The Story of Art Without Men (by Katy Hessel)

I absolutely adored this - I've been raving about it to everyone for weeks.  An overview of art history with a focus on the female artists who have been systematically overlooked for decades, with beautiful illustrations of all their work.

A friend asked "is it well written?" and I said "eeeehhh...?" To be clear, it's not bad. It's accessible and interesting throughout.  It goes for breadth more than depth - most artists get a sentence or two. But I was introduced to so many artists, and found their stories fascinating.  

Many female artists died in childbirth or who were forced to give up art for marriage. Women were not allowed into life drawing classes until the 19th century, but they pioneered still life, quilting, and photography. The first painting of an artist at their easel in history is by a woman. One man in the 16th century raised 11 children while his wife ran a successful art studio.  After Jackson Pollock died, his artist wife Lee Krasner was able to paint large-scale works in the barn instead of being shoved into a small space in the house. 

If you're at all interested in art, I highly recommend this - and it would make a gorgeous coffee table book too, as it's easy to pick up and flip through at any point, to learn about some amazing artist and her work.

This also represents my final Read Harder Challenge book, for the category "a book about little-known history."  The 2026 challenge is out, if anyone is interested!  Most dreading: romantasy.  My two least favorite genres shoved together. But I'll make it through. 

It's a Love/Skate Relationship (by Carli J. Corson)

Book #70 of the year; I'm trying to hit 75 and clear out a bit of my library backlog so queer YA it is! This is very light - it's essentially The Cutting Edge, but make it Sapphic.   It requires massive suspension of disbelief (especially around the frankly ludicrous ending) and apparently is incorrect about a lot of figure skating terminology.

But the chemistry is cute; the MC's relationship with her best friends is cute; the side characters are cute; overall it's - what's the word - cute.  And now I can move on to book #73, which can be something else that's a quick read! (71 and 72 are in progress, nonfiction and litfic.) 

Animal Instinct (by Amy Shearn)

From the ToB longlist. This book is about a character named Rachel Bloomstein (which is kinda funny if you're a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fan) who is going through a divorce during the early days of the Covid pandemic. She has a lot of sex.

The blurb suggests a central part of the book is Rachel creating an AI chatbot but that part totally falls flat.  The chatbot seems extremely badly programmed and keeps randomly insulting her yet she "loves talking to it."  Maybe it's deliberately clunky because AI was clunkier in 2020, but "don't go on an insulting tirade about me" should kind of be in the 1.0 version?  I also viscerally dislike pandemic books.  I lived it, I don't want to relive it, thanks.

And yet I kept reading because I found her friendships, her backbone when it came to her awful ex-husband, her (bi-)sexual escapades, and her musings on identity to be interesting. I liked the character,  I rooted for her, in many ways I related to her.  I don't know how likely it is to be on the shortlist, and I didn't love it, but I did enjoy it. 

A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap (by Rob Reiner, with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer)

I saw this on a bookshelf in Canada and was excited to grab it.  There's a history of how the gang all came together and the making of Spinal Tap, followed by an interview with Marty DiBergi interviewing the members of Tap. Clearly a promotional book coinciding with the release of the second movie (which I still haven't seen, oops) but I enjoyed learning more about the history of the making of the film, and the timeline.

The chapter about real-life rock bands' Spinal Tap moments made me laugh out loud. Jaime Lee Curtis talks about how she decided to marry Chris based on a picture (which is included) and the two of them each tell their own sides of the story.  You learn about the origins of a lot of the jokes and characters. You get the sense reading between the lines that the guy who played Ian Faith was a gigantic asshole. Lots of fun stuff.  

Apparently the audiobook (which of course is read by Spinal Tap both in and out of character) is excellent, and I'm sure that would have been an even better choice for fans! Clearly now I have to go and watch Spinal Tap II.