Ask a Bookseller

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Seeing a new work on the shelf written by an author you love can feel like winning the lottery. Shirley Fergenson of The Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore, Md., remembers being absolutely captivated by Daniyal Mueenuddin’s 2009 short story collection “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award.

This year — 17 years later — he’s published a new work of fiction, entitled “This Is Where the Serpent Lives.”

Fergenson says when she saw it, she “practically jumped up and down. I took it home, I read it, and I fell in love with it. It's the same voice. I loved it then, and I love it still.”

“This Is Where the Serpent Lives” is a sprawling work set in Pakistan over several decades, starting in the 1950s. It’s being marketed as a novel, but Fergenson says it’s actually three short stories and a novella with interlinking characters.

“It sort of feels like ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ with a little bit of ‘The Godfather’ thrown in,” she says.

“There are rich landowners, there are servants, forbidden Love, ambition, corruption. There is moral compromise and fluid loyalty. It is a class-and-cast panorama of amazingly rich characters. Each one could have a whole story written about them. They're so full of life.”

“The main reason to read this book is the exquisite writing, but if you need a story that is one story arc that takes you from the beginning to the end, this is not your story.

There are linkages, but they're literary, and they are so beautifully told that even in the bleakest, darkest setting, every detail feels like a photograph through an artist's filter. And the final novella is so powerful that it feels like its own full novel.”

Listen to an NPR interview with the author: Daniyal Mueenuddin discusses his debut novel, 'This Is Where the Serpent Lives' : NPR

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Lauren Groff’s novels and short stories have been finalists three times for the National Book Award, and now she’s out with a new collection of short stories entitled “Brawler.”

Maire Wilson of Huxley & Hiro Booksellers in Wilmington, Del., says this work is just as strong as her others.

Unlike Groff's earlier short story collection, “Florida,” the nine stories in “Brawler” vary their locations as well as time periods and life circumstances.

In “What’s the time, Mr. Wolf?,” the longest piece in the book, a young man struggling with alcoholism retreats to his family’s estate to grapple with the ways his life has fallen short of his expectations. “The Wind” is the story of fleeing domestic abuse, passed from mother to daughter.

In each story, Wilson says, “everything is so elegantly simple that it's almost like maintaining a conversation with the person across from you, or just kind of listening into this life story. I feel like I'm in the room.”

Wilson loves Groff’s “attention to the liveliness of the surroundings” in each story, adding that she comes out of Groff’s novels and short stories "just kind of feeling full” and satisfied.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Charlotte Glover of Parnassus Books and Gifts in Ketchikan, Alaska, recommends a novel that will immerse you deeply in the Pacific Northwest.

She appreciates the lovely characters, focus on nature, and beautiful writing of Eileen Garvin’s novel “Crow Talk.” Garvin gained national attention for her novel “The Music of Bees,” and her new novel “Bumblebee Season” comes out April 21.

For Glover, it was the mention of crows in the title that first drew her to “Crow Talk”: crows and ravens are of huge importance across the Pacific Northwest, from her bookstore’s location in the Alaskan panhandle to the novel’s setting in the Hood River area of Oregon.

The story follows Frankie, an ornithologist who has retreated to a small family cabin by a lake to mourn the loss of her father and figure out a path to finish her dissertation on spotted owls. It’s autumn, and the only other residents are a family, Anne and Tim and their five-year-old autistic son, who isn't speaking.

As Glover explains, these lonely, wayward characters find each other and converge over caring for a baby crow. Frankie and Anne forge a friendship as they care for both the bird and the boy.

“Nature is a huge character in this book,” says Glover, “It’s a book that you can touch, smell, feel, taste, and hear. That's always what I'm looking for in a book is an immersive experience.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

A book can be a vehicle of empathy, inviting us to walk around in someone else’s world for a while.

Elizabeth Mattson of Henry's Books in Spearfish, South Dakota, says her top pick for novels in this category is "Theo of Golden" by Allen Levi.

Here’s the scenario: In the southern U.S. city of Golden, there’s a bustling coffee shop called The Chalice with 92 pencil-drawn portraits of townspeople, created by a local artist.

When Theo, an elderly man from Portugal, arrives in Golden and decides to settle there, the portraits speak to him. He begins purchasing them one by one and gifting them to the individuals depicted in the portraits.

These acts of conversation, connection, and generosity ripple outward through the community.

Running through the story is a question: Who is Theo, and why is he there?

For readers who prefer to listen to their books, Mattson also says the narrator in the audiobook is excellent.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Do you love a good villain story? 

Sarah DiMaria of Cavalier House Books in Denham Springs, Louisiana, does, and she’s raving about Rachel Hochhauser’s debut “Lady Tremaine.” This retelling of Cinderella from the point of view of the stepmother is being marketed as “Bridgerton” meets “Circe.”  

Lady Etheldreda Verity Isolde Tremaine Bramley finds herself in charge of two daughters and a step-daughter in a dilapidated house. As her frustrations and worries mount, she supports her family by hunting with her peregrine falcon. 

DiMaria particularly appreciated the way the bond between the protagonist and her fierce, predatory partner is written. 

Lady Tremaine is determined to see her daughters married well so that her family can have financial security. But at what cost? Especially when she discovers the prince’s family is not as charming as it seems on the surface... 

What unfolds, DiMaria says, is a story rooted in female relationships and forging your own path in the world.