Here by popular demand is our first Unabridged mid-year best of’s (so-far) episode, featuring a trio of our favorite bookish friends – Book Riot’s Liberty Hardy, Lupita Aquino (aka @Lupita.Reads) and Nerdette’s Greta Johnsen. We list and discuss our favorite 2023 releases we’ve read, the backslist we’re obsessed with, and a few picks we’re looking forward to in the back half of the year.

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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes. You can also find what we talked about on Amazon.

• Nerdette (WBEZ Chicago)
• “Ep. 195 The Best Books of 2021 with Lupita Aquino and Morgan Hoit” (The Stacks)
• “Ep. 131 The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio — The Stacks Book Club (Lupita Aquino)” (The Stacks)
• “Ep. 127 Crushes and Controversy with Lupita Aquino” (The Stacks)
• @Lupita.Reads (IG)
• All the Books! (Book Riot)
• The Dog of the North by Elizabeth McKenzie
• The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie
• National Book Award
• The Dog of the South by Charles Portis
• Kevin Wilson
• Take What You Need by Idra Novi
• “Nerdette Book Club: Idra Novey on ‘Take What You Need’” (Nerdette, WBEZ Chicago)
• Better the Blood by Michael Bennett
• “Nerdette Book Club: Michael Bennett on ‘Better the Blood’” (Nerdette, WBEZ Chicago)
• The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
• The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
• Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.
• “Reading While Lapsed: A Conversation with BookTok Icon Lupita Aquino” (Lapsed)
• “Ep. 253 I Tend to Write About It with Lamya H.” (The Stacks)
• We Were Once a Family by Roxanna Asgarian
• “Child in viral Portland police hug photo missing, 5 family members dead after California cliff crash” (Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, The Oregonian)
• We Were Once a Family by Roxanna Asgarian (audiobook)
• Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder
• Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
• Paul Farmer
• Jim O’Connell
• The People Who Report More Stress by Alejandro Varela
• The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela
• Going Zero by Anthony McCarten
• Marin Ireland
• Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs by Kerry Howley
• Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig
• Big Swiss y Jen Beagin
• The Night Flowers by Sara Herchenroether 
• Rivermouth by Alejandra Oliva
• A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung
• Promises of Gold by José Olivarez
• “Ep. 258 Long-Suffering Basketball Fans with José Olivarez” (The Stacks)
• Angie Cruz
• Soledad by Angie Cruz
• Let It Rain Coffee by Angie Cruz
• My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson
• Bayard Rustin
• Fred Trump
• Larry Kramer
• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
• Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
• The Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (The WB)
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
• Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
• William Shakespeare
• Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel
• “Your summer books preview” (Nerdette)
• Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens
• Flores and Miss Paula by Melissa Rivero
• The Affairs of the Falcons by Melissa Rivero
• “Best books of 2021” (Nerdette)
• MJ Franklin
• Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
• More is More by Molly Baz
• Chicky Chicky Bread Bread (Molly Baz from Instagram)
• Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus
• Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
• The Fragile Threads of Power by V. E. Schwab
• How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang
• Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang
• Blackouts by Justin Torres
• We the Animals by Justin Torres
• We the Animals (Jeremiah Zagar, 2018)
• Company by Shannon Sanders
• Danielle Evans
• Creep by Myriam Gurba
• The Great White Bard by Farah Karim-Cooper

Connect with Liberty: Instagram | All the Books!
Connect with Lupita: Instagram | Twitter
Connect with Greta: Instagram | Twitter | Nerdette
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