Recs if you like The Book of Longings...

Here's every book so far from BOTM's monthly shortlist since February 2015 for anyone who wants to read them all like I do!

Fiction (and some non-fiction) across genres featuring plagues, poisons, palace physicians, healers, and pre-antibiotic chaos. If it involves herbs, plagues, questionable remedies, court intrigue, or a morally complex healer experimenting in the corner, I want it.

sacrilegious texts for you and your loved ones

The top 100 books of the 2020’s as voted on by Goodreads members

How many have you read?

The top 5 have switched order, they should be: 5) I’m Glad My Mom Died 4) The Midnight Library 3) The House in the Cerulean Sea 2) Project Hail Mary

1. Addie LaRue

Books that highlight the ways gender roles have harmed women, often through assigning an inherent wickedness to the entire gender and using suffering or punishment to “liberate” women from our wickedness. Starting with The Yellow Wallpaper, in which Victorian standards for women expected purity and perfection. Imperfection, whether it be postpartum depression or strong opinions, was labeled as female hysteria and treated in a way that only further harmed women. Exploring empowerment & autonomy

These are books that will help you expand your worldview and understand what people go through. Some books are fictional, diving into the questions of power, relationships, privilege, and struggle. Others are true stories, bearing witness to real events and experiences that happen world-wide. All of these books exemplify the importance of storytelling as a means to understanding each other and our world!

authors love naming their books "the book of _____"

a mix of fiction and nonfiction titles about Christianity, ranging from research on Catholic doctrine to reimaginings and retellings to criticism of the religion

Books that explore some interesting “what if”questions

my (curated & picky) list of literary retellings of classic novels! all ask you to reconsider the original text.

books that remind me of Sylus