Books We Are Reading, Have Read, Recommend, or Want You to Read
Staff picks are available for purchase in our store and online!
Terrence’s Picks
Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser, translated by Christopher Middleton
Dusty hallways and hidden vigils, every building a mausoleum at the Benjamenta School for Boys. A veiled monument to all of the ghosts, past, present, and future.
An Earthquake Is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth by Anna Moschkvakis
After the apocalypse you’ll still have to deal with your shitty roommate.
Lisa’s Picks
Set in Paris in 1972 & 2017, this is a novel about two women (fifty years apart) who live in the same apartment in Paris. And though their lives and the times they live in are very different, it’s the similarities & crossovers (& yes, the scaffolding) that make this debut novel so interesting. For all the seriousness of the issues touched upon here, Scaffolding is also a beautifully written romp. (And speaking of romps, Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London—also written by Elkin—is so much fun. As Elkin so perfectly puts it, “Let me walk. Let me go at my own pace. Let me feel life as it moves through me and around me. Give me drama.” Give this to all your family & friends who should be walking more.)
Information Desk by Robyn Schiff
Shortly after graduating from college, Schiff got a job at the Information Desk in the Great Hall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is the book that was inspired by that time in her life. And never was a moment more right than now to read a poem like this one. It’s about great art, intense spiritual longing, the muses we all conjure, and the parasitic wasps that haunt us. This is a brilliant book chock-a-block full of just the sort of information we need to soldier on.
Everything Under a Mushroom by Ruth Krauss
Originally published in 1973, this whimsical classic is a perfect read aloud for children ages 3–7 as well as a perfect read-alone book for everyone else (grandmothers will greatly appreciate this). It’s very silly and often makes no sense at all but it’s also full of great wisdom & wit (which again is why it’s kind of just perfect for parents and grandparents). It’s my favorite children’s book of the year. I’m giving it to ALL of the children (& the non-children) on my list who love nonsense & silly things.
Adi’s Picks
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes
Begins with the murder of a small town’s resident Witch and spirals outward from there. Not a light holiday read, but a good one.
Live Audio Essays by Lawrence Abu Hamdan
An artist and “private ear,” Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s work is about certain kinds of sound—the warfare soundtrack, the silent archive. In these transcriptions of select performances by him, benign objects (a sesame seed; a plastic chair; an iPhone 5C) and not-so-benign objects resonate and drone.
Will’s Picks
Popol Vuh, translated by Dennis Tedlock
The best English translation. Written down in 1701, this book tells the story of the K’iche’ people, who in the 1980s survived a US-backed genocide. This book is a poetic reality that you might be living in without realizing it.
The Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell
Finally her collected letters are back in print. It’s like discovering a Volume II to the Collected Poems. It’s funny, intimate, and a huge pleasure to read.
Hayley’s Picks
The Weight of the World by Peter Handke, translated by Ralph Manheim
The strange Austrian author Peter Handke’s diary entries throughout three years of his life. From the movement of a curtain to the horror of feeling one’s own mortality, an accumulation of ecstatic prosaicness. I spent months with this book, left it on the side of my bed and read a few pages every night and every night it felt like it restored some sense of wonder at the strangeness and beauty of people and the world. It also made me laugh. Seems heavy but is life-affirming.
A Little Lumpen Novelita by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer
One of the more underappreciated of Bolaño’s works, but my personal favorite. Dense with surreal images and feelings that will be forever stuck in my brain, reading it feels like being in the world when you haven’t slept for days. “Suddenly the night stopped existing and everything was constant sun and light. . . . Sun and light and an explosion of windows.”