Mine was The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. Great characters and a really entertaining, complex plot — with fascinating folklore elements — that came together wonderfully at the end. Yours?

Mine is: Christabel picks up the stick. It fits well in her hand. She is in the garden, waiting with the rest of the household for her father to return with her new mother. (The Whalebone Theatre by Julia Quinn) I like how it builds expectation and also gives the reader hints about Christabel’s character, social class, and her relationships.

I'm finishing off The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. It's gearing up for a humdinger of an ending! You?

The premise of Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke grabbed me: A tradwife social media influencer who wakes up one morning in the actual 1855! Enough of us are interested that we can make this work. I’ve bought a copy, but I’ll wait to read it until more of you have your hands on it. We’ll aim to discuss around the end of May. (Either by zoom or by text in here, we’ll see.) Apparently, if you have a paid Spotify account, it's available as an audiobook! It’s also on Audible. Article about the book: https://www.motherjones.com/media/2026/04/trad-wife-caro-claire-burke-yesteryear-hannah-neeleman-anne-hathaway/

I knew about Ancient Rome’s obsession with purple, but I didn’t know their purple dye was made from “rotten shellfish soaking in stale urine mixed with wood ash and water” 😂 Unsurprisingly, it stank so badly that the “rectangular stone vats as big as school lunch tables” used to make the dye were located outside of town and downwind. I learned this from the beautiful nonfiction book @Julie Furxhi recommended: The Brilliant History of Color in Art by Victoria Finlay. Thanks, Julie! What have you discovered recently?