I Loved RJB's Divine Cities trilogy, starting with City of Stairs. Really cool setting, felt very post-Soviet, with lots of politics and magic in the ruins of empire, when the oppressed classes gain power and what does that look like. Great great characters too. Recommended!

Hmm, will have to check out Tainted Cup and also the new Guillory!

Anyone else randomly have recs? Not that I don’t have a ton of books in my Libby that I haven’t finished, already, but…

Has anyone else read The Ministry of Time? I couldn't put it down, though I agreed with some of the reviews I read when I was afraid I might hate the ending that said the science fiction/time travel, romance, and thriller elements were sometimes awkwardly meshed.

Happy Independent Bookstore Day! I had intended to celebrate by going to the little bookstore near work that I never manage to get to while it’s open, and I still might the day is young, but have already marked by buying an e-book through Bookshop.org that is credited to that bookstore.

I’ve been working my way through Christopher Moore’s oeuvre for no particular reason, mostly listening to audiobooks, and I got to Sacre Bleu today. (BTW I have developed a strong opinion that reading his stuff in published order is far superior to any other scheme) which I guess I bought from Chirp at some point when it was presumably on sale because Chirp. I noticed that he cover says “Includes artwork from the book” which sounded nifty but I can’t figure out what it means - there’s no pdfs or anything - so I got a sample of the ebook in the iBooks app (or whatever it is called now, I think the “i” is gone but how am I supposed to know it’s an Apple product without that?) and it definitely included some van Gogh pictures amongst the text. My library did not have this book available, but Bookshop did, so I splurged.

And the reason I am telling you all this (I know you were wondering) is that the ebook in the Bookshop reader is SO MUCH PRETTIER than the iBooks sample. Gorgeous! Check it out for all your ebook reading needs if you have not.

Omg am reading a book that clearly started as Bon Appetit Test Kitchen fanfic, Claire/gender swapped Brad? It’s super cute though a little frustrating because the Claire character is super dumb about things that I don’t think make sense? But still cute. “Chef’s Kiss” by TJ Alexander

Omg am reading a book that clearly started as Bon Appetit Test Kitchen fanfic, Claire/gender swapped Brad? It’s super cute though a little frustrating because the Claire character is super dumb about things that I don’t think make sense? But still cute. “Chef’s Kiss” by TJ Alexander

That's hilarious! Harvard Educated Claire?! C'mon, TJ, smarten up your protag.

Has anyone else read The Ministry of Time? I couldn't put it down, though I agreed with some of the reviews I read when I was afraid I might hate the ending that said the science fiction/time travel, romance, and thriller elements were sometimes awkwardly meshed.

That's fair. I also found that the amount of time spent on pretty inconsequential stuff outweighed the time spent on major events.

I am about 25% of the way into it, and I’m enjoying it so far but also skeptical of where it’s going?

I am a few pages in, but it'll be next week before I can drive seriously back into anything.

You all have broadened my genre horizon by miles. I'm reading more fantasy than I ever expected and really enjoying it! The Ministry of Time just went onto my "want to read" list. And I found another one -- The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett, that looks great.