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Stephanie

All-time favorites: The Phantom Tollbooth, The Grapes of Wrath, Bombadiers, Vanity Fair, James Agee, E. Lockhart, The Best of Everything, The Westing Game, Louise Erdrich.

Utter fangirl for: Alan Moore, Mark Bittman, Nigella Lawson, and Jules Feiffer.

Book List

The Orphan Master's Son (Hardcover)

By Adam Johnson
$26.00
ISBN-13: 9780812992793
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Random House, 1/2012
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In this great novel, Johnson has taken the bizarre Kim Jong Il anecdotes and the horror stories of defectors and combined them into a book that reminds us that behind the lives we can barely imagine, there are people who want the same things we do.

Thinking, Fast and Slow (Hardcover)

By Daniel Kahneman
$30.00
ISBN-13: 9780374275631
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 10/2011
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This is a book that you can really only read slowly, not ever fast, but it will change the way you think about your thinking, and also the way you think about how you think about your thinking. We all know that's it's easier to judge other people's actions than to step back and examine our own, but this book gets at the heart of why, what to do about it, and many other mental quandries.

Zone One (Hardcover)

By Colson Whitehead
$25.95
ISBN-13: 9780385528078
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Doubleday, 10/2011
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For people who like zombies: Dude. It's a book about zombies. Zombies in MANHATTAN. Killing zombies and surviving and killing more zombies. Read it already.

For people who don't like zombies: Ah, ignore the zombies. Feel free to see them as a useful metaphor if you must. But don't miss this book. Whitehead is at the top of his game. There are many pages of writing so good, you'll feel like a zombie just ate your heart out and your life is slowly fading before your eyes. Wait! I mean, ignore the zombies.

Season for Temptation (Mass Market Paperback)

By Theresa Romain
$6.99
ISBN-13: 9781420118957
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Zebra, 10/2011
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Fantastic Regency read, even when it's not the holidays. Spicy and fun and a total page-turner.

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy (Paperback)

By Susanna Moore, Patrick Hamilton
$17.95
ISBN-13: 9781590172568
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: NYRB Classics, 1/2008
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This is a book that could out-British any other book it met. It Britishes to beat the band. Unrelated: would be a fine reading companion for a nasty breakup.

Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships (Paperback)

By Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha
$15.99
ISBN-13: 9780061707810
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial, 7/2011
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Thought-provoking and important. I will be giving this as (perhaps the world's rudest) engagement present to all newly-affianced coupled from now on.

The Chairs Are Where the People Go: How to Live, Work, and Play in the City (Paperback)

By Misha Glouberman, Sheila Heti
$13.00
ISBN-13: 9780865479456
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Faber & Faber, 7/2011
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This book is part philosophy, part self-help, part business, but without any of the bullshit you probably associate with those categories. Heti worked with Glouberman to write down his thoughts on cities, education, art, love, charades, and other important things, in short, smart chapters that cohere closer and closer as the book goes on. Full of sharp insights and never boring. Next time you find your brain needing a jumpstart, this is the book to dive into.

Tales of the Madman Underground (Paperback)

By John Barnes
$9.99
ISBN-13: 9780142417027
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Speak, 1/2011
Absolutely devoured this. Hard to stop reading a book when the voice is this good and the characters are so bizarre that they're almost normal. Like King Dork in the 70s, except maybe a little weirder. Lovable and gross. Definitely only for older teens and up.

Once Upon a River (Hardcover)

By Bonnie Jo Campbell
$25.95
ISBN-13: 9780393079890
Availability: Not On Our Shelves, Usually Arrives In 1-5 Days
Published: W. W. Norton & Company, 7/2011
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Doesn't that book cover look docile? Don't let it fool you. This book is no joke. It's as fierce as its protagonist, a teenage girl who leaves home and finds a new life along the river. You'll understand and love her on every page even when you want to wring her neck. Total page-turner.

We, the Drowned (Hardcover)

By Carsten Jensen, Charlotte Barslund, Emma Ryder
$28.00
ISBN-13: 9780151013777
Availability: Not On Our Shelves, Usually Arrives In 1-5 Days
Published: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2/2011
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One of my favorite novels of the year so far. A really fantastic work of historical fiction. I'm sure it's historically accurate and everything, but the real heart of the book is in the characters, who are as real as anybody reading this. It's a book of incredible strength. Sure to be loved by fans of MOBY-DICK or war novels, but I hope it finds a wider audience as well, because it really deserves it.

Winner of the National Book Award: A Novel of Fame, Honor, and Really Bad Weather (Paperback)

By Jincy Willett
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780312424237
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador, 10/2004
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The darkest humor is the funniest and Jincy Willett is its master.

The Gone-Away World (Paperback)

By Nick Harkaway
$15.95
ISBN-13: 9780307389077
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage, 8/2009
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Still one of the best novels of the new millennium.

The Days of Abandonment (Paperback)

By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein
$14.95
ISBN-13: 9781933372006
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Europa Editions, 9/2005
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Only read this book if you have time to read it from start to finish and don't mind going temporarily insane along with the main character, because that is basically what happens to everybody who reads it.

Edinburgh (Paperback)

By Alexander Chee
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780312305031
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador, 11/2002
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A gorgeous and subtle book with every sentence in exactly the right place.

The City & The City (Paperback)

By China Mieville
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780345497529
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Del Rey, 4/2010
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Mieville is probably one of the five smartest people alive on the planet at the moment, and this, his latest novel, will blow your mind like all the others.

Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Paperback)

By H.W. Brands
$21.00
ISBN-13: 9780307277947
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor, 9/2009
A portrait of one of our greatest presidents so compelling that I actually cried when (spoiler alert!) FDR died at the end.

The Food of a Younger Land: A portrait of American food- before the national highway system, before chainrestaurants, and before (Paperback)

By Mark Kurlansky
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9781594484575
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Trade, 4/2010
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The subtitle kinda says it all, except that this is THE book of the year for food lovers, history lovers, and that rare hybrid food-history lover.

Asterios Polyp (Hardcover)

By David Mazzucchelli
$29.95
ISBN-13: 9780307377326
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Pantheon, 7/2009
I know people who read comics are already sick of hearing about how awesome this book is, but I'm going to keep banging the gong for it anyway, because it's a masterpiece and everybody should read it.

Promethea (Paperback)

By Alan Moore, J.H. Williams
$17.99
ISBN-13: 9781563896675
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: WildStorm, 7/2001
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I'm completely in the tank for Alan Moore, but I think even an unbiased reader will admit that this series is worth the time of anybody who cares about books, art, and other cool things like that.

Worst Song, Played on Ugliest Guitar (Hardcover)

By Chris Onstad
$15.95
ISBN-13: 9781595822390
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Dark Horse Comics, 9/2009
Okay, so start here, and read the archives for a few hours; the book sells itself at that point.

Tender Morsels (Paperback)

By Margo Lanagan
$11.99
ISBN-13: 9780375843051
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Ember, 2/2010
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This book is so edgy at times that I am shocked it got published as YA; can't wait for it to start getting banned from school libraries so it can gain the popularity it deserves.

Big Rabbit's Bad Mood (Hardcover)

By Ramona Badescu, Delphine Durand
$16.99
ISBN-13: 9780811866668
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Chronicle Books, 3/2009
You will love this book, I promise!

Never Smile at a Monkey: And 17 Other Important Things to Remember (Hardcover)

By Steve Jenkins, Steve Jenkins
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780618966202
Availability: Not On Our Shelves, Usually Arrives In 1-5 Days
Published: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 10/2009
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Though this book would have scared the shit out of hyper-imaginative-scaredy-cat-7-year-old me, I think every other kid in the world will be amazed by it.

Grumpy Bird (Hardcover)

By Jeremy Tankard
$14.99
ISBN-13: 9780439851473
Availability: Not On Our Shelves, Usually Arrives In 1-5 Days
Published: Scholastic Press, 4/2007
Yes, I have a thing for books about unhappy animals, but I have read this book at least one hundred times and it is still funny.
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