Daniel's Staff Picks

Here are some books that staff member Daniel enjoyed reading. Maybe you will too!

Showing 1 - 18 of 18  There are a total of 106 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The animals in that country"
Star rating for The animals in that country
Average Rating:
1 stars
Description:
"Jean is not your usual grandma. She's never been good at getting on with other humans, apart from her beloved granddaughter, Kimberly. Instead, she surrounds herself with animals, working as a guide in an outback wildlife park. And although Jean talks to all her charges, she has a particular soft spot for a young dingo called Sue. As disturbing news arrives of a pandemic sweeping the country, Jean realises this is no ordinary flu: its chief symptom...
Book cover for "The beautiful ones"
Star rating for The beautiful ones
Author:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Book cover for "Blacktop wasteland"
Star rating for Blacktop wasteland
Author:
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
"A gritty, voice-driven thriller about a former getaway driver who thought he had escaped the criminal life who is pulled back in by race, poverty, and his own former life of crime. Beauregard "Bug" Montage is a man with many different titles: husband, father, friend, honest car mechanic. But before he gave it up, Bug used to be known from the hills of North Carolina to the beaches of Florida as the best Wheel Man on the East Coast. After a series...
Book cover for "How not to drown in a glass of water"
Star rating for How not to drown in a glass of water
Author:
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"From the beloved author of Dominicana, a GMA Book Club Pick and Women's Prize Finalist, an electrifying and indelible new novel about a woman who has lost everything but the chance to finally tell her story. Write this down: Cara Romero wants to work. Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But when, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market...
Book cover for "I have some questions for you"
Star rating for I have some questions for you
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"A successful film professor and podcaster, Bodie Kane is content to forget her past--the family tragedy that marred her adolescence, her four largely miserable years at a New Hampshire boarding school, and the murder of her former roommate, Thalia Keith, in the spring of their senior year. Though the circumstances surrounding Thalia's death and the conviction of the school's athletic trainer, Omar Evans, are hotly debated online, Bodie prefers--needs--to...
Book cover for "If I survive you"
Star rating for If I survive you
Average Rating:
2.8 stars
Description:
"A collection of humorous and harrowing linked stories following a Jamaican-American family as they seek stability upon moving to Miami."--
Book cover for "Kink"
Star rating for Kink
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
Kink is a groundbreaking anthology of literary short fiction exploring love and desire, BDSM, and interests across the sexual spectrum, edited by lauded writers R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell, and featuring a roster of all-star contributors including Alexander Chee, Roxane Gay, Carmen Maria Machado, and more.
Book cover for "Libertie"
Star rating for Libertie
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"Coming of age as a free-born Black girl in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson is all too aware that her mother, a physician, has a vision for their future together: Libertie will go to medical school and practice alongside her. But Libertie feels stifled by her mother's choices and is constantly reminded that, unlike her mother, Libertie has skin that is too dark. When a young man from Haiti proposes to Libertie and promises she will be...
Book cover for "A little devil in America"
Star rating for A little devil in America
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"A Little Devil in America is an urgent project that unravels all modes and methods of black performance, in this moment when black performers are coming to terms with their value, reception, and immense impact on America. With sharp insight, humor, and heart, Abdurraqib examines how black performance happens in specific moments in time and space--midcentury Paris, the moon, or a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio. At the outset of this project,...
Book cover for "The low, low woods"
Star rating for The low, low woods
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
"Shudder-to-Think, Pennsylvania, is plagued by a mysterious illness that eats away at the memories of those affected by it. El and Octavia are two best friends who find themselves the newest victims of this disease after waking up in a movie theater with no memory of the past few hours. As El and Vee dive deeper into the mystery behind their lost memories, they realize the stories of their town hold more dark truth than they could've imagined"--

11. Matrix

Book cover for "Matrix"
Star rating for Matrix
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE 2022 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION
One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2021

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, The Financial Times, Good Housekeeping, Esquire, Vulture, Marie Claire, Vox, The Los Angeles Times,
...
Book cover for "Minor feelings"
Star rating for Minor feelings
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
"Asian Americans inhabit a purgatorial status: neither white enough nor black enough, unmentioned in most conversations about racial identity. In the popular imagination, Asian Americans are all high-achieving professionals. But in reality, this is the most economically divided group in the country, a tenuous alliance of people with roots from South Asia to East Asia to the Pacific Islands, from tech millionaires to service industry laborers ... Poet...
Book cover for "My favorite thing is monsters"
Star rating for My favorite thing is monsters
Author:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:
In a fictional graphic diary, a 10-year-old girl describes her investigation into her neighbor's murder.
Book cover for "The office of historical corrections"
Star rating for The office of historical corrections
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"The award-winning author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self brings her signature voice and insight to the subjects of race, grieieief, apology, and American history"--Provided by publisher.
Book cover for "Promises of gold ="
Star rating for Promises of gold =
Description:
A "collection of poems addressing how every kind of love--self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural--is birthed, shaped, and complicated by the invisible forces of gender, capitalism, religion, migration, and so on. Written in English and combined with a Spanish translation by poet David Ruano, [the book] explores many forms of love and how 'a promise made isn't always a promise kept,' as Olivarez grapples with the contradictions of the American...
Book cover for "We were once a family"
Star rating for We were once a family
Description:
"The shocking, deeply reported story of a murder-suicide that claimed the lives of six children--and a searing indictment of the American foster care system"--
Book cover for "Women talking"
Star rating for Women talking
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters...
Book cover for "You made a fool of death with your beauty"
Star rating for You made a fool of death with your beauty
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"It's been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she's almost a new person now-an artist with her own studio, and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it's time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn't ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical...