Truly, Darkly, Deeply

A young girl, her mom, a boyfriend – he’s a serial killer, maybe, but does everyone have a role in the gruesome murders? I love a good thriller, and this is one of the best I’ve read. I could not put it down! A perfect read to take you out of your surroundings; it will make you begin to question what you really know.

Lucky Red: A Novel

A queer, feminist take on the classic Western novel? Count me in! Bridget, penniless and alone, crosses the American prairies and happens upon Dodge City, where she takes up residence in a brothel in order to survive. What follows is a gorgeously written, deeply human, and completely immersive story about queer womanhood, friendship, and freedom. I loved every page.

The Beach at Summerly: A Novel

Williams’ historical fiction grabs me early and holds me the entire novel. Contrasting characters and times, Olive and Emilia, 1946 and 1954. The two experienced war differently. Emilia helps capture a Soviet spy who’s giving atomic secrets from Summerly. What did Emilia do the summer of 1946? What are the consequences in 1954?

You Were Always Mine: A Novel

How do you define motherhood, love, and family? From the dynamic duo of authors who tackled important topics of racism and complex relationships in We Are Not Like Them, comes an equally thought-provoking novel great for book clubs and discussions.

The Spectacular: A Novel

The author again uses little known NYC history in her novel of 1956. Being a Rockette is not as glamorous as it is hard teamwork. Add a decades old illusive bomber and you have a mystery. It is an exciting read of what it is like to be a single woman in the arts. Fiona Davis has given us another bite of the Big Apple!

Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories

This short story collection from the author of Tender Is the Flesh is short, dark, and deeply compelling gothic horror. Equal parts strange, funny, disturbing, and unforgettable, Bazterrica is spearheading the new Latin American genre fiction boom, and Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird is some of her best work yet.

Mr Kato Plays Family: A Novel

Mr. Kato, recently retired, is at loose ends wondering what to do with himself. He falls into a new job, playing roles for a company that provides family and acquaintances for clients who need them for various occasions. By taking on these character roles, Mr. Kato finds ways to reconnect with his own family, be more spontaneous, and be a better human. A delight!

Return to Valetto: A Novel

An American widower visits his eccentric aunts and grandmother in their family’s medieval villa in a nearly abandoned Italian village, and drama ensues. A life-altering family secret from WWII comes to surface, and the family must learn how to reconcile with the past. This is Beautiful Ruins adjacent, and the descriptions of scenery, food, and wine made me feel like I was in Italy.

The less you know about this book before you read it, the better. So I’ll keep this short. In 1914 a woman travels to Montana to lay claim to a homestead, and along with her she brings a steamer trunk. When the trunk opens, people disappear. That’s all you need to know.

The Rachel Incident: A novel

I flew through this book. The Rachel Incident is perfect for fans of Sally Rooney (me). It’s perfect for anyone who’s ever been a new adult wondering what exactly it is they’re supposed to be doing with their life (me). It’s perfect for people who love the feeling of looking up from the last page of a book feeling like they’ve just read about and gotten to know real people with real, complicated emotions (me).

Zero Days

Ware writes a roller coaster: a steep climb by a quick fall, then another, then another… and the plot? A mystery inside a mystery inside a mystery. Clients pay Jack and her husband Gabe to see if they can break in. After a successful raid, Jack arrives home to find Gabe murdered and she is the main suspect. On the run, Jack is determined to clear herself. The many twists and turns keep you in the thick of it.

Pure Colour: A Novel

In Pure Color, the main character Mira spends a third of the novel as a leaf. Yes, a leaf. And yet this book has an entire cosmos contained within its pages. Read with a pen in hand and a forest overhead and you may just find yourself somewhere divine.

What Remains

A detective who hasn’t fired a gun in years just happens to be in a store when shots are fired inside. Her swift actions put in motion a terrifying and fast-paced search for the reason why – AND there is another danger lurking just out of sight.

The Only One Left: A Novel

A Gilded Age mansion on a cliff. Check. A Lizzie Borden type character that supposedly murdered her family in said mansion on a cliff fifty years ago. Check. Gothic, atmospheric vibes. Check. If there is such a thing as a gothic beach read, this is it.

Business or Pleasure

Y’all, the “teach me” trope is one of my absolute favorites and it’s so hard to do well. Unless you are Rachel Lynn Solomon and you actually never miss and your books are perfect. Seriously, this book is the equivalent of a favorite show that I want to watch to over and over again and I think you are going to love it

The Half Moon: A Novel

The charming, gregarious bartender and his hard-working lawyer wife confront their issues of infertility, in-laws, and dreams deferred. How close should friendships be, outside your marriage? What happens when things don’t work out as you and your spouse have planned? This story will strike a chord with a lot of readers.

Maddalena and the Dark: A Novel

In 1717 Venice two teenage girls at an elite music school are connected by dark desire and even darker magic. If your idea of a good time includes atmospheric historical fiction, sapphic obsession, twisty fairytales, and dark academia, then you’ll find it all here in this slow-burn, symphonic, fever dream of a novel.

Golf Architecture for Normal People: Sharpening Your Course Design Eye to Make Golf (Slightly) Less Maddening

Geoff Shackelford is one of the country’s experts on golf design. He takes the reader through golf architecture in reader-friendly, humorous manner while imparting why understanding golf design can improve one’s score and appreciation for the game. This book will help golfers of all skill levels become keener observers while getting more joy out of playing any course.

People’s Plaza: Sixty-Two Days of Nonviolent Resistance

Justin Jones became a household name in April when he and another Black lawmaker were expelled from the TN state legislature in April following a gun reform protest. But what you may not know is just how long Justin has been an integral part of social justice movements in Nashville. In this book, he tells the moving, eye-opening story of the 62-day-long sit-in he helped organize after the murder of George Floyd.

What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds

Owls are magical. Ackerman’s book teaches us a lot about owls, but there is even more we don’t know. For example, a bird’s auditory system never ages or owls perform advanced mathematical computations to capture their prey. Ackerman states a generalization that the book proves: “Owls change lives, and the effort to make sense of them shapes how we experience the world, heightens the wonder.

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

Stéphane Breitwieser stole more than a billion dollars worth of art masterpieces between the years of 1995 and 2001. Most art robbers’ motivation comes from the possible monetary profit, but Breitwieser had a simple desire: to curate his personal art collection with treasured works—coming from over 172 European museums! This book takes an intimate look at his life while examining the psychology behind his art theft.

Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It

Fans of David Sedaris and R. Eric Thomas will love this memoir of a man who loved creating, acting, and writing from a young age. The family is hilarious, and I loved that his being gay was no big deal at all – just a part of a moving story filled with both touching and awkward moments.

100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife

It’s a travel guide to the underworld(s)! A funny and fascinating navigation through the afterlife realms – both glorious and torturous – of religion, mythology, and popular culture. Ken Jennings is the witty, intelligent tour guide of the hereafter you didn’t know you needed.

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Track Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America

I’m in the “mom era” of my illustrious queer life, so lesbian bars feel like a distant memory for me. But cracking open this book I felt such a deep nostalgia for my twenties and the lesbian bars that shaped me. Part traveloge, part memoir, Burton does a fantastic job transporting you to the last remaining lesbian bars and feeling like you too just had a fancy drink named after sexual innuendo.

A Most Tolerant Little Town: The Explosive Beginning of School Desegregation

Rachel Martin crafts a provocative journey through the story of Tennessee’s first desegregated school. From unlikely local heroes to explosive results, this true story will inspire and empower you to make this world a better place for all.

The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood’s Kings of Carnage

Exploring the box office juggernaut action films of the 80’s and 90’s, Nick de Semlyen’s The Last Action Heroes is a well-researched and effortlessly readable look at a very particular moment in Hollywood history. Much like the films it covers, this book is incredibly entertaining and showcases many a magnificent marvel of machismo, both on the screen and off.

City of Nets: A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940’s

City of Nets is a wonderfully gossipy year-by-year account of 1940s Hollywood. I would give anything to know just how many Hollywood novels and podcasts have sprung from this book–I used it to research Do Tell, and I know both Anthony Marra and Karina Longworth have cited it as a favorite!

Feed (Newsflesh #1)

Humans made viruses that cured the common cold and cancer but caused the dead to not stay dead. Twenty years later, journalists Shaun and Georgia Mason are invited to cover the presidential campaign, and they uncover a sinister secret. While Feed presents itself as a zombie novel, it’s really about journalism, truth, and the right to know the truth. This is the first of the Newsflesh trilogy.

Play It As It Lays: A Novel (FSG Classics)

If you can’t travel to LA for a stay at the Chateau Marmont this summer, may I recommend putting on a Lana del Rey album and reading Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays? You, too, can have Main Character Syndrome if you just throw on a big pair of sunglasses, find a spot by the pool, and immerse yourself in the devastating and glamorous world of 1960s Hollywood with this incredible classic.

First Editions Club: July Selection

Do Tell: A Novel

If there is a single uniting factor at Parnassus Books, it’s our love of Lindsay Lynch, and our collective joy at the publication of her first novel, Do Tell. Lindsay came to the store not long after graduating from college. She started as a bookseller and kept getting promoted, so that by the time she left us for the MFA program at the University of Wyoming, she was both Completely Indispensable and Universally Loved.

We kept in touch. Years later, when we had an opening for a buyer at the store, we asked Lindsay if she wanted to come back. She’d finished her Masters and was living in D.C. by then. She came back. We were thrilled.

What does this have to do with Do Tell? A lot, because those of us at Parnassus have seen the rising arc of her career. We watched the enormous effort she put into her writing from the very beginning. We saw her face rejection and meet it with more enormous effort. We were there for the revisions, the  triumph (an agent!), and even more triumph (a book deal with Doubleday!) We saw her through bad covers and so-so titles, all the way to a great cover and a great title, one befitting a great novel about a second-string actress turned first-rate gossip columnist in the golden age of Hollywood. Edie O’Dare is not Lindsay, but she has a lot of Lindsay’s resourcefulness, wit and intelligence. Edie was going to make it no matter what, and when she needed to readjust her plans, that’s what she did.

Do Tell is a testament to sticking to your dreams and having steel in your spine. It’s also a good reminder that great writers are the people who do a great amount of work. I could not love this book, or this author, more.

Enjoy.

Ann Patchett

More about our First Editions Club: Every member receives a first edition of the selected book of the month, signed by the author. Books are carefully chosen by our staff of readers, and our picks have gone on to earn major recognition including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Plus, there’s no membership fee or premium charge for these books. Build a treasured library of signed first editions and always have something great to read! Makes a FABULOUS gift, too.