Volume 1, No. 18: My Favorite Books of the Year So Far + Summer Baking Goals

In which I break all the rules for the second time

Greetings, book and treat people! I’m on vacation this week visiting my beloved ocean, where I’ll be spending as much time as possible in the water. In fact, that’s probably where I am as you’re reading this. But I’ve still got a newsletter for you today, thanks to the miracle of email scheduling.

We’re a little more than halfway through the year, so I thought I’d mix it up this week, break all my own rules, and bring you a special edition of 2021 favorites. Coming up: twenty-five of my favorite reads of the year so far, some of my summer baking goals, a few of my most anticipated fall releases, and, as usual, additional bookish rambling. It’s a long one, so apologies in advance if your email cuts it off before the end.

The Books: My 25 Favorite Reads of 2021 (So Far)

Honestly, making this list was excruciating. I limited myself to books that are currently out, but even so, I’ve read so many amazing books this year! I’ve written about some of them, and I’ve got plans to write about more of them in the future, but I won't get to them all. If you’re in the mood to treat yourself to some incredible reads this summer, I made a handy shelf where you can browse them all on Bookshop!

Contemporary Fiction

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters: This is one of the first books I read this year and I still think about it all the time. I will be thinking about it for years. I wrote about it here.

Small Beauty by jia qing wilson-yang: Have I convinced you to run to Metonymy Press and buy all their books yet? This is a gorgeous exploration of memory, grief, queer lineage, trans friendship, and home. I wrote about it here.

Weekend by Jane Eaton Hamilton: Friends, this is the messiest story about middle-aged queers that I’ve ever read.

Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi: I love this book so much that I’ve already read it twice this year: in print and on audio. It has some of the most beautifully written and vivid scenes I’ve ever come across. It’s about sisterhood, queerness, food, family. You’ll be hearing more about it from me soon.

Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) by Hazel Jane Plante: A novel structured as a fictional encyclopedia about a made-up TV show, an ode to trans friendship, funny and weird and heartfelt. I wrote about it here.

Please Read This Leaflet Carefully by Karen Havelin: A story about a chronically ill writer that moves backward through time. The structure is genius. I wrote about it here.

The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya: A novel about two South Asian women, both musicians, and their complicated friendship. It’s about Twitter, internet culture, and friendship, and I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel that explores those things so well.

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi: I don’t even know how to describe Emezi as a writer. They tell stories without boundaries. This is a book that upends Western/white/colonial narratives about gender and queerness.

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales: The queer YA romcom of my dreams!

Historical Fiction, Romance, & Speculative Fiction

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cakeby Alexis Hall: Great British Bake Off + big bisexual energy + hilarity + heartfelt growth = my favorite romance of 2021 so far. I wrote about it here.

A Natural History of Transition by Callum Angus: A stunning collection of stories about trans and queer characters morphing and shifting and transforming in nonlinear and surprising ways. Incredible depth of character, beautiful bits of magic, shimmering prose. You’ll be hearing more about it from me soon.

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon: A harrowing reckoning, often excruciating to read, but also overflowing with moments of Black and queer joy. I wrote about it here.

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge: A historical novel about a Black woman in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn determined to live life on her own terms One of the most stirring explorations of freedom and young womanhood I’ve ever read.

Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis: This is possibly my favorite novel of all time. It’s in my top five, anyway. I wrote about it here.

The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson: A hybrid historical and contemporary novel about a Dakhóta woman who marries a white farmer and then returns to the community where she grew up after his death. It’s full of gorgeous writing about seeds and the natural world. Haunting and human.

Memoir & Essay Collections

My Broken Language by Quiara Alegría Hudes: An exuberant and thoughtful memoir about Hudes’s big Puerto Rican family, art, language, spirituality, womanhood. I wrote about it here.

The Natural Mother of the Child by Krys Malcolm Belc: I haven’t stopped thinking about this memoir about trans parenthood and queer family making since I read it. I wrote about it here.

Kimiko Does Cancer by Kimiko Tobimatsu and Keet Geniza: A short but stirring graphic memoir about Tobimatsu’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, its impact on her life, the intersections of disability and chronic illness, and the way race, gender, and sexuality affect how we experience illness and health care. The art is wonderful.

Girlhood by Melissa Febos: This book broke my brain in the best way. Essays about what it means to be a woman and the narratives surrounding womanhood that society trains girls to believe in. Essays about desire, embodiment, partnership, and trauma. I read it from the library and am planning to buy a copy because wow.

A History of Scars by Laura Lee: A beautiful memoir-in-essays about childhood trauma, queerness, illness, family relationships, food, and rock climbing. Lee’s writing about food and climbing is especially beautiful; she grounds everything she writes in the physical world and the body.

White Magic by Elissa Washuta: A collection of essays unlike any other essay collection I’ve read. Playful and full of movement, irreverent and genre-defying. I wrote about it here.

Poetry & General Nonfiction

Calling A Wolf A Wolf by Kaveh Akbar: Poems about family, lineage, alcoholism, addiction, religion. It contains some of the most brilliant and beautiful language I’ve ever read. The line breaks alone took my breath away.

Obit by Victoria Chang: A collection of poems written in the form of obituaries, about the death of Chang’s parents, grief, memory, parenting. A stunning blend of poems documenting concrete and metaphorical losses. Riveting and gutting. The language leaps.

Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo: This is an absolute must-read about the violent legacy of white male power, and the many ways white men have held onto it throughout American history. Oluo’s writing is brilliant, and this book is illuminating.

Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha: Another absolute must-read about disability justice, centering movements and communities led by queer and trans disabled people of color. This book changed the way I think about disability, ableism, and access. You’ll be hearing more about it from me soon.

The Bakes

Summer isn’t my favorite time to bake. Despite the abundance of seasonal fruit, the heat makes me want to crawl into a cave and far away from my oven. That said, one thing I’ve loved about doing this newsletter so far is that it’s inspiring me to bake and cook more! I want to include photos of yummy things, which means I have to make yummy things. Here are some of the recipes currently at the top of my summer baking bucket list:

• I’ve had my eye on Yotam Ottolenghi’s fig, yogurt & almond cake for a while now. My new house is also across the road from a farm that grows figs! So this cake is definitely in my future.

• I’ve made them before, but these almond-crisped peaches from Smitten Kitchen are one of my all time favorite summer desserts.

• I bought Chetna Makan’s book The Cardamom Trail last year, and I’ve been wanting to make this black sesame and lime cake from it ever since. I haven’t yet, but summer seems like the perfect time for it.

• A few weeks ago I shared a cake adapted from The New Way to Cake by Benjamina Ebuehi. I love her recipes so much! I’m always looking for new and exciting ways to cook with summer stone fruit — I’m intrigued by this nectarine, tahini & hazelnut pavlova and this mulled wine plum crumble.

• There’s nothing better than a summer meal of flatbreads and assorted toppings. My favorite flatbread recipe comes from River Cottage Every Day by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

If there’s any particular kinds of bakes you’d love to see a recipe for in upcoming newsletters, I’d love to hear about them!

The Bowl & The Beat

The Bowl: Dinner by Melissa Clark

Since this is a newsletter of favorites, I was originally going to talk about my most-used cookbooks of 2021. But I haven’t actually cooked out of a cookbook in months. I love finding new recipes and doing big kitchen projects, but all the recent transition in my life has meant lots of non-recipe comfort cooking.

Instead, a mini review of my go-to cookbook for easy meals, Dinner. I got this book a few years ago and it immediately became a favorite. It came into my life at a time when I was feeling uninspired by cooking, and it helped me get my kitchen magic back. It’s full of simple, delicious recipes that are super low-key. A few that are now in my permanent rotation, and that I’ve adapted endlessly to suit my tastes and the seasons: maple-roasted tofu and winter squash, savory Dutch baby, roasted sausage and cauliflower, chorizo pork burgers, and pasta with roasted cauliflower and capers.

The Beat: My Favorite Audiobooks of the Year (So Far)

Hooray, a sneaky way to fit more of my favorite books into this newsletter! These are my top listens of the year so far — amazing books with equally amazing narrators.

Nonfiction

Dear Senthuran by Akwaeke Emezi, read by the author: Listening to Emezi read this world-creating memoir was intimate and powerful. I wrote about it here.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, read by the author: A stunning memoir about grief, food, and Zauner’s relationship with her mother.

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present by David Treuer, read by Tanis Parenteau: A must-read Indigenous history of the US, focusing on the 20th and 21st centuries. Parenteau is an actor of Cree descent and a member of the Metís Nation. Her narration is wonderful.

Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile, read by the author: I hadn’t listened to much of Carlile’s music before picking up this book, but I absolutely loved it. It’s full of songs she recorded specifically for the audiobook. One of the warmest, most generous books I’ve read this year.

Fiction

With Teeth by Kristen Arnett, read by Kristen Sieh: A deeply uncomfortable book about queer motherhood. Sieh’s narration matches the intensity of the protagonist’s inner life and emotional turmoil. I wrote about it here.

Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert, read by Adjoa Andoh: I laughed so hard and smiled so much. I was disappointed that Andoh doesn’t narrate the next two books in this series, because in my opinion she’s perfect, but they’re also good on audio.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger, read by Kinsale Hueston: I’m still thinking about this creative fantasy starring a Lipan Apache teenage sleuth. Ellie is full of confidence and determination, and Hueston puts all of that into her voice. It’s perfection.

The Removed by Brandon Hobson, read by Gary Farmer, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, DeLanna Studi, Katie Rich, and Christopher Salazar: This is an eerie novel about a Cherokee family dealing with the murder of their teenage son and brother. The full-cast narration is incredible; Gary Farmer is especially good. I wrote about it here.

The Bookshelf

The Visual: Most Anticipated Fall Releases

I’ve gotten a lot of exciting book mail recently! There are so many books coming out this fall that I can’t wait to read; it’s a bit overwhelming.

I’ve already read and written about some: Blue-Skinned Gods by SJ Sindu and Special Topics in Being a Human by S. Bear Bergman and Saul Freedman-Lowman. Here are a few more fall releases I’m especially excited about:

The Spectacular by Zoe Whittall (Ballantine Books, 9/14): Queer characters + family saga is really all I need to know.

Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism by Elsa Sjunneson (Tiller Press, 10/5): Blending memoir and cultural criticism, Sjunneson looks at disability representation in the media and reflects on how it affects disabled people’s lives and contributes to ableism.

Personal Attention Roleplay by Helen Chau Bradley (Metonymy Press, 10/19): Metonymy Press titles are auto-buys for me now. This story collection sounds amazing, though, full of stories “propelled by queer loneliness, mixed-race confusion, late capitalist despondency, and the pitfalls of intimacy”.

Crip Kinship: The Disability Justice & Art Activism of Sins Invalid by Shayda Kafai (Arsenal Pulp Press, 11/9): This book explores the art and activism of Sins Invalid, a Bay Area performance project run by queer and trans disabled people of color. I first heard about Sins Invalid in Care Work, and I can’t wait to learn more about it.

All The Names Given by Raymond Antrobus (Tin House, 11/9): I loved Antrobus’s first collection (and wrote about it here). I can’t wait for this one!

Around the Internet

I wrote a piece for Book Riot about the straight gaze and queer suffering in books. It’s something I’ve been mulling over for a long time.

The Boost

I’m always on the lookout for organizations, artists, events, mutual aid opportunities, etc. to include in this section of the newsletter. If you or folks you know are doing rad work in the world, I’d love to hear about it!

As always, a little bit of beauty to send you on your way: I’m drawn to the beauty of the natural world, but human connection is beautiful too, and that’s what my fridge reminds me of every time I look at it.

And that’s it for today! I’ll be back next week with a regular newsletter.