On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Shannon Guinn-Collins of Bookworks in Albuquerque, New Mexico says she's still thinking about the novel "Lightbreakers" by Aja Gabel. 

Guinn-Collins recommends this novel for fans of literary time travel, as well as for readers of Jennifer Egan and Emily St. John Mandel.  

“Lightbreakers” centers on a married couple: Noah, who is a quantum physicist, and Maya, who is an artist. Shadowing Noah’s life is the loss of his young daughter with his first wife.

So, when Noah is approached by an experimental group that is exploring a form of time travel using memory, he takes the opportunity. As he steps further and further back into his own memories, Maya must grapple with the widening gulf with her husband in the present — and what that means for their future.  

Guinn-Collins offers this review: 

"The book really centers on themes of loss and longing, love and regret — all of these major human themes. It deals with really fraught, difficult topics, but it does so in a way that's really graceful. 

“Aja has a really light touch, and her writing is just gorgeous. The language she uses is really beautiful. It carries you forward in a really natural way. But I still found myself pausing and rereading passages just to enjoy what she was doing. Definitely one of my favorites from last year!” 

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Becky Schlosser of Cherry Street Books in Alexandria recommends the novel "The Road to Tender Hearts" by Annie Hartnett. Schlosser calls it “darkly funny and heartwarming” — a “perfect” story about imperfect people.

This story involves a road trip like no other. 63-year-old PJ Halliday — survivor of three heart attacks, million-dollar lottery winner who’s nearly spent through his money — reads in the obituaries that the husband of his high school flame has passed away.

She was the one that got away, in his mind, and now that she’s single. PJ decides to road-trip from Massachusetts to her retirement community in Arizona to win her back.

Along for the ride are two tween orphans, Luna and Ollie, for whom PJ has recently become guardian; his disgruntled adult daughter; and a seemingly clairvoyant orange cat. Also, he technically doesn’t have a license, given some past DUIs, and he’s had to borrow his ex-wife's car. What could go wrong?

Schlosser says this novel, with its sharp wit, is quirky and lovable, but it deals with some pretty heavy, tender topics.”

She recommends this story of found family and second chances to readers who like Fredrik Backman’s novels.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Alena Bruzas of Francie & Finch Bookshop in Lincoln, Neb., has a recommendation sure to appeal to weather heads and fans of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” series alike.

It’s called “Wilder Weather: What Laura Ingalls Wilder Teaches Us About the Weather, Climate, and Protecting What We Cherish.” Author Barbara Boustead is a meteorologist, climatologist and Wilder scholar. She brings her passions together for this nonfiction work, published by South Dakota Historical Society Press.

Readers who love Wilder’s tales of growing up in the Big Woods — and on the shores of Plum Creek, etc. — know how dramatically the weather affected her daily life. Droughts, tornadoes, locust plagues and bitterly cold winters determined whether her family would have enough to eat throughout the year. Those stories offer exciting drama, but Boustead was able to verify that most of Wilder’s weather accounting was true.

“She goes into great detail about her methodology, about the science behind gathering this data, how people have gathered data about weather since the 1800s.”

Bookseller Bruzas, who says she is generally more drawn to historical fiction than meteorology, still found the book fascinating.

“The way that she describes the Ingalls family dealing with this weather — some of it was unprecedented. It makes me realize that now we're dealing with a lot of unprecedented weather events, and it feels relevant, almost eerily relevant. She really brings it to the present."

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

It’s that time of year when readers start to catalogue their favorite books of 2025, and for bookseller Kelly Evert, that book is “Mona’s Eyes” by Thomas Schlesser.

Evert works at Village Books and Paper Dreams, with locations in Bellingham and Lynden, Washington.

When a young girl named Mona, living in Paris, learns she’s going to go blind, her grandfather determines to show her as much visual art as he can while she can still see.

Once a week, over the course of a year, he takes her to the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and other French galleries, where they focus on a piece of art each time. Evert appreciated both the art discussions and the relationship between Mona and her grandfather.

“It’s just very beautiful and loving,” says Evert, who added that the dust jacket of the hardcover book includes images of all the featured artwork.

Art lovers will immediately recognize that the famed eyes on the cover belong to Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” not the Mona Lisa, though Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece is one of the 52 works of art featured in the book.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Mary Williams of Skylight Books in Los Angeles, Calif., recommends a nonfiction book that will appeal to readers who find joy in the natural world, including the plants growing on their window sills.

It’s called “Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings” by Myriam Gurba. It’s a book that’s deeply rooted in the author’s California home and landscape.

“It's a perfect example of how a great writer can make even a subject you wouldn't naturally gravitate towards be fascinating," said Williams.

She said the book was beautifully written, with an inventive format:

"[Gurba’s] combining memoir, botany, little bits of history from California and Mexico, family history, photos, and little bits of newspaper articles, and putting together all these puzzle pieces. She’s basically telling a story about our relationship to nature — and how we cultivate plants and land — can, in turn, heal us.

“The author talks about how she's been healing from some past traumatic experiences and some previous violent relationships. She doesn't get in too much into those stories — they've been covered in prior books — but [she’s] talking about how creating the sort of jungle of plants, including literally growing corn in her apartment, allowed her to reconnect with nature and kind of reconnect with her soul.”

Williams says she found herself surprised and delighted, as well as entertained, by the comparisons the author drew with her observations of the world.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

What would the contents of your purse or backpack say about you? 

Bev Newton of Innisfree Bookshop in Meredith, N.H., recommends a novel about a Parisian bookseller who is so taken by the contents of an abandoned purse, he sets off on a quest to find its owner. 

Newton calls it “the biggest little book you’ll read this year — a delightful little book." 

Laurent Letellier discovers the purse, stripped by a mugger of all its valuable or identifying objects. Inside, he discovers a red notebook along with a key chain, a hieroglyph and perfume.

Newton says the notebook is full of fragmented “memories and wishes and fears,” adding that readers who wish they kept journals will take comfort in how much can be conveyed in dashed-off remarks. 

Laurent, with help from his daughter, sets off on a quest to return the purse. But how to find a faceless, nameless woman in all of Paris?  

The novel has been available in Europe for years, but it was recently translated and made available to the American market. 

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Feeling too busy lately to finish a book? Kimberly Daniels of The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina, would like to make an argument for reading short story collections. Specifically, Katrina Denza’s new collection "Burner: And Other Stories.”

Daniels raves about these tightly crafted contemporary short stories, in which she says a single paragraph conveys the weight of a chapter, and a short story contains a fully realized fictional world.

“The economy of being completely transformed and having your mind blown for such little time — [the time it takes to read a short story] — and to be so affected and to return to your life changed — [that’s] a pretty good value for your time.”

These are stories that explore aging, technology and the gap between what people do outwardly and what they express inwardly.

In one story, a woman gets an AI hologram so she can continue to speak with her husband, who took his life due to depression.

“This is a beautiful, hopeful story. I just love how brilliant it is, because it takes what might be the obvious thing, which is fantasy-versus-reality and technology-versus-humanity, and then flips the switch.

“It's like, no, is the fantasy that you can love someone out of a depression? And I'm not giving anything away, because the joy of reading the story is so rich. Every story is like that: just taking it up a notch.”

Christina Tabereaux of The Snail on the Wall, a bookstore in Huntsville, Ala., recommends the novel “I See You’ve Called in Dead” by John Kenney. 

The book's dark humor evokes Richard Russo’s “Straight Man” or Fredrik Backman’s “A Man Called Ove,” and Tabereaux says the story, with its well-developed characters, drew her to both laughter and tears. 

Bud writes obituaries for a living. With his own life down-in-the-dumps, personally and professionally, he drinks too much one night and writes — and publishes — his own obituary. 

It’s a rather dramatic description of his imagined feats, and its publication earns him a suspension from his job.  

In that moment, Tabereaux says, Bud faces the ultimate question: 

“He has to decide, is he going to continue numbly walking through life, or is he going to truly embrace and live life? 

“Bud's friend Tim, who is just a wonderful, wonderful character, starts taking Bud to wakes and funerals of complete strangers. And so, he starts evaluating: what's the legacy these people have left? Bud really starts thinking about what his own legacy is going to be. 

“It's my favorite kind of book, because it includes just fantastically developed characters who are facing the obstacles of life but doing so in a way that is realistic. 

“It's not tied up super neatly in a bow. There's still grief, and there's still loss, and there's heartache; but Bud ultimately realizes that life is better because he embraces the community of people around him." 

Listen to Kenney’s interview with NPR’s Scott Simon here: John Kenney on his new novel, 'I See You've Called In Dead' : NPR 

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Sarah Gregg of Lemuria Book Store in Jackson, Miss., recommends a novel that delves deep into a family drama in a small Mississippi Delta town.

The debut novel “Dominion” by Addie E. Citchens takes on themes of power, patriarchy and sexual repression. 

Gregg calls it a character-driven novel, and it was the connection between the two main female characters — including what they don’t manage to say — that kept her reading.

We focus on the family Sabre Winfrey, Jr. As a pastor of a large Black Baptist church and owner of several other companies, he wields tremendous power and respect in the town. 

His son Manny, nicknamed Wonderboy, is equally beloved, until he’s caught in an act of violence he can’t hide. The story centers on two women who love them: Winfrey’s wife, Pricilla, and Manny’s girlfriend, Diamond.  

Gregg says that the inciting act forces the two women to talk with each other about “how they can protect themselves, protect Manny's reputation, and protect other people in the town. 

"It's a fantastic read. I think some reviewers might want it to be a little longer or have a little more discussion between the characters, but I think it's such a perfect capsule of real life that you don't have the conversations that you need to be having.” 

Trigger warning: This novel involves sexual assault. 

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Liz Bernoskie of Poor Richard’s Books in Frankfort, Ky., recommends a fantasy novella set in an animal world whose actions offer hope for its human readers.

“Auditions for the Fox” is the debut novella from sci-fi/fantasy short story writer Martin Cahill. The tale appealed to Bernoskie because of its focus on the power of individual acts of kindness.

Here’s the scenario: Nesi, a little girl with godly blood, has chosen to audition for the Fox of Tricks. He wasn’t her first choice as divine patron, but she’s running out of options.

While she expected to be challenged to clever games and perhaps a staring contest, Nesi lands an audition that feels very high-stakes indeed. She finds herself sent back in time 300 years into a land occupied by a cruel ruling set of wolves. Impressing the Fox will mean leading a revolution.

Bernoskie says the writing in this book is “delightful,” with interesting characters.

“The wolves are mean and cruel. The fox is exceedingly clever. And Nesi fights a revolution not with violence, but with kindness. And this just appealed to me so much, [the idea] that things can change by one person being kind to another person.”