Tag: book recommendation

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

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:

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:

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator)

Sayaka Murata has proven herself to be one of the most exciting chroniclers of the strangeness of society, x-raying our contemporary world to bizarre and troubling effect. Her depictions of a happily unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman convinced she is an alien in Earthlings have endeared her to millions of readers worldwide. Vanishing World takes Murata’s universe to a bold new level, imagining an alternative Japan where attitudes to sex and procreation are wildly different to our own.

As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents “copulated” in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange “system” by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable. As an adult in an appropriately sexless marriage–sex between married couples is now considered as taboo as incest–Amane and her husband Saku decide to go and live in a mysterious new town called Experiment City or Paradise-Eden, where all children are raised communally, and every person is considered a Mother to all children. Men are beginning to become pregnant using artificial wombs that sit outside of their bodies like balloons, and children are nameless, called only “Kodomo-chan.” Is this the new world that will purify Amane of her strangeness once and for all?

Coming April 15, 2025. Pre-order now.


Atavists: Stories by Lydia Millet

The word atavism, coined by a botanist and popularized by a criminologist, refers to the resurfacing of a primitive evolutionary trait or urge in a modern being. This inventive collection from Lydia Millet offers overlapping tales of urges ranging from rage to jealousy to yearning—a fluent triumph of storytelling, rich in ideas and emotions both petty and grand.

The titular atavists include an underachieving, bewildered young bartender; a middle-aged mother convinced her gentle son-in-law is fixated on geriatric porn; a bodybuilder with an incel’s fantasy life; an arrogant academic accused of plagiarism; and an empty-nester dad determined to host refugees in a tiny house in his backyard.

As they pick away at the splitting seams in American culture, Millet’s characters shimmer with the sense of powerlessness we share in an era of mass overwhelm. A beautician in a waxing salon faces a sudden resurgence of grief in the midst of a bikini Brazilian; a couple sets up a camera to find out who’s been slipping homophobic letters into their mailbox; a jilted urban planner stalks a man she met on a dating app.

In its rich warp and weft of humiliations and human error, Atavists returns to the trenchant, playful social commentary that made A Children’s Bible a runaway hit. In these stories sharp observations of middle-class mores and sanctimony give way to moments of raw exposure and longing: Atavists performs an uncanny fictional magic, full of revelation but also hilarious, unpretentious, and warm.

Coming April 22, 2025. Pre-order now.


Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin

“Do you mind me asking—what kind of help do you need?”

After losing her job and her fiancé and moving back from the city to live with her parents, Shell Pine needs some help. And according to the sign in the window, the florist shop in the mall does too. Shell gets the gig, and the flowers she works with there are just the thing she needs to cheer up. Or maybe it’s Neve, the beautiful shop manager, who is making her days so rosy?

But you have to get your hands dirty if you want your garden to grow—and Neve’s secrets are as dark and dangerous as they come. In the back room of the flower shop, a young sentient orchid actually runs the show, and he is hungry . . . and he has a plan for them all.

When the choices are to either bury yourself in the warmth of someone else’s fertile soil, or face the cold and disappointing world outside—which would you choose? And what if putting down roots came at a cost far higher than just your freedom?

This is a story about desire, dreams, decay—and working retail at the end of the world.

Coming April 22, 2025. Pre-order now.


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.

March 2025 Staff Pick: Water Moon

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao, picked by Bookseller Camila

“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.” ~ from the Water Moon book jacket

Sometimes a choice weighs heavy on your soul. What if you had the opportunity to “pawn” your biggest regret and erase that choice and all its repercussions from your life? Would you do it? Which choice would you pawn?

Hana Ishikawa wakes up a little groggy after an evening of celebrating her father’s retirement. This would be her first day taking over the pawnshop that has been in her family for generations. As she heads down the stairs to the eerily quiet shop, she realizes something is amiss. The pawnshop is ransacked, her father is nowhere to be seen, the front door is open, and a choice is missing… through the open door a stranger appears and offers assistance.

Water Moon is a magical journey through a fantastical world created by Samantha Sotto Yambao. Readers will get lost in this beautifully written whimsical fantasy, reminiscent of Studio Ghibli films. Water Moon is a heartfelt tale about love, loss, and the weight of choices. Let your imagination soar like the origami cranes that whisk Hana & Keishin off on their journey through her world to find her missing father, and along the way, solve a heartbreaking mystery from her past. If you enjoy well written fantasy and imaginative world building, this is a must read! I loved this book!

February 2025 Staff Pick – Bicycles: Love Poems

Bicycles: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni (William Morrow), picked by Bookseller Lori

I’ve enjoyed the poetry of Ms. Giovanni for over 50 years! In this collection, the poems are erotic, introspective and bold. I see the bicycle as a metaphor for the ways in which we move ourselves away from the past, through the present, and into the future.

Favorites: I Am the Ocean, Bicycles, and Love (and the Meaning of Love).

Our Words are Labors of Love: Celebrating Black History Month

Celebrate Black History Month

This year’s Black History Month theme, from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, is African Americans and Labor, celebrating and investigating the many ways work is critical to an understanding of the experiences, history and culture of Black people in the United States.

Our display centers the wide range of experiences and expression in the work of the literary life. Here are a few of the titles we are reading and recommending for Black History Month this year:

Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry and illustrated by Vashti Harrison

There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free by Lee Hawkins

The Blackwoods by Brandy Colbert

Let Us March On by Shara Moon

A Passionate Mind in Relentless Pursuit: The Vision of Mary McLeod Bethune by Noliwe Rooks

Romance is in the Air

Historical, mythological, sports-themed or contemporary, full of fake dating, mistaken identity, miscommunication and grand gestures, there’s a romance for every reader. Some of them even have sprayed edges!

Here are a few of the romances we are reading and recommending:

Unromance by Erin Connor

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

Bull Moon Rising (Royal Artifactual Guild #1) by Ruby Dixon

Scythe & Sparrow: The Ruinous Love Trilogy by Brynne Weaver (out Feb. 11)

This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune

Spiral (Off the Ice #2) by Bal Khabra

Triple Sec by TJ Alexander

I Think They Love You by Julian Winters

January 2025 Staff Pick: The Safekeep

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden (Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster), picked by store co-founders Judy Blume & George Cooper

George raved about this novel so I had to see for myself. And I came away equally enthusiastic. It’s dark and different.

~ Judy

It’s 1961, the terrible war with a German occupation has settled into the past, and Isabel is living alone in the family home in the East of Holland, a house she shared with her mother until the mother’s recent death. Title to the house is held by her uncle, who has no interest in living there, nor do her two brothers, who have busy lives elsewhere.

But the uncle still believes the house will be for the older brother Louis once he marries and begins a family. So when Louis asks Isabel to take in his new girlfriend Eva for a short time, she feels compelled to do so, even though she finds the girl crude and unpleasant.

Thus begins a tale with more twists than a plate of fusilli, and a political revelation that will shake your beliefs in the humanity of the Dutch.

~ George

Books to Launch 2025

If you’re looking to take up a new hobby in 2025 or shake up your regular routines, there’s a book for that!

Assistant manager Sara, writes, “With The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin, I found myself going back to it whenever I needed a little inspiration. It is an extraordinary book that captures the practice of creating.” Read her April 2024 review.

Here’s a short list of books to help you expand your reading life, or add a few new recipes to your repertoire, or destress by coloring or journaling:

Read These Banned Books: A Journal and 52-Week Reading Challenge from the American Library Association by American Library Association (ALA)

Easy Weeknight Dinners by Emily Weinstein & New York Times Cooking

Leaf, Cloud, Crow: A Weekly Backyard Journal by Margaret Renkl

Shitty Craft Club by Sam Reece, photographed by Lizzie Darden

1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round by Jami Attenberg

Secret Garden: 10th Anniversary Special Edition by Johanna Basford

Start Where You Are: A Journal for Self-Exploration by Meera Lee Patel

Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount

Bonus tip: A great way to read more is audiobooks. Check out Libro.fm!

Our Favorite Books of 2024

We read a lot of great books this year! We hope you did, too.

Wolf at the Table by Adam Rapp, was “hands down,” store manager Emily’s favorite book of the year. “It’s really hard to express just how incredibly special this novel is in just a few sentences… Just trust me!” she writes.

And store co-founder, Judy Blume, concurs. “I couldn’t agree more!”

Bookseller Joey’s favorite book of the year is his most anticipated book, the eagerly awaited fifth book in Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series, Wind and Truth. Joey is sure he’ll love it!

This year, we read books to help you understand the current moment, shape the current moment, and escape the current moment.

Co-founder George Cooper writes of The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson, “There’s nothing so interesting as reading a history of a profound event when you have an uncomfortable dread that you are living through a run-up to its successor.” Read George’s full review.

Sara, our assistant manager, found inspiration in The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. “One takeaway from the book is that we are all creators of something in our daily lives,” she writes. “It does a great job capturing the sacred practice of trusting one’s own intuition and being free to experiment with finding ways to express yourself. My favorite quote from the book reads, Look for what you notice but no one else sees.” Read Sara’s full review.

If you’re a regular reader of our newsletter, you’ve seen a number of these titles before. Several of our favorites were monthly featured staff picks. (Click the book cover for a link to the review.)

Social media manager Robin recommends We Solve Murders by Richard Osman as a Libro.fm audiobook.

Bookseller Camila really loved James by Percival Everett, but she also has a few bonus picks for you:

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig

The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

What did you read and love this year?