September 2025 Staff PicksLike this list

14 items

• Automatic Noodle

  Newitz, Annalee, 1969-

  Add Automatic Noodle to your for later shelf

  In this short but robust science fiction novel, set in a future post-war San Francisco, a group of human-equivalent intelligent (HEI) robots wake up in the small restaurant where they were abandoned. California has granted robots limited civil…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Bewitching

  Moreno-Garcia, Silvia,

  Add The Bewitching to your for later shelf

  This atmospheric novel tells intertwined stories of strange disappearances set in 1998, 1908, and 1934. In 1998, no-nonsense literature graduate student Minerva is studying unsung horror writer Elizabeth Tremblay at the same New England college…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Book of Lost Hours

  a Novel

  Gelfuso, Hayley,

  Add The Book of Lost Hours to your for later shelf

  Welcome to time space. This is a place where the memories of those who have passed are stored in books. It is accessible only with special watches, handed down from father to son. In 1938, eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy is hidden in time space by her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Compound

  a Novel

  Rawle, Aisling, 1998-

  Add The Compound to your for later shelf

  Every season of the dating show filmed on the compound starts the same: 10 beautiful women wake up from a drug-induced sleep and find themselves scattered around the compound itself. The last inhabitants must have just left because the place is…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Gaysians

  Curato, Mike,

  Add Gaysians to your for later shelf

  AJ moves from upstate New York to Seattle with dreams of living his best gay life. On his first night out, AJ runs into drag queen and activist K who invites AJ to join the titular Gaysians, an informal group of gay Asian men. Apart from K and now…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Hemlock & Silver

  Kingfisher, T.,

  Add Hemlock & Silver to your for later shelf

  Anja is a healer who spends most of her time studying poisons and tinkering with concoctions. So when the king suddenly bursts into her life and demands her help, she is thrust into an unfamiliar world. Navigating a royal household complete with…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Heartwood

  a Novel

  Gaige, Amity, 1972-

  Add Heartwood to your for later shelf

  When unhappily married nurse Valerie (trail name Sparrow) doesn't show up at a planned meeting point along the Appalachian Trail, highly accomplished game warden Bev and her search and rescue team go into high gear. A thirty-year veteran of the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• One Yellow Eye

  Radford, Leigh,

  Add One Yellow Eye to your for later shelf

  Six months after the first zombie outbreak in London, things are cautiously returning to normal. Bars are beginning to reopen, workers head back into the office, and support groups for the tragedy are formed. All the remaining zombies have been…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Play Nice

  Harrison, Rachel, 1989-

  Add Play Nice to your for later shelf

  Growing up, Clio's house was possessed by a demon. That's what her mother always claimed, a seemingly crazy belief which scarred Clio and her sisters deeply. After not having contact for years, she suddenly dies and it's Clio who is tasked with…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Possession of Alba Díaz

  Cañas, Isabel,

  Add The Possession of Alba Díaz to your for later shelf

  Isabel Cañas is the queen of horrormance: romance against the backdrop of something supernatural and scary. Her newest novel leans more into the horror than the romance but still combines the two in a successful slow-burn gothic. There is a plague…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Shopgirls

  a Novel

  Blau, Jessica Anya,

  Add Shopgirls to your for later shelf

  It's 1985 in San Francisco and nineteen-year-old Zippy is overjoyed to be out of her mom's house and working the most glamorous job she could imagine, a shopgirl at I. Magnin, the finest department store in San Francisco. Zippy is naive, but she…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Summer War

  Novik, Naomi,

  Add The Summer War to your for later shelf

  In this novella from Novik (Uprooted, Spinning Silver, the Temeraire series), a young girl unintentionally casts her first magic in a fit of pique, cursing her older brother. Celia adores Argent, a heroic and shining knight, but when she overhears…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Theft

  Gurnah, Abdulrazak, 1948-

  Add Theft to your for later shelf

  In his first novel since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021, Gurnah tells the story of a group of young people in postcolonial Tanzania from the late 60s to the present day. Having been married off as a young teenager, the beautiful Raya…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Totally and Completely Fine

  a Novel

  Sussman, Elissa,

  Add Totally and Completely Fine to your for later shelf

  The handsome Gabe Parker from Sussman's first novel Funny You Should Ask is back, but this time, our focus is on his older sister, Lauren. Lauren is still living in their hometown in Montana, working at a hybrid book/craft store with her mom, and…Read moreRead more of this annotation