Hello!

We’ll get back to Mary Anning later. 

Is Kelis’ milkshake song a gift to humanity, or what?

5 Exciting YA Book Trends to Look for in 2016

Are you ready to discover the newest YA titles coming to a bookstore (or e-reader) near you in 2016? As a YA book blogger and book curator, I've scoured the Internet for forthcoming releases and f...

Hurrah for Cincinnati authors! Emily Henry and Kate Hattemer are both on the list!

A Diverse Reading List For The Holidays: Because representation matters. We’ve gathered some of our favorite authors and characters from 2015 who speak from just a few of the myriad perspectives humanity has to offer. (Don’t see what you’re looking for here? Send us a chat!)

Taking Flight by Michaela DePrince

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehesi Coates

Negroland by Margo Jefferson

City of Clowns by Daniel Alarcón & Sheila Alvarado

Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel José Older (@danieljose)

The Book of Phoenix by @nnedi Okorafor

Speak Now: Marriage Equality on Trial by Kenji Yoshino

Everything, Everything by @nicolayoon

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh (@rahdieh)

The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak

The Girl at the Center of the World by Austin Aslan

Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt

Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin

A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk

All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu

The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami

Peruse all of our holiday lists here!

February book haul 📚

A look at recent YA books by Latino authors, providing “much-needed windows for all readers.” @schoollibraryjournal

Waiting on Wednesday

A weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that people are eagerly anticipating.

My choice for Waiting on Wednesday this week is:

The Land of 10,000 Madonnas by Kate Hattemer

Publication: April 19th 2016 by Knopf, 352 pages

Five teens backpack through Europe to fulfill the mysterious dying wish of their friend in this heartwarming novel from the author of The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy. Jesse lives with his history professor dad in a house covered with postcards of images of the Madonna from all over the world. They’re gotten used to this life: two motherless dudes living among thousands of Madonnas. But Jesse has a heart condition that will ultimately cut his life tragically short. Before he dies, he arranges a mysterious trip to Europe for his three cousins, his best friend, and his girlfriend to take after he passes away. It’s a trip that will forever change the lives of these young teens and one that will help them come to terms with Jesse’s death. With vivid writing, poignant themes, and abundant doses of humor throughout, Kate Hattemer’s second novel is a satisfying journey about looking for someone else’s answers only to find yourself.

Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke

Publication: March 22nd 2016 by Dial Books, 352 pages

The intrigue of The Virgin Suicides and the “supernatural or not” question of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer coalesce in this young adult mystery, where nothing is quite as it seems, no one is quite who you think, and everything can change on a dime. Every story needs a hero. Every story needs a villain. Every story needs a secret. Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbor girl, wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond bully and the beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous. What really happened? Someone knows. Someone is lying. For fans of Holly Black, We Were Liars, and The Raven Boys, this mysterious tale full of intrigue, dread, beauty, and a whiff of something strange will leave you utterly entranced.

(lol sorry for the weird ass pic.  This coffee place is super crowded and I can’t smile at my computer without people looking at me like I have the plague)

Heyoo!  I’m Melissa and I’m Book Wench number… four?  I am 24, live in good ol’ New York City, and I used to work with these lovely ladies in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Well, I’m def no stranger to the book industry.  Former English major, former production editor at Pearson, former Cincinnati bookseller, current freelance editor (Mosaic Editing holler at me, this is a shameless plug for your editing services), current bookseller at Books of Wonder.  I’m currently working on procuring a full-time job in publishing (aren’t we all HA HA HA).

A little about myself: I love Beyoncé with every fiber of my being.  More than is really healthy probs.  I listen to a lot of Christmas music.  I’m really into astrology currently even though I’m very skeptical of it (it doesn’t make sense to me either).  My favorite author is Hemingway, but not as a person. My favorite person is Libba Bray, but not necessarily as an author. I read primarily YA and middle grade (Books of Wonder is a children’s book store), and the occasional feminist adult fic.  My reviews and recommendations will primarily be YA, holler.

I’ll post a normal pic of myself, idk, when one exists.

(That’s my cat, Casper.  Casper the Friendly Cat.  He’s probably the most important thing about me tbh)

Image credit: Penguin Random House, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/248239/lab-girl-by-hope-jahren/9781101874936/#

Marita here with a super-long review of a book I’m super passionate about. This book isn’t out until spring, but I am counting the minutes because I am going to tell everyone and their mother to read it.

I like my biology on the cellular level or smaller. I like thinking about viruses and bacteria and antibodies. Plants, geology, and ecology are not my cup of tea at all. I’ll admit that a part of that bias is that the more controlled, rigorous, replicable sciences are seen as more “pure” or “hard.” I’m into molecular biology, and molecular biology believes itself more scientific than botany and ecology. You can’t even do your experiments indoors in a controlled environment! You have to rely largely on unpredictable natural events to supply data! Freakin’ hippies. As such, I was a very skeptical when this botanist’s memoir came to my attention.

Oh boy, was I ever blown away.

Hope Jahren is a rare find. She is a scientist who has managed to write a memoir that is humble and grateful. In my experience, intellectual types tend to backhandedly brag about the burden of being a genius at least a little bit in their memoirs. Our author doesn’t fall into that rut. Oh, she describes in great detail the hours, weeks, and months that get swallowed up by lab work. But not once does she imply that it is her natural brilliance that fuels her--she runs on nothing but curiosity and perseverance. Any success she’s experienced is the result of hard work, not natural talent.

And even better--Jahren is an exquisite writer. She speaks of running the shell of a Hawthorne tree’s seed through a mass spectrometer (normally a very dry, incredibly boring procedure), and her description of the incident brought tears to my eyes. 

This is a mass spec readout. Hope Jahren makes this seem like a thing of transcendent beauty. Image credit: IB Chemistry, http://www.ibchem.com/IB/ibnotes/full/ato_htm/12.1.2.htm

Jahren speaks of science the way I think about it, but have never found the right words for. I look at DNA and I see magic and beauty, but when I try to explain my experience to non-science people, their eyes glaze over. Jahren, on the other hand, speaks of the natural world with affection and wonder and joy. She captures that awe in the face of life’s mysteries. In her hands, science becomes a lens through which we can properly appreciate the glory of existence.

This is a book by a female scientist, so I imagine a lot of people will be expecting lots of commentary on how academia is a sexist boys’ club. Well, there isn’t. She’s been underestimated because of her gender; that’s an unavoidable fact for any woman in STEM fields. What I love about this memoir is that she acknowledges this fact and then moves on with her life. She doesn’t give those chauvinists any more of her attention than they deserve, which is none. She’s not a female scientist, she’s a scientist who happens to be female. She’s there to do a job, and that job is not to be offended. It’s to do science.

She does something special in this book, and I’ll love her forever for it: She gives us a peek behind the curtain. Her subject is the nitty-gritty of the scientific process--the undignified, inglorious, ridiculous mishaps and struggles that will never be published in a neat six-page Nature article. We live in a society where scientists present themselves as infallible and enlightened and progressive. If “science” says something, it takes precedent over any other form of knowledge. Jahren shines a light on just how dogmatic and backwards and resistant to change the world of science can be--a lesson we’d all do well to remember the next time a headline screams “Study Reveals Chocolate Helps Fight Cancer.”

Alternating chapters offer a peek into the inner lives of plants (and they are far more alive than we think). It’s a wonderful examination of these organisms we depend on, but often take for granted. Here’s how much these chapters got under my skin: Recently, while watching the Mythbusters episode where they strip a tree of its branches of its branches to make a catapult, I felt outraged at their mutilation of a living thing for entertainment.

And, of course, it would be unforgivable if I didn’t mention Bill. Oh, Bill. Partner-in-crime, best friend, collaborator, Bill is Jahren’s platonic soul mate. He’s the longtime lab partner that has been carted along with her since grad school, through three separate laboratories. He’s also quite possibly the most fun part of this book--or at least his interactions with Jahren are. What otherwise would have been a gorgeous examination of life in research is infused with humor and adventure and the best kind of weirdness thanks to him.

I love this book. It’s one of those books that feels tailor-made for me. But I want the rest of the world to read it, too. I want them to know the sacrifice and toil that went in to every line of those textbooks they fell asleep reading in high school. I want them to know that science isn’t perfect--it’s a conversation between a scientist and her data, and like all conversations, it can have awkward silences and may go in a direction you’re not comfortable with. I want them to know that life, the biological concept of life, is astounding and intrepid and precious. I want them to know that curiosity is a vital resource that should be cherished and nurtured. And I want them to know that fantastic people like Hope Jahren and Bill exist in the world. 

Image credit: The Science Mom, http://the-science-mom.com/1020/growing-plants-seed-germination/

TL;DR Science! Please, please, please read this book.

Hi all. I’m JoAnn and, at the tender age of 30, hold the position of Crone in The Book Wenches. I split my work life between managing the operations of the bookstore and being a massage therapist. I split my personal life with reading, gaming, various crafting, and pounding back movies/shows/anime.

I have fairly eclectic reading tastes, but my go-to comfort zone is genre fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, horror, and romance). I also read a bunch of YA and graphic novels.

I’m a giant nerd so that is my wheelhouse and probably going to be really evident in the bulk of my posts.

Claire again. 

I finally got around to reading Bird & Diz written by Gary Golio and illustrated by Ed Young! 

And I have to say that I am amazed that this book didn’t win anything in the awards season this year! First of all, the illustrations are amazing. Ed Young’s use of color and motion with his mix of pastels, ink and water absolutely thrills me. You can feel the music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie through Young’s illustrations. I felt like I was transported in among the lights and crowds of a stage watching Bird and Diz perform together. I have spent my morning listening to Bird and Diz at Carnegie Hall while I looked through the book again and again. 

Golio and Young were obviously well paired for this book. Golio’s text and use of words are so delightfully in-sync with Young’s illustrations. Golio epitomizes the rhythm and sound of the music while also showing the playful nature of the back and forth between Charlie “Bird” Parker and John “Dizzy” Gillespie. His text trips nimbly between poetry, beboppin’ onomatopoeia and prose. And the whole book illustrates so beautifully and joyously that “Bird and Diz are friends... who play together just like kids.” 

I absolutely love Bid & Diz. And I highly recommend that you go check it out at the library or get it from a bookstore. It will be worth your while!