Alix Harrow is a short story master and this collection proves it. Any one of these stories could be made into a full length novel. They are each a snow globe glimpse of an intricate fantasy world, and I would happily spend hours reading these again and again.

A thrilling, off-the-wall, genre-defying debut from the filmmaker of I Saw the TV Glow and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Don’t succumb to the static.

Also loved by Abigail & Kahwit!

Author of Lessons in Chemistry returns with a novel of a dysfunctional poetry quarterly. Enter a drifting-through-life employee who recognizes good poetry named after a hero dog, a Peck descendant who sneaks in and out of the building and stunning architecture. It is a mystery that favors Only Murders in the Building. Quirky and captivating.

Also loved by Abigail!

Bonnie Garmus will be in Nashville for an event at Vanderbilt University on November 19th! Get your tickets and make your plan to join us!

After an awkward first meeting at 15, Róisín and Red are inseparable––until they aren’t. She loves him and follows him to London. Despite himself, he falls into trouble. 18 years later, attempting to find Red, Ró uncovers dark truths about his childhood. What was he running from? Why didn’t he tell her? One of our greatest living writers, Kennedy’s Stations meditates on addiction and family in all their forms.

Also loved by Genevieve!

A female economist. An undercover detective. A scrappy cast of loveable side characters. And romance galore. The package might look different but all the qualities we have come to love in a Lisa Kleypas novel are there. Plus long time readers will enjoy a few delightfully planted easter eggs.

Also loved by Rae Ann!

In this sapphic reimagining of Hamlet, best friends Odette and Cecilia must navigate their changing relationship after the sudden, mysterious death of Odette’s mother. As family secrets unravel, and the girls encounter betrayal after betrayal, it’s clear that Odette’s mother may not be as dead as she seems. Kat Dunn is the queen of gothic horror!

For every moment of your life, there is a book you NEED. But how can you find it? The power of reading comes through when Fumiya goes to the bookstore that is supposed to do just that. Each chapter brings another person in search of a book to help heal. Just like how Parnassus booksellers can put just the right book into a customer’s hands.

A car wreck kills her boyfriend and a woman’s planned future changes. She thinks her life is over and she will never be able to forgive the person who killed him. Life can have tender surprises. It is a story about friends who become closer than family, forgiveness and love.

At the end of a sweltering summer in 1940s Georgia, awkward tomboy Frankie is on the edge of childhood, desperately seeking belonging and connection. When her older brother announces his engagement, she latches onto the idea that she must be the crucial third member to their union. This earnest, lyrically intimate novella is the perfect introduction to my favorite Southern Gothic author.

This genre-bending work of Latin American magical realism follows eucalyptus farmer Pedro who has been infected with a fungus that has been killing other farmers; miraculously, Pedro survives, but is changed. A great read if you enjoy winding your way through a dreamscape or a mycelial network.

A weird, beguiling little novel about a curator tasked with arranging some fake food in a castle, and also about the unknowable nature of human history. I want to take each word Rebecca Perry has lovingly placed on these pages and eat it like a grape.

Also loved by Rachel R!

Unhinged lesbians. Academic rivals. A journey to restore a dead author’s famously lost work. Possession? This book has all my favorite things!

What begins as a cute story where two young guys are invited to join an older ladies’ quilting club morphs into a tender story of friendship and what it means to be truly seen by another. The quilting competition is intense, the shenanigans are real and the fun is had by all who read this book.

If you watched The Substance and thought, make it about pregnancy instead of aging, read this book. With a long history of taking hormones, our trans protagonist finds herself pregnant after months of unexplained symptoms and searching TikTok for answers. Body horror and satire ensue. Sharp commentary on how women fall victim to wellness scams because of the health care system’s failure to understand our bodies.

John Green is back, and this time with his first adult fiction! Hollywood, Ending tells the story of two burgeoning stars, Kai and Juniper, as they film and promote an Andy Warhol biopic and fall in love. It has as much to say about fame as it does grief, trauma, and the harrowing ordeal of being in your twenties. What a pleasure it is that John Green’s books seem to grow up alongside me!

Buckle up, y’all we’re going to church! Philyaw’s raw, deeply funny, satirical look at the world of black megachurches is truly a wild ride. Full of scandal, sex, and church politics, you’ll finish this book in the span of a church service (and I promise it’s more interesting than your pastor’s sermon).

Also loved by Kim & Sarah!

The first of its kind, this collection of letters from Carson McCullers is a clear window straight into the fervent heart of the Southern Gothic author, bringing her recurring literary themes of queerness, otherness, and spiritual isolation into focus.

Also loved by Abigail!

“There is no deadline on becoming who you are” –This fun fashion book explores the viral Aki and Koichi who incidentally became a famous fashion couple due to their daughter’s Instagram. The perfect coffee table book for positivity and inspiration!

Read a page or two when you’re feeling blue! This adorable book instantly cheered me up when I was going through a difficult time, and sometimes you need a cute cartoon to tell you that it’s all going to be fine!

If the book, film, and series were not enough, experience East of Eden like never before: through the eyes of its creator. Here––much like the characters in his novel––we witness a writer wrestling with greatness. Steinbeck’s intimate, haunting, and obsessive letters prove you don’t have to follow a perfect routine to be a good artist. Part meditation on craft, part autobiography. All together, a magic text.

Also loved by Jake, Elizabeth, & Hannah P!

This beautifully-illustrated book is overflowing with wisdom about how humans can cultivate generous and reciprocal relationships with the natural world. As she did in her classic book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer braids together Indigenous knowledge, the science of botany, and the language of poetry to create a meditation with the power to transform. The perfect gift for a nature-lover in your life.

There’s a reason this book has won so many awards. Prepare to be dropped into a dynamic and intricate world of galactic empires with a mysterious narrator. If you love a sci fi that makes you question the world around you, this is a perfect choice!

The book that inspired Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971). In 1632 France, a convent must be exorcised of a demon allegedly brought upon them by their priest. While Father Grandier was burned at the stake, centuries later we’re still sifting through the ash and asking why. Huxley’s account of this real spiritual and sexual seduction is stranger than fiction. In order to exorcise our past, we first must examine it.

It’s the 25th anniversary of Alexander Chee’s debut novel Edinburgh, which means we’ve had 25 years of Alexander Chee being one of our best writers. Edinburgh is one of those novels I’ve never stopped thinking about–haunting and gorgeous, I’m jealous of anyone who gets to read it for the first time.

First Editions Club: November Selection

2026 has been the best year for fiction I’ve seen since we opened Parnassus in 2011. The books we’ve picked this year are a collection of some of my all-time favorites. But Yiyun Li’s Music Against the Night is another order of magnitude. It’s one of the best contemporary novels I’ve ever read.

Li’s books have won the PEN/Hemingway and the PEN/ Faulkner awards. Her 2023 short story collection, Wednesday’s Child, (an FEC pick) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her 2024 memoir, Things in Nature Merely Grow, won the Pulitzer Prize. She’s won a MacArthur “Genius” award and a Guggenheim fellowship. The list goes on.

This may be the shortest FEC letter I’ve ever written because I don’t want to tell you anything about the novel. I want you to be able to go into it the way I did—knowing nothing, amazed by all of it.

I love this book with my whole heart.

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.

Love, Parnassus: November Selection

Drained by her high-pressure tech job, June Walker finds an escape in homesteading videos and the fantasy of a quieter life. When she finally hits her breaking point, she does the only reasonable thing: She quits her job and buys a crumbling sunflower farm in rural Oklahoma, where she grew up.

June thought her biggest challenge in restoring Sunshine Farm would be the rotting fences but soon comes to the crushing realization that “positive vibes” are not a business plan. Nothing, however, tests her resolve quite like running into her first love, the boy she left behind after her world imploded when she was seventeen. She’s back for a fresh start, not to unpack old heartbreaks.

Noah Abbott never left Love County. Between his family, his job with the local fire brigade, and a town that knows him inside and out, he has everything he needs—except answers. So when June Walker returns as the new owner of Sunshine Farm, Noah is determined to find out why the girl who once meant everything to him vanished without a word.

As old wounds crack open and attraction flares back to life, June and Noah are forced to reckon with their past and decide whether first love is a memory best left buried or the one thing worth replanting.

The Love, Parnassus box is a monthly subscription box for romance readers curated by the experts at Parnassus Books. Each month you will receive a first edition book (which is sometimes signed), a letter from the author, a custom sticker, and a bookmark to track your reading. The Love, Parnassus selection will focus on debut and new-to-you romance authors. Set up a subscription for yourself or buy a gift membership for your favorite romance reader for 3, 6, or 12 months.