And that's the end of Bookish Hanukkah, 2022!
Since I screwed up and disrupted the thread, here is a list:

The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
A Face Like Glass, Frances Hardinge
Engine Summer, John Crowley
The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
Mazel, Rebecca Goldstein
Wild Seed, Octavia Butler
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler
Piranesi, Susanna Clarke

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The eighth candle is Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke. An eerie, atmospheric novel with an unreliable narrator in a liminal setting. My favorite new novel of the past few years.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #eighthcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The seventh candle is We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler. It's hard to know what to say about this book, because I advise approaching it as fresh as possible. The story is told in a certain way ("start in the middle," the narrator's father tells her) for a reason. A story about a family coping with a rupture that won't heal.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #seventhcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The sixth candle is Wild Seed, by Octavia Butler. When I read this book I had already read Kindred and bounced off of Dawn; this is the book that made me say "oh, so that's what all the fuss is about." Butler doesn't pull punches. She goes to some very dark places. Like Kindred, this book is about survival, and how oppressed and oppressor can be intimately intertwined.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #sixthcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

So it turns out I messed up the threading of this list because I wanted to go back and add alt-text to a couple of pictures and by doing that I reposted them and now they're out of order, argh!

#BookishHanukkah

The second candle is A Face Like Glass, by Frances Hardinge, a British children's and YA author, not very well known in the US. The novel is hard to summarize because of its wild inventiveness. The protagonist is an outsider in a vast underground city finding her way through a complex, decadent society built on artifice. Put aside any stereotypes of children's/YA fantasy you may have.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #firstcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The third candle is Engine Summer, by John Crowley. A beautiful, tender, complex novel that I wanted to reread immediately after finishing (if you know the book, you will understand why). It will leave you wondering what it's like to get a visit from Dr. Boots.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #thirdcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The fifth candle is Mazel, by Rebecca Goldstein. It depicts shtetl life in Galicia in the pre-war years without sentimentality, telling the story of Sasha, a woman who left that life and narrowly escaped the Holocaust. It's told in flashbacks from the present day, as rebellious Sasha copes with her beloved granddaughter's turn to suburban Orthodoxy.

Mazel means "luck" in Yiddish.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #fifthcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The fifth candle is Mazel, by Rebecca Goldstein. It depicts shtetl life in Galicia in the pre-war years without sentimentality, telling the story of Sasha, a woman who left that life and narrowly escaped the Holocaust. It's told in flashbacks from the present day, as rebellious Sasha copes with her beloved granddaughter's turn to suburban Orthodoxy.

Mazel means "luck" in Yiddish.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #fifthcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The fourth candle is The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin. I first read it in my teens and have often returned to it. Inevitably, my opinions of it have changed over the years (I now think of the protagonist as someone I care about but don't necessarily like very much); but it's good to be able to come back to an old favorite and find something new.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #fourthcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The third candle is Engine Summer, by John Crowley. A beautiful, tender, complex novel that I wanted to reread immediately after finishing (if you know the book, you will understand why). It will leave you wondering what it's like to get a visit from Dr. Boots.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #firstcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The second candle is A Face Like Glass, by Frances Hardinge, a British children's and YA author, not very well known in the US. The novel is hard to summarize because of its wild inventiveness. The protagonist is an outsider in a vast underground city finding her way through a complex, decadent society built on artifice. Put aside any stereotypes of children's/YA fantasy you may have.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #firstcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The second candle is A Face Like Glass, by Frances Hardinge, a British children's and YA author, not very well known in the US. The novel is hard to summarize because of its wild inventiveness. The protagonist is an outsider in a vast underground city finding her way through a complex, decadent society built on artifice. Put aside any stereotypes of children's/YA fiction you may have.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #firstcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

The first candle is a book I read in my teens, not long after it first came out: The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston. It's a memoir, but it includes long excursions into myth, folklore, and family stories. It moves around in time and space. It flows seamlessly from the mundane to the supernatural. It blew my mind.

#BookishHanukkah #Chanukkah #Hanukkah #bookstodon #firstcandle @bookstodonmy #BookishAdvent

Ahem. Having found out about #BookishAdvent about a week into the month, I missed the chance to post. However, all is not lost! Tomorrow evening will be the first night of #BookishHanukkah. Only eight days, so I think I can handle it. Stay tuned!
@bookstodon #Hanukkah #Chanukkah