The ultimate book recommendation list

What indie booksellers in New York are reading and recommending

Last week, I had the pleasure of stopping by ten beloved indie bookstores across New York to drop off early copies of my debut novel Kitten. Booksellers are the original (and still some of the most powerful) book ‘influencers’… nothing beats walking into a bookstore, telling a member of staff what you like to read, and receiving an immediate and enthusiastically curated list of titles you’ve never heard before. I always get a bit nervous pressing my novel into the hands of a stranger, but booksellers make it easy. Even if Kitten isn’t to their taste, chances are they know someone on their team who might lap it up.

My editor Miriam and I spent two days moseying through Brooklyn and Manhattan with a bag full of proofs and kitten-shaped candies I imported from the UK. Hats off to my UK publicist Bella for this idea - everybody appreciates a sweet treat, and leave it to the British to have an animal-shaped snack for every situation. I decided to take advantage of this idyllic tour to ask each bookseller their ultimate book recommendation. I realized not long into this effort how difficult a question this is for people who sell books for a living, but everyone was a champion about it (even if it was hard to limit the answer to just one). The result is a diverse and fascinating list of titles that I’ll be returning to time and time again.

For reader convenience, I’ve loosely categorized the recommendations.

For lovers of the strange, sad, and/or surreal…

Yeshim from Books Are Magic recommends The Body Builders by Albertine Clarke, a debut novel about the frayed borders between our bodies and minds. I have heard many good things about this book and will be picking it up!

Theresa from Center for Fiction recommends Fishbone Cinderella by Elizabeth Lim, a forthcoming novel about a mother and daughter breaking their family’s curse. This one sounds great for lovers of magical realism and intergenerational stories.

Eve from Books are Magic recommends White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link, a story collection of seven modern fairytales. This feels like it would also appeal to lovers of magical realism.

CJ from Yu and Me Books recommends Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki, a short story collection by a legend of Japanese science fiction and a countercultural icon. I read some of Suzuki’s stories in Hit Parade of Tears, and her style is unsettling and beguiling.

For those who are drawn to complex relationship dynamics…

Sydney from McNally Jackson Soho recommends Masks by Fumiko Enchi, about two men who love a woman - and the mother-in-law that is manipulating all three of them. I am thoroughly hooked by this premise. Sydney had finished it a few weeks ago, but reported that “it keeps haunting me.”

Miriam from Three Lives recommends Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette, about four sisters who find their devotion tested as they leave the familiarity of their little house for a new life in a former mill town. As a fan of books about cloistered lives and intense female bonds, I am intrigued by this one!

Books that defy simple categorization…

Phillip from Community Bookstore recommends U and I by Nicholson Baker, about the author’s relationship with his hero John Updike. I am always intrigued by books whose subject of obsessive study allows the author to explore more than they might’ve initially set out to.

Elish from Books Are Magic, Smith St recommends Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, a literary political thriller follows members of guerilla gardening collective Birnam Wood as, with the help of a charismatic tech billionaire, they undertake a new project on abandoned farmland. I haven’t read anything by Catton yet and might start here!

For those seeking a deep cut…

Patrick from Community Bookstore recommends The All of It by Jeannette Halen, a seemingly simple tale of a parishioner confiding in her priest. Patrick spoke so highly of this novel that Miriam bought a copy and I wish I did, too (but I try not to buy books when I’m traveling)! Apparently it had been out of print for a while until Ann Patchett stumbled upon it in a used bookstore, fell in love, and brought it back into public attention.

Julianne from McNally Jackson Soho recommends The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson, an adventure novel set in the late 10th century that follows the adventures of the Viking Röde Orm. She reported that there’s “a lot more humor than you’d expect from a Viking book.” The way she spoke about this book made me want to immediately pick it up… I’ve never read anything like it!

Claire from McNally Jackson Soho recommends Angels by Denis Johnson, his 1983 debut that tells the story of “three losers” and takes the reader through the dark underbelly of America.

Theresa from Yu and Me Books recommends The Postman by Bi Yu, translated from the Mandarin, about ​​a man who tries to discover the truth about his late father’s brutal death in the wake of the Sino-Japanese war. It sounds fascinating, and Theresa pointed out that it’s “less about the war and more about the people who get embroiled in the violence.”

For lovers of beautiful prose…

Enzo from McNally Jackson Seaport recommends Light Years by James Salter, about a married couple whose idyllic life is starting to crack. Enzo spoke so passionately about the “perfect, beautiful” sentences of this novel. His description reminded me a bit of how I felt about The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, a book of such delectable prose you’re tempted to re-read every line.

For fans of science fiction…

Charles from Unnameable Books recommends Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delaney, a layered, deftly written science fiction novel about a lone survivor transported to an entirely new planet. Charles spoke about how the book interrogates the complexity of language and communication, themes I love.

Jacob from Greenlight Books recommends Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer, where under the watchful eye of The Company, three characters ― Grayson, Morse and Chen ― shapeshifters, amorphous, part human, part extensions of the landscape, make their way through forces that would consume them.

JoAnn from Books Are Magic, Smith St recommends Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness, a YA science fiction series set in a dystopian world where all living creatures can hear each other’s thoughts in a stream of images, words, and sounds called Noise. She noted that it is especially “timely” for today.

For fans of non-fiction…

Jacob from Greenlight Books recommends Love in a Fucked-Up World by Dean Spade, a manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands. Jacob recommended it for the way it brings the language of activism into interpersonal relationships. I was reminded of Love in Exile by Shon Faye. The first chapter in that collection is an excellent meditation on the ways our relationships with gender intersect and clash with our expectations from modern dating and finding love.

Enzo from McNally Jackson Seaport recommends Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood, the author’s dazzling comic memoir.

For fantasy readers…

Izzie from Books are Magic recommends Blood over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang, about a woman who unravels a secret conspiracy that could change the practice of magic forever.

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I am most intrigued by Masks, The All of It, Birnam Wood, and Light Years. Currently, I’m juggling three different reads: Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt, Fat Swim by Emma Copley Eisenberg, and the eternal Middlemarch, which feels more like a safe harbor I return to after weeks or months away than a book.

What are you reading? What are you loving? Let me know, and sorry it’s been so long! Time and much of life has not felt totally real in these months leading up to Kitten’s launch in August. I found it so difficult to read in January and February, but these days all I want to do is live in somebody else’s sentences. I’ve been especially loving the cool, mordant prose of Gwendoline Riley. I bawled my eyes out reading Mornings Without Mii by Mayumi Inaba. And reading the ultimate Notting Hill novel, The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst, in various rooms and cafes and parks in Notting Hill during the slow and precious onset of Spring has been a special experience. I could stay in Hollinghurst’s private twilit gardens forever.