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NonfictionPhotographyLifestylesLGBTQ+

A Sense of Shifting

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

A collaboration between writer Coco Romack and photographer Yael Malka, A Sense of Shifting: Queer Artists Reshaping Dance is a triumph of photography, dance and queer culture. Each of the book’s 12 chapters is dedicated to a specific queer dancer or dance company, and together they tell a fairly comprehensive story about the various ways that queer dance is pushing boundaries and destabilizing traditions. In Romack’s words, these dancers “embody expansive and liberatory means of existing.” In a chapter dedicated to San Francisco’s Sundance Stompede, Romack spotlights the annual four-day festival of LGBTQ+ country-western dancers with participant interviews and historical context, while Malka’s photos capture intimate moments of queer love—and plenty of cowboy boots. A chapter on Queer Butoh, a collection of performances presented by Vangeline Theater and the New York Butoh Institute, includes haunting imagery of butoh dancers as well as a cultural examination of the movement’s equally haunting genesis in postwar Japan. There’s a chapter on disability arts ensemble Kinetic Light, which includes dancers who use wheelchairs, and a chapter about the gender-expansive strip party Alejandro’s Night. One word of warning: Reading about these fascinating subjects may result in the purchase of a ticket to see them.

 

The triumphant photo-essay book A Sense of Shifting shows how queer dance is pushing boundaries and destabilizing traditions.
PhotographyLifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & HomeCookbooks

The best lifestyles books so far this year

List by the editors of BookPage
best lifestyles books 2024
STARRED REVIEW

July 1, 2024

The best lifestyles books so far this year

Writing advice from Jami Attenberg, recipes from Black Appalachia, a guide to Japanese gift wrapping and more have delighted and inspired us in 2024.

Share this Article:
NonfictionPhotographyLifestyles

The Heirloomist

Review by Alice Cary

If you are the sort of person who can’t bear to part with sentimental objects—“That belonged to Mamaw!”—this book is for you. Packed inside The Heirloomist: 100 Heirlooms and the Stories They Tell are photographs and stories of 100 items belonging to everyday as well as famous people, including Gloria Steinem, Rosanne Cash and Gabby Giffords. Their treasures might be a Rolex watch or a Rolleiflex camera—or simply scribbled notes, ticket stubs and even a plateful of spaghetti and meatballs.

After becoming curator of her family’s important items, Shana Novak turned to other people’s stuff. Her photography and storytelling business, The Heirloomist, has documented over 1,500 keepsakes since 2015. No matter their financial value, she writes, “all are priceless, precisely because their stories will play your heartstrings like a symphony.” Take, for example, the daughter of a New York City firefighter who died on 9/11. Several years after that tragedy, she and her mother opened a toy chest and found an old Magna Doodle, on which her father had written: “Dear Tiana, I love you. Daddy.”

The Heirloomist is meant to be shared with loved ones, especially those who harangue you to declutter. They may even start rummaging through basement boxes with a freshly appreciative eye.

Shana Novak’s gorgeous, poignant The Heirloomist documents 100 treasures beloved by everyday and famous people.
NonfictionLifestylesFood & DrinkCookbooks

Zao Fan

Review by Yi Jiang

How complicated can breakfast possibly get? In Zao Fan: Breakfast of China, Michael Zee writes that the enormity of Chinese cuisine is “both terrific and terrifying”—and what is usually the simplest, smallest meal of the day is no exception. Yet Zee demonstrates a knack seldom seen in English-language cookbooks for succinctly yet fully conveying the vastness and complexity of Chinese cuisine throughout the delightful recipes featured in Zao Fan. From fried Kazakh breads to savory tofu puddings, Zee provides in-depth yet accessible insight into a thorough swath of breakfast foods.

Rarely does a writer’s passion for their subject matter leap as vividly as it does from these pages, which are chock-full of recollections of personal visits to restaurants and observations of traditional techniques. Zee accompanies the recipes with his own photos of the dishes in all their gorgeous mouthwatering glory—meat pies sizzling on a griddle, a bowl of Wuhan three-treasure rice, neat rows of Xinjiang-style baked lamb buns—which provide an authentic sense of immersion, as do his portraits of daily life in China. The neat, color-coded organization of the recipes into logical categories such as noodles and breads provides a remarkable sense of cohesion, making Zao Fan an absolute must for cooks across all skill levels.

Zao Fan collects traditional Chinese breakfast recipes in all their mouthwatering glory.
NonfictionLifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

The Soul of Gift Wrapping

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

If Marie Kondo inspired you to change the way you fold T-shirts, then artist Megumi Lorna Inouye’s guide to creating beautiful gift-wrapping is for you. Inouye traces her passion for this art to memories of watching her mother care for the lovingly wrapped garments in her kimono chest. In Japan, Inouye tells us, wrapping is considered part of the gift itself, a way to show respect, gratitude and love. And if your skills are confined to sticking presents into a bag, never fear. With a focus on sustainability, Inouye provides step-by-step instructions for wrapping, often making use of recycled materials or natural objects: Even a broken, moss-covered branch can add beauty to a gift. The photographs here are as elegant as the text, and useful too. And while the book is aimed at adults, it’s possible to do most of these projects with kids. The Soul of Gift Wrapping: Creative Techniques for Expressing Gratitude, Inspired by the Japanese Art of Giving is more than a how-to guide: This gorgeous book is a reminder that gift giving can bring the givers themselves joy.

The Soul of Gift Wrapping is a gorgeous reminder that gift giving can bring the givers themselves joy.
NonfictionMemoirLifestylesAging

How to Be Old

Review by Susannah Felts

In her 60s, Lyn Slater, a professor of social work, became internet-famous for her fashion sense. In her memoir, How to Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly From the Accidental Icon, she tells the story of riding that wave for a decade before deciding it was time for a move out of NYC and a life in writing. Now we can add Slater’s memoir to our essential texts that rethink aging in an image-centric world. Of her social media success, she writes, “Is it really about fashion embracing older consumers, or is it about valuing those individuals who have the capacity to adapt, remain relevant, and be comfortable with experimentation, reinvention, and an interest in culture and the world they live in? These are the folks who know what to make of a lucky accident when one happens to them. Perhaps it’s really not about age but about feeling starved by superficiality.” Mic drop.

In her memoir, "accidental icon" and fashion influencer Lyn Slater rethinks aging in an image-centric world.
NonfictionLifestylesFood & Drink

Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts

Review by Susannah Felts

“I am the keeper of the stories, the writer, the one who has carried the stories in my apron for so many years,” writes Crystal Wilkinson in her culinary memoir, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks. Wilkinson, a Kentucky native and author of several books of fiction and poetry, shares here the recipes and memories of her Black Appalachian forebears, including her grandmother who raised her. “I am always reaching back,” she writes, recalling her grandmother’s jam cake or imagining the life of a distant ancestor, Aggy, an enslaved woman who married her white enslaver’s son. Cooking a mess of dandelion greens, Wilkinson deepens the connection to her kitchen ghosts and reflects on the lean times her family encountered during the scarcity of winter. She finds delight and abundance in recipes for caramel cake, blackberry cobbler, sweet sorghum cookies, biscuits and cornbread. “I’ve always felt a power larger than myself while cooking,” Wilkinson reflects. We’re lucky that she’s sharing the power with us through this tender and important book.

Crystal Wilkinson’s tender Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts collects the memories and recipes of her Black Appalachian forebears.
NonfictionLifestyles

1000 Words

Review by Susannah Felts

If you want to write a book, you need to know the name Jami Attenberg. A bestselling novelist and memoirist, Attenberg has gathered more than 30,000 followers for her #1000wordsofsummer project over the past several years. It’s a two-week online accountability sprint, during which she sends quick pep talks—her own and those of author friends—to motivate legions of fellow scribes, who in turn lift each other up online. Her latest book, 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round, collects and distills that project into a motivational volume every writer should keep close at hand. Wise and frank words from heavy-hitters such as Ada Limon, Deesha Philyaw and Min Jin Lee, and from Attenberg herself, serve to drown out the harsh inner critic, the constant external static and the crushing doubt that threatens to derail any big creative undertaking. It’s like being at a writing retreat with some of the best contemporary authors on the planet.

Bestselling novelist and memoirist Jamie Attenberg collects and distills her #1000wordsofsummer project in a wise and frank new book.

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Writing advice from Jami Attenberg, recipes from Black Appalachia, a guide to Japanese gift wrapping and more have delighted and inspired us in 2024.
NonfictionPhotographyLifestylesAnimals

Why We Photograph Animals

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

If your favorite part of social media is posting and seeing pet photos, you’re not alone. In Why We Photograph Animals, historian Huw Lewis-Jones reveals that more than three million dog photos are uploaded to Instagram daily—from the U.K. alone! What’s behind this urge to photograph animals, both domestic and wild? And is this a new phenomenon? 

Lewis-Jones explores these questions in nearly 300 images, both historical and contemporary. Many are breathtaking: a luminous, double-page spread of a black leopard and a gorilla strolling through clouds of butterflies. Others challenge us to examine our relationship with nature: A shot of tourists at a zoo, watching in an aquarium-like setting as a baby elephant is made to perform underwater, is especially disturbing.

Along with stunning images, this beautifully designed book features thought-provoking essays by a distinguished group of nature photographers, cinematographers and scientists. Why We Photograph Animals encourages us to think deeply about the creatures that share our world—and our responsibilities toward them and our planet. Lewis-Jones reminds us that photography can play a role, writing, “With admiration and with art, we raise our cameras as tools of advocacy and action.” 

Why We Photograph Animals encourages us to think deeply about the creatures that share our world—and our responsibilities toward them and our planet.
NonfictionPhotographyLifestyles

Wash Day

Review by Becky Libourel Diamond

Hair can instill empowerment and confidence. It can also cause stress and anxiety, especially when it doesn’t fit Eurocentric perceptions of beauty. Tomesha Faxio, a self-taught documentary photographer, sets out to debunk myths about Black women’s natural hair and celebrate the rituals surrounding its care in her loving photo-essay book Wash Day: Passing on the Legacy, Rituals, and Love of Natural Hair.

Combining touching photography of mothers and daughters with a descriptive history of natural hair, Faxio explains how Black women and their hair have been misunderstood and misrepresented for centuries, and how the pressure to straighten and relax naturally curly, textured hair is a symptom of racism. By also focusing on the bonding that occurs on wash day between mothers and daughters, Faxio demonstrates that Black hair and beauty rituals can and should be honored. With its exquisite photography and heartfelt personal messages, the visually stunning Wash Day fills a gap regarding what it means for Black women not just to embrace their natural hair, but their whole selves.

With its exquisite photography and heartfelt profiles, Wash Day celebrates Black women’s natural hair.
NonfictionLifestylesBody, Mind & Spirit

Blame the Stars

Review by Natalia Berry

Spurred by illustrator and “accidental astrologer” Heather Buchanan’s popular Instagram account @Horror.Scoops, Blame the Stars: A Very Good, Totally Accurate Collection of Astrological Advice is a hilarious journey through astrology, a subject that is, Buchanan writes, “stuffed to the glittering gills with practical, utilitarian functions.” But that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with it. “In such a bizarre universe,” she writes, “the most logical response is to get bizarre right back at it.” 

With colorful, offbeat drawings and handwritten captions, Buchanan gives classic signs silly names and outrageous descriptions: The corresponding animal of Splattitaribus (Sagittarius) is “a skunk haunted by the ghosts of her past;” a Lehbrah (Libra) is “the last push of breath that blows up a pool toy.” Buchanan is a joke factory, but Blame the Stars never feels mean-spirited. She balances out her playfulness with a palpable admiration for each sign, and, despite the absurdist claims, traditional astrology buffs will recognize kernels of wisdom. The book really shines with absurdist journal prompts: “What if everyone who hated cilantro had their teeth turn into cilantro? . . . Discuss.” 

Blame the Stars is beautifully constructed with quality paper and a well-thought-out jacket that manages to include illustrations of all the signs without feeling too busy. That impressive attention to detail continues throughout the book, with art included on almost every page. If you’re a lover of astrology, or if you’re perhaps looking for some silly direction among the stars, you’ll certainly find solace, laughs and maybe even some inspiration in these pages.

Blame the Stars, by the creator of popular Instagram account @Horror.Scoops, provides offbeat takes on astrology that will keep readers giggling and contemplating their next steps in life.
NonfictionLifestylesFood & DrinkCookbooks

Appetite for Change

Review by Alison Hood

With whole-hearted essays and tempting, approachable recipes, Appetite for Change: Soulful Recipes From a North Minneapolis Kitchen shines with pluck, heart and social consciousness. Influenced by the predominantly Black residents of Minneapolis’s Northside community, the recipes have diverse roots—African, Caribbean, Southern—and were assembled by Northside-based nonprofit, Appetite for Change (AFC).

AFC was co-founded by authors Michelle Horovitz, Tasha Powell and Princess Titus in response to Northside’s troubling history of redlining, poverty and violence as well as the impact of a devastating 2011 tornado, all of which created a food desert with “no place to sit down and be served a meal of fresh ingredients.” The women “gathered friends and neighbors and literally began cooking up change” with cooking classes, gardening projects and AFC’s Breaking Bread Café. Six chapters, each with an essay by AFC co-founders and other AFC staff and volunteers, cover everything from bold vegetables to sweet treats. 

Along with these recipes, Appetite for Change shows the positive social power of growing, preparing and enjoying fresh, wholesome food to nourish body, mind and spirit.

Appetite for Change collects recipes from the predominantly Black residents of Minneapolis’s Northside community, and shows the positive social power of growing, preparing and enjoying fresh, wholesome food.
Science Fiction & FantasyRomanceNonfictionFictionAudioTravelSatireMemoirLiterary FictionLifestylesLGBTQ+LGBTQ FictionHistorical RomanceHistorical FictionFantasyFamily SagaCozy MysteryContemporary RomanceComing of AgeBiography

Your Pride reading list for 2024

List by the editors of BookPage
24 LGBTQ+ books for 2024.
STARRED REVIEW

June 1, 2024

Your Pride reading list for 2024

Call your queer bookclub—we’ve rounded up the 24 best LGBTQ+ books of 2024 so far!
Share this Article:
NonfictionLGBTQ+Biography

The Other Olympians

Review by Anne Bartlett

The 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin—dubbed the “Nazi Olympics” for providing an international platform to the genocidal regime—produced lasting memories, including the triumphs of Black American track and field star Jesse Owens and the “Boys in the Boat” rowing team that beat Germany in a dramatic upset. Less remembered is the wide speculation at the games that Helen Stephens, a U.S. runner who won two golds, might actually be a man.

She wasn’t. But the phony controversy was symptomatic of a panic in the Olympics establishment. Not long before the 1936 games, two top track and field athletes who had competed in international competitions as women said publicly that they were men (we would say now that they had come out as trans). A handful of Olympic leaders, including Nazi sympathizers, immediately drew the wrong conclusions and called for mandatory medical exams to determine sex prior to sports competitions.

In The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports, author Michael Waters sensitively tells this forgotten history and reveals its modern resonances. The book connects the struggles of those two athletes, Zdenek Koubek of Czechoslovakia and Mark Weston of Britain, with the relatively open attitude toward queerness in pre-Nazi Central Europe, the resistance within the early Olympics movement to women’s sports, and the failed effort to boycott the Berlin games.

The Other Olympians is full of surprises for contemporary readers. For example, anyone who mistakenly thinks Christine Jorgensen was the first person to have gender affirming surgery will learn very much otherwise. But Waters’ detailed description of the outspoken Koubek’s life before and during his transition is the heart of the book. He emerges as an overlooked pioneer.

Koubek, Weston and other trans and queer people profiled here never wanted to compete against women after their transitions. Yet an entire regimen of sex testing was built on the unfounded belief that men were somehow masquerading as women to participate in sports contests. Decisions made in the late 1930s created sports competition rules that still exist today, as debate over trans athletes rages in school board meetings, courtrooms and legislative sessions. Waters doggedly chronicles where the debate originated and calls for what he believes is overdue change.

The Other Olympians doggedly chronicles the lives of pioneering trans athletes and the historically fraught 1936 Olympic Games.
NonfictionSocial ScienceLGBTQ+

Morally Straight

Review by Deborah Mason

Mike De Socio loves the Boy Scouts. In Morally Straight: How the Fight for LGBTQ+ Inclusion Changed the Boy Scouts—and America, De Socio, an Eagle Scout, details how Boy Scouts gave him, a nerdy misfit, the space to thrive. He is also queer, coming out while in college in 2015, the same year that the Scouts lifted its ban on gay leaders and two years after it had lifted the ban on gay Scouts. De Socio learned he was not alone: Boy Scouts had provided a safe haven for many other queer Scouts, a haven that was repeatedly taken away because of a policy that they had no idea even existed.

Taking its title from the Boy Scout Oath, Morally Straight weaves detailed journalism and De Socio’s deeply personal memories in its recounting of the effort to lift bans on LGBTQ+ Boy Scouts and their leaders. It starts with the story behind Dale v. Boy Scouts of America, the 2000 Supreme Court case that allowed the Scouts to discriminate against queer boys and men.

At the heart of De Socio’s book is the work of Scouts for Equality (SFE), an activist group formed in 2012 after the Scouts expelled lesbian den leader Jennifer Tyrrell. Headed by Zach Wahls and Jonathan Hillis, two straight Eagle Scouts, SFE evolved into a broad-based alliance of LGBTQ+ and straight Scouts, parents and supporters that eventually persuaded the Scouts to rescind their policies.

Under Wahls and Hillis’ leadership, the SFE became a juggernaut. In their early 20s, both men  were uniquely qualified to take on the BSA. The son of two lesbian mothers, Wahls was already a LGBTQ+ activist and the author of My Two Moms. Hillis was a prominent youth leader at the BSA’s national level. Ironically, both credit the Boy Scouts with developing the moral courage and leadership skills that made SFE possible.

Morally Straight is both clear-eyed and optimistic. BSA is now a broader tent, accepting gay, trans and even female Scouts. But, as De Socio’s own experiences show, it still grapples with how to give its members the space and tools to remain true to who they are.

Morally Straight weaves detailed journalism and author Mike De Socio’s deeply personal memories in its recounting of the effort to lift bans on LGBTQ+ Boy Scouts and their leaders.
NonfictionMemoirLGBTQ+

Pretty

Review by mónica teresa ortiz

As the Texas legislature attempts to ban books; dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion; and threaten LGBTQ+ people with draconian laws, poet and author KB Brookins’ debut memoir, Pretty, arrives when we need it most. Brookins is a Black, queer and trans writer and cultural worker whose previous work includes two poetry collections, Freedom House and How to Identify Yourself With a Wound. Pretty details their experience navigating gender and Black masculinity while growing up in Fort Worth, Texas, exploring how they have moved through a world of cisgender Black and non-Black people, from their biological parents to their adopted family, from classmates to lovers, and from their gender transition through adulthood.

Brookins spent their youth challenging binary spaces and expectations. From early childhood to the present, they have desired to be seen as pretty, and this book is the search to find out what that means for them: “Though not gendered, we often associate prettiness with womanhood, femininity, and objects we see as dainty,” they write. “I’ve never been interested in womanhood, but I’ve always wanted to be treated softly, like a fat pleasantry to the eyes.” Through often striking prose and imagery, Brookins questions the restrictions involved in those associations: “When I was femme, my prettiness was canceled out by Blackness. When I was butch, my prettiness was seen as invalidating my masculinity. Who taught us that masculinity can’t be pretty? Who taught us that Blackness was devoid of prettiness and delicacy?”

While Brookins searches for answers to these questions, they continuously remind us of how hostile the U.S. is to Black and trans people: “As the perception of me changes before my eyes, I realize that it is a specific sadness—embodying patriarchal masculinity in a country that wants your blood more than it wants you to breathe.” We need words and stories like this. By describing their movement through the world, Brookins simultaneously critiques the conditions that oppress Black and racialized people who seek radical self-acceptance, and refuses the state’s malicious attempts to criminalize gender and sexuality.

Pretty offers far more than just pretty words—Brookins tells their side of the story as an act of resistance against those who would silence them. This book is as much a story of self-discovery and survival as it is a love letter to their younger and current self.

As Texas threatens LGBTQ+ people with draconian laws, KB Brookins’ memoir, Pretty, is an act of resistance against those who would silence trans writers.
RomanceContemporary Romance

Experienced

Review by Eric A. Ponce

A romance is all about the final payoff: After pages of will-they-won’t-they teasing, readers anticipate the moment when everything falls ecstatically into place and our lovers end up together. Kate Young’s Experienced takes this model and twists it, leading readers on a wholehearted, fun exploration of dating and love in the 21st century. After her girlfriend Mei suggests they take a break so the newly-out Bette can casually date and get the full single experience, Bette goes on an awkward odyssey of first dates. Her journey is silly and relatable, and stays away from romance cliches—although that isn’t to say that the book doesn’t end happily.

Bette tries to be chill about the break. After a bit of confusion and hurt, she decides the best course of action is to actually get some dating experience. With her roommate Ash and Ash’s token straight-guy boyfriend Tim, Bette begins crafting her dating app profiles. They choose the best pictures—though Ash and Tim have to convince Bette that she really does look hot in some of them—and write cool, ironic responses to the prompts. Soon after, Bette starts dating a lineup of strange, sexy characters running the gamut of British lesbian baddies. The most memorable is Bette’s first date, Ruth, a PhD student and experienced casual dater who gives Bette the recipe for success and, in a twist of fate, helps her realize what she really wants from a relationship.

Chapter titles that count down to the date when Bette and Mei are supposed to get back together lend Experienced a sense of anxiety and longing that will be all too familiar to 21st century daters. Young’s charming British English pairs with a young millennial’s quirky, anxious interiority for a fun, surprisingly profound read. Romantics, if you’re lonely or even if you’re happily in love, this novel will be a treat. 

Kate Young’s charming British English paired with her young millennial protagonist’s quirky, anxious interiority makes Experienced a fun, surprisingly profound read.
FictionLiterary FictionComing of Age

Blessings

Review by Laura Sackton

Chukwuebuka Ibeh’s debut novel is a quiet but profoundly moving coming-of-age story about a young gay man in mid-2000s Nigeria. It’s an at first straightforward novel that deepens as it progresses, building toward an ending befitting its protagonist—a young man continually moving through different versions of himself.

Blessings opens in 2006 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. When Obiefuna’s father catches him in a moment of tenderness with another boy, he immediately sends him away to boarding school. Life at school is strictly regulated and often violent. Older boys abuse and terrorize the younger boys without consequence. Obiefuna, fearing that his sexuality may be discovered at any moment, does what he thinks he has to in order to survive.

Though the novel continues to follow Obiefuna through his early years at university, his time at the boarding school takes up the most space and carries a hefty emotional weight. At times it may feel as if the story drags, but the beautiful and complicated third act reveals that Ibeh knew exactly where he was going all along. He captures the uneven importance of memory and experience, the way certain events can haunt a life without our knowledge. Obiefuna’s relationships to himself, his family, his lovers and his country change dramatically over time, a shift that Ibeh weaves almost invisibly into the prose.

Interspersed between chapters from Obiefuna’s point of view are ones told from his mother Uzoamaka’s perspective. These feel less immediate and vivid, but do add a poignant narrative layer, giving readers a glimpse into what goes unspoken between mother and son.

Blessings is an excellent work of queer fiction, full of characters who are neither good nor bad, but simply human beings in constant flux. Ibeh writes cruelty onto the page alongside tenderness, crafting scenes of domestic gay love with the same attention and detail he gives to scenes of emotional and physical violence. He offers us a precious glimpse of the world as it truly is for so many queer people: not tragic, not perfect, not all suffering or all joy—but worth living in and telling stories about.

Blessings offers a precious glimpse of the world as it truly is for so many queer people: not tragic, not perfect, not all suffering or all joy, but worth living in.
FictionLiterary FictionHistorical Fiction

The Safekeep

Review by Lauren Bufferd

The Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden’s debut novel, is set in 1961 rural Holland. At 30, Isabel is living in the house where she was raised after the death of her father forced the family’s move from the city and into a furnished house their uncle Karel found for them. Isabel lives a circumscribed and watchful life, guarding her dead mother’s things, suspecting the maid of theft and fending off the attentions of a flirtatious neighbor. Of her brothers, Louis and Hendrik, she is closer to Hendrik, although she disapproves of his friend Sebastian, suspecting a deeper connection. Of Louis and the steady stream of girlfriends he introduces to her, she thinks even less. Until Eva.

The siblings meet Eva at a dinner out. With her clumsy manners and brassy dyed hair, she hardly impresses, and Isabel is shocked when Louis brings her to the house, telling Isabel that Eva must stay there while he goes away on business and showing Eva to their mother’s room. Even under Isabel’s watchful eye, things begin to disappear—a spoon, a bowl, a thimble. More alarming to Isabel is the overwhelming attraction she feels to Eva, an attraction that spills into an obsessive, intensely depicted sexual relationship.

Van der Wouden may be familiar as the author of the 2017 essay “On (Not) Reading Anne Frank,” which explored what it means to be a Dutch Jewish writer and her complicated relationship to Frank’s legacy. As Isabel and Eva’s connection unfolds, van der Wouden’s true subject comes into view: how ordinary people were implicated in the ethnic cleansing that took place during World War II. Even in peacetime, Isabel and her peers are quick to notice people who appear different, with a fierce disgust that Isabel risks turning on herself as she comes to terms with her sexuality. A novel of redemption as much as revenge, The Safekeep has the pacing and twists of a thriller, while delving into the deeper issues laid bare by the Holocaust.

In Yael van der Wouden’s mesmerizing debut, The Safekeep, Isabel lives a circumscribed life in her dead mother’s house until her brother’s girlfriend comes to stay, alarming Isabel when an obsessive attraction develops between the two.

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NonfictionFictionTravelNatureLiterary FictionLifestylesHistoryComing of AgeAnimalsAmerican History

Cool off this summer with 5 splashy books

List by the editors of BookPage
STARRED REVIEW

Cool off this summer with 5 splashy books

These books starring bodies of water include Morgan Talty’s latest and everything you never needed to know about sea turtles.
Share this Article:
Book jacket image for My Life with Sea Turtles by Christine Figgener

The illuminating My Life With Sea Turtles sheds light not only on the beauty and mystery of sea turtles, but also on the urgent need

Read More »
Book jacket image for Swift River by Essie Chambers

Swift River is a mesmerizing account of inherited trauma in a “sundown town,” propelled by the insightful and often-humorous narration of 16-year-old Diamond Newberry, the

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Book jacket image for The Great River by Boyce Upholt

Boyce Upholt wrangles the geological, political and cultural history of the wild Mississippi River in a compelling, lively narrative that will delight history fans.

Read More »
Book jacket image for Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

Morgan Talty follows up Night of the Living Rez with Fire Exit, a beautifully written novel that is sometimes funny, often heartbreaking and hopeful against

Read More »

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Recent Features

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Recent Reviews

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These books starring bodies of water include Morgan Talty’s latest and everything you never needed to know about sea turtles.
NonfictionPhotographyLifestyles

The Heirloomist

Review by Alice Cary

If you are the sort of person who can’t bear to part with sentimental objects—“That belonged to Mamaw!”—this book is for you. Packed inside The Heirloomist: 100 Heirlooms and the Stories They Tell are photographs and stories of 100 items belonging to everyday as well as famous people, including Gloria Steinem, Rosanne Cash and Gabby Giffords. Their treasures might be a Rolex watch or a Rolleiflex camera—or simply scribbled notes, ticket stubs and even a plateful of spaghetti and meatballs.

After becoming curator of her family’s important items, Shana Novak turned to other people’s stuff. Her photography and storytelling business, The Heirloomist, has documented over 1,500 keepsakes since 2015. No matter their financial value, she writes, “all are priceless, precisely because their stories will play your heartstrings like a symphony.” Take, for example, the daughter of a New York City firefighter who died on 9/11. Several years after that tragedy, she and her mother opened a toy chest and found an old Magna Doodle, on which her father had written: “Dear Tiana, I love you. Daddy.”

The Heirloomist is meant to be shared with loved ones, especially those who harangue you to declutter. They may even start rummaging through basement boxes with a freshly appreciative eye.

Shana Novak’s gorgeous, poignant The Heirloomist documents 100 treasures beloved by everyday and famous people.
NonfictionTravelPhotographyLifestyles

Project UrbEx

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Adventure, anyone? While Ikumi Nakamura is best known as a Japanese video game artist and developer with an interest in horror and mystery, she has another fascinating side. As Project UrbEx: Adventures in Ghost Towns, Wastelands and Other Forgotten Worlds reveals, she’s also a fearless, adventurous photographer who has long traveled the world to explore and capture unusual and hidden locations. (For the uninitiated, UrbEx is short for urban exploration, a sometimes-dangerous pastime exploring structures and abandoned ruins in the human-made environment.)

This volume includes images from Nakamura’s explorations in North America, Europe and Asia accompanied by short, evocative essays and captions by Cam Winstanley, written based on interviews with Nakamura. The photos range from an old Italian garment factory, a decaying theme park in Bali nearly overgrown with lush vegetation, and the ruins of military planes baking in the Mojave Desert sun. A few depict Nakamura herself in precarious positions as she attempts to capture a shot.

It is unfortunate that the text is printed in neon orange, which readers may find difficult to read. Otherwise, this beautifully designed book is an intriguing conversation starter that may inspire photographers to undertake their own explorations.

 

In Project UrbEx, photographer Ikumi Nakamura explores and captures unusual and hidden locations throughout the world.
NonfictionTravelLifestylesLGBTQ+

Out in the World

Review by Anna Christensen

Summer vacation has arrived, and with it the euphoric urge to pack a bag and hit the road (or skies. Or sea). But what is a well-traveled LGBTQIA+ person (or ally!) to do when the same old vacation spots have gotten a bit too-well trodden? Let Out in the World: An LGBTQIA+ (and Friends!) Travel Guide to More Than 120 Destinations Around the World guide the way!

Card-carrying, globe-trotting gays Amy B. Scher and Mark Jason Williams have assembled an impressive guide on where to go when and what to do when you get there, whether you’re a rugged hiker, a small town sightseer or are simply looking to relax at as many vineyards as possible before returning to real life. Even better, they’ve done it with an eye especially for the queer traveler, compiling lists of LGBTQIA+ owned eateries, tour companies, shops and bed and breakfasts. (They even note which hotels are dog-friendly, in the event of a furry plus one). Divided into chapters with headings such as “Where No One Gets Hangry,” “Nature and Nurture” and “Our Favorite Small Towns With Big Pride,” Out in the World is packed with unexpected and delightful new places to explore while unabashedly being exactly who you are.

Out in the World is an LGBTQ+ travel guide packed with unexpected and delightful new places to explore while unabashedly being exactly who you are.
NonfictionTravelLifestyles

Hot Springs

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

In her immersive and beautifully photographed debut, Hot Springs: Photos and Stories of How the World Soaks, Swims, and Slows Down, Maine-based photojournalist Greta Rybus ushers readers to 23 soaking spots worldwide via 200-plus images of ethereal landscapes, ruddy-cheeked bathers, striking architecture and even a blissed-out monkey. 

The book is steeped in steam and serenity, conveying the author’s lifelong reverence and enthusiasm for these “geological marvel[s]” that “giv[e] us a sense of belonging to each other and the earth.” From Mexico to Iceland, Japan to India, Alaska to Italy, Rybus shares fascinating details about each spring’s historical, cultural and spiritual significance, and reflects on their interconnectedness with the communities surrounding them. 

She visits springs both energizing and restful: In Portugal, a volcanic fissure only safe at low tide speaks to “the part of us that seeks out the thrilling, the tumultuous, the electrifying,” while the brutalist architecture of Switzerland’s Therme Vals creates a “meditative, inward, and connected atmosphere.” 

Whether they’re looking for a vacation destination or their next book to savor in the (hot) bath, readers are sure to join Rybus in marveling at “What a miracle a hot spring is: an earthly riot, a terrestrial bonus, an unexpected geologic twist!”

Steeped in steam and serenity, photojournalist Greta Rybus’ Hot Springs is perfect for those looking for a vacation destination or their next book to savor in the (hot) bath.
NonfictionLifestylesFood & DrinkCookbooksBiography

Take a culinary tour of Asia with these 4 books

List by Yi Jiang
Chop Fry Watch Learn by Michelle T. King
STARRED REVIEW

May 2024

Take a culinary tour of Asia with these 4 books

With both sweeping and granular detail, three cookbooks and one memoir offer a scrumptious sampling of Asian cuisine.

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NonfictionFood & DrinkBiography

Chop Fry Watch Learn

Review by Yi Jiang

Michelle T. King’s relationship with Fu Pei-mei began in childhood, with the constant presence of Pei Mei’s Chinese Cook Book in her parents’ kitchen. She did not realize the extent of Fu’s impact or fame as the host of a beloved, long-running cooking show in Taiwan until years later. In Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food, this personal connection with Fu allows King, a “Chinese American by way of Taiwan” (how King depicts the complexity of her cultural identity), to illuminate the often misunderstood nuances within the relationship between food and “a people like China’s—riven by decades of war, dislocation, upheaval, and migration.” As King states, food is not simply a comforting taste of home, but “a fickle mistress: a poor approximation of a beloved dish may simply remind you of everything you have lost.”

King weaves history lessons, personal anecdotes and firsthand interviews into the thoroughly researched Chop Fry Watch Learn in order to paint the extent of Fu’s legacy. It’s a tremendous undertaking, which King tackles head-on as she cycles through a vast number of subjects, ranging from historical Chinese attitudes towards food and the women cooking, to the complicated relationship between Taiwan and China throughout the 20th century, to the muddiness of diaspora identity, to broader ideas surrounding domestic labor, feminism and globalization. King argues that food binds it all together, and readers are sure to find her diligent biography compelling.

Michelle T. King’s Chop Fry Watch Learn is an engrossing biography of famed cookbook author Fu Pei-mei.
NonfictionFood & DrinkCookbooks

Koreaworld

Review by Yi Jiang

“You are about to read the story of a culinary revolution,” Koreaworld: A Cookbook proclaims as it launches into a frenetic exploration of Korean and Korean-inspired food spanning from Jeju Island to North Virginia. After focusing on more traditional offerings in its first half, this animated celebration jumps to new interpretations of Korean food, such as banana milk cake and Shin Ramyun with pita chips. Authors Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard provide their own musings on different preparation styles—using 7UP to flavor pickles, for example—while peppering in cultural history and modern context. The authors spotlight chefs throughout Korea and the U.S. and all their various influences, which span a bevy of cuisines, from Jewish to Chinese.

The sheer volume of restaurants and people profiled causes the book to meander in a fashion that sometimes feels scattered, but the abundance of eclectic detail will appeal strongly to diehard Korean food enthusiasts. Hong and Rodbard’s familiar rapport with many of their subjects lends a personal feeling to Koreaworld that is accentuated by Alex Lau’s stylish, energetic photography. Anyone interested in exploring the wild, exciting new frontiers of Korean food will find this book a fresh delight.

 

Anyone interested in exploring the wild, exciting new frontiers of Korean food will find Koreaworld a fresh delight.
NonfictionLifestylesFood & DrinkCookbooks

Zao Fan

Review by Yi Jiang

How complicated can breakfast possibly get? In Zao Fan: Breakfast of China, Michael Zee writes that the enormity of Chinese cuisine is “both terrific and terrifying”—and what is usually the simplest, smallest meal of the day is no exception. Yet Zee demonstrates a knack seldom seen in English-language cookbooks for succinctly yet fully conveying the vastness and complexity of Chinese cuisine throughout the delightful recipes featured in Zao Fan. From fried Kazakh breads to savory tofu puddings, Zee provides in-depth yet accessible insight into a thorough swath of breakfast foods.

Rarely does a writer’s passion for their subject matter leap as vividly as it does from these pages, which are chock-full of recollections of personal visits to restaurants and observations of traditional techniques. Zee accompanies the recipes with his own photos of the dishes in all their gorgeous mouthwatering glory—meat pies sizzling on a griddle, a bowl of Wuhan three-treasure rice, neat rows of Xinjiang-style baked lamb buns—which provide an authentic sense of immersion, as do his portraits of daily life in China. The neat, color-coded organization of the recipes into logical categories such as noodles and breads provides a remarkable sense of cohesion, making Zao Fan an absolute must for cooks across all skill levels.

Zao Fan collects traditional Chinese breakfast recipes in all their mouthwatering glory.
NonfictionFood & DrinkCookbooks

Noodles, Rice, and Everything Spice

Review by Yi Jiang

Often, cookbooks languish on our kitchen shelves, only to be referenced once in a blue moon—but the exuberant illustrations of Noodles, Rice, and Everything Spice: A Thai Comic Book Cookbook will have you turning to its recipes for years to come. In 2020, Thai Belgian cartoonist Christina de Witte sought to further connect with her Thai heritage by taking language lessons, which is how she met Mallika Kauppinen, who started teaching Thai via Zoom after moving to Finland from Thailand. The result is this unique cookbook, in which cartoon versions of de Witte and Kauppinen lead you through the fundamentals of Thai cooking and an array of common recipes whose steps are whimsically drawn out. Tools, ingredients, stirring guidelines, timers, heat levels and more are diagrammed in a manner that provides both joy and exceptional clarity unmatched by most cookbooks.

Short comics offer context—the origin of guay tiaw, or “boat noodles,” for example—or pull you into a slice of Kauppinen’s childhood. Our guides are present throughout, drawn onto photos of their meals—floating in a pool of curry, grabbing fistfuls of rice and engaging in other such hijinks. From the liveliness of its writing to the brightness of its color palette, the vibrancy of every aspect of Noodles, Rice, and Everything Spice captures Thai cuisine in such a way that you can almost taste its bold flavors just through reading.

With its vibrant illustrations, Noodles, Rice, and Everything Spice captures Thai cuisine in such a way that you can almost taste its bold flavors.

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