All loca­tions will be closed on Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 20 in hon­or of Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Day.

January Staff Picks


Look­ing to start the new year with a great read? Need inspi­ra­tion for the 100 Years, 100 Books Read­ing Chal­lenge? January’s staff picks are the per­fect way to kick off your year of lit­er­ary adventures!

In need of more rec­om­men­da­tions? Check out past Staff Pics on our What We’re Read­ing page, or com­plete a short form and we’ll email you a list of per­son­al­ized recommendations.

Moth­er­hood by Sheila Heti

Annalise says:

Rumi­na­tors, rejoice! This book feels like a long, mean­der­ing walk with your thoughts, in the best way. As the title sug­gests, Heti wres­tles with both the abstract con­cept and the bod­i­ly real­i­ty of moth­er­hood. Her ques­tions are tan­gen­tial, essen­tial, and con­stant, cov­er­ing soci­etal expec­ta­tions, her sense of self, and the broad­er world. But instead of let­ting these ques­tions remain open-end­ed, Heti frames them as yes-no” and attempts to answer each with a coin toss — the result is often humor­ous and poignant. I’ve def­i­nite­ly liked read­ing these pas­sages aloud, or lis­ten­ing to the audio­book ver­sion that Heti nar­rates for the full rhyth­mic, poet­ic effect. If you felt com­pelled by the pas­sages in Claire Ded­er­er’s Mon­sters: A Fan’s Dilem­ma that grap­ple with the idea of the Art Mon­ster, Het­i’s book is a must-read.”

Circe by Made­line Miller

Alli­son says:

Circe is an epic com­bi­na­tion and retelling of var­i­ous Greek myths, made more digestible for us mere mor­tals. Deemed pow­er­less and unat­trac­tive by her fam­i­ly of gods, Circe is bul­lied and even­tu­al­ly exiled. She dis­cov­ers an affin­i­ty for witch­craft and spends cen­turies on the island of Aia­ia hon­ing her skills and inter­act­ing with some of the most famous fig­ures from Greek mythol­o­gy. I loved how Made­line Miller used a first-per­son nar­ra­tive to give Circe her own voice. Five stars from this reader!”

Night­bitch by Rachel Yoder

Dan says,

Night­bitch wres­tles with mag­ic: mag­i­cal real­ism, an actu­al mag­ic show, the mag­ic of moth­er­hood. It is this third theme that the book wres­tles with the most – some­times play­ful­ly, like a moth­er tus­sling with her child, often more antag­o­nis­ti­cal­ly, like a wild canine attack­ing its prey. Yoder can be a bit heavy-hand­ed, espe­cial­ly at the book’s con­clu­sion, but this wild­ly enter­tain­ing read beau­ti­ful­ly bridges the gap between the mun­dane and the mys­ti­cal. While the tar­get audi­ence is new and recent moth­ers, the book will land for any­one who knows or has had a moth­er, or any­one who rel­ish­es a good tale (tail?).”