summer reads
cover photo: wordslut by amanda montell
Items in this hypelist
non fiction
The BC Wine Lover's Cookbook
Jennifer Schell · 2020
Dream Work
Mary Oliver
Dream Work, a collection of forty-five poems, follows both chronologically and logically Mary Oliver’s American Primitive, which won her the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1983. The depth and diversity of perceptual awareness so steadfast and radiant in American Primitive continues in Dream Work. Additionally, she has turned her attention in these poems to the solitary and difficult labors of the spirit to accepting the truth about one’s personal world, and to valuing the triumphs while transcending the failures of human relationships.
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language
Amanda Montell · 2020
<p>"As funny as it is informative, this book will have you laughing out loud while you contemplate the revolutionary power of words." --Camille Perri, author of The Assistants and When Katie Met Cassidy</p> <p>A brash, enlightening, and wildly entertaining feminist look at gendered language and the way it shapes us.</p> <p>The word bitch conjures many images, but it is most often meant to describe an unpleasant woman. Even before its usage to mean "a female canine," bitch didn't refer to women at all--it originated as a gender-neutral word for "genitalia." A perfectly innocuous word devolving into an insult directed at females is the case for tons more terms, including hussy, which simply meant "housewife"; and slut, which meant "an untidy person" and was also used to describe men. These are just a few of history's many English slurs hurled at women.</p> <p>Amanda Montell, reporter and feminist linguist, deconstructs language--from insults, cursing, gossip, and catcalling to grammar and pronunciation patterns--to reveal the ways it has been used for centuries to keep women and other marginalized genders from power. Ever wonder why so many people are annoyed when women speak with vocal fry or use like as filler? Or why certain gender-neutral terms stick and others don't? Or where stereotypes of how women and men speak come from in the first place?</p> <p>Montell effortlessly moves between history, science, and popular culture to explore these questions--and how we can use the answers to affect real social change. Her irresistible humor shines through, making linguistics not only approachable but downright hilarious and profound. Wordslut gets to the heart of our language, marvels at its elasticity, and sheds much-needed light on the biases that shadow women in our culture and our consciousness.</p>
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Mikki Kendall · 2021
<b>A <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER<br><br> “<b>The fights against hunger, homelessness, poverty, health disparities, poor schools, homophobia, transphobia, and domestic violence are feminist fights. Kendall offers a feminism rooted in the livelihood of everyday women.”</b> <b>—Ibram X. Kendi, #1 <i>New York Times-</i>bestselling author of <i>How to Be an Antiracist</i>, in <i>The Atlantic</i></b><br><br>“One of the most important books of the current moment.”—<i>Time</i></b><br> <br> <b>“A rousing call to action... It should be required reading for everyone.”—Gabrielle Union, author of</b> <i><b>We’re Going to Need More Wine</b></i><br> <br> <b><br> <b>A potent and electrifying critique of today’s feminist movement announcing a fresh new voice in black feminism</b></b><br><br>Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others? <br><br>In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on reproductive rights, politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, <i>Hood Feminism</i> delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux. An unforgettable debut, Kendall has written a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed.
Bad Feminist: Essays
Roxane Gay · 2014
romance
Butcher & Blackbird
Brynne Weaver · 2023
Problematic Summer Romance
Ali Hazelwood · 2025
A Forthcoming Novel From Berkley Romance.-- Provided By Publisher.
The Pairing
McQuiston Casey · 2024
This Is How You Lose the Time War
Amal El-Mohtar · 2020
Get A Life, Chloe Brown
Talia Hibbert · 2019
Book Lovers
Emily Henry · 2022
An insightful, delightful, instant #1 New York Times bestseller from the author of Funny Story. “One of my favorite authors.”—Colleen Hoover One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming... Nora Stephens' life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
Funny Story
Emily Henry · 2024
Happy Place
Emily Henry · 2023
Love, Theoretically
Ali Hazelwood · 2023
thriller & horror
Thirst
Marina Yuszczuk · 2024
“Vampires are making a comeback, and Yuszczuk is spearheading their revival with this bloody novel.” —The New York Times Book Review It is the nineteenth century, the twilight of Europe’s bloody bacchanals, and a vampire must escape. She arrives to the coast of Buenos Aires and, for the second time in her life, watches as villages transform into a cosmopolitan city. She adapts, intermingles with humans, and attempts to be discreet. In present-day Buenos Aires, a woman finds herself at an impasse as she grapples with her mother's terminal illness and her own relationship to motherhood. When she first encounters the vampire in a cemetery, something ignites inside the two women—and they cross a threshold from which there’s no turning back. With echoes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Thirst plays with the boundaries of the Gothic genre while exploring the limits of female agency, all-consuming desire, and the fragile vitality of even the most immortal of creatures. “Channeling Carmen Maria Machado and Anne Rice, Yuszczuk reimagines the vampire novel, with a distinctly Latin American feminist Gothic twist.” —The Millions
Sharp Objects
Gillian Flynn · 2013
Bones & All
Camille Deangelis · 2022
Our Wives Under the Sea
Julia Armfield · 2023
young adult
Daughter of the Pirate King (Daughter of the Pirate King, 1)
Tricia Levenseller · 2018
The Raven Boys
Maggie Stiefvater · 2013
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Becky Albertalli · 2016
I Kissed Shara Wheeler: A Novel
Casey McQuiston · 2022
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Emily M. Danforth · 2013
lit fic
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath · 1966
A Thousand Ships: A Novel
Natalie Haynes · 2021
NATIONAL BESTSELLER<br/>An NPR Best Book of the Year<br/>“Gorgeous.... With her trademark passion, wit, and fierce feminism, Natalie Haynes gives much-needed voice to the silenced women of the Trojan War.”—Madeline Miller, author of Circe<br/>Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, a gorgeous retelling of the Trojan War from the perspectives of the many women involved in its causes and consequences—for fans of Madeline Miller.<br/>This is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s. They have waited long enough for their turn . . .<br/>This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of them all . . .<br/>In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen.<br/>From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war.<br/>A woman’s epic, powerfully imbued with new life, A Thousand Ships puts the women, girls and goddesses at the center of the Western world’s great tale ever told.
fantasy
Bury Our Bones In The Midnight Soil
Schwab, V. E.
The Priory of the Orange Tree
Samantha Shannon · 2019
