Eclectic Recs No. 1

Caribbean romance, truly helpful self-help, powerful nonfiction, and defining "if he wanted to he would."

Welcome to Eclectic Recs, a new series for paid subscribers in which I share an eclectic mix of book recommendations from my recent reads and backlist favorites. My reading life is at its best when I’m reading a little bit of everything and making connections between seemingly disparate genres. In addition to helping you build your TBR stack, I hope to use this series to illustrate how I connect the dots from one book to another through reflective reviews and the occasional themed list. Above all, I want to directly recommend great books to fellow readers without worrying about appeasing an algorithm.

Today’s edition of Eclectic Recs is free for all readers, but you can get a full year of Eclectic Recs for just $35. Paid subscribers will also gain access to…

Short Summer Readalongs: a short classic readalong for each month of summer. In June, we will read Summer by Edith Wharton. In July, we will read A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, and in August we will read Quicksand by Nella Larsen. Each month will feature one pre-reading newsletter full of historical and literary context to set you up for a great reading experience, two during-reading discussion posts with brief summaries, analysis, and discussion questions, and a post-reading wrap-up with my final reflections on our readalong text. I will be experimenting with various Substack features and formats for these readalongs and taking notes for a possible project launch in the fall. Paid subscribers get a front row seat.

If you were supporting The Eclectic Reader with a paid subscription prior to my maternity leave, your paid subscription is now reactivated. I sent a notification email out a few days ago, but in case you missed it, you can find that announcement HERE. Please let me know if you have any questions!

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Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. I barely even recognize myself because I usually hate self-help, but I loved this?! Like most self-help books, this one is skimmable, but where it sets itself apart is in the exercises at the end of each chapter. I read the introduction to grasp the framework for the whole project: Bill and Dave love designing and problem solving, and they created a whole course for “life design,” applying engineering principles to everyday life decisions. Then I skipped most of the anecdotes to spend more time on the exercises, like the health-work-play-love dashboard, free write questions, mind-mapping, and Odyssey Plans. There is a workbook available, but I borrowed the book from the library and copied prompts into my notebook.

I found each exercise to be useful and enjoyable—a tough balance for “life planning” activities. The authors emphasize life design as a lifelong practice rather than an end goal. The book is not about self-discovery. It’s about looking at your life, clear-eyed, and getting creative in order to make beneficial improvements, not to make you happier or “better,” but because life is too short to feel stuck. I can see myself revisiting the prompts in my journal for quarterly check-ins or every few years to identify pain points and successes. At the end of my exercises, I didn’t magically figure everything out. My life is still in major transition mode after having baby #2 and moving. However, I did find the pieces falling into place for this newsletter, seemingly overnight—and I suspect it’s because I let my brain loose on the exercises, then closed my notebook and went about my day. Just the act of taking time to reflect on my life helped me figure a few things out.

One Sentence Rec: Get unstuck with well-designed exercises for finding fulfillment no matter what phase of life you’re in.

Read if you liked: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I found myself thinking about AI, the state of journalism, and how information is transmitted while listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ most recent book. I don’t think that’s exactly what he intended. He writes each essay as a letter to his students, based on a promise to bring his own draft to their workshop sessions—not at all a treatise on AI. But Coates puts so much of himself in his essays that it’s impossible not to contrast his integrity, his journalism background, and his complex ideas with the grim future of AI storytelling.

I adore when authors write about writing. At their core, these essays explore writing and storytelling and language as frameworks for truth and reality, as society-shapers, and as change-makers. The personal stories within these essays are indeed powerful. Much has been made of the chapter on Palestine, and I found it to be eye-opening. I’m left marveling over the way Coates investigates himself, his past as a writer, his own role in shaping the truth of a nation. The audiobook is great—and narrated by the author—but I will be picking this up in print so I can reread and annotate the heck out of it. (Probably the UK version because look at it! It’s so striking to me.)

One Sentence Rec: Grapple with big ideas that are paramount to our time with Coates’ three thought-provoking essays.

Read if you liked: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez. Ha, I just saw the Emily Henry blurb on the cover. I was going to say, right out of the gate: I liked this WAY better than Great Big Beautiful Life. In my humble opinion, Emily Henry’s writing style lends itself so well to rom coms, but when she tries to go deep, the trauma winds up feeling shoved in (see my review from last year: These People Need Therapy). I feel like an Emily Henry outsider with that hot take, and I know lots of readers love how she balances her books. My preferred women’s-fiction-meets-rom-com author is Abby Jimenez, who has always written what I call “real people, real problems, real romance.” She mixes life’s hard knocks with the perfect amount of humor, crafts characters that feel like real people and not manic pixie dream girls, and explores difficult topics with tenderness and the help of sensitivity readers.

This book feels like the best blend of contemporary romance and fantasy. Not faerie fantasy! I mean the main love interest is the definition of “if he wanted to, he would.” The meet cute is CUTE, the veterinarian is HOT, the dates are romantic, the long distance longing is *chef’s kiss.* It’s my favorite Jimenez title so far, and I think readers will find the romance particularly swoon worthy in the age of online dating, ghosting, and casual relationships. I listened to the audiobook, with dual narration by Christine Lakin and Matt Lanter—loved the format!

One Sentence Rec: Go in with care if you have a loved one with dementia, but trust Abby Jimenez to deliver an aspirational romantic journey.

Read if you liked: Georgie All Along by Kate Clayborn & Chick Magnet by Emma Barry

Compromised into a Scandalous Marriage by Lydia San Andres. Can you believe I’ve never read a Harlequin Historical? For the uninitiated: Harlequin romance novels are what most people think of when they hear “romance novel” AKA the grocery store aisle filled with mass market paperbacks and bodice ripper covers. The connotation of “grocery store romance” is often negative, but Harlequin revolutionized the distribution of romance and mystery novels by adding them to grocery stores where women could pick up affordable entertainment along with weekly necessities. Harlequins are also known as “category romances,” defined as “novels of a certain length, released under a common imprint at regular intervals (often a certain number a month).” Categories are short (50,000-75,000 words), trope-based, quick-hits for a jolt of romance you can read in one night. Readers used to subscribe to certain category lines in the Harlequin catalog (Historical, Suspense, etc.) and receive a new title each month. Categories still operate under this model, but e-readers have revolutionized the system. Yes, the titles are often kind of silly or on-the-nose, but behind those trope-y titles are authors with a special knack for writing short, tight, page-turning romances.

Lydia San Andres writes a mix of self-published romance and Harlequin Historicals. In the first of her Caribbean Courtships series, she welcomes readers to the 19th century Spanish Caribbean with lush sensory description and well-researched historical detail. Business owner Sebastian Linares and heiress Paulina Despradel are thrown into a Shakespearean marriage of convenience by Paulina’s villainous brother. Lydia San Andres expertly evokes a hot, tropical setting while building suspense as the couple falls in love, all the while wondering what Paulina’s sinister brother has in store for them.

One Sentence Rec: Swoon in the sweltering heat of San Pedro de Macorís with this short, sensual historical romance.

Read if you liked: A Caribbean Heiress in Paris by Adriana Herrera

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