Welcome back!
This round of recs came from the bookish people and communities in my life. I love finding new books through friends and colleagues, and it really solidifies the importance of readers to connect with other readers.
Do you have any recommendations you’d like to share? Drop them in the comments?
The Art of a Lie
A historical mystery with some added food history knowledge! This recommendation came from my bookish friend Jamie and her newsletter Multitudes Contained. She’s a great resource if you want mystery, thriller, and horror recs, though she does read very widely.
“Astonishing. The Art of a Lie is Laura Shepherd-Robinson at the height of her considerable powers. Of course it’s beautifully written and richly detailed, but it’s also fiendishly twisting and properly thrilling. A rare and wonderful story.” —Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author
In 18th-century England, a widowed confectioner is drawn into a web of love, betrayal, intrigue, and a battle of wits in this “twisty” (Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author) historical novel from the author of the USA TODAY bestseller The Square of Sevens.
London 1749: Following the murder of her husband in a violent street robbery, Hannah Cole is struggling to turn a profit at her confectionary shop on Piccadilly as her suppliers conspire to put her out of business.
So when she learns that her husband had a large sum of money in his bank account, the surprise is, at first, extremely welcome. But her financial windfall attracts the attention of author-turned-magistrate Henry Fielding, who believes the money might have been acquired through ill-gotten means and seeks to confiscate it.
Endeavoring to prove otherwise, Hannah enlists the help of William Devereux, a friend of her late husband, who also tells her about a new Italian delicacy called “iced cream,” which she believes might transform the fortunes of her shop. As she and Devereux delve into the mysteries of her husband’s double life in Georgian London’s gambling dens, Hannah unravels secrets even more devastating than his murder.
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The Best Dog in the World
This is a new release! Edited by Alice Hoffman, and containing over a dozen authors, this is a collection of essays about dogs and the bond between pet and owner. Tuck this away for any dog lovers in your life.
Fourteen beloved authors celebrate the life-changing bond with their canine companions in this heartwarming essay collection edited by New York Times bestselling author and lifelong dog lover Alice Hoffman.
Anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to share their life with a dog knows the experience is both profound and transformative. Here, in this charming collection of essays, fifteen celebrated authors share unforgettable tales of the dogs who left their pawprints on their hearts.
With contributions from Isabel Allende, Chris Bohjalian, Bonnie Garmus, Roxane Gay, Emily Henry, Ann Leary, Tova Mirvis, Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Strout, Amy Tan, Adriana Trigiani, Nick Trout, Paul Yoon, and Laura Zigman, The Best Dog in the World captures the full range of the canine-human connection, from the joy of welcoming a new puppy to the heartache of saying goodbye to a beloved friend.
A love letter to the loyal companions who enrich our lives and teach us about empathy, joy, and unconditional love, this anthology is the perfect gift for dog lovers everywhere, offering a blend of laughter, tears, and inspiration that will resonate with anyone who has been fur-ever touched by the love of a dog.
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The Incandescent
I have a wonderful coworker who shares a similar taste in books. Every Thursday, we wind up yapping about what we’re reading or trading recs. We recently talked about dark academia settings with main characters who aren’t students, and she loved this one.
Naomi Novik’s Scholomance series meets Plain Bad Heroines in this sapphic dark academia fantasy by instant national and international bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
“Look at you, eating magic like you’re one of us.”Doctor Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood School and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings, and securing the school’s boundaries from demonic incursions.
Walden is good at her job—no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. And it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from—is herself.
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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 Incandescent by Emily Tesh
Invitation to a Banquet
Shoutout to my colleague Jane for this one! She recommended this particular piece of food writing and warned everyone to not read while hungry.
The world’s most sophisticated gastronomic culture, brilliantly presented through a banquet of thirty Chinese dishes.
Chinese was the earliest truly global cuisine. When the first Chinese laborers began to settle abroad, restaurants appeared in their wake. Yet Chinese has the curious distinction of being both one of the world’s best-loved culinary traditions and one of the least understood. For more than a century, the overwhelming dominance of a simplified form of Cantonese cooking ensured that few foreigners experienced anything of its richness and sophistication—but today that is beginning to change.
In Invitation to a Banquet, award-winning cook and writer Fuchsia Dunlop explores the history, philosophy, and techniques of Chinese culinary culture. In each chapter, she examines a classic dish, from mapo tofu to Dongpo pork, knife-scraped noodles to braised pomelo pith, to reveal a distinctive aspect of Chinese gastronomy, whether it’s the importance of the soybean, the lure of exotic ingredients, or the history of Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. Meeting food producers, chefs, gourmets, and home cooks as she tastes her way across the country, Fuchsia invites listeners to join her on an unforgettable journey into Chinese food as it is cooked, eaten, and considered in its homeland.
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!Invitation to a Banquet by Fuchsia Dunlop
