November Book Recommendations
Connection, coffee, and rest!
Lil Ube Reads is a monthly newsletter, featuring seasonal book recommendations and bookish updates from Jenna. Click the subscribe button below to be notified of future posts!
New month, new newsletter! With the extra hour from daylight savings ending this weekend, I hope you get some extra time to read and relax! This week is still looking still fairly warm, so I'm excited to spend the afternoons reading out in the sun to get my last taste of the warm weather before winter fully arrives. Read on for my November recs, themed around connectedness, coffee, and rest!
My first pick is The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams. It's a book about books 📚 and explores grief and connectedness. Written by an AAPI author, the story follows the path of a list of book recommendations (whoa, meta) that makes its way to several different members of a London suburb. I loved seeing how the different recommendations influenced the characters and helped them cope with their day-to-day burdens. The fall-colored cover and themes makes this book a perfect read for the cold weather as we prepare to gather with our loved ones! I would love to call this book cozy, but this book left me sobbing (note: I'm an easy crier), so I'd recommend checking out the trigger warnings to see what heavier topics are covered in the book.
One of my favorite past times is to visit local cafes. In fact, that's currently where I'm writing up this post! I couldn't imagine a world without coffee or coffee shops, but Travis Baldree decided to write about one in his book Legends & Lattes. The book follows an retired adventurer who decides that she's had enough of traveling the world and decides to settle in a small town and open her own coffee shop. ☕ This book is a perfect representation of the cozy fantasy genre and is highly recommended for those who are looking for a D&D-like slice-of-life! On November 7, the prequel, Bookshops & Bonedust, will be released, just in time for my birthday! Is that a sign that this series was meant for me? Absolutely.
Today's final recommendation is inspired by the many, many friends and family who are experiencing burnout and exhaustion. Written to emphasize the importance of rest and its role in resisting oppression, Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey is a rather refreshing read. When I first sat down with the book, I found myself ironically resisting it. How could I think about rest when I was working overtime every week? This past month off from work was the perfect time to read this book and reflect on my relationship with capitalism, productivity, and self-worth. I really appreciated the lens of social justice that Hersey provides her readers and am inspired to delve deeper into the intersection of work and race. As the holiday season comes around, I hope we all get a little more time to rest.
In last month’s issue, I mentioned that I was trying to reduce my books in-progress, well, I’m happy to announce that I’ve gone from seven books in-progress to… EIGHT! How can I continuously continue to pick up books? Who knows, but I suppose all I can do is keep on reading. This month, I’ll be traveling to South Korea and am looking forward to finding some fun spots to read as we travel! Stay tuned for next month’s newsletter to hear more!
Thank you to my partner for creating a custom domain for the website as well as ensuring that this newsletter comes up when you google LilUbeReads. It’s a pretty cool feeling to see yourself on the Google search results page. 😏
And most importantly, thanks to all of you who are reading this! I look forward to sharing more seasonal recommendations and bookish updates with you and wish you a wonderful November! ✨
Stay cozy and keep on reading,
Jenna
“Sometimes, books just take us away for a little while, and return us to our place with a new perspective.”
Read these books before? Got any other recommendations? I’d love to hear your thoughts! 💖
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