Yesterday was the 2023 Independent Bookstore Day, a.k.a. my Super Bowl. For the second year in a row, my partner and I visited a bunch of Brooklyn indie bookstores that participated in the Brooklyn Bookstore Crawl.
The Brooklyn Bookstore Crawl is held the week prior to Independent Bookstore Day (IBD) and has a “passport” you can pick up at any of the participating bookstores. If you visit at least 5 bookstores during the crawl, you receive a coupon for 25% off a single purchase at one store during the month of May! Obviously this is a big incentive beyond just buying books and supporting our local bookstores.
I think I did pretty well yesterday buying some books I have been eyeing and not going overboard. And I was particularly happy to support the bookstores on a rainy IBD, as the rain definitely resulted in a small turnout than last year. Without further ado, here are my purchases!
Bookish Goodies
Did I need any more tote bags? No. But that did not stop me from getting these two! The one on the right is the exclusive IBD 2023 tote and the other is from Cafe Con Libros. I love that they are both wide and on the larger side.
Books
Hestia Strikes a Match by Christine Grillo
Synopsis: Hestia Strikes a Match is the slyly funny story of a woman looking for love and friendship in the midst of a new American civil war. In the face of the everyday wildness of our times, it asks and answers that newly constant question: How do we make a full, wonderfully ordinary life when the whole mad world is clattering down around us?
Genre: Literary Fiction
The Lost Journals of Sacajewea by Debra Magpie Earling
Synopsis: From the award-winning author of Perma Red comes a devastatingly beautiful novel that challenges prevailing historical narratives of Sacajewea.
Genres: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Own Voices – Indigenous
Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream by Alissa Quart
I will be attending an event in May with the Alissa Quart and want to read this prior to it.
Synopsis: An unsparing, incisive, yet ultimately hopeful look at how we can shed the American obsession with self-reliance that has made us less healthy, less secure, and less fulfilled.
Genre: Nonfiction – Social Science
The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng
Synopsis: Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy’s unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country. An aching love story and powerful coming-of-age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity, The Great Reclamation confronts the wounds of progress, the sacrifices of love, and the difficulty of defining home.
Genres: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Coming of Age
VenCo by Cherie Dimaline
Synopsis: For fans of The Once and Future Witches and Practical Magic, comes an incredibly imaginative, highly anticipated new novel featuring witches, magic, and a road trip across America–from Cherie Dimaline, the critically acclaimed author of Empire of Wild.
Genres: Fantasy – Magical Realism, Horror, Own Voices – Indigenous
The Book of Goose by Yiyum Li
I am attending an event soon with Yiyum Li and want to read this before hand.
Synopsis: A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the postwar rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school to the quiet Pennsylvania home where a woman can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will.
Genres: Literary Fiction, Coming of Age
Ascension by Nicholas Binge
Synopsis: A mind-bending speculative thriller in which the sudden appearance of a mountain in the middle of the Pacific Ocean leads a group of scientists to a series of jaw-dropping revelations that challenge the notion of what it means to be human.
Genres: Literary Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller
Liar, Dreamer, Thief by Maria Dong
I sadly missed grabbing a copy of this book when the Aardvark copy dropped.
Synopsis: A young woman’s carefully constructed fantasy world implodes in this brilliantly conceived novel that blurs distinctions between right and wrong, comedy and tragedy, imagination and reality.
Genre: Thriller
Freebies
Other than a few bookmarks, I was able to grab a few advance reader’s copies of recent and upcoming titles stores had out for the taking.
The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts by Soraya Palmer
Synopsis: Folktales and spirits animate this lively and unforgettable coming-of-age tale of two Jamaican-Trinidadian sisters in Brooklyn grappling with their mother’s illness, their father’s infidelity, and the truth of their family’s past.
Publication Date: March 28, 2023
I Cannot Save You: A Memoir by Anthony Chin-Quee
Synopsis: The raw and gripping memoir of a Black physician who confronts his past mistakes and relationships as he learns to find his own path. By turns harrowing and hilarious, honest and human, I Can’t Save You is the fascinating true story of how looking within can change you and your life for the better.
Publication Date: April 4, 2023
Excavations by Hannah Michell
Synopsis: A former journalist turned stay-at-home mother ventures into the dark underbelly of Seoul, South Korea, to find her missing husband and protect her children in this gripping, page-turning exploration of the lengths one woman will go to unveil hard truths.
Publication Date: July 11, 2023
Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias
Synopsis: A lush and lyrical debut novel about a Costa Rican family wrestling with a deadly secret. In 1968, when a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family is changed forever.
Publication Date: September 19, 2023
Read Between the Spines 