December Staff Picks

Jill says:

“Becky Cham­bers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a sweet, thought-pro­vok­ing nov­el set on the fic­tion­al moon, Pan­ga, where human­i­ty has aban­doned advanced tech­nol­o­gy and cho­sen to live in har­mo­ny with nature. Its sto­ry fol­lows Sib­ling Dex, a tea monk who is shocked to encounter a robot, as no one has seen one since the time, cen­turies before, when they gained self-aware­ness and dis­ap­peared into the wilder­ness. The robot is on a jour­ney to learn ​“what humans need,” and most of the nov­el con­sists of con­ver­sa­tions between the two as they dis­cuss pur­pose, iden­ti­ty, and the rela­tion­ship between humans and nature. With its rich world­build­ing and opti­mistic, char­ac­ter-dri­ven nar­ra­tive, this nov­el is per­fect for read­ers in search of a com­fort­ing and cozy book, and its short length is ide­al for those new to spec­u­la­tive fic­tion or in search of a quick read.”

Kady says:

“Some­times it’s best not to know too much about a book before read­ing it. So here’s a short, broad descrip­tion of this one: In 1419, Geof­froy Thèrage lit a pyre and exe­cut­ed Joan of Arc. In 2017, he’s liv­ing as Mar­vin Deitz, cursed to be reborn again and again, always remem­ber­ing what he’s done and nev­er allowed to atone for his sins. When a woman claim­ing to be Joan pops up on a talk show, Mar­vin knows he has to get to her to receive abso­lu­tion. The best thing about Smoke City is how much it sur­prised me. I spent so much time when I was­n’t read­ing it antic­i­pat­ing when I’d get to do so again, so much time liv­ing with its char­ac­ters in my head, and so much time doing research to see how events in the book matched up to real­i­ty. I’d get gid­dy as I set­tled in to read and kicked up my feet when the sto­ry took turns I did­n’t see com­ing. Smoke City isn’t the best book that I read this year, or the most lit­er­ary, or even my favorite, but it is the book that made me fall in love with read­ing again.”

Lydia says:

“Octo­pus­es are all over mon­ster movies and deep-sea adven­ture films, but how much do we real­ly know about them? Mont­gomery explores amaz­ing infor­ma­tion sci­en­tists are just now find­ing out about our eight-legged friends, like how some species can mim­ic oth­er ani­mals or that octo­pus­es can rec­og­nize spe­cif­ic peo­ple who vis­it them. Com­bined with beau­ti­ful pho­tographs, these facts and sto­ries are any­thing but dry read­ing and offer a unique per­spec­tive on these secre­tive but beau­ti­ful ani­mals. Come get immersed in the wild world of octo­pus­es with Mont­gomery as your guide and be amazed!”