falling further behind on the tbr list 🙄

I stopped by this favorite bookstore of mine in Davis Square in Somerville called Narrative.

Grabbed these two books: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakroborty and Another Appalachia: Coming up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place by Neema Avashia.

I've been seeing S.A. Chakroborty's books at various stores, so figured I'd give this a go. Robin Hobb had great things to say about it and it was nominated for several awards, so that certainly piqued my curiosity. I've heard that her writing gets a lot better book 2 onwards, but excited to read this one.

The second book is Another Appalachia, which I'd read when it first came out (but I'd borrowed it from my local library). The author teaches at Boston Public Schools and had an appearance at this store for a signing, so I snagged this copy. It's a collection of essays and memoirs of growing up queer and in an Indian family in the Appalachia.

One of my favorite quotes from this book is something along the lines of heaven has gates and borders; hell is open.

The bookstore itself is run by a Bangladeshi woman and features an incredible and curated selection of books from women authors and authors of color (not just those; but she certainly makes an effort to identify and promote lesser known but good works from those authors).

Despite my best efforts, I probably only have ~200 books by women authors in my ~1400 book collection, which I think is a shame. So I always stop by this store so that I can actually go and check out books and have a real conversation with the people working there on what I am looking for!

They also have an indie selection of books that they publish, which is cool.

I volunteer with my local friends of the library and helped set up for the bag of book sale. All volunteers got 1 free bag of box’s along with some pizza to eat.

Feels good, I'm proud of myself.

Went for the Michael Douglas memoir and left with a few extras! Any comments on these titles?