Five Things to Tell You Vol. 11
Wisconsin books, the best new romances, a fun game and more!
Well, hello there! So happy to see you today!
I am always supremely delighted by, and biased towards, books about my home state of Wisconsin. I am sure this is not unique to me or Wisconsin. Don’t we all love to read about something we know so viscerally?
It was with much fondness that I spent time reading two Wisconsin books recently, both by authors deeply familiar with the state and the areas they depict. I read these at the same time, starting my days with a chapter from the nonfiction title and ending my days with the fiction. Neither of these books are perfect, but my intense fondness for the hyper-local settings and subjects won my heart.
Land Rich, Cash Poor: My Family's Hope and the Untold History of the Disappearing American Farmer by Brian Reisinger was a fascinating read for me, and helped me understand the realities of the farming community I live in and love. Deeply reported and politically neutral, Reisinger weaves the story of his own Wisconsin family farm throughout the book. He will be at a nearby book festival this spring and I’m excited to go hear him speak!
A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler is set just north of where I live, and although it started a bit bleak for me, I fell in love with the last half of the book. A mature and complex love story that mentions my very own adopted city ~ how could I not appreciate it?
If you didn’t hear this yet … NYPL released their Best New Romance Books list, and of course it is absolutely amazing. You can filter the list by identity and trope and heat level and ALL THE THINGS. I found out about this list on the always-amazing Fated Mates podcast earlier this week during their interview with two NYPL librarians who worked on the list. Definitely give this short episode a listen, and check out the collection.
I have mostly stopped reading very far ahead into my advance copies of books from publishers, but when Alyssa of Romancing the Phone expressed her love for Stephanie Perkins’ adult debut, I seriously dropped everything else I was reading to inhale it. Overdue by Stephanie Perkins doesn’t release until OCTOBER of this year, but I feel a strong need to make sure you know about it now.
Alyssa and I both agree that Overdue is what Emily Henry books ASPIRE to. It is definitely a book that Emily Henry fans will love, so if that’s you, make sure put it on your TBR, ask your library to buy it, all of those things. It’s a love story about LIBRARIANS. In a LIBRARY. And a BOOKSTORE. And lovable mature characters with robust secondary characters and the most dreamy cottage ever. I loved it so very much. Many of you will too.
If you don’t know who Stephanie Perkins is, you need to know that her YA romance series that starts with Anna and the French Kiss is one of my favorite YA romance series ever. That’s the sole reason I jumped on Overdue right away!
Some of you may remember a footnote in my newsletter a few weeks ago about the very out-of-my-comfort-zone thing a friend convinced me to do last Friday night. Well, I followed through and lived to tell about it!
If 43 was the year of my first tattoo, now I can say that 44 was the year of my first …. Sexy Chair Dance class! Yes. You read that right. AND, it was my first dance class of my ENTIRE LIFE, so it checked that box as well. I am so glad I was convinced to try this because I have seriously never laughed so hard in my life ~ the instructor was phenomenal and the whole class was full of very chill women just looking to have an entertaining Friday evening.
I can honestly say that I have never hung backwards off a chair with my legs in the air before and was seriously concerned a few times about plummeting backwards and slamming my head into the ground. I survived, though! I don’t see myself ever performing these skills in any capacity, but I do definitely want to attend some other dance classes at this studio. It’s the same location that hosted the art session I attended a few weeks ago, and is such a wonderful local business.
I’m pretty sure I’m very late to this game, but if you don’t know it and are looking for an all-ages fun activity, I highly recommend TACO CAT GOAT CHEESE PIZZA. The senior’s girlfriend gave it to us as a Christmas present and they asked us to play recently - so much fun! I’m supremely terrible at it and lost every single round, but I laughed so hard.
That’s all for this week ~ thanks for reading! Please feel free to reply to this email or use the link below to leave a comment to chime in about any of these things, or to share one of your own things ♡
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi Katy! I read Emily Henry, but I don't get the hysteria. Adding "Overdue" to my FAR OFF TBR list.
Well done on the Sexy Chair Dance. Awesome.
My nephews are flying in tomorrow and I'm getting the games ready! I won TWO baskets of games last year from our realtor (who sold my mother-in-law's house) and that Taco Cat Whatever is in there.
Oh Nina, we both know that the majority of ANY hysteria is due to the damn social medias! I like Emily Henry, but get annoyed by the the fact that she's the only writer in the genre that many are even aware of! As for the chair dance ~ no one will ever see the performance, but it was fun to try something new and laugh a lot! If you ever get the chance to take a class like this, definitely do it :-) And I hope you enjoy Taco Cat Whatever - I literally could not remember the sequence the entire time we played ... leading to my rousing defeat!