Zachary Kai

The best books arrive in the least expected manner: serendipitous, sideways, sorely needed. Diane Shiffer, ‘the internet’s favorite nana’ is much appreciated for her gentle videos about coffee-making, feline friends, and needlecraft.

While this book is exactly what it sounds like, it’s exactly what it needs to be.

Short essays, organised by season, each one a pause: a prompt to notice what’s already here. It doesn’t ask you to become someone else or achieve anything new.

It just asks you to slow down and gather the smallest joys.

Not every book (and everything worth doing) needs to change the world. Some just remind you that the world is worth being in.

Okay, yes, the title is doing...a lot. And yes, this is a business book by a man who’s completed roughly 500 merger transactions and made himself ridiculously wealthy across six publicly traded corporations. Not exactly my usual reading.

The sequel to his first work delivers what it promises: a detailed guidebook for business at scale, from partnering with global investors to integrating acquisitions without everything imploding. Tactical, specific, practical.

Fine. Fair enough. Useful!

Except...Brad Jacobs is genuinely strange, in the best possible way.

Because what I mentioned above is only the second half. The first?

Meditation practices, psychological tools for staying centred in chaos, and frameworks for reframing cognitive distortions.

The wealth-creation machinery isn’t for everyone. The bit about staying present when the whole thing is on fire? Useful regardless of your ambitions.

Strange, specific, and oddly grounding. Which I didn’t predict.

Nobody (least of all myself) wants to admit what they grab first at morning’s light. Nor how much of a lie ‘just one more scroll is.’

Addiction is often framed as life-altering conditions that saddle us with cascading effects, yet we brush off the things that seem small. They aren’t. True to its title, this book explores the micro-compulsions we don’t think qualify as problems.

And yet what might become a treatise or a chance for the author to put herself on a pedestal turns into a sharp, research-backed, and delightful exploration. A compassionate framing, rather than yet another thing to feel guilty about later.

Honest, warm, and actionable: rare things for a self-help book to be at once.

Cozy fantasy is (supposedly) so gentle it's toothless, but Wildflower?

By the time the stakes arrive, you're so invested the escalation works beautifully.

The protagonist, a magical florist cursed from birth to always tell the truth, is both indispensable and exhausting to the people around her. When a mysterious flower request pulls her toward the woods and an outcast sorcerer...

The slow-burn that follows is tender, complicated, and earns every page.

The delightful, ever-intriguing world is made all the better by the queernormativity!

A wildly (riff on title intended) wonderful debut: every chapter blooms.

There's a version of this book that prettifies Austen into porcelain and calls it love. This isn't that book. And the reader is better for it.

There's a quilt Austen stitched in her later years. Thousands of tiny fabric scraps folded over diamond-shaped templates and sewn together. Patchwork is a retelling of Jane Austen's life, told through the quilt's logic: a life assembled from fragments, gaps left visible, nothing smoothed to a clean arc.

The form's clever, but even more so is the interlude: a 29-page prose poem that traces the fabrics back to Irish linen, slave labor, East India Company cotton. The page layouts fracture into diamond-shaped frames echoing the quilt. Text drifts loose from images.

The art is nervy and period-detailed all at once. It's written with warmth and wryness, not reverence. For anyone who loves Austen but wants to reckon, honestly, with the world she inhabited: this one's for you.

I read often. Always. Several books at once (often to my detriment, but always useful for pattern-seeking.) I never thought I'd grow fond of a specific publisher. I'm aware of some imprints, but never a specific 'style.'

Perhaps that says more about the publishing industry than me, but I've found a house I trust and delight in: Verso. The sense I get after reading several titles is deep engagement with 'esoteric' subjects, surprising connections that all make sense, and intellectual rigor.

This book has all three. No surprise there! The author has spent two decades making invisible systems visible: classified satellites, secret prisons, the hidden architecture of surveillance. This essay collection (part cultural criticism, part field guide) traces how generative AI and computer vision have rewired our relationship with images. Who makes them, who they're made for, and what they're doing to us.

What I didn't expect was the detour through UFO mythology and Cold War psyops. But each page earns every strange turn, and it all coheres.

Images have always been tools. But also weapons.

The question isn't whether machines are watching us. It's whether we know how to watch back.

Returning to this world was like putting on my favorite hoodie: warm, super comforting, and so beautifully soft.

Same Old Hollywood. Same quiet queerness.

This time, different characters, and what characters! The leads have an immediate, easy chemistry. I rooted for them, not because the story demands it, but because I wanted them to create a life together. It's wonderful when a romance allows that.

These writers always do something deceptively simple: they write people who feel real, in a world that feels safe, and let the romance do what it's supposed to.

Just two people, circling each other, figuring it out.

If Together On Parade introduced me to this world, When I'm in Your Arms is the one that made me want to stay.

Italy isn't a country. It's an argument, and food is how it makes its case. The author knows this, all the way through to her stomach, and this book is the proof.

Starting with the Aeneid (Aeneas arriving on Italian soil and sitting down to eat, because of course) and ending somewhere near the carbonaragate chaos, she traces Italian identity not through borders or battles, but through what got served up.

It's gastronomic history as a lens for everything else: class, empire, resistance, crime, migration. She doesn't flinch from the more complex threads, nor does she fail to give the Italian kitchen's unsung contributors their (overdue) due.

A meal is never just a meal: it's a whole civilization arguing with itself. For history lovers who eat, and eaters who think. Italy will never taste the same.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

There's a specific grief in living under artificial light: we've traded the liminal hours for convenience and barely noticed. At least the author has.

Is this creative nonfiction? I'm calling it that. Perhaps strange to describe a book as generous, but this blend of natural history, folklore, and memoir argues for the ecological and meaningful weight of dusk and dawn.

The hours we rush through. The ones we've stopped looking at.

She makes the twilight zone feel teeming with consequence. Because it is. Night-bloomers, crepuscular mammals, deep-sea creatures lit from within: each chapter opens the world wider. The everything-filtered-through-Yorkshire-seasons approach is a brilliant grounding tactic, anchoring the science without overtaking it.

I'm embarrassingly bad at going outside to look at the stars. Or to appreciate the dusk. Ironic, given I write space fantasy.

This book is a quiet indictment of the tendency to skip the in-between.

So, resist the temptation. Read the book. Regain the sense of wonder you didn't know you'd lost.

Old Hollywood's always been a setting that promises both glamour and heartbreak. This book delivers on the former but softens it beautifully and sidesteps the latter (which is precisely the point.)

Like their previous co-written series, this is set in a world where queerness just...exists. No one fights, they just live. I'll admit I struggle with queernormative fiction, not because it's 'unrealistic' but rather because it feels so radical. It's life-and-hope giving in the most extraordinary way possible.

Working that into a story is a gift for the reader, and the authors do it well.

I have no preferences in relationship arcs, but here, the shift from friendship to romance is handled beautifully: a slow, inevitable turning toward each other. The chemistry is warm rather than electric, which suits perfectly, because it isn't about discovery so much as recognition.

This is a book you devour in a day or two and one that sits for weeks afterwards.

Susan Stryker lives and breathes trans history. Which makes this book feel like a reckoning.

Changing Gender is a political and intellectual history of the concept, tracing how we came to think about it the way we do, and how it’s been contested, weaponized, liberated, and reclaimed.

I love books like this: exploring not just what happened, but why it exists in the first place.

The refusal to separate the intellectual from the political is much appreciated! She never loses the human in the concept, rendering her discussions in beautiful, almost lyrical prose.

A grounding, devastating, but dare I say hopeful work: this is the historical grounding we need.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

It’s been a while since I’ve read science fiction, and even longer since reading a short story collection, and I’m glad this one was the reason to break that pattern!

The first delight: the author is Australian. I’d somehow never encountered him, despite a short fiction publication record spanning Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Tor.com, and Nature. The genres dabble in space opera, adventure, military, scifi-fantasy, and a little horror? I loved the mix!

What holds them together is the writer’s voice: gritty, kinetic, almost haunting, and so raw.

The story inspired by Thai culture and the Istanbul djinn programmer story were my favorites. At last, worldbuilding that draws from non-Western sources without exoticizing them!

His stories have been brilliant for years. This is his short works’ moment in the light.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via LibraryThing Early Reviewers. All opinions are mine alone.

Too far gone or too late to start a new skill? This book shows, in a beautifully vulnerable, earnest, and heartfelt fashion, that’s never the case.

For thirty-two years of his life, the author was functionally illiterate. Until he changed that, taking him from being unable to read a restaurant menu to reading a hundred books in a year. And he found a wonderful community of folks on TikTok who journeyed with him.

I’ll admit ignorance here: I thought, foolishly, illiteracy only affected people in countries with fewer resources. Everyone born in a place like the United States ‘should’ know how to read! It’s such a necessary skill, like basic maths, or telling the time. And yes, there are systems in place to teach folks, but what happens when you slip through the cracks?

He structures his work around ones that’ve stayed with him: sharing how each book taught him something new about himself and being human. He doesn’t shy away from his difficult feelings or struggles. Because even though second chances are possible, it doesn’t mean they’re easy.

Reading this book taught me three powerful lessons: modern life is near impossible without literacy, there’s always hope, and I’ll never take reading for granted again.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

Indie-publishing, like most book industry facets, is romanticized, often to its detriment. Authors get burned out, readers get confused, and the culture suffers when books don’t reach the public.

So what better than a book to clear up these bookish myths? The authors refuse to coddle, apologize, over-explain, or accommodate. Hence the very apt title!

It delivers a strategic assessment of publishing, teaching you how to build a platform, market well, understand distribution, treating your writing like a career worth investing in. Because it is!

As someone who’s still (and never will stop) learning about how to navigate publishing, I appreciate how practical this gets! It’s apparent the authors have seen what works and what tanks.

This won’t make you feel warm and fuzzy, but it’ll help you put in the work and achieve your goals.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

I’ll admit this is a first for me. I’ve read a few essay collections, sure, and a few pieces of queer nonfiction. But a book combining both, and academic theory? Never! And while some things felt a little high above my usual capacities, I’m so glad I stuck with it.

Her writing, with its thoughtful, measured rhythm and references to anything and everything, is what carries this so well. So at last, someone put into words what I’ve been circling around for years.

You’ve got femininity, but have you considered femmephilia? An all-encompassing, non-judgmental, extravagant love of the femme? Appreciating, instead of demonizing it for once?

Discussing subjects from Marilyn Monroe’s genius (which was incredible! I had no idea how much I failed to appreciate about this extraordinary woman,) to mermaids and octopuses, this is theory does what my favorite manifesto-like writing does best: it burns yet builds hope.

Who says tenderness can’t be fierce? This is for anyone ready to imagine what feminism could be if we stopped being polite about it. A little rewiring for the soul.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

Never did I think organized religion would have such a profound impact on the history of books, nor did I ever believe I’d read a work by a church historian, but such is the beauty of NetGalley!

This brilliant book traces how we’ve read across centuries: scrolls to codexes, manuscripts to print, screens to...what comes next? The question isn’t whether reading is dying (it’s not!) but how our relationship with text keeps shifting. And how the inconsequential becomes earth-shattering.

Would you have considered the popularity of the printing press being strengthened by Martin Luther’s pamphlets? Or words weren’t always written with spaces between them?

Every page, I swear you learn something new or consider a different perspective. Such fascinating reading! Because reading technologies shape not just what we read but how we think.

Academic without being dry, historical without being distant. If books are bridges, this one connects past reading revolutions to our current moment with precision and heart.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

A Secret Service polygraph examiner teaching communication skills sounds like the setup for a thriller…but this book’s potential impact is so understated it’s almost profound: twenty-five years of high-stakes interrogations, protection details, and assessments distilled.

No gimmicks, manipulation, or strange tactics. For a man surrounded by often the most harrowing situations, his stance is one of gentle empathy, ethics, and creating space. The bridge-building here is literal: how do you get someone to trust, feel comfortable, and at peace with you?

To be human is to express oneself, and while there are infinite ways of doing so, only a few suffice.

I’ve struggled with this for a lifetime, so believe me when I say it’s perfect for anyone who communicates for a living, which is...everyone.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

This book was so difficult to read, yet so engrossing and hopeful, as all the best treatises calling for much-needed change are. What was so surprising was the format! Rather than just an endless stream of hard-won statistics and polemic writing, this is best described as creative nonfiction.

Each chapter tackles a different aspect of the harms in medicine, threading together anonymized patient stories, damning facts and figures…and at the end? A fiction. Almost a short story, often written in second-person, about what might happen if everything went right.

Why aren’t more people doing this? Why haven’t I seen this in a book before?

Informative, kind, clear-eyed, and incisive, as all the best doctors are, the author presents an unignorable case. Not only has she identified healthcare’s problems, but presented the solutions.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

A clone wakes up with someone else’s memories and seventy-two hours to solve her murder. I had no idea how much I needed this premise until I read it.

Carma Two has to investigate a crime, grapple with what it means to exist as a copy, wrestle with the feelings her original carried for the boy she loved…all while trying to ensure her survival.

This book has such angst, philosophical bite, and intrigue! The clone technology feels plausible, the ethical questions feel urgent, and the mystery was perfect: a blindsiding, yet perfectly sensical reveal.

I’ve read hundreds of books, and only two have ever made me cry. This is one of them. And it ended the story in a gut-punch of first sorrow, then…extraordinary hope.

I received a copy from the author via the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. All opinions are mine alone.

This is the fourth instalment in the King’s Fool series, and my introduction to it. The beauty of this book is you can read it without prior knowledge of the characters or the time!

This entertaining, dare I say cozy-esque historical mystery, happens in 1540, during Henry VIII’s disastrous marriage to Anne Of Cleves. His loyal court jester, Will Somers, (who was a real person!) has somehow survived the previous three marriages and is determined for this to be his king’s last.

Except a tempestuous royal, a puzzling romance, a new lover, and courtly intrigue threaten to derail even his best attempts at planning. And then there’s the whole murdered nobleman’s body keeps vanishing and reappearing around the palace thing. What’s a man to do? Investigate, of course.

His relationship with his clever wife is the book’s highlight. It’s also queer in every sense of the word, without falling trap to dressing modern sensibilities in historical language.

With plot twists, a thoughtful protagonist, and careful detail, reading this was sheer delight. Onto the previous books in the series!

I received a copy from the publisher via the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. All opinions are mine alone.

Avast! At last! A pirate-themed fantasy that centers queerness, folks of color, and Caribbean heritage, rather than relegating them to forgotten corners. And original mythology! What a delight.

This debut novel (a republished indie getting the mainstream attention it deserves) weaves in high-seas adventure, heartbreaking stakes, and the power of bonds broken and forged.

Lu watched Nnenna walk the plank, believing her dead. Five years later, she’s a feared pirate captain protecting a runaway mermaid from the fleet Lu serves. What starts as ‘just a retrieval’ becomes a reckoning with systems built to harm, gods who lie, and the cost of breaking free.

I adored the point-of-view switching and oscillating between the narrative’s past and present (so often difficult to get right!) Likewise with the minor details and world-building.

Through fire and toil, hope and desperation…nothing will ever be the same again.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone. I originally published this review on my book blog, Road Less Read: https://roadlessread.com/reviews/devildeep

In many romances, a person catches feelings for someone they're not supposed to. And done right, it makes for a delightful read. So this setup? A widow blackmails her rakish necromancer neighbor to resurrect her dead husband and save her estate...only to fall for him? Perfect.

I adored this book! Hilde is strategic and witty, and Elmwood is a sad soul but a wonderful one. They complement each other in the best of ways...which proves more pivotal than they might expect.

And the banter! The comedic errors and misunderstandings! The clever dialogue, found family, thoughtful themes, and earned endings!

This is how you do charm: with lightness, but also kindness, depth, and real emotional stakes. A balance that's difficult to get right, but a privilege to read when it lands.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

I adored this book. The writing read like a letter from a friend or a confessional diary. Warmth, wit, and a gorgeous sensibility that grapples with the hard things without turning sentimental.

Written over a year as this British journalist goes on a quest to crack the code of interspecies communication. In a cross between nature writing and investigative journalism, she tries every method in the book for her research: interviewing, reading papers, and even her own experiments.

I loved how she was forever practical and curious, yet unafraid: sniffing alongside her dogs, racing earwigs with her 11-year-old, and attempting to run like a coyote might. It shows the only way to learn anything meaningful in life is to stop worrying about what others might think.

The book explores birdsong patterns, pig vocalizations, and chimpanzee gestures, but never loses sight of the personal stakes: learning to listen sometimes means hearing things you won't always like, including when a beloved pet communicates they're reaching the end of their life.

Heartfelt, funny, and deeply human, perhaps it's time we stopped talking at and started listening to the others who occupy this earth.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

When was the last time I read a poetry collection? Too long, and I'm glad I at last broke this cycle with this book. This is Grant Chemidlin's third chapbook, and my first time reading his work.

His poems come across like someone who's at last grown into his queerness. Now he begins the work of a lifetime: figuring out how to live now he knows who he is. He writes about choosing love and hope despite how the world makes that harder by the minute. Tender yet unflinching.

Each piece varies in length, composition, theme and formatting, yet the spirit remains the same: a bittersweet longing laced through beautiful imagery.

Because really, what's life without longing? Doing without desire? Contentment without conflict? Everything exists in duality, including the search for a better world.

I received an early copy courtesy of the publishers via Netgalley. All opinions are mine alone.

Usually, it's a thoughtful piece of fiction or a non-fiction treatise from an unexpected angle that changes the way I see the world. This time, it's an instructional manual, of all things.

Never would've picked this up if it weren't for the IndieWeb Book Club, but that's the point.

This changed how I see everything graphical: websites, zines, book covers...anything with type. She splits design into four principles, and suddenly you can articulate why something works or doesn't.

It's revelatory for anyone who creates but never studied design. Hence the title!

I didn't know I needed this clarity. She writes with humor and zero pretension, using before-and-after examples. Such vast improvements for minor changes!

Sure, this won't teach you all the tricks in a professional's toolkit, but it's a wonderful place to start A much-needed bridge between ‘I know what I like' and ‘I know why it works.'