Why, Eh? : Adventures of an Adult Reader

It's Perfectly Normal

A couple months ago I was thrown headfirst into the vast ocean that is YA reading. Instead of choking and drowning in the dark abyss ala Jack Dawson, I found myself happily treading water. Soon after,  I was wandering around the YA aisles when I saw the book A Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth. A wonderfully magnificent book that features a young gay girl as the protagonist.

WHAT? This exists?! My entire belief system was rocked. In all my time stumbling around on this earth I never once considered that there would be young adult books with queer protagonists. WHAT HAVE I BEEN MISSING ALL THIS TIME?!  I suddenly felt like Scrooge McDuck, but nicer. I just wanted to fill a room with these books and swim in them all day long whilst happily cackling to myself.

Growing up, finding any positive queer representation in any sort of media was hard enough, let alone in books. In fact, the first queer YA book was published in 1969, a year when homosexuality was still considered a mental disorder by the American Psychatric Association. LGBTQIA+ Americans were barred from government positions, and it was considered criminal in every state but Illinois. Since then the amount of YA queer books has grown from one a year in the 70s, to seven per year in the 90s, and now roughly 50 a year.

Before finding this paradise of inclusivity, much of the media I encountered featured queer characters and themes focusing on the pain and heartbreak that comes with being a gay kid. The general story was always that not everyone is accepting and there are garbage people out there, and sometimes they are the ones closest to you, and yeah it sucks. Its terrible and damaging and frightening and sad.

But these new YA books paint a different picture. They often include the character's "coming out" and their first same sex relationship and it's so cute and nostalgic it makes my teeth rot. The great thing about  reading these now, is seeing that it is seriously okay. You'll find your own family, and you'll find people who love and support you. With all the garbage happening lately, it's critical to show that not every queer story is a tragedy. When the real world is cruel to queer people, especially queer and trans people of color, then it seems even more important to imagine worlds where it is not. It is essential to carve out spaces where being queer and happy are not seen as mutually exclusive. Of course we need stories that represent our struggles, but we also need stories to nourish us, and to comfort us in times of grief and pain.

Living in a world, even an imaginary one, centered around heterosexual love perpetuates the false and frankly dangerous belief that heterosexulaity is the norm, and anything else is alien, strange, other. Instead of reinforcing this, we should be eradicating it. There is something immensely powerful in recognizing yourself in all types of media. Diversity in YA provides role models for marginalized teens, but also creates empathy for people different than ourselves. Empathy is such a powerful tool in the fight against intolerance and bigotry. These books help with learning what it means to be a social creature, to understand how and where we fit in society.

YA books are a  microcosm for our society, because they are geared toward the next generation. The changes in YA literature reflect changes in our world. And sexuality isn’t something that springs up on people in their mid twenties. Its something we are born with. When hormones kick in and we all start frantically trying to figure out how our bodies work, queer people are trying to figure out if their longings are important in addition to all the everyday angst. This shouldn't be something queer kids finally stumble upon in their 20s while researching for a blog post. This should be something they get to read about as they're experiencing it. Instead of leaving them out in the cold these books can show them that their longings are universal. They're not lonely or isolated, they're just like everyone else, and they belong.

-Courtney

Courtney's Ultimate List of the Queerest Books 

Lesbian
Everything Leads To You by Nina Lacour
Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown
Of Fire and Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

Gay
Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger
I'll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Bisexual
Far From You by Tess Sharpe
Bi-Normal by M.G Higgins
Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee

Transgender
I Am J by Cris Beam
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
Boy Robot Simon Curtis

Queer
Brooklyn Burning by Steve Brezenoff
Girl Mans Up by M-E Girard

Intersex
Double Exposure by Bridget Birdsall
None of The Above by I. W. Gregorio

Asexual
Guardian of The Dead by Karen Healey
How To Say Goodbye In Robot by Natalie Standiford

2016 BOOKSELLER TOP TENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here they are! Our Top Ten favorite books of the year, now with bonus Seward Park lists! Remember, I don't limit these lists to books published in 2016, but all books must have been read in 2016.

Usually, when I compile this post, there are some clear favorites. Last year our obvious winner was Between the World and Me, with eight total votes. But this year our highest ranking book was Trevor Noah's Born a Crime, with only four votes. Not to imply that this year's books are only fair to middling, just that we had a lot more books with two and three votes, instead of any landslide victors. So while we couldn't solidly agree on one or two favorites, we sort of loosely settled on a whole slew of champions. And that means more options for you!

In light of our lack of focus, I give you our Fabulous, Fantastic, Fifteen Favorites of 2016!

• Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
• The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• Children of the New World: Stories by Alexander Weinstein
• Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman by Lindy West
• White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
• Bitch Planet Volume 1 by Kelly Sue Deconnick, Robert Wilson IV, Taki Soma, and Valentine De Landro
• Paper Girls by Brian K Vaughan
• After the Parade by Lori Ostlund
• Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
• The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter by Kia Corthron
• Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Check out our individual top ten list below for more of our favorite reads of 2016!
-Erin

Let's Talk About Shakespeare Related Things : Act II

Deceptively Delicious

Are you ready for my second attempt at convincing you that you should read every last word written by Shakespeare? Well, get ready.

Yup, I'm still obsessed with Shakespeare. Even if the other day my Herman Melville obsession flared up, my Shakespeare love remains strong. You might think I've got my literary ailments at cross purposes, but you'd be wrong. Turns out there's a whole lot of Shakespeare in Melville. There are those who argue that without Shakespeare, particularly   King Lear  and Macbeth, there would be no Moby Dick. When I say "those," I mean the people who write and edit Wikipedia articles.

In fact "those" same Wikipedia people claim that when Ahab finally shows up, his first long speech to the crew of the Pequod is virtually blank verse:

But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat,
That thing unsays itself. There are men
From whom warm words are small indignity.
I mean not to incense thee. Let it go.
Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn--
Living, breathing pictures painted by the sun.
The pagan leopards--the unrecking and
Unworshipping things, that live; and seek and give
No reason for the torrid life they feel!

I know, I know, blank verse, Moby Dick, I'm not really selling it for you Shakespeare virgins. Well, what if I told you that Shakespeare influenced a whole heck of a lot more than just some dusty, old book about a whale? What if I told you, that without Shakespeare, there'd be no LION KING ???!!?!?!!

Oh, yeah, now you're interested. From West Side Story (Romeo and Juliet) to Ten Things I Hate About You (Taming of the Shrew); Sons of Anarchy (Hamlet) to Breaking Bad (Macbeth...allegedly) odds are you love something Shakespeare-based and don't even know it.

So, I've put together a list with some suggestions for other things Shakespeare-based-- you won't even be able to tell. It's like that cookbook that Jerry Seinfeld's wife put out to trick kids into eating vegetables. Yup, just like that.

Romeo And/Or Juliet 

by Ryan North

O. M. G. It's a choose your own adventure book for grown ups! This one is based on Othello...kidding. It's based on Titus Andronicus.

A Thousand Acres 

by Jane Smiley

True story, King Lear is my favorite Shakespeare. This novel is based on King Lear. I had no idea. That's how non-Shakespeare-y it is. It has nothing to do with how dumb I am.

The Steep and Thorny Way 

by Cat Winters

Cat Winters is a PNW author and this YA novel takes place in Oregon, explores US history and racism, and is based on Hamlet. And it's a lady cast as our tortured, young Dane. 

Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories 

by Leon Garfield, illustrated by Michael Foreman

This one is my favorite of the bunch. A beautifully written collection of Shakespeare plays retold for little ears. It's the perfect introduction to hook them early. And there are pictures!

These titles and several others are on display at out Lake Forest Park store. The display features many of Shakespeare's greatest hits. And there are literally countless other books out there that would not exist if not for the Bard. Come on over to Lake Forest Park and see if any of these titles strike your fancy. The Shakespeare display table will be up through the end of July. My love will live on forever.

-Erin

This is Switzerland

The Presidential election is 2016 is slowly but surely killing me. The will to engage in any discourse on the political spectrum has left. Last November I was full to the brim with righteous anger and ready to match, nay, overpower all the sexism and bigotry I witnessed with my feminism and tolerance. Now I'm just resigned to, "If you sexism me, I will feminist you."

Unfortunately, I shelve the Political Science section, and escape is not that easy. 

I watched Ben Carson's book America the Beautiful : Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great,  slowly rot on my shelves, itching for the moment I could tuck them away in the back where I could forget about their sad existence.

#thatcovertho

I watched a solid handful of books about why Hillary is a sign of the apocalypse/Satan's spawn, why she is a faux feminist, etc. My favorite is this one with a neon yellow and pink cover called Unlikable by Edward Klein. Mostly because all it does is make me think of the theme song for The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (just substitute Unbreakable for Unlikable and you're all set) which puts more spring in my step than anything in that section these days.

Someone should talk to Hillary's team about adapting that song as her campaign theme. 

We as a bookstore carry books that have all sorts of ideas, political leanings and mantras. We endorse no one. But we do believe in representation and edification. Therefore, when ALL the presidential candidates release books (all 666 of them), we carry them in our store. Each and every one. We had a multitude of copies of A Time for Truth by Ted Cruz for a long time. And I dutifully made room for it on my shelves.

We sold one.

And yet, for weeks on end, whenever I went to Political Science to put out new arrivals, someone had placed Ted Cruz's book on display. And every time, I put it back on the shelf where they belong, readjusting my poor abused David Axelrod political bio. The next week someone retaliated by displaying a copy of Hard Choices in front of my display of Charles Krauthammer's book.

FIRST of all, 65% of the time what is displayed depends on how many copies we receive. If we get ten copies of a Kissinger book, it goes on display, no matter what I feel about it. The other 35% is whatever underdog I'm trying to give a boost to, or what cover is cooler. Marketing, man.

SECOND of all, even if you put a copy of Hard Choices on display in the Political Science area hoping to inspire someone to purchase said book, while I respect your choice of candidate, Hard Choices lives in the biography section. When someone stashes it somewhere it doesn't belong, some poor soul who REALLY wants to read Hillary's bio won't be able to find it.

And when other people start deciding where things go, it makes it difficult, nigh impossible, to locate books. Think of my shelving decisions as a dictatorship.

For the political minded whose minds are being melted by the 2016 Election, or if you can't find the political book you want to read because someone moved it, I give you a recommended reading list:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Or: How Thomas Cromwell did a bang up job placating Henry Tudor and getting him a different wife and literally everything he wanted until he didn't want it anymore. It's still less confusing than this election.

Or, alternatively, if you've already jumped on the Wolf Hall bandwagon and/or are sick of the fascination with Tudor England, Mantel's book about the French Revolution, A Place of Greater Safety, is equally as good, while slightly more confusing. Though I maintain that the French Revolution is still not as terrible as this election.

The Femicide Machine by Sergio Gonzalez Rodriguez

Short. Brutal. Important. Tragic.

Feminism is important. Women and girls are still being slaughtered all over the world because they are not men. Sexism is not dead. Because it's still killing women.

Smoke by Dan Vyleta

It's Dickensian and Dystopian. And get this--it's not young adult! Vyleta does an admirable job of exploring the nuances of human morality and our "sinful" nature through the premise that the human body literally smokes when it sins.

Lusting after your neighbor's wife? Smoke erupts from your body (it's color coded, by the way).

Greedy for the coins in your friend's hand? Soot stains the armpits of your shirt.

In the theme of this miserable election, just envision Donald Trump smoking every time he lies.

Shrill by Lindy West

By turns enlightening, hilarious and deeply moving, Lindy West is an important voice in the media these days. She came to our store to promote her book, and her first question from the audience was: What do you think we can expect from the 2016 election?

Lindy: Literally, I have no idea, and I don't even want to think about it.

Me neither, Lindy. Me neither.

Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow

Yes, I'm obsessed with the musical. But that's completely beside the point. I was browsing my social media, and this beautiful tumbr post popped up: Alexander Hamilton would have torn Donald Trump to pieces by now and also publicly humiliated him on multiple occasions. Read the book to find out how. Or just listen to the Cabinet Battles tracks on the soundtrack. Either way, it's a nice fantasy to live in.

-Lizzie

Grieving Through Reading

Whether reeling from personal tragedy, or the public grief of senseless violence, these books examine the beauty of life and love, the profound sadness of loss, and the importance of elegy and remembrance. 

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive.

Gratitude by Oliver Sacks

My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure. 

-Oliver Sacks

The Guardians by Sarah Manguso

Harris was a man who "played music, wrote software, wrote music, learned to drive, went to college, went to bed with girls." In "The Guardians," Manguso grieves not for family or for a lover, but for a best friend. With startling humor and candor, she paints a portrait of a friendship between a man and a woman in all its unexpected detail and shows that love and grief do not always take the shapes we expect them to.

The Men We Reaped by Jessamyn Ward

"What I meant to say was this: You will always love him. He will always love you. Even though he is not here, he was here, and no one can change that. No one can take that away from you. If energy is neither created nor destroyed, and if your brother was here with his, his humor, his kindness, his hopes, doesn't this mean that what he was still exists somewhere, even if it's not here? Doesn't it? Because in order to get out of bed this morning, this is what I had to believe about my brother... But I didn't know how to say that." -Jesmyn Ward

The Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

“A haunting chronicle of love and horrifying loss. . . . Memory, sorrow, and undying love.” -Abraham Verghese

“Stories of grief, like stories of love, are of permanent literary interest when done well. . . . Greatness reverberates from [Deraniyagala’s] simple and supple prose.” -The New York Times

“An amazing, beautiful book.” -Joan Didion

“Out of unimaginable loss comes an unimaginably powerful book. . . . I urge you to read Wave. You will not be the same person after you’ve finished.” -Will Schwalbe

“Beautiful and ravaging . . . faultless prose.”-Daily Herald

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs

Part biography, part sociological expose on poverty, race, and education; all heart. Huge, huge heart. It's an honest portrayal of the life of an eager and vibrant young man. His family and friendships; trials, struggles, and successes; researched and uncovered by his college roommate and friend. And it clearly is the work of a friend, because the sense of loss and reverence in Hobbs' words is palpable.

Even knowing the inevitable end won't stop you from barreling through to the last page. A touching elegy and rumination on the senseless loss of our young men. It's a beautiful and essential book and it will break your heart. Read it. -Erin

2015 Bookseller Top Tens!

I did it. The top tens before the end of January. And this year, in the format of one really, really, REALLY long post. We've got 28 lists of 280 (or so) great books for you. So, you have some reading to do.

Remember, our top tens do not have to be composed of books published only in the last year. If you read it this year, even if it was written and published 200 years ago, it can be on the list.

Also, new this year, I've consolidated all of our lists into one, giant, mega-top-ten list. The ten favorite books among all of us. Don't worry, all of our lists are available in their entirety after the jump.

The first four titles on the mega list had the most votes. The remaining six all had two votes each, as well as another nine titles. I chose the final six based on how much I heard coworkers talking about these books and what was said. For example, Ancillary Justice made the list over others based on the fact that I know two other booksellers who liked Ancillary Justice, just not quite enough to make their top ten. Negative comments overheard about books also factored in. It's a totally scientific, totally legit process. Trust me.

-Erin

Third Place Books' Definitive Best Books of 2015 

Colossal Top Ten List

1. Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates
2. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagahara
3. Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
4. Barefoot Dogs by Antonio Ruiz Camacho
5. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
6. Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh
7. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
8. Ongoingness: The End of a Diary by Sarah Manguso
9. Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton
10. The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

Click through for all our other favorites!

A New Orleans Reading Atlas

Summer travel means summer travel reading. And a trip to New Orleans means a feast of literary options. I've been reading novels, manifestos, atlases, and histories. I'm learning about levees, and funeral parades, and beignets, and bayous, and faubourgs. I have immersed myself in so much New Orleans reading, that I feel like a local... or at least a reasonably well-oriented tourist.

I try to read up on any new place I go, but New Orleans offers a richer experience than most. Its sense of place is so strong it's incapable of being confined to the page, and seems to conjure itself into being with a breath of heavy humid air, and a mournful brass note. Literary New Orleans is astounding not only in its variety but in its quality, innovation, and lyricism.

Here's my reading list.

Unfathomable City by Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedecker

This book is a brilliant reinvention of the traditional atlas, one that provides a vivid, complex look at the multi-faceted nature of New Orleans, a city replete with contradictions. More than twenty essays assemble a chorus of vibrant voices, including geographers, scholars of sugar and bananas, the city's remarkable musicians, prison activists, environmentalists, Arab and Native voices, and local experts, as well as the coauthors compelling contributions. Featuring 22 full-color two-page-spread maps, Unfathomable City plumbs the depths of this major tourist destination, pivotal scene of American history and culture and, most recently, site of monumental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill.

The innovative maps precision and specificity shift our notions of the Mississippi, the Caribbean, Mardi Gras, jazz, soils and trees, generational roots, and many other subjects, and expand our ideas of how any city is imagined and experienced. Together with the inspired texts, they show New Orleans as both an imperiled city by erosion, crime, corruption, and sea level rise and an ageless city that lives in music as a form of cultural resistance. Compact, lively, and completely original, Unfathomable City takes readers on a tour that will forever change the way they think about place.


The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

The Moviegoer is Binx Bolling, a young New Orleans stockbroker who surveys the world with the detached gaze of a Bourbon Street dandy even as he yearns for a spiritual redemption he cannot bring himself to believe in. On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, he occupies himself dallying with his secretaries and going to movies, which provide him with the "treasurable moments" absent from his real life. But one fateful Mardi Gras, Binx embarks on a hare-brained quest that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin Kate, and sends him reeling through the chaos of New Orleans' French Quarter. Wry and wrenching, rich in irony and romance, The Moviegoer is a genuine American classic.


Katrina: After the Flood by Gary Rivlin

Ten years after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana--on August 29, 2005--journalist Gary Rivlin traces the storm's immediate damage, the city of New Orleans's efforts to rebuild itself, and the storm's lasting affects not just on the city's geography and infrastructure--but on the psychic, racial, and social fabric of one of this nation's great cities.

Much of New Orleans still sat under water the first time Gary Rivlin glimpsed the city after Hurricane Katrina. Then a staff reporter for "The New York Times," he was heading into the city to survey the damage. The Interstate was eerily empty. Soldiers in uniform and armed with assault rifles stopped him. Water reached the eaves of houses for as far as the eye could see. Four out of every five houses--eighty percent of the city's housing stock--had been flooded. Around that same proportion of schools and businesses were wrecked. The weight of all that water on the streets cracked gas and water and sewer pipes all around town and the deluge had drowned almost every power substation and rendered unusable most of the city's water and sewer system.

People living in flooded areas of the city could not be expected to pay their property taxes for the foreseeable future. Nor would all those boarded-up businesses--21,000 of the city's 22,000 businesses were still shuttered six months after the storm--be contributing their share of sales taxes and other fees to the city's coffers. Six weeks after the storm, the city laid off half its workforce--precisely when so many people were turning to its government for help. Meanwhile, cynics both in and out of the Beltway were questioning the use of taxpayer dollars to rebuild a city that sat mostly below sea level. How could the city possibly come back? 

This book traces the stories of New Orleanians of all stripes--politicians and business owners, teachers and bus drivers, poor and wealthy, black and white--as they confront the aftermath of one of the great tragedies of our age and reconstruct, change, and in some cases abandon a city that's the soul of this nation.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

First published in 1899, this beautiful, brief novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banished for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early vision of woman's emancipation. This sensuous book tells of a woman's abandonment of her family, her seduction, and her awakening to desires and passions that threaten to consume her. Originally entitled "A Solitary Soul," this portrait of 28 year-old Edna Pontellier is a landmark in American fiction, rooted firmly in the romantic tradition of Herman Melville and Emily Dickinson.


Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza

In the aftermath of Katrina and the disaster that followed, promises were made, forgotten, and renewed. Now what will become of New Orleans in the years ahead? What do this proud, battered city and its people mean to America and the world?

Award-winning author and longtime New Orleans resident Tom Piazza illuminates the storied culture and uncertain future of this great and neglected American metropolis by evoking the sensuous rapture of the city that gave us jazz music and Creole cooking; examining its deep undercurrents of corruption, racism, and injustice; and explaining how its people endure and transcend those conditions. And, perhaps most important, he asks us all to consider the spirit of this place and all the things it has shared with the world: its grace and beauty, resilience and soul.

-Erin

Back To School...Yay?

I think I can hear exuberant cheers, and sighs of dread in equal measure. It's back-to-school time, and some people seem to be really excited about it, while others are decidedly not. Actually, funny story, today I was ringing up a young fellow who was buying a book I know is on one of the school reading lists, and as he walked out the doors, he audibly groaned. Hopefully merely in response to being told what to read, and not reading in general.

At any rate, we've got a whole bunch of suggestions for getting everyone ready for the new school year.

This one is Patti's favorite, she says it's great for getting kids used to the hustle and bustle of a busy, noisy school.:

Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes

Pete the Cat is back—and this time he’s rocking in his school shoes. Pete discovers the library, the lunchroom, the playground, and lots of other cool places at school. And no matter where he goes, Pete never stops moving and grooving and singing his song . . . because it’s all good.

Emily and I totally agree that Ramona Quimby, Age 8 it the go-to back-to-school book.

Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
Ramona's job is to be nice to fussy Mrs. Kemp, who watches her while her mother works. If Mrs. Quimby didn't work, Mr. Quimby couldn't return to college. On top of all that, third grade isn't turning out as Ramona expected. Danny the Yard Ape teases her and, on one horrible day, she throws up—at school. Being eight isn't easy, but it's never dull!

But back-to-school isn't just for the kids. Want to relive those heady first days of college, away from home, coming of age?...well, maybe not.  But too bad! There's a whole genre out there all about growing up, moving on, learning lessons; the Campus Novel.

We've got a display at Ravenna featuring some of the best campus novels out there.  And here's a list (MORE LISTS!) of The 50 Greatest Campus Novels. Note: Ami and I would like to make an addendum to this list and include Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, because it is the essential campus novel.

My Education by Susan Choi

Regina Gottlieb had been warned about Professor Nicholas Brodeur long before arriving as a graduate student at his prestigious university high on a pastoral hill. He’s said to lie in the dark in his office while undergraduate women read couplets to him. He’s condemned on the walls of the women’s restroom, and enjoys films by Roman Polanski. But no one has warned Regina about his exceptional physical beauty—or his charismatic, volatile wife.

My Education is the story of Regina’s mistakes, which only begin in the bedroom, and end—if they do—fifteen years in the future and thousands of miles away. By turns erotic and completely catastrophic, Regina’s misadventures demonstrate what can happen when the chasm between desire and duty is too wide to bridge.

Zuleika Dobson: Or, and Oxford Love Story by Max Beerbohm
Sir Henry Maximilian “Max” Beerbohm was, like his friend Oscar Wilde, such an acclaimed wit (and essayist, caricaturist, and parodist) that George Bernard Shaw dubbed him “the incomparable Max.” But Beerbohm’s comic masterpiece Zuleika Dobson—one of the Modern Library’s top 100 English-language novels of the twentieth century—is the only novel he ever wrote. 

Strangely out of print in the United States for years, this crackling farce is nonetheless as piercing and fresh as when it first appeared in 1911: a hilarious dismantling of academia and privilege, and a swashbuckling lampooning of class systems and notions of masculine virtue.

The all-male campus of Oxford—Beerbohm’s alma mater—is a place where aesthetics holds sway above all else, and where witty intellectuals reign. Things haven’t changed for its privileged student body for years . . . until the beguiling music-hall prestidigitator Zuleika Dobson shows up.

The book’s marvelous prose dances along the line between reality and the absurd as students and dons alike fall at Zuleika’s feet, and she cuts a wide swath across the campus—until she encounters one young aristocrat for whom she is astonished to find she has feelings.

As Zuleika, and her creator, zero in on their targets, the book takes some surprising and dark twists on its way to a truly startling ending—an ending so striking that readers will understand why Virginia Woolf said that “Mr. Beerbohm in his way is perfect.”

Listing Lists

The last thing you probably need is a list of books to read. If you're at all like me, you already have a precariously teetering stack of to-read books on your nightstand (a precariously teetering stack that seems to grow on its own at a rather alarming rate). And you've probably got plenty of friends telling you to read this or that book next. Or maybe it's a list of things to be read for school. Well, I joyfully disregard your overabundance of books to read, and add to it with this list of lists.

From the New York Times Bestseller List to the Indie Bound Next List, there's no shortage of lists offering reading suggestions. But I argue that there is a shortage of truly original and interesting lists. I don't want a list of books I already know I should be reading. I want a list of books I've never even considered reading, or better yet, never even heard of. So here are a few of the lists I've come across that offer up a different kind of book. Pay no attention to the numbering, these aren't in any particular order.

1. New York Review of Books: NYRB Classics
Ok, so I'm starting this list about lists with not so much a list but more of an endorsement for an entire line of books. The NYRB Classics imprint has published hundreds of titles since it first released A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes in 1999. NYRB Classics rescues books from oblivion, returning works to print that have been wrongly forgotten, or offering translations previously unavailable in English. Some of my very favorite books come from this series... *cough, cough* Stoner *cough, cough* Added bonus, NRYBs are beautiful, both their signature covers and all lined up chromatically on a shelf.

2. Flavorwire Books
So, the second entry on my list of lists isn't a list either, but a source for great lists. If you are looking for an interesting and original list of books to read, this is the place. As evidence, I offer this perfect list of 25 Books that Tell You Everything You Need to Know About New York. This list contains a couple of NYRB Classics, naturally, but it also has my new favorite book, Dancer from the Dance by Andrew Holleran (fair warning, if you read this blog with any regularity, be prepared to hear much, much more about Dancer from the Dance). More evidence of Flavorwire's list superiority...50 Excellent Novels by Female Writers Under 50 That Everyone Should Read. While their listmaking may be top notch, I will concede that perhaps shorter list titles may be in order.

3. Powell's Books, 25 Books You Must Read Before You Die
Hey, look! An actual list! I'm a bookseller, I trust other booksellers. Especially these booksellers.

...and speaking of booksellers...

4. Third Place Books, Bookseller Top Tens
Don't forget our year-end lists. Shameless plug. With such a large staff of people with wildly differing reading tastes, you're bound to come across something interesting

5. The Daphne Awards Shortlist
This one is pretty amazing, and maybe my favorite of the lists. Bookslut has created an award in order to determine the best book of the year...from 50 years ago. The argument being that maybe it takes a little longer than 365 days to determine what book will actually stand the test of time. And it's a good argument if you consider this: 1963 saw the release of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, but it was John Updike's The Centaur (WHAT!??!?) that won the National Book Award, and there wasn't even a Pulitzer Prize for fiction awarded that year. Not to mention the complete disregard of James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time by all of the awards. Here is what Bookslut founder Jessa Crispin has to say:

Book awards, for the most part, celebrate mediocrity. It takes decades for the reader to catch up to a genius book, it takes years away from hype, publicity teams, and favoritism to see that some books just aren't that good.

Here's more of that interview from Melville House.  AND  here is the shortlist for the Daphne Awards set to be announced later this month.

6. Book Riot, Ten Best Top 100 Books Lists
Clearly, this strange need to list and rank other ranked lists isn't limited to just me. Here is a great list of other great lists. Of note, one of the few lists of best nonfiction. And I particularly love the 100 Favorite Novels of Librarians which features over 40 works written by women, as compared to the Modern Library Best 100 Novels of the 20th Century, which only has nine works written by women.

So there you have it. Some interesting lists for your perusal. Now get reading.