August Staff Picks

Mandy says:

“Fi is some­what of a love let­ter to the author’s recent­ly deceased son. Painful and hon­est, but also some­how fun­ny at times, it is an explo­ration of grief and all the ways it can wreck you. Ulti­mate­ly uplift­ing, this mem­oir will res­onate with any­one who has lost a fam­i­ly mem­ber. Details from the author’s life and how her upbring­ing shaped her add intrigue. I high­ly rec­om­mend her ear­li­er mem­oirs as well – Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and Cock­tail Hour Under the Tree of For­get­ful­ness.”

Colleen says:

“I was nev­er one for mythol­o­gy. If I couldn’t sleep, dusty, dry mythol­o­gy books did the trick. Then, along came this book, which is full of dra­ma, deceit, adven­ture, mem­o­rable char­ac­ters, and live­ly dia­logue. Fry – Eng­lish come­di­an extra­or­di­naire – retells these clas­sic tales in a cap­ti­vat­ing, humor­ous, and mod­ern voice. Mythos, the first vol­ume of a tril­o­gy, is a splen­did intro­duc­tion (or rein­tro­duc­tion) to the world of clas­si­cal Greek myths, and excel­lent to read aloud or lis­ten to as an audiobook.”

Valerie says:

“Where to start? This nov­el is a metafic­tion­al mashup of mul­ti­ple gen­res: fan­ta­sy, romance, dra­ma, and com­e­dy, to name a few. Addi­tion­al­ly, the author lets you know from the out­set that what you’re read­ing is an abridged ver­sion, fea­tur­ing just the ​“good parts.” To top it off, the nar­ra­tor is con­stant­ly inter­rupt­ing the sto­ry with com­men­tary. Once you have decid­ed to sus­pend dis­be­lief and go with the flow, you will be off on a wild adven­ture. Many are famil­iar with the clas­sic film ver­sion, but for those who have nev­er read the nov­el, you are in for a treat.”

Kady says:

“Romance is maybe my favorite genre to read, and def­i­nite­ly my favorite genre to rec­om­mend, but it was­n’t always that way. The Kiss Quo­tient expand­ed my ideas about what the genre was capa­ble of and kick­start­ed my love for (writ­ten) love. Our main girl, Stel­la, is on the autism spec­trum and feel­ing famil­ial pres­sure to focus less on her career and more on get­ting mar­ried. Because the worlds of dat­ing, romance, and phys­i­cal inti­ma­cy are alien to her, she hires an escort to help her prac­tice dat­ing and to resolve some of her sen­so­ry issues around sex – which leads to some very steamy and well-writ­ten scenes. Beyond this intrigu­ing premise, there’s a lot in this book (and the sub­se­quent series) about know­ing your­self and ask­ing for what you need, as well as the idea that every­one – regard­less of abil­i­ty or dis­abil­i­ty – deserves care, con­sid­er­a­tion, respect, and pas­sion from their partner.”