Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
You Should Read More
17
items Who doesn’t love a good book? If you don’t, sorry, we can’t be friends. If you do, take a look at this eclectic list of books I’ve enjoyed over the years.
Sections
4
Mystery & Crime Novels
Food And Cooking
Poetry (Good Poetry is Amazing!!!)
Where To Get Books
Mystery & Crime Novels
This is not just a mystery novel; it’s an exploration of the darkness at the heart of the human condition, and the corruption of the American Dream. It’s also beautifully written.
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler, Paperback
If you love the classic film but have never read the book, boy are you in for a treat! True hard-boiled crime action from the king of detective fiction, Hammett’s prose is like a short punch to the sternum. He writes with a beautiful economy of langu...
The Maltese Falcon: Dashiell Hammett
This novel is what you get when you cross detective fiction with a hallucinatory fever dream. This is, to me, the best Lew Archer novel and Ross MacDonald’s masterpiece. Don’t start here if you haven’t read another Archer novel, but if you have and y...
The Blue Hammer (Lew Archer, #18) by Ross Macdonald
Of course you should start with “The Moving Target”, but “The Drowning Pool” is where MacDonald really hit his stride with the Lew Archer series. One of my faves.
The Drowning Pool: Macdonald, Ross
If you’re an Agatha Christie/Ms. Marple fan, but have read all of the novels already, I highly recommend getting this book— twelve new Ms. Marple stories by contemporary authors. This is a great, fun read and is a great homage to a great author.
Marple : Twelve New Mysteries by Agatha Christie
Food And Cooking
Some of the best food writing ever put to paper. Fisher adeptly weaves together cooking, love, war, family, and history in this collection of her work. Absolutely brilliant from one of the most fascinating women of her time.
The Art of Eating: Fisher, M. F. K.
The classic from the coolest man in food. Anthony Bourdain’s death shook me to the core— he shaped how I eat when I travel and how I think about food. This is the book that put him on the map, and is a brisk, exhilarating read.
Kitchen Confidential Updated Edition
If you are a food and cooking nerd, this is your bible. So much knowledge packed into this, and it is an indispensable addition to any serious cook’s kitchen library.
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen: McGee, Harold
I am part Filipino, and this book is part memoir/part cookbook, and makes Filipino cuisine accessible to home cooks. If you love Filipino food, or are curious, get this book!
Filipinx: Heritage Recipes from the Diaspora
Another staple for food nerds and serious home cooks. This book is so fun, so jam-packed with tips, tricks, and fool-proof recipes that I sometimes just read it for fun. A must-have for home cooks!
The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science
Poetry (Good Poetry is Amazing!!!)
This anthology is a breath of fresh air, celebrating LGBTQIA+ poetry and treating it with the love and joy it deserves. Stephanie Burt’s essays are brilliant, and each one is like sitting in a college lecture with your favorite cool professor.
Super Gay Poems
Modern poetry that is dark, funny, and absolutely beautiful. Yeh’s poetry is simultaneously classical and urbane, and constantly enthralling.
Discipline, Jane Yeh
Less a collection of poetry than a cultural history and memoir in epic verse. Beautiful and raw, Olivares explores where love and our humanity meet the expansiveness of the universe.
Future Botanic: Olivares, Christina
Mary Oliver is one of the best-known, celebrated poets of her generation, and this book is an excellent introduction to her work. It has all of the “greatest hits”— poems you have probably heard snippets of, even if you didn’t know it was her. Inspir...
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Where To Get Books
I’m trying to de-Amazon my life as much as possible, and support smaller businesses. Bookshop.org is a great way to support local bookstores, especially if you don’t have an independent bookstore near you. They now have e-books as well.
Bookshop: Buy books online. Support local bookstores.
One great way to get books (and e-books!) is from your local library, and the Libby app is an amazing way to borrow materials from your library right from your phone or tablet— and of course, it’s all free!
Libby
If you must go corporate, go to B&N. The new CEO is a reader, and has allowed local stores some leeway in stocking staff favorites and locally popular books. A better choice than Amazon, and a good selection of stuff other than books in-store.
Barnes & Noble