Charlotte's Picks

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Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: A Novel By Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Translated by) Cover Image
By Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Translated by)
$18.00
ISBN: 9780525541349
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Books - August 11th, 2020

DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD focuses on our prickly joy of a narrator, Janina; busy-minded and constantly questioning the sanity of her community-- located up in the mountains along the Polish, Czech border. Janina is deeply aware of the destructive and violent nature of humanity-- there is a quiet acquiescence that blankets social order, and Janina has no patience for it.  When members of her community start dying in compoundingly stranger ways, Janina (along with her pack of friends) inserts herself into the investigation, providing her own opinions and insight into who has committed these murders.  This book is special; reading like an upside-down folktale layered throughout a murder mystery. There are wrenching observations within this story that will leave you mosre skeptical, and more empathetic than you were before. - Charlotte


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The Ten Thousand Doors of January By Alix E. Harrow Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780316421973
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Redhook - May 12th, 2020

I have much to thank Alix Harrow for; this book quite exceptionally whisked me away from reality to a world full of natural chaos, potential, and magic.  Our narrator is January Scaller, a quick, ironic, powerful, and cool 17 year old who has grown up as the ward of a rich and stern man who wants her to follow his rules, and “be a good girl.”  Close to her 17th birthday, January finds a book called The Ten Thousand Doors that opens up the world (and surrounding worlds), to her in an increasingly more real, and tangible way.  Harrow has created a novel that is a joyful ode to fantasy, portals, and world-building. I loved this book, may it take you all the places you want to go!


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The Way of Kings: Book One of the Stormlight Archive By Brandon Sanderson Cover Image
$11.99
ISBN: 9780765365279
Availability: Usually Available in 2-5 Days
Published: Tor Fantasy - May 24th, 2011

ALL I WANT TO DO IS TALK ABOUT THESE BOOKS! The Way of Kings is the first book in the Stormlight Archive, a series that will ultimately be 10 books but so far there are only 3 (I’m sorry), with a fourth coming out later this year. I picked this up because I needed to get out of this world for a bit, and the Cosmere is welcoming, and engaging to all! I cannot explain how awe-inspiring Sanderson’s world-building, character development, and storytelling are, but trust me, they are incredible. We follow the main narrative perspectives of 3 individuals (Kaladin, Shallan **my favorite** and Dalinar) stretched across the world, as they grow and develop more knowledge about the history of their world, more questions about the roles they are to play in it, and also (maybe) some super cool powers. The only bad thing about this book is that it’s so big it can be kind of uncomfortable to hold, for that I apologize but it is so, so worth it.


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Disappearing Earth By Julia Phillips Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9780525436225
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - April 7th, 2020

**My Favorite Book of 2019!**

I read the first chapter of DISAPPEARING EARTH a while ago, and set it back down after thinking it might be too thematically intense for me, but I couldn’t really move on from it, something about it had left a new wrinkle in my memory, and I tried again. DISAPPEARING EARTH is told over the course of a year in the province of Petropavlovsk in Russia, and begins with the abduction of two young sisters in August.  Phillips describes her novel as a spiral, beginning with a tight, localized event, and expanding outward over the course of a year. She’s spot on with that analogy, you spiral through this story with the narrators you meet, (each chapter has a new narrator), getting the wind knocked out of you by this threaded community of women and the impact the abduction of these sisters has had on their lives.  Phillips guides you through her words to a place across the Earth; you can smell the muddy ice in the streets, the cigarette smoke, and the salt in the air. I think about this book and the places it brings to life almost everyday. Highly, highly recommend.


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Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland By Patrick Radden Keefe Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9780307279286
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor - February 25th, 2020

How much do you know about the history of Northern Ireland and the IRA? Before reading this my knowledge was slight, but I came away with much more knowledge and understanding, and an immense sense of awe at the amount of work Keefe and others have poured into this book over the years, and an even greater sense of disbelief, sadness and frustration for the vast number of people affected by the Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement.  Keefe threads numerous narratives throughout that focus on key players of the IRA, families of The Disappeared, and Gerry Adams, the radical turned major politician who vehemently denies ever having been a part of the radical movement. Keefe chronicles a history that is just a few generations removed from now, and with Brexit nigh, Say Nothing provides more context and weight for the future of Northern Ireland, while also illuminating just how tangled the history of an occupied place can be.


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The Gimmicks: A Novel By Chris McCormick Cover Image
$27.99
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ISBN: 9780062908568
Published: Harper - January 7th, 2020

Chris McCormick’s The Gimmicks, is a history lesson, a testament to brotherhood, an inquiry into radicalized minds and culture, a tracking of the Armenian diaspora, a love story, and a drive-by past the world of professional wrestling. McCormick takes a triad of people; Ruben, a young intellect radically fixated on the Armenian genocide, Avo, Ruben’s brother and complement/foil, and Mina, a remarkably lucky and skilled backgammon player and Ruben’s rival.  How many different configurations can three people take on in each others’ lives? McCormick lovingly, skillfully, shows us; tracking them from Armenia to Europe to America, while they all grapple with the permanence of their actions on themselves and each other. McCormick is dizzyingly smart too, exploring concepts of love and devotion through the language of violence and wrestling that you will feel, viscerally. Messy and exquisite, The Gimmicks is a force.


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Lanny: A Novel By Max Porter Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9781644450208
Availability: Usually Available in 2-5 Days
Published: Graywolf Press - April 21st, 2020

There is an ancient, all-knowing trickster that listens to the cacophonous daily dronings of a small village some miles outside of London.  This trickster is known as Dead Papa Toothwort, and he has a particular affinity for the voice and musings of a young, glittering-of-spirit boy named Lanny.  The magical and hyper-real come together in LANNY, breaking apart the collective mind of a community, and the shattered, isolated minds of a family, when faced with darkness.  LANNY will tell you secrets in song that you will only remember in that liminal space between waking and sleep.  A marvel, a beauty, a dream.


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10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World By Elif Shafak Cover Image
$27.00
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ISBN: 9781635574470
Published: Bloomsbury Publishing - September 24th, 2019

Tequila Leila has just been murdered, her heart has stopped beating, her body has shut down, but her mind is still active-- brainwaves firing, memory strong- for 10 minutes and 38 seconds.  It is in these minutes that Leila turns inward, reliving her life, remembering the full spectrum of her existence; her increasingly oppressive childhood in Van, her escape to Istanbul, her life as a sex worker, and the lifelong friendships she makes with others living on the fringes of Istanbul.  Shafak shows us the powerful and steady beauty of chosen family-- how it pulses under the violence and heartbreak of a life. Written with a mastery of the senses, 10 MINUTES AND 38 SECONDS IN THIS STRANGE WORLD will envelop you into the life and death and afterlife of a woman who endured to hope and love.


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Ill Will: A Novel By Dan Chaon Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780345476050
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Ballantine Books - January 9th, 2018

There’s something I love about reading utterly grim books in the middle of Summertime; curling up in the sun, filling your mind with darkness, while the sensory pillars of Summer flicker against your reading brain.  Let’s first establish here that ILL WILL is a complete masterpiece.  Dan Chaon’s many multiple storylines solidifying around an unsolved murder from the past, and the potentially connected drownings of inebriated college-aged men in the present is transfixing, and brilliantly insane.  Add to this the background of Ohio in the wintertime, the ever-present cloud of death that clings to all the characters, and the prose itself which are smoky and muddled with grief, iconic observation, and suspended hilarity. It is an absolute work of art.  Read it in the sun on a warm afternoon, but don’t be surprised if you still get a chill.


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The Shining Girls: A Novel By Lauren Beukes Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780316216869
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Published: Mulholland Books - January 14th, 2014

Chicago, between the years of 1930-1990 has seen great, booming, sky-touching change, and it’s all about to be laid out quickly, and out of order.  Lauren Beukes’ The Shining Girls tells the story of a depression-era serial killer who is able to travel through time, and his victims-- bright, smart, vibrant girls-- singled out by their promise, whose deaths are unsolved and disconnected.  One of these girls, Kirby, survives her attack in 1989, and is left to doggedly focus on solving her own murder. Thrilling, frustrating, and distinctive, Lauren Beukes takes the dimension of time and folds it up, poking holes through it to let the light shine through.


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Strange Weather in Tokyo: A Novel By Hiromi Kawakami, Allison Markin Powell (Translated by) Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781640090163
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Counterpoint - November 14th, 2017

Hiromi Kawakami’s Strange Weather in Tokyo is quiet and cleansing, full of cool humidity and heavy rainy nights.  Tsukiko (38, and a bit of a closed circle) encounters her old high school Japanese teacher, Sensei, 70, in a favorite neighborhood bar.  The two easily chat over a drink, and discover they share many similarities, and quirks. What follows is the development of a unique and deeply complementary relationship.  Kawakami describes this thread tangentially occurring with comfortingly lovely monologues of everyday life. It’s an easy pleasure to read, with prickles of pain, loneliness, and loss.  Perfect for this wildly transformative time of year.


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Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (Futures) By Byung-Chul Han, Erik Butler (Translated by) Cover Image
By Byung-Chul Han, Erik Butler (Translated by)
$19.95
ISBN: 9781784785772
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Verso - December 5th, 2017

If you're really starting to strain against your societal/cultural (other?) tethers, it's time to read this. Byung-Chul Han uncovers disturbing and ugly underlying truths of capitalism, and its' bedfellow, neoliberalism.  The truths observed don't necessarily surprise, but rather feel as if they've been purposefully ignored/overlooked for some time.  Han's essay culminates on the notion that Big Data is our very own contemporary panopticon, concurrently focusing on the power and control the collective unconscious --in digitally accessible forms-- has.  Blood boilingly fascinating, while also strongly endeavoring to strip away individual impotencies, PSYCHOPOLITICS is a force.


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The Heavens By Sandra Newman Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9780802147974
Availability: Usually Available in 2-5 Days
Published: Grove Press - November 19th, 2019

For some reason when I close my eyes and think about this novel, I see a drop of blood dissipating throughout a glass of water.  I assumed (very briefly) that this was going to be a New York Love Story-- full of self-consciousness and cigarettes.  It is decidedly much much more than my initial assumption (I was very gladly off the mark!)  It is a constantly chifting novel of two eras, with Kate-- the centerpiece-- stuck between those eras (2000 and 1593).  Kate has increasingly vivid dreams in which she is a different person living in Elizabethan England, and the choices she makes will have grave impacts on Kate's world in 2000.  Notions of power, sanity, and culpability are threaded throughout-- take a step and see where you land.


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Conversations with Friends: A Novel By Sally Rooney Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780451499066
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Crown - August 7th, 2018

I’ve been trying to name what I liked about this book, why I loved it as much as I did.  Relationships are a complicated, tangled mess of things; somewhat impossible to describe or get right when written about, but Sally Rooney does it really well. Conversations With Friends follows Frances and Bobbi, college-aged best friends with a relationship that does not fit neatly into any category, and their entanglements with an older married couple.  Rooney threads strings through the hearts and guts and brains of her characters, sewing them together in a mishmash of directions that will make you compulsively unable to stop reading, and also squirm with discomfort.  I felt somehow both like a voyeur and like I was experiencing something deeply familiar the whole time. An aspect of truth glimmers within this book, and it will match you stride by stride.


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The Mars Room: A Novel By Rachel Kushner Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781476756585
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Published: Scribner - May 7th, 2019

"The thing is, you keep existing, whether you have a plan to do so or not," says Romy Hall, the central character followed in Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room, as she serves a double life sentence for killing her stalker. I was blown away by this trip beyond the walls of mass incarceration; expecting only to find a cold, grim reality (which I did), but also found real warmth and humor in the individual lives depicted.  Humanity. It is love and it is pain, and you will find equal parts in abundance-- it will warm you as you're chilled by the ironic (and horrific) circumstances of the people in this book.  The best book I've read this year.


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The Song of Achilles: A Novel By Madeline Miller Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9780062060624
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Ecco - August 28th, 2012

There are those books you love so much, and so immediately, they take the words out of your own mind; replacing your words with theirs, in varying degrees of forever.  I loved this book very much, unconsciously attaching myself to Achilles and Patroclus, their love, lives and thoughts.  Reading Song of Achilles is a rush, a swell, a cacaphonous pulse that ends in you, the reader, weeping.  Ready yourself, for you will be changed.


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The Inheritance Trilogy By N. K. Jemisin Cover Image
$29.99
ISBN: 9780316334006
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Orbit - December 9th, 2014

It's big, I know, but that's a good thing!  NK Jemisin takes us to a glorious world where gods and humans impact each other deeply, and the consequences of actions take thousands of years to resolve, if they ever do at all.  I spent a solid week of vacation completely blissed out in this world Jemisin created, it's beautiful, complicated, expansive, sensual, and completely unique.  This tome is a wonder and a treat and I loved every page.


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Artful By Ali Smith Cover Image
$20.00
Email info@literatibookstore.com or call for price
ISBN: 9780143124498
Published: Penguin Books - February 4th, 2014

Art! Literature! Ghosts!  Half fiction, half essay, Ali Smith's Artful cracked my mind open with its' observations of loss, art, and general beauty in the world (not to mention EVERYTHING ELSE that's in here).  This book and I went places together, pausing to consider nearly everything (or so it seems to me now) along the way.  Open your mind!  Read Ali Smith! 


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The Book of the Dead By Muriel Rukeyser, Catherine Venable Moore (Introduction by) Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781946684219
Availability: Usually Available in 2-5 Days
Published: West Virginia University Press - February 1st, 2018

I first read Muriel Rukeyser's "Book of the Dead" in a college creative writing class, we were learning about how flexible the poetic medium can be and Rukeyser's poetic nonfiction, building a narrative of beauty and desolation using official court transcripts from the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster, stayed with me.  Shortly put, the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster (1930-1935) was the greatest industrial catastrophe in American history, causing an estimated 700-1000 migrant worker deaths by silicosis in an effort to divert a portion of the New River under a mountain through a 3-mile tunnel.  In this new edition, which includes an excellent introduction by Catherine Venable Moore (I recommend reading it as the intro, and after you've finished the book), the power of history and poetry attempt to unveil and make known a truth that has been overgrown with time and prejudice.  "Knowledge is power", as they say, and Book of the Dead pulses with it as a haunted beacon of truth, a pinprick of light shining through the shrouded history of our country.


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The Essex Serpent: A Novel By Sarah Perry Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780062666383
Availability: Usually Available in 2-5 Days
Published: Custom House - April 24th, 2018

What do you do when everything you thought to be true and real is put into question?  Sarah Perry explores this question in "The Essex Serpent."  In the 1890s, when medicine, science, religion, evolution, and urban development are starkly polarizing the public and informing new ideologies, Cora Seaborne, an amateur naturalist moves to Essex on a mission to track down the fabled Essex serpent.  According to local legend, the Essex serpent is a monster that brings dread, doom, and death upon the Essex community, but Cora believes it to be could be a living fossil, and attempts to catch a glimpse of it on the shores.  Cora finds herself in a place that exists just on the horizon of myth and reality, culminating of loud instances of mystery, morality, romance, beauty, and pain.  This book absolutely captivated me.  Dive in, it awaits.


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Winter: A Novel (Seasonal Quartet) By Ali Smith Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781101969953
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor - November 6th, 2018

I can't recommend a better book to complement this absurd political, economic, international, and social reality we are all collectively (and singularly) experiencing.  Ali Smith's second installment in her seasonal quartet is (mostly) set over the Christmas holiday in Cornwall, where we are the silent fourth wall facing a beautifully dysfunctional family.  Winter plays with the ghosts of self, dispersed throughout the dimension of time, and collects the truly unbelievable, yet real (so real) human consciousness into a story.  Smith's writing is weighted equally with the horrible and the miraculous, in a harmony of now--everything that's ever been is now, right now.


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Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist) By Min Jin Lee Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9781455563920
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Grand Central Publishing - November 14th, 2017

I read part of this book while I was sick, and had a formative and intense fever dream about it.  I woke up confused about where (and when) I was, and deeply concerned about the fate of one of Min Jin Lee's characters.  In Pachinko, Lee sweeps us along with a family of Korean immigrants living in pre- and post-war Japan.  Lee shows us a community whose history is rooted in stark racism, and stems, as generations pass, into a liminal void of Other; not quite outsider, not quite native.  Here is a story of a family endeavoring to keep itself together.  Lee writes with palpable emotion and beauty.  This is a novel in a class all its' own.


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Tempests and Slaughter (The Numair Chronicles, Book One) By Tamora Pierce Cover Image
$18.99
Email info@literatibookstore.com or call for price
ISBN: 9780375847110
Published: Random House Books for Young Readers - February 6th, 2018

Calling all lovers of fantasy!  Tamora Pierce has given us something new!  I've been a longtime fan of Pierce's books, and this new series does not disappoint!  We follow a young mage, Arram Draper, as he studies at the imperial University of Carthak, with his two close friends, Varice and Ozorne.  Pierce is unparalleled in her craft, setting relatable and compelling coming-of-age stories against a vivd and wonderful fantasy world.  I ate this book up!  Can't wait for the next one!


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Kitchen By Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (Translator) Cover Image
By Banana Yoshimoto, Megan Backus (Translator)
$17.00
ISBN: 9780802142443
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Grove Press - April 17th, 2006

If you're looking for something to remind you of the beauty in the world, read this!  The first time I read Kitchen was after a good friend recommended it with, "this is the perfect thing to read if you're going through any sort of big change," and it truly was.  This sweet little book (it's actually two novellas) follows a young woman, Mikage, and the mother and son she stays with after her grandmother passes away.  Yoshimoto captures a grief that is serenely beautiful, and adds a gentle quirkiness that will settle itself comfortably inside you.  This is a truly special book, definitely the best recommendation I've ever gotten.


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Neon in Daylight: A Novel By Hermione Hoby Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781936787753
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Catapult - January 9th, 2018

Hermione Hoby’s debut novel up close is beautifully chaotic.  Back up to the entire picture and it is a shimmering, reflective surface that allows us to see what we, and the world, are made up of.  Set in New York City in the hazy summer of 2012, Kate, newly arrived from England and seeking a change in perspective, meets Inez, a magnetic and anarchistic beauty, then randomly, Inez’s father, Bill, a stagnant yet successful has-been author.  As they move through the summer tangled in each others’ lives, Hoby plays with elements of narcissism, maturity, isolation, and love, with a depth and understanding that is wholly human.  This is a novel that hums with the irony and incredulity of life; a mirror-pond of the human spectacle.


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Autonomous: A Novel By Annalee Newitz Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9780765392084
Availability: Usually Available in 2-5 Days
Published: Tor Books - September 4th, 2018

The best science fiction stretches our ingrained concepts of humanity and civilization into a series of questions that entrance and electrify its' readers both by the nature of the questions, and by the contextual reality the author has created.  Annalee Newitz shows her mastery of the genre with Autonomous, posing questions relating to ai, consciousness, and ownership, against the backdrop of Earth in 2144; where patent property law rules social order, and indentured people and bots are the new lower class. Autonomous follows Jack, a drug pirate desperately trying to fix a deadly mistake she made while racing against agents Eliasz (a temperamental military agent) and Paladin ( a newly conscious, indentured military bot).  The story unravels as it progresses, revisiting Jack's past to illustrate the evolution of her ideology, and showing a unique relationship blooming between Paladin and Eliasz. Newitz forces you to empathize with every character, while pondering the implications of each one of their choices.  Autonomous is a true masterpiece.


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Autumn: A Novel (Seasonal Quartet) By Ali Smith Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781101969946
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor - October 17th, 2017

I think Ali Smith might be made of magic.  This book moves; it dances to the arc of characters' recollected memories, it glides over penned autumn winds, it rises and falls with sleep-filled breaths.  Autumn tells the story of two friends, Elisabeth and George, who form a singularly special friendship when elementary-aged Elisabeth and her mother move in next door to George, an old (in his eighties) musician, full of passion for art from the sixties.  In her typical non-linear style, Smith narrates a fifty-year chunk of time in Britain, focusing especially on the juxtaposition of the then (empowered artists, hope-filled futures), and the now (horrifying nationalism, self-imposed isolation).  Smith will leave you clinging to the last page.


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Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1) By James S. A. Corey Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9780316129084
Availability: Usually Available in 2-5 Days
Published: Orbit - June 15th, 2011

This space opera drew me in so fully that I found myself sneaking extra passages in whenever I had a spare moment.  Corey has written a future in which humanity has colonized the solar system, with extensive civilaizations on Mars, Earth, and the Asteroid Belt.  Leviathan Wakes follows a detective from the Asteroid Belt obsessed with finding a missing woman, and a newly appointed captain from earth, who's fate has been unluckily tied together with some of the dark secrets of the Universe.  If you're looking for an epic adventure to get lost in, suit up!  This is the one.


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Wild Magic (The Immortals #1) By Tamora Pierce Cover Image
$12.99
ISBN: 9781481440226
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Published: Atheneum Books for Young Readers - September 29th, 2015

I try to spend some time with one of Tamora Pierce's books about once a year, because I love them, and because her books make me feel as excited and wonder-filled as I did when I first read them.  In this one, Daine, left with only her pony Cloud, after her village is destroyed by bandits, manages to get a job with Onua, a horse trader, as they both work to bring a herd to the Capital City.  Daine has a serious knack with animals-- it's wild magic, a gift that allows her to converse with animals.  Pierce connects her readers to her fantastical worlds by depicting characters who are respectful of nature and each other, and who stay with you long after you finish the last page.  This is a book that will help reconnect you with that kid who used to read for hours, and loved to get lost in a good story.


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The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1) By N. K. Jemisin Cover Image
$18.99
ISBN: 9780316229296
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Orbit - August 4th, 2015

Even after sitting with this book, and thinking about it for quite a while, I still don't quite know what to say, other than that fiction (and scifi/fantasy) exist to give us books like this.  The Fifth Season follows three narrators who are each on their own journey, both emotional and physical, while the world around them, a place called The Stillness, threatens to end.  Jemisin ties the narrators' stories together with a surpirsing twist that adds dimension and meaning to a story that will probably make you want to start the next book immediately.


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Anne of Green Gables (Puffin Classics) By L. M. Montgomery Cover Image
$8.99
ISBN: 9780141321592
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Puffin Books - September 11th, 2008

I think this is a great book to read if you're feeling a little lonely or a little sad.  If you've never read Anne of Green Gables, you're in for a wonder.  Anne, a feisty, opinionated, and imaginative child is sort of accidentally adopted by Marilla and Matthew-- a pair of elderly siblings that need help managing their farm on Prince Edward Island.  The three of them grow to become this beautifully special family, full of admiration and affection for one another, and Montgomery's writing is heart-clutchingly wonderful.  Like I said, and excellent choice if you're feeling a little blue, or if you just want a dose of goodness.


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Severance: A Novel By Ling Ma Cover Image
By Ling Ma
$18.00
ISBN: 9781250214997
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador - May 7th, 2019

 

In Ling Ma's Severance, Candace Chen is one of the sole human survivors left after an epidemic flattens the human population.  We follow her through the near past, working in a comfortable but soul-less corporate job in Times Square trying to fill in the emptiness left behind by both of her parents' deaths, and through the present, traveling with other survivors as they try to comprehend and make reason out of their own survival.  Severance plays though Candace's life, hovering over the murkiness of her parents' immigrant experiences and the familial obligations they are both bound to and let fray.  By focusing on the Before (infinitely ripe with life) and the After (quiet, still and lonely with jagged endings), Ling Ma captures what it might feel like to observe the leftovers of the world, while living with a deep understanding that you yourself are left over too.  I didn't know what to do with this book in the best possible way.


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His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (Book 1) By Philip Pullman Cover Image
$8.99
ISBN: 9780440418320
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Yearling - May 22nd, 2001

I recently revisited this series from my youth, and it was TRULY even better than I remembered.  In this first book, Lyra Belacqua, a child raised by academics in Oxford, races head first into an adventure that spans universes, and changes, or arguably, fulfills, the course of her life.  Pullman shows us the abslute horrors a human mind can create when guided by institutions that rely on blind faith, and alternately, the beauty of decisions made when informed by logic and love.  I urge you to read this book (and then the other two!) if you have not already.