Something old, something new

Plus two women focused prizes announce their longlists

The secret reading continues and this week I added three new titles to the 2024 Paperback Summer Reading Guide that I absolutely adore. I cannot wait to get this guide into your hands in May!!

Miraculously, I also managed to finish two books that I can tell you about: a very complicated new-to-me classic and a brand new release I loved.

This week in books.

This week I read…

• Piglet by Lottie Hazell. This debut was on many most anticipated books of the year lists, and I’m so glad I picked it up. The story follows Piglet (so nicknamed in childhood for her love of food) in the lead up to her wedding. Piglet has left the working class background of her childhood, finding an idyllic relationship with handsome and successful Kit and a job she enjoys as an assistant editor at a cookbook publisher. But when Kit confesses to a betrayal two weeks before their wedding, Piglet becomes absorbed with her deepest desires and true wants, and she must decide if the life she’s been making for herself is the right one for her. This is a beautiful and moving book about hunger and desire, and the way women are taught—implicitly and explicitly—what we do and don’t deserve. One thing to note here is that Hazell leaves a lot off the page and I know some of these lingering questions will bother a lot of readers. I found it to be a useful technique for keeping the focus on Piglet—what she wants and needs and is not getting, rather than the specific failings of her partner. I found much of the book to be spectacularly sad, but there was also a note of redemption and hope for Piglet. Finally, as much of this story revolves around food and characters’ relationships to food, I would be cautious around this if you have sensitivities to reading about disordered eating, but also know that the food writing here is spectacular. Hazell’s PhD in literature focused on food writing in fiction and she certainly excels at capturing the visceral experience of eating on the page. Amazon | Bookshop | Libro.fm

• Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare. I read this in preparation for an upcoming Novel Pairings episode featuring Shakespeare fangirl and host of The Stacks,

  Traci Thomas
  . It was my first time reading this particular play and the first of Shakepeare’s “problem plays” I’ve experienced. Traci and my cohost
  Chelsey Feder
  are much more knowledgable about Shakespeare than I am, and I felt so lucky to be able to unpack this weird, juicy, dark, strange text with them. The story takes place in Vienna where the Duke has left the rule of the city in the hands of Angelo—an upstanding, righteous, and extremely rigid man—in order to get things back in order. Angelo cracks down on fornication, closing all the brothels and reviving a law that allows the state to put people to death for having extramarital sex. His first victim is Claudio, who has gotten his fiancée pregnant before their wedding. When Claudio’s sister (and a future nun to boot!) Isabella shows up to plead for mercy for her brother, Angelo falls for her hard, leading to all sorts of dramatic entanglements and absurd plots like only Shakespeare can do. This is a short and plotty play that not a lot of people get around to reading. I’d highly recommend checking it out before that episode airs in early April so that you can listen to the three of us attempt to make sense of this messy piece of work. Amazon | Bookshop | Libro.fm

Now I’m reading…

• Victim by Andrew Boryga and even more PSRG potentials.

If you are an international reader or just prefer UK covers, you can also order books through my Blackwell’s affiliate page!

Links I love.

I got to chat about classic literature on one of my favorite book podcasts this week. You can listen to that here.

Both the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Carol Shield’s Prize announced their longlists this week.

I really admired this bit of criticism discussing the feminism at play in Barbie and Poor Things. (Electric Lit)

Need the book equivalent of spring break? Try one of these vacation rom coms. (Lit Hub)

Here’s how teachers are bringing great Black literature into the classroom in spite of book bans. This is a great read for appreciating the hard work of educators and adding to your own TBR. (Atlantic)

Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy shirt went to auction this week. (Guardian)

End notes.

This week in views, listens, eats, and moments of joy.

• I always like listening Pop Culture Happy Hour’s Oscars preview, even when I haven’t seen many (or any) of the films.

• I’m loving my pal Traci’s new Substack. Check it out for great book recs and the most fun author interviews.

• We’re watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith and it’s so good!

• The weather has been all over the place in Denver, but we’ve been trying to get outside with Lou as much as humanly possible. It helps so much with everyone’s mood.

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Happy reading!

Sara