April 2024 Staff PicksLike this list

11 items

• Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart

  & Other Stories

  Nethercott, GennaRose,

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  Short stories reminiscent of folklore and fairytales are given an unsettling twist in author Nethercott's (Thistlefoot) newest collection. This haunting collection blends together elements of fantasy, surrealism, dark comedy and even…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Greta & Valdin

  Reilly, Rebecca K.,

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  Reilly’s debut novel is centered on a warm, offbeat family in Auckland and specifically on 20-something siblings and roommates (Greta and Valdin) as narrators in alternating first person chapters. Both siblings are queer and of Māori and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Held

  Michaels, Anne, 1958-

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  Stretching back and forth in time from World War I and into the very near future, this novel follows delicate strands of spiderwebs from character to character. Although it includes some historical figures (the Curies), most of the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Here We Go Again

  a Novel

  Cochrun, Alison,

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  Logan and Rosemarie were inseparable in middle school, but their friendship turned into a bitter rivalry after eighth grade and that disdain has continued now that they are coworkers at the same small-town high school. Tasked with the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• James

  a Novel

  Everett, Percival,

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  Whether you've read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or not, most of us are familiar with the tale of Huck and Jim, and their travels along the mighty Mississippi. Percival Everett jolts us into 2024 with his stirring and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Pet

  Chidgey, Catherine, 1970-

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  Chidgey's unsettling psychological thriller opens in Auckland in 2014 with Justine visiting her elderly father, whose memory and health are in decline in assisted living. His nurse sparks a memory that prompts Justine to recall a formative…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Piglet

  a Novel

  Hazell, Lottie, 1993-

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  This briskly paced debut opens on protagonist Piglet, an editor at a London cookbook publisher, shopping for a dinner party she's hosting to warm the new house that she and her upper-class fiancé Kit have just moved into. Nicknamed by her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• River Mumma

  Reid-Benta, Zalika,

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  Stuck in the throes of millennial ennui, Alicia is over-educated and working a dead-end job. On a freezing Toronto night, it takes all her strength to attend a co-worker's party. While other people poke at their phones and drink, she gets…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• There's Always This Year

  on Basketball and Ascension

  Abdurraqib, Hanif, 1983-

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  The cover of There's Always This Year shows a young boy with lovingly worn Air Jordans, casually sitting atop a neighborhood court's basketball hoop. His eyes are cropped out. Is he watching a game? Is he watching the block? Abdurraqib's…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Wandering Stars

  Orange, Tommy, 1982-

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  In his highly anticipated follow-up to There There (2023's One Book, One Chicago selection), Orange goes back in time to explore the ancestral line of the Bear Shield and Red Feather families. In part one, we meet Jude Star and, later, his…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• You Dreamed of Empires

  Enrigue, Alvaro, 1969-

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  Enrigue, whose taste for historical fiction with a postmodern twist was memorably apparent in his 2016 novel Sudden Death, returns with an even wilder novel. In this reimagining of history, the Aztec empire is at its zenith around 1519 as…Read moreRead more of this annotation