Cookbooks, Conjure, & Queers: The Best Books We Read in 2025

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Show Notes

In this episode of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice, Patricia and Nicole share their favorite books they read this year, discussing a wide range of genres from cookbooks and historical nonfiction to romance and science fiction. They offer personal anecdotes, thoughtful commentary on the books’ themes, and recommendations for listeners, while also touching on topics like gift-giving and supporting independent bookstores and creators. There is also a very important DuckTales universe correction from the previous episode.

Correction: Nicole mentions she is currently reading Make Room For Love by Darcy Liao, but then goes on to describe the other book she is reading, which is Anywhere You Go by Bridget Morrissey.

Mentioned on the show:

Books mentioned on the show:

Find the full show notes with all the books mentioned in this episode and official transcript on our website: https://eedapod.com/cookbooks-conjure-queers-the-best-books-we-read-in-2025/

Follow the show on Instagram & find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, & Spotify

Sound editing by Jen Zink

Transcript

Music: [Intro Music] 

Patricia: Hey there, potato-lovers! Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host. Patricia Elzie-Tuttle. 

Nicole: And I’m ready for a dessert. I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle. We’re recording the show on November 22nd, 2025. 

We want you all to know that this podcast is independently run and we’re hoping to be supported by listeners like you. Downloading, sharing, and giving us reviews and ratings are free ways to show us support. 

Patricia: And while it is always gift giving season in our home, it is gift giving season for a lot of people right now. And we want to remind you that our Patreon memberships not only can be for you, but you can gift them. They start at $3. There are three tiers to choose from. 

As well as the Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can gift a subscription to that. A lot of the issues are free, but there are some behind a paywall, so we will also link that in the show notes. 

We also have a bookshop affiliate site. You can find that link at eedapod.com. Any books we mention on the show are linked there, and you can shop at bookshop.org and support us and independent bookstores. 

One more thing, we do have a merch shop. Right now there are some stickers up there. You can find a link to the shop on our webpage, eedapod.com. 

Nicole: And we would love for you all to continue to email us the self-help books you love, or love to hate, at eedapod@gmail.com.

If you listen to our past episode where we talked about How to Win Friends and Influence People, that will give you an idea of what we’re hoping to do with some other, uh, self-help books. 

Patricia: Yeah. We need to pick out our next one. 

Nicole: Yeah, we do. 

Okay, so it’s time for me to do something we occasionally have to do on this show. I have to issue a correction. 

Patricia: We have to retcon some information. 

Nicole: I don’t think it’s a retcon. It’s just a, a correction. 

Patricia: Okay, that’s fair. 

Nicole: We’re not, we’re not going back in time and changing the timeline. 

Patricia: That’s fair. 

Nicole: We’re just admitting that we made a factual error. Unintentionally spread some disinformation or mis-, misinformation. It was misinformation. 

Patricia: Yeah. We didn’t do it purposely. 

Nicole: Nope. 

Patricia: It’s misinformation. 

Nicole: So last episode, I took us on a little tangent to 

Patricia: Shocking 

Nicole: to talk about Roboduck 

Patricia: Gismoduck 

Nicole: from Ducktails. Well, that was part of the issue. 

Patricia: Mm. 

Nicole: I named him as Robodoc, and you even went Robodoc, and that is incorrect. The character was named Gizmoduck, and went on to suggest that maybe Gizmoduck’s real world secret identity is Launchpad McQuack. That is also incorrect. Gizmoduck, according to the Darkwing Duck Wiki, Gizmoduck is actually Fenton Crackshell. Who, I know, but you’re just looking at me like who the heck is Fenton Crackshell. Fenton Crackshell is Scrooge McDuck’s accountant. 

Patricia: Mm. 

Nicole: Who I guess Scrooge bought the Gizmoduck suit for in order to help protect his money bank. 

Patricia: Oh, that’s right. Accountant and also security. 

Nicole: Yes. And then occasionally helps Darkwing Duck. 

Patricia: Sure. Okay. You know what? Yeah, we, we definitely put out some, uh, misinformation.

Nicole: So, apologies to the Ducktails universe and fandom. Thank you for not sending us hate mail. 

Patricia: I also love that you still cited your source as the Darkwing Duck Wiki. 

Nicole: Yeah. I went to the Dark Wing Duck Wiki. 

Patricia: We cite our sources on this show. 

Nicole: It’s important. 

Patricia: Yeah.

Music: [Transition Music] 

Patricia: So I’m really excited for today’s episode and we are going to talk about the best books we read this year. Not all the books we’re going to talk about today are 2025 releases, although a lot of them are, but they are books that we did read or finally read this year. I DNF’d, so did not finish like 16 books this year. I really had no patience. Like if I wasn’t into it, I was DNFing it. Although I do think there were some books I got like halfway through and then I just wasn’t into them anymore. So I was like, oh, as we were setting up for this show am I gonna have a lot of books to talk about? But looking back at my StoryGraph, there were many more books I enjoyed than I thought there were.

Nicole: I do not count the books I DNF. I don’t know how many I DNF’d, but according to my StoryGraph, I’ve read 89 books this year. That may be a slightly undercounting because I go through periods of forgetting to put books in StoryGraph and try to catch up, but I do my best. I’m gonna talk about the ones I liked.

That being said, this is not an exhaustive list of all the books I liked this year. There were definitely more and we just don’t wanna make like a six part series on the books we loved that we read in 2025. 

Patricia: Yeah. This both is and is not a book show. My other show is a book show. 

Nicole: Is that your license plate frame?

Patricia: My other, my other show is a book show bumper sticker. 

Reminder again that every book we talk about today, we’re going to have affiliate links in the show notes and they’ll all be on a shelf in our bookshop affiliate site. So you could find them all there. 

And I’m gonna kick us off with the book, Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with the People You Love: A Cookbook by Samin Nosrat. I am a huge Samin Nosrat fan. This is her newest cookbook. There is some reading element to this book, it’s not just recipes. And we are obsessed with her first cookbook, Salt Fat Acid Heat. It has improved our lives immensely. Good Things really resonated because Nicole and I have been talking a lot about starting having more regular dinners with friends over, and this book is about feeding the people you love.

Samin has a weekly dinner with friends and she talks about that a lot, and this book was kind of born of that a bit. And one of the things I really love about this cookbook is that it’s not so prescriptive that there’s no wiggle room. She actually makes a lot of space for you to experiment to switch things out.

She also talks about things like how to cut your vegetables so they look more attractive. Or how to plate things, how to make a salad look prettier. I don’t know. I just really, really loved it. I was looking forward to this book coming out for like months and months. I think it came out in September of this year.

It’s also a great book for gift giving, uh, which a lot of these books we’re talking about today are great for you or, or great for someone you know. So that was my first book, and again, we’ll link these all in the show notes. 

Nicole: I’m just thinking, could you imagine getting an invite to Samin’s weekly dinner?

Patricia: Well, and the cool thing is, is that she’s also not always the one doing all the cooking. She actually talks a lot about like not being the one doing all the cooking and it’s really a group project. Sometimes everyone’s making tamales together. Sometimes it’s a cooking together situation, and sometimes, you know, this person brings this thing, this person brings that thing.

But yeah, no, that would be amazing. That’d be amazing. 

Nicole: I love that idea. 

Okay. Out of the gates, I’m going with a book that I swapped into this list like two nights ago ’cause I just finished it. It is A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander, and I’m just gonna say like I love TJ Alexander’s books. One of my absolute favorites is Chef’s Choice, which I read last year, maybe it was on our last year’s best books we read. And it is Regency era? Is that what you would call it? Victorian, Edwardian? 

Patricia: A Gentleman’s Gentleman… 

Yeah, I think Regency maybe. 

Nicole: Edwardian, because I think they said the king maybe. I don’t know the difference in those eras. 

Patricia: Historical romance. 

Nicole: Historical romance is the way to say this.

Of course, you know, in England it follows around a, a Duke. And he has to get married by his next birthday, and so he has to go to London to participate in The Season, which means he needs a valet. And well, this trans man who’s been living his life in his little, not little, large estate, with just his cook and his butler, not used to any of this.

And, wow, he gets a very handsome valet. 

Patricia: Shockingly handsome valet. 

Nicole: And then hijinks ensue. 

Patricia: Yeah, I loved it. It was sweet. It was sexy, but it was also hilarious. 

Nicole: It was a lot of fun. 

Patricia: The next book I wanna talk about is also something that we both read that I really kind of just forced upon you because I will not shut up about this book.

I feel like this was the sleeper book of the year, although Waterstones, which is like the Barnes and Noble of the UK, they chose it as one of their best books this year. 

Nicole: Mm. 

Patricia: So this is Craftland: In Search of Lost Arts and Disappearing Trades by James Fox. James Fox is a Cambridge historian and he travels around the UK basically talking to craftspeople who are maybe the last or the last few to still be doing this thing.

Nicole: I, I wanna make sure we’re clear. By craftspeople you don’t mean people who make paper dolls and snowflakes and put together, like memory books and stuff. 

Patricia: No, we’re talking about dry stone walling, so all of those, like four and a half foot stone walls that make kind of a patchwork of the British countryside. Those, like the people who build those, the people who thatch roofs, the people who take reeds and make the lobster and crabbing cages. A watchmaker. 

Nicole: A, a wheelwright. 

Patricia: A Wheelwright. Coopers. 

Nicole: Yes, coopers. 

Patricia: Who make 

Nicole: barrels, 

Patricia: barrels, or casks. Barrels are a type of cask, 

Nicole: That’s right. 

Patricia: apparently. 

Nicole: Yes. 

Patricia: We learned, you know, I feel like one of my favorite things in life, and if you are around my age, you’ll remember this. On Mr. Rogers he went to a crayon factory and you got to see how crayons were made. And this has steered a lot of my life because I am obsessed with how things are made. We have gone to so many food factories.

Um, in sixth grade I went to the Mother’s Cookies factory, which used to be here in Oakland. But we’ve been to breweries. We’ve been to like all the, all these places. 

Nicole: The Jelly Belly factory. 

Patricia: The Jelly Belly factory, which is near here, which I love. Um, 

Nicole: There was the sticker factory up here. 

Patricia: Oh, we went to the sticker factory! That’s right! 

Nicole: Yes. 

Patricia: And so I’m obsessed with how things are made, and this is this whole book. And also the author is just so engaging. He’s an amazing storyteller. 

Nicole: He’s so compassionate also, with the craftspeople. He doesn’t just tell you how to take reeds and make a crab pot. He actually engages with the people’s story too. How did these people get into doing this craft? Who are they? Why do they keep doing it, and what drives them? The whole chapter on roof thatching wasn’t just about the guy who’s maintaining roof thatching in Scotland. There was actually this additional tale of this man who lived in this one particular house that’s now a historical home.

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: So it goes deep into some history and, and how things work and how they’re made. And occasionally he tries his hand at things like dry stone walling and discovers it is, it is not an easy feat. 

Patricia: Yeah. I love this book so much. And again, it’s called Craft Land. It’s by James Fox. 

But going back to Craft Land… 

Nicole: This is, this is like every week in our home. 

Patricia: Every week… 

Nicole: Going back to craft land.

Patricia: Just like my, my special interest clearly. I think you then read it. 

Nicole: Mm-hmm. 

Patricia: And you really got a sense of like, oh yeah, I understand why Patricia loves this book. 

Nicole: Yeah. No, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I too was a fan of how things are made, including the How It’s Made TV show. 

Patricia: Mm. 

Nicole: And now I think YouTube series or something, I don’t know. We also had a funny moment. In discussing roof thatching in our home because there is a Instagram account for like that Thatching Guy, and it took a while to figure out he’s doing a completely different type of roof thatching than is in this book. This book is like Scottish roof thatching, and this guy’s doing like English roof thatching and they’re different climates and totally different things.

Patricia: Amazing. 

Next book I read that I’m also obsessed with is The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic by Lindsay Stewart. This is about, so I need to back up a little bit ’cause I don’t wanna make assumptions about everyone’s knowledge base. 

So Hoodoo, also known as Conjure, also known as root work, is African American folk magic. And it is something that bloomed during slavery because my people felt so powerless, uh, and weren’t finding solace in the same god that the slave masters were saying that they believed in. And so Hoodoo sprang up. Uh, power came from ancestors and it was kind of the magical system of the time, but also involved in that were healers.

And before there was like really modern medicine, like there were the white doctors, but also there was always like an older, enslaved woman who people really went to if they were sick or needed care. 

Nicole: You mean the four humors and the Galen system of medicine and leeches weren’t helping everybody get sick?

Patricia: Shockingly. 

Nicole: But the older black woman who was providing hot soup and… 

Patricia: Hot soup, some herbal, like some herbalism, but also I think alongside of that, there was a spiritual element. 

Nicole: Yes. 

Patricia: Which then affects a psychological element of like believing you can be healed and believing that this works and, and things like that.

And so it’s really fascinating and this book is about how Hoodoo and Conjure is really part of the American fabric. She starts off with the man who, I’m using air quotes, “invented” Vicks VapoRub, likely stole the recipe from an enslaved woman. Actually, her descendants have receipts and they have been trying to fight well, which is now Johnson and Johnson, right? Like Johnson and Johnson now owns Vick’s or whatever, um, which is used all over the world. And the original recipe is from enslaved women. 

She talks about black mermaids, you know, and all the kind of outcry when Ariel in the live action Little Mermaid was black. But what you don’t know is mermaids are a huge part of African and African American history and culture. And apparently also Hans Christian Andersen was maybe an abolitionist. He went down to Africa, not infrequently. Like yeah, like there’s so many things in this. 

Uh, she also talks about Aunt Jemima and the, the Hoodoo and the Conjure involved in there. And again, the appropriation. It was a fascinating book, and the thing is I went to Marcus Books to buy a copy and the woman there was like, yeah, we are sold out. We don’t think the publisher understood how popular this would be. 

As it is, I listened to it on audiobook through the library before I bought it. That’s how I decided I wanted to buy it, and I was on the wait list for like three months. 

Nicole: Yeah, after you told me about it, I went and put myself on the wait list and I am also on like a three plus month waiting list, hoping to get a copy of this to listen to. I think also like the paper book from the store. She was like, this may be on back order at this point. 

Patricia: Oh, the hardcover? Yeah. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: I did, I did secure a copy. I actually want to get another copy for someone for Christmas, but we’ll see. We’ll see if that’s possible. 

Nicole: Oof. 

Okay, my next book is When the Earth Was Green: Plants, Animals, and Evolution’s Greatest Romance by Riley Black.

I’m gonna be honest here. I love Riley Black’s writing, and this book continues in the same style as her last book, The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, except this one is about the evolution of plants on our planet. Riley does an amazing job of painting a picture of what the world was like during the various snapshots of key moments of the development of plant life on our planet.

The thing with this book, like I think about it, and I actually think about it almost in pictures. Even though I listened to it on audiobook, the descriptions are so vivid that my memory of this book is in visualizations in my head. And that rarely happens with books, but the writing is just so good like that.

So if you love some science and history, this one’s for you. 

Patricia: So next book, In Defense of Dabbling: The Brilliance of Being a Total Amateur by Karen Walrond. She talks about hobbies, also, a big word for hobbies is avocation, which I learned from this book, as something you do for the love of it, and you don’t have to be good at it. Like doing a hobby not to be the best at it, but because it’s fun and you love it. Nicole’s giving me a look. I know it also makes me cringe. I’m like, no, if I have to, if I do a thing, like if I’m gonna be a bear, be a grizzly. Like be the best at the thing. And it’s like, no. What if I just wanna be like, just do the thing ’cause I love it. And just do it for fun. 

Nicole: Intellectually I understand, and I also understand that in order to get good at something you have to start out by being bad at something. And that is, that’s a real struggle. 

Patricia: Yeah, that’s hard… 

Nicole: Which is why you keep telling me I should read this book. 

Patricia: Yeah. I think it’s also a really good book that is a really good gift. It’s a really good book to read at the end of the year if you’re doing your goals for next year. Or, or in January if you’re working on goals. Like it’s a really important, helpful framing. 

Nicole: Okay, my next book is a book that came out in 2023, and it is Bang Bang Bodhisattva by Aubrey Wood.

I will say this is the perfect mashup of cyberpunk and noir detective. Which I know sounds like a wild range, but it’s about a young girl who’s, you know, struggling for money. She’s a hacker. She’s working little gigs and stuff, and she partners up with a noir style detective. Think like trench coat, fedora, calling people dame and he’s a total Luddite. Does not work with the technology of the day and some people are being murdered and we gotta figure it out. 

Patricia: Amazing. 

Nicole: It was a lot of fun. 

Patricia: Another book I read this year that I love, and I might even give it a reread. It’s Horror for Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You’re Too Scared to Watch by Emily C. Hughes. It actually came out in 2024. I used to be a huge horror fan and then I turned into a chicken. So now I find myself occasionally like reading the Wikipedia summaries of horror movies that I want to see, but I’m too scared to see ’cause they will definitely keep me up at night. So you’ll find me just like, I know everything that Midsummer is about. I’ve never seen it, but I read the, uh, whole Wikipedia page. 

Nicole: Why am I only finding out about this now? 

Patricia: Because it’s my little secret. 

So Emily Hughes takes all of these classic horror films and she talks about them, like she gives you a plot summary. She tells you what happens, she tells you if you should watch it or shouldn’t watch it, but she also puts it in the context of when the movie was made.

As well as its importance to the horror genre and talks about then like, what is it, George Romero’s Night of The Living Dead, and basically all zombie movies point back to that one. But it’s also one of the first horror movies with a black lead and like all these things. And so it’s actually really, really good.

Nicole: My next one is one we both read. It comes from another one of our new favorite romance authors, Sarah Raasch, and this is The Entanglement of Rival Wizards. This is one of two books by Sarah we read this year. This is two grad students at Wizard College who are vying for the same grant, and the grant committee decides, you know what y’all’s thesises are pretty close. We’re gonna give the grant to both of you and you both have to work together. 

Patricia: And share a lab. 

Nicole: And share a lab. And guess what? We’re starting off as enemies here. 

Patricia: My favorite. 

Nicole: And, uh, you know, they spend some time together. They’re from very different backgrounds. One comes from a very wealthy family and the other doesn’t.

And, uh. We learned some things about each other along the way. 

Patricia: Yeah. It is very open door, explicit. Uh. 

Nicole: Oh yeah. This is, this is not one to, uh, listen out loud on the subway or whatever. 

Patricia: Oh my God. Or like even loudly in your car. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Like this audio book… 

Nicole: It is very on the page. 

Patricia: It is very on the page. 

Yeah. Instead of like, oops, there’s only one bed, it’s, oops, there’s only one lab. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: The other book we read this year by the same author, Sarah Raasch, is The Nightmare Before Kissmas, which is like the Prince of Halloween and the Prince of Christmas. And again, you know, enemies to lovers and blah, like, loved it.

And then there’s actually a sequel to that called Go Luck Yourself, which is Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day. Which I read that one, you haven’t yet. 

Nicole: Yeah. I’m gonna save that one for, uh, 

Patricia: for March. 

Nicole: For March. Yeah. 

Patricia: So good. So hilarious. Laugh out loud. 

Absolutely changing directions. Uh, this year I also read Destroy This House: A Memoir by Amanda Uhle.

Amanda Uhle is a woman whose parents were hoarders. And also they were bad at business and they were very dishonest, and she grew up in this hoarding house. Uh, they would let the house fall into disrepair and then just like move in the middle of the night and absolutely wild. 

If you get the ick about things like spoiled food and filth, this book is not for you. I actually found it incredibly helpful. Uh, my mom was a hoarder, and as we’ve talked about, we went through a lot of her boxes this year. I actually found this incredibly helpful to read while we were going through these things because it’s like, oh yeah, we’re not the only ones.

This is a lot of people and is not talked about enough. 

Nicole: Yeah. I don’t know if that one’s on my TBR yet, but I probably will need to read it as we start going through other stuff. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: The next book is another one that we both read and is, is by a friend of the show. This is Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders.

I’m a sucker for witchy books right now, and I loved this book in the way that it sets up its magic system and that it’s, it’s not like a passed down by generations, well documented system or whatever. It is a very figuring it out magic system and it is messy, and I loved it for that. 

Patricia: Yeah. And our main character, Jamie, is a trans woman and she’s a grad student, and her mom has been, her mom Serena’s been a bit of a recluse, and Jamie’s like, I know, I’ll teach her a magic. That’ll help. 

Nicole: That’ll help perk her up. 

Patricia: That’ll… and things go sideways, like really fast. 

Nicole: Yeah. And it, it does deal with a lot of like, managing trauma and relationships. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

And family. 

Nicole: Yeah. And that’s what I was getting at, like family relationships that may be difficult.

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: It’s a solid book for that and I really appreciate it. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Another book we both read this year is Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline. A lot of people hear  Marsha P. Johnson and they’re like, ah, yes, threw the first brick at Stonewall. And that’s like the end of it.

That’s like all people know, but she was a whole person. And she had a very vivid life, both before and after Stonewall, and this book does such an amazing job. It’s the first definitive biography of  Marsha P. Johnson, and Tourmaline tells it in a way that is so reverent and respectful, but allows us to see Marsha as a whole person.

Nicole: Yeah, I really appreciated that. This is a book that’s always gonna have a place on my shelf. I’ll say that. It is. It’s so good. It’s so important. Tourmaline spent years putting this book together. 

Patricia: There are also lots of pictures. 

Nicole: I was gonna say, yeah, there’s the, we have the hardcover, and there’s a huge section in the middle of full color pictures. And yeah, it gives a, I think, a beautiful and human portrait of Marsha.

My next book is another kind of history book. This is Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850–1950 by Eli Erlick. And I love this book because it kind of goes into the often pre-medicine era of history, like pre-modern medicine, especially in pre-modern gender affirming healthcare, prior to the discovery and use of hormone replacement therapy and stuff like that. And gives us pictures of people who were, what we would call today transgender, and living their life in that way. You know, in the late 1800’s and things like that. And it is a well put together series of pictures of various people from source material that has been buried deep in the archives for years. And Eli’s done an amazing job of piecing this together. 

Patricia: The next book I wanna talk about is another one we both read this year. It’s actually someone local who we got to meet at one of the bookstore Chocolate crawls. It’s called Down In the Sea of Angels by Khan Wong. 

This is Sci-fi Fantasy, takes place in San Francisco. It is actually kind of three different timelines, but they’re all connected. And the first timeline is in the early 1900’s and there is basically a young Chinese woman whose father sold her to like a mob boss to settle his debts. And of course there was a lot of sex work going on. 

And the second timeline is maybe like early 2000’s tech bro, burner, for those who don’t know goes to Burning Man. Like it’s his whole personality. 

And then the third timeline’s actually in the future where something happened, and there are people with psionic abilities, and so there’s a woman who can touch things and kind of tell the history of the thing.

And so you learn about how they’re all connected, what is going on. And also like there’s in like the far future, there’s a guy who kind of like wants to lock up people with psionic abilities. And so they all kind of need to be in conversation with each other. 

I loved it. It was so much fun. It was also so different from a lot of stuff I’ve read this year. It was refreshing. I’m a sucker for things that are local, but I don’t think you have to be local to the Bay Area to love this book. 

Nicole: Yeah. I, I thought it was a ton of fun. I loved the, the throughput through the different timelines and the way the different timelines interact with and touch each other.

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: I thought was really well done. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: And I really enjoyed it. 

Okay, this next book is one that literally just came out like last week. 

Patricia: Yeah. 

Nicole: Or something like that. 

This is I, Medusa by Ayana Gray, and I don’t know. I’m a sucker for, uh, Greek mythology retellings. And this one is of course about Medusa, or as she’s often referred to in the book Meddy, and it’s a, a full flushed out retelling of the story of Medusa and her three sisters. That was, I think, really well done. It was a lot of fun. 

There is a, a bit of a content warning on this one for sexual assault. If you’re, uh, knowledgeable about how Medusa is, is commonly used in modern times as a symbol, then that will not be surprising to you.

But yeah, I love me some Greek mythology retellings, and I think this one was well done. 

Patricia: Just staring at you ’cause you still haven’t read Lore Olympus yet. 

Nicole: I know. It’s intimidating now. There’s so many books on the shelf. 

Patricia: Baby it’s so good. 

Nicole: I mean, if I want to hit my a hundred books, I may need to pull that ’cause I’ll get through ’em faster.

Patricia: I mean, it’s all graphic novels. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: And there’s, I think there’s nine of ’em. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: There’s nine of them. I love the artwork. I’m, you know, I read, I read some of Lore Olympus this year. I’ve been reading it for a couple years. Again, it, this is a Hades Persephone. 

Nicole: I do love me some Persephone. 

Patricia: Another book I wanna talk about today because we’re still talking about books, is Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams, who was at Facebook kind of near the beginning and.

This is a book that came out and Mark Zuckerberg made a fit and is like, no, we need to get this book shut down. So that just made more people read it. It is wild. It is banana pants. It is absolutely mind blowing. Just the horrors of Facebook and how it’s run and like what went on in the background, especially in the early part, and also just how ineffectual and nebbish Mark Zuckerberg is. 

And even now just thinking about the book, and I read it like very early this year, I just can’t even wrap my head around how just absolutely wild this book is. 

Nicole: I had forgotten about this book even being out there until you brought it back up on this list, and I think I threw it on my TBR. 

Patricia: Yeah, this is one, I mean, I listened to it on audiobook, so I don’t know if this metaphor works, but I couldn’t put it down. Like I just had to listen to it almost straight through. 

Nicole: Okay, my next one is If I Told You, I’d Have to Kiss You by Mae Marvel. And this is one of my silly little romance books that I loved this year. It is sapphic spies who are dating in their normal life and don’t know that they’ve been working together as spies for years. ‘Cause they’re secret spies. So in their, their real world life, they don’t tell each other that that’s their day job.

They’ve been working together for a long time. One is a spy in the field and one is the like, intelligence or hacker person that helps her out, under their code names, The Unicorn and Tabasco. 

Patricia: This, how, this is such a you book. 

Nicole: It is, it’s think, uh, like a Mr. And Mrs. Smith kinda situation, except it’s like Ms. and Ms. Smith. 

Patricia: The next book we wanna talk about is also by a friend. This is Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz. 

Nicole: This is hands down, like one of my favorite books this year. 

Patricia: Yeah, I loved it. I read it. I read it around my birthday. I read it on the plane back and forth, uh, to New York. I didn’t know cozy dystopian was a thing, but it is, uh, you know.

Nicole: It’s absolutely what we’re calling this.

Patricia: Yeah. Robots. This is in the future. California has seceded from the nation after a big war. And there are robots in a ghost kitchen and they decide they want to open their own restaurant. Uh, ’cause you know, they have some autonomy and they want to do hand pulled noodles. So they open a noodle restaurant and it is so good. It’s so lovely. I mean, there is talk of war, there is trauma, but there’s also found family and delicious noodles. I love a food fiction ’cause I love food. So yeah. Automatic noodle is so good. 

Nicole: Do we wanna talk about the time, briefly, that we actually had these, like hand pulled noodles with the author and got served them by a robot?

Patricia: Yeah. We went out to dinner with Annalee and Charlie Jane a few months ago, and we went to an adorable noodle restaurant here in Oakland and they have a little robot that brings out your food and it has a catchy little tune. 

Nicole: It was so cute. 

Patricia: Like it sang a little song and then it was like, take your food. 

Nicole: And then it like sang its little song as it like drove away.

Patricia: Yeah, it was great. 

Nicole: It was very cute. 

Patricia: My next pick actually just won the National Book Award for nonfiction, and when I saw that, I almost cried because yes, absolutely. It’s called One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. It is about the genocide in Palestine. I think it’s a short book.

I really do think that, like the title says a lot of it, right? Like, and we’re already seeing that. We’re already seeing some people who were on the fence or whatever suddenly like, oh yeah, I’ve always been against this. It is a hard book, of course. Obviously. It is definitely worth the read. 

Nicole: Yeah, you brought this back up and I, I made sure this got bumped back to towards the top of my TBR.

Patricia: Mm-hmm. 

Nicole: My next book is a book in translation. The English translation came out in 2024. I think it was originally published in Japanese in 2018. 

Patricia: Something like that. 

Nicole: This is Butter by Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly Barton. This is inspired somewhat by a true story, but this is the story of gourmet cook, Manako Kajii, who has been convicted of killing lonely businessmen after seducing them with her cooking. And she doesn’t talk to any journalists, but starts talking to journalist Rika Machida after Rika writes to her asking for her beef stew recipe. 

And it’s, it’s a lengthy book. If you like kind of journalist, crime type stories. I think this is definitely in that vein. 

Patricia: With gorgeous food descriptions, right? 

Nicole: With really good food descriptions. There are some like rough recipes in there about like, you know, mix this with that and put it together and make sure you’re using like real butter. And, oh, have you tried, you know, this very particular, like this very specific type of cheese or this very specific type of butter and stuff, and talking about very high-end ingredients.

I think it was a lot of fun. It gets into a lot of kind of the, the building of a relationship between these two in some way, but also how they, how they use each other and, and how each other changes through that relationship. It’s, it’s really an interesting thing with, I think, a lot of commentary on how women are treated in society.

Patricia: I wanna read this book and I’m really intimidated by the length of this book. 

Nicole: I think you would get through it. 

Patricia: I think I would get through it on audio probably. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: And the last book we’re talking about that we both read is Syme’s Letter Writer: A Guide to Modern Correspondence About (Almost) Every Imaginable Subject of Daily Life, with Odes to Desktop Ephemera and Selected Letters of Famous Writers by Rachel Syme.

It is definitely the reason there are five typewriters in this house right now. 

Nicole: Oh my God. Y’all… 

Patricia: I’m so sorry. 

Nicole: The other day I saw on the camera it’s like person with package at the front door and I look and you’re stumbling in through the rain with a big heavy trash bag and I get home and you’re like, I got another typewriter, a neighbor was giving it away. 

Patricia: Yeah, it was free. 

Nicole: I think I read this on audiobook on our New York trip earlier this year. I love it. And as we’re talking about now, it made me realize, do we have a paper copy of this? If not, we should get 

Patricia: Yes. 

Nicole: We do. Okay. 

Patricia: We do have a physical copy of it and it’s beautiful.

It’s beautiful and it’s one I do wanna reread. It is about snail mail. Obviously. One of the things I love most. And she talks about like all the things you could send through snail mail, but like if you have never sent snail mail, she offers tips on like what you need to do, how to send snail mail. And the big question, what to write about.

Nicole: Mm. Yes. I feel like I need to reread this, as some of our listeners who subscribe to our Patreon or interact with us on our Patreon, know that I have gone through some bouts of struggling to write my snail mail. So I feel like I, I need a kickstart on that and this book might be 

Patricia: Yeah, we definitely have a physical copy.

Nicole: just the thing I need.

Music: [Transition Music] 

Patricia: So this is a long show. 

Nicole: Oof. 

Patricia: But what are you reading right now? 

Nicole: Oh, okay. I am reading Make Room for Love by Darcy Liao. And this is another one of my silly little romance books. It’s kind of like a twofer. There is one part that it’s like the two main characters that you’re being followed. One of ’em has to go to New York for a business trip, but her girlfriend who kind of planned the whole trip has just broken up with her and she can no longer stay at the hotel or anything they planned.

But one of her best customers lives in Manhattan. And she asked if she, if they can stay with her for a while, and she said, sure. But she just lost her job and needs to get away for a little while. So she goes and lives or spends some time in the friend of the other character’s house who lives in the backyard house and she’s trying to get out of town because recently her, her family just discovered that like 20 something years ago, her father had a extra kid in an extramarital affair and we’re doing a family reunion. 

Patricia: Such a mess. That sounds so messy. 

Nicole: It’s so messy. It’s so much fun. Yeah. And it’s kind of a two for one of ’em is a, a very, like, one of the relationships is very like upfront in your face, like on the page right away, just like instant chemistry. And the other is very slow burn. So you, you get both. All in one book. 

What are you reading? 

Patricia: Let’s see. I am, on audiobook I’m listening to Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore by Char Adams. And that book did come out this year. Amazing book. Amazing book, it’s definitely going to get purchased as gifts for, uh, probably a couple people.

And the other book I’m reading because I don’t only read books that come out this year, is I’m finally getting around to my copy of the Best American Food Writing 2019 guest edited by Samin Nosrat. You know what, there have been some essays in this book that are right on time. Even though they’re from six years ago, and it’s great.

Nicole: Yeah, you stop me in my bedtime reading often to tell me about things like Japanese Kit Kats and stuff that you’re reading about in this book. 

Patricia: I’m like, listen to this about Japanese Kit Kats or boiled peanuts, or whatever. 

Nicole: Yeah, and I’m like, this sounds fascinating. 

Okay, we are, I, uh, well, what’s filling your cup?

Patricia: Oh, we’ve yapped so much. 

What’s filling my cup is one of my best friends was in Italy and I asked her to get me a Bialetti moka pot, which the company will not ship. And it was a very specific one that looks like the Italian flag. It’s so obnoxious. I love it so much. And so now I have my very own moka pot, finally. Hands down, possibly the best cup of coffee I have made at home. 

Nicole: Wow. 

Patricia: It is so good. It is so smooth. It is so rich. And I’m using the same beans I use in my French press or my pour over. But no, this is 

Nicole: way better? 

Patricia: Top tier. 

Nicole: Yeah. 

Patricia: Top tier coffee. 

Nicole, what is filling your cup? 

Nicole: If you know me, you know I love a hot drink and it is finally gotten cold here in Oakland, and so I had my first hot chocolate of the season the other night and it was lovely and I’m looking forward to more evening hot chocolates under my heated blanket on the couch.

Patricia: Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com. We’ll leave a link to that in our show notes. 

Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E-E-D-A-P-O-D dot com. There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our Bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing, Enthusiastic Encouragement and dubious Advice newsletter.

You can also find us on Instagram and Bluesky at eedapod, and email us at eedapod at gmail dot com. 

Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent. 

Nicole: We would also appreciate it so much if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts that allow for ratings. It really goes far in helping other people find us.

And if you’d like to leave us a comment, you can do so at any of the places I just named or email us. 

Patricia: We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support is going to help us keep this show going, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod. 

In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water, and read a book.

We’ll be talking to you soon.

Nicole: I can’t believe we have so many more books to talk about that we just didn’t. 

Patricia: Yeah, I, I’m a book Yapper. 

Nicole: Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Books.