Hey y'all!

It's a new year and I'm so excited to read more with y'all in 2026. Bindery has added a cool new "request a rec" feature where you can request book recs from me directly. Try it out!

I'm also gonna add some recent reads I recommend to this post. Click the links to read more!

Best,

Rae

The first Discord chat with the Bookclub is happening in 10 minutes! Join The Brothers Gwynne chat as everyone who joins chats about their thoughts on December's book, The Only Good Indians. Hope to see you there!

HELLO 2026!!
We're straight into the book picks for Jan - kicking it off with a series that's been on my TBR for some time. The First Law Trilogy is fantasy grimdark at its finest and we're covering the first book - The Blade Istelf!
Part 1 of the discussion will take place Jan 8 at https://www.twitch.tv/maudegarrett from 5pmPT
PArt 2 will be Jan 15, same time and place!

Will post the bonus book next!

📬𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗯𝗼𝘅 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝗷𝗼𝗿 𝘂𝗽𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲!

Forget the flowers. send me something with a 'happily ever after' and a pretty spine! 📖✨

There’s nothing I love more than a good story and a great community, so we’re hosting 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸 𝗖𝗹𝘂𝗯'𝘀 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗚𝗶𝗳𝘁 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲!

🔗𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗧𝗢 𝗝𝗢𝗜𝗡: Click the link in my bio to register on Elfster!

🎁𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝘁 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀:

𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴: Elfster will anonymously pair you with one lucky recipient.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗶𝗳𝘁: You choose the perfect read! Send a newly purchased book OR a beloved, gently used title from your own collection.

𝗪𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗟𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗪𝗶𝘀𝗱𝗼𝗺: Head to Elfster and list your favorite genres, specific titles, and preferred format physical vs. e-book!

⭐𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿:

𝗥𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝘆: February 13th

𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗗𝗿𝗮𝘄𝗻: February 14th Valentine’s Day! ❤️

𝗦𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝘆: February 20th

💰𝗔 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴: Please ignore the spending limit on Elfster; it’s just a site requirement! There is no minimum or maximum amount. The true magic is in the exchange!

📍𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗚𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲: The success of this event relies on commitment. Please only join if you are committed to sending a gift so everyone gets to feel the love!

❗️𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱: Send this post or the link to a friend who needs more book mail in their life! https://www.elfster.com/gift-exchanges/04001f27-092d-4a41-922b-7a506773a519

#Bookstagram #BookExchange #SecretValentine #BookishValentine #ReadingCommunity

Welcome to my Syllabus Series. I was a high school English teacher for over five years and nothing gives me more joy than to help others learn something new. As someone who also reads a large amount of non-fiction, I wanted to create a new series where I pick a singular topic that you might want to learn more about. This edition is all about resistance.

In my exploration of the self-help industry, I often talk about how the solution is actually community-help and systemic change. If you’ve wanted to learn more about this, this is where to start.

First, I’ll take you through books to read through various genres and the order you should read them in to scaffold and layer your learning. But learning isn’t all about reading, so I’ll also share video resources, shorter articles, and give you a list of people to follow on social media in order to stay up to date well beyond today. Finally, learning means nothing without action, so I will also provide you ways that you can do something with what you’re learning.

This isn’t meant to be overwhelming and is laid out in a way that it’s learning you have time for. Therefore, the list isn’t extensive and manageable. Of course, there’s always more learning to be done.

Books to read

A collection of books read to read. For the best learning experience, try to read the books in this order.
(*note: this section contains affiliate links)

• Fiction
  “Pet” and “Bitter” by Akwaeke Emezi
  In order to best understand resistance and revolution and the role you could play through your talents, I highly recommend these two books by my favorite author. They’re short and easily accessible and while they explore themes in a magical realism setting, the ideas are easily applicable to our own lives.

• Non-fiction
  ”Mutual Aid” by Dean Spade
  This is the book to help begin to understand the importance of mutual aid and the role and change it plays in our world. It’s great to not only understanding how mutual aid works, but how to effectively create mutual aid networks and participate in them.

• Essays
  “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” by Angela Y. Davis
  A collection of essays, interviews, and speeches that explores struggles against state violence around the world and how they’re connected. It’s also a call to action for a collective movement towards liberation. This is a nice book to get a brief overview of various topics.

• Non-fiction

  “We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance” by Kellie Carter Jackson

  If you enjoy “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” and want to dive deeper into the history of Black resistance, pick this up. It’s important that we reframe the narratives surrounding the history and present of Black resistance and this book does just that.

• Non-fiction
  “Let This Radicalize You” by Kelly Hayes
  After you understand the history and basics surrounding resistance, this book all about sustaining organizing and activism as the systems you are resistance are built to break you down. This is to help you keep going.

Other media to consume

• Video
  “What is Mutual Aid (Classroom Version) by Dean Spade
  A super clear explanation of what Mutual Aid is, if you don’t have time to read Spade’s book from above.

• Case study

  “Farm-to-Community: Critical Elements of a Successful Farm Mutual-Aid Program” by Chris Newman
  A breakdown of what a successful mutual aid effort where a farmer started a mutual aid fund to help bring his food to individuals facing food insecurity.

• Article
  “The co-option of mutual aid” by Regan de Loggans

  If you don’t have time to read any of the books above, this article is a great primer on mutual aid and how it differs from charity. It also explores the dangers of white people co-opting the term “mutual aid” when talking about charity.

• Keynote speech
  “Designing Rest as Practice” by Tricia Hersey
  Hersey wrote a book called “Rest is Resistance” which focuses on the importance and revolutionary act of rest in our capitalistic society. Here’s a speech where she talks about this idea.

• Podcast
  “Movement Memos”

  A podcast that connects experts, activists, and journalists around the world who are on the front lines of movements and mutual aid networks.

Who to follow

When learning about a subject where community is key it’s important to find people to help you along the way. Here are a few people and organisations I encourage you to follow:

• Sam @expertbooksmuggler: In my opinion, Sam is one of the best examples of how to use social media as a tool for mutual aid. She has consistently been sharing resources and opportunities for you to participate in mutual aid by donating money directly to families currently experiencing genocide around the world.

• JM Heatherly ‘s Substack: A substack dedicated to focusing on community organizing and mutual aid topics.

• Dean Spade: The author of “Mutual Aid” listed above, I would honestly go to Spade’s linktree and read all his articles/interviews.

Take action

Donate
A large part of mutual aid is supporting members of your community (including your global community). One way to do this (if you’re able) is to financially help. There’s a million ways to do this.

I would recommend finding a cause or community you care about (Palestine, Sudan, natural disaster relief, etc) and search for mutual aid and that community on social media. I find Instagram to be the best place to search for these opportunities.

Start a mutual aid project
This might seem like a daunting task, but there are resources to help you. Big Door Brigade has a toolbox for starting a mutual aid project depending on what type of mutual aid you’re interested in.

A good place to start might be through creating a neighborhood pod or create a pod within your local community. Some resources on how to do that can be found here.

Protest
If you are able, protesting helps make our voices louder. It’s a tool meant to disrupt and force those in charge to take action. Make sure that you continue to make your voice heard on the issues you care about.

As I mentioned earlier, learning is an ongoing practice. If you would like more resources, don’t hesitate to reach out. And if you have any resources to add to this list, please add them to the comments below.

Hello and happy new year,

I hope you’re all doing well! This isn’t a long post but I was too excited not to make this.

Bindery has a new feature where you can request a specific title and it comes straight to me with a cute little postcard. I had no idea this feature came out (i was very much on vacation and not looking at my email for most of December, keep an eye out for my next newsletter for more there) or I would have already answered them. If you sent in a request, the recs are below !

As a former bookseller, I genuinely miss recommending randomly specific titles and it’s quite fun racking my brain for book knowledge, especially great when we find the right one. This is a beta feature so I’m not sure yet the best way to answer these. I can either do it as a post here on Bindery, or on ig stories, let me know which way you prefer!

Now onto the recs:

The first request was from Ezra who asked for: a banger that is also a book club crowd pleaser.

A social media account was not tagged so hopefully you see this one. I have a scifi and fantasy recommendation:

Project Hail Mary: A Novel by Andy Weir

This one is going to be adapted later this year and from everything I hear it’s a very good pick for a book club. It follows Ryland Grace, the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. While I haven’t personally read this, my sister’s book club (that heavily reads scifi and fantasy) said this one was a great pick!

A Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez:

My pick is definitely this standalone fantasy which follows Jun, a guard that is full of regret of his past decisions, and Keema, an outcast that is fighting for identity and self-value. The pair end up aiding and abetting the escape of a god that has been locked under a palace for centuries and used for her abilities and magic by her own family. The ruling family consists of an emperor and his three murderous sons who have used the god’s abilities to rule with cruelty for centuries and bleed the land of resources as they oppress their citizenry. Jun and Keema end up on an adventure with this god that changes the course of power in the land and those who wield it. It’s written with such stunning prose and imagery, the descriptions alone are enough to make this a great discussion book. This was my favorite read of 2024 and genuinely the most talked about book that my club and I chose to read. There is so much action and heart packed into it, I think it definitely fits the criteria.

The second request was from Kaith. ig: (@kaithisms)

First of all, thank you for watching! I have quite a few recs I hope one of these stand out. I would be remiss not to mention the one that inspired the video to begin with which was of course:

Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072

This is one of the most unique scifi books I’ve read, as it imagines a word beyond the apocalyptic style, dystopian narrative we have been fed for decades. Written from the perspective of two activists that come from labor organizing, activist work, and trans rights organizing we are getting the perspective of two powerful voices in M.E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi. The novel is done in an oral history style as the title suggests, interviewing young and old people who all belong to different communes across the post-capitalist version of the U.S. This book offers a glimpse into a possibility after violence. A future that has gone through war and famine and the breaking down of systems, and asks, okay so what do we build up from the rubble? What skills can we offer each other tangibly? How do we see our relationships, our living structures, and our society as a whole and where do we need improvement? All of that and more is explored in this book and in my opinion, it feels like a novel that is in direct conversation with us, people experiencing the mid 2020s and all the horrors that have gotten us to this point. Can we imagine a future that doesn’t constantly beget violence? Are there sustainable systems we can start building the framework for now? What kind of life do we want and what are willing to do to get it? I can not recommend this book enough. It remains one of my favorite scifi novels I’ve ever read.

Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction by Joshua Whitehead

This anthology collection showcases a number of new 2SQ (2 spirit and queer indigenous) writers that each come up with their own utopian narratives that detail the strength of indigiqueer stories through their plight in the maw of settler colonialism’s histories. It has been at the top of my tbr for a while, I definitely think this collection will hold a few gems.

Thyme Travelers edited by Sonia Sulaiman

This anthology is completely unique, coming from the perspective of Palestinian diaspora writers and artists that image a future beyond occupation and the devastating effects of imperialism and zionism. Each story in this collection explores different aspects of the future from analyzing the effects of what dehumanization does over the years, to using robotics to imagine uses for disabled Palestinians, to exploring gender identity and queerness. I highly recommend it to everyone interested in post colonialism as a subject and as a broad topic of study.

I hope these were fun (I had a great time putting them together) and you found something new to read. If you have any more requests, please send them in!

I kicked off this year reading the fantastic Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature edited by Becky Siegel Spratford.

You can find my review HERE, but I wanted to take this space to dive a little further on my own personal Horror journey.

I'm often asked "What's the scariest book you've ever read?" And this is a very valid question. But it's also a loaded question as well, because what is scary to me may not be scary to you. This is because horror is subjective.

What scares me? I think what gets under my skin the most is bleak horror. When there's no hope. One book that does this well is The Ruins by Scott Smith. It's a survival horror about four friends that take a vacation to Mexico and wind up getting stuck in some ancient ruins. One by one the characters are picked off, with hope dwindling with each life lost. While the characters annoyed me in this book, the hopelessness really got to me.

Where did my love for Horror start? Let's take a journey into the past. As stated in my Instagram post, watching my dad play Resident Evil One really stuck with me as a kid. The scene with the giant snake truly traumatized little me. Looking back on it now, it makes me laugh. Everything was so cringy. The graphics weren't great and the dialogue was corny. But its a classic for a reason and I still love it dearly. "You were almost a Jill Sandwich!"

Another instance was when I was flipping through the channels, looking for something to watch. Stephen King's IT was on television. My young, innocent mind believed that someone would truly make a movie involving kids playing Tag Your It...So you best believe I was in shock when I see a clown holding balloons, inviting children to float. Then blood spewing out of the sink all over Beverly's bathroom. You best believe I hit the guide button on that TV remote and figured out that it was rated R. I ran to my room in terror as my mom laughed at me. And yes Child's Play did the same thing to me too. Who knew a movie involving a doll was actually a slasher in disguise.

So what made me stop being such a scaredy cat? Honestly, I think playing Resident Evil 4 made me start appreciating horror more. I slowly started building myself up, until I could handle movies like Sinister (WHICH PHEW terrified me a lot). Final Destination also terrified me. To think that near death experiences had become a death sentence had me on the edge of my seat. And death definitely gets creative when taking back what it's owed.

I love chasing that rush I feel when watching something scary. I love looking in the background for something subtly creepy (i.e. Haunting of Hill House ghosts in the background). I feeling my heart race as I wait for the jump-scare to pop up on the screen, or the fake out to cue the scare when I least expect it.

So what books got me into reading horror?

Well of course Stephen King kick started me. Now you may think I'm going to mention The Shining. While that is a FANTASTIC book of his and an all time favorite, Misery was one of my first and favorite works.

When I joined bookstagram, my world was opened to all kinds of horror novels. I never knew so many horror books/authors existed.

Some of the wonderful books I've discovered and will forever recommend are as follows:

Come Closer by Sara Gran

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due

Below by Laurel Hightower

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

Mary by Nat Cassidy

Fantasticland by Mike Bockoven

Bat Eater and Other Names by Cora Zeng

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer

Slewfoot by Brom

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

Eynhallow by Tim McGregor

...and so many more books!

I love that Horror has a little bit of something for everyone.

Love Romance? How about a gothic horror with a dash of romance on the side?

Love Thrillers? So many horror books toe the line of thrillers.

Love History? There are so many historical horrors out there to try out.

Your favorite genre has a place in horror. There is a horror book out there for everyone! Want a rec to get you kickstarted? As for a rec on my profile page.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk lol.

Hey everyone! As previously discussed, I will be hosting a readalong for The Witchlands Series by Susan Dennard, where we will be reading a book from the series each month from now until May. Discussions for the books for those that want to chat as they are reading will be posted on the Discord - please be sure to use spoiler tags and label the spoiler with the chapter it is from since the channels will be for each book. Looking forward to chatting with you all about this series!

Hi nerds,

Since opening Sunny’s, I've occasionally had people come into the shop solely to comment negatively on our offerings. These aren’t customers looking to browse or buy books. They’re individuals who have no interest in reading, supporting the store, or engaging in good faith.

I’d love to brush these moments off completely, but they can be a little jarring. Sunny’s exists in southern Arizona, where politics are complicated and open carry is common, so we stay aware of our surroundings and these hostile interactions.

Sunny's exists to sell books, build community, and create a welcoming space for people who are often told, explicitly or implicitly, that they don’t belong. I truly believe it’s possible to encounter something that isn’t for you and simply keep it moving. In fact, I do it every single day in this town lol.

Last week, someone yelled at one of our booksellers that he “hates little bookstores like this that sell gay witch stuff.” Not our favorite moment, but also… kind of a perfect summary?

When we shared the incident on social media, a follower messaged us to say that this was actually a pretty great point of differentiation and that they’d happily buy a shirt with that tagline on it. And honestly? They’re right. We do sell queer books! We do sell magical books!

So, out of something upsetting, a silly new sticker was born. Tap in my gay witches!!! Vote on which one you'd move like to see come to life.

Love ya! Onward!

CJ