Okay well first of all you need to go get a copy of Her Body And Other Parties. A collection of short stories based around common urban legends but through a feminist lens.

The Merry Spinster, the stories herein are based on Daniel Lavery’s children’s stories made disturbing series. Some real gems here.

White Is For Witching is a story of a multi-generational family that starts to go through some strange shit when the mother dies. Family, magic, and labyrinthine houses. Very much in your wheelhouse.

The Bloody Chamber, this is my favorite book of all books. It’s a series of gothic psycho-sexual fairy tales. The most purple of prose, so you have to be okay with that. Though The Woods, this is probably my second favorite book of all books. More gothic fairy tale type stories. Emily Carroll also has an incredible grasp of graphic and pacing. One of my favorite artists.

When I Arrived At The Castle, another Carroll book, my favorite book of 2019. This one is rather more surreal. Very much reminds me of Crimson Peak in tone but not story. Beautiful, bloody, and gay.

Pretty Deadly follows Death’s daughter through time. First story arc is in the old West (as in an Americna Western), second is in WWI. One of the most beautiful comics around.

Injection is about a created intelligence made to bring about the future. Five brilliant people came together to make this intelligence through science and magic. A beautiful combination of fantasy and sci-fi. One of my favorite comics.

The Girl From The Other Side is set in a fantasy world split between civilization and wilderness. The latter is filled with demons who spread their condition through touch. But one day a small girl is found living there under the guardianship of one of the demons.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is about five recent college grads who can’t find jobs so they decide to talk to the dead instead. Frightening, funny, and always an absolute delight.

The Sandman is one I imagine you already know, but just in case here it is. While rather flawed this remains one of my favorites. The lord of Dreams is kidnapped for 70 years, when he comes out everything has changed. The Sandman follows him as he tried to regain his place in the world.

Another title of which you’re probably already aware is From Hell. This is the book that made Alan Moore a magician and is, in my opinion, his best work. The story of the Whitechapel murders

As always you don’t have to buy these from me, but for the love of any and everything you consider holy, please please please don’t buy from Amazon.

The above was stated by Ruth Liebmann when she and Robert Gray came to our class last Friday to discuss hand-selling.

For those not in the know, hand-selling is that thing booksellers do when you ask them for help or recommendations with finding something to read that you might enjoy. The idea is to have a book come from the personal recommendation of someone who might know about a writer you might like, someone you perhaps may not have considered or discovered on your own.

During the class period, Robert Gray said, "Hand-selling is asking questions, not making statements." Combined with the above quote from Ruth, it truly is like finding someone's "book soulmate." The last time I was in Strand (which was far too long ago!), I asked one of the people who worked there, "What's a good dystopian book to read? I like Brave New World  and 1984, but I also like some science fiction, too." Sadly I can't remember what book he recommended to me, but after he had left and I read the back cover (as well as my own preference of reading the first page and then reading a random page to see if whatever's happening later in the book sounds interesting, too), I wasn't particularly interested in the book. This is not to give hand-selling a bad name, but rather to remind that hand-selling is (obviously) not a perfect art (or science?). It may not result in you finding your ~*one_true_book_love*~. But maybe it will, too.

Some people in the class mentioned that they prefer Amazon's algorithms for recommendations. Personally, I am a Ron Swanson when it comes to the Internet recommending me things based on what it thinks I might like. Sit down, Internet. You don't know me. You don't know my life!

Anyway, I honestly find Amazon's/any other company's algorithms for what it thinks I might like annoying rather than helpful. I am the kind of shopper who only searches for what I am looking for, and buys that one specific item. You can't get me to impulse buy, web merchants! *evil cackle*

What I actually find way more useful is seeing what my friends are reading on Goodreads. If Alex is reading a book about World War II and the Holocaust, I will without question add it to my "to-read" list and try to acquire this book somehow. If I update my Goodreads to let my friends know that I'm currently reading Jeannette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, for example, I know that whoever on my friends list who finds that book interesting will seek that product out.

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How much you adore all those

Publishers Weekly, "BEA 2011: E-book Future, Google, and Facts" by Marc Schultz , May 25, 2011