ARC, Books

Book 1,019: The West – Naoíse Mac Sweeney

Book cover of "The West" with Amazon Affiliate linkThis was a fascinating read. Mac Sweeney takes what you think you know about “Western Civilization” and attempts to flip it on its head via fourteen mini-biographies about historical figures, only a few of which I knew immediately.

I feel horrible it’s taken me this long to push my response out. The publisher reached out in January 2023. I blew past the publication date in May 2023, and finally read it in December 2023. So, I’m hanging my head, because it’s now taken me another month and a half to actually publish my response.

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Books

Book 932: Young Jane Austen – Lisa Pliscou

Book cover of "Young Jane Austen" with Amazon Affiliate linkI picked this up back in 2016 and it’s languished on my TBR Austen/Brontë shelf ever since. It came up on my random book generator spreadsheet when I was packing books for our vacation back in February but it was the last one on the list and it kept getting delayed.

So FINALLY I made myself read wedge it in between ARCs this month and realized I should’ve read it weeks ago because it could easily be read in one sitting.

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Book 926: Khabaar – Madhushree Ghosh

Book cover of "Khabaar" with Amazon Affiliate linkWhen the publicist reached out to me about this one, I wasn’t sure I had the capacity, but it was five months before it was published so I figured I’d make time!*

That sort of happened. Khabaar was on my TBR pile nonstop from February onward but between all the knitting I was doing and getting distracted by EVERY MM romance novel possible, I kept putting it off to my detriment.

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Book 919: Dessert Can Save the World – Christina Tosi

Book cover of "Dessert Can Save the World" with Amazon Affiliate linkLate last year, someone from Harmony Books reached out about Dessert can Save the World by Christina Tosi having seen I read David Chang’s memoir Eat a Peach.* Knowing that Tosi’s Milk Bar (which is freakin’ delicious and I had to resist trekking over to Harvard Square multiple times while reading this) started as an offshoot of one of Chang’s restaurants I thought why not! I’m glad I didn’t start reading it earlier because I devoured it (pun 100% intended).

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Book 913: Word Nerd – John D. Williams, Jr.

Book Cover of "Word Nerds" with Amazon Affiliate linkI have no idea where I stumbled across this book. At first, I thought it was The Allusionist or 99% Invisible podcasts, but can’t find any mention of it on their sites and there’s nothing on NPR, aside from a review which I usually avoid, points to where it came from. I also didn’t purchase it from Amazon or any other online book retailer, so I must’ve randomly picked it up in a physical store and not tracked the purchase.

I’m glad I picked it up though! Not because I play SCRABBLE, because I’m not great at it, but because it just had a great title and subtitle and I figured it’d be an interesting read and it truly was.

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