Friday Five: October 6, 2023
As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been posting a little less frequently. I’ve been navigating some health challenges over the past year that have taking a pretty bit hit on my ability to spend time on my computer, and that includes writing reviews. Things are looking up, but as posting any sort of week or month in review would be pretty boring, I’m going to try posting five interesting things. Some of them may be new, some of them are probably things I’ve excavated from the depths of my bookmarks folder.
Enjoy!
1
Cover Reveal
The Undermining of Twyla and Frank
I read and loved the quirky and utterly genre-defying The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy so I was very excited to see another book from Megan Bannen. Dragon wings? TNT? And that glorious pink heart! Looks like this is going to be another great read! Summer 2024 feels very far away.
2
excerpt
from “Iron Flame”
By now I think everyone in the book world has heard about Fourth Wing. While I never reviwed it, I did read and love it! After backing the characters into some interesting corners I’m very curious to see where the author takes the plot next.
3
STUFF
“Read Banned Books” T-Shirt
For those of us of *cough* a certain age, Levar Burton is epic. Not only was he the host of Reading Rainbow (“You don’t have to take my word for it!”) but he was Geordi LeForge, handsome and whipsmart engineer on the NC-07 Enterprise who was always able to fix all the crap everybody else broke (looking at you, Wesley). So a t-shirt for banned books week featuring him??? I couldn’t enter my credit card details fast enough.
4
SHORT STORY
“Little Free Library”
This story by Naomi Kritzer is an oldie but a goodie. It’s on my top 10 favorites of all time and has basically everything: a little bit of mystery, a little bit of disbelief, and a whole lotta books.
5
TAKE ACTION
Let Freedom Read Day
Tomorrow, October 7, is Let Freedom Read Day, part of Banned Books week. The purpose of it is to encourage everyone to show support for banned books, whether that’s writing a quick email to your school library board, checking out a banned book, or something more longterm like volunteering with your local library.
As I’m sure you already know, many of the books being banned are about LGBTQ+ or BIPOC characters, two categories I try to support here. My action for today? Donating to the ALA and checking out Genderqueer, whose author, Maia Kobebe, had a particularly insightful response to the bans.