I first encountered Zarna Garg on Amy Poehler’s podcast, Good Hang, which if you want to spend an hour laughing with some of the funniest people in the world, I highly recommend. Garg was the opening act for Poehler and Tina Fey’s comedy tour, and she appeared on the podcast to promote this memoir.

Originally self-published and the author’s first novel, Theo of Golden piqued my interest before I’d even picked it up to read.  I love a story about a breakthrough novel that gains its audience because so many friends recommend it to their friends that before you know it, it’s a bestseller.

With her book The Witch Elm, I have officially become a Tana French fan. Mysteries and murder mysteries aren’t usually my go-to genres for reading pleasure.  But with major personal upheavals in my life in the past several weeks, The Witch Elm really grabbed—and kept—my attention from beginning to end.

I want to thank one of our most loyal L&L readers, Ellen, for recommending Awake.  I hadn’t heard of Jen Hatmaker before reading this book, so it’s unlikely I would ever have picked it up on my own.  I’m so glad that I read this captivating book.

I always feel funny reviewing a book long after it was popular but somehow I missed reading it until now. But I decided I needed to review The Song of Achilles in case any of you, like me, sometimes take a decade to read an award-winning book. I read Miller’s second book, Circe, much closer to its release and loved it, so I don’t know why I delayed so long reading The Song of Achilles. But I’m so glad I finally read it.

There are many reasons I almost decided not to review The New Menopause: (1) I come from a generation that believes polite people don’t talk about personal things like menopause.  (2) I worried how our male readers would react. (3) I thought that even young women of my co-editor’s generation wouldn’t be interested in something which feels so far off in their future.  But I decided in favor of writing the review because I learned more from this book than I have from any book I’ve read in a very long time.