Category: Newsletter

May 2025 Staff Pick: RAISING HARE

RAISING HARE: A Memoir by Chloe Dalton (Pantheon), picked by bookseller Leslie

RAISING HARE is an exceptional book that takes you along on Chloe Dalton’s unexpected journey with her little leveret, or baby hare. Chloe moves to her country home in the English countryside at the start of the pandemic, leaving her life in London as a political consultant and writer.

Adding to the book’s character and charm are two things that always draw me in – illustrations and the use of quotes to begin each chapter. Denise Nestor, an Irish artist and illustrator, captures the personality of the hare with her lovely drawings.

My favorite quote used in the book:

“What a destructive, cruel being man is, how many living beings and plants he annihilates to maintain his own life.”

~Leo Tolstoy, HADJI MURAT, 1912

But don’t get the wrong idea, this book is not a downer or even a commentary on man’s self-centered ways. This book is the antidote to our oh so very busy and important lives and the chaos of the world we live in. It’s not preachy at all. We are simply enjoying Chloe Dalton’s experience with her hare. It’s not her pet; she does not name her because that implies ownership. She allows the hare to be herself, and in exchange is witness to the life of this magnificent creature, including motherhood. She turns her home over to the hare and becomes attuned to the gardens, trees, and wildlife as never before.

I’m not going to tell you exactly what happens here in the recommendation. I will leave that to you to enjoy as the story unfolds. Consider what Chloe writes toward the end of the book:

“She has taught me patience. And as someone who has made their living through words, she has made me consider the dignity and persuasiveness of silence. She showed me a different life, and the richness of it. She made me perceive animals in a new light, in relation to her, and to each other. She made me re-evaluate my life, and the question of what constitutes a good one.”

May is Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month seeks to highlight and celebrate the traditions, history, cultures and contributions of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Here are some titles we are reading and recommending from AAPI authors or touching on AAPI history or contemporary experiences:

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.

Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made? And if we are made, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?

The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

Tracking the natural beauty that surrounds us, The Backyard Bird Chronicles maps the passage of time through daily entries, thoughtful questions, and beautiful original sketches. With boundless charm and wit, author Amy Tan charts her foray into birding and the natural wonders of the world.

The Gate, the Girl, and the Dragon by Grace Lin, publishing May 6

Preorder now and receive the gorgeous DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last―featuring stenciled designed sprayed edges, as well as a foil case stamp and designed endpapers. This must-have special edition is only available on a limited first print run while supplies last in the US and Canada only.

From award-winning and bestselling author of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Grace Lin comes a gorgeously full-color illustrated story about a lion cub and a girl who must open a portal for the spirits, based on Chinese folklore.

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Read Camila’s review.

They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran

The author of the New York Times bestselling horror phenomenon She Is a Haunting is back with a novel about the monsters that swim beneath us . . . and live within us.

Soy Sauce! by Laura G. Lee

A joyful picture book for kids and foodies of all ages (with real soy sauce as paint!) that celebrates the iconic kitchen staple and the magical way food connects family and friends across the world.

Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All by Chanel Miller

New York Times bestselling author and artist Chanel Miller tells a fun, funny, and poignant story of friendship and community starring Magnolia Wu, a ten-year-old sock detective bent on returning all the lonely only socks left behind in her parents’ NYC laundromat.

Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet: Essays and Interviews by Adrienne Su

In Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, Adrienne Su contemplates her own use of food as a recurring metaphor, influential teachers and peers, the push and pull between cooking and writing, changing expectations around English usage, and craft questions such as: Why does some subject matter refuse to cooperate in the creative process, even when it appears close to home? How does one write a good poem about being happy? Why write in rhyme when it’s time-consuming and mostly out of style? What is a poem’s responsibility to the literal truth?

Su’s essays are driven by the tensions between worlds that overlap and collide: social conventions of the northern and southern United States; notions of what’s American and what’s Asian American; the demands of the page and the demands of the home; the solitariness of writing and the meaningful connection a poem can create between writer and reader. In interviews, often with fellow poets, she discusses a range of topics, from her early days in the Nuyorican poetry-slam scene to the solace of poetry and cooking during Covid-19 lockdown. While Su’s previous books are all collections of poetry, she has been publishing individual essays for many years. Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet gathers the best of them into one volume for the first time.

Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto’s wrenching and sensational debut story collection presents a Hawai’i where unruly sexuality and generational memory overflow the postcard image of paradise and the boundaries of the real, where the superstitions born of the islands take on the weight of truth.

Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare is both a fierce love letter to Hawaiian identity and mythology, and a searing dispatch from an occupied territory threatening to erupt with violent secrets.

It’s a Mystery!

Do you prefer your mysteries hard-boiled or cozy? There is something for every taste. Check out our display of new and recommended mysteries or ask a bookseller for a recommendation.

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie

When crime matriarch Babs Dionne’s youngest daughter is found dead, she will stop at nothing to uncover the truth—or get her revenge.

Your ancestors breathe through you. Sometimes, they call for vengeance.

The Dark Maestro by Brendan Slocumb, publishing May 13

His cello made him famous. His father made him a target.

Hotel Lucky Seven by Kotaro Isaka, translated by Brian Bergstrom

Bullet Train’s hapless underworld operative and his handler are back in this thrilling new novel from internationally bestselling author Kotaro Isaka, named one of the Best Novels of the Year (Crime Reads)

A Drop of Corruption: An Ana and Din Mystery by Robert Jackson Bennett

The eccentric detective Ana Dolabra matches wits with a seemingly omniscient adversary in this brilliant fantasy-mystery from the author of The Tainted Cup.

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

Frances Adams always said she’d be murdered. She was right.

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

Don’t miss the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestseller and addictive psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist that’s burning up Instagram and TikTok–Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid is perfect for fans of Ruth Ware, Lisa Jewell, and Verity.

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty

For fans of Anthony Horowitz and Lucy Foley, a wonderfully original, genre-breaking literary debut from Ireland that’s an homage to the brilliant detective novels of the early twentieth century, a twisty modern murder mystery, and a searing exploration of grief and loss.

Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang

In this debut thriller perfect for fans of Bunny and Yellowface, a young woman steps into her deceased twin’s influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade.

One Death at a Time by Abbi Waxman

A cranky former actress teams up with her Gen Z sobriety sponsor to solve the murder that threatens to send her back to prison in this dazzling new mystery novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.

Read Ebooks, Support Our Store

Read ebooks, support bookstores

Do you read ebooks, at least some of the time? Now, when you purchase ebooks, you can support our store. Bookshop.org is partnering with indie bookstores to offer an ebook option.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Create an account on Bookshop.org (if you order physical books from Bookshop, you already have one).
  2. Choose Books & Books @ The Studios of Key West as your bookstore. The easiest way to find us is to use our zip code 33040 to search.
  3. Buy an ebook and start reading. You can read on your phone or pad by downloading the Bookstore.org app from the App Store or Google Play. Or you can read on your computer at the Bookstore.org website.

In order to avoid paying Apple and Google big chunk of the money, you can’t buy the ebook directly from a phone/pad app. Instead, you have to log onto the Bookshop.org website.

See example below:

Learn more or get started: https://bookshop.org/ebooks

You can also order a physical book from Bookshop.org, and you’ll also be supporting our store. But for physical books we recommend that you use our online store at http://Shop.BooksandBookskw.com so that you can get our personal service and benefits, like signed Judy Blume books.

This program replaces our old Kobo ebook system. If you wish to continue using that system, please feel free to call us at 305-320-0208 for technical assistance.

A Q&A with Andrew Furman

We are delighted to welcome back author Andrew Furman! Join us for an event with him, April 28, at 6:30 at the bookstore.

We asked him a few questions to introduce you to the author and his book:

Q: Would you tell us about how you came to write Of Slash Pines and Manatees: A Highly Selective Field Guide to My Suburban Wilderness and what you hope readers will get out of it?

A: Florida, and particularly my southeastern patch of it, is one of the most overdeveloped places in the country but one of the most environmentally unique and gorgeous places, too. After nearly 30 years of living here, I remain gobsmacked by its special animals and plants, whether it’s a gray fox that makes a surprise appearance in my suburban neighborhood, or a manatee mother and her calves that float past my swim group in the ocean, or a slash pine tree that my younger daughter insists that we plant in our front yard. I still feel like I’m just coming to know this state. The chapters that make up this new book represent, maybe on the most essential level, my ongoing attempt to know my place just a little bit better. I hope that readers in all fifty states will take inspiration in these pages to seek out a closer relationship with the unique “placeness” of their own home state, wherever that happens to be. 

Q: Sense of place seems very important in both your fiction and nonfiction, how did you come to call south Florida home?

A: I wish I had a more romantic story here, but the truth is that I was just lucky enough to get my first (and probably last) academic job at Florida Atlantic University. What’s more, my love affair with the state didn’t really happen so quickly. I was scrapping very hard those first few years here to write my scholarly articles and books to earn tenure so I wasn’t very attuned to the natural splendor outside my school office. But then I just started to notice stuff, like the pretty warblers that were suddenly flitting all about the trees on my campus during their fall and spring migrations, so I learned what kind of warblers they were and learned that we were located smack in the middle of their migratory flyway, and then I learned that the trees were called live oaks and wanted to learn all I could about the history of live oaks and us. I joke that I became a Floridian sort of the way that Hemingway went broke: gradually, then all at once. 

Q: What’s one thing you do every time you visit Key West or one thing you think visitors shouldn’t miss?

A: Well, I just mentioned Hemingway, and I know it’s sort of the obvious answer, but it’s still true for me: I love visiting the Hemingway House when I’m in Key West. They’ve done such a great job maintaining the look and feel of the place, right down to the cats. As a writer, it gives me chills to walk through the rooms and imagine what it must have felt like to be a young Hemingway, tapping furiously away on the keys of his typewriter, the balmy, sea-funk-smelling air drifting through the open windows. I also think that any experience out on the water (a fishing charter, a kayak through the mangroves) is a must. A few years ago, I participated in the 12.5-mile Swim Around Key West (held annually), which I tend to work into conversations pretty early. It was definitely my most memorable, environmental Key West experience, swimming above nurse sharks and whatnot as I crossed under that last bridge. If I can extend my answer to the other Keys—and since this special place is featured in one of my chapters—I’d recommend that people take a walk through the Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park, where they might glimpse a mangrove cuckoo or summer tanager or (more likely) a white-crowned pigeon roosting in one of the hardwoods. Experts say that this hammock may be the site of the greatest tree diversity in the entire United States.   

Q: For you, what drives the decision to write fiction versus nonfiction?

A: People ask me this question a lot and I truly don’t have a great answer as I tend to choose the genre on instinct more than anything else. I would say that my default genre may be nonfiction, but I suppose that sometimes my imagination just gets the better of me and I feel that I want to go somewhere beyond what the “truth” or the “facts” allow. When this happens, I segue to fiction. My fascination with seaweed is a good example of this. I have a chapter on seaweed in Of Slash Pines and Manatees, which is nonfiction, and which I’m really happy with, but I’m currently working on a novel, which imagines what might happen if our Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt goes berserk.   

Q: As a writing professor, what’s your best writing advice?

A: What I come back to with my students all the time is that they shouldn’t necessarily “write what they know,” which they hear all the time, but write what interests them. I think that lots of us fear that our lives aren’t dramatic or traumatic enough to be the stuff of great art. My life sure isn’t and thank heavens for that! I tell students that they don’t have to be interesting, per se, but they DO have to be interested. Having and developing interests and even passions, being receptive to new discoveries, hobbies, long-buried talents, and having the curiosity and even bravery to pursue these passions—in life and art—is key, in my view. 

Q: What are you reading and recommending these days?

A: Oh boy, I’m always reading lots of things, and try to move between fiction and nonfiction, and some poetry. As I’m in the middle of my semester, I’ve had the opportunity to re-read and teach Willa Cather’s My Antoniawhich was one of the first books that moved me in that special way that only great writing can when I was just an undergrad, myself. So it’s been a treat to read it with my own students and simultaneously get swept away by its romance and interrogate some of its more problematic environmental and racial implications. I’m following this up with Percival Everett’s Jameswinner of the 2024 National Book Award, which imagines Twain’s book, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through the voice and perspective of “Jim.”

In terms of nonfiction, The Light Eatersby Zoe Schlanger, made me see plants in a whole different way, and I just got Satellite in the mail, Simmons Buntin’s collection of desert essays, which I can’t wait to read. It’s an environment so different in every way than our subtropics.

As for fiction, outside of what I’m teaching this semester, I just read and was blown away by the quiet power of Morgan Talty’s Fire Exitwhich takes place in and around Maine’s Penobscot Reservation, and I also finally got around to reading something by Sigrid Nunez, The FriendIt’s a gem of a novel, and as a dog lover, it really resonated with me. I should also mention the reading I do in litmags, several issues of which I have lying around in various places in my house, to my wife’s consternation. Partly to keep current, and partly to be a good literary citizen, I subscribe to five or six litmags at any given time and dip into them between the books I’m reading for the latest stories, essays, and poems out there.  

Coming Soon, Pre-order Now

As soon as you see upcoming books getting buzz, you can pre-order them. Buy it while you’re thinking about it and get a happy surprise later. Want something you don’t see here? Email us at booksandbooks@tskw.org or ask a bookseller!

Here are a few books we are looking forward to:

Old School Indian by Aaron John Curtis

A coming-of-middle-age novel about an Ahkwes hsne man’s reluctant return home and what it takes to heal.Abe Jacobs is Kanien’keh ka from Ahkwes hsne–or, as white people say, a Mohawk Indian from the Saint Regis Tribe. At eighteen, Abe left the reservation where he was raised and never looked back.Now forty-three, Abe is suffering from a rare disease–one his doctors in Miami believe will kill him. Running from his diagnosis and a failing marriage, Abe returns to the Rez, where he’s persuaded to undergo a healing at the hands of his Great Uncle Budge. But Budge–a wry, recovered alcoholic prone to wearing punk T-shirts–isn’t all that convincing. And Abe’s time off the Rez has made him a thorough skeptic.To heal, Abe will undertake a revelatory journey, confronting the parts of himself he’s hidden ever since he left home and learning to cultivate hope, even at his darkest hour.Delivered with crackling wit, Old School Indian is a striking exploration of the power and secrets of family, the capacity for healing and catharsis, and the ripple effects of history and culture.

Coming May 6, 2025. Pre-order now.


Mark Twain by Ron Chernow

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain

Before he was Mark Twain, he was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Born in 1835, the man who would become America’s first, and most influential, literary celebrity spent his childhood dreaming of piloting steamboats on the Mississippi. But when the Civil War interrupted his career on the river, the young Twain went west to the Nevada Territory and accepted a job at a local newspaper, writing dispatches that attracted attention for their brashness and humor. It wasn’t long before the former steamboat pilot from Missouri was recognized across the country for his literary brilliance, writing under a pen name that he would immortalize.

In this richly nuanced portrait of Mark Twain, acclaimed biographer Ron Chernow brings his considerable powers to bear on a man who shamelessly sought fame and fortune, and crafted his persona with meticulous care. After establishing himself as a journalist, satirist, and lecturer, he eventually settled in Hartford with his wife and three daughters, where he went on to write The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He threw himself into the hurly-burly of American culture, and emerged as the nation’s most notable political pundit. At the same time, his madcap business ventures eventually bankrupted him; to economize, Twain and his family spent nine eventful years in exile in Europe. He suffered the death of his wife and two daughters, and the last stage of his life was marked by heartache, political crusades, and eccentric behavior that sometimes obscured darker forces at play.

Drawing on Twain’s bountiful archives, including thousands of letters and hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, Chernow masterfully captures the man whose career reflected the country’s westward expansion, industrialization, and foreign wars, and who was the most important white author of his generation to grapple so fully with the legacy of slavery. Today, more than one hundred years after his death, Twain’s writing continues to be read, debated, and quoted. In this brilliant work of scholarship, a moving tribute to the writer’s talent and humanity, Chernow reveals the magnificent and often maddening life of one of the most original characters in American history.

Coming May 13, 2025. Pre-order now.


Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson

An unexpected road trip across America brings a family together, in this raucous and moving new novel from the bestselling author of Nothing to See Here.

Ever since her dad left them twenty years ago, it’s been just Madeline Hill and her mom on their farm in Coalfield, Tennessee. While it’s a bit lonely, she sometimes admits, and a less exciting life than what she imagined for herself, it’s mostly okay. Mostly.

Then one day Reuben Hill pulls up in a PT Cruiser and informs Madeline that he believes she’s his half sister. Reuben—left behind by their dad thirty years ago—has hired a detective to track down their father and a string of other half siblings. And he wants Mad to leave her home and join him for the craziest kind of road trip imaginable to find them all.

As Mad and Rube—and eventually the others—share stories of their father, who behaved so differently in each life he created, they begin to question what he was looking for with every new incarnation. Who are they to one another? What kind of man will they find? And how will these new relationships change Mad’s previously solitary life on the farm?

Infused with deadpan wit, zany hijinks, and enormous heart, Run for the Hills is a sibling story like no other—a novel about a family forged under the most unlikely circumstances and united by hope in an unknown future.

Coming May 13, 2025. Pre-order now.


Spent: A Comic Novel by Alison Bechdel

The celebrated and beloved New York Times bestselling author of the modern classic Fun Home presents a laugh-out-loud, brilliant, and passionately political work of autofiction.

In Alison Bechdel’s hilariously skewering and gloriously cast new comic novel confection, a cartoonist named Alison Bechdel, running a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont, is existentially irked by a climate-challenged world and a citizenry on the brink of civil war. She wonders: Can she pull humanity out of its death spiral by writing a scathingly self-critical memoir about her own greed and privilege?

Meanwhile, Alison’s first graphic memoir about growing up with her father, a taxidermist who specialized in replicas of Victorian animal displays, has been adapted into a highly successful TV series. It’s a phenomenon that makes Alison, formerly on the cultural margins, the envy of her friend group (recognizable as characters, now middle-aged and living communally in Vermont, from Bechdel’s beloved comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For).

As the TV show Death and Taxidermy racks up Emmy after Emmy—and when Alison’s Pauline Bunyanesque partner Holly posts an instructional wood-chopping video that goes viral—Alison’s own envy spirals. Why couldn’t she be the writer for a critically lauded and wildly popular reality TV show…like Queer Eye…showing people how to free themselves from consumer capitalism and live a more ethical life?!!

Spent’s rollicking and masterful denouement—making the case for seizing what’s true about life in the world at this moment, before it’s too late—once again proves that “nobody does it better” (New York Times Book Review) than the real Alison Bechdel.

Coming May 20, 2025. Pre-order now.


Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher

From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes Hemlock & Silver, a dark reimagining of “Snow White” steeped in poison, intrigue, and treason of the most magical kind

Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.

Not to die, but to save—seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.

But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.

Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.

Or it might be the thing that kills them all.

Coming August 19, 2025. Pre-order now.

April 2025 Staff Pick: Isola

Isola by Allegra Goodman, picked by Assistant Manager Sara

Sara, pictured with Isola by Allegra Goodman, in front of Field Theory by Tory Mata at The Studios of Key West.

Isola by Allegra Goodman is based on the true story of a young woman who sails from France to the New World in 1542 and is abandoned on an island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with her forbidden lover and nurse. This was a historical fiction read that was easy to get wrapped up in.

Marguerite de La Rocque de Roberval, a French noblewoman, who in the mid-sixteenth century grew up destined for a life of prosperity, is orphaned and left with her guardian – her uncle, a volatile and self centered man, who spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on his new adventure to New France. During this adventure you learn more about her character and who on the ship can be trusted. As Marguerite challenges her uncle, you can’t help but cheer her on as she keeps her loved ones safe even when faced over and over again with adversity. When she is left by her uncle on an uninhabited island, you immerse yourself in her journey of self-discovery, courage and strength as she is in the mercy of nature to survive. Battling hunger, lack of resources, adverse weather conditions, she searches for tools to build their new home. You will be delighted as she finds the little joys in this secluded place and how she embraces a faith that she never had before. 

This book has it all – a woman fighting for survival in this timeless story about love, resilience and finding the strength within to survive against all odds. I mean, she even fights a bear!

~ Sara

Independent Bookstore Day 2025

Join us Saturday, April 26, for the biggest indie bookstore party of the year!

Plan to join us or the indie bookstore in your neighborhood on Saturday, April 26 for Independent Bookstore Day. Bookstore Day is a nationwide celebration of what makes indie bookstores special – and of the people who love them.

Can’t join us in Key West? Find your local participating store on this interactive Bookstore Day map.

Here in Key West, expect, mimosas, freebies, a couple of raffles, and, of course, the Bookstore Day exclusives.

Our party will include:

  • A Libro.fm Golden Ticket! One lucky customer will win 12 audiobook credits. In store only, must be present to win.
  • Mimosas, while supplies last.
  • Free book with any purchase plus other assorted freebies.
  • Entry into our In-store Basket of Books Raffle with any purchase (must be picked up in-store) or entry into our Online & Phone Mystery Box Raffle with any purchase (will ship, U.S. addresses only).
  • Watch for a big sale from our audiobook partner, Libro.fm.

And, join us for Spirit Week! We’ll special promos going all week!

April is Poetry Month

Organized by the Academy of American Poets and celebrated each year since 1996, Poetry Month is designed to celebrate poetry and encourage people to read and write poetry.

Looking for ways to engage more with poetry? The Academy has a suggested list of 30 poetry-based activities at https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/30-ways-celebrate-national-poetry-month, including the opportunity to sign up for their poem-a-day email for April.

According to the National Poetry Month website, the most read contemporary poem in 2024 was “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye from her book Honeybee.

At the store, our recent favorites include Bicycles, love poems by Nikki Giovanni, who passed away late last year. Read Lori’s review of Bicycles in our online newsletter, check out our poetry section and display in store, or share your favorite with us on our social media.

And, if you’re looking for another way to experience poetry, try an audiobook. Find a great selection of poetry audiobooks at https://libro.fm/genres/poetry.

Here’s a few titles we’re reading and recommending for poetry month:

Arab American Heritage Month

April is Arab American Heritage Month, celebrating the contributions of Arab peoples to the history, traditions and cultures of the United States. Here are a few of the books we are reading and recommending:

The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.

Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher—her female teacher—she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can’t yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don’t matter, and it’s easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: When Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?
 
From that moment on, Lamya makes sense of her struggles and triumphs by comparing her experiences with some of the most famous stories in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh needed to construct his ark, begins to build a life of her own—ultimately finding that the answer to her lifelong quest for community and belonging lies in owning her identity as a queer, devout Muslim immigrant.
 
This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning Lamya’s childhood to her arrival in the United States for college through early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one’s own life.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.

As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage.

This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time.

Arabiyya: Recipes from the Life of an Arab in Diaspora by Reem Assil

Arabiyya celebrates the alluring aromas and flavors of Arab food and the welcoming spirit with which they are shared. Written from her point of view as an Arab in diaspora, Reem takes readers on a journey through her Palestinian and Syrian roots, showing how her heritage has inspired her recipes for flatbreads, dips, snacks, platters to share, and more. With a section specializing in breads of the Arab bakery, plus recipes for favorites such as Salatet Fattoush, Falafel Mahshi, Mujaddarra, and Hummus Bil Awarma, Arabiyya showcases the origins and evolution of Arab cuisine and opens up a whole new world of flavor.

Alongside the tempting recipes, Reem shares stories of the power of Arab communities to turn hardship into brilliant, nourishing meals and any occasion into a celebratory feast. Reem then translates this spirit into her own work in California, creating restaurants that define hospitality at all levels. Yes, there are tender lamb dishes, piles of fresh breads, and perfectly cooked rice, but there is also food for thought about what it takes to create a more equitable society, where workers and people often at the margins are brought to the center. Reem’s glorious dishes draw in readers and customers, but it is her infectious warmth that keeps them at the table.

With gorgeous photography, original artwork, and transporting writing, Reem helps readers better understand the Arab diaspora and its global influence on food and culture. She then invites everyone to sit at a table where all are welcome.

Fencing with the King by Diana Abu-Jaber

A mesmerizing breakthrough novel of family myths and inheritances by the award-winning author of Crescent.

The King of Jordan is turning 60! How better to celebrate the occasion than with his favorite pastime—fencing—and with his favorite sparring partner, Gabriel Hamdan, who must be enticed back from America, where he lives with his wife and his daughter, Amani.

Amani, a divorced poet, jumps at the chance to accompany her father to his homeland for the King’s birthday. Her father’s past is a mystery to her—even more so since she found a poem on blue airmail paper slipped into one of his old Arabic books, written by his mother, a Palestinian refugee who arrived in Jordan during World War I. Her words hint at a long-kept family secret, carefully guarded by Uncle Hafez, an advisor to the King, who has quite personal reasons for inviting his brother to the birthday party. In a sibling rivalry that carries ancient echoes, the Hamdan brothers must face a reckoning, with themselves and with each other—one that almost costs Amani her life.

With sharp insight into modern politics and family dynamics, taboos around mental illness, and our inescapable relationship to the past, Fencing with the King asks how we contend with inheritance: familial and cultural, hidden and openly contested. Shot through with warmth and vitality, intelligence and spirit, it is absorbing and satisfying on every level, a wise and rare literary treat.

Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir

From the distant past to the present, with fingers and felt-tipped pens, metallic powders and gel pots, humans have been drawn to lining their eyes. The aesthetic trademark of figures ranging from Nefertiti to Amy Winehouse, eyeliner is one of our most enduring cosmetic tools; ancient royals and Gen Z beauty influencers alike would attest to its uniquely transformative power. It is undeniably fun—yet it is also far from frivolous.

Seen through Zahra Hankir’s (kohl-lined) eyes, this ubiquitous but seldom-examined product becomes a portal to history, proof both of the stunning variety among cultures across time and space and of our shared humanity. Through intimate reporting and conversations—with nomads in Chad, geishas in Japan, dancers in India, drag queens in New York, and more—Eyeliner embraces the rich history and significance of its namesake, especially among communities of color. What emerges is an unexpectedly moving portrait of a tool that, in various corners of the globe, can signal religious devotion, attract potential partners, ward off evil forces, shield eyes from the sun, transform faces into fantasies, and communicate volumes without saying a word.

Delightful, surprising, and utterly absorbing, Eyeliner is a fascinating tour through streets, stages, and bedrooms around the world, and a thought-provoking reclamation of a key piece of our collective history.

Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems by Naomi Shihab Nye

Featuring new, never-before-published poems; an introduction by bestselling poet and author Edward Hirsch, as well as a foreword and writing tips by the poet; and stunning artwork by bestselling artist Rafael López, Everything Comes Next is essential for poetry readers, classroom teachers, and library collections.

Everything Comes Next is a treasure chest of Naomi Shihab Nye’s most beloved poems and features favorites such as “Famous” and “A Valentine for Ernest Mann” as well as widely shared pieces such as “Kindness” and “Gate A-4.” The book is an introduction to the poet’s work for new readers as well as a comprehensive edition for classroom and family sharing. Writing prompts and tips by the award-winning poet make this an outstanding choice for aspiring poets of all ages.

Plus, check out Libro.fm’s Arab American Heritage playlist and a list of Arab American narrators you may enjoy.