Ghosts Of Booksellers Past
While these booksellers themselves aren't necessarily ghosts, their recommendations still stand even after they've left our stores.
I cannot stop thinking about this book. The story is often dark and unsettling but also filled with devotion and spirituality. While reading it, I felt heartbroken, angry, empowered, and inspired. The language is incredibly beautiful, I didn't want it to end.
-- Hannah
There is no book like this. It is a venn diagram between Visual art, Geometry, and Literature. The author has created a new way of analyzing love, loss, and secrets. A truly unique reading experience.
-- Hannah
Queen's stories are familiar in their straightforward depictions of toxic masculinity. Her writing style exhibits fearlessness and strength that is relatable but also unlike anything else I've read.
-- Hannah
If Edgar Allan Poe had written a fantasy trilogy akin to J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," this would be it. The text is thick with poetry, the world is rich and dark, and the characters are utterly unforgettable. A++++++
-- Stephanie
Milo is on his 9,995th life and only has 5 more chances to achieve perfection. The lives he leads take place both thousands of years before our time and also thousands of years after (and of course, many in the middle). Part historical fiction, part science fiction, part romance - this book is absolutely heartbreaking, undeniably hilarious, and easily found a spot on the list of my top 10 favorite books ever. Think Neil Gaiman meets Tom Robbins meets David Mitchell, and expect to be hooked from beginning to end.
-- Stephanie
How do we protect our children? Our loved ones? Ourselves? And how do we find our way back to each other after failing to do so? Yes, this is a modern retelling of the changeling fairy tale, but it is also loaded with love, folklore, social criticism, and a little bit of horror while remaining steadfastly literary throughout. LaValle asks a lot of difficult questions in this novel. He also writes like an angel. You fall into his prose from the beginning - and you'll desperately want his characters to succeed despite knowing that things will go very, very wrong first.
-- Stephanie
Both witty and gripping, this is easily the best piece of historical fiction I have ever read. The Saint Elizabeth Flood hits Holland in 1421 - drowning thousands of people and entire towns. It is in this flooded realm and amid an ongoing civil war that a cut-throat, a con man, and a feral girl weave a (very) dark and intoxicating tale. It's so good that I missed my subway stop twice!
-- Stephanie
Espionage, secrets, perpetual rain, and a criminal mastermind plotting to put an entire city to sleep; this books feels like a meticulous dream. If you like good ol' detective fiction with a heavy dash of surrealism then this is the book for you.
-- Stephanie
In "Palimpsest," Valente's characters unexpectedly find themselves traveling to a strange and wonderful city in their dreams. The catch is they can only get there by having sex with other travelers before falling asleep. As the city begins to feel more and more like home, their struggle to get there and stay - so that they won't have to wake up and return to our world - gets harder. "Palimpsest" is the most visceral and erotic portal fantasy I've ever read - the desperation of every character is as palpable as if it were your own. Valente is better known for her Middle Grade books ("The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making" etc.) but this adult novel is not to be passed over.
-- Stephanie
Think George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" but set in the East and with a smaller cast of characters. Fast-paced, memorable, and beautifully written.
-- Stephanie
Unsettling, poetic, and playful - Jeffrey Ford has an otherworldly talent for turning the familiar into the strange and the strange into the familiar. He is probably writing your dreams. If you are looking for something dark and thoughtful and completely unlike anything else you've read, look no further than these 13 stories. (Particularly good for fans of Neil Gaiman, Lemony Snicket, and China Mieville)
-- Stephanie
These are love stories about the parts of us that are a little bit dangerous and scared of our own potential - the parts of us that we forget about during the day. Willis never fails to find something hard in something soft or coax something sweet out of something bitter. This collection is rife with nostalgia for every questionable decision made out of boredom. I read it in one day.
-- Stephanie
This is a book within a book that tells the stories of two ten-year-old boys. Atreyu is brave an on a great quest to save Fantasia from the "Nothing" - a disease that literally turning his world into nothing. And Bastian, who is insecure and hiding from reality - who will be called upon to do what Atreyu cannot to save and rebuild Fantasia. Funny, creative, smart, and full of unique characters and adventure; you will wish this book actually doesn't have an ending.
-- Stephanie
Aptly titled, "Crush" juxtaposes the lighthearted anxiety of having a crush on someone against the crushing weight of losing them. This book of poems is simultaneously delightful and absolutely devastating. Siken can write an ending line unlike any other poet, and his words will feel like a weight inside you.
If you enjoyed Ocean Vuong's "Night Sky With Exit Wounds" then definitely read "Crush."
-- Stephanie
Gentle yet brutal and charming yet unsettling, "Every Heart a Doorway" follows the inhabitants of a sanctuary for children who have stumbled into other realms and fairy lands - only to one day be cruelly returned to our world. Part fantasy, part realistic fiction, and part horror novella, this Gothic charmer is a love letter to anyone who has ever felt out of place.
-- Stephanie
Don't Call Us Dead is an absolute masterpiece, the kind of book that makes you believe in poetry's ability to change the world. Danez Smith lays out their body in all its vulnerabilities as a queer black HIV positive person living in a police state. The opening poem "summer somewhere" is especially gut-wrenching--both a eulogy for black boys and men killed by the state, and a call to re-imagine our definition of safety.
-- Gabby
Much like Khaled Hosseni's novels about Afghanistan, Hala Alyan crafts an exquisite novel about Palestine, perpetual exodus, and the trauma that lives within family trees. Salt Houses does what literature does best: create radical empathy. A book as gorgeous as the cover.
-- Gabby
A unique look at the life of the controversial Richard Dawkins. Those not familiar with his previous works may be stunned by the brutal honesty and often radical ideas. This is a useful read for anyone who appreciates science and supports its popularization.
-- Stacy
This book made me reconsider, for the tenth time, my pursuit of medicine. Holt will make you sad, nervous, and maybe a little bit discouraged. Don't let him. There is a greater message in this book, and by the time you are done reading it, you will feel that your life is ten times more precious than you thought it to be before you started.
-- Stacy
The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos (Hardcover)
I wish I breezed through every book like I did through this one. Admittedly, I picked it to feel smarter, but ended up honestly loving every page. Mlodinow manages to compress all of human existence into 300 pages and does so adequately and with charm. You won't feel like you're reading a bulky textbook. Evolution, major inventions, mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, countless scientists (their perks, flaws, failures) -- all these subjects and many more are discussed with genuine fondness. Mlodinow writes about science with such great affection and tenderness, that you can't help but feel intense appreciation for devoted and passionate individuals like himself. If you have a soft spot for science, please read this book.
-- Stacy
