Happy Tuesday, mis internet amigxs,

I wanted to begin this week's newsletter by highlighting a few action items you can take in the book community to help our friends in Minnesota.

#MeltIceBookStack Challenge on Instagram: Through the end of February, for every post of a “flame” stack of yellow/orange/red books using #MeltIceStack hashtag and tagging @readerbotdiaries, Lou will be donating $1 to the @womensfndnmn Immigrant Rapid Response Fund, up to $200. 30 other bookstagrammers have joined the cause, meaning that the first 200 posts will raise $3,900 for the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund. You have 4 weeks to join us and contribute your stack.

In addition, I created the flyer below and posted it across all my social media platforms supporting Stand With Minnesota a comprehensive list of mutual aid for Immigrants, legal defense funds, individuals and businesses whose lives and livelihoods have been interrupted by ICE in the Twin Cities. Please donate and share widely. This flyer is available for you to download and share on your socials. No need to credit me.

In case you’d just like to amplify my social media posts instead, you can find them on all my channels, particularly Instagram and Tik Tok.

In addition, Haymarket Books has 3 free ebooks for those that would like to learn about migrant justice and border abolition.

By now, you’ve probably seen the photo of 70-year old Greg Ketter, owner of Minneapolis bookstore DreamHaven Books and Comics, emerging from a cloud tear gas last week. This and his interview about ICE created such interest in the bookstore that the online site was down for days. This is your reminder that you can add many Twin City bookstores doing work on the ground as your supported bookstores on both LibroFM and Bookshop to help them through these difficult times in addition to buying gift cards or ordering books directly from their websites.

BIEN LEIDOS BOOK CLUB UPCOMING EVENTS

We have a number of events coming up in the next few weeks I wanted to remind you about (Events are available exclusively to Bindery subscribers, check out THIS POST for registration links) :

• We’re finishing up reading Orange Wine by Esperanza Hope Snyder for January and have 2 upcoming events:

  • Tomorrow, we’ll be doing an all day rolling spoilery chat to get all our thoughts about the book out in the open on Discord. If you’ve been wanting to chat Orange Wine, save the date!

  • On February 10th at 8PM EST, we’ll be chatting on Zoom with Esperanza!

• We're currently reading our February Book is Sparks Fly by Zakiya N. Jamal AND we’ll be continuing our nonfiction side quest reading of Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality by Tanya Kateri -Hernandez

• Our March-April nonfiction side quest book is Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer. I have opened up discussion early in case anyone wants to begin early, seeing as this is a very in-depth look at US immigration policy and the founding of ICE. Today, the publisher reached out and we’re planning some giveaways as well as other events you should stay tuned.

• We’re currently voting on April’s fiction pick and the Discord poll has landed us on fantasy and science fiction. I’ll be putting up options to vote on in Discord this week.

...and without further ado, this week's Latine releases...

New Latine Books

Young Adult

Carnival Fantastico by Angela Montoya (audiobook)

Few Blue Skies by Carolina Ixta (audiobook)

Translated Literary Fiction

Autobiography of Cotton: A Novel by Cristina Rivera Garza and translated by Christina MacSweeney (audiobook)

xoxo,

Carmen

Our February book is The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride! This won by a lot of votes, so hopefully we will finally have a winner this time haha. Looking forward to another great discussion!

Meeting will be on February 25th at 8pm EST.

https://meet.google.com/yts-vtpz-yeb

Link will be reshared closer to the meeting date.

I read 9 books in January, let’s talk about them! Starting with our bookclub picks

Thriller book picks:

1. Twenty Years Later by Charlie Donlea: 3⭐️ I have been absolutely loving Charlie Donlea lately and they have quickly become one of my new favorite thriller authors. This book is the most popular one of his and honesty I was quite disappointed! Not sure if it was the expectations going into it were too high? It had an interesting premise but I felt it to be a little long and dragged out. And I haven’t thought about this book a single time since I finished. Can’t remember any details honestly. I think there are far stronger books by this author. Let me know if you want a list and breakdown of which books I would recommend!

2. The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens: 4⭐️ another solid thriller read! This one actually really stood out to me and will be a thriller I recommend to many people in the future. I also listened to this one on audio and was very well done. It’s very rare I actually CARE about characters in suspense thrillers/horror books. But I loved the representation in this and how much love the brothers had for eachother. I was absolutely hooked from the very beginning and loved how it ended. It can be predictable but it’s still enjoyable nonetheless!

Fantasy pick: The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

Well… this is a SOFTTTTT dnf for me… so I heard the audiobook was amazing so I tried this on audio. Got to like 30% and realized I didn’t know what was happening what’s so ever 🤪I can see why people love the audiobook narrator. I can FEEL the passion and love the voice actor has for his job but I think for me it was too goofy?????? I can’t exactly pin point it because a part of me was having fun with it but the I realized I wasn’t following AT ALL!! So I think this is one I need to read physically. And I was planning on picking it up right away but then I got accepted to read an ARC on NetGalley that I’m VERY EXCITED ABOUT so I got a little distracted and started that instead. Oops. But I will be trying this out soon!!!

Other non book club reads

1. The Last Word by Taylor Adams: 3.5 ⭐️

2. Ruin by John Gwynne 4.75 ⭐️

3. Wrath by John Gwynne 4.75 ⭐️

4. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 4⭐️

5. It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica 3.5 ⭐️

6. The Surrogate Mother by Freida McFadden 3⭐️

7. Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden 3.5 ⭐️

Some reflecitons on my reading stats this month:

• I read waaaay more non-fiction than fiction, but I had a great reading month with a super high average rating, so that's fine with me.

• I do want to try to read more from around the world next month. This month was abysmal when it came to that type of diversity.
  

Favorite non-fiction book: "A Year with the Seals" by Alix Morris

Synopsis: In a world where wildlife populations are disappearing at an alarming rate, A Year with the Seals is a rare look at what happens when conservation efforts actually work, and how human tampering with ecosystems continues to have unexpected consequences for a wide variety of species, humans included. 

Review: This was such an enjoyable read. Every time I wasn’t reading it, I wanted to be reading it. I learned so much, especially about the cycle of human-animal relationships and how we impact the world around us (even when we’re trying to help).

Favorite fiction book: "On Sundays She Picked Flowers" by Yah-Yah Scholfield

Synopsis: When Judith Rice killed her mother, she thought she put an end to the woman's hold on her. Seventeen years later, secluded deep in the woods of northern Georgia, Jude knows that the past isn't all that easy to discard.


Alone with her strange house and even stranger woods, Jude must grapple with ghosts, haints, beasts, and an enigmatic woman who threatens to undo the tentative peace Jude's built for herself by fanning the violence that lives just underneath her skin.


Review: I couldn’t put this book down. The tension that started to build from page one was so marvelously done. My favorite part of this book was how it explored complex family relationships, generational trauma, and forgiveness. It was brutal, haunting, and hopeful.

At times the book felt like it was two separate books and stories put into one and I wish that the two stories ended up being a little more interconnected.

I can’t recommend this book enough though and thought it was a true stand-out in the horror genre. I can’t believe this is a debut.

Please check trigger warnings before reading this book. It had very dark and heavy themes.

What I’ve added to my TBR (to-be-read)

• "The Ocean Would Paint Me Blue" by Zoulfa Katouh: Look at this cover😍 A poignant novel about a Syrian American girl who uses a magical sketchbook to turn her grief into art, painting miraculous murals of her mother’s life in Syria.

• "Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence": The organizers, journalists, and scholars in these pages are charting a new path forward, employing creative tools to subvert the status quo, organize globally against high-tech border imperialism, and help us imagine a world without borders.

• "False Calm" by María Sonia Cristoff: Part reportage, part personal essay, part travelogue, False Calm is the breakout work by Argentinian author María Sonia Cristoff. Writing against romantic portrayals of Patagonia, Cristoff returns home to chronicle the ghost towns left behind by the oil boom.

• "Black Bear" by Trina Moyles: A dazzling memoir about one woman's coexistence with bears in the boreal forest and a singular meditation on sibling loss.

The day has finally come, my friends! It's time to populate our Cozy Quill/Traveling Tomes Newsletter with all our creative inspirations!

If you're like, "Meg, I have no idea what you're talking about", no worries. Here's a post I made previously to catch you up.

In short, we're producing a monthly newsletter this year to celebrate the Twig's Traveling Tomes release. It will be a scrapbook-style newsletter, filled with submissions from our paid Cozy Quill members. Each month, I'll pick a theme and provide some prompts. You'll then have an opportunity to submit up to five pieces. They can include photos, digital art, short pieces of writing, book recs, recipes, etc. Anything that feels in tone with the theme of that month.

Our February theme is: JOY AS RESISTANCE ✨. As we wade our way through this dark world, it's so important to fight for light. And that's what I want to focus on this season.

Feel free to share: 

• A small, joyful moment that felt like a quiet act of defiance.

• Something that made you laugh, smile, or sigh in relief this month.

• A comfort, ritual, or hobby that grounds you when life feels overwhelming.

• A book, recipe, or creative project that brought unexpected joy.

• A photo of something ordinary that made your heart lift.

If you'd like to submit a piece for the newsletter, I'll be accepting through Monday, February 23rd. The newsletter will be released to all of our Cozy Quill tiers on the last day of each month.

If your submission isn't chosen due to space limitations or whatever reason, please know we'll be creating a channel in the Discord to share those as well if you permit.

All the info you need is in the form below, but please don't hesitate to comment below with any questions. xx, Meg

Ready to submit?
CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE GOOGLE FORM

I’m so excited to share that What Feeds Below is on Edelweiss!

You can request Here

I cannot wait for you all to start reading this book that I just could not put down (I’m currently on my 3rd reread!)

Once you read it PLEASE review on Edelweiss, Goodreads and on your socials!

If you haven’t already, please add to your Goodreads Want to Read Shelf. We would love to hit 2,000 by Valentine’s Day!

Speaking of Valentine’s Day, you may have missed but I have extended the Contest to Win A What Feeds

Below PR BOX until 2/14!

If you haven’t preordered yet, could you help give us a chance at a bestseller list by Pre-ordering your copy today.

For those of you without Edelweiss, I’m hoping it hits Netgalley soon. Will let you know as soon as it happens! Let me know down below if you’ll be requesting to read (or submitting your dance video!!!)

Hello friends! I hope the beginning of your year is going better than mine - I have now been sick back to back for the majority of January. Just one week of not being sick before I got sick again. So I am over here struggling and not feeling very refreshed and ready for the newness that Imbolc brings (for the northern hemisphere - southern hemisphere, don't worry, we'll talk shortly!)

In case you missed it, go check out my earlier post about how this year's reading challenge is going to go.

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE: IMBOLC

For this season, starting February 1st, in the northern hemisphere we have Imbolc (which also goes by a number of other names and celebrations but for the sake of brevity, let's not get lost in the weeds). This is the very very beginning of Spring. At Yule, we celebrated the very start of the light coming back and the days getting longer. Now, we are really starting to feel it if we are paying attention. I know I am - I count down to the day when the clock jumps forward again and the days are longer! Depending on where you are in the world, the very first of the plant life may be coming back as well. Here in Chicago, there is a layer of snow on the ground and there will be for a few months to come, but some of you may be seeing early season plants like snowdrops. During this season is usually when I start to see crocuses, one of my favorite flowers, start to emerge and then I really know spring is coming.

For this season, extending from February 1st until the Spring Equinox, the focus is not quite yet on the rebirth (which comes at the equinox) but rather the slow and gentle building of light. We are still focusing on the hearth and home, and feeling cozy. There is lots of imagery around this time of the womb or seeds. Think of this time as nursing and growing the potential for the rest of the year.

Reading wise, for both fiction and non-fiction (often these prompts will be different each season but this is so similar), I prompt you to read something foundational. Something that was the origin or inspiration for many other things. For fiction, maybe turn to some classics that inspired your favorites. Or if you love mythology retellings, now is a time to go back and read the original myths. For non-fiction, read a formative work in the subject you are interested in. I'd still recommend it be something recent enough that it hasn't been completely debunked. I don't recommend going back to read Freud if you are studying psychology for example, but maybe Carl Jung instead!

Outside of reading, the focus is still staying cozy at home. Continue to envelope yourself in the things that nurture and ground you. But start to think of those seeds you want to plant for the spring and beyond, and if there's anything small you can do now to light the candle of inspiration.

As mentioned, I've been sick so I have not been able to give this my full attention, but I have done a few things to set myself up for the spring. I contacted my local community garden and asked to be put on the waiting list to have a plot this year, as I'd like to grow some medicinal herbs and maybe a few veggies. I also have been slowly planning a few business changes for my full time job that will launch likely in March.

I'd love to hear either here in the comments or on Discord what you are planting this season.

SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE: LAMMAS

For my southern hemisphere friends, you are entering the season of Lammas, which is the beginning of the harvest season. The summer and long days are winding down. Lammas is traditionally a wheat festival - all the breads! It is also associated with the Celtic sun god Lugh, who is a god of games. He is a god that dies and is reborn in the spring, so we see the connections to things slowly starting to wind down.

For this season's reading, I recommend fiction books that have to do with some kind of tournament or game to symbolize Lugh. There are books aplenty with this theme! The games can be seen as a celebration of vitality before we really have to start turning more inward in the coming seasons. For non-fiction reading, I recommend something about baking, bread, or harvesting in general. It doesn't have to be how to's on any of that; you can get creative. The history of bread, studies of the fungus in bread that may have caused more hysteria with the witch trials, there's even some history around the French revolution involving bread!

In daily life, the focus is on absorbing the last of the light before we really start getting into full harvest season. Enjoy the last remains of summer. Stay outside and soak up the sun if you can. Bake bread with friends. Make the first of your plans for how you are going to hunker down for winter.

I'd love to hear either here in the comments or on Discord how you are celebrating the start of the harvest season.

Next prompt will be released on the Equinox! Enjoy the season :)

Happy February everyone!! Here is the fantasy and thriller picks that won the polls! Be sure to join the discord if you want to be involved in discussions

Fantasy: Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent book 1 in the war of lost hearts trilogy (available on Kindle Unlimited)!

Thriller/horror: The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon (I will be listening to this one on audio!

If you’re shopping for a reader this Valentine’s Day or are the reader casually dropping hints 👀, bookish gifts fall into two swoon-worthy categories: The Experience all about cozy, immersive reading vibes and The Keepsake pieces that celebrate a lifelong love of stories. 

✨The Experience Cozy Reading Goals
Think Blind Date with a Book wrapped in paper with tropes like Enemies to Lovers or Only One Bed teasing what’s inside, candles that smell like old libraries or favorite characters, a reading valet to hold books, glasses, and tea, and the ultimate game-changer: a Kindle page-turner remote so you never have to leave your blanket burrito.

💌Personal & Romantic Keepsakes
From custom library embossers stamped with “From the Library of…” to personalized “Story of Us” books, book bouquets made from classic romance pages, and book-shaped jewelry boxes hiding a plot-twist surprise, these gifts feel like they were pulled straight from a love story.

💝Thoughtful Small Gifts Budget-Friendly but Mighty
Leather heart bookmarks, literary tea blends, cozy bookish socks, and ceramic book vases prove you don’t need a big budget to give something meaningful and adorable.

❗️You can also sign them up for our annual Bookish Valentine Gift Exchange on Elfster! Tap the link to join! https://www.elfster.com/gift-exchanges/04001f27-092d-4a41-922b-7a506773a519/?join=mdqw

❓️Which of these is already on your wishlist? Or did I miss a bookish essential? Let’s chat in the comments!👇

Because nothing says I love you quite like supporting someone’s reading obsession one chapter at a time. 💕📖

Welcome, welcome, welcome! I'm excited to build a community of readers who don't take themselves seriously but do take the books they read seriously.

Creating out little club will be a work in progress for me, so if there's anything you'd like to see, or other advice you have, feel free to shoot me a note at any of my socials or at marston.p.quinn@gmail.com.

Happy Saturday, mis internet amigxs,

I wanted to begin this week's newsletter by highlighting a few action items you can take in the book community to help our friends in Minnesota.

#MeltIceBookStack Challenge on Instagram: Through the end of February, for every post of a “flame” stack of yellow/orange/red books using #MeltIceStack hashtag and tagging @readerbotdiaries, Lou will be donating $1 to the @womensfndnmn Immigrant Rapid Response Fund, up to $200. 30 other bookstagrammers have joined the cause, meaning that the first 200 posts will raise $3,900 for the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund. You have 4 weeks to join us and contribute your stack.

In addition, I created the flyer below and posted it across all my social media platforms supporting Stand With Minnesota a comprehensive list of mutual aid for Immigrants, legal defense funds, individuals and businesses whose lives and livelihoods have been interrupted by ICE in the Twin Cities. Please donate and share widely. This flyer is available for you to download and share on your socials. No need to credit me.

In case you’d just like to amplify my social media posts instead, you can find them on all my channels, particularly Instagram and Tik Tok.

In addition, Haymarket Books has 3 free ebooks for those that would like to learn about migrant justice and border abolition.

By now, you’ve probably seen the photo of 70-year old Greg Ketter, owner of Minneapolis bookstore DreamHaven Books and Comics, emerging from a cloud tear gas last week. This and his interview about ICE created such interest in the bookstore that the online site was down for days. This is your reminder that you can add many Twin City bookstores doing work on the ground as your supported bookstores on both LibroFM and Bookshop to help them through these difficult times in addition to buying gift cards or ordering books directly from their websites.

BIEN LEIDOS BOOK CLUB UPCOMING EVENTS

We have a number of events coming up in the next few weeks I wanted to remind you about (Events are available exclusively to Bindery subscribers, check out THIS POST for registration links) :

• We’re finishing up reading Orange Wine by Esperanza Hope Snyder for January and have 2 upcoming events:

  • On February 4th, we’ll be doing an all day rolling spoilery chat to get all our thoughts about the book out in the open on Discord. If you’ve been wanting to chat Orange Wine, save the date!

  • On February 10th at 8PM EST, we’ll be chatting on Zoom with Esperanza

• We're currently reading our February Book is Sparks Fly by Zakiya N. Jamal AND we’ll be continuing our nonfiction side quest reading of Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality by Tanya Kateri -Hernandez

• Our March-April nonfiction side quest book is Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer. I have opened up discussion early in case anyone wants to begin early, seeing as this is a very in-depth look at US immigration policy and the founding of ICE. Today, the publisher reached out and we’re planning some giveaways as well as other events you should stay tuned.

• We’re currently voting on April’s fiction pick and the Discord poll has landed us on fantasy and science fiction. I’ll be putting up options to vote on in Discord this weekend.

• Speaking of side quests, we have a BIG journaling presence on Discord and we’re scheduling a zoom to share some of our favorite stickers on Sunday, February 1st at 8:00PM EST (this invite is linked in the post above).

SPREADSHEET UPDATE

I had the spreadsheet updated with this week's upcoming releases, but I'm experiencing some technical issues that isn't allowing me to share. I'm going to revert back to the double-posting to ensure you have all the latest in Latine lit early. I'm hoping to have this issue resolved this week and Beta test the spreadsheet with you SOON! Thank you for bearing with me...and without further ado, February 3rd Latine releases

New Latine Books

Young Adult

Carnival Fantastico by Angela Montoya (audiobook) Fantasy where a young woman poses as a fortune teller at a magical travelliing carnival where the handsome boy who once broke her heart resurfaces and warns her that the carnival is more sinister than it appears

Few Blue Skies by Carolina Ixta (audiobook) a tender story about love and hope, following a teen as she works to protect her family and community from a major corporation taking over her town

Translated Literary Fiction

Autobiography of Cotton: A Novel by Cristina Rivera Garza and translated by Christina MacSweeney (audiobook) Deeply personal and polically acute, Rivera Garza crafts a new kind of border novel that tells how a brittle land radically altered her grandparent' lives and the territories they helped develop.

xoxo,

Carmen