Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye. This week, all three were spotted on Best of 2023 lists.

The Last Days by Ali Millar

Summary: It is 1982 and Ali Millar is waiting for Armageddon. Born into the Jehovah’s Witnesses in a town in the Scottish Borders, her childhood revolves around regular meetings in the Kingdom Hall. As she grows older, Ali starts to question the ways of the Witnesses, and their control over the most intimate aspects of her life.

I’m thinking: Maybe.

Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv

Summary: Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress, drawing on case studies of people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. 

I’m thinking: Yes.

Eating to Extinction by Dan Saladino

Summary: Over the past several decades, globalisation has homogenized what we eat – of the roughly six thousand different plants once consumed by humans, only nine remain major staples today. Just three of these (rice, wheat, and corn) now provide fifty percent of all our calories. When we lose diversity and foods become endangered, we not only risk the loss of traditional foodways, but also of flavors, smells, and textures that may never be experienced again.

I’m thinking: Yes (you had me at Sicilian vanilla orange).