January Staff Picks!
"Our mothers are our first homes, and that's why we're always trying to return to them. To know what it was like to have one place where we belonged. Where we fit." --Michele Filgate, What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence
Start your 2025 reading with our wide-range of January staff picks!
Recommended by Alisa
The Troop by Nick Cutter
Old-school body horror in its purest form. This book is cinematic, disturbing, and skin-crawlingly nasty from the first chapter and I love it for that - don’t read it if you have a weak stomach!
Recommended by Andrew
Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell
Although written a few years ago, Mitchell’s introduction to AI is pertinent today. Learn what AI does, doesn’t do, and shouldn’t do.
Recommended by Anna
Monstrilio by Gerardo Samano Cordova
A mother takes a piece of her deceased son's lung and nurtures it into a sentient being. A breathtaking depiction of the monster grief can make of us; written in the most extraordinary, bizarre, and stunningly weird way.
Recommended by Ben
My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir
The world is a crazy place right now. Won't you take a break and adventure around the Sierra with our friend John Muir?
Recommended by Chloe
How to Fall in Love in a Time of Umnameable Disaster by Muriel Leung
This book is both everything and nothing you expect it to be. The lyrical narrative bounces between different POVs; the ghost cockroach and headless boyfriend make for the most inventive cast of characters since the Wizard of Oz, but with a post-apocalyptic flair. Weaving together the mundane and extreme dystopia, Leung’s debut beautifully contemplates love, loss, and disaster.
Recommended by Daniel
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
I have yet to encounter an author with such an extraordinary capacity to describe those every-day interactions that make up our daily lives: a petty fight between husband and wife, intimate encounters with people we meet on vacation. Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize winning collection of stories is a warm, sensitive account of life in America that will stay with you long after you put it down.
Recommended by Elisabeth
The Jail Is Everywhere: Fighting the New Geography of Mass Incarceration by Jack Norton, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, Judah Schept
Start your year off on the right foot with this essential collection of essays on the growth of the carceral state - specifically, the jail boom currently, quietly unfolding across the U.S. Hear from activists, scholars, and journalists as they tell the stories of jail expansion - and local resistance to it - in Atlanta, New Orleans, Champaign-Urbana, New York City, and beyond.
Recommended by Jordan
What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence edited by Michele Filgate
Fifteen brilliant writers explore how what we don't talk about with our mothers affects us, for better or for worse.
Recommended by Kris
The Orange and Other Poems by Wendy Cope
Peel back the layers of this super cute and hilarious collection of poems with moods ranging from nice, cozy hugs to holding hands through hard times.
Recommended by Liora
The Accidental Ecosystem: People and Wildlife in American Cities by Peter S. Alagona
Why are cities, of all places, filled with wild animals, even as wildlife has declined in the rest of the world? In this fun and fascinating read, Alagona explores how cities have become vibrant ecosystems (hint: it wasn’t on purpose) and how humans can reimagine coexistence.
Recommended by Llalan
The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell
The everyday becomes mythic in this novel about three generations of strong women surviving without the help of men in a remote corner of Michigan. A reclusive healer. her wild daughter, and her genius granddaughter fight to maintain their way of life. Gorgeous writing and splendid storytelling.
Recommended by Sara
Women Surrounded by Water: A Memoir by Patricia Coral
This incredible debut from a local author is technically a memoir, but is also some of the most stunning poetry, prose, and creative nonfiction I’ve read in years. She covers so much more than the length suggests: addiction, relationships, family, politics, natural disasters, and her experience as a Puerto Rican immigrant woman. Absolutely beautiful – not a single word out of place. For fans of In the Dream House.
Recommended by Llalan
Crapalachia: A Biography of a Place by Scott McClanahan
Reading is a remarkable act of resistance, and this funny, tell-it-like-it-is memoir of growing up in rural West Virginia is a rebellion against politicians who'd have us believe they know the poor of America. Read for a hilarious and tender portrait of Appalachia.
Recommended by Liora
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
It’s cold out, so time to hunker down with some fantasy! Inspired by Arthurian legend, Legendborn seamlessly blends action with themes of resilience and literal Black girl magic. Take it from a big fantasy reader—this is a must read!
Recommended by Jordan
A Tale of Two Titties: A Writer's Guide to Conquering the Most Sexist Tropes in Literary History by Meg Vondriska
A Tale of Two Titties is a satirical guide to writing women like a best-selling male author.
Recommended by Chloe
The Communist Manifesto by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx
Begin your 2025 Goodreads Challenge with this short, easy, topical read!
Recommended by Anna
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
A combination of magical realism and historical fiction, this is a lighthearted story about books and the people who love them.
“The thing about books is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.”
Recommended by Alisa
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
A master class in unreliable narration, this book is deeply unsettling and incredibly worthwhile. It’s an uncomfortable confrontation with the ways in which abuse and exploitation can be normalized when shrouded in the right language.