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.

One-sentence staff picks:

Fiction:

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. The best novel of this year and last.

The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante. 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.

Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willett. The darkest humor is the funniest and Jincy Willett is its master.

Edinburgh by Alexander Chee. A gorgeous and subtle book with every sentence in exactly the right place.

The City & The City by China Mieville. 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.

Non-fiction:

Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H. W. Brands. A portrait of one of our greatest presidents so compelling that I actually cried when (spoiler alert!) FDR died at the end.

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti. You won't agree with all the essays in this book, but you will think about them for days.

The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food--Before the National Highway System--Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food When The Nation's Food Was Seasonal, Regional, and Traditional--From the Lost WPA Files by Mark Kurlansky. 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.

Graphic novels:

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzuchelli. 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 by Alan Moore. 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 by Chris Onstad. Okay, so start here, and read the archives for a few hours; the book sells itself at that point.

YA:

Graceling and Fire by Kristen Cashore. Oh! this is just the best fantasy series I've read in so long.

Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan. 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.

Children's:

Big Rabbit's Bad Mood by Ramona Badescu and Delphine Durand. You will love this book, I promise!

Never Smile At A Monkey: And 17 Other Important Things to Remember by Steve Jenkins. 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 by Jeremy Tankard. 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.

Favorite places in Greenpoint: Peter Pan, the falafel cart at the corner of Milton and Manhattan, American Playground during WORD basketball league games, McGolrick Park.

If I were an animal I would be: an owl.

If I went to Hogwarts, I would: think I'd want to be in Gryffindor, but then I'd end up in Ravenclaw, which would probably be for the best anyway.

If you want to read more about my love for jam, kittehs, and New York City field trips, you should: follow me on Twitter.