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NonfictionLifestylesFood & Drink

Buzzworthy

Review by Susannah Felts

Did you know that the margarita is a “tribute cocktail,” a drink named in honor of a person? In this case, the honoree is Margarita Henkel, daughter of a German ambassador. In Buzzworthy, Vancouver-based author Jennifer Croll (Free the Tipple, Art Boozel) builds on this concept, introducing cocktails inspired by female writers from the 19th century to the present, from poets to graphic novelists and everything in between.

Each recipe is paired with a brief bio of the writer, so you’ll get a dash of literary trivia with your tipple. The book is forward-thinking in its inclusion of low- and zero-proof options, as well, such as the Louise Erdrich: muddled strawberries, juniper-cardamom syrup, lemon juice and soda.

Between Rachelle Baker’s punchy illustrations of the literary ladies with their eponymous drinks and book covers, and the “tipsy” typeface, the whole effect is effervescent, with the final section, a curated TBR list of the writers’ works, acting as the ideal digestif.

Buzzworthy features cocktails inspired by female writers from the 19th century to the present, from poets to graphic novelists and everything in between.
NonfictionLifestylesFood & DrinkCookbooks

Cooking for Culture

Review by Susannah Felts

Cooking for the Culture is the first book from Toya Boudy, a spirited celebrity chef whose New Orleanian heritage shines through in everything she does. I sheepishly admit that I’d never heard of Boudy before her cookbook landed on my desk—I’m not fluent in TV, see—but her keep-it-real approach and candid family stories sucked me right in, and the voice that (I’m certain) comes through so winningly on screen is front and center here, too. For example: “If you’re going to jump out the gate slanging tartare on the table, you’d better come out swinging.”

Some of Boudy’s food is delightfully simple: shrimp on a bun, fried okra and red beans (served with fried chicken, her favorite meal). But some recipes are marvelously extra, like her praline sweet potatoes with whiskey mallo cream, or her “Expensive Ass Salad” (the best-titled recipe ever) featuring lobster, crab, scallops and a champagne caviar vinaigrette. And you best believe there are all the Cajun and Creole classics you could dream of in these pages.

Chef Toya Boudy’s New Orleanian heritage shines through in everything she does, from red beans and fried okra to praline sweet potatoes with whiskey mallo cream.
NonfictionLiteratureLifestyles

The Illustrated Etymologicon

Review by Susannah Felts

For the language geeks of the world, of whose ranks I am a lifetime member, The Illustrated Etymologicon is a curious journey through time, with its ears and eyes trained on the way life gets translated into words.

Author Mark Forsyth first made his name with a blog called The Inky Fool, and The Etymologicon followed, became a hit, etc. This new version is gussied up with typography presented as art- and collage-like illustrations. The organization here is associative, with fart, for example, leading us to peter out, which may come from the French verb peter, to fart. From there we’re on to fizzle out, feisty and even partridge. Want to go deep on the origins of the name Starbucks? Forsyth will take you all the way to the Vikings. It’s all quite dizzying, and often funny in a rather British sort of way.

Perfect for the language geeks of the world, The Illustrated Etymologicon has its ears and eyes trained on the way life gets translated into words.
NonfictionLifestylesHistoryArt

The Madman’s Gallery

Review by Susannah Felts

First came The Madman’s Library. Now comes its weird kid sister, The Madman’s Gallery, packed with tres bizarre art through the ages.

Words won’t quite do it justice, of course, but mastermind author/curator Edward Brooke-Hitching does his best: “Here is the art of ghosts, the art of madness, imaginary art, art of dog-headed people, the first portrait of a cannibal, and a painting of the Italian monk who levitated so often he’s recognised as the patron saint of aeroplane passengers.” We’re talking giant Olmec heads, phalluses growing on trees, decaying cadavers, Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” a nude Mona Lisa, Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s fruit and veg portraits, hirsute women, Salvador Dali’s clocks, Frida Kahlo as wounded deer, AI creations and so much more. This one is occasionally disturbing, and always fascinating.

Mastermind author/curator Edward Brooke-Hitchings’ The Madman’s Gallery is packed with tres bizarre art from every period of history.
NonfictionLifestylesDesignCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Patchwork

Review by Susannah Felts

If you are a fan of jaw-droppingly beautiful things, you have to check out Patchwork: A World Tour by textile designer and collector Catherine Legrand. I had never before thought about the similarities between, say, sampler quilts in the U.S. and kantha in India (cloth created out of stitched-together old garments); now I wonder how I could have missed it. From French courtepointe (patchworks of varying sizes, often used as bedspreads) to Korean bojagi (used to wrap gifts and other objects), this study crisscrosses the continents, “composed from fragments of human lives laid side by side in order to illustrate this global artform.”

Many of these fabrics’ and textile arts’ creators have humble origins; as Legrand notes, “patchwork is a practice that brings women together in a context of social exchange and community.” Taken as a whole, the fascinating works presented here celebrate human creativity, ingenuity and determination to use and preserve what we’ve got. You can’t possibly feel unmoved by the connections this book reveals and assembles, stitch by visible stitch.

The fascinating textile arts presented in Catherine Legrand’s Patchwork celebrate human creativity, ingenuity and determination to use and preserve what we’ve got.
NonfictionNatureLifestylesEnvironment

Sown in the Stars

Review by Susannah Felts

For centuries, farmers have been consulting celestial cycles, such as the zodiac and the phases of the moon, to time their planting, with a number of calendars and almanacs printed every year to help them do just that. There’s scant scientific research on this type of zodiac-based cultivation, but as associate professor of agriculture and natural resources Sarah L. Hall muses in Sown in the Stars, “It does seem (even to a scientist like me) that when a practice continues over a long period of time, there might just be something to it.”

Hall interviewed a large number of Kentuckians who follow the folk tradition of planting by the signs (I love how she refers to them as “garden artists”), and their stories shape the heart of this beautifully designed book. Hall gives readers an overview of astrology and astronomy, which inform this method of farming, and she even shares the results of her own season of planting by the signs. Whether you wish to give it a go yourself or are simply curious about traditional practices, this book is a valuable cultural document, full of experience and wisdom typically passed from one generation to the next by women.

Sown in the Stars is a valuable cultural document, full of experience and wisdom from farmers who consult celestial cycles and the zodiac signs to time their planting.
NonfictionNatureLifestylesEnvironment

The Language of Trees

Review by Susannah Felts

On her website, Irish artist Katie Holten asks, “What is the language we need to live right now? How can we learn to be better lovers of the world?” One of her answers is an innovative—and downloadable!—tree alphabet font: For each letter, she has drawn a corresponding tree.

This project provides the stunning visual component for The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape, “a love letter to our vanishing world,” in which Holten gathers a diverse range of writing celebrating and reflecting on all things arboreal. There are recipes for acorn flour and gall ink, words from Plato and Radiohead, poems by Ada Limon and Camille Dungy, musings on cacao and catalpa trees, and so much more—all of it printed first in English and then in Holten’s tree alphabet, creating visual forests that represent the book’s words. I’ve never seen anything remotely like this work of art and was nodding along to the introduction by poet Ross Gay: “Can I tell you how batshit beautiful I find this? Can I tell you how each piece . . . each essay or poem or song becoming a forest or orchard, rattles me, flummoxes me really, with how beautiful?”

Artist Katie Holten has gathered a stunning range of writings that celebrate all things arboreal, from recipes for acorn flour to reflections on catalpa trees.
NonfictionLifestylesHealth & Fitness

Work It Out

Review by Susannah Felts

Exercise—the simple act of moving our bodies and giving our cardiovascular systems a bit of a challenge—is fraught territory in American life. This is largely because we have a fitness industry, as we have industries for everything, and industry tends to cause as many problems as it solves.

“The fitness industry is filled with life-hacks for depression, but most of it seems to be coming from a place of ignorance about the cold war going on in the average depressed person’s head,” writes author Sarah Kurchak in Work It Out: A Mood-Boosting Exercise Guide for People Who Just Want to Lie Down. She tailors her workout guidance to people who are depressed, anxious or have generally had it with “perky fitness types,” offering approaches that are both grounded in science and refreshingly dismissive of well-trodden myths, rules and routines. Pillow fight! Goblet squat your pet! (If they’re cool with it, of course.) I knew I liked Kurchak’s style as soon as I read, “I don’t know anyone who has come out of the North American physical education system unscathed,” and the rest of this funny, helpful book does not disappoint.

Sarah Kurchak’s funny, helpful book offers approaches to exercise that are both grounded in science and refreshingly dismissive of well-trodden myths, rules and routines.
NonfictionLifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & HomeArt

Painting Calm

Review by Susannah Felts

Lately I’ve been dabbling in watercolor, which makes Painting Calm feel like a gift from the gods. It’s full of exercises and tips for creating delicate paintings of leaves, flowers and various nature-inspired patterns.

Author Inga Buividavice’s own artwork is aspirational, to say the least, occupying a dreamy space between the detailed and the abstract, with gorgeous variations in value and color that blend seamlessly one into the next. Simple exercises, such as creating color swatches, reassure a beginner like me, and these can be enough on their own if what you’re wanting from watercolor is the meditative process. If you’re ready to create full-scale paintings, her instructions also cover specific brushes, brushstrokes and color palettes. I suspect I’ll be consulting this guide for years to come.

Inga Buividavice’s Painting Calm is full of exercises and tips for creating delicate watercolor paintings of leaves, flowers and various nature-inspired patterns.
NonfictionLifestylesBody, Mind & Spirit

Poetry as Spellcasting

Review by Susannah Felts

At the intersection of books on witchcraft, creative writing guides and poetry anthologies alights Poetry as Spellcasting: Poems, Essays, and Prompts for Manifesting Liberation and Reclaiming Power, which manages to pull off something utterly unique.

Centering the experiences and perspectives of writers of color and queer writers, the contributors’ essays honor the work of Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, Selah Saterstrom and Rainer Maria Rilke, among others. They examine the connections among poetry, prayer and chant, and they explore the liberation that can come with revision. One writing prompt invites readers to compose a letter to an “absent presence” or an ancestor; another provides instructions for writing a collective poem with friends. “In this book,” editors Tamiko Beyer, Destiny Hemphill and Lisbeth White conclude, “we remember how the nexus between ritual and poetry can be a sacred container to manifest change and transformation.”

At the intersection of books on witchcraft, creative writing guides and poetry anthologies alights the utterly unique Poetry as Spellcasting.
NonfictionLifestylesHealth & FitnessBody, Mind & Spirit

The Psilocybin Handbook for Women

Review by Susannah Felts

These days, you probably know someone who uses THC for physical or mental health reasons (or that person is you). You may even know someone who microdoses psychedelics (or that person is you). My point: The psychedelics landscape is shifting rapidly, and thankfully it’s getting easier to find evidence-based information on the therapeutic uses of cannabinoids and psilocybin.

A most valuable addition to this field is Jennifer Chesak’s The Psilocybin Handbook for Women: How Magic Mushrooms, Psychedelic Therapy, and Microdosing Can Benefit Your Mental, Physical, and Spiritual Health. Chesak answers a slew of questions people assigned female at birth may have about using magic mushrooms, covering safety, bad trips, shrooms and parenting, mushrooms’ effects on menstruation and endometriosis and more. She also writes poignantly about her own guided trip and other women’s experiences using mushrooms for conditions such as eating disorders and ADHD, which gives this guide real heart and added richness from people’s stories.

Chesak comes across as a wise B.F.F., making you feel both smarter and better supported. This is an empowering, enlightening read.

Jennifer Chesak’s guide to psilocybin for women is an empowering, enlightening read, full of evidence-based information on the therapeutic uses of psychedelic mushrooms.
NonfictionNatureLifestylesAnimals

Archives of Joy

Review by Susannah Felts

In Archives of Joy: Reflections on Animals and the Nature of Being, French Canadian author Jean-François Beauchemin looks back, around and into the mystic, to great effect. His brief and often breathtaking reflections on creatures he has encountered throughout his life meld into a salve for the troubled, weary or distracted mind and will appeal to fans of Brian Doyle, Ross Gay and Margaret Renkl.

In a one-paragraph essay called “Useful,” Beauchemin writes, “It might be said that I am rummaging around a lot in that great big suitcase of my childhood, but why the devil do we age, if it is not to encounter ourselves once more?” In “A Visitor,” he recounts a spiritual encounter from childhood, when “I had just learned my dog’s life expectancy was only fourteen years.” Immediately after reading this piece, I snapped a picture of it and sent it to a friend who is grieving a beloved pup; that’s the kind of small treasure this book is.

Jean-François Beauchemin’s brief, breathtaking reflections on creatures he has encountered throughout his life will appeal to fans of Brian Doyle, Ross Gay and Margaret Renkl.
NonfictionNatureLifestylesCrafts, Hobbies & Home

Capturing Nature

Review by Susannah Felts

Have you ever created a leaf rubbing? Or painted one side of a natural object and then pressed it to paper to make a mirror image? If so, you’ve engaged in nature printing, an ancient practice that marries scientific documentation and art. Fossils are a kind of nature print, and leaf prints were featured on early American currency. Relief printing, intaglio, cyanotype—all are types of nature printing.

Capturing Nature: 150 Years of Nature Printing examines this art form through two centuries and across continents, illustrating no fewer than 45 types, compiled by Matthew Zucker and Pia Ostlund from the Zucker Collection, the largest collection of nature prints in the world. The resulting volume is a “wondrous mix of nature, technology, and the human desire for learning,” and it’s a stunning addition to any nature lover’s library.

The two centuries’ worth of nature prints contained in Capturing Nature would make a stunning addition to any nature lover’s library.

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