Treat Your Shelf Bookstores highlight bestselling and favorite titles By Northern Express Staff We asked bookshops around the North for some of their top sellers and up-and-comers (aka new books primed to be future favorites) that address the themes of this week’s issue: Pride and Diversity. Consider this your green light to stock up in the store or put your library card to work!
horizon books Traverse City and Cadillac: horizonbooks.com
BRILLIANT BOOKS Traverse City: brilliant-books.net
Bestsellers • Heartstopper by Alice Oseman • House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune • They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera • Stamped for Kids by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi • When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson • White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Bestsellers • Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller • We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby • Not Quite Narwhal by Jessie Sima • White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo • Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
Up-and-Comers Juan Pineda, Horizon Books COO, offers his recommendations. Mi Ciudad Sings by Cynthia Harmony This picture book tells the story of a young Mexican girl enjoying the vast palette of sounds as she makes her way through town accompanied by her little dog. Suddenly, a devastating earthquake shakes up the day. This tale is close to my heart not only because the author sets the book and is from my hometown of Mexico City, but also because I can clearly recall my own experience of living through the big 1986 quake that leveled much of the city. This is a unique Mexico D.F. [Distrito Federal] story that is being told by a local voice.
Small Town Pride by Phil Stamper It’s an intermediate level work of fiction depicting the coming of age of an openly gay boy living in a small town in Ohio. I think it’s important to call attention to the normalcy of young people simply living out their lives as authentically as possible in small rural settings in America, complete with all the quirks and banalities of adolescence.
16 • june 20, 2022 • Northern Express Weekly
Up-and-Comers Bookseller Leo Bevington offers their recommendations. A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall A stunning historical romance that is thoroughly delectable, quietly subversive, and just so much fun! A Lady for a Duke follows the blossoming romance between trans woman Viola Caroll and the man whose heart she broke when she left her old life. Sparks fly, Jane Austen-worthy banter is exchanged, and the whole cast of characters shines in this absolute gem of a book.
Buffalo Is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel In this electric collection of short stories, Chelsea Vowel delves into Indigenous stories, lives, and moments, subverting North American colonialism in a genre she calls “Métis futurism.” Deeply evocative and jarringly beautiful, these nine stories weave together threads of nature and technology, past and future. Full of shapeshifters and changing landscapes, this is a thoroughly magnetic collection—one of those reads I could feel in my bones.
