Staff Picks

There There

“Heartbreaking and necessary, this book is raw, powerful, and storytelling at its finest. It's a woven tapestry of the urban Indian experience as few outside these communities have seen it. Vignettes follow 12 people through time and space as they make their way to the Big Oakland Powwow. Each person has their own struggles with identity, life, the powwow; with living, loving, addiction, and employment; with heart and soul and happiness and everything else that makes up the complicated human story, but most especially the complex Indian experience in America. This debut novel was longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction. ”

BrocheAroe, River Dog Book Co.

Ready Player One

“When it comes to listening to an audio book, I have to be drawn to the narrator’s voice almost if not more than the actual story. The way a narrator speaks really makes or breaks a story for me. Wil Wheaton made this story for me! He brought new life to a story I was already in love with. Wheaton made Wade Watts come to life, and was able to bring out the obsessiveness in Wade’s voice when it came to Halliday and 80’s pop-culture. Wheaton is the only person that could ever be Wade Watts for me. This is one audio book that I know I will go back to again and again.”

Victoria, Mysterious Galaxy Books

With Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami gives us a novel every bit as ambitious and expansive as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which has been acclaimed both here and around the world for its uncommon ambition and achievement, and whose still-growing popularity suggests that it will be read and admired for decades to come.

This magnificent new... Read more »

Harlem Shuffle

“A love letter to 1960s Harlem that’s also a heist novel, a family saga, and so much more. Colson Whitehead proves once again that he’s always at the top of his game!”

Alyssa Raymond, Copper Dog Books

A spellbinding novel that places one family's tragedies against the uncontainable life force of the land itself.

Near a village high in the Pyrenees, Domènec wanders across a ridge, fancying himself more a poet than a farmer, to "reel off his verses over on this side of the mountain." He gathers black chanterelles and attends to a troubled cow.... Read more »

Know My Name

“Wow! Everybody should read this book. A stunning memoir about a devastating subject. It was eye opening, gut wrenching, powerful and brave. Chanel Miller writes with such honesty and vulnerability–I immediately felt that I knew her and she had me walking in her shoes throughout the entire book. I’m still reeling from the roller coaster of emotions but ultimately I was left feeling hopeful and changed. A great audiobook read by author. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️”

Leah, Aesop's Fable

“Wickedly funny and heartstoppingly vulnerable…every page twinkles with brilliance.” —Refinery29

Perfect for fans of Samantha Irby and Trick Mirror, a hilarious, whip-smart collection of personal essays exploring the intersection of queerness, pop culture, the internet, and identity, introducing one of the most undeniably original new voices... Read more »

A Coretta Scott King Honor Book

Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus's bold and lyrical debut is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both.

Port of Spain, Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent, having just found out... Read more »

Moving between journal entry, memoir, and exposition, Audre Lorde fuses the personal and political as she reflects on her experience coping with breast cancer and a radical mastectomy.

A Penguin Classic

First published over forty years ago, The Cancer Journals is a startling, powerful account of Audre Lorde's experience with breast cancer and... Read more »

Maid

“This was an amazing book about her life and struggles. It was so much better being able to hear the author tell the story. I could feel the despair in her voice and it made the book so much more poignant.”

Tricia, Mostly Books

SHOUT

“Powerful. Hopeful. Honest. And funny as hell in all the right moments. A must read (or listen, as Laurie's own narration emphasizes her poignant verse) for the #MeToo era that makes you think, makes you feel, makes you reevaluate your shame, and step forward into the light.”

Britt, Second Star to the Right

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Written as a letter from son to mother, Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is desolately beautiful. Each carefully crafted sentence builds upon the last, a momentum that carries you through a hundred pages before you remember to take a breath. Bleak, brilliant, it is the book other books will be compared to for years. Honestly, I would have been fine if it had been the last book I ever read.”

Cody, Book Culture, @thecodystuart

Whereabouts

“The latest story from Jhumpa Lahiri is told gently, quietly. It’s about a woman, told in her own voice—filled with everyday commonalities that explain little and yet reveal much. The words are lovely, sad, sometimes hopeful, but often disappointed. The author has shared with us a vision of life lived by another and yet there’s something about her that is so familiar. 'Could she be me?' some will ask. 'Am I, too, that private—known only to myself?' Whether or not you follow the author’s work, you’ll treasure this small offering to life, to unknown love, to memory. It’s one to read over again many times. I know I will.”

Linda, Auntie's Bookstore

Homie

“In their third collection, Danez Smith shakes to life the parts of people that have gone to sleep waiting for this time in the world to be over. Those emotions that raise up too much anger or grief — all of them are alive again and seen and spoken for with utmost care and a tremendously welcome sense of humor. Pick this book up and carry it with you everywhere. It can be like a video game heart for you, and who doesn’t need an extra heart?”

Luis Lopez, Moon Palace Books