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sarah Locked account

wynkenhimself@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 5 months ago

shifting my energies to @sarah@bookishbook.club, so follow there if you're looking for current reading | still dorking around with old books for work and reading new books for fun | you can find me most places as wynkenhimself | she/her

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Matrix (2021, Riverhead Books) 5 stars

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn …

holy wowwwww

5 stars

I am bad at titling my reviews but “holy wowwww” seems to cover it. I loved this. The story of Marie, her efforts to turn the dismal abbey into a fortress, the struggle to defy patriarchy, the love for her sisters that turns into holy love, the carnal and secular love for her various lovers that also becomes holy, just the whole thing. Part way through I came across a review that was so dismissive and childish that it raised all my hackles and the ways in which that review has been bothering me helps me understand why I loved this book so much. If you can’t handle nuance, if you’re not open to the long history of women struggling against what they’re told to believe, then this book is definitely not for you. But it’s full of rage and anger and beauty and love.

The Oxford Brotherhood (2019) 4 stars

let it rewrite your relationship to trees and time

5 stars

This book pulled me into its world of trees and gutted me. I loved the richly drawn human characters and the stories they and the author tell about and learn from trees. I didn’t love the whiteness of the book, but also the relationship Powers describes between people and trees is a particularly white western one—some sense of indigenous stewardship before the end would have made that less irksome. But the book is beautiful and devastating to read, and I can’t stop thinking about trees.

Trust (2022, Penguin Publishing Group) 4 stars

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard …

I knew where it was going, but a good ride

4 stars

I didn’t love this the way I did Diaz’s first book—this one felt a bit more obvious in how it was going to go about telling the story I could feel it wanted to tell about money. But it was also a good story, so I forgave some of its faults

No fond return of love (2009, Windsor) 4 stars

"Dulcie Mainwearing is always helping others, but never looks out for herself - especially in …

infuriating characters, amazing book

4 stars

I loved this! I did want to shake just about every single character for one thing or another but also I couldn’t stop reading it. This is much like how I feel about every Barbara Pym I’ve read, and I’m clearly going to need to read more. Extra points for being about indexers and writers.

Department of Rare Books and Special Collections (2022, Cengage Gale) 2 stars

What holds more secrets in the library: the ancient books shelved in the stacks or …

surprisingly horrid

2 stars

My BookishBookClub chose this as one of our fiction reads and wow we did not like it, and wow do I feel badly for my Fisher Library friends. Just not how libraries work and even worse, really bad about depression, and everyone is mean. Also, did I mention that libraries don't work this way and her account of the key Plantin polyglot is just weird? two stars because there's some nuggets in there but ymmv

Satisfaction Guaranteed (2021, Grand Central Publishing) 4 stars

For fans of Casey McQuiston and Abby Jimenez comes a bold, hilarious, and out-of-the-box novel …

sex positive queer women in love

4 stars

This was delightful, hits all the spots, if those spots are wanting to read a fun and sex-positive romance. One of the leads runs an art gallery and those details seem patently ridiculous, but the more important thing is that the other lead is a sex educator and they jointly inherit a failing sex toy shop. Will they fall in love? Will art gallery woman learn to enjoy sex? Will sex educator accept herself and her artistic talents? Of course!! And that’s one of the joys of reading this.

Hokuloa Road (2022, Little Brown & Company) 3 stars

On a whim, Grady Kendall applies to work as a live-in caretaker for a luxury …

Hawai'i is gorgeous, but be wary of saviors

3 stars

This was good! I'm generally a fan of Hand. Loved the atmosphere--just gorgeous lush descriptions of Hawai'i's culture and wildlife--and enjoyed a protagonist who wants to be doing good but always feels like he's messing up. There's a Cass Neary-ish-ness to this, but a lot less gore. Also, a lot less mysticism than I usually expect from her

My Autobiography of Carson Mccullers (2021, Tin House Books, LLC) 5 stars

My Autobiography of Carson McCullers is an audacious new form of nonfiction that remakes the …

perfect for the queers and archivists and writers in your life

5 stars

Queer woman realizes and accepts her queerness while uncovering the traces of McCullers’s long-denied queerness during her work on McC’s archives. It’s just great. Beautiful reflections on being queer, on queer legibility, on what archives are and how they work, and what being a writer in the world means.

Book of the Most Precious Substance (2022, Faber & Faber, Limited) 3 stars

The highly anticipated new thriller from internationally renowned author Sara Gran, author of Come Closer …

totally ridiculous and also fun

4 stars

I love Sara Gran and I work with rare books and know people in the book trades and also, as it turns out, I can achieve the key goal the lead character is trying to achieve for her spell casting. Do I believe in sex magic? not really. Do I think this is accurate about the book trade? not at all. Do I think it’s a good escape book? Yes, I do.

Old books, rare friends (Paperback, 1998, Main Street Books/Doubleday) 4 stars

You'd think a book about antiquarian bookselling wouldn't be loaded with suspense or keep us …

Charming and insidery

4 stars

I’m pretty taken with these women, important rare book dealers and a tightly bound pair of friends. They’re the ones who dug about Louisa Alcott’s sensational pieces! Leona traveled to Strasberg by herself in 1936 to study books after Columbia refused to grant her a PhD! Their accounts of book rummaging and feminist takes on history are fun. Their family stories and their devoted friendship are delightful. Apparently they have a number of other co-written books that cover similar terrain. Good for book nerds and for asexual (and maybe aro?) companionship.

Homicide in hardcover (2009, Wheeler Pub.) 3 stars

murder is always a bestseller...first in the new bibliophile mystery series!The streets of San Francisco …

Ridiculous but fun for bibliophiles

3 stars

Ok I made fun of the glitches but also I had fun reading the book, and that’s the big thing. Details into conservation work! A faux Huntington Library! A commune that sells wine! Ridiculously handsome and gorgeous people! Next up she goes to Scotland so I am of course reading that.