich Si. I’m super stoked that Aliette De Bodard has another Sapphic book in the Xuya universe coming out in October, called “A Fire Born of Exile”. Her UK covers are nice, but to me it’s the US covers that are next level gorgeous and I’m absolutely making grabby hands.
As far as “not being able to connect” to BIPOC books as a white reader, I think Queen Beverly Jenkins said it best in “Love Between The Covers”: “Honey, if you can relate to shape-shifters and werewolves and (laughs) …chameleon people, but you can’t relate to an African American story, that’s a problem for me.”
There have been a lot of conversations about how reading fiction builds empathy. If someone “can’t connect” with a book solely because it’s a book by and about BIPOC – therefore not centering white people and their feelings – then it definitely calls for introspection on that reader’s part. Get uncomfortable and learn to sit with and examine those feelings. It’s how we grow.