Jordan's Picks

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The Book Eaters By Sunyi Dean Cover Image
$27.99
ISBN: 9781250810182
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Tor Books - August 2nd, 2022

This horror tinged gothic fantasy would make a surprising meal for any book eater: an interrogation of the concepts of family and loyalty, a warning against perpetuating systems built on cruelty and oppression, an homage to the multitude of emotional and physical demands of growing and birthing and raising another living being that are all bound up and compressed into the too-small word of “mother.” A complex and heady meal, especially if we are what we eat. 

However, Dean goes deeper. We are not just what we eat; we are also the stories we tell because you cannot be what you can’t imagine and you can’t imagine what you haven’t seen. The story of Devon and Cai, two monsters made both more monstrous and more human by their love, both willing to dream of and fight for lives radically different from the ones charted out for them, is a fascinating story well-worth reading, rereading, even eating; whatever it takes to keep it with you so you never forget the beauty and brutality of love.


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Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution By R. F. Kuang Cover Image
$27.99
ISBN: 9780063021426
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Harper Voyager - August 23rd, 2022

BABEL is a beautifully written historical fantasy filled with rhetorical semantics, linguistic nuance, and etymological minutiae; Kuang never shies away from the Oxfordian roots of this novel. By owning them and fully embracing the genre of “dark academia,” she crafts an engrossing world, a reflection of England in the 1800s but delicately warped with astounding precision. 

This distortion displays the English language and its Empire as one and the same; a hodgepodge of plundered pieces from across the globe, stolen away with no credit and claimed as wholly original, a culture that prides itself on innate supremacy whilst built on the backs of looted countries. At the heart of this sweeping colonization is Babel, home of the Royal Institute of Translation and the source of the Empire’s supremacy. The students trained there use the magic of meanings lost in translation, imbued into silver, to shape the world. 

Robin and his cohort are simply the latest in a long line of students snapped up from their homes and absorbed by Babel in the pursuit of more knowledge, more power. All four are brilliant, authentic, and heart-breakingly human; each has their own complex and complicated relationship with their school and the government it supports; each has their own method of trying to exist in a system fundamentally hostile towards them. Eventually Robin can no longer ignore the extent of imperial exploitation and he must choose between settling for the seemingly comfortable life of tacitly aiding in oppression or seeking to liberate himself and the world from Britain’s silver shackles. 

With this dazzling and erudite tome Kuang accomplishes a feat of literary alchemy as magical as the silver workers in her fictional Babel; a true exploration of the beauty and power of language and the inherent violence of translation and change. 


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The Accidental Apprentice (Wilderlore #1) By Amanda Foody Cover Image
$8.99
ISBN: 9781534477575
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Margaret K. McElderry Books - February 1st, 2022

The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking) By Katie Mack Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9781982103552
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Scribner - May 4th, 2021

The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy By Anne Ursu Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9780062275127
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Walden Pond Press - October 12th, 2021

The Near Witch By V. E. Schwab Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9781789091144
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Titan Books - January 28th, 2020

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine: Reese's Book Club (A Novel) By Gail Honeyman Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780735220690
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Penguin Books - June 5th, 2018

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The Marvellers (The Conjureverse #1) By Dhonielle Clayton, Khadijah Khatib (Illustrator) Cover Image
$16.99
ISBN: 9781250174949
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) - May 3rd, 2022

In the Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (Translator) Cover Image
By Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (Translator)
$20.00
ISBN: 9781609457372
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Europa Editions - March 15th, 2022

Spear By Nicola Griffith Cover Image
$19.99
ISBN: 9781250819321
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Tordotcom - April 19th, 2022

Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style By Benjamin Dreyer Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780812985719
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks - August 4th, 2020

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland By Patrick Radden Keefe Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9780307279286
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Anchor - February 25th, 2020

Nettle & Bone By T. Kingfisher Cover Image
$27.99
ISBN: 9781250244048
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Tor Books - April 26th, 2022

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The Ever Storms (Wilderlore #3) By Amanda Foody Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9781665910750
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Margaret K. McElderry Books - January 31st, 2023

Amanda Foody's WILDERLORE series is an example of everything MG fantasy should be: endearing, engaging characters; vivid action and adventure; all set in a wondrously immersive world. While that has all been present since THE ACCIDENTAL APPRENTICE, THE EVER STORMS goes one further and includes the long-beloved trope of a magical school that is executed with sparkling originality and all of your favorite characters from the first two books.

Foody has a gift for deftly interweaving thrilling adventure with sensitive, heartfelt explorations of deeply resonant themes like what true friendship means, how have a flexible and resilient sense of self, the importance of acknowledging mistakes and learning from them, and, in this book, the myriad beautifully unique forms family can take. 

Families can be complicated and messy but the concept of family is simple: people who love each other and would do anything for each other.  Those people can be related by blood or marriage, choice or circumstance but they share failures and triumphs, hopes and fears, and willingly carry each other’s burdens. Barclay may be an orphan but he has one of the best families and it fills the heart (and occasionally the eyes) to watch him begin to realize the love that surrounds him.

If you enjoyed the first two books, then this one will not disappoint; if you haven't started the series yet, then consider this your sign to dive in and enjoy one of the best series out there because Foody is only getting better.