Our first book for September's prompt to Read a Book with an Animal in the Title is The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li. We loved reading about this obsessive, codependent relationships between two girls in post-war France.

Content warnings: mentions of violence and sexual assault (not graphically described)

Our next book discussion will be on Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara. Get it from your local library or bookstore and read along with us!

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon

For our last book in August, Corinne picked Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo.

Content Warning: racism, abuse, alcoholism

Our next book discussion will be The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li. You can find it at your local bookstore or library and read along with us.

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon

Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine follows several generations of a family in the Colorado area. Fair warning, we have some criticisms about this book's writing, so if you loved it, you may want to skip this episode.

Content advisory: violence, sexual assault, racism

Our next book discussion will be on Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo. Find it at your local library or bookstore and read along with us!

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon

Or: A Fantastic Journey Across Seven Borders, five languages, And Three Major Religions, not counting the minor sects. Told by the DEAD, supplemented by the AUTHOR, drawing from a range of BOOKS, and aided by IMAGINATION, the which being the greatest natural GIFT of any person. That the WISE might have it for a record, that my compatriots REFLECT, laypersons gain some UNDERSTANDING, And Melancholy Souls Obtain Some Slight Enjoyment

Content warning: antisemitism, violence, frank talk about sex

Our next book discussion will be on Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine. Find it at your local library or bookstore and read along with us!

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon

July's prompt for The Bookstore Challenge 2023 is to Read a Book Over 500 Pages, and/or a Graphic Novel. Our pick for the 500 pager is coming up later this month, but in the meantime, we have a graphic novel, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. Is it this generation's The Jungle?! We think so!

Content advisory: sexual assault, sexual harassment, workplace safety, capitalism

Our next book discussion will be The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk. You can find it at your local bookstore or library and read along with us.

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon

This week we read Weetzie Bat and Witch Baby by Francesca Lia Block (both can also be found in the anthologized book Dangerous Angels). These books were massively popular with off-beat teens in the 90s and have a huge following. Will they still manage to charm jaded 30-somethings in the 2020s?

Content warnings for the books: some dark themes including sexual assault and addiction. Also some really egregious cultural appropriation and outright stereotyping/tokenizing.

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon

Becca's DNF book pick for June's prompt is The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. The novel is Lahiri's follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning story collection, The Interpreter of Maladies.

Our next book is actually two books, Weetzie Bat and Witch Baby by Francesca Lia Block. Find it at your local bookstore or library (it's on Hoopla!) and read along with us.

Content warnings: near-death experience, (possible) sexual assault

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon

As chosen by our Patrons (plus Corinne), our extra book for May is Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov. Gospodinov is Bulgarian, thus fulfilling the prompt to read a book by an author from a country you've never been to, as neither of us have been to Bulgaria. And as a bonus, Time Shelter was announced as the winner of the International Booker Prize recently!

Content warnings: mentions of suicide, euthanasia, Alzheimer's, war, none of which we go into great detail about

Our next book discussion is The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, find it at your local bookstore or library and read along with us!

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon

Corinne's pick for The Bookstore Challenge 2023 prompt to "read a book by an author from a country you've never been to" is An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie. Kpomassie writes about his childhood in Togo and his fulfilled ambition to move to Greenland and experience life there.

Content warnings: animal death, addiction

Mentioned in the episode is a Tiktoker who lives in Svalbard, @sejsejlija

Our next book discussion, as chosen by our Patreon Patrons, will be Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov. You can find it at your local bookstore or library and read along with us.

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon

Becca's pick for May's prompt to read a book by an author from a country you've never been to is The Fawn by Magda Szabó (the country is Hungary). We are already fans of hers from reading her later novel Abigail, and we're thrilled to read another classic Szabó exploration of a complicated and flawed woman.

Content warnings: Deaths, both animal and human

If you want to read along with The Bookstore Challenge 2023, you can find Instagram graphics for your story or grid in this Google Drive folder. You can also join us on The StoryGraph to see what others are reading for each month and get ideas for your TBR: The Bookstore Challenge 2023.

Get two audiobook credits for the price of one at Libro.fm when you sign up using the code BOOKSTOREPOD.

Website | Patreon