Ask a Bookseller

If dreary November weather has you longing to take a trip, Josh Monson of Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul has a recommendation for you: "Home/World: A Circumnavigation of Our Shared Earth" by Ben Hatke.

The author is best known for his graphic novels for kids, but this graphic memoir is for a general audience. Inspired by Jules Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg and real-life stunt reporter Nellie Bly, who both went around the world in 80 days (or less) in the late 1800s, Hatke decides to see whether he can do the same, avoiding airplanes if possible.

“You’d think it'd be easier in the modern setting,” says Monson. “But it’s actually quite difficult because of difficult political situations, or borders, or the fact that there are almost no ocean liners crossing the Pacific or Atlantic anymore, and you can no longer book single fare travel on freighters like you used to be before the pandemic.”

The result is a travel narrative, told in word and image, of encounters across the world that emphasize hope and the kindness of strangers. Hatke took his sketchbook with him on the journey, and Monson says the graphic memoir is a nice balance of writing and ink-and-watercolor images, with “lovely views of Istanbul or these lovely little castle storybook European towns [that] lure you in.”

Bonnie Garmus's debut novel, “Lessons in Chemistry,” published when she was in her 60s, hit the New York Times bestseller list and sparked a miniseries on Apple TV in 2023.

Garmus’ new novel “Peck & Peck” features characters who are equally single-minded about their passions, though the subject is not chemistry but poetry, said bookseller Kia White of Lake Country Booksellers in White Bear Lake.

“Peck & Peck” is set in 1980s New York City, where recent college grad Batter Gray has one real passion and skill: poetry. He lands what he thinks is his dream job at the prestigious poetry magazine “Peck & Peck,” where he winds up as a copy boy in the basement, which he refers to as the "bomb shelter." He quickly becomes embroiled in office drama. The magazine, for example, is run by twin brothers who hate each other.

White appreciated the “next level ridiculous” names of the characters, whom she describes as “both larger than life and super relatable.” Batter's mother, for example, is a typeface expert and designer.

“She treats her career and her passion so seriously, but also with so much joy, and I think that runs through the whole book,” White said. “There’s sort of humor in how seriously everybody is taking poetry and art, almost like they’re running it like a big corporate business. But also, the seriousness of that makes it all really beautiful.”

We can't let the Halloween season go without featuring one horror book, and Sarah Gerton of Excelsior Bay Books in Excelsior said her pick is “Between Two Fires” by Christopher Buehlman.

The setting is medieval France: The black plague era. A disgraced ex-knight named Thomas encounters a girl who tells him of her visions of a war between heaven and hell that will be raged over control of Earth. Are her words the ravings of a person gone mad, or is she expressing saintly visions? Thomas himself has lost his faith, but he finds himself accompanying the girl and a priest across France to help her with her quest.

"I would definitely recommend [this novel] for adults with a strong stomach," cautions Gerton. "This a very, very dark book, so all the trigger warnings [apply]."

And yet, this book has garnered a following. It was originally self-published in 2012, and over the years it gained such a devoted social media following that earlier this year, Tor — part of major publisher Macmillan — released a hard cover edition with black sprayed edges.

Gerton said she was struck by the tone, which to her felt epic and “almost biblical,” like the translation of an ancient tale. She'd love to see this story make its way to film.

“Some of the monsters that they encounter are, like, crazy, and like I would love to see this adapted. But at the same time, I don’t know how they could translate some of the battle scenes,” says Gerton.

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Amy Erickson of Bluebird Books in Detroit Lakes loved the novel “Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt” by Ben Reeves, but it’s a difficult one to describe. The book is about a man named Travis, who lives in a normal apartment with a cat and has a job he takes seriously: he is literally Death.

“Please don't let that put you off, because it is actually really fascinating,” says Erickson.

Giving Death a name is not a punchline, nor is it morbid. Travis visits people in their final moments, offers comfort, and delivers them to where they go next (which is not specified in the book). Because Travis is constantly aware of everyone, everywhere, the novel is filled with vignettes and snippets of the lives of ordinary people in a way that reminded Erickson of Allen Levi’s blockbuster novel, “Theo of Golden.”

Travis does not intervene with a person’s fate. He avoids making friends with the living until he is drawn into the lives of the woman and her two daughters living across the hall, who invite him to take part in the precious moments of everyday life.

“It is so well written. I just fell in love with this book,” says Erickson.

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Foggy mornings, apples and pumpkins abound: anyone in the mood for a ghost story? Or rather, in the case of Shannon Sanders’ debut novel, “The Great Wherever,” a story narrated by ghosts who have some pretty strong opinions about the living? This recommendation comes from Victoria Ford of Comma, a bookshop in Minneapolis.

Here’s the scenario: Aubrey is 31, adrift and in debt, when she learns that she and three cousins have inherited the family homestead in Tennessee. Aubrey’s great-grandfather was one of the first Black landowners in the country, and legacy draws the cousins together to make a fraught decision: keep the land or sell it?

Watching over the four living characters are four ghosts whose deaths prevented them from inheriting. Tethered to the land, they do not want to see it turned into a Costco parking lot. As the ghosts observe, gossip about, and try to influence the cousins, the stories of their own lives and deaths — the secrets that are also part of the family inheritance — come to light.

“I just loved Shannon Sanders' voice as an author. She's funny and wry, even though it's a bit of a sad story,” Ford said. “It's a hot summer in Tennessee, and [you can practically] smell the barbecue and feel the sweat trickling down your back as the cousins are debating what to do.”

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