May Staff Picks
It’s time to put those outdoor blankets to good use! Check out our booksellers’ favorite titles to read lounging in Prospect Park this May. You can find all our past staff picks here.
I've read this book about four times since I first got my mitts on it in October 2019 - including during lockdown when my reading slump was at its worst. This is a wildly funny, fast queer SFF with skeletons and lesbians and horrible dad jokes. You're going to love it. —Abby
If you're like me, you love a sad book and a good cry. This beautiful experimental letter of grief and love will break your heart and wrap you up in a warm blanket. —Anthony
These are delightful, captivating essays about bits of Americana that occupy unconventional intersections of society. Often overlapping science, history, spirituality, and cultural criticism, Kisner’s collection explores life at the boundaries, in the liminal spaces, and various states of in-betweenness. From a rave-friendly Brooklyn church, to overflowing state autopsy departments, to Olive Oatman, the “tattooed woman” who toured the country after living with an Apache tribe for years in the 1800s — Kisner proves the line between accepted and outcast, sacred and profane, is actually a little fuzzier and a little closer than we may want to admit. —Colleen
An ordinary American life, rendered extraordinary by Hunt's effortless prose and empathetic eye. Zorrie is a portrait of an Indiana woman, whose story is quotidian yet unique. You'll finish this slender book in an afternoon but think about it for weeks. —Eddie
Simultaneoulsy a memoir and a literary biography, this book knocked me out. A STUNNER. —Emma
Based on the author's own experiences 14 year old Nat Beacon is a super talented singer and hopes to one day perform on Broadway! Being disabled won't prevent her from following her dreams. Wow! I couldn't put this book down! I cheered for Nat the whole way through. Such. an. INSPIRATION!—Jacque
In 1933, after weeks of humiliation and abuse, two young maids gruesomely murder the family they work for. This graphic novel is based off a true story and Skelly's artwork manages to be simultaneously beautiful, subtle, and gory. —Lindsay
In this gorgeously illustrated graphic novel, Trung Le Nguyen weaves fables with the story of an immigrant family from Vietnam, using the fairy tale backdrop as a way to relate the young protagonist to his family’s history. Besides the brilliantly elegant transitions between the story’s different modes, the story is at once heartwarming and heartbreaking from the first to the last panel. The Magic Fish deals with culture, language, migration, identity, and grief in multifaceted ways, but none of it ever feels forced due to how graceful the storytelling is. —Michael C
I never would have thought I'd enjoy a baseball novel. The Cactus League follows a group of people working spring training in Arizona. Drama ensues. It's quick & action packed. Perfect for reading on a lovely spring day. —Mike FS
New Directions is at it again with another translation from legendary author, Clarice Lispector. Her books are surreal and cuckoo bananas but what's more cuckoo bananas is that she fell asleep smoking a cigarette one day and woke up to her house in flames. She suffered severe third degree burns and during her months recovering in the hospital, she wrote this romance novel! This book is so spicy and fun! —Natalie
If you love Rachel Kushner then you will love this beautiful and funny and weird novella. If you don't know Rachel Kushner's work or you just thought it was a little too weird to get into then this is a great place to leap into the wonderful works of Rachel Kushner. It's short, funny, completely accessible and absurd. Not to mention it is a beautiful book and you will look very cool with it on your shelves (even if you never read it). —Nick
There’s a lot going on here–love triangles, a manipulative mother-in-law, spirit possession–but at the center of the novel lies a subtle exploration of relationships. Enchi depicts the confluence of personal history, desire, and agency that shape each characters’ motivations with precision, even–and perhaps especially–when those motivations appear ambiguous. If you regularly ask yourself if you can ever know another person really, appreciate the high drama of a good soap opera, enjoy feeling high-brow only sometimes, or actively avoid explanations to maintain elements of mystery in your life, Masks is for you. —Nika
This is so beautiful! I adore this Own Voices story about home and change and family! The color palette is so inviting and uplifting, reading this is like drinking a warm cup of cocoa after a long day in the middle of a NYC winter. —Serena
The Empress of Salt and Fortune is dead and sites that were previously put under lockdown are now declassified. Cleric Chih makes their way to one such site called Thriving Fortune, the mysterious structure where Empress In-Yo spent her exile. There, they meet Rabbit, the In-Yo's favorite handmaiden who witnessed the fall and rise of an empire, and learn a truth that could destroy the foundations of the very empire that In-Yo built. —Shulokhana
We choose new staff picks every month, so stay tuned for regular updates.
And if you want to stay connected, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Instagram for more reading suggestions!
