The Staff Shelf: Prairie Lights
What are booksellers reading?
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 Prairie Lights what they recommend.
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SLIDESHOW: Prairie Lights Staff Shelf
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- KATHLEEN RECOMMENDS: Let Me Explain you is such an original and vividly told novel that I could hear the character’s voices and see their faces. Every time I opened the book, they sprang immediately to life, and author Anna Liontas plots this dysfunctional family tale in a way that is fresh and funny.
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- LIZ RECOMMENDS: An extraordinary novel, one of the best I’ve read all year. The often brutal story centers around a girl orphaned in a war-torn Eastern European country, a writer suffering a deep depression after a stillbirth, and the writers’ artist friends, who conspire to connect the two. The book’s power resides in its stunning language, interesting formal experimentation, and daring exploration of war, art, motherhood, sex, and violence.
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- PAUL RECOMMENDS: A tender, funny memoir of his year in seventh grade, by all odds the most horrifying time in a child’s life. Your body changes, your social world changes, what is expected of you changes, and notions of who you might become begin to suggest themselves to you. Kevin doesn’t understand that he is gay, although he suspects something is different in his personality. I am thankful to him for sharing humorously, and wisely this horrifying but important time in his life. It’s the best kid memoir I know.
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- MARY RECOMMENDS: If you haven’t discovered Deborah Eisenberg’s beautifully crafted short stories, this is a good choice, because you will want to read and reread them all. These stories are rich and delicate, and linger in the memory to shift and amplify their values. Eisenberg’s subtle, intelligent observations put readers in the best company.
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- TIM RECOMMENDS: Following his two amazing short story collections, Mr. Van Booy’s first novel has arrived! This tale of three friends in Athens charts the joy and hearbreak of love, and the difficult task of finding the wherewithal to move forward and begin again. Displaying an uncanny ability to convey emotions, spirituality and humanity within the simplest of sentences, Mr. Van Booy’s skill with language and imagery is unparalleled–this book is so finely written it will leave you breathless.
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- KATHLEEN (EVENTS COORDINATOR) RECOMMENDS: These short stories are gorgeous and strange. They have a way of turning the mind inward as they charm and entrance, and leave the reader on the edge of discovery, answers just within reach. She never places it right in front of you, but makes the stories more wonderful by making you reach for it.
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