New Staff Picks
Yes, Delia is Nora’s sister and shares her humor, insight, linguistic gifts and the genetic marker which led to Nora’s cancer and death. LEFT ON TENTH is that rare memoir which recounts the highs and lows of love, grief and renewal. Scary, poignant, yet hopeful and uplifting.
— Cheryl
Janet Malcolm's talent is so gargantuan that I imagined she emerged, fully formed at her desk crafting perfect, scathing sentences, so it was an unexpected delight to read this series of essays about her childhood. They are as enchanting as they are fascinating investigations into memory, family, and time itself.
— Mikaela
I love Jen Beagin’s freak brain. Greta and Flavia worked their way into my heart and mind just like the bees in Greta’s kitchen, and I built a glass box to preserve them there. Weird, dark, painfully lovable, sometimes tender, and often hilarious, there’s no one in this book I wouldn’t want to bum a ciggie from.
— kathryn
A searing, intensely moving journalistic and photographic investigation into the lives and societies destroyed by the partition of India and the brutality of the modern system of nation states and militarized borders.
— Daniel
The seven houses in this short story collection are certainly haunted, but there are no ghosts in the attic, or ghouls under the stairs. The inhabitants of Schweblin's houses are instead haunted by domestic horrors and everyday worries. The result is unsettling and astoundingly beautiful.
— Mikaela
A strange and weird collection of stories about the inhabitants of a particular neighborhood. The stories begin a little oddly but are grounded in reality before taking a turn into the realm of the surreal. But it's so much fun reading about the slice of life activities of the truly bizarre inhabitants!
— Morgan
I support women's rights but more importantly I support women's wrongs. <3
— Melanie
This excellent work of economic history traces how the blockade - an act of total war and systematic starvation of entire societies - was reformulated as standard peacetime diplomacy. Granular economic history that never loses contact with the political personalities or the lived consequences of their choices.
— Daniel
If you thought your family had issues, wait until you meet this one... A masterpiece in horror and translation, unsettling as it is intriguing, Mariana Enriquez's sweeping debut novel spans decades, combining Argentina's dark military history with the darkest kinds of magic and sacrifice.
— Melanie
A miracle any of us make it, truly.
— Genay
Books don't make me cry. But something about Serle's work makes me tear up every time. She finds the perfect way to show how platonic, familial & romantic love affects us while intertwining the past & the present. I don't know how she does it, but she succeeds in capturing the raw human experience.
— Asia
Twisted, depraved, and thoroughly delicious, Guibert's "My Manservant and Me" limns an uncanny portrait of a sadomasochistic relationship. Told with disarming humor and startling frankness, at its center lies an intriguing philosophical question: to what extent do our desires destroy us?
— Enzo
Basho chronicles his travels across Japan, interspersing poems he and his friends write along the way. Though this classic (and actually pretty hilarious) book is less travel diary and more friendship diary. In one scene, Basho and his friends sit around watching the moon and writing poems. True modern-day softbois.
— Maslen
Although everyone should be aware that Riker's is a terrible place and it's namesake is infamously known for abusing the fugitive slave act, this book is still needed! It was disheartening to read first hand accounts from detainees to correctional officers that stem back decades. Must read!
— Aneesah
Run is a poignant non-fiction resource that follows the life of former Congressman John Lewis and his vital role during the civil rights movement. Through the evocative illustrations, Lewis shares the often-overlooked moments after the marches to inspire future generations: "First you March, then you Run."
— Darline
Forecast Form, currently on view at Chicago's MCA, is the first major group exhibition in the U.S. featuring contemporary artists from the Caribbean. The catalog includes full color plates of exhibition artworks, essays and a discussion with the curator and featured artists. This is a collector's item!
— S.D.
A beautiful account of the development of modern Chinese, shifting seamlessly between accounts of linguistic theory, high politics, mass cultural shifts, the bickering of international communication forums, and generations of brilliant engineers working to allow for global communication between billions.
— Daniel
Radically experimental political actions connect Malagasy social traditions and the democratic economic model of pirate ships. Conmen, liars, and braggarts make fools of the evilest Europeans, keeping away the imperialists for nearly a century. Funny and thrilling and utterly fascinating.
— Daniel
In January of 2023, I spent 35 years with Dawn Powell. At the end, yesterday and half a century ago, she died. I said goodbye to my subway book, and to the private world of America’s great forgotten novelist. These are precious pages for writers, readers, New Yorkers, and all defenders of wit in a humorless world.
- Jack