On Brightland's Bookshelf
Welcome back to On Brightland's Bookshelf—this monthly series focuses on what interesting people we admire are reading right now. We could all use a reminder to pursue some screen-free time, and reading is one of our favorite analog activities. This month features curated recommendations from the wonderful team at our favorite NYC bookstore, McNally Jackson.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
"If you’re looking for a gay fantasy fiction with a classic love story, quirky characters, and masterful world-building, look no further! Filled to the brim with pure, unadulterated joy, The House in the Cerulean Sea is unapologetically queer and unapologetically delightful. Perfect for fans of Casey McQuiston’s Red, White, and Royal Blue." - Gage
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
"A second-chance love story, with all the passion and unbridled sincerity of their original teenage love, as well as the sweet choosing in their adult love. Mother-daughter relationships that demonstrate the epitome of holding the both-and. I loved this book with my whole heart. It’s probably the most pleasantly surprising book I’ve read in years." - Genay
The Most Fun Thing by Kyle Beachy
"This is not just a book about skateboarding, but rather a poetics of movement: through public space, through lenses and film, through a friendship which turned into a marriage which turned nearly into divorce, through reckonings with the uglier aspects of skateboarding’s culture, through age and the inevitable collateral damage to one’s own body, and through the ways we grow and come to better know ourselves by the pursuits we are devoted to. Beachy does for skateboarding as a writer what Murakami did for running." - Joe
Slow Days, Fast Company by Eve Babitz
"A book to make you miss LA if you’ve never been, miss quaaludes if you’ve gone straightedge all your life, miss torrid love triangles if you’ve only ever had a crush. In these vignettes, Babitz’s legendary, whip-smart love for Southern California is enough to overtake Didion’s equally-legendary skepticism of it, at least for a moment or two." - Jack
