The book we are reading for January is the result of a project started to understand the role of sexual attraction in Western culture when the author was working as a science reporter at The Verge. It has been named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Electric Literature, and Them.
So, what's the book about?
This powerful nonfiction book is an engaging exploration of what it means to be asexual in a world that's obsessed with sexual attraction, and what the ace perspective can teach all of us about desire and identity.
What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through life not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about gender roles, about romance and consent, and the pressures of society? This accessible examination of asexuality shows that the issues that aces face--confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships--are the same conflicts that nearly all of us will experience. Through a blend of reporting, cultural criticism, and memoir, Ace addresses the misconceptions around the "A" of LGBTQIA and invites everyone to rethink pleasure and intimacy. Journalist Angela Chen creates her path to understanding her own asexuality with the perspectives of a diverse group of asexual people. Vulnerable and honest, these stories include a woman who had blood tests done because she was convinced that "not wanting sex" was a sign of serious illness, and a man who grew up in a religious household and did everything "right," only to realize after marriage that his experience of sexuality had never been the same as that of others. Disabled aces, aces of color, gender-nonconforming aces, and aces who both do and don't want romantic relationships all share their experiences navigating a society in which a lack of sexual attraction is considered abnormal. Chen's careful cultural analysis explores how societal norms limit understanding of sex and relationships and celebrates the breadth of sexuality and queerness.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: in-store, online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. Our booksellers will be happy to help you get the book in the format that you prefer!
Buy Online!
We are open to the public for in-store shopping Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm & you can pickup your orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using the pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ and free local delivery, as well (within Boone town limits). Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us!
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting! Reviews & Interviews
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
-- Library Journal Read Me: Angela Chen’s Ace Challenges Us All to Reframe How We Talk About Sex -- Them 'Ace' is the first book of its kind. Here’s why anyone, asexual or not, should read it. -- Mashable A Conversation with Journalist Angela Chen -- Stonewall National Museum & Archives
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Much of her writing pertains to the unique experience of growing up as a member of a tight-knit Indian community in a state where they comprised less than half a percentage point of the overall population. She also writes opinion pieces and commentary regarding her experiences as a Civics teacher in the Boston Public Schools for the last 16 years.
So, what's the book about?
When Neema Avashia tells people where she’s from, their response is nearly always a disbelieving “There are Indian people in West Virginia?” A queer Asian American teacher and writer, Avashia fits few Appalachian stereotypes. But the lessons she learned in childhood about race and class, gender and sexuality continue to inform the way she moves through the world today: how she loves, how she teaches, how she advocates, how she struggles.
Another Appalachia examines both the roots and the resonance of Avashia’s identity as a queer desi Appalachian woman, while encouraging readers to envision more complex versions of both Appalachia and the nation as a whole. With lyric and narrative explorations of foodways, religion, sports, standards of beauty, social media, gun culture, and more, Another Appalachia mixes nostalgia and humor, sadness and sweetness, personal reflection and universal questions.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: in-store, online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. Our booksellers will be happy to help you get the book in the format that you prefer!
Buy Online!
We are open to the public for in-store shopping Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm & you can pickup your orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using the pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ and free local delivery, as well (within Boone town limits). Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us!
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting! Reviews & Interviews
‘Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place’
-- The Daily Yonder Divisions and Distances in “Another Appalachia” -- Southern Review of Books Author Neema Avashia on identity, relationships, and coming up queer and Indian in Appalachia -- Rural Assembly Neema Avashia describes 'Another Appalachia' -- The Reckon Interview Growing up in "Another Appalachia" is more relatable than you think: "I keep finding myself here" -- Salon
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The book club pick for May is
Count Your Lucky Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur! We will be meeting on May 13th at 7:30pm EST in an online video chat. You can RSVP & add the event to your calendar here. The meeting link is also in the sidebar of this blog (look to the right)! Alexandria Bellefleur is a bestselling and award-winning author of swoony contemporary romance often featuring loveable grumps and the sunshine characters who bring them to their knees. A Pacific Northwesterner at heart, Alexandria has a weakness for good coffee, Pike IPA, and Voodoo Doughnuts. Her debut novel, Written in the Stars, was a 2021 Lambda Literary Award winner and a 2020 winner of The Ripped Bodice Awards for Excellence in Romantic Fiction. |
So, what's the book about?
Olivia must be hallucinating. In the decade since she last saw Margot, her life hasn't gone exactly as planned. At almost thirty, she's been married... and divorced. However, a wedding planner job in Seattle means a fresh start and a chance to follow her dreams. Never in a million years did she expect her important new client's Best Woman would be the one that got away.
When a series of unfortunate events leaves Olivia without a place to stay, Margot offers up her spare room because she's a Very Good Person. Obviously. It has nothing to do with the fact that Olivia is as beautiful as ever and the sparks between them still make Margot tingle. As they spend time in close quarters, Margot starts to question her no-strings stance. Olivia is everything she's ever wanted, but Margot let her in once and it ended in disaster. Will history repeat itself or should she count her lucky stars that she gets a second chance with her first love?
Count Your Lucky Stars is the third installment of the Written in the Stars series, though it can be read as a standalone. For more backstory on the secondary characters in Count Your Lucky Stars, check out Written in the Stars and Hang the Moon!
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: in store, online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. Our booksellers will be happy to help you get the book in the format that you prefer!
Buy Online:
We are open to the public for in-store shopping Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm & you can pickup your orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using the pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ and free local delivery, as well (within Boone town limits). Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us!
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting!
Reviews & Interviews
Count Your Lucky Stars - BookReporter
the time it was about count your lucky stars - eleven thirteen pm
Exclusive Interview: Count Your Lucky Stars - Fresh Fiction
This month's book club pick is Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde! We will be meeting on Friday, April 8th at 7:30 pm in an online video chat. You can RSVP & add the event to your calendar here. The meeting link is also in the sidebar of this blog (look to your right)! A writer, activist, and mother of two, Audre Lorde grew up in 1930s Harlem. She earned a master's degree in library science from Columbia University, received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for poetry, and was New York State's Poet Laureate from 1991 to 1993. She is the author of twelve books, including Zami and The Black Unicorn. Lorde died of cancer at the age of fifty-eight in 1992. You can learn more about her here and here. |
So, what's the book about?
In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde's philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published.
If this sounds like something you would like to read, you can get your copy of the book from the store for 15% off when you order with us: in store, online, over the phone (828.386.1219), or via email. Our booksellers will be happy to help you get the book in the format that you prefer!
Buy Online:
We are open to the public for in-store shopping Mon-Sat from 11am-6pm & you can pickup your orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using the pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ and free local delivery, as well (within Boone town limits). Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us!
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting
Reviews & Interviews
This month's book club book is Beetle & the Hollow Bones by Aliza Layne! We will be meeting on Friday, February 11th at 7:30 pm in an online video chat! You can RSVP & add the event to your calendar here. The meeting link is also in the sidebar of this blog (look to your right!)
Aliza Layne is a cartoonist, illustrator, and storyteller. She is the creator of Demon Street, a long-form fantasy webcomic for all ages. Her Halloween costumes have elicited the phrases "theatrical," "don't you think you're going a little overboard," and "oh, we remember you from last year." Beetle and the Hollowbones is her first graphic novel and a Stonewall Honor Book. Visit Aliza at AlizaLayne.com. |
So, what's the book about?
Then there's twelve-year-old goblin-witch Beetle, who's caught in between. She'd rather skip being homeschooled completely and spend time with her best friend, Blob Glost. But the mall is getting boring, and B.G. is cursed to haunt it, tethered there by some unseen force. And now Beetle's old best friend, Kat, is back in town for a sorcery apprenticeship with her Aunt Hollowbone. Kat is everything Beetle wants to be: beautiful, cool, great at magic, and kind of famous online. Beetle's quickly being left in the dust.
But Kat's mentor has set her own vile scheme in motion. If Blob Ghost doesn't escape the mall soon, their afterlife might be coming to a very sticky end. Now, Beetle has less than a week to rescue her best ghost, encourage Kat to stand up for herself, and confront the magic she's been avoiding for far too long. And hopefully ride a broom without crashing.
An enchanting, riotous, and playfully illustrated debut graphic novel following a young goblin trying to save her best friend from the haunted mall--perfect for fans of Steven Universe and Adventure Time.
Buy Online
Finally, you can RSVP & add this event to your personal calendar--do that here! We hope to see you at our next meeting!
Reviews & Interviews
Review: Beetle & the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne -- The Nerd Daily
Interview: Aliza Layne -- MG Book Village
Adventure Time meets Moomintroll? Chatting with Aliza Layne about BEETLE & THE HOLLOWBONES -- School Library Journal Blog
This month's book club pick is Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta! We will be meeting on Friday, December 10th at 7:30 pm in an online video chat. You can RSVP and get the link here.
Zoe Hana Mikuta currently attends the University of Washington in Seattle, studying English with a creative writing focus. She grew up in Boulder, Colorado, where she developed a deep love of Muay Thai kickboxing and nurtured a slow and steady infatuation for fictional worlds. When she is not writing, Zoe can be found embroidering runes onto her jean pockets, studying tarot or herbology, or curled up with a cup of caramel coffee and a good, bloody but heartwarming book. She is the author of the Gearbreakers duology (Gearbreakers and Godslayers). You can find her on her website and @ZoeHanaMikuta on twitter. |
We went past praying to deities and started to build them instead...
The shadow of Godolia's tyrannical rule is spreading, aided by their giant mechanized weapons known as Windups. War and oppression are everyday constants for the people of the Badlands, who live under the thumb of their cruel Godolia overlords.
Eris Shindanai is a Gearbreaker, a brash young rebel who specializes in taking down Windups from the inside. When one of her missions goes awry and she finds herself in a Godolia prison, Eris meets Sona Steelcrest, a cybernetically enhanced Windup pilot. At first Eris sees Sona as her mortal enemy, but Sona has a secret: She has intentionally infiltrated the Windup program to destroy Godolia from within.
As the clock ticks down to their deadliest mission yet, a direct attack to end Godolia's reign once and for all, Eris and Sona grow closer--as comrades, friends, and perhaps something more...
Buy Online
Finally, you can RSVP on the Facebook event to get reminders & updates about any changes to the event! Do that here! You can also add it to your personal calendar--check out the event page to see our Google event calendar where you can RSVP!
Reviews & Interviews
Sapphic Dystopian Excellence in Zoe Hana Mikuta's Gearbreakers - TOR
On the World Through the Eyes of a Young Writer, Mecha Sci-Fi, and 'Quiet' Romances - The Quiet Pond
Zoe Hana Mikuta on Her Queer Mech Novel - Nerdist
We hope you can join us for this month's Pride Among the Pines book club on December 10th at 7:30 pm online! Happy Reading!
Grace (she/they) and Mary (they/them) are both lovers of queer literature, and as a queer-owned book store we thought it was about time we started a book club for it! Mary is the owner of the store and a long-time reader of queer lit; they love queer fantasy and memoirs the most, and started out with Oscar Wilde's works. That said, they'll read almost anything if you tell them there's a great queer character! Grace started working at Foggy Pine as a bookseller at the end of February. They were sucked into the world of queer lit through Nina Varela’s duology Crier’s War, a sapphic fantasy. She enjoys queer fantasy and history over anything else! We hope you will join us in this very, very gay book club! We will start out meeting online via Google Meet only with the intention & hope to be able to meet in person later this year. This book club is not limited to queer people - we hope our allies in the community will join us as well!
We will be meeting the second Friday of every month at 7:30pm, starting on September 10th!
Our very first book is going to be Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers. It’s a contemporary sapphic romance!
Morgan Rogers is a queer millennial from Baltimore writing about queer millennials. She has a dog and a cat and dreams about one day owning a farm with horses and goats and chickens. Music is her biggest creative inspiration and Honey Girl is her first novel. Morgan's twitter is @garnetmorgue. |
With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.
This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.
When reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.
We are open to the public again (Mon-Sat from 11am-7pm) so you can pickup orders at the register. However, you can also pickup your book using our pickup basket at the front door or the drive thru window. We offer free media mail shipping for orders $30+ & local delivery (within Boone town limits). Getting your book to you as conveniently as possible is important to us! Please let us know how we can help you get your copy of our book club book this month!
Finally, you can RSVP on the Facebook event to get reminders & updates about any changes. Do that here! We will announce each month's book here on our dedicated blog which will include interviews with the author of each month's book and reviews to help you decide. This blog will also be a space where we make book club related announcements & share them with our club members. We encourage you to leave comments to let us know what you think of the book we've chosen each month or to make suggestions for future titles!
We hope to see you for our very fist Pride Among the Pines meeting on Friday, September 10th at 7:30pm!
Honey Girl - Kirkus Reviews
Morgan Rogers' debut novel 'Honey Girl' is the type of coming-of-age story we need - Seattle Times
Chatting with Morgan Rogers on Honey Girl - SheReads
In 'Honey Girl,' Morgan Rogers Mines Queer Love and Mental Burnout - ShondaLand
Authors
Max Ruthless (they/them) -- Store Owner
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meet.google.com/mrx-dhpz-wjq
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