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Kelsey Ford: New Year, New You: 9 Books for a Better You, 9 Books for a Worse You (0 comment)

I’m not a huge believer in new year’s resolutions — they always feel like set ups for failure and disappointment instead of the well-meaning self-bettering they’re intended to be. However, I do believe in the fresh promise of a new year and taking the opportunity to deliberately (and gently) think about your routines and what you might be missing...

Keith Mosman: Powell's Picks Spotlight: Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham's 'Lunar New Year Love Story' (0 comment)
Kate Brody: What If the Real Monsters Were Inside Us All Along: Kate Brody’s Movie Playlist for ‘Rabbit Hole’ (0 comment)

And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready

Meaghan O'Connell

And Now We Have Everything is the most honest book about becoming a mom I've read. I don't have kids and don't know that I ever will, but I have a lot of anxieties about parenting and childrearing and Meaghan's writing aligns with them perfectly. This book is really funny in a kick-you-in-the-stomach kind of way, and I found myself laughing and sobbing a lot while reading it. As a childless bookseller, I wholeheartedly believe everyone —... (read more)
Recommended by Emily L.

Tonight I'm Someone Else: Essays

Chelsea Hodson

I've had the biggest Internet crush on Chelsea for so long, and wholeheartedly believe this debut essay collection will help her take over both the literary and nonliterary worlds. On intimacy, her writing lovingly slapped me in the face with the intersections of tenderness and submission, related in ways I'd never read or experienced before. Subjects range from relationships, Arizona, space exploration, the body, the digital age, and modeling,... (read more)
Recommended by Emily L.

South and West: From Some Notebooks

Joan Didion

Joan Didion fans and those new to her work will enjoy this collection of journals kept while she traveled the American south and California. The "South" section focuses on her time spent road tripping through the southern states with her husband. There she records overheard dialogue, interviews locals, eats at roadside diners, and encounters the stifling heat only found in the south. In "West," she's in California covering the Patty Hearst trial... (read more)
Recommended by Emily L.

Dark Dark Stories

Samantha Hunt

Samantha Hunt's collection is full of transformations: women becoming mothers, people becoming ghosts, and women becoming deer. Like the title suggests, the stories are dark and give off a feeling like the corners of your room are closing in. While definitely unsettling, the collection is wholly consuming, witchy, and transformative. As I was reading about the changes these women go through, I felt myself becoming something not necessarily... (read more)
Recommended by Emily L.

Eligible A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice

Curtis Sittenfeld

I don't delve into the classic retelling genre very often, but when I heard Curtis Sittenfeld had rewritten Pride and Prejudice and made the mythic Mr. Darcy a neurosurgeon, I felt I had to give Eligible a whirl. Liz Bennet is a journalist living in New York when she's forced to temporarily relocate to her hometown of Cincinnati while her father recuperates from surgery. Here she navigates her mother's snobbery and addiction to... (read more)
Recommended by Emily L.

Future Sex

Emily Witt

Last year I got really into reading about parenting, and this year I got really into reading about the Internet. Emily Witt delves into how our views on relationships, dating, and sex have changed since the Internet became our romantic other. Both personal and theoretical, Witt takes on traditional views of monogamy and dating, creating a sort of Opening Up for the tech age. She examines the disconnect between romantic relationships and... (read more)
Recommended by Emily L.