Staff Picks

Beautifully written and so interesting, this exploration of muscle (both physical and metaphorical) weaves together the clinical, the cultural, and the personal to describe our relationship with "the stuff that moves us." It will make you fall back in love with your own body in motion--and inspire you through the stories of others fully living that relationship.

 

Publisher’s description:

Cardiac, smooth, skeletal--these three different types of muscle in our bodies make our hearts beat; push food through our intestines, blood through our vessels, babies out the uterus; attach to our bones and allow for motion. Tsui also traces how muscles have defined beauty--and how they have distorted it--through the ages, and how they play an essential role in our physical and mental health.

 

Magical realism meets radical trans liberation meets rock 'em sock 'em New York, a big city tumultuous ride to freedom and self actualization. A fun, heart-breaking romp through Kai Cheng Thom's take on what it takes to be trans in America.

 

Publisher's description:

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir is a coming-of-age story about a young Asian trans girl, pathological liar, and kung-fu expert who runs away from her parents' abusive home in a rainy city called Gloom. Striking off on her own, she finds her true family in a group of larger-than-life trans femmes who make their home in a mysterious pleasure district known only as the Street of Miracles. Under the wings of this fierce and fabulous flock, she blossoms into the woman she has always dreamed of being, with a little help from the unscrupulous Doctor Crocodile. When one of their number is brutally murdered, our protagonist joins her sisters in forming a vigilante gang to fight back against the transphobes, violent johns, and cops that stalk the Street of Miracles. But when things go terribly wrong, she must find the truth within herself in order to stop the violence and discover what it really means to grow up and find your family.

 

A fun romance about transformation and starting over. Body positivity messages are sprinkled within, which is refreshing. It also includes a home remodel, which is satisfying, too!
 

Publisher's description: 
Rose Barnes feels best when she's invisible--so when she wins the lottery and is suddenly thrust into the spotlight where everyone wants something, hiding out in a small town in North Carolina makes perfect sense. Rose has got curves for days--and to Angus, the big, burly, bearded contractor working on her new house, she's just plum perfect. Rose is surprised to learn that Angus has a sense of humor and a soft heart beneath that gruff exterior. Angus can't help noticing that wacky Rose is smart, funny, and has a sexy underwear stash that leads him to some very unprofessional fantasies. As their unlikely friendship becomes love, Angus becomes determined to help Rose overcome what he believes are financial troubles. But with Angus's need to always give more than he receives, Rose's multi-million secrets could mean the end of a beautiful relationship.

Find Curves for Days in our online catalog

Looking for a story unlike anything you've ever read? This cast of characters will shock, dazzle, and disgust you. With a blend of dark humor, horror, and a touch of magical realism, readers are transported inside a family's power-struggle to be anything but "normal."

 

Publisher's description: 

Nominated for the National Book Award, Geek Love is mesmerizing, daring, and unconventional. Award-winning novelist Katherine Dunn fascinates and amazes much the same way tornados, earthquakes, and volcanos do. No one wants to be a victim, but most find the event too hypnotic to ignore. In order to save their traveling carnival from bankruptcy, the Binewskis are creating their own brood of sideshow freaks. Under Al's careful direction, the pregnant Lil ingests radioisotopes, insecticides, and arsenic to make her babies "special." As the oldest daughter, albino dwarf Olympia, puts listeners in the ring side seat, her family's incredible drama erupts and spills over into the "normal" world. Not for the squeamish or faint of heart, this brilliantly daring novel is shocking and delightful. Christina Moore's vibrant narration conspires with Katherine Dunn's evocative, energetic prose to shock us at seeing something of ourselves in these exotic characters.

 

This book was recommended to me by a friend living with Parkinson's and helped educate me on how Parkinson's manifests in individuals differently and varies day by day. It made me laugh, cry, and consider things I hadn't before. It's a raw, witty, visually-captivating graphic novel not to be missed.

 

Publisher description:

How does one deal with a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease at the age of forty-three? My Degeneration, by former Anchorage Daily News staff cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl, answers the question with humor and passion, recounting the author's attempt to come to grips with the "malicious whimsy" of this chronic, progressive, and disabling disease. This graphic novel tracks Dunlap-Shohl's journey through depression, the worsening symptoms of the disease, the juggling of medications and their side effects, the impact on relations with family and community, and the raft of mental and physical changes wrought by the malady. My Degeneration examines the current state of Parkinson's care, including doctor/patient relations and the repercussions of a disease that, among other things, impairs movement, can rob patients of their ability to speak or write, degrades sufferers' ability to deal with complexity, and interferes with the sense of balance. Readers learn what it's like to undergo a dramatic, demanding, and audacious bit of high-tech brain surgery that can mysteriously restore much of a patient's control over symptoms. But My Degeneration is more than a Parkinson's memoir. Dunlap-Shohl gives the person newly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease the information necessary to cope with it on a day-to-day basis. He chronicles the changes that life with the disease can bring to the way one sees the world and the way one is seen by the wider community. Dunlap-Shohl imparts a realistic basis for hope--hope not only to carry on, but to enjoy a decent quality of life.

O'Connell is a brilliant and irreverent author who has uniquely captured queer disabled life in this incredible spitfire of a novel. This book is not only laugh-out-loud funny, but also very enlightening on the often not discussed topic of being a disabled queer person.

 

Publisher's description: 

Elliott appears to be living the dream as a successful TV writer with a doting boyfriend. But behind his Instagram filter of a life, he's grappling with an intensifying alcohol addiction, he can't seem to stop cheating on his boyfriend with various sex workers, and his cerebral palsy is making him feel like gay Shrek. After falling down a rabbit hole of sex, drinking, and Hollywood backstabbing, Elliott decides to limp his way towards redemption. But facing your demons is easier said than done.

 

An outrageous story that blends deep respect for traditional lifeways with technology in unexpected and really right ways. Ableism, fear of difference, utopia, and surveillance are also key themes. Noor is funny and fast-paced, and would be a good introduction to the genre for reluctant SF readers.

 

Publisher's description: 

When everything goes wrong on a trip to the local market, AO, a woman with a ton of major and necessary body augmentations, must race against time across the deserts of Northern Nigeria with a Fulani herdsman named DNA in a world where everything is streamed.

Find Noor in our online catalog. 

Many menstruating people my age have a memory of our mothers handing us the American Girl Doll puberty guide, The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls by Valorie Schaefer, when we turned 12 to help us deal with puberty. That book was very important to me and many others growing up, and I'm so grateful that there are newer, way more informative and inclusive books these days that provide a more up-to-date knowledge framework. This book has a great tone--not too dry, not too flippant--that makes the reader feel as if a close friend is telling them this valuable information about menstruation. I found the various illustrations throughout to also be fun and helpful visuals. Overall, this is a wonderful resource for menstruating tweens.

 

Publisher's description:

A frank, funny, age-appropriate guide for pre-teens about getting your period, from Dr. Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes. Getting your period for the first time can be mortifying, weird and messy--and asking questions about it can be even worse. Packed with honest advice on managing Aunt Flo like a boss, this book will induct pre-teens into the secret society of menstruation: from demystifying what cramps feel like, to whether you can feel it coming out, to what you should do if your pad leaks onto your dress. With Yumi's sisterly wisdom and Dr. Kang's medical advice, case studies, first-person accounts and questions from real teens, this book for pre-teens (9-12 years) is guaranteed to make you feel special about getting your period.

 

Add this book to the list of unhinged millennial women novels that have stolen my heart in the past few years. "Unhinged millennial woman" is definitely one of my favorite genres, one in whice I would also catalog Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney and My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. I would describe Melissa Broder's writing style as deeply unsettling. This book is uncomfortable. It makes you squirm. But that's the joy of it. Broder gets down to the nitty-gritty that everyone is thinking and no one is saying. This had some really insightful thoughts on eating disorders, mother/daughter relationships, and homophobia within Orthodox Judaism.

 

Publisher's description:

Rachel is twenty-four, a lapsed Jew who has made calorie restriction her religion. By day, she maintains an illusion of existential control, by way of obsessive food rituals, while working as an underling at a Los Angeles talent management agency. At night, she pedals nowhere on the elliptical machine. Rachel is content to carry on subsisting--until her therapist encourages her to take a ninety-day communication detox from her mother, who raised her in the tradition of calorie counting. Early in the detox, Rachel meets Miriam, a zaftig young Orthodox Jewish woman who works at her favorite frozen yogurt shop and is intent upon feeding her. Rachel is suddenly and powerfully entranced by Miriam--by her sundaes and her body, her faith and her family--and as the two grow closer, Rachel embarks on a journey marked by mirrors, mysticism, mothers, milk, and honey.

 

This is a great example of a book that normalizes people with disabilities to a younger audience. I love how it portrays the main character as having her own voice, even if she is unable to speak. Dancing with Daddy shows a glimpse of the life of a person with disabilities, which others may not know about.

 

Publisher's description:

Elsie can't wait to go to her first father-daughter dance. She picked out the perfect dress and has been practicing swirling and swaying in her wheelchair. Elsie's heart pirouettes as she prepares for her special night. With gestures, smiles, and words from a book filled with pictures, she shares her excitement with her family. But when a winter storm comes, she wonders if she'll get the chance to spin and dance her way to a dream come true.

 

Find Dancing with Daddy in our online catalog.