Anu Recommends #4

Reading apps, bookish stats, and 2023 new releases

Hi and welcome to the Storyteller! If it’s your first time here, I’m so glad to see you join the community and hope you’ll enjoy it here; for the lovely returnees, I’m glad to see you sticking around for these weekly chats :)

A bit of admin before I dive into this week’s issue. A few of you have let me know that simply starring the email of each issue in your gmail inbox isn’t enough for you to receive the new newsletter issues in your main inbox. For most of you, it still seems to be dropping into your Promotions tab/folder. The way to bypass that and not worry about missing a Storyteller issue is to drag and drop the latest email into your Primary tab/folder and also add anushreenande@substack.com to your address books. This should do the trick. Let me know!

Statistics but make it bookish? I present to you The Storygraph.

How do you keep track of your reading? For the longest time, I kept tabs in a notebook (sometimes on the post its or scraps of paper at hand, then transferred), meticulously noting down the books I’d read, when I’d read them, the books I wanted to read next. This habit proved particularly useful when I started university and had to keep a reading log for my references and accompanying bibliography. Then Goodreads happened and I spent something close to a whole day typing and poring over old notebooks so that my bookish accounts were somewhat up to date.

But the platform quickly morphed into a toxic environment and felt more like yet another social media app than a reading diary. I wasn’t sold on the interface either. So back to the physical lists it was.

Until The Storygraph.

Led by founder and CEO, Nadia Odunayo, TSG is a reading application where you can not only log your reading, but can pick your next read based on mood and theme, find tailored recommendations, and be privy to many other cool reading stats and features, including pages read, buddy reads, the percentages of your reading mood/emotions in a particular month or year, or reading challenges you may wish to take part of or create for yourselves. The interface is very clean and easy to use, and they offer a free and paid membership—I have the free one and it’s more than sufficient for my needs.

You can find out more here - https://www.thestorygraph.com

(This isn’t a paid advert; I just really love the app and want more readers to know about it!)

Here are some screenshots of my Reading Year 2022 wrap up from them for you to get an idea of what you’re missing out on.

Let me know your tricks and methods to keep track of your reading. On the backs of grocery lists, notes on your phone, beautiful bullet journals, just winging it. Tell me all!

Speaking of lists, here’s one of mine.

2023 releases on my radar: an incomplete list

(Descriptions from publisher - some of these release dates may change)

Heartstopper Volume 5 by Alice Oseman (February 2023)
The final installment of the life and adventures of Charlie Spring and Nick Nelson.

Riambel (French) by Priya Hein (English translation in February 2023)
In Riambel, Priya Hein invites us to protest, to rail against longstanding structures of class and ethnicity. She shows us a world of natural enchantment contrasted with violence and the abuse of power. This seemingly simple tale of servitude, seduction and abandonment blisters with a fierce sense of injustice.

Hamra and the Jungle of Memories by Hanna Alkaf (March 2023)
A Malaysian spin on Little Red Riding Hood from the critically acclaimed author of The Girl and the Ghost (a middle-grade book that I read and loved in 2021).

The Secret Service of Tea and Treason by India Holton (April 2023)
Two rival spies must brave pirates, witches, and fake matrimony to save the Queen. You can read my thoughts on books 1 and 2 in this Dangerous Damsels series here - they made my favourite books of 2022 list!

The Sun and the Star by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro (May 2023)
In ths standalone adventure featuring two of the most popular characters in the Percy Jackson saga, demigods Nico di Angelo and Will Solace must endure the terrors of Tartarus to rescue an old friend in this thrilling adventure co-written by New York Times #1 bestselling author Rick Riordan and award-winning author Mark Oshiro.

Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson (May 2023)
Set over the course of three summers in Stephen's life, from London to Ghana and back again, Small Worlds is an exhilarating and expansive new novel about the worlds we build for ourselves, the worlds we live, dance and love within from the bestselling, award-winning author of Open Water (you can read my review of Open Water here).

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang (May 2023)
What's the harm in a pseudonym? New York Times bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn't write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R. F. Kuang in the vein of White Ivy and The Other Black Girl.

Fourteen Days, edited by Margaret Atwood (May 2023)
Set in a Lower East Side tenement in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fourteen Days is a surprising and irresistibly propulsive novel with an unusual twist: each character in this diverse, eccentric cast of New York neighbors has been secretly written by a different, major literary voice—from Margaret Atwood, Douglas Preston, and Neil Gaiman to Joh Grisham and Celeste Ng.

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon (June 2023)
A ghostwriter and a struggling actor help each other on the page and in the bedroom in this steamy romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Ex Talk.

Threads That Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou (June 2023)
In a world where the children of the gods inherit their powers, a descendant of the Greek Fates must solve a series of impossible murders to save her sisters, her soulmate, and her city.

The Sun and the Void by Gabriela Romero-Lacruz (July 2023)
Set in a lush world inspired by the history and folklore of South America, The Sun and the Void is a sweeping epic fantasy of colonialism and country, ancient magic, and a young woman's quest for belonging.

Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods by Rick Riordan (September 2023)
The original heroes from The Lightning Thief are reunited for their biggest challenge yet: getting Percy to college when the gods are standing in his way.
After saving the world multiple times, Percy Jackson is hoping to have a normal senior year. Unfortunately, the gods aren’t quite done with him. Percy will have to fulfill three quests in order to get the necessary three letters of recommendation from Mount Olympus for college.

The Liberators by E.J. Koh (summer/fall 2023)
Published by Tin House, details to come. E.J. was one of my earliest guests when The Storyteller was exclusively a writer chat newsletter. While you await this poet and memoirist’s debut novel, why not go read this interview?

What are some of your most anticipated 2023 book releases?

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Wrapping this up with a quote from one of my favourite books on the craft of writing, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

"You are lucky to be one of those people who wished to build sandcastles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander. We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible. So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won't really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand. Another part of us thinks we'll figure out a way to divert the ocean. This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won't wash them away. I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be."

Here's to words and stories—old, new, yet-to-discovered, yet-to-written—and to the people who read and write and remember them.

And, as always, please feel free send in recommendations—books, movie, TV shows, authors to interview, ideas of what you’d like me to write on, rants/ramblings/excited monologues, GIFs and memes (especially them) and more. Just drop me a line and turn this into a conversation, even if just to say hi and let me know what you thought of the latest issue :) Or share this with someone you think might enjoy it.

See you next week!

Anu

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You can find me on Twitter at @AnuNande (follow for all the football chatter) and on Instagram at @booksinboston.