Michaela's Picks

Michaela CarterMichaela Carter is a writer, painter, and award-winning poet. She is the author of the novels Further Out Than You Thought, which was an Indie Next List Pick, and Leonora In the Morning Light, about the early life of the artist Leonora Carrington. Her poetry won the Poetry Society of America Los Angeles New Poets Contest, has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She lives in Prescott, Arizona with her husband and two dogs where she cofounded the independent bookstore, Peregrine Book Company. She is frightened of mice and Spam, and some of her favorite words are manatee, mariposa, maculate, gibbous, ocean, and home.
The Seed Keeper By Diane Wilson Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9781571311375
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Milkweed Editions - March 9th, 2021

This book is stunning.


Signal Fires: A novel By Dani Shapiro Cover Image
$28.00
ISBN: 9780593534724
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Knopf - October 18th, 2022

Un-put-downable!


The Sentence: A Novel By Louise Erdrich Cover Image
$19.00
ISBN: 9780062671134
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial - September 6th, 2022

One of the best books I've read this year!


Nightbitch: A Novel By Rachel Yoder Cover Image
$26.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9780385546812
Published: Doubleday - July 20th, 2021

An instant feminist, surrealist classic - Nightbitch is awesome. Powerful. I was hooked from the first sentence, and as the story pulled me along with it, I was captivated, delighted, horrified, and ultimately fired up - ready to run through the night and howl at the moon. I'm with Nightbitch all the way. Ah-hhhooooooooooo!!!


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The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington By Leonora Carrington, Kathryn Davis (Introduction by) Cover Image
By Leonora Carrington, Kathryn Davis (Introduction by)
$16.95
ISBN: 9780997366648
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Dorothy, a publishing project - April 28th, 2017

Deliciously peculiar, delightfully perverse. A perfect pairing with tea and crumpets. —Michaela


Filthy Beasts: A Memoir By Kirkland Hamill Cover Image
$27.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781982122768
Published: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster - July 14th, 2020

Candid, authentic, and heart-centered, Filthy Beasts made me laugh out loud and weep in public. An important book about alcoholism, coming out, and seeing oneself as part of a family system and also as an individual, who must draw boundaries and make hard choices. Hamill won me over completely.


Poems By Elizabeth Bishop Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9780374532369
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux - February 1st, 2011

Delightful, curious, and surprising - these poems are my absolute favorite.


Milk Fed: A Novel By Melissa Broder Cover Image
$26.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781982142490
Published: Scribner - February 2nd, 2021

Milk Fed is sexy and wicked smart. I read it voraciously.


A Children's Bible: A Novel By Lydia Millet Cover Image
$15.95
ISBN: 9780393867381
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - February 16th, 2021

Smart and masterfully crafted, A Children's Bible was impossible to put down.


Sea Wife: A novel By Amity Gaige Cover Image
$16.00
ISBN: 9780525566922
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - March 2nd, 2021

Emotionally complex, beautifully written, Sea Wife is taut and engaging. I loved it!


What Could Be Saved: A Novel By Liese O'Halloran Schwarz Cover Image
$27.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781982150617
Published: Atria Books - January 12th, 2021

Big in every sense, What Could Be Saved asks hard questions about personal redemption and the ways lives change when a child goes missing. Through the darkness, moments of humanity sparkle and sing. After finishing this novel, I didn't know what to start next. What else could possibly be this good?


The Seas By Samantha Hunt Cover Image
$15.95
ISBN: 9781947793569
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Tin House Books - July 16th, 2019

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The Elegance of the Hedgehog By Muriel Barbery, Alison Anderson (Translator) Cover Image
By Muriel Barbery, Alison Anderson (Translator)
$17.00
ISBN: 9781933372600
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Europa Editions - September 2nd, 2008

The story of a Parisian concierge and a precocious 12 year old girl who lives in her building. Funny, smart, and heartrending. 


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Three Women By Lisa Taddeo Cover Image
$27.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781451642292
Published: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster - July 9th, 2019

I can’t recall the last time when reading a work of nonfiction, I’ve woken up excited purely by the fact that, today, I would get to read more. Compulsive and psychologically riveting, Three Women reads like a novel. I couldn’t keep from dog-earing its pages, because Taddeo had perfectly expressed something I’d felt but never had the words for. In Sloane, Maggie, and Lina, I recognized aspects of myself—namely the desire for connection and for love. When three women tell their uncensored truth they can liberate a nation. I feel deeply grateful to Lisa Taddeo for giving us this gift of raw authenticity.


We Were Witches By Ariel Gore Cover Image
$18.95
ISBN: 9781558614338
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Amethyst Editions - September 5th, 2017

An innovative, magical, feminist memoir unlike any other book I know of. 


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City on Fire By Garth Risk Hallberg Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9780804172950
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: Vintage - July 26th, 2016

This novel, Hallberg's first, is stellar. I marveled in the beauty of his sentences, fell in love with his characters, and didn't want it to end. Well worth the commitment. 


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The Girls: A Novel By Emma Cline Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780812988024
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks - May 9th, 2017

Though inspired by Charles Manson and the infamous murders, Emma Cline’s The Girls’ real subject is girls — their vulnerability and anger, their hunger to be noticed and loved. Insightful, haunting, and beautifully written! —Michaela


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A Visit from the Goon Squad By Jennifer Egan Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780307477477
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor - March 22nd, 2011

Powerful, emotionally riveting linked short stories that spiral through the music scene. Highly recommended! —Michaela


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Please Enjoy Your Happiness: A Memoir By Paul Brinkley-Rogers Cover Image
$16.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781501151262
Published: Touchstone - June 6th, 2017

Wise, inquisitive, and heart-breakingly tender, Brinkley-Rogers’ memoir moves seamlessly between the man he is now and the boy he was in 1959 when he was a sailor aboard the USS Shangri-La stationed off Japan. As much about the nature of memory and love as it is about life lived and reflected upon, Please Enjoy Your Happiness weaves poetry and effortless prose into a captivating tale of the beautiful, tragic woman he met in Yokosuka... Read Michaela's complete review in the Daily Courier »


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The Book of Colors By Raymond Barfield Cover Image
$16.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781609531157
Published: Unbridled Books - May 12th, 2015

Warning: This book may cause you to fall in love with the world again. In language both simple and beautiful, Barfield, a poet doctor, tells the remarkable story of five impoverished people (and a donkey named Jesus) living by the train tracks in Memphis who find love and grace in their everyday lives. —Michaela


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Welcome to Braggsville: A Novel By T. Geronimo Johnson Cover Image
$14.99
ISBN: 9780062302137
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks - September 8th, 2015

This provocative, wholly original satire couldn't be more timely. When four Berkeley students travel to the south to stage a dramatic protest during a Civil War reenactment, friendships are tried and the town's darkest secrets are uncovered. Poetic, ambitious and resoundingly perceptive. —Michaela


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A Muse and a Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic By Peter Turchi Cover Image
$29.95
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781595341938
Published: Trinity University Press - November 11th, 2014

Beautifully illustrated, A Muse and A Maze delights as it demystifies the craft of writing, likening it to puzzles of all kinds. This has been my go-to book as I near the end of a first draft of my own book. Pick it up and flip through the pages. Turchi's brilliance enables both writers and readers to glimpse the wizard behind the curtain. —Michaela


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Mislaid: A Novel By Nell Zink Cover Image
$14.99
ISBN: 9780062364784
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: Ecco - January 26th, 2016

Funny and unconventional in most every way, Zink turns our assumptions about race, sexuality and the American dream on their sides, and spins a tale of missteps and surprises toward a rather Shakespearean zenith. Mislaid is a truly entertaining read! —Michaela


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All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel By Anthony Doerr Cover Image
$30.00
ISBN: 9781476746586
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: Scribner - May 6th, 2014

Ten years in the writing, Anthony Doerr's new novel, All the Light We Cannot See, is at once intimate and generous, historical and magical, thrilling and gorgeous. It is one of those books I savored, the way I do great poetry. –Michaela

Read Michaela's complete review of the book in Kudos.


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The Enchanted: A Novel (Harper Perennial Olive Editions) By Rene Denfeld Cover Image
$10.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9780063036697
Published: Harper Perennial - October 6th, 2020

With the rhythmic music of her language, Denfeld weaves her spell of enchantment, shining love into the darkest, most brutal of places. This novel surprises, terrifies, and enlightens, and is a spellbinding and rapturous read. –Michaela


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One Hundred Years of Solitude By Gabriel Garcia Marquez Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780060883287
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial Modern Classics - February 21st, 2006

You will never see the world the same way again. You will learn to dream with your eyes open. –Michaela


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Nine Inches: Stories By Tom Perrotta Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9781250054975
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: St. Martin's Griffin - October 7th, 2014

Perrotta's new book of stories measures not only the permissible distance between middle school kids in a slow dance, but that less definable space between responsibility and desire, who we think we are and who we dream of being-- if we dared. Perrota's stories are among the best I've read. Ever. (Apologies to Carver fans.) –Michaela


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The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking By Olivia Laing Cover Image
$28.00
ISBN: 9781250063731
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
(This book cannot be returned)
Published: Picador - October 28th, 2014

Part travelogue, part criticism, and part memoir, The Trip to Echo Spring examines the lives of Tennessee Williams, Raymond Carver, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Cheever, and John Berryman, all of them brilliant and all of them troubled and alcoholic. Shimmering with insights and details, it leaves the reader enriched, educated, and inspired by the words of these great writers as seen through Laing’s insightful lens. –Michaela


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Poems 1962-2012 By Louise Glück Cover Image
$22.00
ISBN: 9780374534097
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux - November 5th, 2013

While Pulitzer Prize winner Louise Gluck, whose father invented the X-acto knife, has favored a lean line throughout the fifty years of her published verse, she has reinvented her voice with each subsequent book, making this collection one of astounding breadth and depth. Drawing from myth and family, from nature and sex and her own body, she addresses her reader directly, with courage and simplicity. To read Gluck's poetry is to face one woman's truth unmasked, in all its fierceness and beauty. –Michaela


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Stay Up with Hugo Best: A Novel By Erin Somers Cover Image
$17.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781982102364
Published: Scribner - April 28th, 2020

In her sharply imagined, comedic novel. Somers tackles the #MeToo issue. Refusing any facile judgments, Stay Up With Hugo Best explores the complexities of people & relationships, & the many shades of gray that make us all human. Fantastic!


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Open Me By Lisa Locascio Cover Image
$25.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9780802128072
Published: Grove Press - August 7th, 2018

Locascio's unflinching frankness about female desire is vital for our time. A truly gorgeous book.


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Adulthood Is a Myth: A Sarah's Scribbles Collection By Sarah Andersen Cover Image
$14.99
ISBN: 9781449474195
Availability: Available from our Warehouse (Not in store currently)
Published: Andrews McMeel Publishing - March 8th, 2016

This made me LOL-- a lot. And I've been an adult (supposedly) for awhile!


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Beautiful Ruins: A Novel By Jess Walter Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9780061928178
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Harper Perennial - April 2nd, 2013

Italy, Hollywood, and a life-long love-- what more could you want in a novel?


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The Milk of Dreams By Leonora Carrington Cover Image
$18.95
ISBN: 9781681370941
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: NYR Children's Collection - May 16th, 2017

Strange bedtime stories by a master of surrealism.


Last Chance Texaco By Rickie Lee Jones Cover Image
$28.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9780802127129
Published: Grove Press - April 6th, 2021

In prose as raw, honest, and poetic as Jones' indelible lyrics, this memoir tells the stories behind the songs. Last Chance Texaco is gorgeous and resonant and wholly unique.


Fight No More: Stories By Lydia Millet Cover Image
$15.95
ISBN: 9780393357042
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - June 18th, 2019

This short story collection is really more like a novel. The stories and characters connect in fascinating, resonant ways. A small but mighty read! 


Little Fires Everywhere: A Novel By Celeste Ng Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9780735224315
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Penguin Books - May 7th, 2019

I could not put this down! If you want an addictive read---for the beach or a plane or a long summer day---this is it!


Period. End of Sentence.: A New Chapter in the Fight for Menstrual Justice By Anita Diamant, Melissa Berton (Contributions by) Cover Image
By Anita Diamant, Melissa Berton (Contributions by)
$17.00
ISBN: 9781982144296
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Scribner - May 25th, 2021

This companion book to the Academy Award winning documentary Period. End of Sentence. is a beacon of the No Shame Period movement, empowering women across the globe. 


The Great Man By Kate Christensen Cover Image
$15.95
ISBN: 9780307277343
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Anchor - May 13th, 2008

Masterful and hilarious, this is one of my favorites!!


Smile: The Story of a Face By Sarah Ruhl Cover Image
$27.00
Unavailable
ISBN: 9781982150945
Published: S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books - October 5th, 2021

Generous, honest, funny and heartbreakingly true, this memoir by playwright Sarah Ruhl is probably the best book I read last year.


A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens By Laraine Herring Cover Image
$17.95
ISBN: 9781646030804
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Regal House Publishing - October 19th, 2021

Herring's speculative, poetic memoir is fearless, moving, profound and so full of love it overflows.


Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel By Anthony Doerr Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9781982168445
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Scribner - September 27th, 2022

THIS novel! WOW! I fell in love with all its story lines and characters, and now that it's over, I miss them. It's more than 600 pages, but I read it in four days. A deeply-moving, beautiful, miracle of a novel.