booklist - The Book Witch

The Best Book Nook for Liv Oszlak

The Best Book Nook is a new series of brief interviews with booksellers, librarians, publishing professionals, and other cool bookish people about their favorite books, their favorite places to read, and more!

This month’s featured reader is Liv Oszlak (she/they), a bookseller at Science Fiction-Bokhandeln in Gothenburg, Sweden. Be sure to follow them on Instagram and let them know if you read any of their recommendations!

A photo of Liv, a fair-skinned enby with platinum-colored hair cut into a gender neutral pixie. Liv is wearing Pride flag earring and a black hoodie, and is pictured in front of a bookshelf full of titles from Tor and Tordotcom. Photo used for The Best Book Nook. — Photo courtesy Liv Oszlak.

This post contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org, an online bookstore that financially supports independent bookstores.

What’s your best book nook or favorite place to read, real or imagined?

Liv: This is a hard question for me to answer. Location-wise, broadly, I’m not too picky, but when it comes to particulars, everything needs to be just right. What matters most to me is the ability to truly focus on my reading, which I often find difficult due to the fickle nature of my ADHD brain.

To find that focus, most of the time I need to be able to fully shut out the rest of the world. Wearing noise canceling headphones and listening to a carefully curated playlist of instrumental music helps with that, as well as closing any curtains so the room is not too bright.

The corner of any couch feels safe and calming to me, and I need to have my back against a wall. I sit with my knees pulled up to my chest, with a pillow between my stomach and thighs. I like the feeling of being “boxed in”—sort of reminiscent of being held, I suppose, but not too close. Lately, the break room at work has been perfect for reading during my lunch; it’s sufficiently dimly lit, it has a little alcove with a built-in couch and piles of pillows, and everyone respects the fact that wearing headphones means “don’t approach me, I’m recharging by escaping to another world.”

What snacks or beverages is your best book nook stocked with?

Liv: As a kid and well into my teens, I would make a huge pot of Russian Earl Grey tea first thing when I came home from school, secure it under a tea cozy and then enjoy cup after cup of it for hours while reading.

That is still my favorite way of enjoying tea with a book, but I’m also a hopeless caffeine addict who buys the biggest mugs I can find that will hold as much filter coffee with oat milk as possible, so I tend to alternate between those two. As for snacks, in Sweden, we have a specific brand of corn thins with chia seeds and sea salt which I adore; with a thin spread of butter, they taste like popcorn.

What was the first book of science fiction or fantasy that really had an impact on you?

The cover for Pawn of Prophecy, the first book in the Belgariad series.

Liv: I have to say the entire Belgariad universe by David Eddings. Technically, I guess that’s cheating, but I really can’t say which individual book out of the thirteen impacted me the most. I started reading them when I was around ten years old, and the story just grabbed hold of me and refused to let go. I read them over and over to the point of knowing passages by heart. I read them so many times that my copies would literally break apart at the spine if placed in the hands of a careless reader.

Rereading them as an adult, it’s obvious why they captured me so entirely: It’s a simple story with pretty simple, likable, and relatable characters. The series follows a very typical fantasy arc, with not much room for interpretation when it comes to the separation between good and evil. That world was a predictably safe place for me to flee to when I couldn’t find safety in real life.

I was also deeply in love with Polgara the Sorceress, and to this day envision myself impossibly aging into sprouting raven black hair with a fashionable white streak through it, but that particular obsession is also something that young Liv didn’t reflect on; it was for adult Liv to unpack later, along with other female fictional crushes.

What have you read recently and loved?

The cover for The Archive Undying, showing a giant robot standing in the sea.

Liv: I’m actually currently in the middle of my best reading experience in. . . ages? I can’t remember the last time a book utterly entranced me like this. I’m at the point where I’m making playlists of songs that remind me of its characters, which hasn’t happened since my teens. When I’m not reading, I think about these characters constantly and worry about them as though they were my real life friends whom I’m watching make terrible, awful, self-destructive, but fully understandable decisions.

The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon has it all: fascinatingly complex people with hidden motivations, corrupted AI gods, deep themes of religious trauma and reforming one’s identity in the face of leaving religion behind, broad and wonderfully done representation. . . It’s queer, introspective, poetic, and incredibly romantic. It’s also the kind of book where the reader is unceremoniously thrown into its vast, weird new world with no safety net; in that way (and in others), it reminds me a lot of another favorite series of mine, The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir.

You will spend a good amount of time trying to find your footing and figuring out what the hell is even going on and why. Then, piece by piece, as you get to know the characters and see the world through their eyes, the story puzzle is laid out before you, and it’s this beautifully heartbreaking, intrinsically human portrayal of damaged individuals crashing into each other’s lives while you’re constantly just hoping with all your heart that they will somehow heal each other and find happiness.

Oh, and also, it has giant robots. “Love” doesn’t cover half of what I feel for this book, and while I know it won’t be for everyone, it absolutely is for me.

What are you excited to read next?

Liv: At about 75% through The Archive Undying, I’m dreading leaving it behind, because I fear nothing I read immediately after will measure up to it. However, I have a good pile of books that I’m deciding between, and which all excite me: Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle, Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt, I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang and Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin are at the top of that pile.

I have been trying to read some less depressing books after the brutal—and brilliant—gut punch of Tell Me I’m Worthless (also by Alison Rumfitt), but as I write this and consider my choices, I’m failing spectacularly. Well, it is what it is. . . I tend to gravitate towards darker narratives, and often find them cathartic. Hopefully my current read doesn’t end up breaking my heart completely (although who doesn’t like to have a good plot-induced cry, now and again? . . . Damn, I will probably regret saying that).

More About Liv Oszlak

I live in Gothenburg, Sweden, with my partner, and I’m currently studying full-stack Web Development at a vocational university. When I’m not reading, I like engaging in any one of my numerous hobbies, which include cosplaying for charity with the 501st Legion, arts and crafts (everything in every medium under the sun, truly), creating or listening to music, creative writing, escaping into vast open world RPGs, thinking perhaps a bit too deeply about media . . . and info-dumping to my partner and friends about my latest hyperfixation.

What’s your best book nook? I’d love to hear about it on Instagram, Threads, or Bluesky! And please give Liv a follow over on Instagram, too!

Happy Birthday, Octavia Butler!

Octavia Butler changed speculative fiction with her path-breaking novels, including the best-selling novel Kindred, which has been adapted for television and as a graphic novel. She was born on June 22, 1947, and would be 77 today if she were still with us.

A photo of two Octavia Butler books: Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.

This post contains affiliate links to Bookshop.org, an online bookstore that financially supports independent bookstores, and if you buy from my links, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Throughout her career, Butler won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, taught regularly at the Clarion Writers Workshop, received a MacArthur Fellowship, and even has an asteroid named after her.

While I can’t tell you when I first learned of Octavia Butler, I first read one of her books in the 2010s. I was on a mission to read classic science fiction. After working my way through some Asimov, Heinlein, and Bradbury, I found a digital audio copy of Fledgling through my library.

I’ve consumed a lot of vampire stories in my life, both written and visual, but Fledgling remains one of my absolute favorites. Rather than being evil villains, Butler’s vampires live symbiotically with humans. I love the way she reimagines vampire mythology and humanizes these creatures we normally see as monsters.

Kindred, Butler’s only other standalone novel, is her most well-known book. It is a haunting portrayal of what people will do to survive and an ode to the resilience of Black Americans. I rarely feel that a book should be required reading for everyone. But Kindred is one of the few that I strongly believe every adult in America should read at least once.

I still have a lot of Octavia Butler to read. My next novel will be Parable of the Sower, the first book in the duology pictured above. I picked up the box set from 7 Stories Press back in January, and today is the perfect day to start reading it.

Interested in picking up one of Octavia Butler’s novels? I’ve put together a list of her novels:

If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy Three Speculative Novels by Queer Authors for Pride Month. Do you have a favorite Octavia Butler novel? Let me know on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky!

Three Speculative Novels by Queer Authors for Pride Month—Or Anytime!

While Pride Month is a great time to dip your toes into the waters of queer speculative fiction, there are too many great options to limit yourself to just thirty-one days! (Plus, queer folks are queer 24/7, not just in June, so why not celebrate natural human diversity all year long?)

For this mini-list, I’ve selected three of my favorite novels by LGBTQIA+ authors. This post does contain affiliate links to Bookshop.org. If you make a purchase using one of these links, you’re helping support both this blog and indie bookstores at no extra cost to you!

Be gay. 🏳️‍🌈 Read books! 📚

8 books next to a light box that reads "Happy Pride" with a bouquet of flowers in the background.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Gideon the Ninth was pitched to me as “lesbian necromancers.” Although the main characters are indeed queer, and one of them is indeed a necromancer, “lesbian necromancers” doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of how utterly brilliant, funny, gripping, and goddamn heartbreaking this book is. In fact, it was so utterly brilliant, funny, gripping, and goddamn heartbreaking that as soon as I’d finished listening to the excellently narrated and produced audiobook, I hit play again and read it a second time.

But in case that’s not enough of an endorsement for you, let me tell you a little bit about the plot, too. The eponymous Gideon dreams of leaving her prison in the Ninth House to become a soldier, but Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the de facto leader of the Ninth House and a powerful necromancer, has other ideas. She recruits Gideon to be her cavalier—basically her personal swordswoman—as she goes on a quest to become a lictor for the undying emperor. Together, they have to compete against necromancers and cavaliers from other houses to solve magical puzzles and unlock the secrets to immortality. Only, of course, things do not go as planned.

Also be sure to check out the sequel, Harrow the Ninth!

Behind the Throne by K. B. Wagers

My bookish love affair with K. B. Wagers began in the library, as all great love affairs do. It was 2016, and I was clerking at the main desk of my library when we got a new book for the science fiction section: Behind the Throne. The title didn’t catch my eye at first, but the tagline did: “…with a heroine as rebellious as Han Solo, as savvy as Leia, and as skilled as Rey.”

While books or movies that compare themselves to Star Wars rarely live up to the hype in my fangirly estimation, I liked the cover art and the concept, so I checked the book out and took it home. I started it that evening, and, well, let’s just say the book—and its heroine—definitely lived up to, and then shot right past, my expectations.

Hail Bristol is a gun runner and a smuggler who’s been doing her utmost to leave her past behind her. But, of course, it catches up to her. Now, she has to face the fact that she’s the last surviving member of the royal family of the Indranan Empire, reconcile with her demons, and save her people. This is a fast-paced, high-stakes, tense but enjoyable read with relatable characters you can’t help but fall in love with.

Also be sure to check out the other two books in the trilogy, After the Crown and Beyond the Empire!

Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson

A few months ago, I was working on a list of queer speculative fiction when I realized I had zero gay men on my list. I wracked my brain trying to come up with a few, scoured my Goodreads lists, and still came up empty handed. I went looking, and found Kai Ashante Wilson’s hauntingly beautiful and devastating novella, Sorcerer of the Wildeeps.

Wilson combines nonlinear storytelling with lush prose to create a story that echoes the way many of us experience memory and grief: in pieces and fragments; wisps of conversations, moments from larger events, and the ebb and flow of emotion through it all. If you’re not a fan of nonlinear stories, you may find Sorcerer of the Wildeeps a challenging read, but either way, you’ll find it a rewarding experience.

The story follows two earth-bound demigods who must use their powers to keep a caravan of merchants and soldiers safe from the dangers of the road, and especially from a man-eating supernatural beast. Although the plot is straightforward, the beats of the story echo like drums long after you turn the last page.

There’s also a sequel, called A Taste of Honey.

There are so many more amazing and wonderful speculative books by queer authors. I’ve compiled some of them in this Bookshop list called “Read the Rainbow: Speculative Fiction by LGBTQIA+ Authors,” but my list is far from authoritative. I’d love to hear who some of your favorite queer spec fic authors are in the comments!

Who’s your favorite queer speculative author? Let me know in the comments, on Twitter @bookwitchblog, or Instagram @bookwitchblog!

Six novels about plagues and viral outbreaks

A year into the COVID-19 pandemic may seem like the worst time to write a booklist featuring novels and comics about plagues and viral outbreaks.

For most of us, it’s been over a year since the world shut down and our lives changed dramatically. We’ve been facing constant upheaval, uncertainty, fear, and a barrage of information and misinformation.

Many of us are dealing with pandemic fatigue: We’re tired of isolation, restrictions, and ongoing disruptions and uncertainty. Our energy reserves are long depleted.

Which is why, now, more than ever, I find myself turning to stories about pandemics and plagues.

In March 2020, I wondered if COVID would wipe out global infrastructure the way it did in Station Eleven. I wondered if the pandemic would cause civil unrest on the scale it did in Y: The Last Man. I even let myself wonder if humanity would die out like it does in Oryx and Crake.

Of course, while this global outbreak has caused major disruptions in basic infrastructure, civil unrest, and millions of deaths, we’ve seen nothing so terminal as what’s depicted in those stories. In a way, that’s comforting to me. These characters have survived, and so have I.

Most of the books I recommend here have hopeful—if not happy—endings, which can also help when things feel chaotic and difficult, especially now at the one-year mark as we’re starting to see some hope with vaccine rollouts.

If you feel like reading about fictional pandemics hits too close to home, I also created a booklist of fun speculative novels to read on the beach—or anywhere!

Six novels about plagues and viral outbreaks

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

A mysterious virus kills every mammal with a Y chromosome. Human, animal, they’re all dead. Except for Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand. As the last man alive in a world left devastated by the loss of half its population, Yorick is pursued by scientists who want to study him and bands of “Amazons” who think the world is better off without men.

Like many post-apocalyptic stories, Y: The Last Man explores a “what if” future while commenting on the present in significant ways. Far from being a story about how women can’t survive without men, Y is a story of how women can and do thrive without men. It’s also a story about one man—now a metaphor for all men—being forced to confront his fragile masculinity and, pardon my french, grow the fuck up, all while chaos swirls around him.

The Dreamers by Katherine Thompson Walker

In a sleepy California college town, students go to class and maybe fall in love, a single dad does his best to take care of his daughters, and a couple struggling with new parenthood attempt to navigate their fraught relationship when a mysterious illness descends. The infected fall asleep, and nothing can wake them. They become dehydrated and malnourished without hospital care.

The disease—and panic—spreads, and much like we’re seeing with this current pandemic, characters react in different ways. The Dreamers isn’t a pandemic novel, as the virus is contained to this one small town. But Katharine Thompson Walker is a master at eliminating the distance between character and reader. It feels just as if we’re experiencing the illness along with the town.

Woven throughout the viral outbreak is Walker’s exploration of the mysteries of sleep and dreams, which adds another few layers to this book. (I also loved her debut novel, The Age of Miracles, which is a post-apocalyptic climate disaster novel told from the perspective of an eleven-year-old girl.)

The MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood

The three books in the MaddAdam trilogy, Oryx and Crake, Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam, chronicle the rise of genetic engineering and the downfall of humanity because of a mysterious plague. Spoiler alert: It all goes back to the hubris of one man and his cult leader status.

I first read Oryx and Crake over a decade ago. I’m still shocked at how often I see an article about “groundbreaking science” that echoes Atwood’s predictions. Take lab-grown meat for example. Written with ruthless precision and prescient imagination, the MaddAddam trilogy will have you rethinking the wisdom of genetic engineering and whether or not humanity even deserves to continue on as a species.

Wanderers by Chuck Wendig

Unlike the other novels on this list, Wanderers tackles an epidemic from two sides: those affected and those working to stem the tide and contain the disease. The novel is told through multiple perspectives, including a disgraced CDC epidemiologist and the sister of this new plague’s first victim.

Of course, it’s not as simple as one unknown disease; there are two new diseases causing havoc across the United States. Wanderers weaves disparate threads together. It reveals how interconnected systems—including political systems—can fail at any point and lead to an uncontrolled outbreak. That makes it incredibly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you read Amazon or Goodreads reviews for this book, you may see a lot of one- and two-star reviews that label the book overly “political.” But as we are seeing, politics are inseparable from how we react to and deal with epidemics and pandemics. Once again, Chuck Wendig exposes the flaws in the system and reveals how politics ignores science, putting citizens in peril.

The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams

Released on February 4, Clare Beams’s debut novel hit shelves just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic. The Illness Lesson is more akin to The Dreamers in tone and scope: it deals with a localized, mysterious illness in a progressive 19th century school for girls. When a mysterious flock of red birds descends on the school, the students begin exhibiting strange symptoms.

Beams explores the oft-overlooked topic of women’s illnesses and how the medical establishment and society ignore women’s symptoms and pain. Beams’s writing is vivid and haunting, and comparisons to Kelly Link and Karen Russell are apt.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel’s brilliant debut novel can be read as a terrifyingly possible blueprint for the future after COVID-19. In Station Eleven, a flu pandemic wipes out huge swathes of humanity and causes societal collapse. No more power, no more running vehicles, no more industry, no more government, no more medicine.

Those who survive are forced into a pre-industrial way of life where resources are scarce. But I’m not recommending this novel because I think things are hopeless for us. On the contrary, Station Eleven shows us how people can thrive even in dire circumstances and find ways to rebuild. This book ends on a hopeful note, and also shows how important art is, especially in times of crisis.

I’ve collected these six novels, along with a few others, into a handy list over at Bookshop.org.

This post contains affiliate links. Purchasing books through Bookshop.org directly supports independent bookstores, and using my affiliate links supports my writing and this website.

Three Historical SFF Novels Perfect for Women’s History Month

March is Women’s History Month, and while speculative fiction often addresses the future, it’s equally good at plumbing the past to help us understand the present. These three novels all have historical settings and female characters who have to confront the limits their time period puts on women—and then find ways to overcome them.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Kindred tells the story of a modern Black woman, Dana, who is pulled back in time to the South by one of her ancestors. There, Dana has to confront the reality of slavery. Dana serves as a sort of translator-avatar for the reader—neither she nor any of us have ever experienced slavery first hand. She quickly realizes that if she behaves as a Black woman from the 1970s normally behaves, she’ll get herself killed. Her only real safety net in this strange world is her ancestor, Rufus, the son of a slaveholder and the reason she keeps traveling through time.

Dana goes into the past thinking she could never be a slave, only to learn that she will do what it takes to survive, even if that means swallowing her pride and sacrificing some of her dignity. As she gets to know the slaves, she sees how strong they are. She realizes that they, too, are a product of their time, though their time doesn’t define who they are as individuals. Through Dana’s eyes, the reader is able to see the complex social dynamics and entrenched patriarchal and racist values and structure involved in slavery. As Dana experiences what it’s like to be a slave, so too does the reader—and therein is Kindred’s real power.

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

Yangsze Choo’s coming-of-age adventure set in 1890s Malaya explores the effects of colonialism, sexism, and class on its characters. Li Lan is a young woman with few marriage prospects because of her father’s failing business. She’s smart and capable, but to her potential suitors, money is what matters, and her family doesn’t have any.

The Lim family offers to make her a ghost bride to their recently deceased son, which would mean Li Lan would have a home and live in comfort for the rest of her life. But it would also mean she’d be alone, and have to abandon her ailing father. As she wrestled with the decision to become a ghost bride, Li Lan is slowly pulled into the afterlife, where she becomes embroiled in solving the mystery of her would-be groom’s death.

Throughout the novel, Li Lan must reckon with the ways her own desires conflict with her familial and societal duty, and make difficult choices between them. Choo renders colonial Malaya vividly and beautifully, and her afterlife is lush and feels like a complete world unto itself.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Set in the early 1940s, Mexican Gothic follows the story of two cousins: Noemi and Catalina. Noemi is a young debutant who dreams of becoming an anthropologist. The only problem is, her father wants her to find a husband at college, not get a degree.

When they receive a disturbing letter from Catalina, recently married to an Englishman named Virgil, who lives in a run-down mansion called High Place, Noemi’s father makes a deal with her. If she goes to check on Catalina and help her recover, he’ll allow her to get a master’s degree. Noemi agrees, and sets off for High Place with high hopes.

As with any gothic novel, the house has secrets. Catalina’s mysterious illness unerves Noemi, and she clashes with her cousin’s husband and his eugenicist father, Howard. Her only friend at High Place is Francis, Virgil’s quiet cousin who seems to be keeping a secret or two of his own, but clearly likes Noemi.

Mexican Gothic addresses colonialism, racism, and sexism in a more direct way than The Ghost Bride, but has plenty of surprises up its sleeve, too. The horror of colonization is made visceral in the house’s secret, as Virgil and Howard try to force Noemi and Catalina to bend to their wills.

More Speculative Novels for Women’s History Month

Of course, there are so many more great speculative novels by women, about women. Novels that retell myths formerly dominated by men (Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad), novels that examine a matriarchal future (Ursula Le Guin’s Always Coming Home), and novels that examine what the world might be like if the power balance favored the most powerless (Naomi Alderman’s The Power).

I’ve gathered all these—and more!—in this handy list of Speculative Novels for Women’s History Month in my Bookshop.org shop. Any purchases you make using these affiliate links helps support my work and the work of independent bookstores all over the world!