Staff Recommendations

A listing of current favorites, recommended by the bookstore staff. Check back for new recommendations each month as we bring you the best of what we're reading. Browse by title, author or staff member!



  Anah
  |  Andy
  |  Dia
  |  Don
  |  Elaine
  |  Elaine Kahn
  |  Garrett
  |  Gent
  |  Jeff
  |  Jolene
  |  Layla
  |  Linda
  |  Lawrence
  |  Luke
  |  Maia
  |  Matt
  |  Nancy
  |  Paul
  |  Peter
  |  Scott
  |  Stacey
  |  Tân

   
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Ragnarok
The End of the Gods
A. S. Byatt
A standout entry in Canongate's consistently impressive Myths series, Byatt's treatment of Germanic saga and cosmogony distinguishes itself for the narrative grace of its frame and for its fearless plunge into the heart of the matter. Which in this...
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The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
A Novel
Michael Ondaatje
Ondaatje's fiercely poetic style gives potency to the violence and beauty surrounding Billy the Kid, and the genre of the Western in general. This book casts new light on an already mythic American era, creating a textual collage that takes us through...
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Tapping the Source
A Novel
Kem Nunn
A noir set in the burned-out post-hippie landscape of early 1980s Huntington Beach. Often referred to as a "surf noir" novel, perhaps because of the lean, stripped-down evocative prose and the mystical hue of the plot. And of course, there's the fact...
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Cubop City Blues
A Novel
Pablo Medina
Not a large book but voluminous and various and well worth reading twice or thrice. Medina's ravishing, sportive anatomy of nostalgia will earn the admiration of fans of that genre's grandmaster, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. —Recommended by Matthew
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Legend of Pradeep Mathew
A Novel
Shehan Karunatilaka
Aging sportswriter W.G. Karunasena's liver is shot. Years of drinking have seen to that. As his health fades, he embarks with his friend Ari on a madcap search for legendary cricket bowler Pradeep Mathew. En route they discover a mysterious...
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Mr. Fox
A Novel
Helen Oyeyemi
Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary...
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A Boy and a Bear in a Boat
Dave Shelton
One of the most charming books I've ever encountered. Just flip through it and try not to smile at the author's whimsical illustrations. (For ages 8 to 12) —Recommended by Jeff, City Lights Books
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1Q84
3 Volume Boxed Set
Haruki Murakami
This deluxe three-volume paperback boxed set beautifully showcases Haruki Murakami's most ambitious novel yet, 1Q84—a love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a dystopia to rival George Orwell's.
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Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
If you are a geek for 80s popculture taking place in Virtual Reality in the futuretime of 2044, solving videogame mysteries to win the ultimate prize, then this book is for you. I loved it to bytes! —Recommended by Don, City Lights Books
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Antwerp
Roberto Bolaño
This book is actually a labyrinth. —Recommended by Dia, City Lights Books. Antwerp's signature elements—crimes and campgrounds, drifters and poetry, sex and love, corrupt cops and misfits—mark this, his first novel, as pure Bolaño.
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The Wind From the East
French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s
Richard Wolin
Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, Julia Kristeva, Phillipe Sollers, and Jean-Luc Godard. During the 1960s, a who's who of French thinkers, writers, and artists, spurred by China's Cultural Revolution, were seized with a fascination for Maoism.
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The Crimean War
A History
Orlando Figes
From "the great storyteller of modern Russian historians," (Financial Times) the definitive account of the forgotten war that shaped the modern age The Charge of the Light Brigade, Florence Nightingale—these are the enduring icons of the Crimean War.
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Oddfellow's Orphanage
Emily Winfield Martin
Finding wonderful chapter books for the under-eights has been the most frustrating part of what I do here... and then I read this. Beautifully written and illustrated, intelligent and witty, as well as warm and fuzzy, this is as good as it gets.
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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."

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