Category: Staff Picks

“The Collaborators feels like it can’t wait to be a blockbuster movie, but first it’s a fast-paced, twisty thrill ride of a novel. If you like old-fashioned spy novels, but want an update that’s fewer tuxedos and more rock band t-shirts, this is a book for you.”
-Robin, Books and Books Staff

Named a Best Book of the Year by Vogue

Slow Horses meets Red Sparrow in this “sharp, freshly conceived, [and] thoroughly entertaining” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) spy thriller featuring a brilliant young intelligence officer and a troubled heiress who stumble into a global conspiracy that pits present-day Russia against the CIA.

Combining realistic thrills with sophisticated spycraft and witty dialogue, The Collaborators delivers a gut-punch answer to the biggest geopolitical question of our time: how, exactly, did post-Soviet Russia turn down the wrong path?

Crisscrossing the globe on the way to this shocking revelation are disaffected millennial CIA officer Ari Falk, thrown into a moral and professional crisis by the death of his best asset; and brash, troubled LA heiress Maya Chou, spiraling after the disappearance of her Russian American billionaire father. The duo’s adventures take us to both classic and surprising locales—from Berlin, to Latvia, Belarus, and an abandoned technopark outside Moscow.

Dynamic, fast-paced, and filled with captivating details that provide a window into a secretive world, The Collaborators is a first-rate thriller “with a propulsive plot and fantastic twists” (Chris Pavone, author of The Expats) that pays homage to both meanings of “intelligence.” 

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About the Author

Michael Idov is a novelist, director, and screenwriter. A Latvian-born American raised in Riga under Soviet occupation, he moved to New York after graduating from the University of Michigan. Michael’s writing career began at New York magazine, where his features won three National Magazine Awards, and he has also been the editor-in-chief of GQ Russia. He is also the author of Ground Up and Dressed Up for a Riot. Michael has worked on numerous film and TV projects, including Londongrad, Deutschland 83, Leto, and The Humorist. He and his wife and screenwriting partner, Lily, divide their time between Los Angeles, Berlin, and Portugal. 

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Praise For…

“What the ever expanding world of espionage fiction needs, it turns out, is a Yale-educated Millennial field operative who dresses in Weezer t-shirts and knows his way around a semi-automatic. . . . [The Collaborators is a] slim, well-paced, deceptively complex novel of American and Russian intelligence. . . . a novel as cool as it is accomplished, that knits together action, tradecraft and quippy dialogue with flair.” —Vogue

“[A] globe-trotting spy adventure . . . Idov balances modern-day intrigue with Cold War flashbacks, tracing spy bloodlines from the former Soviet Union into today.” —Paste magazine

“Idov gathers stories from the headlines and blends them into a hipster spy smoothie.” —The Times (UK), Named a Best Thriller of the Year

“A cutthroat international financial scheme with grave political implications . . . Unlike most spy fiction, it’s driven in the liveliest sense by young characters who reflect their generation. Falk, a millennial who wears Weezer tees, and Maya, who was up for a part in a Peacock vampire series, are an irresistible pairing. . . . Sharp, freshly conceived, thoroughly entertaining spy fiction.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“The Collaborators is a terrific espionage thriller with a propulsive plot and fantastic twists, but what really sets this book apart is the writing, sparkling on every page.” —Chris Pavone, New York Times bestselling author of The Expats and Two Nights in Lisbon

“Compulsively readable, with more twists than a bar full of martinis, The Collaborators takes a deep dive into global espionage, what-ifs, and the things we do for those we love.” —I. S. Berry, Edgar Award-winning author of The Peacock and The Sparrow

“This is a hell of an espionage thriller—thoroughly modern and frighteningly relevant, yet with clear reverence for the genre’s roots. This book has it all—memorable and well-drawn characters, globe-spanning locales full of fascinating and authentic detail, and a complex plot that unfolds at just the right pace. Idov’s prose is first-rate—concise, colorful, and insightful. He is a writer who understands the power of life’s small details, which adds another layer of texture to this highly entertaining novel. I did not want to put this book down.” —Alex DeMille, New York Times bestselling author of Blood Lines

“The story of Billy Ray Schafer, a road comic just trying to make it another day, is at turns hilarious and bleak. Tallent has successfully created a wreck of man who you can’t help but route for. An essential read for fans of stand up comedy but a great book for all.”

-Emily, Books & Books Staff

A bona fide “instant classic” (Doug Stanhope) novel that tells the story of a road comic crashing and burning by acclaimed comedian Sam Tallent

Billy Ray Schafer stepped off the plane in Amarillo, Texas, with twenty-six hundred dollars tucked down the leg of his black ostrich-skin cowboy boot. He walked to baggage claim slowly, jelly-legged and nearing lucidity, coming out from under the Xanax he snorted before the flight.

Debauched, divorced, and courting death, Billy Ray Schafer is a comedian who has forgotten how to laugh. Over the course of seven spun-out days across the American Southwest, he travels from hell gig to hell gig in search of a reason to keep living in this bleak and violent glimpse into the psyche of a thoroughly ruined man. Ex-inmate, ex-husband, ex-father—comedian is the only title Schafer has left. Trapped in the wreckage of his wasted career, Billy Ray knows the answer to the question: What happens when opportunity doesn’t come—or worse—it comes and goes?

“In vivid, electric sentences that read like cinematic tracking shots,” (Denver Post) Tallent hurls you into an absolute mess of a man’s life as we search for the mercy he does not want. 

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About the Author

Sam Tallent is a comedian, novelist, and host of the Chubby Behemoth podcast. For the last decade, he has performed more than forty-five weekends per year in North America, Asia, Australia, and Europe. Sam has two comedy specials: Waiting For Death to Claim Us and The Toad’s Morale. He also has a travel show, Wide World, on YouTube. He lives in Detroit and cooks dinner for his wife every night. 

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Praise For RUNNING THE LIGHT

“You’d never expect this abomination of a man to write such beautiful prose, but Sam Tallent has done it. . . . Wow, what a book!”—Shane Gillis, stand-up comedian

“Running the Light is a majestically bleak, hilarious, and bruising tour of regret, delusion, and the detonation of the soul. In Billy Ray Schafer, Sam Tallent has created one of contemporary fiction’s more memorable self-destroyers, and it’s a harrowing delight to witness him evade and then perhaps finally confront his truth.”—Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask

“A hell of a novel, too fucked-up to miss.”—Ron White

“A thrilling, nauseating and painfully real depiction of what happens at length as youth, talent, and charisma sour, Running the Light is the best novel I’ve ever read about comedy but also about a particular strand of relentless hedonism. Sam Tallent is that rare thing, a funny person who can convey his funniness in fiction and do it alongside prose that will break your heart, too.”—Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desperation

“It reads like a heightened satire of a life on the lowest tier of show business, but I’m here to tell you, it all rings true.”—Marc Maron, stand-up comedian

“Chaotic bliss . . . vivid, electric . . . reads like cinema.”—The Denver Post 

“Sam Tallent is one of the true originals. He’s as much myth as man, like a character who wandered off the pages of a Jack Kerouac novel. But he’s very real and full of real integrity that shines through in all his work.”—Chris Gethard

“I really liked this book. It’s different, engaging, heartbreaking, yet hopeful. All the characters, no matter how important, come to life – some are funny, some not. I love this dad who never gives up on his son. And it takes place in weird Florida.”

-Judy Blume, Store Co-Founder

A brilliant and gut-wrenching novel about a father and son from a “master” (Lee Martin) of the tragi-comic.

Known for his bold voice and unforgettable characters, John Dufresne tells the story of Olney, whose beloved son Cully collapses into addiction and vanishes into the chaotic netherworld of southern Florida. Aided by his terminally ill girlfriend and the colorful inhabitants of a local motel—including a doomsday prepper, an ex-nun, a pair of blind twins with an acute sense of smell, and a devoutly Catholic shelter worker—Olney sets out to save his son. Hilarious and devastating in equal measure, My Darling Boy is a hero’s quest for our time, a testament to families touched by the opioid crisis, and a remarkable achievement from one of our most talented, genre-bending authors.

About the Author

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John Dufresne is the author of 25 works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including Louisiana Power and Light and Love Warps the Mind a Little. He lives in Florida, where he teaches writing at Florida International University. 

Praise For…

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Improbably entertaining…My Darling Boy is a tale of parenthood, friendship and resolute love.
— Heller McAlpin, The New York Times

A sensitive portrait of parenthood…
— The New Yorker

John Dufresne has an unfathomable ability to make me laugh and break my heart, often in the space of a single sentence. My Darling Boy is both a lamentation and a celebration of the infinite mystery we call human nature. A masterwork.
— Dennis Lehane, author of Small Mercies

My Darling Boy is a big-hearted love song to being human. Populated by unforgettable characters in Florida towns like Melancholy and Whynot, and written in John Dufresne’s unique voice, the novel examines love and addiction and despair, and most of all, hope. I love this book.
— Ann Hood, author of The Stolen Child

John Dufresne hits it out of the park with My Darling Boy…. Follow along as this wordsmith keeps you laughing, while imparting wisdom about how to navigate life’s peaks and valleys. Dufresne is a master of the craft and a writer to be celebrated.
— Jonathan Escoffery, author of If I Survive You

“A beautiful coming of age story set amidst the Pakistani community in Queens. About family, community, not belonging and finally finding a different home. Moving and remarkable. A great read!” – Anna, Store Volunteer

A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice * An NPR Best Book of the Year * A Padma Lakshmi Book Club Pick

For fans of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, an unforgettable story about female friendship and queer love in a Muslim-American community

“Stunningly beautiful.” —The New York Times Book Review

“An unforgettable voice that moves you from the start.” —People Magazine

Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. When a family rift drives the girls apart, Razia’s heart is broken. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close-knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing miniskirts, and cutting school to explore the city. 

When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens. At Stuyvesant, Razia meets Angela and is attracted to her in a way that blossoms into a new understanding. When their relationship is discovered by an Aunty in the community, Razia must choose between her family and her own future. 

Punctuated by both joy and loss, full of ’80s music and beloved novels, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a new classic: a fiercely compassionate coming-of-age story of a girl struggling to reconcile her heritage and faith with her desire to be true to herself.

“We watch the Olympics to marvel at what extraordinary men and women can do. In the same way, read this incredible, often charming, sometimes humorous story of how one ordinary man took on the powers of State and, for years, left it sputtering in rage. For anyone living under a Putinesque regime, it’s an inspirational and often instructive tale.

While they may have killed him, they did not break him. When the history of Russian is written generations from now, we can only hope that Navalny, like America’s Nathan Hale, will be remembered as a man whose regret was that he only had one life to lose for his country.”

-George, Store Co-Founder

The powerful and moving memoir of a fearless political opposition leader who paid the ultimate price for his beliefs.

Alexei Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. It is the full story of his life: his youth, his call to activism, his marriage and family, his commitment to challenging a world super-power determined to silence him, and his total conviction that change cannot be resisted—and will come. 

In vivid, page-turning detail, including never-before-seen correspondence from prison, Navalny recounts, among other things, his political career, the many attempts on his life, and the lives of the people closest to him, and the relentless campaign he and his team waged against an increasingly dictatorial regime. 

Written with the passion, wit, candor, and bravery for which he was justly acclaimed, Patriot is Navalny’s final letter to the world: a moving account of his last years spent in the most brutal prison on earth; a reminder of why the principles of individual freedom matter so deeply; and a rousing call to continue the work for which he sacrificed his life.

“This book is a testament not only to Alexei’s life, but to his unwavering commitment to the fight against dictatorship—a fight he gave everything for, including his life. Through its pages, readers will come to know the man I loved deeply—a man of profound integrity and unyielding courage. Sharing his story will not only honor his memory but also inspire others to stand up for what is right and to never lose sight of the values that truly matter.” —Yulia Navalnaya