The Staff Shelf: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe

When we walk into a bookstore, the first place we go is the staff recommendation shelves—it’s how you get a quick sense of the personality of the store. The very best bookstores are merely a reflection of the eclectic, deeply felt opinions of the book-lovers who work there. As part of our Interview with a Bookstore, we asked the staff at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe what’s on their shelves.

SLIDESHOW: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe Staff Shelf

: MOLLY (DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROGRAMMING) RECOMMENDS: Reading Valeria Luiselli is a bit like walking through a beautiful, charming, bursting used bookstore. I find myself scratching down on bits of paper the millions of books, poems, philosophers, artists, and unknown tidbits of the world that she folds into her narratives. This book is almost impossible to describe, so I won’t try. Just read it?

: MOLLY (DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROGRAMMING) RECOMMENDS: No one asked me what my favorite book of 2015 is, but if they did, here is my answer. Reading this book was like getting hit over the head with a brick, but I wanted it.

: MOLLY (DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROGRAMMING) RECOMMENDS: What occurs inside Robin Coste Lewis’ Voyage of the Sable Venus is destruction, excavation, elegance, heart. This volume, which lifts devastating words from historical and art archives, argues for living even at its most annihilating moments.

: MERRIL (STORE MANAGER) RECOMMENDS: A beautifully conceived, post-apocalypse story that follows a small group of characters in the years following a global pandemic. Mandel’s gift is to see the innate goodness in humanity, forgoing a “Mad Max”-style horror show for something more delicate and hopeful. Like the great film directors Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson, Mandel works with a large canvas, ingeniously interweaving character arcs that tease out surprising connections among the survivors.

: REBECCA (BOOKSELLER) RECOMMENDS: I just finished reading Wonderful Wonderful Times by Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, and was completely obsessed the whole way through. The story focuses on four teenagers in Vienna who have no respect for authority and commit violent crimes just because they can. Read it for the writing: harsh, direct, and dark, graceful and lyrical. Please pick up a copy — I found mine at Housing Works!

: TOM (BOOKSELLER) RECOMMENDS: A major advantage of growing up with older siblings is having books around that are way outside what your teachers and librarians would approve. I still go back and reread certain parts of The Once and Future King whenever I see it at our bookstore. Over the years I’ve gained a deeper understanding of how, much more than all the fantasy elements that are pretty much gone after the first part, the message is about seeking, finding, and knowing one’s purpose in life.

: BRENT (BOOKSELLER) RECOMMENDS: Saga is one of the best comic books I have read in a long time. It’s a hilarious sci-fi space drama about a young family trying to escape a world of war and has a great cast of characters and the perfect amount of bizarre.

: MEAGAN (BOOKSELLER) RECOMMENDS: I think the best thing I’ve read this year is Bowie by Simon Critchley, a brief philosophical inquiry into David Bowie’s weird career. I’ve been recommending it to everyone because Critchley writes provocatively in bite-sized, easily digestible pieces, and who isn’t fascinated with (or maybe confused by) Ziggy Stardust?

: REBECCA (BOOKSELLER) RECOMMENDS: Percy’s immersion in the world of recent veterans who believe they are possessed by demons rather than have PTSD is informative, empathetic, and personal. It changed how I view America’s mental health culture.