live from new york, it's dirtbag nation
Or, a quick mid-month check-in before I vanish into the void.
Hi friends!
Dirtbags Through the Ages is still on a brief hiatus as I rest my brain and prep for another year of nonsense. (Both the scheduled nonsense of this newsletter and the unscheduled nonsense that is being alive.)
In the meantime, I wanted to share a link to the Dirtbags Live show I did last week with historical fiction author Edie Cay. The roughly hour-long convo covered my Top 5 favorite dirtbags to date, including one from the second week of this publication’s existence when literally no one subscribed, so everyone except for three friends and my parents will have some new content to enjoy.
As a teaser, this recording includes:
A guy who gets punched in the face so hard he temporarily goes blind (don’t worry, he deserves it)
A classic “I Lived, Bitch” moment
A classic “I Didn’t Live, Bitch, But Apparently That’s Not A Problem In This Scenario” moment
Both Edie and me whining about how historical British men were only allowed to have one of three names
Me shit-talking the Napoleonic Code, in a turn of events that surprises no one
Sidebar: I Started This Newsletter to Sell Books, Hilariously
That is absolutely no longer the point of this newsletter, but it does seem like a good moment to say that A Tip for the Hangman makes a great holiday gift for the winter celebration of your choosing. Let the Dead Bury the Dead is now officially slated for October 2023, which means if you really want to get a jump on next Christmas, write that down on a Post-It somewhere. Or, I mean, I’ll mention it again.
To avoid taxing your patience with self-promo, quick rec corner! I’ve read 61 books so far this year (with a couple weeks to go still—the goal is 65! which I would’ve already met by now if I didn’t spend an entire month reading all 1,000 pages of The Oxford History of the Jews in Europe 1789–1939!), and here are five of my favorites that I highly recommend you either purchase or preorder immediately:
Marvelous, by Molly Greeley (2/21/2023), aka the Beauty and the Beast-inspired historical novel that made me cry the hardest I cried all year, and in the year we lost Angela Lansbury that is saying something
Small Angels, by Lauren Owen, aka the “Something’s Wrong in These Here Woods” horror novel I have literally not shut up about since I read it in July, I loved it so much and my friends are exhausted from me talking about it
The Hacienda, by Isabel Cañas, a historical gothic that combines my two favorite narrative tropes: suspiciously hot priests and “the true villain was colonialism all along”
The Witch and the Tsar, by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore, a book about Baba Yaga, need I say anything more, I think not, except that Koschei the Deathless is also in it and he’s hot and sad
The Tsar of Love and Techno, by Anthony Marra, the only book on this list that’s not an ARC I read this year but even now I can’t listen to the Nutcracker march without being sad because of this kickass collection, so I have no choice but to recommend it even though it means I have two books with the word “Tsar” in the title right in a row, such are the perils of spending three years thinking about Imperial Russia
OK, that’s all for now. Happy December to all, and don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.
-Allison