Greetings from Three Lives & Company!

It finally feels like winter in New York City – the “bleak midwinter” of song and poem, with bitter cold and howling winds driving readers of all ages off the streets and through our red doors. This is bookshop weather, for those in the know: time for a bracing walk to the corner, and perhaps a chat with a bookseller, before you’re ready to race back home to that hot cup and your most comfortable chair. Gone is the madness of the holidays, gone the crowds and the gift-wrapping . . . though, of course, we gift-wrap year-round, and it’s still a rare weekend afternoon that doesn’t find the shop packed tight with readers. Well, December may be the most thrilling month in bookselling, but January and February give us time to reflect: to take stock of all we’re grateful for – including you, our customers, who made another holiday at Three Lives such a success! – and to look ahead, surveying a bright new year of reading. To that end, you’ll find our usual recommendations below, an eclectic mix of titles old and new.

But first, a bit of business! We’re now taking paid preorders for signed copies of two exciting new books, both out in early spring. First, from Ethan Rutherford – a Three Lives alumnus whose previous story collections are staff favorites here – comes a debut novel that’s sure to be brilliant and brutal: North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther, out on March 11 from A Strange Object. In addition to a handsome signed paperback, folks who preorder will receive a special cassette tape compilation, composed for the book by Peter C. Murray. (As for finding a cassette player, we’re afraid you’ll be on your own.)

The following week, Peter Som – fashion designer, food writer, entertainer extraordinaire – will release his first cookbook, Family Style: Elegant Everyday Recipes Inspired by Home and Heritage (Harvest). The book comes out on March 18, so place your orders before then to receive a copy signed by Peter. (We hear that Troy, our resident “cookbook maven,” is eagerly anticipating a recipe for chickpea Bourguignon.) As always with preorders, earlier is better.

Ethan and Peter will both be happy to inscribe books, too, if you’d like your copy personalized. For these and any other titles you may wish to order, we can also ship your books if you’re not in the New York area. Fees are reasonable and ordering is easy: just call or email the shop.

~ Recent Staff Favorites ~

At the moment, all I really want is something to read to calm my nerves and sort out my head. You know. Is that too much to ask? And so when I saw a copy of Charles Baxter’s latest, Blood Test (Pantheon), well, I rubbed my greedy palms together, made a pot of tea, and spent a blissful afternoon (it’s a short book) immersed in absurd farce – a black comedy about where we are in our collective American life at this moment in time. Here is a middle-aged everyman, living in middle America with middling life difficulties, who is just trying to be a good person. But all the while the temptations of our tech-reliant age get in the way. In the end it is quite profound and unsettling and zany. Charles Baxter is such a satisfying storyteller, and he always provides beautiful sentences that you feel the need to underline.  His Feast of Love, published in 2000, will forever be in my head, and First Light, told through the tunnel of memory, is, to my mind, a perfect little masterpiece.

I hope that each of you readers will also stumble upon that perfect book to escape into and revive your winter spirits! – Joyce

The first month of 2025 has been punctuated with tiny books that deliver a big oomph, starting with American Bulk by Emily Mester (W.W. Norton). This collection of personal essays examines Mester’s relationship with excess and overconsumption, from her childhood in the early 2000s to the present. She delves into her family’s history of hoarding, Midwest mall culture (and its die-off), the beginning boom of online reviews, and the sinkhole of spending that leaves us feeling empty, confused as to what we’re trying to fill. If you grew up in America, you likely have a complicated relationship with excess – I deeply appreciated Mester’s compassionate charting of her own. 

Coexistence, by Billy-Ray Belcourt (W.W. Norton), is a remarkable collection of loosely linked love stories set in queer, indigenous communities in and around Alberta. In these slice-of-life stories, characters fall in love and experience heartbreak under the strange monotony of oppression and the haunting shadow of colonization. This might be an overused phrase, but I can’t help but use it here – these characters just felt real. I felt immediately seated in each story and changed by the time I left it. 

I also must recommend a book that I am currently reading, Love Is a Dangerous Word by Essex Hemphill (available March 4). Though Hemphill’s work is frequently anthologized and widely praised, his one major poetry collection, Ceremonies – named one of the most influential works of postwar queer literature by the New York Times – has been out of print for years. I am so excited New Directions is finally bringing his poetry back to readers. At the close of each poem, I would find myself saying wow under my breath – his poetry is astonishing and revolutionary and deserving of the biggest spotlight. Hemphill often told friends and family, in passing, to “take care of your blessings” – his poetry very much encapsulates this instruction. Even in struggle, you must care for and relish what is around you. 

Lastly, a tiny book that can easily be read in one sitting but leaves a mark you’ll feel for days: Sinéad O’Connor: The Last Interview and Other Conversations (Melville House). O’Connor’s staunchness and commitment to seeking truth at all costs is something to be admired. I loved being reminded of the power she carried in life. – Sarah

Recently a young woman and her mother were in the shop. Each had found a book and they were at the counter paying when the daughter revealed that, while she is reading a book, she keeps the next book in the freezer. Out of sight, out of mind. The mother was amused by this revelation, and later I confirmed that the daughter did indeed keep that book in a freezer bag. We all have our methods for dealing with the books we buy and how to go about reading them. Some readers are very disciplined with what comes next, while others are solely dependent on mood or happenstance. I had started a new novel, and it was off to a very good start, but a stack of books next to a chair in the living room caught my eye, and at the bottom of that stack I noticed the striking spine of In Tongues (MCD). Immediately I thought, that’s it, that’s what I want to read! This novel by Thomas Grattan came out last spring, and it was one of the books of the summer: readers raved about it, saying, “you’ve got to read this book,” so I knew it must be really good. My partner Sam had already read the book and loved it, and that’s why it was in our stacks, waiting. It is all the things the blurbs on the back by Edmund White, Andrew Holleran and others claim: funny, sexy, shocking, and quite moving. It gave me the feeling of reading an early Michael Cunningham, like A Home at the End of the World, and brought back memories of my own self-discovery – the thrill and heartbreak of life in New York City, in all its queerness. Choosing a book can be a mercurial process, whether you keep them in artful stacks or freezer bags. Make sure you have In Tongues on hand for when the right time comes. – Troy

My reading year is off to a terrific start, beginning with Yáng Shuāng-zǐ’s clever, multi-layered novel Taiwan Travelogue (Graywolf, translated by Lin King). Set in the 1930s during Taiwan’s colonization by Japan, Yáng’s novel follows a young Japanese writer on a year-long assignment to the island – there, while reporting on life and culture in the colony for the homeland press, she develops a strong relationship with her young Taiwanese interpreter and guide. Friendship and longing, occupation and its impact on individuals and society, a glorious celebration of the food of Taiwan, the nature of translation itself – the act of interpreting another language and culture (Yáng disguises the book as a translation of a “rediscovered” Japanese text) – there are many ways to enjoy this alluring book. 

On the island of Timor, the villagers of Oetimu live in resolute acceptance of the power and brutality that pass through their land: colonization by the Portuguese and the Dutch, the Japanese occupation during World War II, the years of crushing dictatorship. People from Oetimu (translated by Lara Norgaard, available from Archipelago February 11), Felix Nesi’s remarkable Indonesian novel about a community’s fate at the hands of nations and fellows, is told with the deft, light touch of an exuberant, gifted storyteller. An electrifying and enthralling mix of pathos and humor, bold characters, history, and folk tale, this novel reverberated for days and days after I finished, as I reflected on characters caught in the cycles of political upheaval.

And, finally, add my voice to the chorus singing the praises of Emmanuel Carrère and his memoir Lives Other Than My Own (Picador, translated by Linda Coverdale), a heartfelt and humane account of life, loss, and life in loss. Now I understand why customers have bought multiple copies of this book to hand out to others. – Toby

The first book I read this year was Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad (Grove), a thoughtful and moving novel that follows an actress, Sonia, as she returns to Palestine to perform in a West Bank production of Hamlet. 

Hamlet’s themes of memory, hauntings, and familial tension subtly map onto Sonia’s personal life. Meanwhile, the cast have frank discussions about how Hamlet’s grief and rage resonate with Palestinians, the function of catharsis in theater, and how the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy can be read as a call for resistance over tyranny.

I loved the way the novel played with form – some scenes appear in script format – and the way Hammad weaves the text of Hamlet through the book as the cast gets closer to opening night. The choice to translate Hamlet into Arabic and then back into English makes familiar passages seem suddenly strange, helping readers to put aside their assumptions about Shakespeare and engage with the ideas behind the words. It’s the same advice that Mariam, the play’s director, gives to her cast: break down the meaning of your lines, and don’t get distracted by the poetry.

Hammad’s character work is also compelling, and she really captures the intense bonds that develop among castmates as they attempt to create a cohesive work of art. But for me, the unspoken tension between the sisters Sonia and Haneen – whose conflicting interpretations of their childhood have led them down diverging roads – is the heart of the novel. – Marlowe

I’ve found that even devoted readers of the New York Review Books Classics series may not be familiar with the name of Edwin Frank, that line’s founder (and the editorial director of NYRB writ large). That’s to his credit, I think – the books speak for themselves. (Those covers don’t hurt either.) But in Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Frank takes center stage, writing with passion and precision about some of the great literary works of the last century and a half. The book begins (a bit outside its title’s frame) with Dostoevsky’s 1864 Notes from Underground, a novel in which which “the writing explodes and implodes, and all the time the writer is trapped inside it, not only unable to get out, but unable to see what it is he has gotten himself into . . .” From this claustrophobic origin, Frank ranges widely over Europe (with brief visits to other shores), reading his chosen novels as a series of critical encounters with an increasingly violent modernity. Far from a tired rehashing of the old “canon wars,” Frank’s selections feel personal, gleaned from a library as vast as it is idiosyncratic (come for Proust and Woolf, stay for Hans Erich Nossack and Anna Banti). I felt I learned something new on nearly every page.

After months of picking up novels and putting them down, I happily devoured Hisham Matar’s My Friends (Random House). Matar is a modern master, his every sentence a feat of balance and poise. “But what was that life now,” asks Khaled, the Libyan student whose decades of political exile the novel both mourns and sanctifies; “where did it go?” The past, in L.P. Hartley’s famous phrase, was a foreign country, but for Khaled it’s something even more tragic: a homeland to which he can never return. Matar elevates his yearning into art, offering friendship and literature as recompense for Khaled’s damaged life. – Lucas

I started my year by picking up The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (Harper). Reading about someone completely dedicated to and with an almost spiritual understanding of her craft was very peaceful. Dillard writes about the solitude and difficulty of it all, but she keeps an unwavering respect for the writing process. This isn’t a “how-to” or advice guide at all, and I think it has much to offer to those who aren’t writers. There’s a part about a stunt pilot that I’ve been thinking about more than anything else. 

Out of curiosity I decided to embark on the first book of On the Calculation of Volume by Solvej Balle (New Directions, translated by Barbara J. Haveland). I’m very glad I did, and I think I’m in it for the long haul now (seven volumes!). The novel begins with time breaking down inexplicably, leaving the main character stuck repeating the same day over and over again. This glitch, with no perpetrator or solution, quickly creates a harrowing reality of the most intense isolation. There’s no evil for Tara to overcome, no hero’s journey for her to take, but rather a reckoning with how she is at the mercy of the universe. Balle’s writing is meticulous and a joy to read. – Elaine

Reading a Thomas Pynchon novel – in this case Mason & Dixon (Picador) – is like learning a new skill, because nobody has ever written like Pynchon and maybe nobody ever will again. Pynchon’s reimagining of the lives and careers of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon initially feels like a pastiche of eighteenth-century literature – a parody of 1700s style, Enlightenment manias and international politics. There’s a talking dog and a mechanical duck. Characters break into song. Discontent festers in the coffee-houses of Philadelphia – the stirrings of revolution. As Mason and Dixon survey their now-famous line, they encounter American myths and contradictions: the freedom of the frontier and the shackles of slavery, Manifest Destiny in an already-settled land. Some of it is unbelievable. (We meet a were-beaver, which might be the perfect symbol for Pynchon’s America askew – familiar in one way, but also bizarre.) Some of it seems straight out of the author’s twisted vision but turns out to be rooted in true history. The book’s emotional core is impossible to resist: the reluctant partnership between the title characters, two unlike men who must come to terms with each other, their pasts, and the future of a strange land. – Ryan

~ Staff Favorites Now in Paperback ~

Fiction

My Friends by Hisham Matar (Random House)

Burma Sahib by Paul Theroux (Mariner)

Nonfiction

Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard (Liveright)

Invitation to a Banquet by Fuchsia Dunlop (W.W. Norton)

Bring No Clothes by Charlie Porter (Penguin)

Papyrus by Irene Vallejo (Vintage, translated by Charlotte Whittle)

~ Signed Editions ~

Fiction

Entitlement by Rumaan Alam (Riverhead)

Alice Sadie Celine by Sarah Blakely-Cartwright (Simon & Schuster)

City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter (Grove)

A Third Term by Paul Greenberg (Ground Zero)

Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett (Back Bay)

Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett (Little, Brown)

You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett (Anchor)

Chasing Homer by László Krasznahorkai (New Directions, translated by John Bakti)

Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai (New Directions, translated by Ottilie Mulzet)

War & War by László Krasznahorkai (New Directions, translated by George Szirtes)

The World Goes On by László Krasznahorkai (New Directions, translated by John Bakti, Ottilie Mulzet and George Szirtes)

A Mountain to the North, a Lake to the South, Paths to the West, a River to the East by László Krasznahorkai (New Directions, translated by Ottilie Mulzet)

Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan (Doubleday)

Don’t Be a Stranger by Susan Minot (Knopf)

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez (Riverhead)

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Viking)

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (Viking)

Table for Two by Amor Towles (Viking)

Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong (Copper Canyon)

Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong (Penguin)

Rental House by Weike Wang (Riverhead)

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson (Ballantine)

Nonfiction

Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)

Dirtbag Queen by Andy Corren (Grand Central)

Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown)

Still Life with Remorse by Maira Kalman (Harper)

Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman (Harper)

Walk With Me: Hamptons by Susan Kaufman (Abrams)

Black in Blues by Imani Perry (Ecco)

Bring No Clothes by Charlie Porter (Penguin)

Year of the Monkey by Patti Smith (Vintage)

~ The Three Lives & Company Bestseller List ~

1. Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (Red Tower)

2. Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett (Little, Brown)

3. Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

4. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Vintage)

5. You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue (Riverhead, translated by Natasha Wimmer)

6. My Friends by Hisham Matar (Random House)

7. The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House)

8. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove)

9. Just Kids by Patti Smith (Ecco)

10. All Fours by Miranda July (Riverhead)

11. Ballerina by Patrick Modiano (Yale Margellos, translated by Mark Polizzotti)

12. The Loves of My Life by Edmund White (Bloomsbury)

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

SPECIAL ORDERS:

A reminder that we specialize in special orders. In our small shop it’s always a challenge to find room for all the new, notable, and exciting books; if you’d like a book that we don’t have on hand, we are always happy to order it for you. We place orders almost daily and the usual turnaround time for a special order is two business days. For some books it may take longer, but we’ll be sure to discuss the particulars with you before we place an order. Additionally, we can ship books to you anywhere within the United States. Give us a call, send us an email, or stop in any time.

PREORDERS:

We are happy to take preorders for forthcoming titles, and we will let you know as soon as the book arrives. We are all too familiar with the fervid desire to possess a new book at the first possible moment, and we will do everything in our power to make sure the book lands in your hands hot off the presses.

GIFT CERTIFICATES:

We offer gift certificates, which you may purchase in any amount.