Hello. So much has changed in the two weeks since I last let my thoughts fly about how Covid-19 would be affecting us. For example, the store is now closed. We are still selling things online, though. Which has been super duper helpful in this time. Also! It will probably be something that we try to keep up with as time goes on! I’m learning that our little store is beloved by so much more than our community. In fact, most of my sales lately are going to people who live on either coast. Who knew?? I’m so pleasantly surprised.

Since closing the store, honestly… my stress levels have lowered significantly. It feels kind of backwards, right? Like, I should be more stressed out. But the constant wondering if I was putting my customers and everyone they love at risk by remaining open was keeping me up at night and tying my tummy up in knots. When the stay home order came down from our Governor I was upset for a few days feeling like, “Oh no! We’re going to lose everything! What will our days even look like?!” But after having lived a few of those days… it’s not so bad. I’m living it. It’s working. And I’m feeling very whatever will be will be. There’s nothing like encountering a global pandemic to really loosen your grip on control. Anyway, with all that said–here’s everything that I read in March. As always, all book links go to Libro.fm to the audiobook version. Buying books from Libro.fm helps support Twice Told Tales just as if you were buying from us in store!

If you read my last post, you’ll remember that I’ve been having trouble finding books that I’m LOVING lately. And this first book was no exception. I finished it because I kept hoping that it would redeem itself but I did not enjoy it. It’s called Separation Anxiety by Laura Zigman. I kept waiting for this main character to realize how maddeningly self-absorbed she was but apparently the author, nor anyone on her editorial team seemed to recognize it as her problem to be solved. SORRY! But I just really, really, really did not like it.
I gave this book 2 stars and I’m not sure I’ve ever done that before.

Five big fat juicy stars to Cameron Esposito for her memoir, Save Yourself. I related to this book so much. And I love Cameron Esposito’s comedy–I knew that her book would be incredible. It’s very funny and it’s full of so much heart. It deals with really painful stuff like religious trauma, sexual assault, body issues, eating disorders, and micro (and macro) aggressions that she’s suffered as a gay woman in the world and in the world of comedy. She deals with hard topics with so much sensitivity–but not in a way that makes you feel like this person is going out of their way to show off their wokeness (which–you know it when you see it) but in a way that is absolutely reasonable and is full of compassion. I loved this. I want her to write another one starting yesterday. I’ll buy everything Cameron Esposito writes forever amen.

I picked up Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore because I was just dying for a new audiobook and I wanted something with some substance. When I started this book, Covid-19 seemed very far away and something to be aware of but not something that would be much of an issue. By the end, our shop was closed and we haven’t touched a friend in weeks. So, like, there was a lot going on. And this book is… heavy. If I would have read it at any other time in life, I probably would have devoured it and loved every minute of it. But as it was, I just wanted it to be over so that I could get my brain into a happier space.
This author does an incredible job at writing characters and really sinking you down into a place. The majority of this book takes place in the heat of a Texas summer and boy do you feel it–the desperation, the sweat, the thirst. I’m going to recommend reading this one in the middle of a winter. So, with all that in mind, I did give the book four stars even though I kind of was not feeling it by the end. Also, I did not enjoy the narrator. I’d recommend picking up the physical copy of this one.

Since I was in desperate need of total fluff and predictability, I grabbed, Not The Girl You Marry by Andie J Christopher. This book was an absolute retelling of How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days. It was exactly what I wanted: fun, trauma-free, drama-filled, raunchy and absolutely, completely predictable. No surprises. I gave it four stars. It would have been five stars but there were some annoying writerly things like using a clever and unusual turn of phrase… and then using it again, another time or two in the same chapter? But that’s just me.

Currently:

I just started a new book called In Five Years by Rebecca Serle. I’m not far into it but it’s giving me Oona Out of Order and What Alice Forgot vibes. I’m excited to let you know if I was accurate about that.

The Body is Not an Apology is a book that we’re reading for a virtual book club for the Empowerment Studio Patreon community! Only $1/ mo gets you in!

What are you reading? What have you loved reading lately?

As a bookstore owner, these days, my relationship to my personal bookshelf has changed. Years ago, I would go to bookstores every chance I get. I’d browse and pluck things off the shelves–a sucker for an exceptionally beautiful cover. Or I’d hold close to my chest a book that I exceptionally loved at one point in my life.

I remember visiting a bookstore in Jackson, Mississippi and tears flooding my eyes as I saw their Flannery O’Connor section. So many different beautiful editions of A Good Man is Hard to Find. Sidenote: I’ve been low-key contemplating getting the illustration of the 1955 cover as a tattoo for several years, now.

I would buy all of these books that I could. I’d keep a running list in my head of all the books I wanted to have and I would buy every single on that I would come across. For some reason, once they were on my shelf I would immediately lose the whole need to read the book right away. I think, as it turns out, I wanted a large collection of books. I wanted to be surrounded by books. I wanted to read these books, too. But once I have them, then the pressure to get them read is gone. I could read them whenever I wanted to! So… I kinda never did. I mean, I read a lot of them but my point is that before I owned the bookstore, the acquiring of hundreds of books was my greatest priority.

But something definitely shifted when I took over the store. Now, my need to be surrounded by books is totally fulfilled at work. I’ve gone through my shelf at home and donated a good 75% of my personal book collection to the store. Some of them are still here. I’m looking at my own copy of Ethan Hawke’s Ash Wednesday right now. Honestly, it’s been on the shelf long enough that I should have moved it to the clearance table by now but the cover makes me feel so happy that I’m not sure I’ll ever do it. If you want to buy it, you certainly may. But you’ll have to do so at full price just because of my own personal stubbornness.

I don’t really buy books anymore. I belong to the Book of The Month Club (if you want to sign up, here’s my referral link) because I love to keep up with new releases and then when I’m done with them, I donate them to the store. The only way I get my books otherwise is if I get them through Libro.fm–an audiobook service that helps to support local bookstores or if they show up at the store (so if you want to support my bookstore with your audiobook listening, feel free to check it all out here). As a rule, I try to only read paper books that I’ll be selling at the store–it’s the only way that I’m able to recommend things that I have actually read. And with 12,000+ books in the store… I mean, I can only read so much.

But listen. I still love a bookstore. I still go to bookstores every chance I get. I browse and pluck things off the shelves–still, a sucker for an exceptionally beautiful cover. And I hold close to my chest a book that I exceptionally loved at one point in my life.

This weekend, we went out of town for a few days. On Sunday we went on a bookstore crawl of sorts. There were a few books that I wanted to buy for my own personal bookshelf. And I did! I added to my own bookshelf for the first time in a long time! Here’s a list of the books I bought and how I decide what goes home with me:

The Dutch House by Ann Patchet: I listened to this on Libro.Fm. It is narrated by Tom Hanks. I mean… ugh. It was so good. And now, when I’m reading a book and having trouble following along, I read it to myself in Tom Hanks’ voice and it helps get me refocused. So, The Dutch House was an incredible, epic, family love story. It’s exactly my ideal kind of book and on top of that, the cover is flipping gorgeous. I don’t know why I just gave you a look at the spine. Anyway–this book meant so much to me and the cover is so gorgeous that I just had to have it on my own shelf. Also, I wanted to spend some money at Strange Tides–a new bookshop in Wichita. So, obviously, this was the perfect combination. Support businesses that you’re psyched about, friends.

In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado: This book was released waaaay back in December and I’ve wanted to read it every day since that happened. But I’ve kept myself from it and the reason for that is twofold: (1) it hasn’t been sold in any space that is conveniently accessible to me and I’m working really hard at eliminating Amazon from my life–especially when it comes to books. (2) I’ve read enough Carmen Maria Machado that I know that I’m going to want to read her words with my eyeballs. I bought it on Libro.fm but I just haven’t been able to listen just because I know that I love to savor the words of Ms. Machado.I’ve heard the audiobook does her poetic, brilliant voice right.But I still… I just know what I need and I need to sit in a sunbeam and read this book with my hands and eyes and mind all engaged together. And with a pencil in hand. I need to underline and make notes. That’s the kind of engaged reader I am when I love something this much. I love Carmen Maria Machado this much. Because of the underlining and the notes I know I will make in this book, it won’t be sold at the store. It’s going to live on my bookshelf.

Not the Girl You Marry by Andie J. Christopher: So, contemporary romance is having a renaissance and it has definitely become a part of my self-care routine. Honestly, I’m as surprised as anyone. I was an literature major for crying out loud! I’m a snob. I love Flannery O’Connor and Virginia Woolf and big fat books that won the Pulitzer and are gonna make you probably a little bit sad. I loved Fates and Furies even though everyone else thought it was too literary and pretentious. I love a pretentious book. But contemporary romance is the perfect pallet cleanser. It’s predictable. It’s usually funny. It’s relatable. And I’m glad that it’s coming around! We don’t get much of it in at my store, though, so I have to buy my own–which I then donate to the store so that I can sell someone else on the idea that contemporary romance is a perfectly delightful genre. It is! It’s good for us all, I think. Also, I can’t listen to these books on audio. They make me blush too much. Maybe one day, I’ll devote a whole post to how much I love romance.

How do you decide which books come home with you? How do you decide which books you’re ready to part with?