Staff Picks

I am a sucker for fiction that weaves biology and nature into the story (because, as Darwin might agree, nature is rich narrative territory). I am also a sucker for novels that weave multiple stories together. This book follows the lives of two women, in different eras. Both set out for Easter Island, one preceding WWI and the other sixty years later. Both are on personal and scientific quests. Back in time, Elsa follows her sister to the island but once there, discovers science as her true calling. In the contemporary story Greer pieces her life back together and recovers from the death of her husband. Together though, spanning across time, both unravel some of the mysteries surrounding Easter Island.

 

(Rebecca)

Emma Straub has to be one of the nicest writers in Brooklyn, but her legendary congeniality is not the only reason I chose Other People We Married for my staff pick. I hear she makes a mean tray of brownies, but more than that, her writing is elegant, well-developed, relatable, and gently probing. I was romanced by the clout of these stories, and I am appreciative that a wonderful young writer, and fellow bookseller, could deliver such a poignant collection (and maybe a plate of cookies?)

 

(Brette)

CrimethInc.is a collective of anarchists and "ex-workers" ...but don't let that scare you away from this book! Work is a well-researched, relatable, comprehensive, and critical examination of capitalism. CrimethInc. tells the story of the society we live in, including an easy-to-understand breakdown of recent economic crises. Work invites us to reflect on our own experiences in a system that doesn't seem to be working very well.

 

(Allegra)

I just keep telling people "just read the first two paragraphs of the introduction" ...and then they do, and then they buy the book! Which confirms one of three things. A) Mindy Nettifee is a true life Witch, casting heartfelt spells on the masses via the first two paragraphs of the introduction. B) Inside of this book, it is apparent from jump that Glitter in the Blood is an Honest-To-Goddess path toward better, braver, brighter, flyer, honester, writing and living. Or, C) BOTH, HOMIE!

 

(Angel)

Alexander Vvedensky, along with his OBERIU compatriots, was the enfant terrible of Russia's literary avant-garde during the early Soviet period. Working around the same time in history as the surrealists, Vvedensky's poetics are those of supreme nonsense--nonsense to the point of either sublimity or mockery. These are poems of humor and protest, meditations on time, death, and the whole absurd universe at large. This volume finally brings into English a great poetic mind that refused to be quieted.

 

(Jarrod)

This brilliant, funny, challenging book recreates a consciousness grappling with its surroundings, helped along by little bumps of cocaine. With a pace that swerves between lightning and paralysis, this book will simultaneously make you feel smarter and stupider.

 

(Michael)

Originally published in 1759, the pleasures of this very strange, lovely book successfully transmit across the centuries. By subverting Enlightenment Reason, using disjunctive narrative and focusing on textual materiality, Tristram Shandy firmly establishes itself as a major fore-runner to the contemporary novel. Also, the use of impotency as a theme puts The Sun Also Rises to shame.

 

(Michael)

I want to be friends with Benjamin Bear.

 

(Eleanor)

When Ellis Avery saw Polish Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka's painting Beautiful Rafaela, she immediately wanted to know more about the mysterious Rafaela. After researching de Lempicka, Avery took the little information she could find about Rafaela and turned it into a powerful story of desire and deception set in 1920s Paris.

 

(Eleanor)

With the nonsense sounds of scat and bebop, bouncy streetscapes straight out of Brooklyn, and a celebration of everyone who walks (or wokka-wokkas) in their own way, this book is the perfect combination of words, pictures, and ideas. It's also probably my favorite read-aloud book ever -- but practice before performing, as there are some tongue twisters, and you're probably going to need to do a lot of encores.

 

(Jessica)

I've wanted to make Pink Elephant by Rachel McKibbens my staff pick for the entire three years I've worked here but was super horrified to write a wack blurb for such a rad book. AND I STILL AM. But, y'all, you need this book of poems in your lives STAT. Pink Elephant is a monster. It will eat all of the other books on your shelf for brunch. It's the anti-debut debut because the poems in this book are seamless and perfectly toned and bold and will live in your brain for days/weeks/years after reading them.

 

(Angel)

Incantatory and poetic, The Book of Monelle reads like the transcription of a lovelorn fever dream from an unknown time. Schwob's proto-surrealist fables provide a glimpse into the space where fantasy gives flight and reality misleads, like the Brothers Grimm in the wake of an absinthe binge. There are books that feel, somehow, inevitable. This is one of them.

 

(Jarrod)