January Staff Picks
We’re starting the year off with titles that are helping us meet new year’s resolutions, laugh more, and generally start the year off right! Check out the books that we just can’t stop thinking about this month.
You can find all our past staff picks here.
While last year consisted of a lot of podcast listening and not a lot of book reading for me, I think about The Stranger Beside Me often as I press play before settling in to cook or do the dishes; it truly is a shining beacon of what good true crime writing has to offer, and I think anyone interested in true crime should carve away some time for this book. It's hefty, but it reads quickly. If gorey podcasts staved off hours of boredom and tedium for you as it did for me: pick this up. It'll change the way you take in these stories. —Abby
If you’re looking for a radical steamy queer historical metafiction told in part by footnotes this is the book for you. —Anthony
Reading is truly an incredible feat. Have you ever stopped to think about just what happens to make these little printed words create such monumental associations in our brains, sometimes changing them forever? Peter Mendelsund is an acclaimed designer, with some of the most iconic book covers at Knopf to his name. In this book he uses his considerable design talent to playfully and thoughtfully illustrate the magic that happens when we engage with a text. For anyone who loves hanging out at the nexus of psychology, science, and art, this one is for you. —Colleen
The pandemic has been heartbreaking in a thousand different ways but one of its most insidious effects has been the acceleration of a life lived on screens. Zoom meetings, virtual school, Peloton, online shopping, social media so we feel connected and so on. These are all now integral parts of our existence–if they weren't already–and I fear that when this all over (soon please), people will hold onto these habits instead of examining their dehumanizing qualities. The solution: Digital Minimalism. A quick read that, if nothing else, will make you re-examine your relationship with all your devices. —Eddie
If you read and enjoyed Meg Woltizer's novel The Wife, I think you'll love this--a funny, smart and sexy book, and about people who are older than 50, to boot. A renowned painter dies, and his dueling biographers duke it out, alongside his wife and his mistress, about love, art, and legacy. —Emma
This dystopian book not only challenges the Cinderella myth, but also shatters the idea of Prince Charming by offering another version of what really happened. It presents an improved moral: women don’t need a Prince Charming to be amazing success stories!
200 years after Cinderella’s death, we are brought into a world where Cinderella's fable has become law or an extremist religious text. Once a year, all of the eligible girls are required to attend the Annual Ball by request of Prince Charming so all the men in the land can choose their brides. If a girl is not chosen after three balls, they become forfeit, and they disappear.
When it’s time for Sophia to attend her first ball, she pretty much says HELL TO THE NO! Now it is time to take down the patriarchy and show who is BOSS!—Jacque
January is known as the month of fresh starts and new beginnings. A Witch in Time is full of new beginnings, but not in the typical sense. The woman in this story is cursed to relive the same doomed love affair in each of her reincarnated lives. But as she continues to grow in each new version of herself, so do some long hidden abilities... —Lindsay
Congratulations! You survived 2020! But, you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be a human in the world, interacting with your friends and family. You need a hug. Well, All Adults Here is the hug you need in 2021. It’s warm and funny and sad all at once. And it reminds you what it feels like to love your nearest and dearest while also forgiving them for the messes we all collectively get into. My wife Emma wrote this book and it’s her best one yet. After nearly two decades of being together, she wrote this book and it knocked me off my feet. It’ll knock you off yours too. –Mike FS
This is the first book I've been able to finish in quite some time! A witch is murdered in a small town in Mexico, but who did it? The novel is told from the perspective of a series of unreliable narrators, obsessed with superstition and all connected to the witch and the lore that surrounds her. It's an intense tale of horror mixed with true crime that can make you cringe with some of its brutal language, but I couldn't stop reading. And when I wasn't reading, I was thinking about it! Not for the faint of heart but a fantastic original novel I will not soon forget. –Natalie
A weird, strange tale the hardcover edition of Roberto Bolaño's Antwerp is back in stock and the perfect gift for any literature lover.
As Bolaño said himself, "The only novel that doesn't embarrass me is Antwerp." —Nick
Here’s something I haven’t said about a staff pick before: this book is fun! It’s lighthearted, it’s funny, and it’s wonderfully written. Artforum, the book, is about our narrator’s compulsion to collect Artforum, the magazine, and it’s also about what it means to make art. But that makes it seem Serious, and Artforum doesn’t take itself all that seriously, which is the best part. —Nika
Let me start with: this book is like a live action kung-fu movie unfolding before your eyes. Lee's writing is vivid, colorful, and cool as hell. I was hooked a paragraph in, finished it in two days (with frequent breaks to scream into my rug), and then immediately went out, bought, and devoured the second book. Fantasy lovers who are sick of European and North-American inspired settings - read this. Fantasy skeptics - read this and be a skeptic no more. —Shulokhana
We choose new staff picks every month, so stay tuned for regular updates.
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