Resistance, rewards and robot noodles

Hello from San Francisco in the summertime—by which I mean it’s gloomy, windy and cold enough that I’m starting to lose the feeling in my feet. Given that we’re halfway through this year already, I thought this would be a good time to catch up with what’s going on around the Curious universe.

So here are a few updates from folks we’ve previously featured in our club selections.

Lauren Markham (CUR001) has been busy since we featured her book A Map of Future Ruins as our very first monthly pick back in May 2024. Not only did she release a new book (featured in a previous newsletter) but right now she’s leading a Kickstarter campaign to create a new “guerrilla newspaper” called The Approach.

It’s focused on “how to approach–thwart, upend, survive–autocracy” and the first issue is set to feature writing from some terrific voices including Rebecca Solnit, Omar El Ekkad, R.O. Kwon, Ingrid Rojas Contreras and more.

I’m excited to see what she puts together and they’re very close to reaching their fundraising goal. I’m a supporter—so please consider joining in too.

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Next up, some huge congratulations to Nicola Twilley, whose tremendous book Frostbite–which we picked as CUR005 back in September last year–has just won a James Beard Foundation Book Award for literary writing.

James Beard is the Oscars of the food scene and I’m so pleased for Nicola: her book was hands-down (or maybe forks down?) one of my top picks from 2024.

Note: If you’re newer to the club and missed out on Frostbite the first time around, we still have a few copies on hand.

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And finally, you might know Annalee Newitz from January’s pick (CUR009) Stories Are Weapons.) But if you read that you’re probably aware that they are also a best-selling science fiction author. And their upcoming novella Automatic Noodle is starting to get some reviews that have me intrigued.

Murderbot’s Martha Wells called it “a story about building community despite adversity, fighting for your rights and individuality, and creating art that you want to see in the world that I didn't know I needed right now” while Booklist said “Newitz has gifted SF readers with a hopeful, postapocalyptic found-family tale.”

It’s not released until August, but you can pre-order now through our Bookshop link and throw us a little extra support along the way.

That’s it for now. More next week, including signup details for our live interview with Karen Hao on Thursday June 26. 

Onwards!

Bobbie