Staff Picks
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, this is not. Dyer doesn't prescribe a magical method to get your life in order, but instead provides specific, shame-free tips to create a system that works for you based on your individual strengths, priorities, and challenges. Geared towards folks who are neurodivergent, but anyone who's ever felt overwhelmed by chores or "care tasks" will find something useful.
Katie
I cannot explain how excited I was to fumble across this on a cart of books to shelve. I'm always hoping to find more sci-fi/fantasy done in verse, and this is just so much more! That each of these pieces of artwork exist individually is wonderful enough, but as a collection it's just phenomenal.
Stacey
French restores the centrality of Africa to what is often seen as the modern economic and political ascendancy of Europe. Incredibly rich in detail provided by recent scholarship and informed by French’s own contemporary reporting from the region, Born in Blackness helps to forever change how we view the last 700 years of the Trans-Atlantic world.
Dale
A true masterpiece. Through the story of two eerily similiar artists, Fosse explores the permeable border between you & me. Lyrical, spiritual, contemplative and a perfect winter read filled with Scandinavian snowscapes. You'll see why Fosse is a perennial Nobel hopeful.
Josh
A Great and Terrible Beauty earns its status as the start of one of the best YA trilogies of the last 20 years. Hands down, Libba Bray has created a world rich and vibrant, while managing to make characters that are recognizable and fresh at the same time. The scenery is lush, the dialogue crisp. For fans of the Gothic, portal fantasy, and complex femme characters, this is the ticket.
Jen
There's simply no better way to start the year than alongside this snappy, prickly, hilarious cast with the mystery of a lifetime to uncover. So deliciously, mouth-wateringly good.
Cindy
This is a strange, touching, beautiful fable about a boy whose immigrant parents literally, physically shrink with each sacrifice they make to their new country. One of those rare picture books which are sort of more for grownups than they are for children, although children can and should read them.
Piera
Continuing the theme of reading creepy literature in winter time, this one is a promising Young Adult tale that follows a deaf student who's accepted into a prestigious academy that teaches students how to travel between parallel worlds. Ghostly partnerships, tales of sacrifice, love, and obsession, this is a story that you can't go wrong with.
Engel
I loved this fast paced thriller, a twisty game of cat and mouse. Helen's idyllic marriage and pregnancy changes the day she meets Rachel in her first prenatal class. A past crime is about to be exposed that could destroy all of their lives. Greenwich Park is about unreliable friendships, motherhood, siblings and the high price of keeping secrets.
Babbie
The Starless Sea is the ideal book for Book People. If you were the kid who searched the back of closets for Narnia, who was constantly caught reading in class or after bedtime, who has ever read a book and longed to be a part of it, this book is for you. A puzzlebox of a book, it's the perfect read to start off the year.
Katherine
It's officially winter time so you know what that means... horror becomes much more terrifying (at least to me). In this chilling novel, the devil is in Scotland. When the country's most notorious serial killer is found dead in his cell, officers find a handwritten manuscript that promises to answer the question everyone's been wondering about: was he a lunatic, or was he telling the truth in saying that the devil made him do it...
Engel
Are you someone who tends to go to super cool places to see super cool people and eat super cool food and buy super cool things only not remember any of it? This guide walks you through the various ways one can "scrapbook" in a compact volume, preserving time, space, and memories with only a few simple tools. There are other examples of great travel journals packed into the guide as well, resulting in both a dummies' guide-to comboed with an inspiration board full of unique formats and methods for memory-keeping. Resolve to change your ways this year by travel journaling!
Cindy
Grady Hendrix's books are where comedy and horror meet and bind together in a writhing, cacking embrace. In his newest tale, two siblings return to their childhood home after the pandemic and economic meltdown have ravaged their back accounts, ready to sell and make a quick buck. What lies waiting is more than they prepared for. Dark, horrifying, side-spliting, and somehow heartfelt, Hendrix is back with a bombshell.
Jen
This is just the kind of science writing I enjoy the most - half portraits of the animals and systems, and half portraits of the author and their world. Imbler's writing is clear and rich in metaphor while still scientifically sound, and their explanations of the animals they're interested in are just as compelling as the human communities, conflicts, and loves with which they are in conversation. When Imbler writes about the queer communities they've found, their writing just soars with love. Made me cry on the train a little, I must admit!!
Piera
A childhood classic, I had just as much fun reading this book at 25 as I did at 8. Princess Cimorene, the daughter of a very proper king, runs away to live with a very powerful dragon, Kazul and in doing so turns every fairytale rule you know on its head. Perfect for precocious elementary schoolers who love reading and to be right, or adults who were once precocious elementary schoolers who loved reading and to be right. Princess Cimorene belongs in the same category as middle grade heroines like Sophie Hatter from Howl's Moving Castle and Ella of Frell from Ella Enchanted.
Katherine