Bookseller's Choice

Bookseller’s Choice

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About Brad’s Choices

“Poetry is probably my deepest love, even if I do gadabout

more with the likes of fiction and history. I don’t just mean

the Poetry section, even though I do take great joy

caretaking it. What I mean is, no matter what I read, I tend

to be most interested in how a writer is using language --

what they do with words and the spaces between them.

There is sometimes more poetry shacked up in the

paragraphs of prose than at its home in verse.

For me, more important than most stories are the worlds -

- the legions of consciousnesses and identities, unruly

most of the time -- created in the telling of those stories.

One result of this is that I tend to err on the side of reading

slowest the books I value the most.”

The Peregrine, by J. A. Baker

I’ve been referring to this as the Moby-Dick of

“bird books” for a while. Shorter, of course, but

so is a bird’s life compared to a whale’s ...but no

less ambitious or profound. Rich beyond its page

count. Join the cult following!

In Memory of

Memory, By Maria

Stepanova, Sasha

Dugdale (Translator)

Truly mesmerizing piece

of writing. The mining of

memories, of yours and of

others, those imagined,

idealized or invoked, turns

excavation into an art-

form. Stepanova’s novel

has claimed its place as

one of the great examples.

Lanark - by Alasdair Gray

There are so-called “contemporary

classics,” and then there are books that

seem as though they fell from the sky,

irrespective of time or place. Reading

Lanark for the first time, during a rainy

winter in Glasgow, it was like scales had

fallen from my eyes. I’m so happy for

its re-issue.

Pond - by Claire-Louise Bennett

My friends were inundated with texts from me raving

about and quoting this book. One of the most kick-down-

the-door debuts in recent memory. Get lost in Bennett's

narrator's headspace, and you may not wish to be found.

One of those quiet sorts of books that are actually

screaming.

Time is the Thing a Body Moves

Through - by T Fleishmann

Line for line, one of the best written books in

the store. I found myself stopping for long

moments between sentences, or even clauses,

both to marvel and to tease out what was

happening on the page. A book about art, love,

and community: about living.

An Untouched House - by Willem Frederik

Hermans, David Colmer (Translated by)

What a book! There is so much happening on the page and

in your head as you read this … short “tale”? “fable”?

“bat-shit crazy horror show depiction of war’s deading

effects on everyone. There are no heroes.

Even better: Archipelago Press has a new Hermans

translation on the way, A Guardian Angel Recalls.

Seiobo There Below - by László Krasznahorkai,

Ottilie Mulzet (Translated by)

Mysterious...mesmerizing...magical. László

Krasznahorkai is, for me, “lit-bro” me all you want, the

greatest living novelist. High praise, eh? How about this?

This is his masterpiece. I’ve read this multiple times since

it’s release, and will keep reading for years to come.

What is Landscape - by John R. Stilgoe

This is such an enlightening book. There is a

language to every human experience, and thus a

word for those things you are experiencing when

viewing the world around you. John Stilgoe reminds

us to slow down long enough to find the right

words.

Gallery of Clouds - by

Rachel Eisendrath

It’s as if NYRB had a

meeting to tailor-make a

book just for me! An ode to

prose whose purpose is not

the plot! *fanning myself*

This is an exquisite piece of

writing, but not at all

delicate. Eisendrath has

been around the block, and

will knock yours off if

you’re not careful.

Dictée - by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

I steer pretty decisively toward writing that

defies form and genre. If ever there was an

example of this, it is Dictée, which is as

defiantly original today as it was when it was

first written before Cha’s murder in 1982.

Bertolt - by Jacques Goldstyn, Claudia Zoe

Bedrick (Translator)

This book continues to give me joy. Each time we sell out

- which is often - and it returns, I re-read it, and I’m in

love with it all over again. As I’ve said at the store,

“Think The Giving Tree, without the masochism.” Hold

on, don’t get mad! I just mean, because here the tree

isn’t being celebrated for being consumed, but for a

living something with which we might also share.

Absentees - by Daniel Heller-Roazen

Missing by choice. Absented by law. Departed by

death. Daniel Heller-Roazen dives into the cultural

and legal histories of “missing persons,” and I found

the depths astonishingly relevant to the close at

hand.

The meticulous, deliberate style made this a joy to

read.

Suite for Barbara Loden, Exposition, & The White

Dress - by Nathalie Léger

Léger’s trilogy of essay-novels are among the most

exhilaratingly creative pieces of writing I’ve read in years.

Again, very genre-defiant, as you’ve come to expect, but

exceedingly welcome to all readers. Just a pure, if

somewhat heady joy!

The Art Lover’s Guide to Japanese Museums -

by Sophie Richard

I don’t have a lot of patience for “armchair travel,”

but this book … oh, life is lived in the exceptions!

No-No Boy - by John Okada

First published in 1957, No-No Boy was virtually

ignored by a public eager to put World War II and

the Japanese internment behind them. Too often

we forget -- too often we silence.

It’s our responsibility us that Okada’s classic

should suffer neither.

Echo Tree - by Henry

Dumas

I’m beside myself with joy

that our friends at Coffee

House Press are re-

releasing this masterpiece

story collection. Would

that 2021 be the year of

Henry Dumas, perhaps we

might have learned

something from 2020

after all.

Counternarratives - by John Keene

If I could put Keene’s collection of short

stories and novellas into every one of these

catalogs, I probably would.

Counternarratives is one of the true works of

21st-century genius.

Border & Rule, by Harsha Walia

To my eyes & politics, this is one of the most significant

books of the year. Walia’s ability to take outrages that

have a tendency to compound and debilitate, and to

articulately synthesize them is remarkable in itself. She

demonstrates that the the world’s migrant/refugee crises

are inevitable outcomes of conquest, capitalist

globalization, and climate change generating mass

dispossession worldwide.

Black Nature - Camille Dungy (editor)

I know it’s not a competition, but if I had to decide

what is the best anthology in the store . . . it very

well may be this one. It’s stunning in its scope --

some 400 years of African American nature writing.

Superlatives stacked cannot do it justice. An

indispensable book, period … end of story.

The Delectable Negro - by Vincent Woodard

This is one of the most exciting books I just happened to

stumble upon this. Posthumously published, Woodard’s

thesis is jaw-droppingly original and compelling,

exploring the linkages (metaphorical and real) between

homoeroticism, cannibalism, and cultures of

consumption in the context of American literature and US

slave culture. A truly stunning piece of scholarship.

Being Property Once Myself - by Joshua

Bennett

Joshua Bennett is a renowned poet AND a helluva

literary-critical scholar. Here, he examines the

intersection of the non-human and human, man and

animal, and the role blackness has played / been

denied in the relationship.

The Spook Who Sat By the Door - by Sam

Greenlee

Sam Greenlee’s masterpiece satire of Black oppression

in the United States and dead-cold serious analysis of

militancy stands up over forty years after it was first

written. No B.S., and no suffering of fools.

We Are the Land -

by Damon B. Akins,

Jr. Bauer, William J.

This is a massively

important contribution to

our understanding of

California history and the

present of its first peoples.

I suspect this book will

become a classic in the

field.

Waiting for the Sibyl - by William

Kentridge

I very audibly gasped (probably cursed a

‘Holy _____!”) upon opening this for the

first time.

Words will defy you to describe it, as it is a

work of visual art unto itself. Though a click

of the book will take you to a description.

Second Place - by Rachel Cusk

More plot than we’re accustomed to in a Rachel Cusk

novel, but we won’t hold that against her. (Kidding!)

Psychologically expansive, while also narratively

explosive. Second Place is a great introduction to her

oeuvre, as well as a intimate expansion of it.

Against Purity - by Alexis Shotwell

This is a provocative and wise use of theory to

help amend our thinking about the past -- such

that it might change our sense of what’s

possible in the future.

One of East Bay Booksellers singular and

surprisingly consistent bestsellers .

An Inventory of Losses - by Judith Schlansky,

Jackie Smith (Translated by)

Much of living seems like an accumulation of losses.

That’s depressing, in a way. But there is something to the

accounting. There is, if nothing, but the grasping, if for

but a moment, the time it takes to do so. Anyway … Judith

Schlansky’s latest work, an exquisite grasping of what

refuses it, is phenomenal.

The Quick & the Dead - by Joy Williams

There is no one writing like Joy Williams today.

Heralded as a master of the short story, I actually think

her novels are where she is at her most freakily wild &

no holds barred. The Quick & the Dead is a contemporary

classic, and will prepare you for one of the great novels

later this year -- her NEW novel, Harrow, which you will

definitely hear me crowing about repeatedly.

The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to

Orchestral Music - by Robert Philip

I’m a classical music dilettante, but definitely find I

respond best when I have some cues about what to

listen for. This book has been a treasure trove for

listening. Now in paperback.

A Little Devil in

America - by Hanif

Abdurraquib

I knew this would be good

… but I was not prepared

for just how stunning it

wuld be. Lyrical and

insightful, rich with

research and in memory,

with joy and pain often

twinned . . . as though in a

dance. Just fabulous.

Liner Notes for the Revolution - by By

Daphne A. Brooks

This is one of the books I’m most excited

this spring! Daphne Brooks’ book kicks

down the door and demands long overdue

recognition and celebration of Black women

musicians as radical intellectuals..

Be sure to indulge in the 9-hour Spotify

playlist, too!

The History of the World in Seven Cheap Things -

by Raj Patel

Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, & lives … it’s

hard to argue we’ve not managed to cheapen them all, and

in the process have sold the world short.

Maybe let’s re-think this, yes?

Paths to Prison - by Isabelle Kirkham-

Lewitt (Editor)

The horrific reality of prison extends beyond

the immediate walls. It is informed by a logic

and constructed by way of a complex cultural

architecture. This is a fantastic entryway to re-

thinking the reaches of prison.

We Do This ‘Til We Free Us - by Mariame Kaba

What if social transformation and liberation isn't about

waiting for someone else to come along and save us?

What if ordinary people have the power to collectively

free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and

interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of

abolition and transformative political struggle.

The World Turned Upside Down - by

Christopher Hill

Christopher Hill’s book is a classic “what could’ve

been” history of the seventeenth century -- wherein the

possibility of communal property, a different vision of

democracy and the protestant ethic was repelled and

repressed. Alas!

Fulfillment - by Alec MacGillis

Potentially a game changer in terms of the human

and economic scope of its reporting. Without a

doubt the most compelling journalistic accounting

/ reckoning I’ve encountered of Amazon’s effect(s)

on American labor and inequality.

Badges without

Borders - by Stuart

Schrader

A pivotal work

demonstrating the

international implications

of the militarization of

police in the U.S. Casting a

new light on American

empire, Badges Without

Borders shows, for the first

time, that the very same

people charged with

global counterinsurgency

also militarized American

policing at home.

America On Fire - by Elizabeth

Hinton

This is an indispensable contribution to our

much-needed reevaluation of police power

in the U.S. (and beyond). What the media and

official narrative have denigrated as “riots,”

Hinton reads as rebellions, and she digs deep

into the cycle of police injustices keep the

violence circulating.

Picatrix - Dan Attrell (Translator), David

Porreca (Translator)

A manual for constructing talismans, mixing magical

compounds, summoning planetary spirits, and

determining astrological conditions -- all from a

original text compiled in Arabic from over two hundred

sources in the latter half of the tenth century?

Translated first into Castilian & then Latin? Count me in!

Last Loosening - by Walter Serner

Written by the cofounder and infant terrible of Dada,

and revised after he’d become disgusted with his

own movement (we’ve all been there, right??), Last

Loosening is a sort of moral guide for the amoral . . .

and it’s bewilderingly wonderful.

Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and Death's

Duel - John Donne

I spent a significant portion of my Christmas Day reading

John Donne’s sermons & devotional material about

sickness & death to my sleeping dog … because that’s how

I celebrate.

I may not share Donne’s piety, but I will bow down to his

prose nearly any day.

Suicidal - by Jesse Bering

Many of us know this singular impulse. Either we’ve

suffered the loss of people we love to it; or we suffer

the thought itself. Bering’s dealing is bracing and

unlike any other I’ve encountered. Darkly funny at

times, but never glib.

Timefulness - by Marcia Bjornerud

Time is long.

This amazing book reveals how knowing the

rhythms of Earth's deep past and conceiving of

time as a geologist does can give us the perspective

we need for a more sustainable future. It invites a

new way of thinking about our place in time,

showing how our everyday lives are shaped by

processes that vastly predate us, and how our

actions today will in turn have consequences that

will outlast us by generations.

The Ruins Lesson - by

Susan Stewart

I’m utterly fascinated by

the stuff that remains … the

ruins that outlive their

intentions. How have ruins

become so valued in

Western culture and so

central to our art and

literature? Stewart’s book

may not be the final word -

- for who knows what will

remain of even these -- but

we are the better for it.

Underland - by Robert MacFarlane

Was I too subtle with the theme of this set of

books?

I’ve long been a fan of MacFarlane’s writing,

and here it is wed in a deep, powerful way

with a reflection on how time is etched into

the earth itself. MacFarlane writes has a way

of capturing both wonder and insight, and he

is a treasure.

Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018 - by

Daniel Borzutzky

Daniel Bozutzky’s poetry is incandescent with anger at

the violence suffered by those most vulnerable. What

makes him a truly special poet, however, is how he

harnesses his disappointment with the way things have

been and are, and invites a pulsing hope for what might

yet be.

Nobody - by Alice Oswald

Read everything by Oswald, probably my

favorite living poet at the moment, but for the

sake of this I’ll focus on the latest. Fractured,

sometimes in a frustrating way, but a

frustration built by a sort of design, or perhaps

better a necessity. Read it out loud to the Pacific

Ocean, and see how it responds.

The Craft of Poetry - by Lucy Newlyn

This is such a fantastic idea for an intro to poetics and its

sometimes intimidating terminology. That Newlyn pulls

it off with such audacious, delightful flare -- the

modelling of each term with her own verse -- is really

something else.

The Glass Constellation - by Arthur Sze

Such a delightful paradox, this book. It feels

like a brick, but the verse feels as though it is

falling between your fingers. It’s light to the

touch, but its emotional registers are

profound.