Staff Picks

Greenlight Staff Picks are 15% off!

All of the booksellers on the Greenlight Bookstore staff read widely, and each periodically recommends books they've especially enjoyed.  You can peruse and purchase current staff picks from the list below, or from our in-store Staff Picks display any time. Discounts are factored into the prices in this list.

(You can also see past staff picks here.)

  -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

 

$13.60
ISBN-13: 9780982279885
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Futurepoem, 5/2013
You're sitting in a very large, silent room. It's uncertain how long you've been there exactly, but you know it's been a while. It is completely quiet and you're starting to have that all-by-yourself feeling. Suddenly, you find a little radio in an unchecked corner of the room. You pick it up, examine it, turn it on. To your surprise, what comes out is not music you've heard before or have even been aware of. What comes out is music that you've always, subconsciously, dreamed of hearing. The room ceases to feel so large and unshakably silent. That radio is The Crisis of Infinite Worlds.

 

(Jarrod)


$14.44
ISBN-13: 9780785165620
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Marvel, 3/2013
To quote Clint Barton, "Okay...this looks bad." I mean, a mainstream comic book starring that Jeremy Renner, Robin Hood-y guy from Disney's The Avengers? Open the book though, and you'll be immediately struck by artist David Aja's retro figures and modern, jazzy framing. Read the text and enjoy Fraction's flair for screwball repartee and adept genre-hopping. It doesn't hurt that Hawkeye is a Bed-Stuy resident, nor does it hurt, in a time where JLA has Wonder Woman binging on ice cream and making out with Superman, that it features one of the stronger, three-dimensional women in comics, the younger Hawkeye, Kate Bishop.

 

(Matt)


The Egypt Game (Paperback)

$5.94
ISBN-13: 9781416990512
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 7/2009
I reread this because I had only really remembered that I loved it. (This lack of memory has nothing to do with the book. I can't remember anything.) Anyway, it was such a thrill. I'd be hard-pressed to find a better book to recommend to anyone 9-12. Let's make that 9 to infinity. This book is about two girls full of curiosity and imagination, who start the Egypt Game, the coolest game ever played by anyone. It taught me how much fun knowing stuff is, and the amazing potential inherent in a vacant lot. I love vacant lots to this day.

 

(Annie)


Sexing the Cherry (Paperback)

$12.71
ISBN-13: 9780802135780
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Grove Press, 8/1998
Finally, finally, it's warm enough to sit outside all day and devour a book. This is one of my all time favorites. I think the only "grown-up" book I've read more than once, (I've read Matilda by Roald Dahl seven times.) because I just wanted to be back in that world again. I love how poetic and blunt she manages to be. I love how she makes old fairy tales new and invents new fairy tales and makes them timeless. I love how she writes about searching and yearning. I love how this little book feels vast, worlds painted to perfection in a handful of words.

 

(Annie)


Easter Island (Paperback)

$12.75
ISBN-13: 9780385336741
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Dial Press Trade Paperback, 9/2005
I am a sucker for fiction that weaves biology and nature into the story (because, as Darwin might agree, nature is rich narrative territory). I am also a sucker for novels that weave multiple stories together. This book follows the lives of two women, in different eras. Both set out for Easter Island, one preceding WWI and the other sixty years later. Both are on personal and scientific quests. Back in time, Elsa follows her sister to the island but once there, discovers science as her true calling. In the contemporary story Greer pieces her life back together and recovers from the death of her husband. Together though, spanning across time, both unravel some of the mysteries surrounding Easter Island.

 

(Rebecca)


$14.41
ISBN-13: 9781770460775
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Drawn and Quarterly, 4/2012
The most common threads in these stories connect poverty to sacrifice, desire to desperation, public pride to private shame, and isolation to death. Fun!

 

(Geo)


$12.75
ISBN-13: 9781594486067
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Trade, 2/2012
Emma Straub has to be one of the nicest writers in Brooklyn, but her legendary congeniality is not the only reason I chose Other People We Married for my staff pick. I hear she makes a mean tray of brownies, but more than that, her writing is elegant, well-developed, relatable, and gently probing. I was romanced by the clout of these stories, and I am appreciative that a wonderful young writer, and fellow bookseller, could deliver such a poignant collection (and maybe a plate of cookies?)

 

(Brette)


$13.60
ISBN-13: 9780140135152
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Penguin Books, 12/1990
Ways of Seeing can be read like a painting, if you wish to focus on certain essays as you would a splash of color or particular detail on the canvas. It's easy to get through, and stimulating, and since we live in a city that is lousy with fabulous art, you may as well have some concept of how to look at what you see.

 

(Brette)


$10.16
ISBN-13: 9780970910172
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Crimethinc, 7/2011
CrimethInc.is a collective of anarchists and "ex-workers" ...but don't let that scare you away from this book! Work is a well-researched, relatable, comprehensive, and critical examination of capitalism. CrimethInc. tells the story of the society we live in, including an easy-to-understand breakdown of recent economic crises. Work invites us to reflect on our own experiences in a system that doesn't seem to be working very well.

 

(Allegra)


Fingersmith (Paperback)

$13.60
ISBN-13: 9781573229722
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Trade, 10/2002
I've never made a "top ten" list of my favorite books, but if I did Fingersmith would easily be on it. Waters is an extraordinary writer. Her work, while often gothic and mysterious is in no way "kitschy." Her characters are memorable and exciting, and she manages to continually stun her readers with smart and unpredictable plot twists. Fingersmith is, in a word, masterful.

 

(Emily)


$11.01
ISBN-13: 9781590176306
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: NYRB Poets, 4/2013
Alexander Vvedensky, along with Daniil Kharms, was the ringleader of the OBERIU--a small collective of Russian avant garde writers and artists whose work coincided with the onset of the first Soviet era.  Vvedensky was continually persecuted and jailed for his involvement in the OBERIU's "anti-Soviet" activities. He died on a prison train at the age of 37. Aside from the work he did as a children's author, none of his writing was published during his brief lifetime. Today, echoes of Vvedensky's writing, exploits and misfortunes can be heard in the Pussy Riot debacle.  These poems tackle time, death, and the universal elements that fetter us all, with a language of sublime nonsense, humor, and protest. Kindly RSVP.   

 

(Jarrod)


$13.60
ISBN-13: 9780345533265
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Ballantine Books, 3/2013
Normally, I'm not one for parenting books. They make me feel anxious and guilty for all the things I'm supposedly not doing or not doing "right." However, when a dear friend of mine, author Catherine Crawford, came out with her new memoir, French Twist, about her experiences in French parenting, I felt obliged to read it. I'm so glad I did. This book is for all the parents who feel "guilty" because they work, guilty that they don't give their children enough attention, or guilty that they want a life outside of motherhood. You're not alone.

 

(Emily)


$15.00
ISBN-13: 9781933254838
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Ugly Duckling Presse, 10/2011
This brilliant, funny, challenging book recreates a consciousness grappling with its surroundings, helped along by little bumps of cocaine. With a pace that swerves between lightning and paralysis, this book will simultaneously make you feel smarter and stupider.

 

(Michael)


Midwinter Day (Paperback)

$12.71
ISBN-13: 9780811214063
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 5/1999
Simultaneously tracking time in the world and time in the mind, Midwinter Day is an attempt at recording all the events in a day. The writing is beautiful: domestic and fantastical, exciting and contradictory, orderly and wild. It also sheds biographic light on Mayer’s relationships with the members of the 2nd generation New York School Poets.

 

(Michael)


$10.20
ISBN-13: 9780141439778
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Penguin Classics, 5/2003
Originally published in 1759, the pleasures of this very strange, lovely book successfully transmit across the centuries. By subverting Enlightenment Reason, using disjunctive narrative and focusing on textual materiality, Tristram Shandy firmly establishes itself as a major fore-runner to the contemporary novel. Also, the use of impotency as a theme puts The Sun Also Rises to shame.

 

(Michael)


Ball (Hardcover)

$11.04
ISBN-13: 9780547759364
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 4/2013
Dog's intensity, enthusiasm and affection really comes through in this near-wordless picture book. His little playmate throws the ball in the morning, but then she has to go to school. He desperately wants to have someone throw the ball for him, but who will throw the ball? Who, who, WHO? He misses the game he plays with his friend, and he misses his friend. He searches for another way to play ball, finally wearing himself out and dreams of playing ball until...until...until she gets home from school and can play ball again!

 

(Rebecca)


The Yellow Balloon (Hardcover)

$13.56
ISBN-13: 9781932425017
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Lemniscaat USA, 4/2004
Like Where’s Waldo? without the objectives.

 

(Geo)


Argus (Hardcover)

$13.59
ISBN-13: 9780763637903
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Candlewick, 2/2011
Sally's class is studying life-cycles of chicks. Each student gets an egg to keep warm, only Sally's is a bit different from all the others. And once they hatch, Sally's chick looks a bit different from all the others. In fact, Sally's chick has a hard time fitting in, literally. He's giant, green, and covered in scales instead of feathers. Argus helps us remember that sometimes it's what makes us different that others love.

 

(Brette)


Pink Elephant (Hardcover)

$11.01
ISBN-13: 9780981913131
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Cypher Books, 12/2009
I've wanted to make Pink Elephant by Rachel McKibbens my staff pick for the entire three years I've worked here but was super horrified to write a wack blurb for such a rad book. AND I STILL AM. But, y'all, you need this book of poems in your lives STAT. Pink Elephant is a monster. It will eat all of the other books on your shelf for brunch. It's the anti-debut debut because the poems in this book are seamless and perfectly toned and bold and will live in your brain for days/weeks/years after reading them.

 

(Angel)


The Book of Monelle (Paperback)

$11.01
ISBN-13: 9780984115587
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Wakefield Press, 11/2012
Incantatory and poetic, The Book of Monelle reads like the transcription of a lovelorn fever dream from an unknown time. Schwob's proto-surrealist fables provide a glimpse into the space where fantasy gives flight and reality misleads, like the Brothers Grimm in the wake of an absinthe binge. There are books that feel, somehow, inevitable. This is one of them.

 

(Jarrod)


Eyes, Stones (Paperback)

$15.26
ISBN-13: 9780807144640
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Louisiana State University Press, 4/2012
The best gift poetry can give is a clear view of the world through another's heart. Some give you a clear view through many hearts and, with that, many truths. This knockout debut gifts us again and again with the chance to discover the languages of legend, legacy, and the war of and for home. What can be learned here about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict rivals what I've learned from nearly any American newspaper. "What kind of woman goes searching and searching?" So begins the book. To search and search with ferocity and grace.

 

(Angel)


The Great Gatsby (Paperback)

$12.75
ISBN-13: 9780743273565
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Scribner, 10/2004

A perennial favorite and one of the sources of our name, Fitzgerald's masterpiece is always a staff pick at Greenlight Bookstore.