Staff Picks by Tag

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Monstrilio By Gerardo Sámano Córdova Cover Image
$27.00
ISBN: 9781638930365
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Zando - March 7th, 2023

This story completely devoured me, down to the bone, squeaky clean, with its big unhinged jaw. It is laden with grief, visceral yet tender, sweet and painful. Bizarre and surreal, but portrays the tangible experience of love so perfectly. This book feels like a small and strange creature that you will love unconditionally, no matter how absurd – you can’t help it.


Review by Javi

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Shark Heart: A Love Story By Emily Habeck Cover Image
$28.00
ISBN: 9781668006498
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books - August 8th, 2023

Such a strong and ambitious and creative debut. Habeck made me fully believe in this world where a shark or reptile or zebra mutation is just as typical but cutting as a cancer diagnosis. She combines playwriting and poetry with prose that’s familiar but fresh and exciting. I will be thinking about and loving these characters for a long time.

 


Review by Emily

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Mrs. Caliban By Rachel Ingalls, Rivka Galchen (Introduction by) Cover Image
By Rachel Ingalls, Rivka Galchen (Introduction by)
$13.95
ISBN: 9780811226691
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: New Directions - November 28th, 2017

You're bound to fall for this off-kilter, domestic fairytale set in the 1950's. Ingalls' writing is quaintly comedic with bouts of hard-hitting reality which accent its feminist underpinning. Best read in a bath with your forbearing amphibious partner.



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Ghost Music By An Yu Cover Image
By An Yu
$17.00
ISBN: 9780802161253
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Grove Press - November 14th, 2023

Ghost Music by An Yu is a wistful and thought-provoking book. Song Yan is living an unremarkable, simple life in Beijing as a piano teacher with her husband and mother-in-law, when boxes of mushrooms are suddenly being sent to their apartment every week from an unknown sender. The truths she discovers as a result  sets her routine and everything she knows to be reality ablaze. This book urges us to reflect on who we are outside of our family, relationships, and career…outside of ourselves and our routines. I also love the jacket cover art–it’s quite whimsical!


Review by Lauren

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Our Wives Under the Sea: A Novel By Julia Armfield Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781250229908
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Flatiron Books - June 27th, 2023

Part queer love story, part subtle horror story, both parts eerie and beautiful. Wives Leah and Miri try to manage when Leah comes back from a failed deep-sea mission that left her stuck on a submarine for five months. Armfield seamlessly creates the sensation of being underwater, that kind of silence that is quiet and loud at the same time. A slow burn until the last 50 pages or so then the quiet gets unbearably loud. If you like swimming, Florence + the Machine, Kristen Arnett, or loving someone or something, read this. 


Review by Emily

Review by Emily

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Follow Me to Ground: A Novel By Sue Rainsford Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781982133641
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Scribner - January 5th, 2021

Looking for something truly unsettling? This is the book. I've never read anything quite like it -- but also, reading it felt somehow inevitable, as if I've been haunted by it before. 


Review by Allie

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Popisho: A Novel By Leone Ross Cover Image
$28.00
Unavailable at this time.
ISBN: 9780374602451
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux - April 20th, 2021

There's something about islands. In the islands of Popisho everything is brighter, more delicious, and the people are more magical, growing lungs on their hips or crying hummingbirds or instantly knowing what to cook for any person. If you're aching to travel but can't, read this book! I felt immediately at home in this unreal community, learning words I couldn't define but by the end somehow understood.

 



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The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina: A Novel By Zoraida Córdova Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781982102555
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Atria Books - July 5th, 2022

This is one of the best books I've read in a while. Cordova's writing is straight epic and took me on a journey that I wont forget. If you need some magic in your life right now, pick this up now! 


Review by Rosa

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The Manningtree Witches: A Novel By A. K. Blakemore Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781646221578
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Catapult - August 30th, 2022

Drawing influences from Silvia Federici and historical accounts from 17th century England, A.K. Blakemore's debut is as stunning in its language as it is terrifying in its subject matter. And while the persecution of strange women is by no means new territory, the internal battle between Rebecca and her youthful desires, as well as her relationship to the accused women around her, make this less a story about the Witchhunter General and more about the women who were sent to the gallows because they dared to live and survive beyond the edges of a patriarchal and puritanical society. 


Review by Sarah C.

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