Book Alchemy, Vol. 01
A little alchemical experiment in book recommendations, plus a roundup of links and sundries from the week.
I’ve been wanting to do a little “if you liked this, read that” type of book recommendation post for a while, but I wanted it to have a bit more of a twist. Then this idea popped into my head, and lo and behold, here we are!
If you loved Daisy Jones & the Six, were a little disappointed by Normal People, and always add a Fleetwood Mac song to every playlist, try…
Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
It’s a Friday night in a campus bar in Berkeley, fall of 2000, and Percy Marks is pontificating about music again. Hall and Oates is on the jukebox, and Percy—who has no talent for music, just lots of opinions about it—can’t stop herself from overanalyzing the song, indulging what she knows to be her most annoying habit. But something is different tonight. The guy beside her at the bar, fellow student Joe Morrow, is a songwriter. And he could listen to Percy talk all night.
Joe asks Percy for feedback on one of his songs—and the results kick off a partnership that will span years, ignite new passions in them both, and crush their egos again and again. Is their collaboration worth its cost? Or is it holding Percy back from finding her own voice?
If you felt The Secret History could have used a bit more magical realism (a la Ninth House) and you own more than one pair of loafers, try…
Katabasis by R. F. Kuang
Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.
Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.
If you distinctly remember getting your heart broken in high school by The Fault in Our Stars and loved the vintage campus love triangle vibes of The Marriage Plot, try…
Heart the Lover by Lily King
In the fall of her senior year of college, our narrator meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class: Sam and Yash. The boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter, and raucous card games. They nickname her Jordan, and she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship, love and her own intellectual ambition. Youthful passion is unpredictable though, and she soon finds herself at the center of a charged and intricate triangle. As graduation comes and goes, choices made will alter these three lives forever.
Decades later, Jordan is living the life she dreamed of, and the vulnerable days of her youth seem comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news brings the past crashing into the present, Jordan returns to a world she left behind and is forced to confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self.
(I read this over the weekend and it was so beautiful and heartbreaking and just… WOW).
If you’re looking for the coziness of Practical Magic mixed with the “getting her magical powers back” concept of Rewitched, with just a touch of Gilmore Girls, try…
A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna
Sera Swan was one of the most powerful witches in Britain, until she cast a forbidden resurrection spell to bring her Great-Aunt Jasmine back to life, was exiled from the Guild, and lost almost all her magic. Now, fifteen years later, at the age of 30, Sera has resigned herself to a life of managing Jasmine’s inn and the ragtag group of eccentrics that have accumulated there – a talking fox (who used to be a witch), an undead chicken, a self-proclaimed knight, and an elderly woman who seems determined to live her life as a hobbit.
When a hefty dose of meddling brings Guild historian Luke Larsen and his young sister to Sera’s inn, she learns that he might just have the knowledge she needs to cast a spell to get her magic back. But Luke wants nothing to do with helping her defy Albert Grey, the powerful and malevolent witch who rules the Guild with an iron fist. But the more time Luke spends among the impossibly strange group at the inn, the more he feels himself thawing. And before he knows it, he finds himself helping Sera reclaim her magic… and maybe starting to fall for her too.
If you liked the “is she turning into a dog or having a psychotic break?” dilemma of Nightbitch mixed with the witch trial vibes of Weyward, try…
The Hounding by Xenobe Purvis
Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbank to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before.
The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girl, they’ve always had plenty to say about them. As the rotating perspectives of five villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: Something isn’t right in Little Nettlebed, and the Mansfield girls will be the ones to pay for it.
It’s time for the annual Jezebel Scary Story Contest and the unsettling comments are already pouring in. I’ve been reading these every year for like a decade at least, it’s one of my favorite parts of October. You can go back and read all the past comments and winners too!
Elle Decor did a deep dive into the universally beloved Practical Magic house. Fun fact – while the story is set in Salem, MA, it was filmed primarily on Whidbey Island in Washington! I was there once for vacation and didn’t even know this until I left, so I was kicking myself. But the island is adorable and very charming, so it definitely fits!
I thoroughly enjoyed Hannah Connolly‘s review of The Life of a Showgirl. For the first time in nearly 20 years, I’m quite disappointed in a Taylor Swift album. The songs sound fun and are danceable, but the lyrics are really awful (in my own personal opinion). I liked Hannah’s nuanced take on the album, and how to consume things that you love critically.
Very obsessed with Elyse Chambers’s new wine based on her adorable bookstore, Wild Plum. As a packaging designer (and one who does a LOT of wine label design) I’m in love with these fun and colorful labels. Going to have to order some bottles to try out soon!
I’m really love Jenna O'Brien’s new Monday Letters series for Feeling! Magazine. This week’s roundup of colorful autumnal goodies is swoon-worthy!
I read this piece by Intelligencer about the AI startups that are prolific in the Bay Area and wow. I cringed a lot. It feels… bad. I really hope this AI stuff is a bubble and that it bursts soon, though the fallout of that will likely be pretty catastrophic.
I loved reading Susie | Since Tuesday’s interview with Maggie from Early Bird. I adore all of the “Thirties on Thursday” posts that Susie shares, as a woman who is finally learning to embrace being in my thirties instead of being scared of it (I know that sounds silly, but societal conditioning about aging as a woman runs DEEP).
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EEk thank you Lizzie!!
Saving for the future for sure - all the recs felt customized for me!