I read 8 books in June. I’m looking forward to another great reading month in July!
My favorite books read in June were: Act Cool by Tobly McSmith and What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo.
These are all the books I read in June:
📖 Beneath the Surface by Harper Bliss 📖 Everything Between Us by Harper Bliss 🎧 Act Cool by Tobly McSmith 📖 Infinity Net by Yayoi Kusama 📖/🎧 The Revenge List by Hannah Mary McKinnon 📖 Love Letter To A Garden by Debbie Millman 📖/🎧 Amelia, If Only by Becky Albertalli 📖/🎧 What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo
I went to NYC’s Lower East Side’s Pride Book Crawl! It was my first one and it was awesome! I bought stickers, bookmarks, zines, and of course, a few books! There were 7 bookstores in all but I got to 5 of them before my phone ran dangerously low on battery so I decided to call it a day. The thing is that my phone’s battery is bad to begin with, my portable charger died and also I was using Google Maps the whole time to navigate. But luckily the Uber I caught back to Grand Central had a charger so I went from 12% to 30% in the 15 minute ride.
Here are the stores on the route. The last two I didn’t get to.
Route Sweet Pickle Books – 47 Orchard St Bluestockings Books – 116 Suffolk St Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks – 28 E 2nd St Book Club Bar – 197 E 3rd St (at Ave B) Pillow-Cat Books – 328 E 9th St Village Works – 12 St Mark’s Place Yu & Me Books – 44 Mulberry St.
I think my two favorite were Cat Pillow Books (they had a cute cat, I mean, come on!!) and the Book Club Bar. I also really liked the queer owned-and-operated one, Blue Stockings Bookstore, except that they allowed multiple panhandlers in their store who approached me and I felt very uncomfortable. So after being hit up twice for money I hightailed it out of there. Honestly if it weren’t for that I would have stayed longer. They even had a public bathroom and a water station which was awesome.
The Sweet Pickle Bookstore was great too in that they sold jars of different flavored and types of pickles – totally unique! But it was pretty crowded and cramped in there.
I ate a scone and had a “Murder On the Orient Espresso Martini” for lunch – I had to make it back in time for art therapy otherwise I would have stopped for a proper lunch – but it was still a really cool place!
The books I bought were:
-Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens On Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown (purchased at Bluestockings Books)
-A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander (purchased at The Book Club Bar & signed by the author. Also, they moderated the adult queer panel at Barnes & Noble last weekend and I didn’t realize they’d be signing books so I’m glad I picked this signed one up!)
-Show Me Where the Hurt Is by Hayden Casey (also purchased at the Book Club Bar; a melancholy short story collection I bought off the “blind date with a book” shelf, having only read a description, not knowing the title or author of the book. I am SUPER intrigued & excited to read this one!)
-A Book Lover’s Guide to New York by Cleo Li-Tan (purchased at Cat Pillow Books).
It was a whirlwind kind of day but I had a lot of fun!
I recently went to the library for a preview of the books coming out in June, July and August. My friend Caroline and her colleague hosted it and we even got snacks from a local establishment to munch on during the program.
The books I starred to put on hold in order of publishing date are:
📖 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid – June 3, 2025 📖 With A Vengeance by Riley Sager – June 10, 2025 📖 Kuleana by Sara Kehaulani Goo – June 10, 2025 📖 Don’t Open Your Eyes by Liv Constantine – June 17, 2025 📖 The C.I.A. Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature By Charlie English – July 1, 2025 📖 The Original by Nell Stevens – July 1, 2025 📖 How to Survive A Horror Story by Mallory Arnold – July 8, 2025 📖 Between Two Rivers by Moudhy Al-Rashid – August 12, 2025 📖 Mrs. Christie at the Mystery Guild Library by Amanda Chapman – August 26, 2025 📖 Katabasis by R.F. Kuang – August 26, 2025
Here is the group photo of everyone at the program: (I’m the one on the left in the aqua shirt and Caroline is in the stripes crouched in front of me).
The next night I went to a different library for a wonderful discussion and author signing with Amy Poeppel and Karen Dukess for their new books Far & Away and Welcome to Murder Week, respectively. I got the books signed as well. It was awesome! I even got a summer reading tote with a pack of new colored pencils, perfect for the artist in me.
Amy’s book is about two women – one from Dallas, TX and one from Berlin, Germany who switch houses for several months. Karen’s book is about three Americans who travel to England to solve a fake murder mystery. I am very excited to read them both!
The last library program I went to was an art program at yet a third county library. We made little collages on 4×4 wooden squares, painted them with quick dry paint sticks, and then glued paper things onto them and then mod-podged over it and put a magnet on the back. I had so much fun!
It was a collager’s paradise! Cut up books, old playing cards and lotería cards, magazine pages, you name it! And the woman sitting next to me at the table and I had a lovely discussion about books the whole time.
The left one has the rainbow bookshelf and the Ace card (a little nod to my queerness & my asexuality) and the right one is about my heart, the Spanish speaker in me and the infinity-ness of circles and what they mean for me.
I had an amazing time at all three of these programs, and I can’t wait to keep going to similar ones!
I went to two out of three days of Barnes & Noble Union Square’s Pride Festival this year!
On Sunday afternoon they had a panel of authors called “Let Me Be Perfectly Queer” moderated by author TJ Alexander and featuring authors Christina Li (The Manor of Dreams) Debbie Millman (Love Letter To A Garden) Jesse James Rose (Sorry I Keep Crying During Sex) and Prabal Gurung (Walk Like A Girl).
It was a lovely and powerful conversation! They gave out free swag like bookmarks, pins and body art and I even got a reserved seat! There was also a cute Heartstopper backdrop for lots of photo ops!
Of course I got to Barnes & Noble early to browse and scored some other books as well! Besides the books from the events, I’m most excited to read the art books I bought.
Here are the books I got signed on Sunday at the event:
Here is the swag I got on Sunday:
Here are the other books I scored while there Sunday:
Monday night was another panel called “GYA.” It consisted of queer YA books. The authors in attendance were Zikiya Jamal (If We Were A Movie) Alice Lin (Love Points to You), Page Powars (And They Were Roommates), Brian Selznick (Run Away With Me), K. Wroten (Everyone Sux But You). It was moderated by David Levithan.
The second night was just as magical as the first with all kinds of incredible questions answered and audience engagement. We even got to take photos with each author as we got their books signed! The staff at Barnes & Noble Union Square is amazing; kudos to them for keeping everything flowing so smoothly.
I had so much fun on both nights and came home exhausted! I am SO excited to read ALL the awesome books I bought 🌈📚💜
I read 19 books in May. I’m looking forward to another great reading month in June, and especially focusing on LGBTQ+ books for Pride Month! 😍📚🏳️🌈
The best book I read in May, hands down, was Everything We Thought Was True by Lisa Montanaro. This book was incredible!! I urge you to read it! Honorable mentions for May were: The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose and Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry.
These are all the books I read in May. As always, you can click on the linked ones to see my thoughts on the ones I reviewed.
📖 Gay Haiku by Joel Derfner 📖 Flower, Moon, Snow: A Book of Haiku by Kazue Mizumura 📖 Yayoi Kusama: All About My Love by Akira Shibutami &. Yayoi Kusama 📖 Everything We Thought Was True by Lisa Montanaro 📖 The Crying Book by Heather Christle 📖 Yayoi Kusama by Frances Morris 📖 Biographic Monet by Richard Wiles 📖 I Can’t Even Think Straight by Dean Atta 📖 Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau 📖 The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose 📖 Haikus for New York City: Seventeen Syllables for Nine Million People? This’ll Never Work. by Peter C. Goldmark, Jr. 📖 The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers 📖 Parents Weekend by Alex Finlay 📖 Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry 📖 No Strings Attached by Harper Bliss 📱 This Could Be Forever by Ebony LaDelle 📖 Songs of Gaia: Devotional Poems to Nourish the Heart by Julie Tara 📖 Poems of Sappho by Sappho/John Maxwell Edmonds 📖 Earth & Spirit: Gaia by Irisanya Moon
I attended an author talk and signing at the library with author Michael Alcée, a clinical psychologist and mental health educator who wrote the book The Upside of OCD: Flip the Script to Reclaim Your Life. What drew me to the talk is that I actually have OCD, as do people I love. That was the case for most people in the small group who came to the talk.
It was great to hear the good things about OCD, and the positive qualities people with OCD have, but also a bit about how to heal the bad parts. I resonated with a lot of what was said, and I can’t wait to read the book.
First, Michael talked about the famous people who have or had OCD:
Charles Darwin, naturalist/geologist Camila Cabello, singer Howie Mandel, comedian/actor John Green, young adult author Mara Wilson, child actor
People with OCD are:
Kind and empathetic. People with OCD have a lot of emotional sensitivity, and it’s said that they have hearts that are 10 times too big. They’re very concerned about others and they’re too hard on themselves. They’re also very intuitive.
They’re extremely imaginitive and they have creative minds. They have “what if” thoughts (negtive) but also “why not” thoughts (positive).
Freud says that people with OCD have a conflict with their id: they’re scared of self interest because it feels selfish.
Also, there’s a genetic part to OCD – a nature part, as well as a nurture part. People with OCD are existentially aware; death and loss is very prominent in their minds.
Michael says that OCD “does your dirty work.” In other words, it manages your boundaries. He gave the example of a woman and a man at work. The man gently shoved the woman, and then she obsessed over it, instead of just telling him that it had bothered her that he’d done that, that she hadn’t liked that. To her, it felt too aggressive to bring it up to him, so she kept it to herself.
Michael mentions that people with OCD should, but rarely do, give themselves as much empathy as they give to others. According to Michael, “you can only be selfless for so long before you start to take up space.”
I thought Michael’s talk was incredibly eye-opening and informative, and I am very much looking forward to reading the book! As always, when my review of the book is up, I’ll link it here.
I went to a fantastic author event where author David Grann (who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager) interviewed journalist Ross Halperin about his new true crime book Bear Witness: A Crusade for Justice in a Violent Land.
Ross is the son of Richard E. Halperin, a man who a local library building is named after, so it was pretty special to welcome Ross to the library for this event. The library had a restaurant come in and serve arepas with pork as well as drinks for purchase. They also had an awesome red velvet cake at the end which had a photo of the book cover on it. It was a very fancy after-hours event!
Bear Witness took Ross years to write and countless hours of research and interviews and cold calls, including the one he made to David Grann. The book is about two Christians, Kurt Van der Beek, an American sociologist, and Carlos Hernandez, a Honduran schoolteacher, who raised their families in Nueva Suyapa, a gang-run barrio in the mountains of Honduras. Kurt and Carlos were best friends who dedicated their lives to helping the poor and took matters into their own hands when it came to fighting back against the violence and injustice brought on by gang activity.
I have not yet read Halperin’s account of the events that unfolded, but I anxiously await the chance to do so.
Recently I had the privilege of going to an area library, where Lisa Montanaro, who used to live locally but moved to California in 2012, was promoting her novel with a book talk and signing. She was in conversation with Christine Adler, a local lady and former president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association.
Ms. Montanaro’s book, Everything We Thought Was True, is a family drama, and a highly fictionalized version of her life. It is a dual timeline, being told in 2015 by Lena, the adult daughter of a gay father, and narrated by her parents Teresa and Frank in the 1970s and 80s.
Ms. Montanaro told us that, being first a nonfiction writer, she initially intended for this story to be a memoir, yet as she was interviewing her formerly closeted gay father, she wanted to change many parts of his story. She quickly realized that this project had to be a novel.
Through reading this book, she wants readers—especially young people—to “understand the history of the hard-won rights of the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone who has a secret and is healing from a trauma to realize that embracing the truth will set you free.”
Ms. Montanaro told us that Lena was the most difficult character to write as she is the most different from herself, and that Teresa is the heart of the novel. Frank was the easiest because she identified the most with him. She said that “Lena is still grappling with loyalty issues and that she’s still living in the closet that Frank came out of.”
Ms. Montanaro’s father is very proud of her book, and he’s very much like Frank because he’s Italian-American, marries a heterosexual woman. She said it took her 6 years to write the book from start to finish.
The three biggest challenges of writing the book were:
Trying to do justice to the true story but not being defined by it.
Converting the raw data of her personal essays into a novel.
Learning that you have to write the entire book before you send it to a publisher, in the fiction world, which is not so in the nonfiction world, as she’d written in the past.
Ms. Montanaro was asked if she had planned to write both such a historic and timely novel. She said she absolutely did not plan it that way at all.
The audiobook version of Everything We Thought Was True is set to release on May 13 through Tantor Media, and it’s being read by Annalee Scott. Lisa Montanaro is planning on starting her next book in a few months, and I can’t wait to see what it will be all about!
I’ve already finished reading Everything We Thought Was True, and you can read my full thoughts here. Happy reading, all!
I read 16 books in April. I’m looking forward to another great reading month in May!
My favorite books read in April were: I Might Be In Trouble by Daniel Aleman, Claire, Darling by Callie Kazumi and How Georgia Became O’Keeffe: Lessons on the Art of Living by Karen Karbo.
These are all the books I read in April. As always, you can click on the linked ones to see my thoughts on the ones I reviewed for Netgalley.
📖 Kate & Frida: A Novel of Friendship, Food & Books by Kim Fay 📖 The Twenty-Something Treatment: A Revolutionary Remedy for An Uncertain Age by Dr. Meg Jay 📖 Claire, Darling by Callie Kazumi 📖 The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood 📖 I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang 📖 I Might Be In Trouble by Daniel Aleman 📖 The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker 📖 Huda F. Wants To Know? by Huda Fahmy 📖 The Friendship Club by Robyn Carr 📖/🎧 Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon 📱 Futbolistaby Jonny Garza Villa 📖 How Georgia Became O’Keeffe: Lessons on the Art of Living by Karen Karbo 📖 Let Us Dream: The Path To A Better Future by Pope Francis 📖 Georgia O’Keeffe: Works On Paper by Barbara Haskell 📖 The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum by Harry N. Abrams 📖 Georgia O’Keeffe: Art & Letters by Sarah Greenough
Do you have a favorite bookstore? How about a favorite independent bookstore? I’m located in the New York Metro area, and my favorite indie bookstore is the Strand in Manhattan (NYC), hands down.
In 2013, the last Saturday in April was dubbed “Indie Bookstore Day,” by the ABA (American Booksellers Association). Consumers are invited, and very encouraged, to shop in store and online at their favorite indie bookstores, whether local or adopted, and the businesses have special sales and giveaways that day.
The Strand has locations in the East Village, two blocks south of Union Square (the one I always go to, at 828 Broadway), as well as on the Upper West Side on Columbus Ave., and kiosks in Central Park and in Times Square. There’s also a curated shelf at Moynihan Train Hall.
I’ve been to the Strand many times, either alone or with friends to browse or for book signings in their Rare Book Room on the third floor.
Before each event, a Strand employee explains the history of the bookstore. Opening in 1927, it’s currently 98 years old, independently owned by the Bass family (Nancy Bass Wyden is the current owner – the granddaughter of the original owner Benjamin Bass). The Strand is the last bookstore standing out of 48 bookstores on 4th Ave – what was called “Book Row,” which was established as early as 1890. The other bookstores went by the wayside starting in the 1930s during the Great Depression.
Today, the Strand carries 2.5 million used, new and rare books – or, as they like to say (their tagline) – 18 miles of books!
Here, I’ll share with you some of my experiences and photos of when I’ve gone in the past.
Me & Julissa Arce for her signing of You Sound Like A White Girl (left) and Jessica Knoll & me for her signing of Bright Young Women (right).
Double book signing with Rebecca Serle (One Italian Summer) and Jennifer E. Smith (The Unsinkable Greta James).
Erica Katz & me for her signing of Fake and Sounds Fake But Okay signing with Kayla Kaszyca and Sarah Costello
I hope you’ve enjoyed my photos of me and the authors, and I’ll be sure to post more as they happen in the future!
Michelle’s Bookish Life 