Today is the Midwest Book Festival. I attended this last year for the first time in my entire life. It is a book festival – In fact, it is the biggest Book Festival in the entire Midwest – There’s gonna be a lot of authors there, last year I got some amazing bookish merch when I went last year, I got Ambrose Perry’s The Way of all Flesh. This is probably quite possibly my favorite book cover that I own and this is a book I haven’t seen anybody talk about on booktube. But not only is it absolutely stunning.
The writing is completely incredible. The story is wildly intriguing and I’m just so excited to be getting more under hyped and under loved books like this one. this year a big mistake that I made last year – because the festival runs from 10:00 to 5:00 – was just showing up and being unprepared.
So this year, I have supplies, I am bringing a backpack instead of trying to carry a bunch of things in plastic bags – that was an absolute disaster. So I’m going to have a backpack to put all my bookish goodies in.
I’m going to bring in my tripod, I’m going to be bringing a charger also some pop-tarts and because it’s very cold and rainy… I also am bringing my French Bulldog socks! All right, so I think I’m going to swing by caribou coffee and get a chai and latte.
I’ve recently become obsessed with putting a single pump of pumpkin syrup into my chai latte. So so good. Alright y’all the festival has already started and I absolutely hate being late So I’m gonna go right now and I will see y’all in a little bit.
Check that — it’s not raining. It’s snowing f my life *music* *music ends* Now on my Instagram I posted a bunch of footage from the Midwest Book Festival and then I asked tell if you wanted to see a haul of everything that I got and y’all said yes, so Here we go!
The first book that I’ve pulled out is this thin little book called the Embalmer. It has an EEL on the cover and y’all know I’m a sucker for like eels and serpents and slithery things on book covers and I was really intrigued by this book because it’s about an embalmer and his daughter and she’s learning how to be an embalmer like her father and in this book the two of them are sitting At a diner and he’s trying to teach her like the tricks of the trade and to pass his profession down to her. And so he’s telling her all of these really gruesome and messed up stories: Two young women found in a forest, the drowned boy whose organs were eaten by eels ,the casket that caught on fire at the funeral…
And it’s written in a very quick poetic prosy style. So I think it’ll be a quick read. The next thing that I bought is this amazing Self-published book by ka Williams and this book is called Firebird. I got to meet ka Williams at the festival and she so kindly signed this book for me. She was impeccably dressed and I just loved her energy and the way that she talked about this book.
This is a futuristic science fiction novel set in the year 3000 on terraformed Mars. It’s about this female driven society that have mind-warping technology and earth is under their control. There’s a lot of political intrigue and it’s part of a series. I think it’s a trilogy. These are some of the bookmarks for the book and it has a main character of color I’m just honestly so freaking excited about this one and while the synopsis sounds Amazing, a big part of my interest in it was the cover just oh my god.
And there was no way I couldn’t pick up the Collected Schizophrenias. This is a series of essays and it won the Graywolf Prize. I think it was last year, but it’s a dive into living life with mental illness. So excited about this book! I’ve heard raving raving things.
Then I picked up what is described as a “hallucinatory thriller” This is titled suicide woods by Benjamin Percy who is a local Minnesota author. It is a story collection of horror, crime, and weird things happening in the woods. And since it is October, it is the perfect season for this and I’m one of the oddballs who loves short story collections – Especially if they are horror driven So I’m super excited and I have three more books before I move on to. All of the, like, T-shirts and bookish goodies that I got – the first book is the House of the Pain of Others: a chronicle of a small genocide. By Julian Herbert.
This book is about how early on in the 20th century over half of the Chinese population in Mexico was slaughtered. this slaughter took place over the course of three days and this is a collection of recounts and research and a blend of historical context and the author’s Commentary, kind of making sense of this genocide that we still won’t talk about to this day and have a lot of misconceptions of.
Then the most scandalous book that I picked up is Permission by Saskia Vogel. First of all, the cover to this book is… Incredible – I also picked up a bunch of cards – They’re just the cover design for the book, but I had to have more of the art because I absolutely adore it. This book is about a failing Actress named Echo who tends to lose sight of who she is because of what she does for a living when tragedy strikes her family. She and her mother are grief-stricken and then one day a dominatrix moves in next door, and her name is Orly. so this book is set in Los Angeles and it’s about Ecko being indoctrinated into or Orly’s world and being very Fascinated with her.
it explores sexuality and BDSM and just all of these really interesting concepts that I’m so excited to engage with. but the thing that really really intrigued me about this is that first of all, This is a debut novel with such a phenomenal premise, right? But second this was blurbed by Janet Fitch, who is my favorite author of all time.
She wrote my favorite book of all time, which is none other than White Oleander and It was also blurbed by Stoya who is a very very famous porn star who later in her career used her platform as a sex worker to talk about women’s rights and pleasure politics and All these really interesting Concepts that so many of us are afraid to explore. then the last book that I picked up is the Power by Naomi Alderman.
Everybody and their mother was talking about this book last year. I didn’t get around to reading it. I know that Cindy from Read with Cindy absolutely loves this book. What would happen if suddenly overnight girls got the power to? electrocute but men didn’t?
it’s about that shift in power and what the world would look like if Women suddenly had the power to fight back against gendered violence. I’m so excited about this book.
But the thing that really really got me geeked is I stopped by the stand that was called the Feminist Book Club and I was like, ooh, what is that? and this is a book subscription box that is set in Minneapolis, but it focuses exclusively on books that have intersectional feminist themes. So feminism that intersects with like race and queerness and disability – basically inclusive feminism.
feminism That doesn’t only just talk about Issues that affect white women.
And the book subscription box is also not gendered. a big issue that I have had with the book Subscription boxes is that every like all the items in them are Definitely made for people who are girls and women. It can be very uncomfortable if you are a man or if youre gender Nonconforming to subscribe to any of these book subscription boxes that are clearly not Made for everybody. and then a lot of times these book subscription boxes feature books that are you know problematic.
I got to meet the founder Who’s this really amazing woman and she was like, oh my god, I would absolutely love to send you a subscription of my box! So pretty soon you are going to see me review the feminist book club subscription box.
And I’ve got information for that below if you want to follow their Instagram and check them out. I also had to get myself some candles y’all might remember that got this candle which smells like Old Books in one of my books promotion boxes –I think I got this in the book promotion box for Kingdom of Souls? But it’s made by FrostBeard Studios and they make bookish candles.
this one smells like Aged Paper, Dust and vanilla and then I realized after looking at this one day that Frost beard studio is a local company! this year They had a booth at the Midwest book fest. And I decided that I really wanted to support them and get more of their candles. I got this super cute paper bag from Frost Beard and I decided to pick out three of their candles. The first candle that I have is the Headmaster’s office.
This candle is fireplace cedar wood and lemon. I just love the design for this and it has the most Smoky delicious but bright smell.
And the second one is the Wizardy Buttery Drink, Which is a butterscotch caramel and rum. I Just – I can’t I’m filled with love!!
and the last one smelled so good that I had to get it in a large This one is called haffling hills, which I’m pretty sure this is a bookish reference, but I don’t understand the reference.
So if you know what halfling Hills is let me know. This is clover moss and pipe tobacco. So friggin cool I’m just realizing that it has- You won’t be able to see it-, but it’s got small print written on the books and it has care instructions for the candle. So this says it’s got a 40 plus hour burn time.
It tells you the ounces poured by hand in small batches: vegan and renewable, please use and recycle and then on the other side, It’s got helpful tips for how to make the candle last longer and the materials that it’s made from that’s really really cool.
So this is what the logo looks like and then this is the candle. I just– I just love them. I also got this Hello, I’m a FEMINIST sticker from the feminist book club. the frost beard studio gave me one of their stickers.
Oh my gosh, I need to find a place to put my stickers because I rapidly collecting so many! Hey, we are reaching the end of our haul and now it is time for the really really good stuff. they’re really really dirty nerdy! majority of the money I spent, I spent at the shop that makes these awesome keychains and I Visited their booth last year, and I got this really cool towel. It’s a dish towel That says “I would rather be reading” and I have this hanging on the wall right by my door and they make several different types of them.
So I decided to get another one this year one that says “reading forever Dishes whenever” then I bought this tote bag that says “book nerd” a keychain that says “a book is proof That humans are capable of working magic” this Incredible Harry Potter sorting hat keychain, a pin that says “books are magic”. I also picked up a Giver keychain from the same place that I got my other keychain, I actually got most of my merchandise from them, but the Giver was one of my favorite books as a kid And I really really want to buy it and have it on my shelf and reread it and annotate it. I’m also really excited to be collecting all of these bookish keychains. I got a really cute pencil case, Definitely use this when I’m traveling. it goes so great with the tote!
A bookworm pin, Name of the Wind keychain… I bought this one last year, but it broke so I had to replace it.
And then I got two shirts the first shirt says Antagonist and the second shirt says Protagonist.
and I am a fan of the Sherlock Holmes series. So I got this 221b key, I absolutely could not resist this key along with it– I grabbed this Alice in Wonderland necklace that says “we’re all mad here”. and last but not least It is a frickin Ravenclaw necklace!!!
! I love that it has a little R for Ravenclaw just look at it. It is so perfect. Alright y’all that is gonna do it for this video comment down below with which of these items are your favorite? Let me know what you think of the books that I’ve hauled, I tried to haul books that are kind of not talked about they’re interesting because the Midwest book Fest is a really great time to focus on some under Celebrated books.
if you made it this far in the video Let me know by telling me if you think I would be a protagonist or an antagonist of a story.
Feel free to tell me why if you would like I am just very very curious to see what y’all think. if you like this Video, please Give it a big thumbs up and subscribe to my channel. I would absolutely love it If you became a part of my dapper family. Feel free to hit that notification bells so that you never miss any content from bowties and books and if you’d like more daily content follow me on my bookstore: bowties and books because I basically live in pay rent to Instagram at this point all Links will be in the description box below stay sharp, and I will see you in my next video.
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