There is so much warmth, hope, and humanity between the covers of this book. Make yourself a cup of tea and settle in.
Worth every cent. Learn to love your local Farmers Markets (we have quite a few in Seattle, including one right outside our door every Sunday at Lake Forest Park from May through October). Find what's in season, and make some of the best beets of your life. While not a 100% plant-based cookbook, Oregon restaurateur Joshua McFadden will fundamentally change the way you cook with vegetables.
There's no better bible for Gluten-Free baking. Seattle's own Aran Goyoaga is a not-so-hidden treasure for those with Celiac, and her books make a perfect gift for your allergy-conscious baker. This new baking companion to Aran's 2019 cookbook Canelle et Vanille covers breads, classic holiday recipes, pies, unbelievable tarts, and more.
I can't believe this has been out since 2006 and I haven't read it until NOW. This is about a group of scrappy orphans living in the island city of Camorr (roughly based on 1700's Venice, but you know, with mysterious alien architecture left behind that nobody knows the history of, and alchemy, lots of alchemy) who, through luck and happenstance, are plucked off the streets and then trained up into an elite team of thieves so that they can rob the rich and... continue robbing the rich. There are HEISTS, there are FRAUDS, there are WOMEN GLADIATORS WHO FIGHT SHARKS WITH HATCHETS WHILE STANDING ON TINY PLATFORMS IN THE WATER.
One of my favorite hidden gems. Martin Riker—the co-publisher of Dorothy, A Publishing Project—pens a novel that spans decades of life both remarkable and comically dull. After Samuel Johnson dies, he finds himself in a liminal state, his soul jumping from body to living body in earthbound purgatory, in search of his son and the meaning behind our quiet lives.
This is a super user-friendly cookbook, but more importantly to me - it's got a user-friendly recipe for xiao long bao. That's right baby, we're talking about dumplings filled with soup. The warmest, coziest, savoriest, most wholesome meal I can fathom. I defy you to make a cozier dish than this.
Agustín Fernández Mallo's magnum opus is a monstrous book that reaches out and touches everything—love and sentimentalism, war, our pitiful human intelligence, moon landings, physics and dead stars, car chases, Facebook, rooftop tomato gardens—yet is somehow still accessible in Thomas Bunstead's elegant translation. You can't walk away from this novel without feeling brutally changed. There are one-liners that will digest you whole. After 600 pages, you'll realize you've been standing next to a mountain. For readers of W.G. Sebald and Daša Drndić.
Upon finishing this book I wept inconsolably. Marra has woven together this collection of short stories into a tender and heart-wrenching story that has an irrevocably haunting (in the best way) impact on me.
The Wayward Children series is dark, gruesome, twisty, fourth-wall-breaking magical fun. And it's easily my new favorite portal magic series. I usually can't stomach anything gruesome--however, reimagined fairy tales are my trope kryptonite. The prose is so crisp. The world building is creative, clever, and cruel. Strangely, this book is the evil mirror twin of TJ Klune's House in the Cerulean Sea: the children of the story are exactly as eager to find their own safe harbors, all those places known as "home".
Tamsyn Muir has an uncanny ability to write sci-fi / fantasy that is both gut wrenchingly funny and just masterfully, painstakingly plotted. If you're into big picture sci-fi like Dune or Saga but also have an appreciation for eldritch monsters and body horror à la Resident Evil, please treat yourself to this incredible series.
