I noticed some of my favorites of this year could fit the elevator pitch of “feminist wilderness novel” (but so much more) including The Book of X by Sarah Rose Etter (Two Dollar Radio), Hard Mouth by Amanda Goldblatt (Counterpoint), and Stay and Fight by madeline ffitch (FSG). Some of my favorites this year were Ghost Engine by Christian TeBordo (Bridge Eight Press), Sweet Home by Wendy Erskine (Stinging Fly Press), and Wild Milk by Sabrina Orah Marks (Dorothy). These collections pushed back against form and structure, and I’m a sucker for a good, weird story.Īs I finished my MFA this year, I spent a lot of time working on a novel for my thesis, so I tried to read a lot of novels to figure out just what a novel is.
Of course, it made for an awkward few hours listening to “The Part About the Murders” in Bolaño’s 2666 on my go-to running trail. While I’ve been a devotee of indie presses, audiobooks gave me the opportunity to read outside my small press comfort zone. I’m a slow reader, so whenever I’d go on a run, I would listen to books that I couldn’t find the time to read otherwise. I’m constantly afraid I’ll fall behind on recommendations, so I started utilizing audiobooks from the library and ALCs from Libro.fm to up the amount of books I could take in. It’s part of the job, but limits the amount of what I passionately want to read versus what I want to read to be able to sell or promote. One of the most depressing parts of working as a bookseller is trying to keep up with new releases and contemporary classics.
–Stephen Sparks, Point Reyes Books (and Lit Hub contributing editor)
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