Have you ever loved a book so much that you don’t know where to start praising it? This might be the best book about history and ideas that I have ever read, and it also won the Pulitzer Prize for biography. If you love incredibly well-written nonfiction, or books that are built around a great central question that pulls you in, or that offer you a perspective you never had before: this book has all of that.

This book has it all.

It’s structured around the rivalry between two men in the 1700s, both of them captivated by the idea of classifying all life. One of them, the madly ambitious Swede Carl Linnaeus, was a fabulously unpleasant human being who sent his apostles off to die in the jungle while he sat home in Sweden refusing to educate his daughters. Minerals confused him, he classed walruses as amphibians, and by the time he died he had been almost forgotten.

Meanwhile, in France, the polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was running the King’s garden, correctly deduced the existence of both Pangaea and the Bering land bridge, was an abolitionist and supporter of women’s rights, made groundbreaking discoveries in metallurgy, and was hailed throughout Europe as the greatest genius of the 18th century.

But within a few decades after their deaths, LeClerc would be forgotten, and Linnaeus would be the one who was raised on a pedestal for posterity.

Why? And how did it happen?

The author brings both these men to life, along with the times in which they lived. He’s the kind of writer who’s got a fabulous eye for those anecdotes he knows will fascinate you – like the story of “Jean” Baret, a botanist’s assistant on France’s first attempt to circumnavigate the globe, who was only discovered to be a woman when they got to Tahiti! Jeanne was put ashore in Mauritius, but later managed to get back to France on another ship – making her the first woman to go around the world. I love that he makes room for her and other stories like that, he knows how to keep you engaged and interested.

He also writes, not from our current perspective, but starting from what people knew at the time, so that you can understand how their ideas evolved (and why those walruses ended up as amphibians…) There’s an intellectual line through to Lamarck – who it turns out has been misrepresented for two centuries – and eventually Darwin, and you can see how the ideas build one on the other. At the same time, there’s also a line straight through to British colonialism and to racism to this day, and he follows that as well, because this is also a political story.

(Personally I think my favorite thing in the book was Thomas Jefferson’s visit to Leclerc. In the US we were always taught Jefferson was an American genius, but LeClerc as an abolitionist of course was unimpressed from the start, and when Jefferson spent his visit insisting that there were mammoths roaming the American west Leclerc thought he was a fool. And you can see why. I loved that about the book too, that he consistently gives me new perspectives on people and events that I thought I knew well.)

Have I made it sound like a lot? Roberts makes it all so clear. It’s an absolute pleasure to read.

Really, if you love biography, or anything about the history of ideas or the history of science, or just the question of why we remember some people and not others, I bet you will love this!

I’m not a fan of grim dark books. Books are my escapism, even horror. To paraphrase so many authors, we need monster stories to remind us we are capable of defeating the monsters. Unfortunately, the grim dark genre delights in destroying that hope.

So I approached Between Two Fires with some concern that it might be yet another grim dark slog of horrible things happening to mostly decent people. While dark and horrible things do happen to mostly decent people, Buehlman also keeps a sardonic sense of humor and a line of hope running through the end.

My only minor disappointment was that I’d heard that this was a very scary book. Perhaps I’ve read too much horror to be scared, but it did not have any scenes that will linger and give me nightmares.

This is also a great book for picking up and reading a few chapters at a time without worrying about keeping up with the plot. It’s very episodic with our trio experiencing multiple adventures, at least until the final push to the climax.

- "Healing Self-harm"..

I read "Piercing" by the famous Japanese author Ryu Murakami (rest in peace)...

I started reading it because of Nicolas Pesce’s movie—which, by the way, I didn’t like... Sure, it has its own visual style and that neon vibe, but after watching it, I didn’t understand a thing...

And speaking of the book, it’s better! (Surprising, isn’t it?) Overall, I like the dynamic between the characters and, of course, the powerful monologues mixed with dark humor

The story itself is presented in an interesting way through two characters, each with their own traumas. Murakami shows that traumatized people instantly sense each other’s inner brokenness, forming a deep empathetic bond that strips them of their usual cruelty.

The author himself shows that even in a metropolis like Tokyo, there is a form of existential loneliness. The novel emphasizes that behind the prosperous walls of these apartments, dark human deviances may lurk—deviances that society doesn’t care about until someone sees a corpse or some other tragedy…

And the novel’s title is the central metaphor. For Tiaki, piercings and self-harm—just like Kawashima’s desire to pierce flesh—serve an important therapeutic (albeit destructive) function… they both survived the horror of childhood abuse. A piercing is pain that a person chooses for themselves.

It’s a way of declaring: “My body belongs to me, and only I decide when and how I will feel pain.”… and for Tiaki, cuts and piercings are a way to escape a state (where it feels as though she doesn’t exist).

That very pain brings her back to reality.

Naturally, the book doesn’t attempt to justify them or their deviant behavior.

It’s a ruthless psychological diagnosis of a society that ignores childhood trauma.

The author shows that violence against a child never goes unnoticed; it remains within a person like a time bomb that will go off sooner or later.

But of course, there are some downsides I should mention:

The novel’s ending leaves a sense of incompleteness, in my opinion; it cuts off at a climactic moment, offering no resolution or answers to the questions raised. The story is certainly short and intimate, and the downside is that I felt it lacked further exploration; but on the other hand, the open ending is just as it is.

In my view, the ending shows that they don’t become “normal” in that sense. However, the author offers hope: they cease to be alone in their madness.

Ryū Murakami shows that salvation from inner demons lies not in therapy, but in absolute, terrifying sincerity and acceptance of one’s partner’s dark sides.

Kawashima abandons the idea of killing his daughter, as his destructive impulse has found an outlet and understanding in Tiaki.

I Recommend

This is book 16 of 16 of the series that begins with Assassin’s Apprentice. The only thing I’ve read that comes close in complexity is Stephen King’s Dark Tower (half as many books, but many others that tie in to the main story).

The world building and character development are phenomenal. And there are so many layers, but everything ties together brilliantly.

I listened to these over the last three years. 16 books averaging 26 hours and 34 minutes each… 425 hours well spent!

Farseer Trilogy
Liveship Traders Trilogy
Tawny Man Trilogy
Rainwild Chronicles, 4 books
The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy

Just finished reading CUJO by Stephen King. It’s about this friendly Saint Bernard who, when bitten by a rabid bat while roaming about in the woods, goes on this vicious, violent rampage in town. This leads to his family that may or may not be the ones to take him down before Cujo racks up a higher kill count.

It’s one of those underrated Stephen King novels that immerses you right into the suspense and makes you feel like you’re confronted with Cujo’s presence. Not as brutal with the animal horror as Pet Semetary (that one kept me up) and it’s a slow burn of a novel at first but it’s well worth it.

For those who read it, what did you think?

The Full Moon Coffee Shop is a cozy fantasy about a magical coffee shop run by talking cats that only appears to people who need it. There’s no menu and no bill. Instead, the cats serve each person exactly what they need, both on the plate and through the conversations that follow. The stories are loosely connected, with each character carrying their own struggles and questions about where they are in life.

I’ll be honest, I’m not really a cat person, so I did judge this book a little by its cover. When I first read that it involved talking cats, I thought that it was probably not my cup of tea. It took me about four or five pages to get into it, but once I did, there was no going back.

I went into this after Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and honestly, I think I needed exactly this kind of read. It’s light, cozy and heartwarming without trying too hard to be any of those things. The food descriptions were also unfairly good. The trifle, pancakes and tea had me genuinely craving, despite not being much of a tea person or having much of a sweet tooth.

What I liked most was how the book uses astrology less as a way of predicting someone’s future and more as a way of getting them to look at themselves differently. I don’t particularly believe in astrology, but I thought there was just enough of it to make it interesting without overwhelming the story. In fact, somewhere along the way I actually became curious about what my own natal chart looks like. I might have to look it up just to see how much of this book I actually remember. I’m sure my parents would be thrilled that I’m finally giving astrology a chance. :))

The classical music references were nice too, although most of them went over my head. I’m not really into classical music, so I didn’t have much context for them.

More than anything, though, I liked the way the book made me think about second chances and the way we look at the difficult parts of our lives. Sometimes nothing external changes. You just start looking at the same situation differently, understand yourself a little better and decide what you want to do with it. The characters felt surprisingly real for a fantasy book. I couldn’t relate to all of them, but there were little pieces of each that felt familiar.

The last few chapters and especially the epilogue really brought everything together for me. The way the stories eventually circle back to the old man who started this whole chain of events, and the explanation around the cats, was genuinely lovely. I didn’t see the full circle coming, and I was smiling by the end of it.

A few lines also stayed with me:

‘Understand yourself, and you’ll be able to care for yourself. As long as you do that, you’ll shine like the star that you are’

‘But challenges aren’t barriers to confront. They’re doors waiting to be opened’

I think that’s what I’ll take away from this book more than anything. It’s not really about astrology for me. It’s about perspective, self-awareness and the idea that sometimes the things we see as failures or obstacles might simply be asking us to look at them differently.

The epilogue was probably what sealed it for me. After a very long time, this felt like a book that was less about the story itself and more about how it made me feel while reading it. Like a big, warm hug I didn’t know I needed.

I’m definitely going to continue with the other two books in the trilogy.

I’ve been chasing the high of Elena Ferrente’s My Brilliant Friend (and series) for a few years now, and this scratched a similar itch! It takes place in Uruguay throughout the 20th Century and through the viewpoints of three generations of women.

I thought it did a good job of balancing magical elements and lore with historical references and realness. There’s pain and suffering, but a lot of beauty, too.

I’m not normally a crier when reading, but this one had me tearing up.

Picked this up from a recommendation because it sounded like a tight murder mystery. And it does not disappoint!

Female barrister is asked to defend the accused murderer of a prominent judge. It's a big break for our protagonist but also a major minefield because: the judge is a beloved colleague and family man, the accused is someone she defended poorly in the past causing him to do time for a crime he was innocent of, and the prosecutor is her mentor/teacher and now husband.

The story is written from a couple of points of view. Our protagonist, Leila the barrister and Witness X.

The defendant refuses to talk or give any information to his legal team, thus forcing them to investigate the crime using every trick in the book. We learn of Leila's backstory (surprise! it's dark!), Witness X (also dark!), and the sordid secrets of Leila's husband, colleagues and others, while all the while trying to piece together what exactly happened, not to mention how on earth is she going to win this case.... Or is she? What is she willing to do? Who is Witness X? Did our defendant really do it? Why do all British barristers have so many secrets? 😂

Definitely twisty, captivating and with enough surprises and reveals to keep me hooked throughout a 3 hour train ride where I couldn't tear my eyes away from the book, not even to admire the beautiful Spanish countryside because I HAD to finish the book.

And the ending! Absolutely perfect! Can't wait to read more from this author.

I read this one a while back and it has really helped me grieve my late dad who passed on March 2025. Story follows an undead fox who ushers newly deceased woodland creatures into the afterlife. I laughed. I cried. I’ll read and continue recommending. This book is categorized as middle school fantasy. I enjoy it was an adult woman and say it’s worth checking out.

📚 DARK FANTASY READERS — YOUR NEXT OBSESSION MIGHT BE HERE! 🖤⚔️

THE HOLLOW CROWN

Volume One — Part I: The Man Death Refused

✍️ By DERIM Books

💀 He was supposed to die. Death had other plans.

Caelan Voss has no place in the Register of the Living. His past is filled with memories that don't quite belong to him, and something ancient is awakening inside his world.

In a realm ruled by the Seven Thrones, even reality must obey the laws of Time, Distance, Memory, Form, Hunger, Death, and Dominion.

But Caelan has the power to challenge them.

And every time he does, he risks losing another piece of himself.

🔥 Inside this dark epic fantasy:

⚔️ Ancient gods and forbidden powers

🩸 Deadly secrets and devastating sacrifices

👑 A mysterious boy wearing a crown of rusted nails

🌑 Gothic cities, cosmic horror, and forgotten histories

💔 Betrayal, family secrets, and morally complex characters

🔮 A mystery that threatens the foundations of existence

The world was built to imprison something. And the prisoner is beginning to remember.

If you love atmospheric dark fantasy, powerful mysteries, dangerous magic, and stories where every choice has a price, The Hollow Crown might be your next read.

📖 Available on Amazon now!

👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HP5VBGNG

⭐ If you decide to read it, I'd love to hear what you think!

⚠️ Adult dark fantasy (18+). Contains violence, disturbing imagery, and mature themes. This is the first part of an ongoing series and ends on a cliffhanger.

#TheHollowCrown #DarkFantasy #EpicFantasy #FantasyBooks #IndieAuthor #IndieBooks #GothicFantasy #BookRecommendations #FantasyReaders #DERIMBooks

What memories would you remember for the 10 minutes and 38 seconds after you die that your brain is active?

For Leila, each minute after her death brings a vivid memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which women used to wax the legs while men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that she shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends Leila made at each key moment in her life - friends are now desperately trying to find her...

Reading this book compelled me to ask myself what would my brain deem as significant from the repository of memories we build through our lifetime.

Leila comes up with 13 memories through her time.

(I am an 18 yo rn, and honestly, my life has been pretty uneventful. So, my brain is only able to think of 3 memories)

So, I just wanted to ask y'all:

Q. What memories would you remember for the 10 minutes and 38 seconds after you die?

This is in fact a novella disguised as a novel (god I wish novellas were still a thing) but it is fantastic. I can't recall a novel I've read that does "creeping dread" better than Foe.

From the first page you get this unshakeable feeling that something is "wrong." Everyone reacts to the news of Junior's (for lack of a better word) "selection" entirely differently. Terrance with his menacing enthusiasm, Hen's frustration, Junior's resignation. But we, the audience, lack the context to know what to feel. So we instinctively feel dread.

And it gets worse from there. The hills and valleys of Junior and Hen's marriage (which, to our witless protagonist's confusion, creeps ever closer to a permanent end), Terrance moving in, the nigh-on body horror of the experimentation on Junior...boy howdy.

And then of course the twist. Halfway through, I was like "come on Iain, I clocked that a mile away." But then he got me in the end. For fans of a genre mashup of sci-fi, psychological thriller, and horror, I'd def put this on your list. Although my sources tell me to stay faaaar away from the movie adaptation.

This book won awards for journalism and I can see why. You see this family with eight children and you see two of the young sons' and their mother's efforts to better their circumstances or at least stay out of trouble, and you see all the things that are working against them to keep them trapped in poverty and degredation. The housing complex where they live is basically a war zone, shots being fired all the time; numerous people the family knows die violent deaths and one of the boys in the story is so stressed by his living circumstances that he develops a stutter. Living conditions are extremely poor; a lot of the apartments in the housing complex are vacant because there is no money to repair them and make them livable for new tenants, and occupied apartments often have broken plumbing etc. It's a whole different side of America and it made me feel ashamed. It is impossible to bootstrap oneself out of such a bad beginning.

I looked up online to see how the two boys who are the main characters in the story did, once they grew up. Unfortunately, the answer is: not great. The journalist helped them with their education and I think they did both graduate high school, but both of them got in trouble with the law later on. Given what they were up against it didn't surprise me.

My first crime book and also my first Korean book and I really enjoyed it!

It’s intense, cozy, somewhat relaxing and satisfying to read.

The story is about a woman who runs a plant shop in South Korea and the many ways she gets rid of men to help out people and cats.

It also reads as a short story collection with the plant lady and her shop being the main connecting point.

It was also great for the spooky season so I’d recommend!

I bought this book on Audible a year ago. I had an 8-hour road trip ahead of me, and I thought it would be good to be able to deep-dive into the story, as it's just under 16 hours at normal speed, about 12 hours at 1.2 speed, which is a perfect speed for me to understand and keep up.

What intrigued me about the story initially was the mystery, or quest, at its heart. The story takes place in England, starting in the early days of Queen Victoria. Our protagonist, Amy Snow, is an orphan, brought into the wealthy Vennaway family by their precocious 8-year-old daughter Aurelia, when she is found as an abandoned baby (guess!) in the snow. Amy is very much brought up as a second-class citizen by the family and is treated quite cruelly by Aurelia's mother, but she forms a strong friendship, a sisterhood, with Aurelia, who tragically dies at age 23.

Amy is asked to leave the household immediately after Aurelia's will is read, which she does. She is bequeathed 10 pounds, not a fortune, but not a pittance either, in these early years of the Victorian age. She is then secretly given a letter, written by Aurelia before her death, that starts Amy on her quest.

I loved the characters. Amy herself is interesting, and it's nice to see her grow in confidence and experience as the story progresses. She travels throughout England and meets a variety of people. She falls in love and has men pursuing her romantically. The driver of the story is her quest to uncover a secret Aurelia was keeping. One thing I thought of, that the author never addressed, was that the quest was also a great way for Amy to 1) learn to become independent after a lifetime sheltered at the Vennaway property and, 2) was an excellent way for Amy to work through her grief at losing her dear sister/friend during this quest she was on. Amy needed the structure Aurelia's quest provided her to learn how to navigate a world she had never lived in.

The story is complex and fulfilling. The first half of the book takes place on a dual timeline (Amy's upbringing and friendship with Aurelia and then her quest). Themes throughout the book are friendship, family, sisterhood, the place of women, romantic love versus arranged marriages. The author does a good job of having the characters speak and behave in what I would presume to be historically accurate ways. I particularly enjoyed the character of Mrs. Riverthorpe, who is a strong woman in a man's world and a prickly pear to beat!

I read a lot of non-fiction and mystery/thrillers. I greatly enjoyed this engrossing historical novel and bought into the story completely. I wouldn't recommend this to my husband to read as I think it's a "woman's book", nor would I recommend it to my very American friends who have no connection to England. As a woman, and as someone who loves stories based in England, this was right up my alley. A 5-star book for me. I hope you enjoy it!

In 1967, JRR Tolkien was receiving many fan letters about Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit. He was pleasantly surprised to receive a fan letter about Smith of Wooten Major. The fan, a 19 year old Terry Pratchett (yes, of Discworld fame) said “I don't know what there was in it that moved me to write this letter. It was something that 'The Lord of the Rings' never possessed except in very short measure, that feeling of recognition. You said something in 'Smith' which I hope I grasped, and there was a feeling almost of recognition. An odd feeling of grief overcame me when I read it. I cannot explain my feelings any clearer. It was like hearing a piece of music from way back, except that it was nearer poetry by Graves's definition. Thank you very much for writing it.”

There is something beautiful and sad and dreamy about Smith’s story. He receives a talisman that allows him to pass into faeryland and experience its wonders, but he still must return home in the end and live his life.

The closest narrative experience I can recommend this to is that it is the same experience I felt when I watched Miyazaki’s Spirited Away for the first time.

Along the way, we also experience many delightful moments of Tolkien’s dry humor. Consider: “There was one festival to which all looked forward, for it was the only one held in winter. It went on for a week, and on its last day at sundown there was a merrymaking called The Feast of Good Children, to which not many were invited.”

This is a sweet adult fairy tale that ignited a fire in a young Terry Pratchett. Lose yourself in it and see what its charms will do for you.

I went in blind, only knowing it was a witchy historical fiction with a bit of magical realism and was completely blown away by this epic tale of Mid-Western America during the Dust Bowl Era. Not only are the multiple (yet complex) characters from this novel still living rent-free in my head a week after finishing, I learned so much about a part of the country and time that I'd previous been unfamiliar with. Not wanting to post too much for others like me that enjoy going in with only a little information, but I cannot stop thinking about how beautifully this was written and it's been a genuine treat to read. A book hasn't affected me like this in many years.

I loved it, I loved it.

I postponed reading the second book for nearly a month, until one night I picked it up while going through it, and then I just couldn't put it down.
This book made me feel again when I was stuck and couldn't feel a thing for days.

I rarely give a five star rating, but this book pretty much had it all. the characters, the character development, the world, the plot, the adventures, My kind of romance and slow burn it was all of the above. It just kept getting better and better. I grew so attached and super amazed by the backstories, Evangeline's personality development, the plot twist when I seriously thought the book was over, the storyline, Stephanie Garber's descriptions and writing.

This is my favorite book, and the bane of my existence all at once

"Even when Evangeline was stoned, she was still soft. She cares too much, hopes too much, forgives too easily."

"Her gray eyes rake over me as if I'm the monster she would never touch, if that were true. She'd be better off.. but I watched her free hand betray the truth. It clamps into a fist. She's angry enough to hit me to hurt me. Either way. She still wants to touch me. I can't help taunting her now "

Just finished reading THE ROAD BACK, the sequel to Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. Set weeks after the events of the first novel, many of the remaining characters that we met in the first novel are now returning home after the war has ended.

That being said, after all they endured, they don’t really know what exactly they’re returning to and question whether they made any type of difference at all. They are disillusioned and disgusted as they struggle to adjust to postwar life and process their trauma.

Like its predecessor, it’s a haunting, demoralizing account of the irreversible trauma that molds soldiers once they return from the battlefield and how there can never be any true sense of normalcy as well as lingering questions struggling to make sense of the futility of war. The novel doesn’t promise to provide answers, maybe aware that there are no acceptable answers. Though written in 1931, in many ways the questions raised remain sadly relevant (and unanswered).

Also, I don’t want to spoil too much but if you knew how Paul Baumer, the narrator of All Quiet on the Western Front, ended up, this novel adds an even sadder yet realistic depth to his story. When reading about how characters like Tjaden are grappling with their trauma and trying to live life again, it’s hard to tell whether or not Paul Baumer may have been better off but to think about how close he may have been to surviving, it hurts yet his story is reminiscent of many soldiers who suffered the same unfair fate.

The Road Back is a dark yet important novel, a depressing sequel to a classic novel. For those who read it, what did you think? And how do you compare it to All Quiet on the Western Front?

Good Material is about Andy, a 35-year-old stand-up comedian trying to make sense of his life after his long-term girlfriend, Jen, leaves him. Most of the book is Andy trying to understand the breakup, himself, and what went wrong, before we finally get to hear Jen’s side of the story.

Spoilers ahead. If you haven’t read the book yet, I’d stop reading here.

I went into this book completely blind. I had no idea it was going to be a breakup story from a man’s perspective, and honestly, I think that made the whole experience more interesting for me.
It took me a little while to get into it, though. Getting used to the very British setting, humour and culture took me some time. Also, the amount of drinking in this book was v questionable. :) I genuinely lost count. Pubs, drinks, more drinks, drinking before going somewhere to drink. I don’t know if that’s just very British or if Andy and his friends were personally trying to keep the alcohol industry alive.
But somewhere around the 100-150 page mark, I was all in.

Being inside Andy’s head for most of the book was honestly an experience. He is obsessed with Jen, very self-involved at times and has this constant ‘why me?’ running in the background. There were so many moments where I wanted to tell him to just pull himself together. But at the same time, I did feel for him. He’s hurting, and people don’t always behave in the most sensible way when they’re hurting. I think that’s what worked for me about Andy. He could be frustrating and exhausting, but he also felt very human.

What I really liked was getting to see heartbreak from a man’s perspective. As a woman, I’m so used to breakup stories being told from a female perspective that I almost automatically know how to relate to them. With Andy, I had to look at it differently. I kept wondering if this is actually how men process heartbreak, because I obviously wouldn’t know. It was genuinely interesting to see.
And then came Jen.

Those last 40-ish pages completely caught me off guard. I genuinely thought I was going to finish the whole book inside Andy’s head, so suddenly getting Jen’s perspective felt like someone opened a window in a room I’d been sitting in for 300 pages. And I absolutely devoured it.

This part especially stayed with me:
“Did I want any of it? Did I want to be someone’s girlfriend? Was it something I could do?”

And then:

“I could never really understand whether I was in a good relationship or not. I couldn’t measure what the reality of long-term love was; what was settling for something when I should be asking for more.”

That really hit home for me. Not because I related to Jen completely, but because I understood her. I’ve been in a relationship where I slowly realised that loving someone and wanting to continue being with them weren’t necessarily the same thing. Sometimes you can love someone and still feel like the relationship is taking more from you than it’s giving you. And I think that’s one of the hardest things to accept.

Another line that I know I’ll think about for a long time was:

“You don’t let go once. That’s your first mistake. You say goodbye over a lifetime.”

I loved that. Because we somehow expect ourselves to be completely over someone once we’ve decided to leave, but that’s not really how it works. You can know something was the right decision and still miss the person. You can move on and still have a song, a place or some completely random memory bring something back for a second. You say goodbye more than once.

I also really liked that the book didn’t make the breakup as simple as one person being bad and the other being good. Andy genuinely loved Jen. Jen genuinely loved Andy. And yet the relationship still wasn’t right for her anymore. That felt very real to me.

If anything, Jen’s chapter made me look back at the entire book differently. For most of it, we’re hearing about Andy’s heartbreak, his confusion, his loneliness and his version of what happened. Then suddenly you realise there was another person living through that same relationship and experiencing it very differently. And that’s probably what I liked most about the book.

There were quite a few moments that made me laugh, some that frustrated me, and a few lines that I know will randomly come back to me months from now. I also really liked Morris and that whole part of the book. There was something unexpectedly warm about their relationship.

Overall, this was a bittersweet read for me. It took me a while to get into, but once I did, I was completely invested. I wouldn’t say I related to Andy, but I definitely understood him more than I expected to. And I probably related to Jen in ways I didn’t realise I would.

Also, completely random, but I went back and listened to Cigarettes and Coffee by Otis Redding after finishing the book because it was mentioned and it intrigued me. Definitely not my usual vibe, but I actually enjoyed the change. I like when a book casually sends you off to discover something you probably wouldn’t have otherwise.

So yeah, Good Material wasn’t a book I immediately fell in love with, but by the time I closed it, I was really glad I read it.

I’ve read literally hundreds of Holocaust memoirs in the past two decades but this one stands out. Alicia was only about 12 when the war began, living in a town called Buczacz in what was then Poland and is now Ukraine. Gradually the occupation and the Holocaust picked off her father and brothers until only she and her mother were left. Alicia once escaped from a death train, and later when the ghettos were liquidated she and her mom went into hiding in the countryside. An absolute angel of a beekeeper hid them for awhile, and other Jews as well, in his tiny shack. He was supposed to be living alone but in fact lived with eight people. Alicia supported herself and her mom as a farmhand. Locals knew or suspected she was Jewish and that the beekeeper was hiding Jews but didn’t tell the Nazis.

Buczacz was liberated by the Soviets in 1943 and all the surviving Jews came out of hiding… only for the Nazis to retake the city a few months later and kill most of the Jews who had revealed themselves, including Alicia’s mother. She was all alone, at 13, 14 years old, sleeping outdoors most of the time and living on the brink of starvation. A slice of bread and a cup of milk and maybe a potato a day. She helped save some partisans, multiple times, and was recognized by the Soviet authorities for her heroism. When liberation came (for good this time), her troubles weren’t over. She got in trouble with the Soviets for black marketing and was imprisoned for months because she wouldn’t give up any names. When she was released, the grateful black marketers amply repaid her (literally, with thousands of rubles) for not turning them in to save herself.

I think Westerners, and in particular Americans, infantilize adolescents. Act like they are babies, won’t give them responsibilities or freedoms or any control of their lives on the assumption that they’ll screw up because they are young. When I have read so many accounts of teenagers like Alicia rising to the occasion and doing things most Americans can’t imagine their adolescent children doing.

She supported her mother because her mom couldn’t pass as a non-Jew. She did just fine on her own after her mother was murdered. She turned 15 the day after the war ended in Europe. She was all alone; her entire family had been killed. Only a few distant relatives whom she didn’t really know had survived. She was penniless (the money the black marketers paid her was lost when a train left with her luggage but without her). She had tuberculosis. In other words, she had enough of her own problems to deal with. And with all of that on her plate she started a DIY orphanage for Jewish survivors like herself, rounding up Jewish kids without families who were living on the street, putting them all up in an apartment and supporting them by buying and selling used clothing. At 15, she was supporting 24 orphaned and deeply traumatized children. She ran the orphanage on her own for months before handing it off to a Jewish agency and joining an organization that smuggled Jews to Palestine.

This is a very readable book and I highly recommend it.

Eileen gleefully shares the story of her younger self: 24, unmarried, still living with her alcoholic father in a gloomy New England town. It's 1964, she's isolated, and she has some odd ideas about love and sex, but it doesn't stop her dreaming about a life full of passion and romance. A new work colleague starts to bring her out of her shell, and she's not nearly as fragile as the shell would make her seem.

Against the backdrop of a frigid Northeastern winter and her workplace, a children's prison, her decisions to let loose and be truer to herself paradoxically make her more reliable and less honest.

This novel is a wonderful example of unreliable narrator, and the elderly Eileen telling her story weaves a convincing tale. The suffering she endured and resulting neuroses are not uncommon for the time period nor our own; this story is more important than ever in the wake of recent news.

Each time I sat down, I'd stay there for hours. This is one of very few books I've written notes in, after college. Eileen's story has been begging to be told. Do you trust her word?

Watership Down is the story of a group of rabbits who venture out to find a new home after one of the rabbits has a prophecy of their current home being destroyed.

This book was amazing and very worth the wait. I saw the movie a long time ago but I was so young I barely remember it. I see a lot of discussion about how it is a violent and brutal story, but I actually found it to be very hopeful and optimistic. There are tense moments and moments of violence in it, but the majority of the book is a story of collaboration, trust, and bonding. The rabbits grow together, try new things, tell stories, joke, and lean on each other while they work to make a better future for themselves. I was worried a story about rabbits looking for a home couldn't sustain itself for almost 500 pages but it absolutely did. It took me less than a week to read it but I feel like I have known these characters for years. It felt like such an epic saga and I had such a great time!