Ghosts Of Booksellers Past
While these booksellers themselves aren't necessarily ghosts, their recommendations still stand even after they've left our stores.
This was INSANE! It turns out the Nazis were basically doped-up on meth, coke and all sorts of other "miracle drugs" the whole time. And then there was Hitler --a droopy, drooling, paranoid lump in the end. Crazy-good must-read!
-- Matt
This was like an episode of Law & Order SVU that gets more twisted and horrifying as the story unfolds. Unforgivable crimes, bizarre mind-games, curious testimonials, questionable authorities... It's a dark book about dark people.
-- Matt
So many cool ideas packed into such a tiny book! This first of three novels is basically a gateway drug into Okorafor's Afro-futuristic world of Binti. Imaginative and easy-to-digest sci-fi goodness.
-- Matt
INFURIATING, but an essential read.
-- Matt
Much like Walker's first novel, THE DREAMERS is about a strange and somewhat apocalyptic phenomena affecting a small town and its inhabitants. This gives us grounded and believable characters, while the sleeping “sickness” brings the fear and danger of the impossible-unknown. There are moments of joy, revelation, and tragedy. And in the end, we’re left with a beautiful, but haunting exploration of what people want from, and perceive to be, reality. Not a dystopian novel, but a great alternative to those craving comfort in doom.
-- Matt
Technically, it’s a zombie horror story, complete with peril and gore. But it’s a story that carries such unexpected substance and emotional weight that it broke my stupid heart on numerous occasions. The characters are complex, fleshed out and uniquely motivated. There's tense action, and wholly original revelations all throughout the book. M.R. Carey took a genre that's overcrowded with repetitive tropes or Walking-Dead-wannabes, and created something that's equal parts chilling and heart-breaking.
-- Matt
"The human race was to be wiped out and the world made clean again for wiser occupants without undue delay." Beautifully bleak premise. And paced in a way that while the oncoming doom is ever present, it isn't always the focus. The characters are the focus. And they cope and live their lives the way they best know how. Some drink, some work, some deny. And when the inevitable end finally comes, Shute orchestrates a brutal, but true closing to their stories and convictions.
-- Matt
The Black Panther Party organized a community centered around respect and perseverance. Food was provided for children. Safety was provided for families. They policed the police, ensuring officers operated under the legal guidelines and nothing more. They wanted equality for all, not just whites, not just Blacks, but for all. They were a movement of positivity and progressive ideas, fueled by generations of unjust oppression. Huey's words are immaculate, and universal to anyone with a sense of what's right. He speaks from experience and with wisdom. He's seen the world in its ugliest, lowest form, yet he continues to fight in the hope that proper change can one day come.
-- Matt
In a nutshell, this book replaces Odysseus with a graffiti artist/historian named Americo Monk, and replaces the Ancient Mediterranean with 1965 Los Angeles amidst the Watts riots, but let’s get into what really makes this book an incredible and unique read. By taking the formula used by Homer and Joyce and using it to tell the story of artists who are both figuratively and literally erased from the conversation of “real” art, Lombardo complicates not just the standard for who can be a hero or a monster, but who gets to decide such delineations. But beyond its lofty artistic assertions, the story sucks you in right away because of how damn fun it is – who said literary fiction couldn’t be driven by a great plot? If reading a book that blends history with fantasy and features encounters with The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, magical albino weed, Godzilla, and a one-eyed gangster who lives in the sewer, look no further my friend.
-- Mack
Fantasyland is an in-depth examination into the birth of “alternative facts” America, tracing the winding thread that connects Puritans and Jamestown settlers convinced they’d find mountains of gold to hippies rejecting medicine and evangelicals rejecting evolution. A truly crazy thing I learned about this book, which maybe you saw on the shelf, rolled your eyes at, and filed into the “another F’ing Trump book” part of your brain, is that he began writing it before Trump was even running. The absurdity of that whole campaign/ dystopic Newspeak Hell we inhabit today just led tons of credence to the points there were to be made about the only developed country where 7-out-of-10 people actually believe in Heaven, and 2-in-5 believe the Earth is 10,000 years old. As depressing, though fascinating, as that all may sound, the book is actually deeply comforting in a way with the authority with which it defends logic, science, and objectivity, giving the impression (to me at least) that hope is not entirely lost, and reason ultimately does win out over fantasy and delusion. Someone tell de Blasio! Funnily enough, the very week I finished the book Andersen was featured on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast for an interview that really opened the book up even wider – is God trying to tell me something, is Mercury in retrograde, or am I just a superstitious, self-obsessed American with delusions of grandeur?
-- Mack
When does a dream become a nightmare?
Few artists have the ability to create a world as luscious as Lorena Alvarez has done in the Nightlights series. Her use of form and color will completely envelop you in Sandy's imagination.
-- Jocelyn
Instagram yoga powerhouse, Jessamyn Stanley, has crafted one of the most relevant and relatable yoga guides out there. This is filled with helpful pictures and concise cues to make yoga more accessible to beginner and veteran yogis alike -- especially those practicing at home!
-- Jocelyn
I don't think this book could feel more personal if I had written it myself. I am half convinced Older pried this story from the hearts of Cuban-Americans to lay bare for the rest of the world to see. It is a love letter, a haunting, and utterly unforgettable.
-- Jocelyn
This collection of essays is a vulnerable and intimate look at mental illness and stigma -- especially as experienced by the author herself -- that manages to strike a tone often reminiscent of Audre Lorde's "Sister Outsider." It is deeply emotional and will force you to confront your own biases of the schizophrenias. Highly recommended for those interested in mental health and collections that read like memoirs.
-- Jocelyn
At its core, this is a love letter to Shakespeare and the theatre -- in the form of a thriller. As the circumstances of thespian Oliver's imprisonment unfold, you are brought along for the entirety of the exhilarating, dramatic, and haunting journey. I promise this story (and the deliciously insufferable characters therein) will live with you long after you finish.
-- Jocelyn
Nobody breathes life into characters like Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This time we find ourselves at the threshold: between tradition and change, life and death, mythology and reality. Let yourself be swept away by the unapologetically human, Casiopea, and her journey with the Maya god of death, Hun-Kame.
-- Jocelyn
If you've made your way through the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series and are searching for your new favorite mythology books, look no further! These are packed with princes, prophecy, and all the Bengali creatures you could want.
-- Jocelyn
Beautiful yet macabre, Mafi has created a world completely unlike anything you've read before. A great fantasy choice for those who loved the creepiness of "Coraline" and the whimsy of "Nevermoor."
-- Jocelyn
Somehow this manages to be both a cozy read and a spooky one. This is perfect for anyone looking for a Halloween book -- regardless of the season.
-- Jocelyn
Leo is brave, curious, and does NOT like being kept from her family's secret. This is sweet from start to finish. It even includes recipes so you can try some baking magic of your own!
-- Jocelyn
