February Staff Picks
With a surprise blizzard kicking off February, our booksellers are gravitating towards absorbing, immersive books to read while keeping cozy. Take a look at some of the books we’re obsessed with this month!
You can find all our past staff picks here.
This slim science fiction novella packs a punch--in less than a hundred pages Binti leaves her home and family behind to study at an elite interstellar university, only for the ship on which she is a passenger to become a casualty of war. Okorafor's writing is stunning and engrossing, and though you can read this first book in an afternoon, as soon as you finish you'll be hungry for the rest of the trilogy. —Abby
"Sometimes you just have to laugh, even when life is a dumpster fire”
This book will do that for you.
—Anthony
Lush, vibrant, and deeply mystical, Conjure Women is rich with secrets and spirituality. On a southern plantation in the middle of the 19th century bisected by the Civil War, two girls whose lives couldn’t be more different from one another’s become deeply entwined, some might even say fated. This is a masterfully written story about family, intuition, and community. As social and political events turn the plantation upside down over several years, what is revealed are surprising, heartbreaking but also tender truths about the roots of our loyalty and pain. —Colleen
Backcountry noir meets The Fast and The Furious. A speed read that is fun without being fluffy. —Eddie
I'm writing a novel that includes time travel, and so I've been reading stacks and stack of time travel books. This much-adored classic by Octavia Butler is next on my stack–it's about a Black woman in contemporary (1976) California who travels back in time to a pre-Civil War plantation in Maryland, where she meets her own enslaved ancestors. Butler described the book as a "kind of grim fantasy," and I can't wait to read how Butler uses time travel to examine power, race, gender roles, and pain. Read along with me! —Emma
A witty 10 year-old & super-hero squirrel make a dynamic duo in this laugh-out-loud adventure! My go-to recommendation for readers who love graphic novels & comics but can't seem to find the right chapter book. —Jacque
Queer outlaw librarians. Wild West meets Pulp Fiction. Gun fights and illegal literature trading. If that doesn’t intrigue you then I don’t know what will! —Lindsay
God, I love a quick novel that makes me laugh out loud. Weather combines both of those things with a sense of dread and urgency that keeps you thinking about it long after finishing it. ––Mike FS
Korede is a pro at cleaning up after her sister's crime scenes after multiple boyfriends turn up dead in an act of "self defense". When Korede suspects her coworker at the hospital is falling for her sister, she must do everything she can to protect him from becoming another victim. Oyinkan Braithwaite's debut is extremely compelling, she's a master at marrying murder mystery and dark comedy. A bit of drama and an all around fun and entertaining read, something we could all use right now! ––Natalie
If you have not read the beautiful poetry of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Mexiacan poet from the 1600's you are missing out on one of the greatest poets of all time. She is the original feminist - and has been called the Tenth Muse. These poems have been exquisitely translated by one of the premiere translators of the Spanish language, Edith Grossman. With a beautiful cover this is the book I leave on my coffee table to look really smart and cool. —Nick
If you read this you get to feast on delicious sentences like this one: “I sat among them, enraptured by their stories, realizing for the first time that every one of us was a link stretching back, mother to daughter to mother, in an unbroken chain from the center of time, connected by milk and blood.” This also, coincidentally, describes the experience of reading this collection which is about—on its surface—longing, about want, but also—at its core—about having, and the ways in which these characters must, and can, awaken to what is already inside them. This book is a trove of sticky, sharp, and luminous treasures! —Serena
Jam lives in a world with no monsters - or so she's told. Years ago, the angels drove away the monsters and instilled systems that would create a utopia. But when Jam accidentally summons a terrifying, horned creature, she is confronted with the reality that just because we're told (and want to believe) that the monsters are gone, doesn't mean that they really are. This is a short book with phenomenal worldbuilding and Emezi's signature straightforward yet lovely prose. —Shulokhana
We choose new staff picks every month, so stay tuned for regular updates.
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