abby’s staff picks!

Abby (she/her) has been a full time bookseller at Lost City Books since October 2023. She hosts the Poetry Book Club, but enjoys reading a little bit of everything and firmly believes that intense works of literary fiction must be followed by a Percy Jackson reread or the newest romantasy.

 

A RIVER DIES OF THIRST by Mahmoud Darwish

In Darwish’s voice, Palestine transcends borders; here, Darwish extends Palestine to us as an olive branch, or music sung by 100s of voices, or the shift of the seasons, etc. This collection, which shuffles in the author’s journal entries with his poems, is almost unnameable in its scope and broad range of emotion. It is a powerful force in the long legacy of Palestinian poetry– it’s seeping with history, generations-long hopes and dreams, but also with details so specific and fleeting you find yourself grappling with their irrefutable truth. Even a sneeze becomes poetic! I could go on and on, but instead I’ll just tell you to read this.

THE SPEAR CUTS THROUGH WATER by Simon Jimenez

You are an unwitting character in this story. It is told to you by your grandmother and you don’t know where reality ends and mythology begins. Two warriors, a god, and a tortoise trek across an epic landscape to bring down the reign of the tyrannical royal family. You might be the only thing between them and success. Read this book: it’s a love story, a poem, a battle cry, a magnum opus of queer joy, a folk tale, a sandstorm of everything you could want in a fantasy novel. Read this book! Bonus: it’s tangibly gay <3

BLACKOUTS by Justin Torres

For fans of the queer lamentation– a la Ocean Vuong, Song of Achilles, etc.– here is a book that will find you love-struck and reeling. Here are two trauma-filled gay men, here is a deathbed, a long history of dehumanization and erasure to grapple with– and yet, the remarkable feat of this book that makes it National Book Award-worthy (to me) is Torres’s ability to leave room for joy, laughter, and beauty beauty beauty. -Abby

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR by Morgan Parker

I love when poets write other stuff because you can feel the care tucked into every single line. We don’t often think of essay collections as “beautiful”– especially not ones as hard-hitting and poignant as this– but Parker is not capable of writing a single sentence that is anything short of striking. This collection will have you reeling with laughter, tears, and an uncanny sense of being an entirely different person from the version of you before you picked it up.

COEXISTENCE by Billy-Ray Belcourt

These interwoven stories work together to make a beautiful tapestry of indigenous lives and love. Belcourt’s writing is reminiscent of Tommy Orange but perhaps a little fruiter, a little more indulgent, a little more optimistic, etc. Also you might cry! Violently! -Abby

HOUSEMATES by Emma Copley Eisenberg

You may be thinking: “Really, Abby? Another gay-ass book that simultaneously unpacks the horrors of being alive while also making you feel more optimistic and human than you ever have before?” To which I say, “Well, yes!” This story is so serious, so unserious, so gay, so powerful– it will make you fall in love with art and language all over again. It also wraps you up in the warmest conceptual hug of all: that of the queer housemate.