King's Books

Freshwater (Hardcover)

By Akwaeke Emezi

$24.00

ISBN: 9780802127358

Availability: Special Order

Published: Grove Press - February 13th, 2018

I keep putting off writing this blurb because I don't want to mess it up… but this is the book I want to handsell most. This haunting, beautiful novel Akwaeke Emezi has created is unprecedented. Ten pages in and I knew this. Freshwater is an entire reality; it is liminal space, it is dark, spiritual, layered. It offers a new paradigm for gender and trauma (but let's be clear: Emezi has stated that "none of this is a metaphor for mental illness."). The prose is incantory and so, so gorgeous. Read this and get back to me because I am dying to talk to someone about it. [Tanya]

Sour Heart: Stories (Hardcover)

By Jenny Zhang

$26.00
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ISBN: 9780399589386

Published: Lenny - August 1st, 2017

Jenny Zhang packs a punch with this collection of short stories that captures girlhood in all its glory. Her writing is rapid fire, full of wit, anger, sadness, hope, and love. Zhang skillfully embodies the voices of the girls whose stories she tells, is often crass—perfectly capturing a kid's unfiltered self. You'll find yourself laughing one minute and crying the next. Winner of the 2018 PEN Literary Award. [Tanya]

The Poet X (Hardcover)

By Elizabeth Acevedo

$18.99

ISBN: 9780062662804

Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days

Published: Quill Tree Books - March 6th, 2018

Compelling story told in verse—a perfect vehicle for the raw, intense emotions you will feel as Xiomara navigates religion, being Afro-Latinx (specifically the daughter of Dominican immigrants), sexuality, body acceptance… A must-have for every high school library. It's the kind of book teens will cite as the book that showed them they weren't alone—or that they wish they had known about when they were growing up. Slam poetry is a theme, so this book is *especially perfect* for the ones who think they "aren't smart enough" for poetry. Bonus: the author (a slam poet herself) narrates the audiobook! [Tanya]

Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life of Elizabeth Cotten (Early Elementary Story Books, Children's Music Books, Biography Books for Kids) (Hardcover)

By Laura Veirs, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (Illustrator)

$17.99

ISBN: 9781452148571

Availability: Backordered

Published: Chronicle Books - January 16th, 2018

I am of the opinion that "Freight Train" is the best folk song. So I loved this book about the song's writer, Elizabeth Cotten. Bonus: It's written by folksy dreamweaver Laura Veirs. [karen]

The Year of Magical Thinking (Vintage International) (Paperback)

By Joan Didion

$17.00

ISBN: 9781400078431

Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days

Published: Vintage - February 13th, 2007

This memoir is the most moving meditation on grief I have ever read. Didion's writing is so smooth and measured that it leaves me breathless. If you are going through something difficult, this is the book to read. You won't find self help, just a fellow traveler on the difficult road of grief. [karen]

They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us (Paperback)

By Hanif Abdurraqib, Eve L. Ewing (Foreword by)

$16.99

ISBN: 9781937512651

Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days

Published: Two Dollar Radio - November 7th, 2017

Hands-down my top nonfiction book of 2017. Do you enjoy excellent writing on topics like punk rock, joy, systemic racism, Islam, the Midwest, family—woven together poetically, insightfully? Do you want to cry while reading an essay about Fall Out Boy? Run, don't walk. [Tanya]

The Book Of Salt: A Novel (Paperback)

By Monique Truong

$17.99

ISBN: 9780618446889

Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days

Published: Mariner Books - June 15th, 2004

Savor this. Truong, inspired by a fleeting mention of two “Indo-Chinese” cooks in The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, crafts a sensuous fictional memoir told from the perspective of a Vietnamese man living in Paris. The premise alone—to turn a minor footnote into a whole story, a whole life—is a wonderful play on power, but everything about this book is subversive. Nonlinear and queer with so much to say about language, I will forever recommend this book. [Tanya]

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky: Stories (Paperback)

By Lesley Nneka Arimah

$16.00

ISBN: 9780735211032

Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days

Published: Riverhead Books - April 3rd, 2018

Each of these stories is a bracing reward. Required reading for lovers of contemporary magical realism. And more so: Arimah offers a dazzling range of myth and fable, science fiction, realism, even horror. This is a stunning debut collection. [Tanya]

Bluets (Paperback)

By Maggie Nelson

$16.00

ISBN: 9781933517407

Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days

Published: Wave Books - October 1st, 2009

A meditation on the color blue (and love, loss, obsession…) in the form of numbered propositions (memoir rendered lyrical, philosophical…). You want to own Bluets because you will want to re-read it, and with every re-reading you’ll discover something different—about yourself, maybe, about Nelson’s subtleties, absolutely. Something you’ll want to tell all your friends about while also harboring as your own secret. [Tanya]