Meaghan

The Bear and the Nightingale

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The Bear and the Nightingale: A Novel (Winternight Trilogy #1) (Paperback)

By Katherine Arden
$17.00
ISBN: 9781101885956
Availability: In Stock-Click Title to See Store Inventory
Published: Del Rey - June 27th, 2017

If you have ever asked me for a fantasy recommendation, chances are I’ve mentioned this book. I have read it over and over; I find it gripping and comforting all at once. It is beautifully lyrical, a dark fairytale with teeth set in the snowy landscape of old Rus where pagan beliefs are being slowly weeded out by Christianity. Vasya is a vibrant heroine who does not fit in the world the Christians want. If I can give you one last book before I go, it has to be this one that I love so much.

Meaghan

Dark Archives

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Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin Cover Image

Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin (Paperback)

By Megan Rosenbloom
$18.00
ISBN: 9781250800169
Availability: In Stock-Click Title to See Store Inventory
Published: Picador - October 19th, 2021

Also affectionately known (by me) as the Human Skin Book Book. Rosenbloom is half of the duo that discovered a reliable way to test whether a book's cover is bound in animal or human leather and that testing journey takes her around the world. This delightful book (you read that right, delightful) is a studied and nuanced look at the history of bookbinding, the ways that cultural norms around death and dead bodies have changed, the true power of human mythmaking, and the scientific developments that have allowed us to test those myths. 

Meaghan

Slewfoot

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Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery (Hardcover)

By Brom
$29.99
ISBN: 9781250622006
Availability: In Stock-Click Title to See Store Inventory
Published: Tor Nightfire - September 14th, 2021

 

This book is everything I could want in an atmospheric book of witchcraft and haunting. Part fable, part horror story, part cobbled-together myth, it's a treat to read and a treat to hold; the author's gorgeous illustrations add another layer that I'm always wishing for but rarely get with adult fiction. Unlike a lot of New England witch trial narratives, this  one doesn't so much concern itself with the Christian god, but borrows heavily from American Indian lore. You should be reading Slewfoot this October.

Meaghan

The Manningtree Witches

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The Manningtree Witches (Hardcover)

By A. K. Blakemore
$26.00
ISBN: 9781646220649
Availability: In Stock-Click Title to See Store Inventory
Published: Catapult - August 10th, 2021

When the Witchfinder General comes to town, he warps reality to fit his needs. That's what happens to the women of Manningtree when Matthew Hopkins purchases a local inn and decides he sees witches. A fictionalized version of the true tale of Hopkins's first witch hunt, The Manningtree Witches is much more about the women he persecuted, and the ways that they were victimized by or survived the maelstrom he started. 

Meaghan

Wake

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Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts (Hardcover)

By Rebecca Hall, Hugo Martínez (Illustrator)
$29.99
ISBN: 9781982115180
Availability: In Stock-Click Title to See Store Inventory
Published: Simon & Schuster - June 1st, 2021

So many histories of women can only be found in the cracks, pieced together through what is omitted rather than saved. In her debut graphic novel, with striking pen and ink illustration by Hugo Martinez, Rebecca Hall recounts the struggle to uncover narratives about women’s roles in slave revolts for her PhD. But where she is met with lack and institutional gatekeeping, she fills in the stories of these women herself. A necessary and heart-wrenching read.

Meaghan

I Believe I'll Go Back Home

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I Believe I'll Go Back Home: Roots and Revival in New England Folk Music (Paperback)

By Thomas S. Curren
$22.95
ISBN: 9781625345653
Availability: In Stock-Click Title to See Store Inventory
Published: Bright Leaf - May 28th, 2021

I Believe I'll Go Back Home is an excellent survey of the function and traditions of folk music in New England (starting with what little we have left of the traditions that predate colonization) and how those made Boston and Cambridge fertile ground for the birth of the Folk Revival of the late 1950s into the 1960s. There is such a rich musical history in New England that gets obfuscated because it didn't birth the major American music genres of today, but its contribution is not small. Curren's fast-paced and readable history colored in this opaque backstory and brought to life the cultural movement that percolated in clubs and coffeehouses on streets I know and love. 

Meaghan

Folklorn

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Folklorn (Hardcover)

By Angela Mi Young Hur
$26.95
ISBN: 9781645660163
Availability: In Stock-Click Title to See Store Inventory
Published: Erewhon - April 27th, 2021

A mosaic of reality and fairytale with boundaries muddied like a red ribbon dragged through the mortar, Folklorn explores generational trauma, the Korean immigrant experience, grief, mental illness, and Korean mythology in a book that chills and captivates. Truly, I couldn't put it down.

Meaghan

Women and Other Monsters

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Women and Other Monsters: Building a New Mythology (Hardcover)

By Jess Zimmerman
$25.95
ISBN: 9780807054932
Availability: Available at Wholesaler
Published: Beacon Press - March 9th, 2021

In Women and Other Monsters, Jess Zimmerman explores the mythological and cultural ways that women have been portrayed as monsters, particularly in the Greek pantheon. We are Gorgons, who turn men to stone with our ugliness; we are Charybdis, murderous and unseemly in our hunger; in all the ways we are unideal, we are monstrous. Zimmerman’s experience and her articulation of it was so crisp and felt so real. This book made me feel deeply seen and more at ease with my own monstrosity.

Meaghan

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