Ghosts Of Booksellers Past
While these booksellers themselves aren't necessarily ghosts, their recommendations still stand even after they've left our stores.
I never thought a book about science and specifically genes could be so beautifully written. Mukherjee weaves his family history with the history of the gene in such a way that makes this a surprisingly easy and enjoyable read.
-- Calla
If you've read My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent, pick up Claire Fuller's Our Endless Numbered Days. It's a similar story with an abusive father-daughter relationship and descriptions of nature, but Fuller's story is more nuanced and I'd say superior.
-- Calla
This is an intense book, well researched, well written and extremely relevant to current events. Kendi makes the reader confront their understanding of race, its history and one's own racial thinking. Everyone should read it.
-- Calla
If you haven’t read anything by Greif yet, catch up! This is a fantastic collection of his writing, some previously unpublished in his magazine n+1 an some with new afterthoughts and exegesis. Sure, a little pretentious. But still really good essaying.
This is a gorgeous and highly-lauded collection of poems and lyric essays by Sun Yung Shin, recently put out by Coffeehouse Press. Her writing is as richly allusive as Ulysses, and tracing her influences and references would provide you with a pretty excellent reading list.
-- Delaney
Sometimes a book finds you at just the right time, and it changes your life a little bit. This is that book for me. I used to be a very intense athlete--I worked under an Olympic world record holder--I trained, I competed, and I won, and eventually I stopped doing all three, in some non-numerical order. Now I stress about grad school. Reading this book was a salve for the me that wonders what could have been, and the me that now wonders what could be.
-- Delaney
The greatest survey of horror across genres (literature, art, cinema, etc.). An aesthetic and philosophical inquiry into a slippery subject. If horror is such an unpleasant feeling, why do we actively seek it out? And what differentiates horror from other feelings like terror, fear, awe? Carroll quite literally wrote the book.
-- Delaney
Hunt is a master of the minute, the visceral, and the ironic in a similar way that David Lynch is. You won’t be disappointed.
-- Delaney
Peter Mendelsund is the best and most iconic book cover designer since Alvin Lustig back in the 1940s. Not one of, but THE best. You might not recognize his name but you definitely know his covers. And here is a brilliant little book, gorgeously illustrated, describing his phenomenology of reading, of what happens when we visualize characters and fictional spaces and scenes. This is a book about books by someone who clearly loves books. Accessible, whimsical, and erudite all wrapped in one well-designed package.
-- Delaney
I’m really into Jesse Ball right now after reading his latest full novel, How To Set a Fire and Why, which caught my eye because of the fantastic title. Here’s his previous book with another equally great title. The plot definitely riffs on some old ideas—erasing pain and memories a lá “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”—but Ball is a great writer who really brings his characters to life in a unique way. A talented, immensely current young novelist to keep tabs on.
-- Delaney
This is a wild ride through the beginnings of noise music from someone who experienced it firsthand. Novak documents the genre's birth in Japan and charts its journey to the rest of the globe from there. Sometimes dense and academic, but never uninteresting. If you've seen and liked the HANATARASH bulldozer gig videos and pictures, read this book. If you haven't seen them, google them.
-- Delaney
A nightmare trip through the bowels of the NYC subway system. The book, I mean; although that describes most people's commutes too. Robbe-Grillet's ingenious nouveau nouveau roman style is on full display here, with cinematic writing, visceral body images, and surreal erotic acts. He writes horrific scenes into and then out of existence, but they linger on in the reader's mind.
-- Delaney
Really good, exemplary science writing. Supremely readable, and also like, crazy interesting! I had no idea how far bioengineering pets and domestic animals went, beyond the blessed magic of breeding that gave us the Labradoodle.
-- Delaney
Gass's first novel is brilliantly evocative. It features some of the most distressingly beautiful prose I've ever come across--he gets away with writing stuff like, "He hadn't known the sea had holes but how else did you drown?" Stuff that sticks with you.
-- Delaney
This is the story of an unlikely bond that develops between two young girls living and going to school in New York City. Drita, a refugee from Kosova, flees to America with her family, knowing very little English and very little about living in New York City. It is within her new public school that she is befriended by Maxie, who is struggling with the recent loss of her own mother. Through alternating first person narratives between to the two girls, this story features poignant messages about bravery, perspective, respect, friendship, and difference. This is a wonderful read aloud for students grades 3-7.
-- Kylie M.
This book Left me dizzy & lightheaded & short of breath. It is, as promised, "too loud to ignore."
-- Arielle S.
A middle grade book about a set of twins that discover that their grandmother is actually The Fairy Godmother. As in Cinderella's Fairy Godmother. And that there is a whole world where fairy tales are real. I mean what kid can resist checking that world out? A really well put together fun book full of fairy tales turned upside down. Addictive, wonderful and oh so fun The Wishing Spell (Land of Stories Book 1) is great at any age.
This book was a shock to the system. It was an absolutely electrifying read. Told in free verse the story of Xiomara made me smile, made me cry and made me proud to be a Hispanic woman. Although my teenage years are far behind me I felt a sense of kinship with Xiomara and her experiences being a young beautiful curvy woman. The stares and hollers of men, the lust and desires she felt but that she had to deny, the many questions she had but couldn't ask her super religious mother. While a young adult novel this book will resonant with any and all who wish to read it. For at its core it is simply about learning to be your own person.
-- Sara
What a read. This book was so fascinating! And 100% creepy. Michelle McNamara brought all the terror and pain and panic of that time to life here in the present. I have read only a few true crime books, as I am extremely picky when it comes to getting a narrative right when it comes to things that have actually happened. Michelle McNamara got the balance between fact and emotion down just right. She made me feel the fear that the various victims felt but she also let me know what the facts of each individual attack was. I felt for the victims but I also felt informed. And in perfect measure I was totally and utterly outraged and creeped out. It baffles my mind that a man like that had the cunning and the smarts to do what he did for so long and disappear into the darkness, when his acts of terror, his endless crimes against those he killed and those he left behind were of such a horrendous nature. I understand Ms. McNamara's obsession with the maniac. After reading it with no concrete understanding of who he was or why he did what he did I want to dive in, find those message boards and start my own investigation. A shout out to all the people that worked and are still working tirelessly to try to find this guy. This is a great read. Worth it all the way, from first moments to last pages. I recommend this to anyone that wants a good true crime book and doesn't mind being completely unsettled
-- Sara
This retelling of the Achilles myth is an absolute must read. You get totally immersed in the story and the characters and the beauty and tragedy of it all. It is one of those books that sweeps you up and ties you down all at the same time. It's the type of book that sneaks up on you and once it has you in its grasp it won't let go. I still think about it, weeks and many books later, and how great it was. I highly recommend this book for anyone that enjoys Greek myths and legends or anyone that wants to get into them. It is a truly engrossing and wonderful read.
-- Sara
