Esther Kinsky and Caroline Schmidt
[isbn]
Bewitching, exquisite, almost unbearably bittersweet (I had to blink back tears more than once), Rombo evokes the transience of all life through seven characters' accounts of what happened on the day and night of a devastating earthquake in the mountains of northern Italy in May 1976. Intermingled with their ruminations on the day that changed everything for them and their villages, as well as the long aftermath of the quake, is a kind... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Billy-Ray Belcourt
[isbn]
I can't wait to read Billy-Ray Belcourt's first novel, Minor Chorus, about a queer, indigenous scholar who goes back to his Northern Alberta reservation to write a novel and reconnect with his family and childhood friends. Belcourt has written poignantly of the queer, indigenous experience and the "Ministry of Historical Ignorance" in his prize-winning poetry collections, This Wound is a World and NDN Coping Mechanisms.... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Hiroko Oyamada and David Boyd
[isbn]
Hiroko Oyamada is my new hero! She consistently writes the most wonderful, strange fiction (The Factory, The Hole) and it's so short and bite-sized, usually about 80 pages. How she fits all that she's exploring into such a small package, I don't understand. Weasels in the Attic consists of three deeply linked stories that share most of their characters and are perhaps separated in time by six months. Each story has its own... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel
[isbn]
There has been a failure of the future in Europe, and, increasingly, no one wants to live in the unstable present it keeps creating. Instead, people decide to make a time shelter for themselves, to recapture and recreate a past in which they felt most comfortable. But how to choose the best decade? As each country in the European Union holds a referendum to figure out which period of time was most idyllic for that nation, the story gets more... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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César Aira
[isbn]
The quantal-surreal imagination of Cesar Aira takes on divorce — which is to say, there's an impossible fire, someone stages a coup in a Darwin appreciation club, and a man is literally drenched by love. A treat for fans of Borges and Bolaño, this slim volume opens up infinities.
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Jill Stansbury
[isbn]
Wise and compassionate, learned and thorough, this herbal and the other volumes in the series are destined to become a modern classic of herbology, joining the works of legends like Gerard, Culpeper, and Grieve. Dr. Stansbury's lovely prose is grounded in practice, as she has been serving patients and teaching students in the Pacific Northwest for decades.
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Hafiz
[isbn]
Like a love letter from a dear friend, this book of poems is a balm, a solace, a surprise, and an inspiration. Hafiz knew God is everywhere, and he made of himself a mirror to reflect divine light.
In just one lovely example, he wrote, "Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions."
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Carol Gracie, Amy Jean Porter
[isbn]
I love this new entry in the Pedia Books series by Princeton University Press. Fun, informative, and prettily illustrated by Amy Jean Porter. Open anywhere and be delighted!
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Kevin Hobbs
[isbn]
A beautiful encyclopedia of the world's trees, informative and enchanting. It discusses special animal-tree relationships that have existed through time, such as between the giant ground sloth and the avocado tree, but also how human relations with trees have altered from the time of Neanderthals to today.
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Pamela Ayo Yetunde, Cheryl A Giles
[isbn]
Invaluable essays by a range of black Buddhists on processing and releasing trauma through a Buddhist lens. One even explores the mindful use of Ayahuasca in trauma work, a fascinating addition to writings by shamans and curanderas. This is compassion in action — real action. In the words of Gaylon Ferguson, "we need a strong peace, with justice and dignity."
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Sweet, Victoria
[isbn]
What a lovely, compassionate, enriching book. Trained as a conventional doctor, read as Sweet is transformed by an old-style charity hospital, wherein part of the medicine is giving nurses time on-shift to knit blankets for patients and really care for them. There's a fascinating discussion of how her patients did when she began to introduce remedies and principles of medicine from Hildegard von Bingen's writings.
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Rebecca Buxton, Lisa Whiting
[isbn]
From female philosophers of ancient Greece and China to Mary Wollstonecraft and Angela Davis, prepare to be blown away by the breadth and depth of scholarship, though largely unheralded. Read about Diotima, for instance, who may well have taught Socrates what came to be known as his own method, and essentially elucidated the path of love, or what was later known as the Bhakti path to enlightenment. Women have always been active in this field —... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Max Adams
[isbn]
I love this book! It's the perfect coffee table or display volume, with gorgeous illustrations, as well as photographs that really give you a sense of being in the presence of each tree. Each entry is the perfect blend of informative and charming, emphasizing traditional and current use by humans and animals. From trees that purify the soil or water (moringa, for an example of the latter), to those that provide food, medicine, cosmetic oils (sea... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Paulina Bren
[isbn]
This is a fun, informative feminist history of the NYC residential hotel that connected Grace Kelly to Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion to Cybill Shepherd. Aspiring artists, writers, models, and career women of all stripes came to stay here for the safety, the glamorous sisterhood — and a room of one's own. I just know Betty Draper stayed here as a model before she married Don!
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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Timothy Egan
[isbn]
This is the story of the biggest forest fire in US history. Three million acres burned across three states, aided by the flammable gas that boiled out of pine sap during the conflagration!
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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