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.

I’ll Show Myself Out by Jessi Klein

Why I have it: Spotted on a Best of 2022 list.

Summary: Klein explodes the cultural myths and impossible expectations around motherhood and explores the humiliations, poignancies, and possibilities of midlife.

I’m thinking: Maybe (tempted by essays titled Your Husband Will Remarry Five Minutes After You Die’and ‘Eulogy for My Feet’).

Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Séamas O’Reilly

Why I have it: Not sure.

Summary: After the untimely death of his mother, five-year-old Séamas O’Reilly and his ten siblings were left to the care of their loving but understandably beleaguered father. The memoir follows the O’Reillys as they learn to keep the household running smoothly and turn into adults in the absence of the woman who had held them together.

I’m thinking: Yes (if only for the first line!).

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Why I have it: spotted during Nonfiction November 2022.

Summary: A treatise on plant life, told through stories of Jahren’s childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father, and about how she found a sanctuary in science. 

I’m thinking: No.