Hardback

This beautiful exploration of the essential queerness of nature gave me one of those deliciously transformative reading experiences where it feels like the book’s in conversation with your life, from a passage about caterpillars’ imaginal cells, amazing to hear after using the same metamorphic metaphor for my own life recently to a chapter about cicadas and “queering time,” the day after finding a beautiful fresh cicada husk! Euphoria, indeed.

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Hardback

One of the most inventive, clever, and spellbinding fairy tale retellings I’ve read in years—grown up fans of Ella Enchanted, T. Kingfisher, Naomi Novik, and Rachel Hartman will be delighted by the knock-out potion Freya Marske has concocted out of a very rightfully enraged Cinderella, haunted houses, fairy curses, murder, sorcery, swoon-worthy queer romance, and the liberating power of being seen.

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Hardback

Soulful and raw, wise and whimsical, Something in the Woods Loves You is a memoir of severe depression, therapy and recovery, and the transformative power of our relationship with nature—a living invitation of kinship with and inspiration from the world around us. A new all-time favorite, full of passages I underlined to return to in times of need—highly recommended for fans of Mary Oliver!

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Paperback

This whimsical, warm-hearted, wonder-filled fantasy is full of found family, grumpy x grumpy romance, old spell books, the magic of home—and one conniving fox! Sangu Mandanna is a sorceress of cozy, steamy romantasy with heart and I will happily follow her to the warm hearth and unexpected lemon tea showers of Batty Hole Inn—and beyond!

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Hardback

Though sprawling, this book is a testament to the “ability of small groups of outsiders to challenge huge powers precisely because they have strengths that those powers see as weaknesses,” demonstrating how “the very people Hitler’s Reich sought to exclude or destroy were singularly equipped to defeat him,” contributing their diverse backgrounds and scholarly skills to the newborn US intelligence service and playing a pivotal role in winning WWII.

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If you’re interested in delightful, revelatory, queer historical romance starring lovable characters with fascinating period-informed passions, then I’m thrilled if I get to introduce you to Joanna Lowell! The love, adventure, and fulfillment aspiring archaeologist Elfreda and nonbinary performer Georgie discover is rich and precious indeed, and I relished learning about queer history, archaeology, and theatre in the Regency era through their romance!

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Hardback

Sarah Kay’s poems are a balm and boon companion for those of us who often find ourselves “ever-clumsy footing through the haze of this humanness…” Read and return to this radiant book when life is unbearably messy and tender, and you’ll find a friend who will sit beside you and mirror the Little Daylight Yet into new prisms and perspectives. “Knowing” is my current favorite to reread!

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Hardback

The cozy small business success story of Legends & Lattes meets the progressive sci-fi of Becky Chambers, with a flavor entirely its own, in this fresh, heartwarming tale about a motley crew of robots launching a restaurant amid PTSD, prejudice, and review bombing in a future post-war San Francisco. I ATE this book UP and already miss the team at Automatic Noodle and all the friendship, pride, and love found at the bottom of a bowl of their famous biang biang noodles!

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Hardback

T. Kingfisher’s spellbinding dark fairy tales never miss! Hemlock & Silver is a mysterious, surprising, and satisfying twist on the classic fairy tale of Snow White, in an immersive world all its own, starring a mid-30s spinster poison expert, a gruff bodyguard, the scientific method, and the most unsettling magic mirror you’ll ever face! I loved this one and think it will please fans of Nettle & Bone like me!

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Hardback

Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Charlie Jane Anders casts her most powerful spell here—transforming the raw ingredients of grief, generational trauma, smear campaigns, and transphobia, with queer love, community organizing, and the heart’s truest desires to craft a deeply relevant, resonant, painful, and healing masterwork, charged through with unwavering realism and unwieldy magic, and an 18th century literary mystery bubbling up from below!

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Hardback

An absolute masterpiece, this book-within-a-book follows a disabled Nigerian-American author as she skyrockets to fame—and the main character of her book, Ankara, a “rusted robot” and android scholar on a post-human Earth. Disability, identity, family, fame, what it means to be the author of your own story, Okorafor offers a rich and razor sharp exploration of it all in Death of the Author, with an ending that made me want to start all over again!

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Hardback

The traditional magic British boarding school like you’ve never seen it before—through the eyes of the highly competent, over-worked Director of Magic who has to keep a centuries-old campus and its reckless students safe from the demons her own power runs off. I loved seeing one of my all-time favorite tropes turned on its head, with a badass bisexual magician at the helm! Highly recommended for fans of the Scholomance trilogy & Magic for Liars.

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Hardback

8 fairy tales by the woman who coined the term are presented in a fresh translation by foremost fairy scholar Jack Zipes and reinterpreted in full color illustrations that vary from enchanting to grotesque by Natalie Frank. At their best, you can easily see the line from Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy to Angela Carter and beyond, but some definitely feel more relevant and provocative than others. I was glad to get to read them for the first time in this format!

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A wryly funny, complex, and lovable queer cast of characters ground this ambitious and engaging exploration of how humans respond to the unknown and to the crucible of social media celebrity—ultimately resonating deeply as a celebration of curiosity, found family, and online community. Recommended for fans of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow!

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Hardback

This reader will follow R.F. Kuang anywhere, even to Hell and (hopefully) back, hot on the heels of two rival Cambridge students who must bring their advisor back from the dead to graduate. Katabasis is the ultimate dark academia fantasy about the denial of the flesh, hellish demands, and deals with the devil it can take to ascend the ivory tower, to live “the life of the mind”—but above all, a romantic revelation about what really makes life magical.

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Paperback

A lady left with only half a soul by the High Fae meets a grumpy sorcerer with a heart of gold in this utterly charming and delightfully unexpected Regency-era fairy tale. Sorcery, social justice, slowburn romance, found family, and an encouraging message about what makes life worth living in an unjust society makes this highly recommended for fans of The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst, Uprooted by Naomi Novik, & The Midnight Bargain by C. L. Polk!

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Paperback

This collection of eight spellbinding fairy tales is the work of the English writer Mary De Morgan (1850–1907), a women's suffragist, animal rights activist, and socialist whose politics informed her remarkable fairy tales, known for their feminism, criticism of mass production, and deviations from the traditional "happily ever afters" of the form. All of the above are on grand display in this collection of fairy tales, in which: a wicked princess practices dark magic to turn her undesirable suitors into beads on her beautiful necklace; a baker makes a deal with an imp to produce perfect, plentiful loaves that'll make him rich but everyone who eats them absolutely miserable; three kings run away to learn traditional trades and live happily ever after; and a wise princess who can talk to animals and turn enemies to stone searches for an answer to the question of how to be happy.

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Hardback

My father-in-law recently asked me why I cry. I burst out laughing— isn’t it obvious? Then I picked up The Art of Crying! This illustrated work of graphic nonfiction blends history, science, and memoir to explore why, in a world of over 2 million animals, humans are the only species who shed tears emotionally. It turns out that asking why we cry is a great question—with an extraordinary answer that reveals the beauty, mystery, and power of tears.

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If you love sharp-fanged Fairylands, twisted court politics, enemies-to-lovers, and a heroine as hard-nosed, badass, and morally gray as she is secretly loyal and true-hearted, you’ll love the Folk of the Air series! I particularly relished how this trilogy reflects on and interweaves childhood trauma, romantic relationships, and power dynamics, all while being fun, surprising, and a little feral the whole time.

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Do you have a story to tell? For over 25 years, The Moth has been bringing masterful storytellers to stages and radios across the country, and in this book they finally put their process of sourcing, shaping, and performing stories onto the page for all. How to Tell a Story reminded me why I believe in the power of stories to change the world, it made me more confident to tell my own, and it gave me the tools to tell my story and be heard.

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Hardback

Your favorite author’s favorite authors are here rediscovered, read, and collected by America’s favorite rare bookseller, Rebecca Romney! For centuries, we’ve hailed Jane Austen as the sole woman literary genius of her era…so why have we been spurning her favorite books by fellow women writers for nearly as long? Romney invites readers on a thrillingly feminist literary adventure as she searches for the books Jane Austen had on her shelf, the women who wrote them, and how they disappeared from the literary canon. Along the way, Romney offers her guidance as a rare bookseller, and, as a reader and collector herself, shares her delight in discovering new favorite authors, new depths to Austen’s novels, and desirable editions of both, ultimately showing, as she builds a bookshelf of her own, how you can develop your own distinct collection too.

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Hardback

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” —a direct quote from your new classic lit crush! Northanger Abbey is a clever, comical, and loving send-up of the gothic novel, starring an inexperienced, book-loving heroine who always thinks she’s about to be thrown into the plot of her current page-turner and a pining know-it-all hero whose defense of popular fiction had me swooning over 200 years later!

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Paperback

American cemeteries have inspired landscape architecture, poets like Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, and famous parks like Disneyland. They’re also potent political tools and symbols, from Arlington National Cemetery to the separate African American Graveyard at Monticello. The strange, surprising story of the American cemetery comes alive in this tour across the country, from Savannah to Sleepy Hollow to Hollywood, with journalist, veteran, and former grave digger Greg Melville at the wheel of the hearse!

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A new way to move forward in societal and personal transformation, inspired by the science-fiction of Octavia Butler, in Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown invites us to shape the future we want to see through accepting and influencing the natural state of flux of the world around us and inside us. This book feels like an ongoing collaboration more than a manifesto, but I found it well-structured and self-aware and left inspired and excited.

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This pocket guide to preserving our freedoms and resisting authoritarianism, penned by Yale historian of fascism Timothy Snyder, takes lessons from the fall of democracies across Europe in the 20th Century, each posing a warning to us now in the 21st Century. A brief but mind blowing, eye-opening read that left me feeling sobered and empowered by these lessons from history. Since finishing it, I’ve seen several of the “lessons” in action...

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