Summer 2026—Books We Are Reading, Have Read, Recommend, or Want You to Read

Staff picks are available for purchase in our store and online!

Terrence’s Picks

Footprints in the Woods by John Lister-Kaye

John Lister-Kaye checks in on the critters by the riverbank: otters, beavers, badgers, spine-martens. The forest teems with life, is beautiful, bloody, quiet.

Shifting the Silence by Etel Adnan
 
The first Etel Adnan book I read -like her drawings- the ocean shimmers into view, Mt. Shasta, wars, deaths of strangers and friends, an entire life of love.

Lisa’s Picks

Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann
 
Originally published in 1985, Lemann’s first novel has recently been stunningly reissued by NYRB with a charming introduction by Geoff Dyer who calls it “a very drifty book.” And drifty it is indeed as we wander & stumble through an unlikely love affair in an unlikely city that will quite simply break your heart.

Kafka Was the Rage by Anatole Broyard

Set in Greenwich Village in the late 40’s, Broyard’s tiny enchanting memoir about bohemian life after the war is a valentine to books (and bookstores) and New York City once upon a time ago when “…our feelings about books went beyond love. It was as if we didn’t know where we ended and books began.”

Will’s Picks

Century of Clouds by Bruce Boone

A cheerful, discursive book that partly narrates Boone’s experience at a Marxist conference in the Midwest in the 70s, and his “novitiate days” as a young, gay monastic. For Boone writing is a form of friendship and endless self-critique.

A Tiler’s Afternoon by Lars Gustafsson

I read this novella at the recommendation of a customer, who called it “a perfect book.” It’s a funny and blunt take on the modernist tradition of novels that take place over the course of a day.

Matthew’s Picks

Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchette
 
In the 1960s and 70s, the writer Jean-Patrick Manchette was known for reinventing the french crime thriller, pushing a historically right-wing genre towards left-wing ideals and social criticism. In his 1972 novel, “Nada”, a ragtag bunch of French anarchists hatch a plot to kidnap the American ambassador from a brothel in Paris and broadcast their manifesto to the world. The resulting caper is dizzying and blood-red. I couldn’t help but devour “Nada” in an evening.

What is Sex by Alenka Zupancic
 
In her theoretically dense, but highly readable, “What is Sex?”, the Slovenian philosopher Alenka Zupancic gets to the heart of why sexuality seems to seep into everything we do. Or as Zupancic twists it, how sexuality is the “not-nothing” at the center of every subject. Zupancic’s writing, clear and incisive, weaves together intimidating philosophical and psychoanalytic ideas and situates them in real world examples. The title is an enigma that is often taken for granted. One only needs to read the opening quote to be hooked on the mystery.

Hayley’s Picks

My Life in the CIA by Harry Mathews

I chose this book because it brings together two interests of mine — the Oulipo (the French literary group that has included Calvino, Perec, and Harry Mathews, who was the first American member) and spies, but I’d also recommend it to anyone who’s interested in global events of 1973, autobiographical novels, or creating elaborate games for yourself.

Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere by Jan Morris

A personal and impressionistic history of the city on the Adriatic Sea where all one’s favorite writers have drifted through, it’s also about the state of feeling upside-down, in-between and nowhere, and finding yourself feeling the most at home in that state. After reading this I am almost not sure I should ever visit Trieste, for fear of disturbing the Trieste of my imagination. No, I take that back — pack my bags.