People like to say that “March is reading month,” but around here we’re pretty sure that every month is reading month. As you’re considering your next literary adventure, take a look through some of our booksellers’ favorite reads from the last month (or so…)
by Laura Amy Schlitz
I am in love with this book. Just when you think Greek Gods and Goddesses could not be presented in a fresh way… Prose, poetry, artifact descriptions fill the page. The writing feels contemporary – it is fast-paced, you get Greek tales, fantasy, philosophy, war, poverty, and pure Magic.
— Cheryl
by Jackie Polzim
Chickens are maybe the most hapless animals on the planet. A whole book about chickens is very funny to me. Once you have sat down to write a book about chickens and only chickens, I think that there is little that you can do wrong. I am very excited about Brood, by Jackie Polzin, which has the same dry wit and matter-of-factness that you get from an E.B. White essay about his miserable pig farm in Maine or a Richard Brautigan tangent about the dogs barking in his back yard. Reading what I just wrote, it is amazing that none of these are boring, but oh wow, jumpin’ jehosahphats, etc., what quiet beauty there is in the banality of the work it takes to keep chickens from freezing to death in Minnesota. Like all of my favorite books, it takes something simple and makes it seem strange and unfamiliar.
— Phil
by Angeline Boulley
This is not your typical YA novel. The storyline follows Daunis, a recently graduated hockey enthusiast and Ojibwa girl who passes up the opportunity to attend U of M to stay close to her mother who is grieving the unexpected loss of Daunis’s uncle.
Local Tribal politics seem to have a way of glossing over tragedies that occur within their city and Daunis knows something isn’t right. A new boy in town playing on the local hockey team (the local heroes) is intriguing and gets close to Daunis. They begin an investigation into some serious misdeeds. The suspense kicks up a notch and takes you on a nail-biting journey. All of the characters in this story are rich and detailed. This is so well-crafted and offers a real glimpse into a large pocket of culture set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I loved this story.
— Juliette
by Diane Seuss
When you hear “sonnets” what comes to mind? Shakespeare likely. Maybe you also turn away thinking sonnets are not your thing? Turn back and read these for a fresh, urgent, beautiful change of mind. I read the whole book in one sitting because I couldn’t stop. By the end it felt like I’d read a book of short stories. I immediately flipped back to certain pages and lines that were so stunning I just had to see them again. One made me laugh out loud. Another so sharply devastating that it took my breath.
— Amy A
by Melanie Finn
Rosie Monroe is a sheltered first-year college student in New York City when she meets Bennett – a dashing, enigmatic man at turns charming, cultured, treacherous, and unpredictable. He demands total devotion and obedience, resulting in a whirlwind ride of deception and instability that leads to him effectively abandoning Rosie and their infant daughter in a remote Vermont cabin, with no insulation, income, or car.
Backed into a corner that culminates in a desperate act that haunts Rosie for the rest of her life, we watch her painfully grow up and grow older with the things she saw and the things she did to survive.
A gripping, transcendent tale that will have you by the throat until the very end.
— Steph
by Kazuo Ishiguro
It’s no secret that Kazuo Ishiguro is a brilliant author, and his most recent novel, Klara and the Sun, is certainly no exception. Klara is an “Artificial Friend” who is thrilled to be chosen by a girl named Josie. Something is wrong, though — Josie seems to be experiencing a serious illness. As a narrator, Klara is at once intimately perceptive and sweetly naive about the human world. Fans of Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go will recognize some of Ishiguro’s favorite themes of memory, longing, impermanence, and the honor in serving others.
— Sally
by Patricia Lockwood
yes yes YES. My favorite art provides unexpected experiences and I follow blindly where the creator takes me. P Lockwood did that! Right here in this book, with its spotlight freezing the absurdities of our times dead in their tracks. It’s hilarious, disturbing, beautiful and stupidly modern.
Excerpt: “On slow news days, we hung suspended from meathooks, dangling over the abyss. On a fast news day, it was like we had swallowed all of NASCAR and were about to crash into the wall. Either way, it felt like something a dude named Randy was in charge of.” Open to any page and find such things! Keep reading and the heart of this novel grows and grows.
— Beverly
Jarrett Pumphrey & Jerome Pumphrey
A beautiful tribute to loss, love, change, and beginning anew. Our lives are full of “hellos” and “goodbyes,” beginnings and endings. This book perfectly captures the challange and beauty that comes with an ever-changing world.
— Syd
by Katey Howes, illustrated by Jess Engle
What a wonderful book about Body Autonomy! Rissy knows that kissies make her feel icky, and her wonderful and caring parents listen to her and help her find ways to express care and affection in her own way. So sweet, heartfelt, with Darling illustrations.
— Amy O
Join us for an empowering online event with Katey Howes and Carrie Finison, author of Don’t Hug Doug (He Doesn’t Like It) — where body autonomy and consent are key
Strong as Fire, Firece as Flame
by Supriya Kelkar
Meera, from a small village in India in 1857, is about to turn 13, which means she will need to join the boy from the next village to whom she has been married since age 4. Both families also believe in sati (which the author emphasizes as an infrequent tradition followed by a small percentage of the population, whereby a widow has to immolate herself on her husband’s pyre). Meera’s husband becomes ill and dies just before her birthday. Minutes before Meera is expected to follow the tradition, an aunt helps her escape. The rest of the story follows her escape and subsequent employment as a servant for a captain in the British East India Company. Meera comes of age while trying to understand where her loyalties lie – with the captain’s family who seems to be taking decent care of her while she saves money for a life on her own or with her friends who are resisting the East India Company and all that it has taken from their lives. Great story!
— Shirley
by Kat Leyh
Looking for a fun, unique and (of course) queer graphic novel for grown ups?
From the amazing Kat Leyh (author of Snapdragon and contributor to Lumberjanes) comes Thirsty Mermaids, the adventures of Tooth, Pearl, and Eezy — oddballs in the undersea world — on the hunt for some booze and a good time. They drunkenly turn themselves into humans with no known way back. After a night passed out in an alley, they find a human friend to help them and while Eezy tries to find them a way back to their mer-selves, Tooth and Pearl have to get jobs so they can earn this money stuff people are so into.
Gorgeously weird humor. Radical acceptance of self and others. Fun and quick. I loved it so so much. It made my whole heart happy.
— Kim
by Chris Whitaker
An absorbing, thrilling mystery set in a tiny tourist town on the California coast. One of the locals is being released from prison after serving thirty years for killing a young girl, and the town’s wounds are still raw. With plot twists and suspense that will keep you on edge, a 13-year-old, self-proclaimed “outlaw” named Duchess drives this engrossing novel. I could not put it down!
— Mary
by Sarah Gailey
Evelyn Caldwell is a woman of science. She has recently developed a process for cloning which imprints the memories and personality of a person on their clone, for which her name will never be forgotten. Which makes it an even more painful betrayal when her husband steals her research, clones her, and leaves her. For her clone. Quick, sharp, and atmospheric, this book is a killer domestic thriller.
— Katie
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