Ask a Bookseller

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   Lori Virelli of Harvey's Tales of Geneva, Ill., has eagerly been awaiting the release this week of Fredrik Backman’s new novel “My Friends.” The Swedish author of “A Man Called Ove,” the “Beartown” hockey series, “Anxious People” and others...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.    Has Ryan Coogler’s recently released horror film “Sinners” got you in the mood for more vampire books? Ben Mayne of Tattered Cover Book Store in Littleton, Colo., recommends “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” by Stephen Graham Jones.  Mayne says...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   Saturday is Independent Bookstore Day. Participating indie bookstores across Minnesota and the country will offer special events or deals. We celebrate with particular gusto in the Twin Cities metro, where this year, 37 bookstores are parti...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   We finish up our Books of Hope series with a sweeping novel that interconnects lives across time through a single drop of water. The book is “There Are Rivers in the Sky” by award-winning British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak.   Meghan Hayde...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   When asked for a recommendation for our ongoing Books of Hope series, China Reevers of Country Bookshelf in Bozeman, Mont., turned to a book on her shelf that she’s gifted many times: Cole Arthur Riley’s “Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, an...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   This week, as our series on books of hope and connection continues, Laynee Wessel with Bliss Books & Bindery in Stillwater, Okla., recommended a memoir about our ties to the natural world. The book is “We Will be Jaguars: A Memoir of My...

Ask a Bookseller is focusing this season on books of hope and connection. Asked to recommend a book of hope, Beth Rusk of Magers & Quinn Booksellers went straight to the novels of TJ Klune.   “Under the Whispering Door” is one of her favorites. It’s a cozy fantasy set in a tea shop, which also happens to be a waystation for the dead. When Wallace, a successful lawyer, dies of a heart attack, h...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   As we continue our focus on books of hope and connection, Lori Virelli of Harvey’s Tales in Geneva, Ill., wanted to recommend Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new novel “Dream Count.” It’s Adichie’s first novel in over 10 years. Virelli called it...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now. For the next few weeks, Ask a Bookseller will focus on books that emphasize hope and connection. Booksellers will point to everything from romance to science fiction to nonfiction in various forms. This week, John Evans of Camino Books: For t...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now. For the next few weeks, Ask a Bookseller will feature books of hope and connection. Independent booksellers across the country have recommended titles that span the realms of fiction and nonfiction, celebrating connections with others.  Eliza...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now. For the next few weeks on Ask a Bookseller, we’ll be doing something a little different: focusing on books of hope. Danielle King of Left Bank Books in St Louis, Mo., knew right away what she wanted to recommend: Sofia Samatar’s sci-fi novel...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now. Theresa Phung works at Yu & Me Books in Manhattan’s Chinatown. She recommends “Blob: A Love Story” by Maggie Su. Su tells of Vi Liu, a young Taiwanese-American woman, who discovers a sentient blob and attempts to mold it into her ideal pa...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now. Eowyn Ivey launched onto the literary scene in 2012 with her New York Times Bestselling debut “The Snow Child,” which grounds the fairy tale of a couple who makes a child out of snow in the hard reality of a 1920 Alaska homestead. Ivey weaves...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now. Makkah Abdur Salaam of Black Garnet Books in St. Paul recommends the nonfiction book “A More Perfect Party: The Night Shirley Chisholm and Diahann Carroll Reshaped Politics” by Juanita Tolliver. Abdur Salaam describes it as a “roadmap” for cu...

On The Thread ’ s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now. Fans of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass” were looking forward to her new collection of short essays “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World,” which was published shortly before Thanksgiving. Beth Hartung...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   Lovers of little-known history, get ready: We’ve got a book that lifts a real-life Minnesota tax attorney out of WWII obscurity and into the limelight with an out-of-the-box plan to defeat the Nazis without ever going to war. The book is Gr...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now. Part of the superpower of stories is to create spaces for empathy: Between the pages of the book, we get to step into the lives of other people, real or fictional. That’s what Stefanie Chow of Stillwater Books in West Warwick, R.I., loves abo...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   Rima Parikh of The Thinking Spot in Wayzata, Minn., recommends a book of short and sweet (and savory!) essays, perfect for gifting your favorite foodie. It’s called “Bite by Bite:  Nourishments and Jamborees” by poet and essayist Aimee Nezh...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   Amy Loewy of the Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans, La., knew right away which book she wanted to recommend: Jesmyn Ward’s novel “Let Us Descend.” Ward has won the National Book Award for Fiction twice with “Sing, Unburied, Sing” (20...

Julie Schultz of This House of Books in Billings, Montana recommends a book of poetry that made the finalist list for its category of the National Book Awards: Diane Seuss’s “Modern Poetry.” It’s not the first national recognition for Seuss, whose collection “frank: sonnets” won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2022. Both were published by Graywolf Press in Minneapolis.   Whether you’re steeped in...

David Stippick of Lark & Owl Booksellers in Georgetown, Texas, recommends a novel they call “a love letter to readers.” It’s Erica Bauermeister’s “No Two Persons,” and David says the novel feels a bit like the movie “Love Actually,” in that we follow the stories of multiple characters. Here, they are connected by their experience with a single book. Fictional author Alice writes a beautiful de...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   You’ve probably read a multi-generation saga where the story follows a family line through the decades. Have you read a novel that follows … not people, but a house?  That’s the premise of “North Woods” by Daniel Mason: We focus on a house...

Holly Weinkauf of Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul recommends “Just Us.” It’s written by Twin Cities author Molly Beth Griffin and illustrated by Anait Semirdzhyan. 

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   Christina Rosso-Schneider of A Novel Idea on Passyunk in Philadelphia, Penn., recommends a “fever dream of a novel” that’s risen to the top of her list so far this year. The novel is called “Smothermoss” by debut author Alisa Alering.  “It...

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.   We’re at that point in the calendar year when book lovers start to declare their favorites of 2024. Claire Benedict of Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vt., says the novel at the top of her list is “Colored Television” by Danzy Senna. “It’s m...