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

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

BRILLIANT BOOKS

Traverse City: brilliant-books.net

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. 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.

The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

The first book in a fantasy trilogy inspired by Ghanaian folklore and Arabian myths, The Final Strife offers sapphic romance and rebellion in a divided empire. This promises to be an epic and unforgettable debut.

Greenland by David Santos Donaldson

I am more excited than I can say for this debut. A young author’s life collides with the man whose life he chronicles, the two men’s Blackness, queerness, and mirrored struggles mingling until their stories seem to fuse. This is a novel about literature itself, about remembrance and otherness, and about the connections, imagined or otherwise, that we forge with those who came before us.

MCLEAN & EAKIN

Petoskey: mcleanandeakin.com

Bestsellers • Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome • Magic Season by Wade Rouse • Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart • Heartstopper Volumes 1-4 by Alice Oseman • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong • Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley • Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff • The Sellout by Paul Beatty • Beautiful Country by Quian Julie Wang

Up-and-Comers Available now: Body Grammar by Jules Ohman and Nuclear Family by Joseph Han

SUN KARAOKE 6-8PM TUES TRIVIA ON THE PATIO 7-9PM

Sun-Tues Noon-10pm • Thurs 4pm-10pm TO-GO ORDERS AVAILABLE 231-252-4157 • Fri-Sat Noon-11pm (kitchen open noon-10pm Fri & Sat) closed Wed

DRINK SPECIALS (3-6 Monday-Friday): $2 well drinks, $2 domestic drafts, $2.50 domestic bottles, $5 Hornitos margarita SUNDAY - $6 Ketel One Bloody Mary & $4 Mimosas

DAILY FOOD SPECIALS (3-6pm):

Mon- $1 chips and salsa Tues- $1 enchiladas Thurs - $5 fried veggies Fri - $5 hot pretzels w/ beer cheese LIVE MUSIC ON THE PATIO 6:30-9:30 Thurs - The Family Jam Fri - Slim Pickins • Sat - The Brothers Crunch 221 E State St. - downtown TC

DINE-IN TUES - SAT @ 5:30PM trattoria-funistrada.com to reserve 4566 W. MacFarlane Rd 'Burdickville' (231) 334-3900

NortherN MichigaN’s DestiNatioN Place Gift Shoppe - Home Decor Garden Treasures

2195 N M-66 East Jordan • 231-222-2200 • Located 1 mile South of the Ironton Ferry (Charlevoix) • www.stonehedgegardensandgifts.com

Coming later this year: I Was Born for This by Alice Oseman and How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in 10 Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

OPEN THURSDAY - MONDAY FOR DINNER | 4PM - 9PM THERIVERSIDEINN.COM | 231.256.9971 Northern Express Weekly • june 20, 2022 • 17