Bookseller Bookshelves
We present to you our Bookseller Bookshelves, featuring some of BaM staffs’ top book recommendations! From our magical realist faves to feminist fiction, we’ve got you covered with our most endorsed and (loosely) themed bookseller selections, for all your holiday needs! Below you’ll find old and new picks alike, but check out our 2020 Gift Guide Menu for a plethora of highly giftable recent releases.
Abby
If you or someone you love are stuck in the eternal trap of "I love Percy Jackson so much, I never want to read anything else, but I've read every single book of Uncle Rick's there is to read a billion times!", then please, have no fear! There is a wide beautiful world of fantasy for middle grade readers out there for you to sample, all of them just as strange and fantastical as the books you know and love. These are some of my favorites, which run the gamut of what fantasy has to offer. There's history rewritten with dinosaurs; a young girl using the witchy toolkit of good common sense to save her brother; a trans girl surviving and thriving through a bloody coup; a nerdy godling seeking her missing father; a grief so strong it a rips a hole in the fabric of space-time. There's some good stuff out here. Promise.
Anthony
In a way each of these books contains a portal in which the characters go to another world, completely different from their own thats been hidden in plain sight. While some of these characters willfully go through these portals a few of these characters can open these doors themselves, some accidentally stumble through, and some quite literally are thrown through them. The books on my shelf form almost a gradient of portal fantasies to books with heavily defined magic systems, if you start at the portal heavy end of the spectrum you’d go from Finna, Neverwhere, Piranessi, The Bone Clocks, The Library at Mount Char, and ending at The Magicians (this is not a perfect system, and you could totally make arguments to move most of these left or right, Finna is the exception).
Colleen
Its fun to take a look at your best-loved books of the year and notice they do all orbit around a similar frequency. This year, for me, has been all about radical care. As our government and “official” systems have failed us in innumerable ways during one of the biggest public health crises, an increasingly dire climate crisis, and one of the largest social rights movements in modern memory, there is power in recognizing that our survival and growth does not rely on antiquated models of social contracts, trapped in the austere jaws of capitalism. These books have given me a renewed sense of faith and purpose — mostly in our relationships with the natural world, but also with spirituality, creativity, and communal care — to reimagine the possibilities of how we can care for one another and build stronger, more resilient networks. And if you’re reading this and thinking mushrooms have nothing to do with that? Boy, do I have a book for you!
Danni
A historical romance, a historical fiction, a dark fairytale noir, and a multiverse novel have nothing in common other than each is an example of brilliance. Each novel deals with the experience of being The Other in a place built on one's eradication. In Diana Quincy's historical romance, Leela a half White- half Arab woman carves out a life outside of the parameters of English society as a writer and world traveler. In Paradise, Black women's lives are complex and multifaceted under the reign of patriarchs and religious piety. The Taiga Syndrome took me on an adventure into the Mexican wilderness to investigate what happened to a missing woman, a woman—it turns out—never happened to be found. Micaiah Johnson's debut follows a poor bisexual Black woman who navigates being a lowly marginalized worker who lives in a major metropolitan all while trying to still maintain her cultural roots. Underneath the trappings of an entertaining plot, these books all pushed me to think deeper about oppression and resistance. I hope they do the same for you.
Jacque
When brainstorming a list of books for my own virtual bookshelf I looked at what I read the past year then realized the most common denominator of my favorite reads are Japanese women authors. How specific (you may think), but truly there is no better time to read this list of magnificent authors. My bookshelf consists of talented, poignant women authors who I believe challenge, inspire, and are raising the bar of storytelling like never before… they all just so happen to live on an island 6,738 miles away.
Lindsay
I'm sure it is no surprise that the majority of stories throughout history have been told (and retold) by men. Obviously, this leaves out many other perspectives and can oversimplify the narrative. Over the last few years there has been a growing trend of female authors revisiting classic stories and histories, and reimagining them with a more female-centric view. These works often focus on the complexities of female characters who have previously been depicted as one-dimensional and explore how the lack of women can affect a story—or they just give an old classic a new breath of fresh air which has been missing from past iterations. Below are a few of my favorite women-written reimaginings that will definitely make you question the stories you thought you knew.
Nika
If you, like me, are an experience gifter, this year presents a unique challenge. Most of the usual things are closed or unadvised, and when reality seems like fiction, even escapism feels compromised. So instead of providing fictional respite, I propose escaping into reality–the reality of other people’s minds. These books offer relief in the form of travel, someone else’s romantic history (think high-brow reality TV, but French), and an unusual collection of experiences you will probably never have. Alternatively, I chose Emil Cioran as a buddy in commiseration for the cynics out there.
Serena
It’s no secret that reading hasn’t come easy these days. I chose these books because they each deal with complex themes, in the most engaging and innovative ways, making it much easier for those of us who are distracted but still eager to be challenged, moved, stimulated. These books also travel, each of them representing a different region, though the conflicts and topics they explore are global: migration, displacement, war, violence, desire, loss, kinship, love, and so forth. But they travel in more ways than one, as each of these picks feature shifting perspectives (with the exception of the poetry book, though that’s debatable!), and the storytelling here is both colored and compelled by rich interiority, evocative imagery, and unforgettable characters. These are deeply resonant, special works deserving of wider readership.
A bit about each: Lean Against this Late Hour was the first, and for a long time the only, book I was able to read to completion during the initial COVID doom-days ; it’s stunning, stirring, and cinematic. Similarly, Space Invaders is a book you’ll read in one sitting, it’s slim, but unsparing, and a bit surreal. Latitudes of Longing is an impressive, magical, and unique debut that I still think about often. Travelers is a book that snuck up on me, probably my favorite read of the year (read a bit more about it in our December Staff Picks). And lastly, The Beadworkers was one of my favorite books to come out in 2019 so I’m thrilled it's out in paperback now; it’s a dynamic, textured work that demands to be reread!
Shulokhana
Apsara Engine is a collection of weird shorts that take place in worlds that almost seem familiar. Check out Check, Please! if you love humor, friendships, pies, and/or hockey. Prepare yourself for the intense yearning to get a cute but troublesome octopus friend if you pick up the adorable Go for it, Nakamura!. Finally, if you're interested in a great book about loneliness that will make you feel a little less alone, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is a graphic memoir that's dark, funny, sad, and relatable on so many levels.
