Welcome back!
We have quite the assortment today (though I feel like I say that every time). We have a graphic novel, a cyberpunk novella, organization non-fiction, and a mystery series that originally released in the 80s.
Have you receive any good book recommendations? Please share them in the comments!
-
Bunt!
The creator of Check, Please! has a new graphic novel out with more LGBTQ+ rep and sports themes! If you picked up The Avant-Guards graphic novel after seeing it in a previous Whatcha Reading, you might like this!
Molly Bauer’s first year of college is not the picture-perfect piece of art she’d always envisioned. On day one at PICA, Molly discovers that—through some horrible twist of fate—her full-ride scholarship has vanished! But the ancient texts (PICA’s dusty financial aid documents) reveal a loophole. If Molly and 9 other art students win a single game of softball, they’ll receive a massive athletic scholarship. Can Molly’s crew of ragtag artists succeed in softball without dropping the ball?
The author of the New York Times best-selling Check, Please series, Ngozi Ukazu, returns with debut artist Madeline Rupert to bring an energetic young adult story about authenticity, old vs. new, and college failure. It also poses the question: “Is art school worth it?”
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
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!Bunt! by Ngozi Ukazu
-
Ghost of the Neon God
A cyperpunk novella set in Australia! I saw a Goodreads review describe it as “unapologetically Australian.” I love Ghost in the Shell and will say I didn’t find that particular inspiration as obvious or as overt as I was expecting.
A thrilling, propulsive story of escape as a small-time crook goes on the run across Australia with a stolen secret that will change the world, from the award-winning author of 36 Streets, perfect for fans of William Gibson’s All Tomorrow’s Parties, Richard Morgan and Ghost in the Shell.
Jackson Nguyen is a petty crook living slim on the mean streets of Melbourne. When he crosses paths with a desperate, but wealthy, Chinese dissident, begging for his help, Jack responds in the only natural he steals her shoes.
And yet, despite every effort to mind his own damn business, a wild spiral into the worst kind of trouble begins – Murder, mayhem, fast cars, fast-talking, bent cops, and long straight highways into the terrible beauty of the vast Australian Outback.
In Jack’s world, taking a stand against the ruling class is the shortest path to a shallow grave. But when an Earth-shattering technology falls into his hands, he must do everything he can to stop the wrong people taking it. In a world of pervasive government surveillance and oppressive corporate control, it’s up to a small-time criminal to keep the spark of human rebellion alive.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
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!Ghost of the Neon God by T.R. Napper
-
How to Keep House While Drowning
While some may find release from Marie Kondo-ing their living space, I am both a maximalist and have depression. I loved this take on organization, while holding space for compassion in lieu of shame.
How to Keep House While Drowning will introduce you to six life-changing principles that will revolutionize the way you approach home care—without endless to-do lists. Presented in 31 daily thoughts, this compassionate guide will help you begin to get free of the shame and anxiety you feel over home care.
Inside you will learn:
· How to shift your perspective of care tasks from moral to functional
· How to stop negative self-talk and shame around care tasks
· How to give yourself permission to rest, even when things aren’t finished
· How to motivate yourself to care for your spaceAdd to Goodreads To-Read List →
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!How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis
-
Sweet, Savage Death
Sarah: This is an older series but a listener emailed me about it after the RT and Romance Reader Handbook podcast episodes: Jane Haddam’s Patience McKenna series, is a mystery series about a romance author.
When a literary agent is murdered, every bodice-ripping author is a suspect
The nation’s most famous romance authors are often so over-the-top that they could star in their own work. Catty, eccentric, and vain, they live to make each other miserable—and Patience McKenna does all she can to stay out of their line of fire. Too smart for her own genre, she writes romance novels to pay the rent and investigates stories to stay sane. Now the romance wars are about to hit her on the home front. A few nights before the start of the annual American Writers of Romance conference, Pay comes home to find her apartment locked from the inside. When the police break down the door, they stumble onto Julie Simms, literary agent to the leading lights of romance, lying dead on the floor. When the conference convenes, Pay asks: Which of her colleagues has traded make-believe passion for real-life murder?Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
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!Sweet, Savage Death by Jane Haddam
Given all the drama over the past few years concerning the RWA, the idea of a murder at a convention sounds pretty interesting, but I don’t like that line in the blurb, “Too smart for her own genre.”
@Francesca same same same! I am trying to convince myself it was meant to be a play on too smart for her own good, not a blatant put down of other women and romance. I mean, the RWA really was well stocked with villains. Plus the author doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the blurb. And yet. Can anyone who has read it weigh in?
I loved How to Keep House While Drowning. It changed the way I think about my home. I don’t think a reader needs to be “drowning” for it to be helpful, especially if upkeep falls mostly on his/her/their shoulders.
LOVED How To Keep House While Drowning. I tend to be all or none when it comes to housework (and tbh “none” is more common than “all”). I think it’s partly perfection paralysis and partly just that a lot of housework is drudgery. This book really helped me adjust my outlook. It reminds me a lot of Unf**k Your Habit (https://www.instagram.com/teamufyh).
FYI Sweet Savage Death was originally published in 2020, so the “too smart” blurb is just dated. At the time the author published under the name of Orania Papazoglou, I knew I recognized the title but not the author when I saw it!
Nah, Sweet Savage Death was published in 1984. It is the first of a series of five with series character Patience McKenna, and all were great. Jane Haddam (Orania Papazoglou) also published a mystery series with character Gregor Demarkian which smartly tackled serious social issues along with each mystery.
Just clicked buy on Sweet Savage Death.
Back when mysteries were my favored genre, I made my way happily through Haddam’s Gregor Demarkian series, starting with the early quasi-cozies with their cutesy holiday themes through the later books with their far more subtle and elegant writing. The foundation of the entire series is complex character development and the exploration of moral dilemmas, but losing the restrictions of the original series’ theme was a huge step up. Her later work is reminiscent of Louise Penny or Donna Leon. Interestingly, Bennis Hannaford, Demarkian’s amateur investigator counterpart, is also an author of an under-appreciated (at the time) subgenre, YA fantasy, IIRC. The series has a nice extended romance arc as well.
At any rate, I’m really looking forward to diving into Sweet Savage Death. If it’s dated, who cares? So am I.
I absolutely loved How to Keep House While Drowning, and I’ve recommended it to so many friends! It’s really kind, compassionate, and genuinely helpful.
@afrancesca and @kkw I haven’t read the books and have no idea if they’re actually feminist or what, but whoever wrote that blurb was absolutely trying to capitalize on women’s internalized misogyny. I mean, I had to stop reading after “catty, eccentric, and vain.” Ugh
If you’re into author deaths at conferences (and don’t mind dated), I have a few…
Sharyn McCrumb, Bimbos of the Death Sun — scifi con (1987, before cons were cool)
Elizabeth Peters, Naked Once More — romance (1989)
D.J.H. Jones, Murder at the MLA — English/academia (1993)
The first two are fun, the Jones will give you horrible flashbacks if you’re an academic. It’s good, but it’s too, too accurate.
@Anna Held – That jogged my memory.
There’s also, Somebody Killed His Editor by Josh Lanyon. That’s the only series of hers I’ve liked unreservedly and felt that the romance wasn’t overshadowed by the mystery.
re: Bimbos of the Death Sun:
I never could get into that one, finding it vitriolic and catty (heh), full of disdain for fandom and not funny at all. YMMV.
@Anna Held, et al, I believe the Elizabeth Peters title set at a romance writers convention was Die for Love and the pub date was also 1984.
I’ve read Haddam’s Sweet, Savage Death now, and I have some words. I still consider Haddam an excellent writer and this book a very good mystery, but–like Die for Love–it is a product of its times. The main character smokes like a chimney; there is racist, sexist language from several characters; and a couple of passages of extremely fatphobic language and attitudes. A full range of attitudes toward the romance genre is presented from the viewpoints of various characters. The whole thing comes across as a kind of roman a clef from someone embedded in the industry at the time.
To be honest, the racism & sexism really jumped out at me and would have at the time of its writing. The language was used by specific characters and was clearly meant to define those characters–not in a positive way. The anti-fat stuff was more problematical for me. I don’t actually know if I would’ve caught it in the eighties. I’ve been fat for most of my life and still deal with a lot of internalized self-hate. (First book I recognized & hated for its relentless fat shaming: She’s Come Undone,1992)
One of the things that I’ve always loved about Haddam is her moments of radical honesty. I still respond to and value this quality. However, at my age, I recognize that attitude change or consciousness raising, if you prefer, is a process, evolutionary and often incremental. A three or four decade leap through time tends to rip the blinders off, and you have to weigh the uglier social artifacts against whatever it is you value about a writer or a work. It’s hard and it’s personal.
Anyway, TL;DR. YMMV