Ask a Bookseller

Part of the fun of talking with independent bookstores is hearing about great books from smaller, independent presses. Today's recommendation combines both. Tom Nissley of Phinney Books in Seattle recommends the novella “ The English Understand Wool ” by Helen DeWitt. It's part of a series put out by New Directions publishing called Storybook ND . These slim, hardcover books for adults are reminis...

This week's recommendation comes from Emi Lim Morison of Country Bookshelf in Bozeman, Mo. Morison says one of her favorite novels of the year is “ Wandering Souls ” by Cecille Pin. It's a work of literary fiction that follows a girl and her two younger brothers who flee Vietnam after the war and eventually resettle in the UK. The perspective shifts beyond the confines of the three siblings, stret...

Amy Erickson of Bluebird Bookshop in Detroit Lakes, Minn., recommended a novel that she called “very much an up-north book.” She loved J. Ryan Stradal's “Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club.” She says it's a story about relationships and how people measure success, set against a backdrop of relish trays, steak, and grasshoppers for dessert. Author J. Ryan Stradal spoke with All Things consi...

Shelby Devitt of BookPeople in Austin, Texas recommends a contemporary fantasy YA novel, “Blood Debts” by Terry J. Benton-Walker. “It’s a doorstopper of a YA,” says Devitt of the debut. She loves the way the author weaves familial and political intrigue together in this engaging tale. It’s a wide-ranging story that navigates layers of tensions — racial, religious and magical vs. non-magical. Add t...

Josh Hames opened his bookstore Other Skies Weird Fiction in West St. Paul in 2022 just in time for Halloween. The store sells high-quality editions of horror, science fiction, and weird fiction. He's since discovered a wonderful community of readers and writers, including his recommendation for Ask a Bookseller this week. Hames recommends local writer Jacqueline Holland, new novel, " The God of E...

We couldn't get through National Poetry Month without featuring the works of at least one poet on Ask a Bookseller, and this week Evelyn Bauer of Papercuts Bookshop in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Mass., supplied the recommendation. Bauer recommends “The Poetics of Wrongness” by poet Rachel Zucker. The book is a series of lectures adapted and expanded for the page. Don't be turned off...

Alicia Michielli of Talking Leaves Books in Buffalo, New York recommends the novel “ Demon Copperhead ” by Barbara Kingsolver. The novel is a fairly direct retelling of “David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens, set in the 1980s in Appalachia — familiar territory for rural Kentucky-born Kingsolver. “In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists D...

Kate Schlademan of the Learned Owl Bookshop in Hudson, Ohio, says the novel she recently couldn't put down was Michael Bennett's “Better the Blood.” It's a fast-paced thriller that delves into longstanding injustices against the Māori people in New Zealand. Bennett is of Māori descent, as is his protagonist, Auckland detective Hana Westerman. Hana follows the trail to a disturbing murder: a ritual...

Ashley Valentine is celebrating the one-year anniversary of Rooted MKE , her BIPOC children's bookstore and academic support center in Milwaukee, Wis., and she's done it while caring for her two children under age 5. She singled out the picture book "You Be Mommy" as one where she sees her own journey reflected. Written by Karla Clark, "You Be Mommy" shows a busy mother of three who comes home fro...

The novel that Emily Bennett has been recommending to her customers at Sundance Books and Music in Reno, Nevada is "Here Goes Nothing" by Steve Toltz. As Bennett describes it, the story has whispers of the 1990 film "Ghost" and the NBC comedy "The Good Place," rolled up in an original and humorous tale. The novel's protagonist, Angus, has led a crooked path. He seems to be getting his life back to...

In the week that included International Women's Day, it felt right to focus on a book that centers on a mother-daughter relationship. The recommendation comes from Shannon Daniels of Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Mich. , who says Jessica Au's novel "Cold Enough for Snow" was her top staff pick this year. The novel is partly a travel story, as we follow a mother and daughter who decide to visit...

What’s the most un-put-down-able book you’ve read recently? For Susan Kehoe of Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, Del., the answer was Nikki Erlick’s debut novel “The Measure.” The premise for the story is simple: on the same day everywhere in the world, everyone over age 21 finds a box on their doorstep with a string inside. That string, as scientists soon determine, is the precise measure of h...

An ordinary man, accidentally doused with a mysterious new substance, finds himself gaining new powers. That may sound like a superhero from Marvel or DC Comics, but it’s actually a character from Blake Crouch's Sci-Fi thriller “Upgrade.” Colby Faulkner of Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi highly recommends checking it out. Set shortly in the future, society is being ravaged by genetic crimes....

Riley Rennhack of Deep Vellum Books in Dallas, Texas is a self-proclaimed “book nerd—not an econ person,” so she was surprised by how much she enjoyed Martin Riker’s new novel “ The Guest Lecture .” Its premise is simple: A feminist economist is up the night before she’s meant to give a lecture of John Maynard Keynes, and she doesn’t feel ready. She’s been recently denied tenure, and Keynes’ famou...

We’re solidly into January, which means many of us have had time to follow up on — or perhaps abandon — New Year’s Resolutions. At a time of year when many people resolve to do more and better, bookseller Whit Robinson of Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia recommends one of her top reads: the nonfiction book “ Laziness Does Not Exist ” by Dr. Devon Price.  Robinson says this the book came at a perfe...

An April 2022 book recommendation traveled full circle from Washington state bookstore back to a Minnesota author. Shannon Brown of Wishing Tree Books in Spokane recommends Nina Hamza's debut novel, " Ahmed Aziz's Epic Year ." It's a middle grade title, which Brown says will appeal to readers in 5th through 8th grade. The school year for 12-year-old Ahmed Aziz has the potential to be epically awfu...

It only takes a few transformative poems to make an entire collection glow. For Nathan McDowell of Two Dollar Radio Headquarters — an indie bookstore and press in Columbus, Ohio — it only took until page nine for Taylor Johnson’s poetry book “Inheritance” to snag his attention and turn him into an enthusiastic supporter. The poem that McDowell loves is called “Consider the Deer,” which begins with...

You don’t have to live in a small town or even like baseball to enjoy Tommy Murray’s novel, “ Fathers, Sons, and the Holy Ghosts of Baseball ,” says Lisa Deyo of Sweet Reads . Set in small-town Iowa in 1974, the novel focuses on three elderly baseball coaches determined to see the Holy Trinity High School team win the state baseball championship for the first time, despite the odds. The book remin...

Part of the fun of connecting with independent bookstores all over the country is that we get to hear about books that are local and special to those locations. That’s the case with this week’s recommendation from Alissa Brown of “The Inner Geek” in Huntington, West Virginia. She recommends the memoir “Another Appalachia: Coming up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place” by Neema Avashia, who grew u...

Natalie Sanford of Bound Booksellers and Gifts in Franklin, Tenn. recommends a WWII thriller that’s written for—but not limited to—Young Adult readers. The novel is “The Silent Unseen” by Amanda McCrina . McCrina’s historical fiction novels, which explore the relationships between Poland, Ukraine, and Russia take on a sudden timeliness during on the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. “The Silent...

Danni Green of Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, NY loves to read and lift up books by small presses. She’s a big fan of the printed novella “ Found Audio ,” which sounds very fitting for our radio-based book series. N. J. Campbell is the book’s author, and it was published by Two Dollar Radio , a small press in Ohio.  The story opens with Amrapali Anna Singh, a historian and audiologist, who rece...

This week’s bookseller recommendation comes from Aubrey Roemmich of Ferguson Books & More in Grand Forks, N.D. The book she couldn’t put down was the novel, “Maps of our Spectacular Bodies” by Maddie Mortimer. It’s the story of Lia, a mother facing breast cancer, and the way it inhabits her body and affects the lives of her husband and daughter. Among the recognitions Mortimer’s novel has garn...

Gwen Danfelt of Drury Lane Books in Grand Marais, Minn. recommends reading “The Cultural Toolbox: Traditional Ojibwe Living in the Modern World” by Anton Treuer. The book was selected as a community read in Cook County in November. Treuer is a Professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, as well as a prolific author and speaker. This, his latest book , is partly a memoir, filled with stories a...

Mallory Melton of BookPeople in Austin, Texas recommends a memoir about friendship and grief by New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu, titled “Stay True.” 18-year-old Hsu, son of Taiwanese immigrants, loves ‘zines and record shops and declaring his own style. In college, he’s put off at first by Ken, a Japanese-American frat member whose tastes in music and fashion Hsu finds to be decidedly mainstream....

This week, Riley Rennhack of Deep Vellum Books in Dallas, Texas recommends Ann Carson’s classic nonfiction work “Eros, the Bittersweet,” which was republished this summer by Dalkey Archive Press.  The book explores the idea that love is bittersweet and that desire is not about having, but wanting. This, Carson says, is the source of poetry. Reworked from Carson’s 1981 PhD thesis, “Eros, the Bitter...