Review: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At this point, the last book.in the Wayfarers series, if you know, you know. Nothing much happens, just a handful of aliens trapped for a few days on a boring planet that's mostly a galactic gas station, and the friends (and children) they made along the way.

There is this one section where the (all non-human) characters discuss humans and their weird obsession with cheese, and how it's made, and how they eat it, it is hilarious.

I'm looking forward to what Becky Chambers does next but I'll be sad to never visit her creative, found-families, literal universe again.

I had a copy of this from the publisher through Edelweiss and NetGalley (love her so much, requested it twice, whoops) - it came out in the United States on April 20, 2021.

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Review: Brood

Brood by Jackie Polzin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

CW: Before the book begins, the narrator had a miscarriage, and it doesn't get mentioned right away so I don't want anyone to be surprised. (I knew from other discussion I'd seen.)

Small, internal, pondering books are my salvation in the last year.

This one reads like lyric essay or memoir, like Annie Dillard. It combines observation and real life with a few memorable characters, and like Moby Dick (facts about whales!) it is about chickens, but it also isn't.

I felt the weird sense of disconnect to humans and clinging to these chickens as something that makes sense, a weird sense of surreality in trying to make sense of what life will be now, what does living mean, a deep unknowing of the self (but wanting to.) Sometimes connecting to chickens is the one thing you have, so then what happens if they don't survive? The author uses the word brood about her chickens, her absent child, but also I think the way we use that word to mean agonizing contemplation - or as Google wants to define it, "to think deeply about something that makes one unhappy."

This won't be for everyone, but it was for me.

I had a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley; it came out March 9th.

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Review: The Survivors

The Survivors by Jane Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A standalone from Australian crime writer Jane Harper, set in a coastal small town in Tasmania with a history of loss, and then a young woman dies mysteriously and old grudges come to the surface.

One thing I continue to appreciate and enjoy in Harper's writing is the importance of the landscape. Previously that has been the sparse, dry climates; this is a cold weather island, specifically on the coast where there are caves that are underwater only during high tide. What a perfect place to be full of danger and foreboding! I wish I could go there.

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Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I remember going to an author talk with V.E. Schwab before her book came out, early on in the pandemic where author talks were just starting to move online. I was intrigued by her passion for the novel and how much of herself she had poured into it. And now I finally read it!

There are two books that feel similar to me - the concepts and storyline are not the same but something about the tone and feeling I get as a reader are a good match. One is The Time Traveler's Wife and the other is The Ten Thousand Doors of January. You have a woman navigating the world in an unusual way, never being fully understood, trading off mundane life for this other way....

In Addie LaRue, she flees her wedding in the early 1700s and strikes up a bargain not to live a normal life. Everything that comes after is really something to experience as a reader.

True to form, I had a copy of this from the publisher through NetGalley but it came out back on October 6th and I'm just reading it now!

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Jenny's Books Added April and May 2015

Somehow I forgot to do this in April but here I am, talking about the books I've added in April and May.

• The Wilds : Stories by Julia Elliott
• Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile
• Serpent in Paradise by Dia Birkett
• The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne
• Minnow by James E. McTeer II
• The Wet Collection: A Field Guide to Iridescence and Memory by Joni Tevis
• The World Is on Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of Apocalypse by Joni Tevis
• Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League by Jonathan Odell
• Bake Happy: 100 Playful Desserts by Judith Fertig
• The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May by Mark Z. Danielewski
• Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
• Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy
• Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Elliott, Baszile, McTeer, Odell, and Joy are purchased and signed during the SC Book Festival. I should probably still post about that day.

When I went to Powells in March, I bought two books - the Byrne and the Birkett. The Birkett is for my Oceania reading project and the Byrne I always intended to buy. After I bought it I found out that my review is quoted inside.

The two Tevis books are books I'd read already but wanted to own, and I went to her signing last month.  This is the same Joni Tevis from the podcast, episode 029.

I got the Laura Ingalls Wilder book as a gift from my step-mother-in-law. She had intended to get it for me for Christmas but the first print run sold out and it was hard to find for a while. It is gorgeous and I'm looking forward to reading it, because Little House on the Prairie was a major part of my chidhood.

The Danielewski and Stephenson were purchased on the same day; I'm currently 200 pages into the Danielewski.  Another gorgeous, beautiful book. I've heard the audio makes for an immersive experience along with the print, so I need to check it out.

The cookbook was sent to me because of my JennyBakes blog presence.

I also went on a few galley/ARC request sprees after finishing most of what I had previously been approved to review. There are a lot of great books coming out in the next year and I always appreciate the opportunity to read them early.

• The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler (Netgalley)
• The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald (Netgalley)
• Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal(Netgalley)
• Music for Wartime: Stories by Rebecca Makkai (Netgalley)
• Dark Wine by Beth Tashery Shannon (Netgalley)
• The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson (NetGalley)
• Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen (NetGalley)
• Words Without Music: A Memoir by Philip Glass(Edelweiss)
• The New and Improved Romie Futch by Julia Elliott (Edelweiss)
• The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth) by N.K. Jemisin (Edelweiss)
• Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: A Memoir of Humor and Healing by Reba Riley (Edelweiss)
• We Dream of Water by Srdjan Smajić (Edelweiss)
• Sea Lovers: Selected Stories by Valerie Martin (Edelweiss)
• You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir by Felicia Day (Edelweiss)
• Fates and Furies by Lauren Goff (Edelweiss)
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (Edelweiss)
• Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1950-2013 by Lawrence Ferlinghett (Edelweiss)
• Insomnia: Poems by Linda Pastan (Edelweiss)
• Bream Gives Me Hiccups by Jesse Eisenberg (Edelweiss)
• Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda (Edelweiss)
• The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman (Edelweiss)
• Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books by Cara Nicoletti (Edelweiss)
• The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr (Edelweiss)

I have some reading to do! I won't comment on all of these but I will point out that I met Julia Elliott at the SC Book Festival, so she is on this post twice! I used to work with Srdjan Smajić , and this is his first novel, published by Underland Press and mentioned in Episode 21 of the Reading Envy podcast. Three of the books - Karr, Pastan, and Jemisin - are by authors I have read before. One of my work-related reading goals this summer is to read about creativity, and the Gilbert is coming along just in time.

Jenny's Books Added January 2014

This has been a great book month, with quite a few titles coming in the mail and another full set in electronic format, most of those titles for review.  But they count because I have access to them and I may read them.  So I'll do this in two chunks. First, the physical items! 

Justine by Lawrence Durrell (audiobook)
Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell (audiobook)
Clea by Lawrence Durrell (audiobook)
The Sharpshooter Blues by Lewis Nordan
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Growing Up in New Guinea by Margaret Mead
The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson

Justine, Balthazar, and Clea are three books out of four of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell.  I actually think this may be the fourth copy of Justine to come into my house, but I've never tried listening to them in audio.  I'm missing one and it might be coming in a separate box. I love the covers on these, black and white photos. I've never made it past the second book, more because I was savoring them than I couldn't read them. I'm hoping they are fantastic in audio!  I did get these from Brilliance Audio to review, just full disclosure.

The Mead and the Jones are for my Oceania reading project. The Nordan is for my southern book group and Wilson is a book club pick for the ACRL Conference I'll be attending in March.  G. Willow Wilson is one of our keynote speakers and I'm looking forward to that! I need to track down copies of her Marvel comics and Alif the Unseen, a book I loved but had read from the library.

One of the great perks of being both a librarian and a blogger/podcaster is that publishers are interested in sending you review copies of books.   After the initial understandable reaction of READING ALL THE THINGS, I now only request books I have a specific interest in.  Apparently this month that has been quite a few titles. I use both NetGalley and Edelweiss.

Digital review copies:



At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen (NetGalley)
The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig (NetGalley)
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (Edelweiss)
The Glittering World by Robert Levy (NetGalley)
Our Only World: Eleven Essays by Wendell Berry
Words Without Music: A Memoir by Philip Glass


I do have reasons for requesting all of these! The Gruen? Cold weather island. The Haig? New post-apocalyptic series. The Atkinson? Follow-up to the very intriguing, very successful Life After Life. The Levy? Dark fantasy that I may or may not connect with considering who they claim it is similar to (Gaiman, Mott, etc.) The Berry? I need to read more of him and I've only read fiction. Glass? Only one of the most interesting living composers of our time. Can't wait!