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Staff Recommendations > Maia

sort list by title | author In Defense of Food An Eater's Manifesto Michael Pollan This book is as fascinating as all the reviewers keep telling us it is. Michael Pollan doesn't address every angle of every issue, but this book is a great starting point for thinking more critically and carefully about the foods we buy and eat... The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath A powerful, haunting story of youth and despair. —Recommended by Maia, City Lights Books. Plath was an excellent poet but is known to many for this largely autobiographical novel. The Bell Jar tells the story of a gifted young woman's mental breakdown... Everything Is Illuminated A Novel Jonathan Safran Foer With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous... Geek Love A Novel Katherine Dunn For people who enjoy people who are different and strange and wonderful and writing that is too. –Recommended by Maia, City Lights Books The Passion Jeanette Winterson This book is a strange, inspired trip of love and lust. Perhaps the most unique thing about it besides Winterson's poetic voice is its universal, timeless quality though it is set in Napoleonic Europe. It is a great introduction... Going to Meet the Man Stories James Baldwin Start with "This Morning, This Evening, So Soon." If the title of that story doesn't get you then you are lost anyway. —Recommended by Maia, City Lights Books "There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." Another Country James Baldwin James Baldwin's Another Country is one of the most powerful books I've ever read. As only he so beautifully and evocatively can, Baldwin places the reader in the eye of the storm of late 50s American tensions around race, gender, class, power, and freedom The Thin Man Dashiell Hammett Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. Lolita Vladimir Nabokov One of the most well-crafted books I've ever read. Not one word in this masterpiece isn't as it should be. My advice is to read it in big pieces, as it will take you into a world of Nabokov's making. The images and characters will stay with you...