Books to Watch | August 6, 2019

In the past, we have always done a monthly "Books to Watch" list to let our readers know what new books we're most excited about. Those lists can not only get a little long and unwieldy, the books (and our best intentions to actually read them) are too often forgotten as we progress though the month—especially those being published later in the month. So, starting this month, we will be sending out shorter lists every single week with five books we are most interested in. These weekly lists will be curated by our Editorial & Creative Director, Dylan Schleicher (DJJS), our Marketing Director Blyth Meier (BRM), and our Digital Marketing Specialist Gabbi Cisneros (GMC).

As a company of voracious readers, we will also be adding a book or two (or three) at the end of each post to let you know about other books people in our company have been reading. 

And now, without further ado, our first five picks are… 

Beaten Down, Worked Up: The Past, Present, and Future of American Labor by Steven Greenhouse, Knopf (DJJS) | The history of American business has also been the story of American workers—especially when those workers organize. In Beaten Down, Worked Up, New York Times labor and workplace correspondent Steven Greenhouse provides a thick description of the modern labor landscape through the stories of workers across the country.

Girl on the Block: A True Story of Coming of Age Behind the Counter by Jessica Wragg, Dey Street (BRM) | Many of us entered the work world through the food industry. While I was assembling burger patties and lettuce and pickles at the Wendy’s in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Jessica Wragg was separating muscle and tendon from bone at the Chatsworth Farm Shop in Chesterfield, England. Expanded from an an essay in Lenny Letter, Wragg’s memoir sheds light on being a female butcher in a centuries-old male-dominated industry.

Strange Harvests: The Hidden Histories of Seven Natural Objects by Edward Posnett, Viking (GMC) | Delving into the history of objects as carefully as a biographer, Edward Posnett aims to establish balance between humans and the natural world. He examines eiderdown, vicuña fiber, sea silk, vegetable ivory, civet coffee, guano, and edible birds’ nests, revealing their local histories and their connection to a promising global future.

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino, Random House (BRM) | In a world flooded with opinion writing, Tolentino’s smart, funny, and insightful work in The New Yorker has quickly become my must-read for processing the issues (and television shows) of this complicated time. Her first book offers up nine original essays weaving together everything from her evangelical upbringing in Houston to literary heroines to the performative world of self-optimization via social media.

We're Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America by Jennifer M. Silva, Oxford University Press (DJJS) | Although she didn’t set out to document the 2016 presidential election, it provided an illustrative backdrop for Jennifer Silva’s chronicle of working-class America, how they’ve been left behind as the social contract and traditional safety net have been shredded, and how they have—and might still—respond.

What we're reading:

As everyone and their sister knows because I can’t stop talking about it, I read Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys and found it shockingly beautiful and disturbing. He’s a genius. Now I’m on to a young novel of his, Sag Harbor. Early pages. I also recently read the latest Lief Enger on whom I have a crazed literary crush. It is titled Virgil Wander and and I loved loved it.

—Rebecca Schwartz, Owner, President, & CEO