Dear Dog-Eared, Week of March 3

Mar 3

**Q : I’d love some recommendations for books that have a similar vibe as the Yellowjackets TV show. Bonus points for queer characters.**

Reader, my initial assumption is that you’re interested in horror. I’d first direct you to Bunny by Mona Awad, which is a blend of lit fic and horror centered around an increasingly disturbing clique of sorority girls and the “outsider” who gets drawn in despite her disgust for everything they represent. Sorority horror is a classic. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t class this as queer lit, though IMO there are undertones (but we need and must not settle for undertones!). It reminds me of Yellowjackets in the intensity of the relationships between women and the way mundane awfulness (using this term as a BIG umbrella) turns into something… more.

Other Recommendations:

Small Game by Blair Braverman

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, for the women’s relationships and its dystopic landscape

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder for its descent into insanity/what FEELS like insanity and how it distorts your perception of reality.

Q : I’m looking to buy some literature for my grandpa who is not really in the habit of reading novels…do you have any novella recommendations? He is a devout and quiet man, loves Iowa sports, and has a keen interest in computers :)

We recommend A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, Sooley by John Grisham , and What You are Looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

Q : My mom likes books about ecological kinship, and she loves story telling. She enjoys fiction and non-fiction both. She really enjoyed Robin Wall Kimmerer’s books, and she’s a witchy lady.

A: North Woods by Daniel Mason. Bookseller Amy says this is a great book for enjoyers of nonfiction, nature writing, history, the ghostly, and beautiful storytelling. It reminds Bookseller Chad of Walden.

Solar Storms by Linda Hogan. This is a personal pet favorite of mine that resonates SO deeply with ideas of ecological kinship and intergenerational bonds and traumas. This novel is gorgeously written and incredibly intimate.

Soil by Camille Dungy. This one is about a mother trying to rewild her suburban garden in Colorado. It deals with our relationship with society and the natural world, how the best way forward is through diversity of both culture and cultivars. Plus, the author is primarily a poet, so her prose writing is beautiful.