You're Eating a Lot of Tomatoes

Hunting for a thriller or are headed to the sea

Hi friends,

Hope you had a great weekend. I’m honestly baffled that it’s August 2024, meaning we’re far closer to 2025 (!) than the start of the year.

If you need a pick-me-up, may I recommend this roundup of the “100 of the Greatest Posters of Celebrities Urging You to Read” from LitHub? There are some real fun ones in there, including Daniel Radcliffe holding my beloved The Master and Margarita.

And, now, what to read if..

You’re Enjoying Tomato Season

Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World by William Alexander

I’m not a huge tomato person — except during the summer from the farmers market when they taste different than they do the rest of the year. Journalist and backyard tomato grower William Alexander explains why tomatoes truly taste better this time of year.

Alexander tells the story of the humble tomato through ten moments in history when the fruit (yes, he explains the fruit/vegetable dichotomy) played a prominent role. Tracing it from when an early version of the tomato arrived in Europe from South America to the rise and continued dominance of Heinz ketchup, Alexander shows how the tomato went from a suspected lethal food to the most popular “vegetable” in the United States.

I’m a sucker for any book that promises to explain the history of the world in XX object — and Ten Tomatoes delivers on that promise. It’s chockful of fun factoids that you’ll be able to break out at a barbecue and characters, ranging from mafiosos to con artists, who made the tomato what it is today. He also explores the fruit’s future, documenting the farmers and scientists working to breed a better-tasting, more sustainable tomato.

You’re Searching for Your Next Thriller

Missing White Woman by Kellye Garrett

Breanna is thrilled to be spending the weekend with her new boyfriend Ty, in New York City. She’s envisioning Broadway, museums, delicious dinners and Central Park. Instead, Ty is distant and spends days holed up working. Still, she thinks their trip is salvageable. That is, until she wakes to find Ty is missing — and that a stranger is laying dead in the Airbnb.

As if that’s not enough, the victim is Janelle Beckett, whose disappearance has gone viral, with a popular makeup influencer providing live updates on the case. Breanna and the missing Ty, both Black, have become the prime suspects in the case and she has just one person she can turn to — her ex-best friend, Adore. As the police and the #JusticeForJanelle social media mob close in, Breanna and Adore attempt to solve the murder themselves, even as internet sleuths try to film her every move.

I’ve been looking forward to this book since Kellye Garrett first previewed it to me in an interview two years ago.  She explained she was interested in exploring “missing white woman syndrome,” a name for the disproportionate media attention white women receive when they disappear compared to women of color. Threading the needle of critiquing a social issue while also delivering a page-turner is tough, but Garrett pulls it off. I’m already looking forward to whatever she delivers next.

You Know Life is Better Down Where It’s Wetter

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

If you spend your time daydreaming of the sea, A Letter to the Luminous Deep, Sylvie Cathrall’s debut epistolary novel, is your next read. Set in a future when humans have relocated to ships and a single island after a disaster known as “the dive,” it features a romance, mystery and a touch of magic.

In 1002, the reclusive E. lives alone in The Deep House, a unique structure built entirely underwater, while her siblings are off on separate academic adventures. When she sees an unusual elongated fish outside her window, she sends a letter describing it to the renowned scholar Henerey Clel. To her surprise, Henerey responds and the two begin a correspondence that slowly turns into a relationship between two deeply shy people.

Readers join the story well after this fateful correspondence began, and a year after E. and Henerey disappeared in an explosion that destroyed the Deep House, when their siblings begin their own correspondence. As Sophy, E.’s sister, and Vyerin, Henerey’s brother, share the letters, field notes and journal entries their relatives left behind, they begin to suspect their siblings’ vanishing might not be what it seems.

A Letter to the Luminous Deep is the opposite of Dark Academia, featuring scholars immersed in a general sense of warmth and coziness. E., Henerey, Sophy and Vyerin are all lovely, kind people (to the point where I read a review saying they were boring. I disagree!) that I would love to have a cup of tea with.  It’s a slow build of a story that culminates in a fascinating third act that lays the ground for the next book in the series.

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Thanks for reading. Enjoy the first full week of August.

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