Sam's favorites

Mobility By Lydia Kiesling Cover Image
$28.00
ISBN: 9781638930563
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Crooked Media Reads - August 1st, 2023

A bildungsroman for the anthropocene, Mobility follows Bunny, the daughter of a diplomat, from mostly-oblivious teendom in Azerbaijan to adulthood in Texas, where she falls into PR work for an oil company (but mostly for the clean energy side! she relentlessly protests). This novel masterfully grapples with an individual life amidst global geopolitics: the disconnect between the truths we acknowledge yet ignore, the seemingly small choices we make and the mind-boggling, earth-changing consequences that follow. I was hooked.


Staff Pick Badge
Y/N: A Novel By Esther Yi Cover Image
$26.00
ISBN: 9781662601538
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Astra House - March 21st, 2023

Y/N is strange and elegant, with an addictively esoteric edge to almost every sentence. I knew this novel was for me in the first few pages, when a friend tells the narrator a concert will change her life. "I don't want my life to change," she responds. "I want my life to stay in one place and be one thing as intensely as possible." She ends up attending anyway and becomes obsessed with one of the band members, Moon. This book is full of mind-bending metaphors, cryptic philosophical conversations and a narrator who hovers between over-intellectual awareness and absolute devotion.


Staff Pick Badge
Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us By Rachel Aviv Cover Image
$28.00
ISBN: 9780374600846
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux - September 13th, 2022

Couldn't put this book down! Rachel Aviv devotes each chapter to people who, in different ways, have become entangled in the complicated world of psychiatry--including herself. Just when you think you know where she's headed, she reveals a new surprising facet of the story. There are no simple answers to questions of diagnosis and treatment, or even what it means to be mentally ill. Her focus instead is on real, particular, often messy lives.


Staff Pick Badge
Cold Enough for Snow By Jessica Au Cover Image
$14.95
ISBN: 9780811231558
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: New Directions - February 15th, 2022

Such a tender, deliberate, inquisitive novel about fundamental human relationships, particularl the curious distance of familial love, and on what terms we can bridge the gaps.


Staff Pick Badge
Be Here to Love Me at the End of the World By Sasha Fletcher Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781612199474
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Melville House - February 15th, 2022

This book blew me away! Ecstatically angry, furiously joyful and often hilarious, it's the most radical book you'll ever read about two people who just really, totally love each other (while reviewing some of history's darker moments, hoping they aren't blackbagged by the secret police, and wondering if/when the angels are coming).


Staff Pick Badge
Trespasses: A Novel By Louise Kennedy Cover Image
$27.00
ISBN: 9780593540893
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Books - November 1st, 2022

This book, set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, has it all: sex, longing, class conflict, religious violence and familial tension galore. Kennedy's clear, beautiful prose brings each character to vivid life. This book is just plain good!


The Vegetarian: A Novel By Han Kang Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781101906118
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Hogarth - August 23rd, 2016

The President's Room By Ricardo Romero, Charlotte Coombe (Translator) Cover Image
By Ricardo Romero, Charlotte Coombe (Translator)
$13.95
ISBN: 9781999722722
Availability: Not On Our Shelves Now (Usually Ships in 1-5 Days)
Published: Charco Press - January 14th, 2020

I'm a sucker for a strange premise, and this book delivers: every home in this suburb in an unnamed country has a room prepared for the president, should the leader ever arrive. Spare and mysterious, I read this brief book in one enthralling sitting.


The Door (NYRB Classics) By Magda Szabo, Len Rix (Translated by), Ali Smith (Introduction by) Cover Image
By Magda Szabo, Len Rix (Translated by), Ali Smith (Introduction by)
$17.95
ISBN: 9781590177716
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: NYRB Classics - January 27th, 2015

The Lonesome Bodybuilder: Stories By Yukiko Motoya, Asa Yoneda (Translated by) Cover Image
By Yukiko Motoya, Asa Yoneda (Translated by)
$16.95
ISBN: 9781593766788
Availability: Not On Our Shelves Now (Usually Ships in 1-5 Days)
Published: Soft Skull - November 6th, 2018

The Golden State: A Novel By Lydia Kiesling Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781250238115
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador - September 3rd, 2019

Cleanness By Garth Greenwell Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9781250785664
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador - January 12th, 2021

Staff Pick Badge
Temporary (Emily Books) By Hilary Leichter Cover Image
$16.95
ISBN: 9781566895668
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Coffee House Press - March 3rd, 2020

Capitalism and surrealism collide in this weird and sharp novel about a temp worker. It's a tale that includes a locket containing the talking ashes of a chairman, a pirate ship, an assassin, barnacles and eighteen boyfriends (each with their own purpose). Absurd and funny, devastating and moving. I am here for all of it.