Quote of the Day, A Guide to Cozy Genres, Florida Bookstore Removes all LGBTQ Titles From Shelves, Heartstopper Ends with a Movie, Plays Rake in the Green, Practical Magic 2 Hits Screens This Year, Trump Fires Librarian of Congress, Anxious People Movie, The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki, Goddess of Summer Love by Kelley Armstrong,The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell, and Brighter than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to every kind of mom out there, because we are the glue that keeps society together! My beloved son and I spent yesterday going to bookstores and getting delicious hot dogs and boba tea, as well as getting pens and large post-it notes from the local office supply store. Then it was off to get tea from Cost Plus World Market and lip balm and other sundries from Target. The stores were crowded and the shelves becoming bare, so I gather we weren't the only ones to have Mother's Day shopping sprees with our children. So anyway, happy reading to all the bookish moms who are hopefully able to spend part of their day sipping tea or coffee and reading a good book in a cozy chair (or in bed, like I do).  Enjoy!

 

I would love this, too...the more libraries and bookstores out there, the better. I've lived my life in reading stories and in writing non fiction stories as a journalist, so I know how important they are to our world.

 

 Quotation of the Day

"When you walk into an independent bookstore, it just feels different

from any other store. There's the welcoming smile and the smell of fresh

pages (and sometimes coffee, too). But even more than that is the

feeling of community, knowing you're in a place where stories are

valued, and where everyone's story matters. I'd love it if the whole

world could be more like an indie bookstore."--Kate Messner, whose novel The Trouble with Heroes (Bloomsbury Children's Books) is the #1 May/June Kids' Indie Next List 

 

I've become a big fan of "cozy" books in most genres because today's real world headlines and programs are all too terrifyingly gory and painful. I read to escape and entertain myself, and the only way to do that lately is to read within the cozy genre, where you are almost guaranteed that everything will turn out alright. I need every bit of bright light and happiness I can get in the current capitalist hellscape that is America, run by the despotic orange clown and his gang of robber oligarchs. 

A Guide to All the Cozy Genres 

Cozy has certainly become a buzzword attached to genre fiction. It all started with cozy mysteries, which have been around for decades. Now we’re seeing cozy science fiction and fantasy, and even cozy horror. So what exactly does “cozy” mean?

There are some common traits of so-called cozy books. Generally, they evoke a charming atmosphere with their setting. In cozy mysteries, this is often a small town—think of a quaint village in the English countryside. Fantasy adds some magic to that quaint village; horror adds ghosts. For science fiction, coziness often manifests as a ship, space station, or colony with a tight-knit crew. Readers can expect rich descriptions of the setting and a lot of atmosphere for a fully transporting reading experience.

Another common factor in these books is the stakes of the story. Cozy mysteries are somewhat confounding because the crimes they solve are typically murders! Nevertheless, the reader is not subjected to gory details or put in a position of extreme suspense. Likewise, cozy fantasy and sci-fi novels may deal with the aftermath of a large-scale conflict, but the characters are likely to be dealing with smaller, more internal or interpersonal challenges.

I used to live in Florida, so I know how dearly the powers that be cling to superstition and ignorance and racism there. So this latest news of book bans in a bookstore doesn't surprise me so much as disgust me, and remind me of why I was happy to move far away from this terrible state. I feel sorry for the kids growing up there who will be deprived of a real education, like my husband was (he grew up during his tween and teen years in St Pete, Fla.)

 

Florida Bookstore Removes LGBTQ+ Titles

Let’s minds-eye travel to Escambia County to the heart of a battle on book bans and censorship, and to the indie bookstore allegedly fighting a bizarro-world version of that fight, which is to say leaning into book banning rather than fighting against it. Bodacious Bookstore & Café current and former employees described for Dakota Parks at NBC News how they were directed to remove queer books from shelves and how some staff resigned in protest. The employees said the move was catalyzed by a complaint about profanity on a greeting card, which spurred a sort of audit of materials, but Escambia County is also home to the school district that pulled 1,600 book titles from shelves and is in the midst of federal lawsuits related to book bans. Former employees named Elliot Page’s Pageboy and Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper among the many titles removed from shelves. While a spokesperson for the bookstore’s owners denied that books were removed based on LGBTQ+ subject matter and attempted to cast doubt on the employee accounts, said accounts are pretty damning. We hate to see it.

 

I really enjoyed binging the Heartstopper series on Netflix, but at least they're allowing them a movie to tie up loose ends. 

Heartstopper Ends with Movie

Last month, Netflix announced that it would not be moving forward with a fourth season of its popular Heartstopper series, based on the books by Alice Oseman. Instead of a final season, fans will be getting a feature film to wrap up the story of Charlie, Nick, and all of their friends.In an Instagram post, Oseman said, “We are making a feature film to conclude the Heartstopper screen adaptation, based on Heartstopper Volume 6 and the Nick and Charlie novella. We are getting to tell the end of the story!!! I’m deeply relieved and so excited about this new creative venture. I’ve written the script and we’re hard at work already. I know you’ll have a lot of questions, and I’ll be able to talk about it more very soon, but for now let’s CELEBRATE! Heartstopper is getting its ending!!!!!!”

Heartstopper has had three seasons on Netflix so far. The first season covered volumes 1 and 2 of Oseman’s graphic novel series. Season two covered volume 3. Season three—the final season, which was released in October 2024—covered volumes 4 and 5, as well as the This Winter novella. Oseman has said that volume 6 will be the conclusion of the Heartstopper series, which means the upcoming feature film adaptation should wrap up the story as the author intended.

This is awesome news, that in a time when its difficult to get people away from streaming shows on their computers and TV screens, that people are going back to movie theaters and to regular theaters to watch plays and musicals live and in person, as they were meant to be viewed. 

 

Plays Starring Celebs Rake in the Green

George Clooney and Grant Heslov’s play, Good Night, and Good Luck, grossed $4 million in one week. The play, based on the film of the same name and written by the same authors, broke records and is the highest-grossing production in the history of the Shubert Organization on top of receiving five Tony Award nominations. Here’s a quote about Good Night, and Good Luck that you might appreciate, as I did: "The play chronicles a time in American history when truth and journalistic integrity stood up to fearmongering and disinformation—and won." Meanwhile, Othello, starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, has grossed $3 million. Looking at the gains plays have made in this monied progress report from Deadline is staggering. Between Tony Award nominations and great attendance, Broadway is getting butts in seats with celebrated and star-studded shows.

I've been an Alice Hoffman fan for decades, reading nearly everything she's written in her own gorgeous prose style. Now it appears we happy few will get a second installment of Hoffman's breakout movie, Practical Magic! How wonderful! I can hardly wait for this premier next year!

 

Break Out Your Best Stevie Nicks Shawls

Fall 2026 will serve PSLs, wool fits, and witchery–Practical Magic 2 is hitting screens next year. Multiple people attached to the original 1998 film, based on Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic, will return for the second installment: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, and Akiva Goldsman who co-wrote the original. Oscar award-winning filmmaker Susanne Bier, who worked with Bullock on the Bird Box adaptation, will direct. I have to believe that the sequel will be based on the concluding book in the series, The Book of Magic, but that’s just a theory for now. I still listen to the soundtrack from the OG film and while I doubt Stevie Nicks will return for the sequel, a girl can dream. Can we also get aunties Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest back, while I’m asking?

This is pure evil at work! Firing a wonderful librarian because she's a person of color and doesn't believe in censorship and book bans! How low can this fascist POTUS go? The GALL of the man! Horrific!

Trump Fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden

Donald Trump has fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden,

the first woman and first African American to hold the position, the

Washington Post reported, adding that she "was informed of the decision

in a terse, two-sentence e-mail" sent late Thursday.

Hayden was appointed to the position in 2016 by President Barack Obama.

Her renewable 10-year term would have expired next year. Hayden was also

the first librarian by profession to be appointed to the job in decades.

A Library of Congress spokesperson confirmed her dismissal to the Post,

but declined to elaborate. Hayden and the White House did not

immediately respond to requests for comment.

The e-mail from the White House deputy director of presidential

personnel, which was seen by the Post, said: "On behalf of President

Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as the

Librarian of Congress is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for

your service."

In a separate e-mail seen by the AP, Robert Newlen, the principal deputy

librarian, said he would serve as acting Librarian of Congress "until

further instruction."

House minority leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D.-N.Y.) said in a statement

that Hayden "is an accomplished, principled and distinguished Librarian

of Congress... Donald Trump's unjust decision to fire Dr. Hayden in an

e-mail sent by a random political hack is a disgrace and the latest in

his ongoing effort to ban books, whitewash American history and turn

back the clock."

In a statement, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D.-Conn.), the top Democrat on the

House Appropriations Committee, called for the White House to explain

its decision: "Every Member of Congress I know--Democratic or

Republican--loves and respects Dr. Carla Hayden. A 'fighter of freedom'

and a guardian of our nation's truth and intellectual legacy, Dr. Hayden

was just abruptly and callously fired by President Trump.... Dr.

Hayden's tenure has been marked by a steadfast commitment to

accessibility, modernization, and the democratization of knowledge. Her

dismissal is not just an affront to her historic service but a direct

attack on the independence of one of our most revered institutions."

I've also been a fan of Backman's work since reading a Man Called Ove back when it first debuted. I've read everything he's written, though I enjoyed only 2/3rds of them. Still, I am excited for this film adaptation to come out with its stellar cast.

 

Movies: Anxious People

Angelina Jolie will star in a film adaptation of Fredrik Backman's

bestselling novel Anxious People.

Deadline reported that Marc Forster, who directed A Man Called Otto,

based on the author's novel A Man Called Ove, is helming the new

project. Netflix made a Swedish TV series version of Anxious People in

2021.

"Fredrik's novels speak to our shared humanity in a way that really

moves audiences, and we're proud to be able to deliver another

heartwarming and hilarious adaptation of his work," said Nicastro.

Wolfe added: "Anxious People is a uniquely warm and heartfelt story that

speaks to our chaotic times by asking us to step outside of our own

stories and slow down enough to actually see one another.... Sometimes

funny, sometimes dramatic and always entertaining, Anxious People is a

book that has sold over six million copies worldwide and, with Angelina

Jolie playing the lead and Marc Forster directing, will surely prove to

be a movie that will captivate millions more."

The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki is a beautiful short fantasy novel that has everything fantasy lovers could desire, including astrology-loving talking cats! Here's the blurb:

 Translated from the Japanese bestseller, a charming and magical novel that reminds us it’s never too late to follow our stars.
In Japan, cats are a symbol of good luck. As the myth goes, if you are kind to them, they’ll one day return the favor. And if you are kind to the right cat, you might just find yourself invited to a mysterious coffee shop under a glittering Kyoto moon.

This particular coffee shop is like no other. It has no fixed location, no fixed hours, and it seemingly appears at random. It’s also run by talking cats.

While customers at the Full Moon Coffee Shop partake in cakes and coffees and teas, the cats also consult their star charts, offering cryptic wisdom, and letting them know where their lives veered off course.

Every person who visits the shop has been feeling more than a little lost. For a down-on-her-luck screenwriter, a romantically stuck movie director, a hopeful hairstylist, and a technologically challenged website designer, the coffee shop’s feline guides will set them back on their fated paths. For there is a very special reason the shop appeared to each of them.

Though at first the premise seems absurd, the author handles it with practical aplomb, so that readers find themselves wondering if their own fates might be written in the stars (or their astrology charts). The prose is beautiful and dream like, and the characters fascinating. I was spellbound each time a planetary cat began explaining what the different signs on the character's chart meant for them and their future. The cats also dispense what I would consider common sense advice to the hardworking and lonely people they encounter. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone who reads their horoscope in the paper everyday and who loves cats and romance.

 

Goddess of Summer Love by Kelley Armstrong is a paranormal romantic fantasy that is simplistically written and plottted in an obscure fashion that lead this reader to be confused as to who was supposed to end up with whom. Here's the blurb: 

It’s Memorial Day weekend in Unstable, the paranormal tourist town the curse-weaving Bennett sisters call home. Kennedy has invited luck-worker Aiden Connolly and his younger brother, Rian. She’s also invited Venus, an immortal once worshipped as the goddess of love.

Venus earned her reputation honestly. There’s nothing she likes more than matchmaking, and the three Bennett sisters are ripe for her particular skills.

The trick to getting Kennedy and Aiden together is to give them a mystery to solve. Just grab a local cold case and add a few red herrings. They’ll be so happy working together again that they’ll never know the difference. Or that’s the theory. But when the mystery turns into a real one, Venus’s plan may end up doing more harm than good.

Venus, though she's an immortal goddess, and Ares, her Olympian paramour, seem smug and lazy here, and their meddling doesn't seem to help the young couples the way that it should. I found myself frustrated by a lack of background for everyone, so all their interactions seemed shallow, and made the plot slow to a crawl. I'd give this lackluster ebook a C+ and only recommend it to those who like their stories silly and easily understood. 

 

The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell is a historical mystery with a little bit of horror woven throughout. It's one of those novels that reminds us, as women, that things were much worse for women and girls in past centuries, when we were considered property and disposable. Here's the blurb:

“Funny, eerie, tender, haunting and unsettling, smokily atmospheric, and fantastically enjoyable.” —Helen Macdonald, author 

London, 1893: high up in a house on a dark, snowy night, a lone seamstress stands by a window. So begins the swirling, serpentine world of Paraic O’Donnell’s Victorian-inspired mystery, the story of a city cloaked in shadow, but burning with questions: why does the seamstress jump from the window? Why is a cryptic message stitched into her skin? And how is she connected to a rash of missing girls, all of whom seem to have disappeared under similar circumstances?

On the case is Inspector Cutter, a detective as sharp and committed to his work as he is wryly hilarious. Gideon Bliss, a Cambridge dropout in love with one of the missing girls, stumbles into a role as Cutter’s sidekick. And clever young journalist Octavia Hillingdon sees the case as a chance to tell a story that matters—despite her employer’s preference that she stick to a women’s society column. As Inspector Cutter peels back the mystery layer by layer, he leads them all, at last, to the secrets that lie hidden at the house on Vesper Sands.

By turns smart, surprising, and impossible to put down, The House on Vesper Sands offers a glimpse into the strange undertow of late nineteenth-century London and the secrets we all hold inside us. 

 

I agree with Helen Macdonald that this book is eerie and unsettling, as well as being a page-turner once you get beyond the first 50-60 pages. The novel takes place during what Americans called The Gilded Age and Europeans termed the Belle Epoque, toward the tail end of the 19th century, when the rich were flashing their wealth and trying to marry into titles and old money, and the poor were desperately destitute, and lived hand to mouth. Though misogyny was a given in English society, I felt that the addition of Octavia the intrepid reporter helped show that the sufferagist movement wasn't dead yet, and that women were making changes through strength of will alone. What I also found fascinating about this book was the prose style, which was distinctly 19th century old fashioned British grammar. I was reminded of my first time reading Sherlock Holmes story in the excellent style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This doesn't make for a fast read, however, as every sentence holds treasures and clues to solving the mystery. I'd give this fascinating tome an A-, and recommend it to fans of 19th century writers and hardcore Victorian mystery. 

 

Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang is an LGBTQ fantasy/action/adventure novella that is gripping and understated in its elegant prose and emotional characters. Though it's slight in page count, the book itself is beautifully illustrated on the cover and the crisp font style of the interior only makes it more appealing. Here's the blurb: Neon Yang’s Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame is a stunning queer novella about a dragon hunter finding home with a dragon queen.

Few know the true identity of the masked guildknight of Mithrandon.

She barely remembers herself.
The masked guildknight—Yeva—was thirteen when she killed her first dragon. With her gift revealed, she was shipped away to the imperial capital to train in the rare art of dragon-slaying. Now a legendary dragon hunter, she has never truly felt at home—nor removed her armor in public—since that fateful day all those years ago.

Yeva must now go to Quanbao, a fiercely independent and reclusive kingdom. It is rumored that there, dragons are not feared as is right and proper, but instead loved and worshipped. It is rumored that there, they harbor a dragon behind their borders.

While Yeva searches for the dreaded beast, she is welcomed into the palace by Quanbao’s monarch, Lady Sookhee. Though wary of each other, Yeva is shocked to find herself slowly opening up to the beautiful, mysterious queen.

As they grow closer, Yeva longs to let Lady Sookhee see the person behind the armor, but she knows she must fulfill her purpose and slay the dragon. Ultimately, she must decide who—or what—she is willing to betray: her own heart, or the sacred duty that she has called home for so long.
 

Yeva is a riveting, damaged character who falls in love with a creature she's bound by law and tradition to annillate. After a childhood and young adulthood filled with violence and squashing emotional brainwashing, it was heartening that Yeva chooses love and a life of peace over domination, pain and suffering. That she fell for a dragon lady who is consumptive and weak seemed cliched, however, but Lady Sookhee was able to show courage when it was needed most. I'd give this short novella a B, and recommend it to anyone interested in lesbian fantasy with a distinctive Asian flare.