On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Poet and performance artist Andrea Gibson gained social media fame in recent years with their fierce and vulnerable spoken word videos.

Kara Balcerzak, owner of Bonfire Bookstore & Yarnery in Woodstock, Virginia, first encountered Gibson’s poetry when they were the opening act at an indie music concert and held a large audience spellbound with their words. Gibson died in July at age 49 of ovarian cancer.

Balcerzak recommends watching Gibson’s videos and reading their poetry collections, which she says also stand alone on the page.

She particularly recommends Gibson’s most recent book, “You Better Be Lightning,” published in 2021, which she calls an “ode to beauty.”

Balcerzak, who lived in the Twin Cities for 13 years and earned an MFA in creative writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato, before opening her Virginia bookstore, describes the collection:

“The book does tackle some really tough themes, like depression, abuse, chronic illness, the struggles of LGBTQ people and suicide. But I feel like saying that gives a wrong impression for the book, because it is actually filled with so much love and wonder and awe and joy.

“The speaker in this book goes on this journey from being depressed to falling in love with life, from being closed off to people and to the beauty around them, to being vulnerable, and they invite readers to go along on that journey with them. And there are also surprising moments of humor that literally made me laugh out loud.

“I would recommend this book to anyone who's ever struggled with depression. But beyond that, I think this is a book that I would give to anyone who could use a little infusion of beauty and love and optimism in their life. And I would argue that that's all of us.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

PJ Moon of The Raven Bookstore in Lawrence, Kan., recommends a summer read with elements that will appeal to both adults and children.

“Bat Kid” is a recently republished classic manga by Inoue Kazuo, translated by Ryan Holmberg. This is a two-parter: the full 1940’s Japanese manga about a kid who wants to play baseball, followed by an essay by Holmberg that delves into the history of baseball in Japan, and more.

Moon calls “Bat Kid” a classic baseball manga, about a boy who’s new to the sport, whose parents would rather have him home studying. Its drawing style will remind American audiences of older comic strips, like Dennis the Menace.

“What’s really cool about this book in particular is the cartoonist Inoue Kazuo — he would pencil a lot of puzzles, and some of those are in here as well, like crosswords, riddles and brain teasers,” said Moon.

The essay, meanwhile, goes into depth about baseball in Japan during and immediately after WWII, as well as a history of children’s manga at that time.

“It’s such a vibrant package. If you’re at all interested in the history of baseball, especially in Japan, even if you’re not into manga, I think that you would get a lot out of the essay.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

If you’re looking for an outdoor adventure novel about friendship and wonder and — why not? a cryptid — Ellyn Grimm of Dog-Eared Books in Ames, Iowa, has the book for you. She recommends Giano Cromley's novel “American Mythology,” out this week.

Here’s Grimm’s synopsis of a book she calls “heartwarming and a bit creepy:”

“’American Mythology’ is about two friends, Jute and Vergil, from a town in Basic, Mont., and together, they form the Basic Bigfoot Society. Every year, the two of them go on a Bigfoot expedition, hoping to find Bigfoot or find evidence. And this is rooted in a childhood encounter that Jute had, supposedly with Bigfoot. And after that, his father was never the same and and not in a good way.

“This year, it’s going to be a little bit different for them, because Vergil is holding onto a secret that he needs to share. They’re also being joined by Vergil’s college-aged daughter, a professor with somewhat dubious motivations and a documentarian.

“I’m always down for some good Bigfoot content, but this offers so much more, because it’s really a story about friendship; Jude and Virgil have carried each other through some really tough times in their lives. It‘s about the worthiness of pursuing wonder in the world, and the importance of preserving the spaces where wonder can thrive.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

If you’re going to read a book about a dark character or a difficult subject, do it on a sunny summer day, not when you’re home in the cold and dark of winter.

That’s the suggestion of Angel Dobrow of Zenith Bookstore in Duluth, who recommends “Fox: A Novel” by Joyce Carol Oates. We start off the novel from the point of view of Francis Fox, a charismatic middle school English teacher at an elite private school.

When he’s found dead, the town sheriff suspects it’s not an accident, and he begins to peel back the layers.

Fox — not his real name — is a predator. A pedophile.

The bulk of the story, though, is from the perspectives of the people connected to Fox or to the school: the plodding, intelligent sheriff; the political headmistress out to protect the reputation of her school; several of Fox’s students and their families.

What struck Dobrow over and over, she said, was the quality of the writing:

“It’s interesting; it’s suspenseful. You don’t really know, and until the very end, and even then, you’re not 100 percent sure. It’s not a who-dunnit. It’s just a really good survey of power and human diversity and capacity. It’s a really well-told story.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

“There are books that you can't put down. And then there are books that, even when you put them down, they just stay with you," says Katherine Nazzaro of Porter Square Books, with stores in Boston and Cambridge, Mass.

The book in the latter category — which she’s still talking about months after reading — is “Sour Cherry” by Natalia Theodoridou.

Nazzaro calls it an unorthodox retelling of Bluebeard. The story of Bluebeard involves a young bride who is told by her husband (Bluebeard) never to enter one room in their home.

When she inevitably does enter, she finds the room is filled with the bodies of his previous dead wives. This novel takes a different tack: the novel starts with a woman, Agnes, who raises Bluebeard after the death of her child.

“It sort of asks the question, who was Bluebeard before the fairy tale? You have all of these dead wives that he's collected, but somebody had to be the first dead wife. And what was life like for her before he was this fairy tale monster?”

Trigger warning: domestic violence is a main theme in this novel, whose events also include the death of a child.

Nazarro doesn’t classify this novel as horror. “In my opinion, as a big horror reader, it doesn't get scary enough. It never really delves into horror. But it's a sort of lyrical literary gothic fiction. I really did feel like it was like a physical presence with me while I was reading it.”

David Burton of novel, a bookstore in Memphis, Tenn., recommends his favorite book of the year so far: “The Pretender” by Jo Harkin, which he calls “historical fiction at its very best.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Anne Holman of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, Utah, recommends the novel “Old School Indian” by Aaron John Curtis.

Holman calls it a powerful coming-of-age story, when you come of age later in your life in an important way.

The novel follows Abe, who, like the author, is an enrolled member of the Mohawk tribe.

We first meet Abe at age 43 when he is very ill, returning to his family after having lived away for his entire adulthood. The story flashes back to Abe as a college student, falling in love with a young woman named Alex and reinventing himself to appeal to her.

Holman continues, “When he gets sick and goes home, he re-discovers the power of family, and especially his Uncle Budge, who is a healer and lives really, really off the grid and and helps Abe figure out a few important things about himself.”

Holman appreciates the dark humor of the book, the narrator who pops into the story to add his perspective, and the poetry interspersed within the chapters, which she calls “some of the most beautiful poetry I’ve ever read.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

School is out (or soon-to-be-out) across Minnesota, and that means it’s time for summer reads! But just because you bring a book to the lake, that doesn’t mean it can’t be smart as well as a fun escape.

To that end, Julia Green of Front Street Books in Alpine, Texas recommends the lighthearted whodunit, “No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding” by Catherine Mack.

Readers might recognize this title as the second in Mack’s Vacation Mysteries series, the first being the USA Today bestseller “Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies,” but Green says you don’t need to have read the first to dive right into the second.

Mystery writer Eleanor Dash is on set to see her best friend Emma star in the movie adaptation of Dash’s first novel, after which the entire cast and crew head to a nearby island to celebrate Emma’s wedding.

There is a storm on its way, and soon they are trapped on the island with a dead body. Of course, the writer of mysteries feels the need to step in to solve the case, as does the method actor who played a policeman on film.

As Green tells it, “There are lots of shenanigans. It’s very funny. It’s silly, but it’s not superficial, and it’s not trivial. It’s a wonderful homage, if a little light-hearted, to Agatha Christie.”

“[The book] has smart characters who don’t make idiotic mistakes. It’s not stressful. And when you pick up this book, you know that you’ve got a few peaceful, really entertaining hours ahead of you. You’re going to sit there and you're going to get sunburned because you're not going to want to get off the beach because you don't want to stop reading!”