Bookshop Santa Cruz staff recommendation:

This is a timely, beautifully written novel that reads like a fragmented memoir. Kimia Sadr fled Iran for France at age 10. She now sits in a fertility clinic recounting her family's history starting with her great grandfather, a feudal lord, and leading on to her dissident parents who protested the Shah's monarchy and then found themselves hated by the Islamists who deposed him. - Trey

Stegner’s masterpiece features two plots, one modern-day and the other from the 1800s, as it tells the story of a historian trying to write the biography of his long-dead grandmother. Featuring gorgeous prose and characters as real and tangible as granite, the book is an iconic novel of the west and a deeply moving narrative of one family and our national collective past. - Rico

Believe the hype! This novel is a scorcher. Set around a powwow at the Oakland Coliseum, the book follows a large cast of characters as they navigate through their individual experiences as “urban Indians.” With prose that will pound at your heart, Orange draws us into the world of each character, and ultimately forces us to confront the darker truths of colonialism’s legacy. - Jessica

This quiet, unassuming novel has a strange power that grows with every page. Putatively telling the story of a meek academic beset by seemingly small setbacks, it captures, in heartbreaking detail, the story of a human life—flawed, poignant and ultimately tragic. Once out of print, it’s now more popular than ever, and will likely be around for a very long time to come. - Rico