Robert Jones, Jr.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

California

Finalist for the National Book Award Instant New York Times Bestseller "May this book cast its spell on all of us, restore to us some memory of our most warrior and softest selves." —The New York Times Book Review “A new kind of epic...A grand achievement...While The Prophets' dreamy realism recalls the work of Toni Morrison...its penetrating focus on social dynamics stands out more singularly.” —Entertainment Weekly A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony. With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr., fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating slave master to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets fearlessly reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.

The Prophets

7183afdc-4f70-491b-913f-1f26355349bc-1

Lisa Wingate

A Novel

A tale inspired by firsthand accounts about the notoriously corrupt Tennessee Children's Home Society follows the efforts of a Baltimore assistant D.A. to uncover her parents' fateful secrets in the wake of a political attack and a chance encounter with a stranger. By the best-selling author of Tending Roses.

Before We Were Yours

0917b2ed-7e9b-4b2b-8018-da2709edb396-1

Michael Pollan

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Plant's-Eye View of the World

The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?

The Botany of Desire

d9010125-d371-4a70-aad9-67cea09aea79-1

Bianca Bosker

A Wine-Fueled Adventure among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste

A tech reporter describes her introduction to the world of master sommeliers and her in-depth investigation into the source of their interests and skills, an effort marked by work with elite tasting groups, encounters at exclusive New York restaurants, visits to California winemakers and more.--

Cork Dork

8c757106-f5c4-4026-9028-6758246105b4-1

Angela Garbes

A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy

A candid, feminist, and personal deep dive into the science and culture of pregnancy and motherhood Like most first-time mothers, Angela Garbes was filled with questions when she became pregnant. What exactly is a placenta and how does it function? How does a body go into labor? Why is breast best? Is wine totally off-limits? But as she soon discovered, it’s not easy to find satisfying answers. Your obstetrician will cautiously quote statistics; online sources will scare you with conflicting and often inaccurate data; and even the most trusted books will offer information with a heavy dose of judgment. To educate herself, the food and culture writer embarked on an intensive journey of exploration, diving into the scientific mysteries and cultural attitudes that surround motherhood to find answers to questions that had only previously been given in the form of advice about what women ought to do—rather than allowing them the freedom to choose the right path for themselves. In Like a Mother, Garbes offers a rigorously researched and compelling look at the physiology, biology, and psychology of pregnancy and motherhood, informed by in-depth reportage and personal experience. With the curiosity of a journalist, the perspective of a feminist, and the intimacy and urgency of a mother, she explores the emerging science behind the pressing questions women have about everything from miscarriage to complicated labors to postpartum changes. The result is a visceral, full-frontal look at what’s really happening during those nine life-altering months, and why women deserve access to better care, support, and information. Infused with humor and born out of awe, appreciation, and understanding of the female body and its strength, Like a Mother debunks common myths and dated assumptions, offering guidance and camaraderie to women navigating one of the biggest and most profound changes in their lives.

Like a Mother

e96f115b-1edf-4f78-a94d-bbb8a5e1edff-1

Jenny Zhang

Stories

"A debut collection of stories that plunge readers into the tender and chaotic hearts of adolescent girls growing up in New York City, from celebrated poet and National Magazine Award nominee Jenny Zhang"--

Sour Heart

06646d32-91bb-4328-9c76-742c6f3c3bcd-1

Akhil Sharma

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

“There’s a great duality to these stories: simple but complex, funny enough to laugh out loud at but emotionally devastating, foreign yet familiar. What an exciting and original writer this is, and what a knock-out collection.”—David Sedaris Hailed as a storyteller whose fiction is “a glowing work of art” (Wall Street Journal), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice “as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky” (The Nation). In A Life of Adventure and Delight, Sharma delivers eight masterful stories that focus on Indian protagonists at home and abroad and that plunge the reader into the unpredictable workings of the human heart. A young woman in an arranged marriage awakens one day surprised to find herself in love with her husband. A retired divorcé tries to become the perfect partner by reading women’s magazines. A man’s longstanding contempt for his cousin suddenly shifts inward when he witnesses his cousin caring for a sick woman. Tender and darkly comic, the protagonists in A Life of Adventure and Delight deceive themselves and engage in odd behaviors as they navigate how to be good, how to make meaningful relationships, and the strengths and pitfalls of self-interest. Elegantly written and emotionally immediate, the stories provide an intimate, honest assessment of human relationships between mothers and sons, sons and lovers, and husband and wives from a dazzlingly original, critically acclaimed writer.

A Life of Adventure and Delight

b3481004-ab9a-4e73-9af1-8423888375e1-0

Suzanne Rindell

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

In 1958 Greenwich Village, three ambitious young people--Cliff, the son of a successful book editor; Eden, who dreams of being an editor; and Miles, a talented black writer from Harlem--will do anything to succeed in the competitive world of book publishing.

Three-Martini Lunch

7d6e0acc-45e8-40c8-90b1-3fb7636fabcb-1

K-Ming Chang

Like New Used Book. A small corner in the back has sticker residue. 

"One evening, Ma tells Daughter a story about a tiger spirit who lived in a woman's body, named Hu Gu Po. She hungered to eat children, especially their toes. Soon afterwards, Daughter awakes with a tiger tail. And more mysterious events follow: Holes in the backyard spit up letters penned by her grandmother; a visiting aunt leaves red on everything she touches; another aunt arrives with eels in her belly. All the while, Daughter is falling for her neighbor, a girl named Ben with mysterious powers of her own. As the two young lovers translate the grandmother's letters, Daughter begins to understand that each woman in her family embodies an old Taiwanese myth--and that she will have to bring her family's secrets to light in order to change their destiny. With a poetic voice of crackling electricity, K Ming Chang is an explosive young writer who combines the wit and fabulism of Helen Oyeyemi with the magical realist aesthetic of Maxine Hong Kingston. Tracing one family's history from Mainland China to Taiwan, from Arkansas to California, Bestiary is a novel of migration, queer lineages, and womanhood"--

Bestiary

ca78d502-d708-40ca-8a73-0eef55d4c735

Refuge

Souvankham Thammavongsa

Spare, unsentimental, and distilled to riveting essentials, these stories honor the surreal, funny, often wrenching realities of trying to build a life far from home. In the title story of Souvankham Thammavongsa's debut collection, a young girl brings a book home from school and asks her father, the only adult in the family who can read English, to help her pronounce a tricky word, a simple exchange with unforgettable consequences. Thammavongsa is a master at honing in on moments like this--moments of exposure, dislocation, and messy feeling that push us right smack up against the limits of language. The taut, visceral stories that make up How to Pronounce Knife focus on characters struggling to find their bearings in unfamiliar territory, or shuttling between idioms, cultures, and values. A failed boxer discovers what it truly means to be a champion when he starts painting nails at his sister's salon. A young woman tries to discern the invisible but immutable social hierarchies that govern relationships at a chicken processing plant. A mother -coaches her daughter in the challenging art of worm harvesting. Charging her clear, direct sentences with immense power, Thammavongsa interrogates what it means to make a living, both in the sense of work and in the sense of creating meaning and identity in precarious circumstances. Aiming its penetrating gaze at brutality and tenderness, revulsion and arousal, pain and laughter alike, How to Pronounce Knife establishes Thammavongsa as one of the most striking and assured voices of her generation.

How to Pronounce Knife

66ed8a67-bd95-44ac-b10f-7f7dc1392833-1

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

"The acclaimed author of Gods of Jade and Shadow returns with a darkly enchanting reimagining of Gothic fantasy, in which a spirited young woman discovers the haunting secrets of a beautiful old mansion in 1950s Mexico"--

Mexican Gothic

0eb51475-5e66-489f-a7eb-745f63651c2d-1

Jenny Xie

Holding Pattern. Noun.
1. A state of suspended progress.
2. The awkward way your mother tries to hug you now that you live with her. Again.

Kathleen Cheng has blown up her life. She's gone through a humiliating breakup, dropped out of her graduate program, and left everything behind. Now she's back in her childhood home in Oakland, wondering what's next.

To her surprise, her mother isn't the same person Kathleen remembers. No longer depressed or desperate to return to China, the new Marissa Cheng is sporty, perky, and has been transformed by love. Kathleen thought she'd be planning her own wedding, but instead finds herself helping her mother plan hers--to a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur.

Grasping for direction, Kathleen takes a job at a start-up that specializes in an unconventional form of therapy based on touch. While she negotiates new ideas about intimacy and connection, an unforeseen attachment to someone at work pushes her to rethink her relationships--especially the one with Marissa. Will they succeed in seeing each other anew, adult to adult?

As they peel back the layers of their history--the old wounds, cultural barriers, and complex affection--they must come to a new understanding of how they can propel each other forward, and what they've done to hold each other back. Brilliantly observant, tender, and warm, Holding Pattern is a hopeful novel about immigration and belonging, mother-daughter relationships, and the many ways we learn to hold each other.

Books 4 $ale

@thesubtlelibrarian

Books Listed

Following

Followers

Robert Jones, Jr.

The Prophets

Lisa Wingate

Before We Were Yours

Michael Pollan

The Botany of Desire

Bianca Bosker

Cork Dork

Angela Garbes

Like a Mother

Jenny Zhang

Sour Heart

Akhil Sharma

A Life of Adventure and Delight

Suzanne Rindell

Three-Martini Lunch

K-Ming Chang

Bestiary

Dina Nayeri

Refuge

Souvankham Thammavongsa

How to Pronounce Knife

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic

Jenny Xie

Holding Pattern

Get The App

Browse by categories

Robert Jones, Jr.

The Prophets

Lisa Wingate

Before We Were Yours

Michael Pollan

The Botany of Desire

Bianca Bosker

Cork Dork

Angela Garbes

Like a Mother

Jenny Zhang

Sour Heart

Akhil Sharma

A Life of Adventure and Delight

Suzanne Rindell

Three-Martini Lunch

K-Ming Chang

Bestiary

Dina Nayeri

Refuge

Souvankham Thammavongsa

How to Pronounce Knife

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic

Jenny Xie

Holding Pattern

Get The App