Staff Picks 2020 - Alyssa
November 6, 2020

This year has thrown everything out of centre. Not a particularly novel sentiment, I know, but my reading has certainly suffered from it. It was difficult to concentrate, and so many amazing books, books I was truly excited about, passed me by (more about those at the end of this list). But I did read some excellent titles, assembled below in no particular order:









Wendy, Master of Art
Walter Scott
The existential dread of making (or not making) art takes center stage in this trenchant satire of MFA culture Wendy is an aspiring contemporary...
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I Know You Rider
Leslie Stein
A candid and philisophical memoir tackling abortion and the complex decision to reprouce I Know You Rider is Leslie Stein?s rumination on the many...
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Becoming Horses
Disa Wallander
Sometimes I dream about myself and in my dream I'm someone else But also, I am me becoming the horse that I want to...
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The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud
Kuniko Tsurita
A visionary and iconoclastic feminist Garo magazine cartoonist available in English for the first time. The Sky is Blue with a Single Cloud collects...
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Familiar Face
Michael DeForge
The bodies of citizens and the infrastructure surrounding them is constantly updating. People can?t recognize themselves in old pictures, and they wake up in...
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Fangs
Sarah Andersen
A love story between a vampire and a werewolf by the creator of the enormously popular Sarah's Scribbles comics.Elsie the vampire is three hundred...
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knot body
Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
Bringing together poetry, essay, and letters to "lovers, friends and in-betweens," Eli Tareq Bechelany-Lynch confronts the ways capitalism, fatphobia, ableism, transness, and racializations affect...
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Something That May Shock and Discredit You
Daniel M. Lavery
Named one of the most anticipated books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, O, The Oprah Magazine, BuzzFeed, Electric Literature, Yahoo Lifestyle, and Bitch...
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Wow, No Thank You.
Samantha Irby
A Vintage Paperback Original.A new rip-roaring essay collection from the smart, edgy, hilarious, unabashedly raunchy, and bestselling Samantha Irby.Irby is forty, and increasingly uncomfortable...
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Maquillee
Daphne B
Maquillée est le fruit étonnant d’un nombre incalculable d’heures perdues, passées à enchaîner les tutoriels maquillage sur YouTube, ou encore à naviguer sur le site...
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ZOM-FAM
Kama La Mackerel
In their debut poetry collection, Kama La Mackerel mythologizes a queer/trans narrative of and for their home island, Mauritius. Composed of expansive lyric poems,...
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Vegetable Kingdom
Bryant Terry
“Phenomenal . . . transforms the kitchen into a site for creating global culinary encounters, this time inviting us to savor Afro-Asian vegan creations.”—Angela...
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The Subtweet
Vivek Shraya
“Biting and beautiful.” — Jonny Sun, author of everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too Everyone talks about falling in love, but...
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The Death of Vivek Oji
Akwaeke Emezi
"Electrifying." — O Magazine Named one of the year’s most anticipated books by The New York Times, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, and moreWhat does it mean for a family...
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Can't Even
Anne Helen Petersen
A BEST BOOK OF THE FALL AS SEEN IN:Apartment Therapy •Book Riot •Business Insider •BuzzFeed •Daily Nebraskan •Entertainment Weekly •Esquire •Fortune •Harper’s Bazaar •HelloGiggles...
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Luster
Raven Leilani
One of the Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020Vogue, Elle, Time, The New York Times, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Vulture, Parade, USA Today, Literary Hub, Buzzfeed, Electric Literature, Refinery29, The Rumpus, Book Riot, Thrilllist, Domino, PopSugar, The Kit, Elle Canada“Exacting, hilarious,...
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Girls Against God
Jenny Hval
A genre-warping, time-travelling horror novel-slash-feminist manifesto for fans of Clarice Lispector and Jeanette Winterson.Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian...
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They Said This Would Be Fun
Eternity Martis
A powerful, moving memoir about what it's like to be a student of colour on a predominantly white campus.A booksmart kid from Toronto, Eternity...
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Love after the End
A bold and breathtaking anthology of queer Indigenous speculative fiction, edited by the author of Jonny Appleseed. This exciting and groundbreaking fiction collection showcases...
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Just Us
Claudia Rankine
Claudia Rankine’sCitizen changed the conversation—Just Us urges all of us into itAs everyday white supremacy becomes increasingly vocalized with no clear answers at hand,...
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Nineteen
Ancco
?[Ancco?s] stories liberate us to be what we are: friends, artists, monsters, mothers, human beings.??Globe & Mail At nineteen, the idea that you have...
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