Staff Picks

This November instead of individual book choices we invite you to join us for the first meeting of our new book club!

Dear readers and friends—

In this moment, we have decided to create space for our community to gather and discuss books. We hope you’ll join us for a new Lopez Bookshop book club.

We believe in the importance of connection and the power of deep thinking that comes from literature. We aim to come together to discuss books – primarily fiction – that build from historical context, that contemplate the human condition from nuanced and diverse perspectives, and that offer a path toward hope even in darkness.

We will start with Held by Anne Michaels. Our first meeting will be on Thursday, December 5th, at 6:30pm at the bookshop. We’ll plan to meet monthly on the first Thursday of the month thereafter.

Please join us if you can – all are welcome. We are also trying to find ways to engage with members of the community who may not be able to join in person for any reason – perhaps through sharing their impressions or by the group sharing a few notes after each meeting. We’ll keep you all updated on specific plans in that regard. We’ll also post book club selections here – if you’d like to order one of them (or set up a subscription to the series), please email us at lopezbookshop@gmail.com.

We look forward to gathering with you.
With love and gratitude,

-Camilla and Hilary

Camilla Recommends for October

I feel like Timothy Snyder is the grandfather we all need, wise and uplifting, acting as a bridge between past and present, guiding us forward. As he points out, when you don’t know your history you may think anything is possible and get disappointed and bitter when you discover there are limits. If instead you start with guidance from elders and knowledge of the incredible and positive social movements of the past you can face the future already armed with effective tools. On Freedom is only disguised as a pile of paper, in real life it is a toolbox.

A mix of fascinating science, travel writing, and sociology, The Treeline is exceptionally well researched and compelling reading. I found the chapter on Poplar particularly useful, I have loved Balm of Gilead trees all my life, have grown and used them herbally, but was unaware of their outsized role in soil and water enrichment. Ben Rawlence spends time with some really wise and knowledgeable people especially among the indigenous tribes of the far north and an impressive cast of passionate scientists. Their experience illustrates a terrifying reality but also a path forward, rooted in respect and mutuality with the changed forests of the future.

You know when you just want to be totally sucked into a book, alive in its words and unable to put it down? Sally Rooney is the queen of what I like to think of as “glue novels” even if I wanted to, I could not put her books down. I think this is her best novel yet, while absolutely contemporary in certain ways (VERY explicit sex for example) it feels old fashioned in the way a Jane Austen novel does, it’s really entirely about people. These are intelligent, intellectual characters who do care about current events, but that isn’t where Intermezzo goes, it goes into their hearts. Honestly I can’t think of a writer who does people better, how beautiful, to see with such clarity.

Niko Recommends for October

Annie Lamot has a gift for seeing the big in the little, Somehow, is no exception. Lamot’s honest stories of choosing love, point us toward the fact that however complicated life gets we can always boil it back down to being loved and loving. From the heartfelt stories of loving neighbors who have been forgotten, loving those we fear have forgotten to love us, and loving those who don’t seem to want our love. Lamot does not spare the reader of her fears, failures, or heartaches, she is human and writes story after story to ensure that we know being human is okay.

Nathan Hill has produced written art, mixing love, childhood trauma and strange science, Wellness is born. When Jack, the son of a neglectful midwest family and budding artist meets Elizabeth, a compulsive learner escaping generational wealth, they form an instant bond. In the many years that follow their initial romance they fear that what they once had as young adults is quickly slipping from their grasp. While making scattered attempts to fix the relationship that they are desperate to save, and not even sure if it is even worth trying, they seem to only make things worse. Full of surprises and unsuspected details the story lingers in the mind like smoke on the horizon after a fire.

Camilla Recommends for September

It has been half a year or more since a cookbook came out I really loved so I took my copy of The Farm Table home without any particular hopes. I let it lurk on the shelf for a while before eventually trying my first recipe (the stuffed Zuchini blossoms baked in tomato) and was so happy with the result I made the tarragon chicken roasted with mustard, wine, and cream the next day, reader, it was incredible. Also if, like me, you have never heard of spatchcocked chicken, this technique is so brilliant I’m sad about all the life I spent not knowing about it.
Many happy meals later this book has earned a place on my very exclusive kitchen shelf.

Camilla Recommends for August

What a well plotted novel The Safekeep is! And what characters, there’s a special enjoyment I feel, in reading about flawed characters. Each of the people in this book is an onion, often horrible raw, though can be zesty in the right salad, and can be made sweet by cooking. What begins as a twisty psychological family drama morphs into perhaps a somewhat overly explicit romance, carry on through the steamy palpitations and you will get to a profound and political ending. Delicious!

Niko Recommends for August

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is a wild story of the suburbs. This is no fairytale vampire story, nothing of the twilight sort, it does its job leaving a bad taste in your mouth. Housewife Patricia Campbell is bored with school drop off and pick up, dinners at 5pm, her husband working too much, and only ever reading about adventure. So when a strange, charismatic single man moves in a few houses down, Patricia’s mind jumps at the possibility of something more mysterious. The story trickles out as Grady Hendrix twists this gruesome tale of what happens when housewives take on a vampire. Unlike popular vampire stories this one doesn’t leave a woman chasing after a lonely, brooding, mystery man she thinks she can tame. This time the creature’s true nature is revealed,  leaving these 90s housewives no choice but to take matters into their own hands.

In This other Eden Paul Harding tells the gruesome story of Malaga Island. On the small island off the coast of Maine a interracial community is violently removed from their generational home to appease white eugenic researchers. In Harding’s telling he exposes the simple and cherished lives of the families living on the island. Centering around the life of Esther Honey, a matriarch living with her son and grandchildren. The story unfolds like the deconstruction of their home, first just a nail is removed and placed in a pail revealing, like the well meaning teacher coming to the island, little, then it is a weight bearing beam being lowered to the ground changing the stability of the entire structure like the impending arrival of a child.

Camilla Recommends for July

Soldier Sailor isn’t the kind of novel that compels you forward to find out what happens next, it’s the kind of novel where you can’t stop turning pages because you care so much about all the people who live in it. It is one of the best written books I’ve read in a very long time, breathlessly visceral and beautifully crafted. Be careful when you pick it up, it takes you through the intensely transformational drama of motherhood through the lens of a woman who struggled, if you have lived through postnatal depression this may be too much for you. For those others of us who are ready to read about such a uniquely challenging experience, this book is outstandingly real, read it to grow your heart open or simply to be amazed by the power of the written word.

Hilary Recommends for June

In simplest terms, James is a reimagining of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved man travelling with Huck in Twain’s book. Percival Everett’s reinterpretation is exquisitely written and profoundly important. He uses language like crafted magic, creating voices that carry the reader through layer upon layer of code switching, into debates with philosophers inside dreams, and through palpable encounters with all kinds of characters and circumstances.
James and Huckleberry Finn – the books – travel together through specific encounters and moments of plot, but they also diverge when the characters Jim and Huck separate, and it is often in those moments of separation that James has its greatest impact on the reader. This is a book about racism and dehumanization, that transparently and unflinchingly addresses the brutality of slavery. But it also makes the reader smile and even laugh as it raises questions about the definition of race itself, the nature of right and wrong, the power of language, the importance and complexity of family connection, and fundamentally what it means to be human. 

Philippa Perry is clear, compassionate, and generous. She has so much respect for her readers – and their children. The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read offers parents a philosophical approach toward children that brims with wisdom, intentionality, and common sense. But its relevance is not limited to parents – this book has much to offer to any member of any family interested in understanding transgenerational patterns of behavior and bending the arc of relationships toward mutual respect. 

Johannes, the canine protagonist of Dave Eggers’s The Eyes and the Impossible, is endearing, determined, funny, heroic, innocent, and eternally optimistic. Johannes’s adventures remind us of the importance of persistence, freedom, and self-assurance. Shawn Harris’s beautiful illustrations – adaptations of classical landscape paintings – are the perfect complement. This poignant story lingers beyond the last page.  

Camilla Recommends for May

Georgi Gospodinov grew up behind the iron curtain and he has a special brand of dark humor, honed over the course of his life into a weapon for concealed truth telling and protest. Time Shelter is the work of an absolute master writer, sentence by sentence I was beguiled by his wiley cleverness and insight. It felt almost like magical realism to me yet absolutely no magic happens, instead the events center on writing, therapy, current events, and international politics. Gospodinov is also so excellent at people, I was terribly moved (I chose the word terribly because this is a book about the folly of populism) by his characters, laughing and crying, as I do with all my most favorite novels.

I first discovered Philippa Perry through her husband, the famous transvestite potter Grayson Perry, who is one of my favorite living artists. Philippa often appears on his BBC shows which I also highly recommend. To be completely transparent, I’m not normally a person who reads self help books but I’m so glad I found her because she is such a gem! I cannot recommend The Book You Want Everyone You Love to Read enough. She’s just so kind and wise that even when she’s asking you to delve into the dark shadows of your most difficult relationships you feel she’s guiding you through the thickets of sadness and anger like a benevolent fairy grandmother.

Milla Recommends for May

Sometimes people write books about themselves, to move something, explain something, shout something out, that actually also need to be read by others. Red Paint is that kind of a book. It is what western, christian culture might call an exorcism, but it is so much more. It’s compelling because you wish there were another hundred books in its category: Stories of people who are not heard from enough because we consider their experiences “niche”.  The idea that the experiences of certain people are not “relatable” to others is what keeps those stories out of print. This book handles trauma, colonization, alienation from one’s own place of origin in ways that are genuinely healing.

Want to have your heart broken by a book? Want to have it put back together by that same book? Ok, well this is the book for you. How High We Go In The Dark is about colossal emotions, and yes, dear reader, it is about a devastating global pandemic. But here the pandemic is a plot device to explore the twin emotions of love and grief. In this book Nagamatsu puts to the test the old truism about loving and losing. Is it really better to love someone if you’re going to lose them in a terrible way, than to have never loved them at all? For all the beautiful heartache of these stories, they are ultimately stories of love and hope. Not the hokey, corny kind, but the hard-earned, selfless, slim, real kind. The kind we could use more of in this crumbling world of ours.

Like many good books, Babel is hard to categorize. And like all R.F Kuang Books this book is not quite what it at first seems. On the surface Babel is an alternate history of our world, had the industrial revolution been tied to the use of language as a tool of magic. Only it is actually a story of empire and colonialism. Kuang’s strength as a writer is her ability to plot at a hair-raising pace. This is a fun read, full of twists and turns. But it is also a book that makes you think deeply about the ethics of serving an oppressive power, especially your own oppressor.  It is a book about identity and responsibility. It’s about what those of us who live at the hearts of empires, with every privilege, owe to those extracted for our comfort and convenience. And particularly about what people who are let into the halls of power in spite of their status as members of marginalized classes, owe to themselves and their people.

Camilla Recommends for April

There’s a shelf of books in my head that deal with something I did not really care about but now I do because of reading them. Thunderclap is about golden age Dutch painting, personally I have never been a fan of all the muddy colors (though I always loved Vermeer, because of the color blue!) and disgruntled people in absurd hats doing expensive things. I see things very differently now. Most movingly to me, it really isn’t all pictures of expensive things, many of the selected paintings here deal with the minutiae of daily life, maids cleaning, rushed meals, a certain cast of light, the poignant power of the undramatic. Laura Cumming has beautifully framed her thoughts on Dutch art inside stories of her own family of artists and art lovers.  This is an art history book, but it’s also a family portrait, and a love song to the power of painting.

Sewing has long been a favorite craft of mine and I’ve always wanted to learn to sew clothing. For years I was intimidated and confused by complex patterns as well as not loving the look and feel of a lot of contemporary time saving sewing techniques like finishing seams with a serger. Thanks to a new flush of sewing instruction books I am now happily sewing fitted clothes for myself and loved ones! I used three books to teach myself but each of the books on our shelves should stand alone, just choose the one that speaks to you. And do keep in mind that purchasing a PDF clothing pattern online is usually around $16, while a pre-printed paper pattern will be $20 or more, many of the instruction books we have at the shop contain multiple patterns and so, if you like more than two or three of their designs they are a cost effective investment in patterns as well as instruction!
How to Sew Clothes is a great absolute beginner guide to building your first simple sewing pattern. I needed to use the internet to understand a few of the techniques here that I felt were not 100% clear, like how to use bias tape to finish a flat neckline. However, overall this is an accessible guide and importantly gently leads you into pattern customization with a very simple boxy shirt pattern that has many possibilities for manipulation.
Dressmaking the Easy Guide looks like several levels up but I sewed the boxy shirt from How to Sew Clothes and then went straight into customizing a button down dress with front and back tailored darts using Dressmaking the Easy Guide, so it really is an easy guide! I would say this one is probably not suitable for absolute beginners but you also don’t need to know much more than the basics to use it effectively.
Make, Sew, Mend is a technique building book with no printable patterns. I used it to help get around those contemporary techniques I mentioned finding irritating earlier. This book is a great way to learn traditional seam finishes, how to make beautiful buttonholes, and fun fancy things like adding lace inserts

Milla Recommends for April

Safia Elhillo is a masterful poet. She is able to switch from the intimate to the far-reaching and ancient in a single turn of a word, or a line. Girls That Never Die is subversive and sweet and sad. It is terrified and it is fearless. It ranges from Fairuz to Hiphop, from Sudan to Switzerland. from immigration to belonging, from Arabic to English,  from girlhood to womanhood. This is a poetry collection for those who still think of poetry as a faint and dainty thing, to prove them wrong and utterly devastate them.

The Hundred Years War On Palestine
Ever casually wondered what on earth is going on in “The Middle East’, or used “peace in The Middle East” as shorthand for a seemingly unsolvable problem? You’re in luck. Professor Rashid Khalidi has written the only book you’ll need to read about Palestine to have your questions answered. For too long American readers have been consuming what is essentially colonial propaganda about Palestine. Palestinians themselves have, in the words of Edward Said, been denied the “permission to narrate” their own history, just as they are denied the right to determine their own future. In this powerful book Khalidi lays out the last hundred years of war waged by super powers, including the United States, on one of the most maligned, neglected, and abused people on earth. This book is immensely readable, densely researched, and achingly personal to the author. A great read for anyone who enjoys history and politics.

Camilla Recommends for March

The English Understand Wool is so gloriously clever and twisty! It is amazing how many major surprises Helen Dewitt manages to pack into under 100 pages. This is cackle out loud reading, I finished it in one sitting and immediately loaned it to a friend.
Storybook ND (New Directions) is part of a new series of bite sized novels by global authors. I cannot contain my excitement about these. This was the first in the series that I read, so it has a special place in my heart but I am now systematically reading each one and so far have enjoyed them all enormously. Imagine the Little Golden books but for adults, they represent the perfect joy of reading a complete story all at once and are beautifully dressed by an outstanding team of artists.

I learned so much from Eve I feel like pressing it into everyone’s hands. In these pages you will find any number of fascinating details but also one or two truly mind expanding theories that completely changed the way I at least, look at the history of humanity. In books about science sometimes theories can be presented as “fact” that will later be understood differently. Cat Bohannon is brilliant at presenting the data, then analyzing it using several hypotheses, including ones she actively disagrees with, and finally sharing her own opinion as an elegant synthesis. An essential read.

Mathew Desmond will be speaking at Seattle Arts and Lectures this March (you can watch online via our wonderful library) so though I read Poverty by America some months ago I have been saving my recommendation for now! A short and clearly written book, Poverty by America is an excellent sociological analysis of American inequality. It’s a book that confronts the reader bluntly with our complicity in a system that is appallingly exploitative and lacking in basic care. If this sounds too grim to read, I counter that it is also a galvanizing book and one that comes furnished with concrete suggestions for how the current system can be overturned. One of my top five non fiction books of 2023.

Milla Recommends for March

This might be the greatest love story I’ve ever read, but it is not really a book about love. It is rather a story of survival, adaptation, and the inter-dimensional travel that is being a refugee, an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land.  Two would-be lovers become displaced as war comes to their home. They enter exile through “a door”, a portal that transports its user to another country. Though their means of travel are extraordinary Nadia and Sameed experience the ordinary cruelty immigrants from the Middle East/ SWANA region regularly face in the West. Exit West tenderly frames the complexities of loving and leaving your homeland and your old selves behind, again and again.

Niko Recommends for March

I loved every second of reading, Lessons in chemistry. The story is something we can all get behind: the determination and heart of a woman, but more importantly the human desire to be seen as we truly are and to be taken seriously. Elizabeth Zott is a scientist in the 1960s unshaken by the extremes of a male dominated culture. With a number 2 pencil behind her ear, Elizabeth refuses to stoop to what is expected of a woman in her time, home making, marriage, and keeping her thoughts to herself. This along with her no-nonsense demeanor is off putting to nearly everyone she meets, at least at first. Those with eyes to see, and ears to listen are brought face to face with the truth, Elizbeth is the most incredible woman they have ever met. Bonnie Garmus writes eloquently the most heart warming, laugh-out-loud, determined story. It’s no wonder this nearly 400 page book takes only a matter of days to read.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon is brimming with magic, witches and an especially enormous dragon. Thirteen year old Luna, has a splitting pain in her head and memories, or at least she thinks they are memories, she can’t explain. A young man haunted by a witch in the woods, hopes that he might be able to bring an end to a hopeless tradition. A witch is dying and only hopes to finish what she has started before her final breath. Kelly Barnhill weaves a tale that is truly suitable for young and old alike, each character is a unique string that is twisted into the greater story of sorrow but more importantly of love.

Claire Keegan, with few words can build what others use hundreds of pages to achieve. She is a master of her craft. No word is wasted in Foster, a novella of a young girl learning to be loved. It is the perfect story to cruise through or slowly savor bites of.

Camilla Recommends for November

I started Super-infinite not having previously read any John Donne, but simply drawn in by Katherine Rundell’s infectious enthusiasm and sparkly writing. Rundell has a genius for finding the kind of delicious textural detail that brings history to life. On a tangent about Donne’s fabulous fashion sense for example, she explains that Christian IV King of Denmark had a rare condition which fused the hair on the back of his head together, and he just ran with it and literally hung a pearl off the end, thus causing a fad for bedazzled rat tails across Europe. This is the kind of fact I want to know!
I am now a huge fan of Donne, it would be hard not to be after reading this, he who wrote erotic poetry about fleas that is quite successfully seductive and threw off lines like “death is an ascension to a better library.” Simply marvelous.

What a fun adventure this book is! Let The Sixteen Pleasures sweep you away to 1960’s Italy where art conservators from around the world gathered in the aftermath of the catastrophic flooding of the Arno river to restore the city’s badly damaged art collection. I loved traveling through this sexy world of wonders with Margot, a book conservator who finds beauty, purpose, and romance in the damp and mold. People coming together, rolling up their sleeves, and cleaning up a colossal mess is just such a joy to read about.

Old Gods Time is one of the best written books I have read in a very long time. It pulls the rug out from under you constantly, is funny, transporting, and moving, in short the prose is on fire! But this book should come with a serious warning, it is about abuse of children by Catholic Priests in Ireland and has a devastatingly tragic plot. The protagonist is an aging detective who has to reckon with the fact that he was too late to save many many children. Sickeningly he was also too early to be allowed to enact justice, the Church still being more powerful than the law in many cases. Very much about aging and time, this book is metafictional in the best way, I can’t remember the last time reading made me think so hard about narration. There is so much depth here about the power of stories, how they are recorded and by whom, how we shape our memories when we tell them, how we mold ourselves to match the stories we tell, how even fallible memories can sustain and hold us with love, how memories can shape themselves into lies or be forgotten… and what happens if they are exhumed.

Camilla Recommends for October

I enjoyed Everything the Light Touches very much when I read it some months ago, over time it has stayed in my mind and my appreciation has deepened into love. This is a nested book about four travelers who engage deeply with botany and the natural world. They will never meet as they live in different times and places but they are bound together by their nomadism and their fascination with growing things. Two are real historical figures, Carl Linnaeus and Goethe, two are fictional women, one a Victorian scientist, the other (like Janice Pariat) is a contemporary woman from the Meghalaya region of India. The threads that tie their stories together are like graceful tree roots and twining vines. For a plant lover and traveler like myself this book feels like a sparkling thoughtful gift filled with joy and curiosity.

Hilary Recommends for October

The Covenant of Water is deeply rooted in Verghese’s intimate knowledge and love of the art of medicine. From there, he has built an epic narrative, spanning generations and exploring the landscape and historical context of southern India. Covenant is classic Verghese – engrossing, nostalgic, beautiful storytelling about family, love, illness, and resilience.

Trust is perfectly titled. It tackles the world of New York finance in the 1930s while exploring on a deep level the emotional definition of trust – of spouse, of narrator, of memory. The book is written in four ingenious parts that come together in the end to reveal fundamental questions about gender, attribution, and the power of the stories that we tell both ourselves and the world around us.

Milla Recommends for October

You’ve heard of unreliable narrators, but Juniper Song is just a straight-up evil one. You probably won’t like her, and Yellowface will probably make you uncomfortable, but I promise you, you’ll be entertained, aghast, laughing out loud and on the edge of your seat. This book is paced like a murder mystery, even though no murder is committed. It is at times hard to tell if it is a dizzying work of satire, or an over-the-top exploration of our society’s ethics or lack thereof around race and ethnicity and who gets to tell stories and at what cost? The questions it asks about whiteness, cultural appropriation, fame and cancel culture will stay with you for a long time. Kuang offers no easy answers, but takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of conflicting emotions, narratives and ethical questions.

Who’s history matters? At the heart of Thirty Names for Night are the histories queer folx, immigrants, Arab Americans, underserved communities, abandoned buildings and mysterious birds. Zeun Joukhadar’s writing is luminous, in the truest sense of the word. It illuminates that which has too long remained unseen in the “Western literary canon”. This is the dazzling story of one person’s obsession with the forgotten past of New York’s Levantine neighborhood, Little Syria. Like all great American stories it is about love and loss, but like a true 21st century work of genius it is also about agency and joy. Queer joy, immigrant joy, Arab American joy, is too rare a thing in our culture, and I  recommend experiencing it through this beautiful book.

Poet Jane Wong has written the most poetic memoir. Actually, it is and it isn’t a memoir. It is and it isn’t about a lot of things. It’s confessional and it alters and invents reality. Its tone veers from dead serious to clownish, to earnest, to enraged. It adheres to the conventions of second generation immigrant experience and it subverts them. It tells stories of racism and prejudice and sexism and trauma and it has agency over those stories. It is about real mothers and virtual mothers. It’s about hunger and being fed. With this book Jane Wong joins the growing group of authors of unconventional memoirs who are dusting off this sometimes tired genre and turning it on its head. Like a bowl of ancestral soup, this book is nourishing, rich and rewarding.

You’re about to enter a world where Djinn, or Genies in a bottle, are very much real, but as a manufacturable commodity. Shubeik Lubek is set in an alternate modern Egypt where wishes can be bought and sold like any commodity, and  like everything in capitalism, their quality depends on the price. Through this conceit Deena Muhamed explores the ideas of what getting what you want might actually mean. Spoiler: it’s complicated. You will not know where this story is headed at any point until you suddenly arrive there. It is beautiful, poignant, funny and ingenious. Written originally in Arabic, Shubeik Lubek is read from back to front, which makes reading it even more of an experience that alters your perceptions. This book is like a mischievous genie’s answer to your wish to read something totally out of the ordinary.

Camilla Recommends for September

While many wonderful people have recommended Zadie Smith books to me, The Fraud is the first I have read, of course I loved it! It’s a gossipy, people forward book where the state of the nation (Victorian England) is acutely observed through the eyes of a rather spikey, warm hearted and clever Scottish spinster. Eliza keeps house (in scandalous fashion) for her cousin, a once famous novelist. Her days are filled with cooking and cleaning but in her soul she is preoccupied with the horrors of slavery, misogyny, and inequality, her sense of humor and practicality make her a perfect guide through the absurd events at the story’s heart. While this is a historical novel it is also very much a novel about the rise of populism today, of looking backwards for a clearer view of the present.

In Ascension is actually not yet available as a physical book in the US even though it is on the Booker Prize list this year. However, through our partners at Libro.fm you can listen to this and many other books from around the English speaking world! If, like me, you love audiobooks from far flung places please click here to support us through the libro.fm platform.
Reading In Ascension is like swimming in the sea, this is a meditative, immersive book exhilarating in its depth and breadth. While the story follows a scientist so obsessed with the study of life that she inevitably draws away from human connection, she is ultimately driven by love, love for all living things. My husband worked for NASA in the same field and I can attest through him that the science here is beautiful and sound. This is a renewing story to make you fall in love with this miniscule orb in the cosmos all over again.

I really enjoy Kapka Kassabova’s writing, she has a lovely anthropological eye for the wondrous beauty of this human world. Here she travels to a mountainous valley region in Bulgaria on the border of East and West. This is a place woven thickly with history, where legends from a thousand or more years ago still feel like living neighbors. Among the ghosts live diverse people whose connection to the land and its plants is a deep well of knowledge and kinship. Elixir is a book about symbiosis with the landscape, it offers hope and healing even in the darkest shadows of post-Soviet melancholy. This would be a perfect armchair travel book for cozy winter days, it is utterly transporting.

Juniper Recommends For September

The Night Circus is a book that has shaped and influenced nearly every decision and dream I’ve made since I read it, which is no small feat. It is a wholly magical and masterfully crafted thing, perfectly mysterious in its telling. I dare you, dear reader, to open its pages and see if you too are encouraged to make, find, and experience more magic and mystery as you traverse your life in its wake.

Open Throat is a gritty and utterly feline read-in-one-sitting kind of book. Having grown up spending a considerable amount of my time observing cats, the way that Hoke writes makes perfect sense. It is the story of a mountain lion pushed to survive on the fringe of a strange and violent human reality, and subsequently it becomes a story of those self same fringes. It is a pleasure to read.

The Cinderella Liberator is a book that got better and better with each page that I turned. It is a deeply wonderful retelling that does what every good fairy tale should and reflects back on our humanity. That said, it is also a beautiful turn of a story in that the only expectation it holds for its characters is that they grow into the best versions of themselves they can be.

Liz Recommends for September

Astoundingly beautiful, tender, and whole.  When You Trap A Tiger intertwines Korean folklore with the coming of age story of a young Korean girl who is discovering herself and her roots.  Facing grief and loss, she reminds us all that vulnerability and connection are the stepping stones to healing, and magic is all around us if we believe and choose to look.

Hilary Recommends for June

At surface, Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You is a true crime narrative. The plot pulls you in and keeps a steady, engaging pace. Beyond the plotline, the layers of this book linger, provoking questions about the nature of memory, truth, and the complexity of relationships. In particular, the novel adds nuance to the dialogue about the “Me Too” movement through the authentic and thoughtful ways it touches on the topics of sexual harassment and power dynamics.

It was a joy to read Mary Oliver’s essays in Upstream. Her prose feels a bit like a welcome into her stream of consciousness, not unpolished at all but carefully constructed to carry the reader deeply into a particular place of ideas. It is a gift to get to know her a little better, to become acquainted with her behind the scenes, day to day life. Her dog’s routines, her approach to creative work, her view of herself as a child and her role as an observer and a writer. As I moved through this book, I stopped over and over again to read aloud to my family one particularly captivating sentence after another.

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald was initially published in 1978 and is set in a small village on the sea in Hardborough, Suffolk. It tells the story of a young widow who is new to Hardborough and arrives intent to follow her dream of setting up a bookshop. With subtle and sometimes dark humor, Fitzgerald portrays honest and authentic relationships between the protagonist and townspeople of all complext sorts, with a young girl who becomes her assistant, and even with the bookshop’s resident poltergeist. The book’s ending actually made me catch my breath.

With South to America, Imani Perry beautifully weaves together a broad range of voices to illustrate the critical role the South plays in American history and present state. The nuanced narrative of this book underscores the value of deep understanding about southern American history. Perry provides an important reminder about complexity and depth of knowledge in the face of our current tendency toward quick, broad, and relatively superficial information.

Camilla Recommends for June

If I had to pick just one book, one book to own, one book to be stranded forever on a desert island with, one book to recommend… this would be it! The Summer Book is a completely unique story of intergenerational friendship and island life. Read it for the brilliant characters, beautiful nature writing, and quietly subversive philosophy.

Booth is the absolutely wild story of the family that produced the man who murdered Abraham Lincoln. Meticulously researched in the best way, Karen Joy Fowler has collected some of the strangest stranger than fiction I’ve read in a long while. Rather than centering the dastardly John Wilkes Booth as an individual, this is a story about family and country that draws profound parallels to the United States we find ourselves in one and a half centuries later. The writing is incredible as well, highly recommended for fans of Hilary Mantel.

Liz Recommends for June

Most people have an understanding of what traditional therapy looks like, if not firsthand experience.  Now imagine sitting down with a nonverbal four year old who witnessed her mothers murder and ask her to talk to you about her feelings of the situation.  In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, Dr. Perry writes on his first hand experience encountering these situations.  He is one of the most wise, creative, and revolutionary child psychologists today and his work breaking down the doors of standardized treatment is laudable. His holistic, individual, and downright fascinating treatments for trauma should and will change the way we look at diagnosis and psychological methodology pertaining to the vastness and intricacy of human consciousness. This is an absolute must read for all psychologists, parents, teachers, and anyone else who works with children and their developmental process.

Camilla Recommends for May

Sometimes falling in love can feel like the most dangerous thing in the world. In this desperately romantic novel two young men, boys really, fall desperately in love as their happy childhood disintegrates. Set during WWI Gaunt and Ellwood are sent to the front where they face the terrifying reality that when you love deeply it can feel like your heart literally resides in another’s body. Written in perfectly exact prose, this tale of growing up too fast, of adventure, and most of all heart, is one of the most beautiful I have read in a very long time.

This is one of the most fascinating history books I have read this year! On Savage Shores is a superb correction to Eurocentric perspectives on the so-called “voyages of discovery” of the Americas. Not only does it center indigenous experiences of first encounter, it recounts the lives of the many indigenous people who traveled to Europe, both by force and by choice. These were often multilingual, multicultural people who profoundly impacted European culture. 

I knew only a little about Albania before reading Free, unsurprisingly given it was virtually cut off from the rest of the world until recently. In this utterly engrossing memoir Ypi introduces herself as a child ferociously loyal to party and state, having thoroughly absorbed the relentless propagandizing of adults. As she comes of age she begins to learn that everyone around her, from her beloved Grandmother to her revered teacher, has been lying and concealing all the most important information. As Ypi reaches her teens Albania struggles out of tyrannical Socialism and is “embraced” by the West, only to be confronted with broken promises, the destruction of solidarity, and catastrophic inequality. Though the failures of both socialism and capitalism are deeply upsetting, Ypi is such a brilliant and literally laugh out loud hilarious writer that I loved every page.  

Worn is a book I have given many times as a gift, it was one of my top five books of 2022! Full of fascinating stories and perspectives on a too often overlooked aspect of our lives, this book provides cultural and historical context for the globalized and highly exploitative world we now live in. This is very much a people’s history, highlighting some incredible characters and their impact on the world as we know it. I’m also grateful to Thanhouser for giving me the tools needed to make more ethical choices in my own daily life. 

Juniper Recommends for May

Spear is an intricate queer epic set in the forest of Arthurian retelling. Told in an intensely perceptive prosaic narrative and running rich with the natural world and ancient myth, it is a book that I found to be gripping and transformative to my perception of detail. I also, admittedly, have a weakness for stories about feminine warriors. Lovers of legends, the natural world, and lady knights- this book is for you.

The Water Dancer was the best book I read in April. It is a graceful and exceptional melding of magic and reality, encompassing both the horror and burden of what it is to be enslaved, and the light and power of  ancestral magic in memory. It is a tale that holds reverence for the very real and legendary Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad, and the transportive power of memory. This book explores what it means to be stolen across the water, and what it means to remember and steal oneself back. It is a story that will live in my mind for a very long time. 

What are the ethics of returning home to a place you’ve never been before? To crossing an ocean to live in a culture that is yours, but to whom you are also alien? I’d wondered about these things before, but had never explored them so deeply as this book prompted me to do. It is a well written examination, and also contains the impactful fragility of personal experience, under the guise of a novel. It is culturally rich, personal, and masterfully written in a division of perspectives. It is also a memoir of love, as in a relationship of mutual harm.

“It remains to us plants to collect the untold, the unwanted. Like a cat that curls up on its favorite cushion, a tree wraps itself around the remnants of the past.”

-The Island of Missing Trees

I will always love tales of trees and histories and interconnection, but this novel stood out as a particularly spectacular intermingling of these qualities. Telling a history of pain that runs parallel in striking ways to my own genetic history, it held a personal resonance. It also held a much broader resonance- that of discovering where you come from, and that of human relationship with the natural world, how our actions impact even the smallest inhabitants, and how, one might imagine, they share stories too. 

Mirrors In The Earth is a beautifully introspective set of essays and observations of the natural world and how it can care for us- and we it. Asia Suler has the superpower of being soft, and showing time and time again how much strength there is in that. It is a book about hurting and healing and hoping, and learning to listen and stretch our arms wide enough to hold the world with compassion. The crisis of climate change that we currently face is steep indeed, but with her gentle words, Suler offers a new perspective. Instead of simply repeating “The world as we know it is dying” she shows how to transform that mantra of ending into one of hope. “The world as we know it is dying, but what if it’s a new beginning.

The story within the Heartstopper books is a sweet and heartwarming one. It is the softness and innocent electricity of first loves that exist in the space between childhood and adulthood. The illustrations encapsulate the tale perfectly, spanning from the big little anxieties and growing pains of growing up to effervescent joy. These volumes are the perfect thing to open in a cozy place over which rain can patter on days when you need the world to be soft and small.

Hilary Recommends for May

A beautiful family saga that implicitly and explicitly references Little Women, Ann Napolitano’s Hello, Beautiful invites the reader into the layered world of the Padavano family. Her complex and authentic characters span generations and invite connection. It was hard to finish the last page and leave them behind.

Karen Recommends for March

Spring is just around the corner – that is what I keep telling myself these last cold, blustery weeks of winter.  So, it is time for me to open up my well thumbed and much appreciated copy of the Tilth Alliance’s Maritime Northwest Garden Guide. This easy to use book is full of concise information and helpful advice that inspire gardeners to grow a healthy, organic, and beautiful harvest.

This lovely and informative book for young readers is the biography of thirteen year old Maria Merian, who loved to draw bugs. With no formal education, Maria’s dedicated fieldwork and keen observation of her natural world helped to uncover  the existence of metamorphosis that changed the course of science. A visually stunning book that contains many of Maria’s illustrations and observances.   

Juniper Recommends for March

Finding The Mother Tree is a challenging but deeply rewarding read about the workings of forests and our duty to steward them with respect. One of the pioneers in this field, Simard pushed boundaries and made hard decisions in order to prove what she knew intuitively, and what indigenous peoples have known since time immemorial. Her dedication and perseverance has changed the way that modern science views forests, trees, and the mycorrhizal webs that connect them. The path that she records in this book is not always an easy one, but is ultimately insightful and inspiring.

Hilary Recommends for February

Adam Silvera’s They Both Die at the End engages both readers and characters in a profound thought experiment about confronting life’s finiteness. In a deeply authentic way, this book explores the biggest questions – about love and friendship, vulnerability and risk, what it means to be alive, and how to make the most of the moments we have. Silvera deeply respects and understands his young adult audience; he has created a story that is quickly encompassing, hard to put down, and sticks with you well after the last page.

Juniper Recommends for February

Where Call Me By Your Name is about desire, Find Me is about love. Rarely do you find a sequel more enjoyable and cherish-able than its predecessor, but here is one such rarity. André Aciman is a writer who inspires me to think differently, write differently, and fall in love with strangers on the train. His words unfold moments of wonderful, intimate humanity shared in unexpected places with unexpected people in ineffable ways.  

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a marvelous tale that leads you through a Door of it’s own into a world where intentionally inked words hold physical sway over possibility. It is well crafted, and each of the ten thousand doorways within it hold something for the reader to take with them, whether they know it or not. This book is exactly the kind of partially real fairytale that I needed to read, and exactly the kind of fairytale that needs to be told about a world waking up from a history of modernization, oppression, and well funded grave robbing.

Karen Recommends for February

Reading a book by Jackie Morris is an immersive experience. Her writing is lush and lyrical and her illustrations complement the texture and nuance  of her words. You may be familiar with her previous works:  The Lost Words and Lost Spells with collaborator Robert MacFarlane. Adding to her collection of enchanting fairy tales is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Wild Swans,” a poetic tale celebrates love and bravery.

This playful, tongue-in-cheek book will be of immeasurable use if you plan to visit a quiet, quaint English village.  Yes, you will be educated on the very real possibility of murder and mayhem that ensues in bucolic villages in pastoral England.   Whether it be the English manor, the local pub, or the old mill, Johnson and Cooper, with great humor and knowing nods, will point out the local characters, sinister buildings, and dubious locales typical in English “cozy mysteries.”  If you or anyone you know is planning a visit to a “quaint English village,” this book will prove invaluable!

Liz Recommends for January

What is transcendent enough to bind us together across cultures and religions?  While we might not realistically have all the answers now, this book begins a conversation on  this new struggle of a non-homogenous, globalized world.  Using bits from history and philosophy, Kwame Anthony Appiah argues for a world that can thrive together without the former bonds of sameness, and speaks into old philosophers’ doubts and questions of harmony and connectedness. 

A lovely ode to the tumultuous transitional space between dependence, freedom, and adulthood spoken from the soul of an artist.  Juniper Yarnall-Benson’s poetry allows us a look into the joyous and painful times of youth in an ever changing world; reminding us of the periods in our lives where we began to open our eyes to the vastness of the universe, expanding and challenging our childlike visions of home and small comforts.  

This is a great book for beginners in herbology who don’t know where to start. This simple yet effective guide gives insight into many commonly found plants and different ways you can use them at home, including detailed pictures to help readers learn to identify flora.  It also includes recipes for decoctions, teas, tinctures, and more and has a great seasonal foraging guide!

Karen Recommends for January

She and Her Cat is a charming collection of interwoven stories about cats and their human companions.  In these stories, we are presented with the cats’ perspective  about the fragile and indominable young women whom they chose to live with.  

A lovely and poignant collection.

Note: The corresponding illustrations subtly convey cats surroundings perfectly (purr-fectly).

Juniper Recommends for January

Call Me By Your Name is a beautifully and intimately written eulogy to desire, and the kind of human connection that binds people across lifetimes and oceans. It is personal and wrenching, and immerses you in the story of a young man who unexpectedly falls in love one summer in Italy.

Wonderful, enchanting, and mysterious.
I began The Golem and The Jinni thinking oh, a nice book, ho hum. But before I knew what was happening I’d been knocked off my feet. Completely swept up in the tale, I felt what the characters felt, rejoicing in their joys and straining at their shackles. The main characters are so entirely themselves that you can’t help but love them for it, and the tale that Wecker unfolds within these pages is indisputably marvelous.

This book is for anyone who has ever looked at the food on their plate or the farmland around them and wondered. Pastoral Song is a ballad of relationship to land and land management, to the food we eat, the places it comes from, and the farmers who grow it. Written by a farmer who is deeply embedded in a long lineage of tending English farmland, it is full of love and wonder for the everyday life of working with the natural world. It is a book that tells the story of a crucial turning point in farming and food production, and holds hope for the possibility of a wild, abundant landscape that children will be glad to inherit.

Staff Highlights of 2022

Karen’s 2022 picks

Matrix by Lauren Groff

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers

Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman

The Doctors Blackwell by Janice Nimura

Hilary’s 2022 picks

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies by Julian Aguon

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Liz’s 2022 picks

We Are the Ark by Mary Reynolds

All That the Rain Promises and More by David Arora

Cascadia Revealed by Daniel Mathews

Emma’s 2022 picks

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

Some Things I Still Can’t Tell You by Misha Collins

Juniper’s 2022 picks

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

Hilary Recommends for November

With Tastemakers, Mayukh Sen chronicles the stories of seven women chefs from around the world who immigrated to the U.S. in the 20th century and changed the country’s palette and relationship with food. Through their stories, Sen offers an original and compelling exploration of issues around gender and women’s labor, immigration and racial equity, and the positive impact that diversity can have on food, taste, and culture.

Karen Recommends for November

It often seems that it is the quiet novels that stay with us the longest.   Laird Hunt’s  Zorrie, a  woman of gentle strength and steadfast vision, works her Indiana farm as she witnesses the joys and hardships of her tight knit farming community.  Zorrie’s indomitable spirit and her gentle determination personifies the byone era of rural America.

Laird’s exquisite yet economical writing complements the life experiences of this modest and gentle heroine.

Juniper Recommends for November

A sweeter, more wonderful collection of plant and place-based story I have yet to meet. This book teems with the wild, knobbly, unpredictable magic of the plants and Fairy people of the British Isles and Ireland. It tells of ancient relationships with plant kin, chance encounters, and what happens when you upset the unwritten rules of the natural world. One of my favorite parts of it is Schneidau’s short preface to each story– when one is particularly dark, she warns you, which I found to be a boon among the sometimes bitter pits of the mythological landscape. Between the Autumn and Spring Equinox, the season of bedtime stories and cozy evenings, this is one of my favorite things to read before I drift off to sleep. 

Emma Recommends for November

Children Of Eden Is one of those completely outrageous stories that I keep coming back to. It’s full of action packed adventure as well as heart warming character development. Anyone looking for that sort of fun read I highly recommend Children Of Eden. 

Emma Recommends for October

Good Omens is a hilariously outrageous story following a witch, a witch finder, a boy, an angel, a demon and the end of the world. I love this book’s witty humor and ability to make you laugh out loud. I highly recommend this book for anyone with that twisted sense of humor. 

Hilary Recommends for October

A deeply intentional eclectic collection of essays, poetry, and other writings, Julian Aguon’s No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies offers a unique vision of our world. This book tackles devastating crises – of climate, violence, colonialism, injustice. It both urgently demands that the reader not look away and quietly offers an invitation to listen, to see, and to imagine. Aguon’s optimism and belief in the strength of language, creativity, and collaboration inspire us to engage deeply and seek resilience.

Karen Recommends for October

I love a good mystery.   Give me a cat on my lap, a nice cuppa, and an intriguing and clever mystery and life if very very good.  So it is with great pleasure that I recommend Robert Thorogood’s “The Marlow Murder Club”.  We are introduced to three clever, irrepressible, and independent women who come together to solve the neighborhood murders in their community.

I am  looking forward to the next mystery with the delightful amateur detectives, Judith, Suzie, and Becks.

Juniper Recommends for October

“It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches.” A beginning in blood and fear may sound cruel and dark, but the story between these pages is anything but. It is instead one of true love, energy in adversity, and alchemy- the perfect union of magic and science. It is a fantastical and beautifully written weaving that reaches from the modern day to well researched forays into history. I fell in love with Harkness’s books as hard and fast as her characters fall for each other, and the wonder that they unfurled changed me with lasting effect. A Discovery of Witches carried me through pandemic lockdown to the cobbled streets of Oxford, an exploratory hobby of Alchemy, and  most importantly it taught me that the world is inextricably woven together, and magic is desire made real. These pages contain a perfect world to enter in the fall, when one is looking for magic, a taste of old books, and a bit of romance.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It burns and aches through the reader, equal parts love and war, heartbreak and happiness. Miller’s writing beats with the ancient heart of these myths and heroes, and tells a tale somehow timeless, larger than life, and deeply human all at the same time. To read it is to taste the sun warmed thyme and honey of Ancient Greece’s potent magic, the sweat of ancient heroes, and the salt of tears that are sometimes your own. 

Hilary Recommends for September

An Immense World walks the reader through a fascinating and detailed account of the sensory systems of a diverse range of animals–their ‘umvelten.’ From the technicolor vision of mantis shrimp to the three dimensionality of smell afforded by snakes’ forked tongues; from the unsolved mystery of magnetic sensors that can guide global migrations to countless other evolutionary feats, Ed Yong inspires appreciation and awe of biologic diversity. More importantly, his account is a powerful and humbling reminder of the limitations of and importance of avoiding anthropocentric perspectives and striving to understand sensory experiences beyond our own. Ultimately, he makes a compelling case for the imperative and power of empathy.

Juniper Recommends for September

Every child deserves a Granny who’ll tell you stories, just like every child deserves a super hero, and My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry is a wonderful read that has both. It’s fantastically beautiful and uncomfortably real, and shows the magical way we are woven together by stories, how sweetness is connected even to the terrible things in life, and how not every bad thing starts out that way. I read this book in a time when I was suddenly forced to face the impending mortality of the people I love, and it helped immeasurably. The humor, the cleverness, and the illumination of gifts that even our most curmudgeon-y loved ones have to offer will stay with me forever.

The Song of the Lioness quartet tell the story of the fierce and stubborn Alanna of Trebond as she grows from childhood to knighthood in a kingdom where the last lady knight died over a century ago. She defies the path of delicate ladyhood that has been laid for her and pursues her own future, one that is magical and independent and far from the expectations placed upon her. These books were balm, escape, and shield to me as I traversed the first rumbles of turbulence towards young adulthood, and re-reading them again at 20, my love for Tamora Pierce and her copper-headed lady knight is as strong as ever. Within the pages of her adventures, Alanna has taught me about chivalry and stubbornness and owning who you are, and what you can achieve when you’re willing to fight for it. These books are for anyone coming into their power, especially when it is through the fire of adolescence.

Emma Recommends for September

True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys is one of my favorite graphic novels of all time. As someone who grew up reading comic books, I find a sense of nostalgia in this story as it has your classic action packed, heartfelt feel to it. It was close to impossible to not fall in love with all the characters even those you wouldn’t expect at first. Anyone who’s looking to remember what its like to have that fun, colorful reading experience, this novel is for you.

Karen Recommends for September

Janice Nimura has written an engrossing and skillful biography about Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in America to receive and M.D., and her sister Emily, who followed in her older sister’s footsteps.

What is so remarkable about this well researched and clear- eyed account of the Blackwell sisters is the determination of these women (and many others of their generation) in their pursuit to study medicine,  receive their degrees, and establish a foothold in the biased, misogynistic field of medicine in America’s pre Civil-War era.

Brilliant storytelling about two extraordinary, intelligent, and complex women!

Karen Recommends  

The Old Woman with the Knife

Hornclaw is a 65 year old professional assassin, or euphemistically, a “disease control specialist.”   She is an effective and conscientious killer – she takes her job seriously.  However, Hornclaw  is considered by some at her work place to be too old for the job – she is 65 after all!  What I appreciate from Byeong-Mo’s novel is not just the thriller aspect of it (although this book is definitely a page turner) but the author plays it straight:  here is a woman (any woman anywhere around the world) who has so much to contribute yet she is judged by her age and not her abilities.  Hornclaw is not always a likeable character, she kills people after all, but there is an inner strength inside that hard shell of hers that radiates with the message: “Don’t mess with me for I am worthwhile; disrespect me and there will be consequences.”  Cheers to Hornclow!

Camilla Recommends 

Hilary Mantel is so brilliant, unique, and funny. If, like me, you love her novels (or her wonderful memoir) and feel yourself to have a sort of one-sided friendship going, Mantel Pieces is just the thing! These are wonderful bite-sized pieces from a beloved mind thinking over the issues of the day or of days past. Mantel is not afraid of contention, of taking risks as a public intellectual. Her candor is both refreshing and thought provoking.           

Karen Recommends  

What is so delightfully surprising about Paul Kingsnorth’s book of essays Savage Gods is his incredible ability to challenge his own motives when writing.  Here is a man in his 40’s who is honest enough to say that he hasn’t figured out anything yet, that he probably never will:  it is the seeking of his inner self and exploring the environment around him that keeps him curious, introspective, and humble. He is also an incredible wordsmith with a wry and poetic view of this world.

Camilla Recommends 

The Promise is one of my favorite books of 2021. It follows a white South African family, the Swarts (a name Galgut must have chortled about because it means black) as they grapple with the end of apartheid. Over the course of 40 years each family member will be offered the chance to act in support of Salome, the black woman who has cared for their home and family for a lifetime. This is a story of a nation undergoing a great change but told in the most personal way. Galgut is brilliant at writing characters to life; in fact, the book itself sometimes seems like a character with a body, a voice, organs, and a wicked sense of humor.

I love The Puffin Keeper! At heart this is a lovely story of kindness and gratitude but there is still plenty of action and adventure, even a shipwreck! A young boy becomes a man, a man becomes a father figure, love is lost and found, friendship forged and a very special bird brings joy to all. Don’t miss the wonderful little afterword about Allen Williams Lane, who founded Puffin Books!

Karen Recommends  

Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Lau

A daughter and mother travel to Japan for a vacation.  The daughter is our storyteller and our tour guide.  It is through her voice that she describes the relationship between the two women.  It is through her eyes that we see the sights of Japan.  And yet, what exactly are we a witness to?  What exactly is the relationship between mother and daughter? 

Jessica Lau’s spare and elegant novel captures the nuances of family expectations with quiet and precise prose.  A deftly crafted and poetic story.

Camilla Recommends  

The Dawn of Everything is so thought provoking and brilliant I was a bit trepidatious about writing this. How do you encapsulate something so excellent and so long? What I can briefly say is that few books have given me such hope recently. The authors show we humans don’t just have the theoretical capacity to live in less harmful complex societies, we actually have spent millennia living in a multitude of intriguingly harmonious, equitable, and sustainable ways. They repaint the picture of our early history and show a much more complex and inspiring reality than the standard narrative that life in the distant past was “nasty, brutish, and short.”        

Karen Recommends  

Ain’t Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin.

Jayson Reynolds’s work is always refreshing, original, topical, and brilliant!  Reynolds, with his friend and illustrator, Jason Griffin, presents us with a family navigating through the Covid minefield of 2020. Reynolds’ words spin and swirl, soar and swoon to the daily unexpectedness of the pandemic.  Along with Griffin’s vibrant and nuanced artwork, Ain’t Burned All the Bright is an astonishing and potent collaboration between writer and artist to bring understanding and hope to an unsettling and devastating time. Wow!      

The Daughters of Kobani by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

What I took away from this insightful and vividly detailed reportage is that women do not fight for power, renown, or glory.  Women fight for what is sacred and inviolate to them:  family, justice, equality, and the right to live in peace. Women take up arms to fight for their families and communities.  The female Kurdish fighters in Daughters of Kobani represent the strength, intelligence, and fierce resolve of women to protect and defend their homeland.   A powerful  testament of women’s determination and resistance.

 Camilla Recommends

Ingenious and difficult to classify (non-fiction novel? With a dash of philosophy…), When We Cease to Understand the World is a deceptively slim volume. This book contains multitudes. History, alchemy, science, and pure maths collide into a whirlwind tour of the feverish quest for understanding and discovery. No star-stuck paeon to glorious progress, this is a deeply disturbing peep into the dark. Nevertheless, this book is an exhilarating intellectual tornado. The moment I turned the last page I sent out five recommendations by text message and proceeded to press my copy into the hands of my husband.  

  

A Ghost in the Throat is a wonderfully life affirming work of feminism. Doireann Ní Ghríofa (pronounced Deara Ní Greefa) loves housework, motherhood, and poetry, especially the 18th-century Irish poem Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire. Every day Doireann studies the Caoineadh while nursing, using a breast pump, mopping, waiting in cars to pick up toddlers from schools and birthday parties…      
What begins as a process of translation from Irish to English becomes a study of the author of the Caoineadh, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill. Doireann is also a poet: her life, Eibhlín’s, their poetry and the social context in which they live entwine in transcendently beautiful ways. I’ve never read anything by anyone who loves both words and housework as much as I do, a glorious reminder that meaning can be found anywhere.

Karen Recommends  

We Keep the Dead Close is a chilling and incendiary exploration into the murder of a Harvard graduate student in 1969.  What is so exceptional about this reportage is the look into the inviolate and untouchable world of academia.  First and foremost:  defend the reputation of tenured professors, secure the reputation of the college, and dare not question the toxic environment within the hallowed halls of 1960’s Harvard.

Becky Cooper’s exhaustive research and unrelenting and obsessive pursuit to solve the murder of Jane Britton also explores and questions our own bias and assumptions when seeking the truth.   

An exceptional and provocative work!

Oh, what a lovely and warmhearted discovery!  The Fortnight in September, originally published in England in 1931, is the story of Mr. and Mrs. Stevens and their two grown children as they plan their annual summer holiday along the English coast.  What is so exceptional about this winsome novel is the author’s capacity to gently bring forth and share the lives of each family member and show how their love and gratitude for one another sustains them through the changes and challenges of their lives.  What a true pleasure to be invited into the Stevens’ world for an enchanting and memorable summer!

 

 

Karen Recommends 

In Lauren Groff’s Matrix we are invited into the world of Abbess Marie de France during the reign of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Groff’s masterful and luminous prose captures this extraordinary woman’s life.  Through this fictionalized account we are introduced to an intelligent, sensual, and fierce protectoress to her novitiates and abbey.  

Camilla Recommends

Beautiful World, Where Are You is my favorite Sally Rooney! I love all her work but I felt this one had a very different flavor, to me it felt more hopeful and redemptive.
While her first two books are about young people making the choices that will shape their adult lives, this story covers the time when you realize you have closed some doors behind you. Two best friends, as clever, funny, and observant as Rooney herself, ask the questions, ‘How do we live in this wounded world?’ ‘How do we live with each other?’ And ultimately, ‘How do we live with ourselves?’

Karen Recommends

In this unique and gentle novel, Ronan Hession tells the story of two single, thirty-something men who are nice. Yep, nice.  Leonard and Hungry Paul take care of their parents and play board games together. They like to read. They take satisfaction from their work, and they are genuinely kind.  They also realize that none of this is considered “normal.”
Leonard and Hungry Paul is the story of two friends struggling to protect their understanding of what’s meaningful in life. This delightful novel is about the uncelebrated people of this world. And of course, don’t we always want the nice guys in the world to come out on top?    

Camilla Recommends

I love this book! Madeline Miller has a special genius for casting ancient tales in a different light. While staying true to the original legends she is able to bring new life and enrich them with a contemporary perspective. 
Circe, a figure who has worn many guises through history, at times cast as a wicked horror, a seductive fantasy, an incomprehensible force of nature.
Here we find her grappling with an unjust world, a nymph in a predatory patriarchy that values conquest above kindness. Imprisoned to a lonely isle for an act of kindness and another of hopeless love, Circe comes to learn the meaning of true liberation.

Who can resist the timeless humor and whimsey of Tove Jansson? Now beautifully re-bound and presented these collections of Moomin comics make irresistible reading for young and old alike. Dive into these surprisingly complex tales of ordinary small town life and truly extraordinary adventures.

What a delightful and engaging way to learn so many amazing facts about these incredible creatures. Hilary Kearney has written a most informative guide covering everything from their evolutionary history and how to identify many species,  to the types of and uses for honey, but most importantly conveys wonderfully simple ways we can do our part to support their valuable existence in our rapidly changing environment. Without a doubt, you’ll also find yourself captivated by the enchanting illustrations of Amy Holliday. As a new beekeeper, I wanted to learn how to care for my colony, and I’ve come away with a newfound appreciation for the importance of these magnificent beings. 

Karen Recommends

Sally Coulthard’s Floriograpy is a lovely and informative addition to any gardener’s library. Beautiful illustrations accompanies text that describes the definitions, derivations, and folklore around our favorite garden flowers.

Camilla Recommends

Sparkling and hypnotic, Suzanna Clarke’s Piranesi casts a spell not unlike the sea that swirls through it’s pages. Written in the form of Piranesi’s personal journal, the book invites you to explore the haunting beauty of a mysterious place and the mind of the pure, sweet man who lives there. What begins as a dreamlike, philosophic exploration soon morphs into a riveting psychological thriller. Who is Piranesi? How did he get here? Where is he going? And who (who?!) are the “Others” he meets along the way…
I admit I didn’t find the jacket description of the novel very inviting but after my third friend raved about it I knew I had to give it a try. I’m so glad I did because it instantly made it to my favorite books of the year list!

Karen Recommends

Young Jai is the young protagonist in Deepa Anappara’s Dijinn Patrol on the Purple Line. He lives with his family in a basti (slum) in India. Jai is joyous,  intelligent, and curious – just like all children who are loved and cherished. As Jai and his friends, Faiz and Parsi, set out to solve the case of missing children in and around their basti, we discover a world through his eyes: a world of great hope, confusion, corruption,  resourcefulness, love and friendship. Jai is a modern day David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and I commend Anappara’s choice to write in the voice of a child – a child that is loving, resilient, and clever. Jai will stay with you long after you finish this stunning and heartfelt novel.

Camilla Recommends

Popisho is a secret island in the Caribbean populated by magical people with delightful gifts like the ability to season food with a touch, or always to know truths from lies. Inebriating butterflies flutter through the sparkling tropical sky and can be plucked from the air and eaten like colorful wines. This is a riotous, sensuous world full of humor and beauty, but for all its magic and flights of fancy it is the people that are the beating heart of the novel. I loved every person I met in these pages and followed their loves and betrayals, their failures and moments of wisdom with absolute absorption. Like the small island community it describes, this book invites you in to eat, drink, gossip, and care about everyone and their business (especially if it is extremely private business)!

Karen Recommends

A dear friend introduced me to Eric and he has become a close companion. In fact, he sits on my bedside shelf, patiently and quietly waiting for our next reading. Shan Tan’s Eric, is quite unique: he is gentle and curious. Eric is somewhat elliptical because he doesn’t talk about himself (in fact, he doesn’t talk at all) so sometimes it’s hard to know what he is thinking. But it is through his actions that we come to realize how clever and kind Eric is. Once again, Shaun Tan has created a character and story that embraces “differentness.”

This haunting and atmospheric novel is set in Finnmark, Norway 1617.  The women of this remote locale lose their menfolk during a ruinous storm. Witchcraft is to blame. Two women, Maren and Ursa, are drawn together to defend the women of their village and to find solace and strength with each other. This novel (based on actual events) reveals the misogyny and fear that  come to the fore when strong women try to navigate their lives and their destinies; oftentimes with devastating consequences. Riveting and suspenseful!

Camilla Recommends

Isabella Tree’s Wilding is a wonderfully encouraging and hopeful book. In it Tree describes the process of rehabilitating the ecosystem of the Knepp Castle estate in England where she lives with her husband. Within just a few years they transform ecologically barren unsustainably farmed land into a wilderness so flourishing that it is now a ‘safari’ holiday destination! It is simply extraordinary how quickly and effectively everything from the soil to the insect life was brought back to health. Tree is a lovely writer, knowledgeable and engaging, as a commercial farmer herself she is pragmatic and solidly practical about mitigating the ecological disasters of the day. The perfect tonic for those of us feeling down about species collapse!

Surely one of the most beautifully drawn graphic novels on our shelves today! The Magic Fish is a thoughtful and kind story about a young gay American teen coming out to his Vietnamese immigrant family. Reflections on language, translation, and storytelling frame our young hero’s quest for understanding and acceptance. A tale of outstanding grace.

Karen Recommends

Paul Yoon’s exquisite and devastating novel Run Me To Earth is a blistering indictment of American’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Yoon introduces us to three Laos teenagers, Prany, Noi, and Alisak as they navigate their damaged landscape seeking shelter and safety in their ruined homeland.
Yoon’s writing is exquisite. With spare prose and crystalline imagery, he brings forth a world of lost innocence and fierce hope.

Camilla Recommends

Klara and the Sun was initially intended to be Ishiguro’s first book for children, but on reading an early draft his daughter (also a novelist) convinced him to craft it into something for adults. The result is a haunting novel with the peculiar and exquisitely wistful tenderness of Winnie the Pooh or Goodnight Moon. Klara is an integrated robot AI system designed to be a companion to a lonely child. Her curiosity, kindness, and emotional compassion make her one of the most compelling and loveable characters I have yet “met.”
Easily one of my favorite books of the year.

Mark Boyle’s The Way Home is an inspiring and thoughtful read that chronicles his decision to give up most modern technology. He builds a house by hand, starts a pottage garden, chops wood, fishes, and opens a secret shebeen, all while writing about it longhand with a pencil. I was amazed to find I could actually detect a difference in the style of writing, somehow you can tell this is a book written without a word processor. Boyle is not trying to convince anyone to make the same choices he does but there are plenty of ideas to take away from his narrative and try out for oneself. I’ll be brewing dandelion wine this spring thanks to reading this book!

Karen Recommends

In Melinda Gates’ introduction to her inspiring memoir and manifesto The Moment of Lift,  she states that “when we lift others up, they lift us up, too.”  Gates provides compelling evidence that brings to the forefront issues that must be recognized if every one of us is to live in an equitable society.  She addresses child marriage, gender equality in the workplace, lack of access to contraceptives, and cultural traditions that keep females in a position of subservience and poverty. Melinda Gates introduces remarkable and heroic women that are battling these inequities in their homes, community, work places and institutions.  As she states in her book, “…I want all of us to see ways we can lift women up where we live.”

Camilla Recommends

In Writing Wild:Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavricks Who Shape How We See the Natural World Kathryn Aalto introduces 24 women from the past and present. Aalto is a fine writer herself, she brings a fresh perspective to the authors of the past and her interviews with the living are insightful and lively. Many of the women in this book were totally unfamiliar to me and a delightful surprise. This book left me with a nice long list of new things to read!

Karen Recommends

Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood is a fabulous detective novel is set in post-war New York City. Two female private investigators, Willowjean “Will” Parker and Lillian Pentacost make a delightful duo as they set out to solve the locked-room murder of a society widow. Spotswood mystery has it all:  plucky and gutsy women, snappy and witty dialogue, and a charming and clever plot. I’m looking forward to Lillian and Will’s further exploits!

No doubt about it, Interior Chinatown is the most original, provocative, hilarious, poignant, heartfelt novel I’ve read in years. Darkly comic and meticulously crafted, Interior Chinatown is a stunning novel about identity, race, and familial obligations. Yu’s masterpiece is part novel, part screenplay, part sociology, and altogether breathtaking as he shares his insights into what it means to be a “Generic Chinese American” in this country.

Camilla Recommends

I start to get the gardening itch right about now every year, no book captures the feeling better to my mind than Francis Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. I still vividly recall the first spring I read this book, my copy of which soon became soft edged and brown with excessive and grubby fingered reading. A tiny garden lover myself, I felt this book was speaking directly to me as no other book had done. I read it again this spring and was every bit as enchanted and inspired as I was twenty years ago when I first opened the classic pages.

It feels a bit odd to write a review of a book with no words so I will keep it short. While there isn’t a single word to be found in these glorious pages The Wanderer is a work of extraordinary poetry. I have “read” it several times now and I gave it to my 3 year old nephew who is also repeatedly drawn to ponder the mesmerizing pages!