Editorial Content for My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
From her earliest days, Sarah Moss was admonished to be extremely careful about what she ate, to be overly concerned about her physical appearance, and to equate self-control and abstention with health and well-being. Even as a young girl, her weight and measurements were noted, commented on and judged by her parents. This fixation on size and shape --- and their supposed correlation to obedience, goodness, beauty and worth --- resulted in, as could be expected, lifelong disordered eating. Read More
Teaser
A girl must watch her figure but never be vain. She must be intelligent but never a know-it-all. She must be ambitious, if she is clever, but not in a way that shows. She must cook and sew and make do and mend. She must know (but never say) that these skills are, in some fundamental way, flawed and frivolous --- feminine. Girls must stay small, even as they grow. Women must show restraint. And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free. Here, with MY GOOD BRIGHT WOLF, Sarah Moss takes on these rules, these lessons from the fables of girlhood, and uses them to fearlessly investigate the nature of memory, the lure of self-control, the impact of privilege, scarcity, parents and love.
Promo
A girl must watch her figure but never be vain. She must be intelligent but never a know-it-all. She must be ambitious, if she is clever, but not in a way that shows. She must cook and sew and make do and mend. She must know (but never say) that these skills are, in some fundamental way, flawed and frivolous --- feminine. Girls must stay small, even as they grow. Women must show restraint. And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free. Here, with MY GOOD BRIGHT WOLF, Sarah Moss takes on these rules, these lessons from the fables of girlhood, and uses them to fearlessly investigate the nature of memory, the lure of self-control, the impact of privilege, scarcity, parents and love.
About the Book
From the acclaimed author of GHOST WALL, SUMMERWATER and THE FELL, Sarah Moss’ MY GOOD BRIGHT WOLF is an unflinching memoir about childhood, food, books, and our ability to see, become and protect ourselves.
A girl must watch her figure but never be vain. She must be intelligent but never a know-it-all. She must be ambitious, if she is clever, but not in a way that shows. She must cook and sew and make do and mend. She must know (but never say) that these skills are, in some fundamental way, flawed and frivolous --- feminine. Girls must stay small, even as they grow. Women must show restraint.
And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free.
Here, with MY GOOD BRIGHT WOLF, Sarah Moss takes on these rules, these lessons from the fables of girlhood, and uses them to fearlessly investigate the nature of memory, the lure of self-control, the impact of privilege, scarcity, parents and love. Through narratives of women and food, second-wave feminism and postwar puritanism, and her own challenges with a health care system that discounts the experiences of those it ought to serve, Moss seeks truth in the stories we tell ourselves and others. Harm can become power. Attention can become care. A body and a mind, though working hard together, can be at odds.
And yet. In books, in the landscape of imagination, a girl can run free.
Beautiful and sharp, moving and unapologetic, erudite and very funny, MY GOOD BRIGHT WOLF is a memoir that breaks the rules.
Audiobook available, read by Morven Christie
Editorial Content for This Girl's a Killer
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Cordelia Black is nothing if not under control. She has a successful career as a pharmaceutical sales rep, a killer designer wardrobe (including a variety of designer stilettos), and flawless hair and makeup. She’s also an exemplary friend to her long-time bestie, Diane, and a great godmother to Diane’s daughter, Samantha (known to Cordelia as Sugar). Read More
Teaser
Cordelia Black loves exactly three things: her chosen family, her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip) and killing bad men. By day, she's an ambitious pharma rep with a flawless reputation and designer wardrobe. By night, she culls South Louisiana of unscrupulous men --- monsters who think they've evaded justice, until they meet her. But when the evening news starts throwing around the term "serial killer" and her best friend starts dating a man who just might unravel everything Cordelia has worked for, she must come face to face with the choices she's made. The good, the bad and the murderous. Her family and her freedom depend on it.
Promo
Cordelia Black loves exactly three things: her chosen family, her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip) and killing bad men. By day, she's an ambitious pharma rep with a flawless reputation and designer wardrobe. By night, she culls South Louisiana of unscrupulous men --- monsters who think they've evaded justice, until they meet her. But when the evening news starts throwing around the term "serial killer" and her best friend starts dating a man who just might unravel everything Cordelia has worked for, she must come face to face with the choices she's made. The good, the bad and the murderous. Her family and her freedom depend on it.
About the Book
For readers of FINLAY DONOVAN IS KILLING IT and THE BANDIT QUEENS comes a bright and biting thriller following Cordelia Black, a best friend, a businesswoman and, in her spare time, a killer of bad men.
Ask Cordelia Black why she did it. The answer will always be: He had it coming.
Cordelia Black loves exactly three things: her chosen family, her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip) and killing bad men.
By day, she's an ambitious pharma rep with a flawless reputation and designer wardrobe. By night, she culls South Louisiana of unscrupulous men --- monsters who think they've evaded justice, until they meet her. Sure, the evening news may have started throwing around phrases like "serial killer," but Cordelia knows that's absurd. She's not a killer, she's simply karma. And being karma requires complete and utter control.
But when Cordelia discovers a flaw in her perfectly designed system for eliminating monsters, pressure heightens. And it only intensifies when her best friend starts dating a man Cordelia isn't sure is a good person. Someone who just might unravel everything she has worked for.
Soon enough, Cordelia has to come face to face with the choices she's made. The good, the bad and the murderous. Her family and her freedom depend on it.
Audiobook available, read by Stefanie Kay
Editorial Content for Masquerade
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
You may have trouble deciding which genre you would assign to Mike Fu’s MASQUERADE, which is what makes “mystery” perhaps too good of a fit. But it does not deserve to fade away with the hordes of mystery novels and series of unorthodox detectives, the recently heartbroken or people in grief, whose cracks at forgotten murders or disappearances finally unearth some secrets. Read More
Teaser
Newly single Meadow Liu is house-sitting for his friend, artist Selma Shimizu, when he stumbles upon The Masquerade, a translated novel about a masked ball in 1930s Shanghai. The author’s name is the same as Meadow’s own in Chinese, Liu Tian --- a coincidence that proves to be the first of many strange happenings. Over the course of a single summer, Meadow must contend with a possibly haunted apartment, a mirror that plays tricks and a stranger speaking in riddles at the bar where he works, as well as a startling revelation about a former lover. And when Selma vanishes from her artist residency, Meadow is forced to question everything he knows as the boundaries between real and imagined begin to blur.
Promo
Newly single Meadow Liu is house-sitting for his friend, artist Selma Shimizu, when he stumbles upon The Masquerade, a translated novel about a masked ball in 1930s Shanghai. The author’s name is the same as Meadow’s own in Chinese, Liu Tian --- a coincidence that proves to be the first of many strange happenings. Over the course of a single summer, Meadow must contend with a possibly haunted apartment, a mirror that plays tricks and a stranger speaking in riddles at the bar where he works, as well as a startling revelation about a former lover. And when Selma vanishes from her artist residency, Meadow is forced to question everything he knows as the boundaries between real and imagined begin to blur.
About the Book
Newly single Meadow Liu is house-sitting for his friend, artist Selma Shimizu, when he stumbles upon The Masquerade, a translated novel about a masked ball in 1930s Shanghai. The author’s name is the same as Meadow’s own in Chinese, Liu Tian --- a coincidence that proves to be the first of many strange happenings.
Over the course of a single summer, Meadow must contend with a possibly haunted apartment, a mirror that plays tricks and a stranger speaking in riddles at the bar where he works, as well as a startling revelation about a former lover. And when Selma vanishes from her artist residency, Meadow is forced to question everything he knows as the boundaries between real and imagined begin to blur.
Exploring social, cultural, and sexual identities in New York, Shanghai and beyond, Mike Fu’s MASQUERADE is a skillfully layered, brilliantly interwoven debut novel of friendship, queer longing and worlds on the brink, asking how we can find ourselves among ghosts of all kinds, and who we can trust when nothing --- and no one --- is as it seems.
November 1, 2024
Long-time readers know that this is my favorite weekend of the year. Why? Because we will get an extra hour to do with it what we want --- the hour that we lost back in March. And I have so many ways to spend this hour. Yes, I know that it will be dark earlier in the evening, and the shorter days of daylight are on the horizon. But for this weekend, there will be 60 minutes that I did not have since this weekend last year.
Barnes & Noble has announced the 13 finalists for their 2024 Book of the Year. Which of these books, if any, would you pick as the B&N Book of the Year? Please check all that apply.
November 1, 2024, 593 voters