Episode 901: #BookTok

logo for RWL episode 901

Thank you for joining us again on our book group and Reader’s advisory podcast! 

It’s the 9th Season of this podcast and we’re SO ready to continue sharing books and genre information with you. 

Our organization is the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we work with all types of libraries. Schools, public, academic, history centers, and more! We are here to support you and to bring you new knowledge to inform your library work. 

This season we continue to explore a wide variety of book genres and topics so you can expand your reading horizons, and share more information with your library community. We are looking at the prompt from the 2022 PopSugar reading challenge this season. You can read along with their challenge, linked in our show notes, or just enjoy some different books. 

For the first episode of this season, we’re again visiting the world of BookTok to get reading recommendations! If you missed our earlier episode where we give a background explanation on the popularity of BookTok, you can catch up here (link on our shownotes page). 

Beverages:

But first! 

This is, of course, a book group. And every book group needs to have beverages, so you really get the feel for your reading! 

Today our beverages are from an article about the best fall cocktails according to TikTok, and we’ll link to the article from our shownotes page so you can see the pretty photos and try out all the recipes yourself! 

Spiced Rum Caramel Coco

A drink and dessert all rolled into one? Sign us right up. This quick, easy hot chocolate is packed with spiced flavor and fall deliciousness. Adding caramel corn on top makes it the go-to guilty pleasure of the season

  • 15 ml carmel syrup
  • 25 ml spiced rum
  • 150ml hot chocolate
  • Shake well
  • Pour over ice
  • Add caramel corn on top!

Pear Drop

We live for a refreshingly fruity, yet light cocktail. If that’s also your jam, try this lovely pear drop. It features banana liqueur and bitters, surprisingly—but it adds an unexpectedly enjoyable flavor you can’t find anywhere else

  • Ice cubes
  • ¾ part Absolut Pear
  • ½ part lemon juice
  • ¼ part simple syrup
  • 1 slice pear
  • Put ingredients in shaker, shake well, strain into glass and garnish with pear slice

Genre Discussion:

We’ll go over the basics, as explained in this article from Refinery 29: 

“If you were starting to think that social media was filled purely with angry people shouting at one another for no reason, you wouldn’t exactly be wrong. But thankfully, in the depths of TikTok, there is a wholesome place reigniting faith in the internet. The name of this magical world? BookTok. A sanctuary for literature lovers of all kinds, the #booktok tag currently has over 39.2 billion views as creators discuss their favourite reads through video reviews, recommendations and book nerd memes. 

Taking in dystopian franchises, romance novels and period adventure series, the video trends include creators discussing plot points and character developments and even calling out authors for misrepresenting minority groups.”

Some other trends include mashups, like what if Crazy Rich Asians took place at Hogwarts; outfits favorite fictional characters would wear; 

Another trend is making categories for recommendations: a book that made you gasp; a book you’ve always wanted to recommend but never got the chance; books you wish you could read for the first time again; books that took a piece of you that you’ll never get back, etc. 

Suggested Reading Resources:

Our Book Discussion

We have our beverages, we are familiar with this week’s genre, let’s get to the book discussion! We will give you a list of all the books we share today. You can click on any of these links to go to Amazon.com for more information. If you buy anything while you are there, Amazon will give us a small percent of their profits from your purchase. Thanks in advance for helping to support the mission of CMLE – we appreciate it! 

We’ve gathered such a variety of recs this week and we’re so excited to share them with you! If you have a favorite book you found on BookTok, definitely let us know about it! Email us admin @ cmle.org

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us – essay collection by Hanif Abdurraqib 
In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Abdurraqib’s is a voice that matters. Whether he’s attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown’s grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy and magnetism that resonates profoundly.

In the wake of the nightclub attacks in Paris, he recalls how he sought refuge as a teenager in music, at shows, and wonders whether the next generation of young Muslims will not be afforded that opportunity now. While discussing the everyday threat to the lives of Black Americans, Abdurraqib recounts the first time he was ordered to the ground by police officers: for attempting to enter his own car.

In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others—along with original, previously unreleased essays—Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world, so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times.

Well Matched by Jen DeLuca – third in the Ren Fair romance series

Single mother April Parker has lived in Willow Creek for twelve years with a wall around her heart. On the verge of being an empty nester, she’s decided to move on from her quaint little town, and asks her friend Mitch for his help with some home improvement projects to get her house ready to sell. 

Mitch Malone is known for being the life of every party, but mostly for the attire he wears to the local Renaissance Faire—a kilt (and not much else) that shows off his muscled form to perfection. While he agrees to help April, he needs a favor too: she’ll pretend to be his girlfriend at an upcoming family dinner, so that he can avoid the lectures about settling down and having a more “serious” career than high school coach and gym teacher. April reluctantly agrees, but when dinner turns into a weekend trip, it becomes hard to tell what’s real and what’s been just for show. But when the weekend ends, so must their fake relationship. 

As summer begins, Faire returns to Willow Creek, and April volunteers for the first time. When Mitch’s family shows up unexpectedly, April pretends to be Mitch’s girlfriend again…and it doesn’t feel so fake anymore. Despite their obvious connection, April insists they’ve just been putting on an act. But when there’s the chance for something real, she has to decide whether to change her plans—and open her heart—for the kilt-wearing hunk who might just be the love of her life.

Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe

In Savage Appetites,Rachel Monroe links four criminal roles—Detective, Victim, Defender, and Killer—to four true stories about women driven by obsession. From a frustrated and brilliant heiress crafting crime-scene dollhouses to a young woman who became part of a Manson victim’s family, from a landscape architect in love with a convicted murderer to a Columbine fangirl who planned her own mass shooting, these women are alternately mesmerizing, horrifying, and sympathetic. A revealing study of women’s complicated relationship with true crime and the fear and desire it can inspire, together these stories provide a window into why many women are drawn to crime narratives—even as they also recoil from them.

Monroe uses these four cases to trace the history of American crime through the growth of forensic science, the evolving role of victims, the Satanic Panic, the rise of online detectives, and the long shadow of the Columbine shooting. Combining personal narrative, reportage, and a sociological examination of violence and media in the 20th and 21st centuries, Savage Appetites is a “corrective to the genre it interrogates” (The New Statesman), scrupulously exploring empathy, justice, and the persistent appeal of crime.

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.

Until Frida has a very bad day.

The state has its eye on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.

An “intense” (Oprah Daily), “captivating” (Today) page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot #1) by Becky Chambers

In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Hugo Award-winner Becky Chambers’s delightful new Monk and Robot series gives us hope for the future.

It’s been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.

They’re going to need to ask it a lot.

Becky Chambers’s new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

Hakumei and Mikochi (Tiny Little Life in the Woods vol. 1) by Takuto Kashhiki – described as “cottagecore” and with many volumes and even an animated movie!

Manga

Deep within a lush, green forest live Hakumei and Mikochi. Making their home in trees, using leaves for umbrellas, and riding bugs for transportation is just part of everyday life for these tiny pals!

The Mountain is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage into Self Mastery by Brianna Wiest

Coexisting but conflicting needs create self-sabotaging behaviors. This is why we resist efforts to change, often until they feel completely futile. But by extracting crucial insight from our most damaging habits, building emotional intelligence by better understanding our brains and bodies, releasing past experiences at a cellular level, and learning to act as our highest potential future selves, we can step out of our own way and into our potential. For centuries, the mountain has been used as a metaphor for the big challenges we face, especially ones that seem impossible to overcome. To scale our mountains, we actually have to do the deep internal work of excavating trauma, building resilience, and adjusting how we show up for the climb. In the end, it is not the mountain we master, but ourselves.

The Post Mortal by Drew Magary

John Farrell is about to get “The Cure.”

Old age can never kill him now.

The only problem is, everything else still can . . .

Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and-after much political and moral debate-made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems-including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors. Witty, eerie, and full of humanity, The Postmortal is an unforgettable thriller that envisions a pre-apocalyptic world so real that it is completely terrifying.

Conclusion:

Thank you so much for joining us on Reading With Libraries! 

Join us next Thursday with another topic or genre and many more books to share and discuss. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss a single episode! And if you want to hear more about the work we do in libraries or expand your library skills, check out our podcast Linking Our Libraries!

Bring your book ideas, bring your beverages, and join us back here on Thursday!