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Happy #forthcomingfriday, book lovers! 🥶 It's bitterly cold in Chicago again, the perfect weather for cozying up inside with a big, juicy novel. Today we're digging into THE MOST FUN WE EVER HAD, a multi-generational family saga set against the backdrop of Chicago, Evanston and Oak Park. Claire Lombardo is a keen observer of human nature, and the dynamics among her characters are fine-tuned and beautifully wrought. You'll find this deeply satisfying portrait of a family (Chicago's answer to Celeste Ng's LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE) on our shelves on June 25th. 🍂 #clairelombardo #themostfunweeverhad #bookstagram #bibliophile #indiebookstore (at Baker Miller) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtoE8ObnQFx/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1kzq092mc0wpw

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#claudemckay #unabooksboardthoughts (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/Btl_MhcgsQQ/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ateu4xmgixhi

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Elizabeth McCracken’s first novel since 1996’s achingly poignant THE GIANT’S HOUSE has arrived, and it is a delight! A champion of the idiosyncratic, McCracken is well-suited to that uniquely American mode, the tall tale. BOWLAWAY opens on Bertha Truitt, a candlepin bowling enthusiast and suffragette who allegedly falls out of the sky and is discovered in a cemetery in the sleepy town of Salford, Massachussetts, at the turn of the 20th century. Gathering the town misfits to her, Bertha opens Truitt’s Lanes, a haven for oddballs and outcasts. The story that unfolds follows Bertha’s legacy into the modern era. BOWLAWAY is a stunningly clever rumination on humanity as so much flotsam and jetsam swept along on the time’s tides. A joy to read! ♥️ #unabridgedbookoftheweek #elizabethmccracken (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtjTUz7n20f/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1loaqddnblo6o

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Book club devotees! The #litsyndicate meets tonight at 7PM to discuss Natalia Ginzburg's FAMILY LEXICON. Can't make it this evening? Join us next month on Tuesday, March 5th when we'll discuss Sigrid Nunez's THE FRIEND. 🐩✨ About the book: In The Friend, a writer living in a tiny NYC apartment and mourning the suicide of a close friend inherets a Great Dane. While the book is filled with anecdotes about dogs and musings on grief and friendship, it is centrally concerned with literature and creative writing. Ed recommends this nuanced and pitch-perfect novel. (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/BthAnPancud/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=4h2f4vjt2cqj

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#unabooksboardthoughts #lucilleclifton (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtbaiwCHn5N/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=2p1gpelz75x4

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"There is no one quite like Ginzburg for telling it like it is. Her unique, immediately recognizable voice is at once clear and shaded, artless and sly, able to speak of the deepest sorrows and smallest pleasures of everyday life." —Phillip Lopate 📚✨ Our book club meets this Tuesday, February 5th at 7PM when we'll discuss Natalia Ginzburg's FAMILY LEXICON. Copies of the book are available at our front counter. (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtWJ6aIn9gM/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=17af8btoc81k4

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Ever the overachiever, Unabridged's intrepid leader Ed lit off to Miami and is enjoying his #polarvortexreads poolside. Here he's pictured dipping into Jacob Tobia's SISSY: A Coming-of-Gender Story, due from @putnambooks on March 5th. 🌞🌴 (at Miami Beach, Florida) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtRpce5n2AL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1i68x2jj71y6r

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Our next set of #polarvortexreads come courtesy Ianni and Shane, who are using this opportunity to read some hotly anticipated titles coming this spring. 🔥 Reluctant snowbird Ianni is cozied up in Logan Square with Sarah Blake's THE GUESTBOOK, forthcoming from @flatiron_books on May 7th. ✍️📚 In Rogers Park, Shane is immersed in renowned Chicago journalist Alex Kotlowitz's newest offering, AN AMERICAN SUMMER: Love and Death in Chicago, due from Nan A. Talese on March 5th. 💙 (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtRHdjTnTag/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1pmsgb9a5th8a

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Good morning, book lovers! We're coming at you live from Chicago's hottest club, The Indoors. 🥶🥶 We'll share several sets of our #polarvortexreads throughout the day. Up in Lincoln Square Katharine is digging into T Fleischmann's TIME IS A THING THE BODY MOVES THROUGH, a truly stunning essay due from @coffeehousepress on June 4th. ✨ Meanwhile over in Ravenswood Tim is kicking himself for not having read Claudia Dey's HEARTBREAKER earlier. 💔📚 We want to know what you're reading, too! Share your #polarvortexreads with us and we'll repost 'em in our stories. Just make sure to tag @unabridgedbookstore. (at Chicago, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtQxCluHzb9/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=cva8vhxdlvt4

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GOLDEN CHILD by Claire Adam is a deeply affecting, stunning debut novel set in Trinidad, written with both force and beauty. Revolving around twin, thirteen-year-old boys (Paul, always considered a bit “slow,” and Peter, the “golden” child), the novel is about family, violence and sacrifice. The author, born and raised in Trinidad, does an amazing job of evoking the rural, atmospheric island setting and the complicated, worried lives lived under a near-constant sense of impending violence. Unsettling, beautiful and remarkable. ♥️ #unabridgedbookoftheweek #claireadam (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtPBlLUHJQ1/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1rlpkbi40ifkg

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In an effort to keep our booksellers safe, we are closing up shop tomorrow due to the record-breaking low temperatures slated to hit Chicago this evening. But don't worry, we haven't abandoned you! We'll share a few of our #polarvortexreads throughout the day tomorrow, and share yours on our stories when you tag @unabridgedbookstore. ❄️📚 If you need a new book we'll be open until from 10AM - 9PM today. Happy reading, and stay safe! (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtONuArHIN3/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1p9znj0kdcrpu

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"What is reading if not a way to indulge our foolish passions?" We're at Winter Institute this week discussing the ins and outs of bookselling with several hundred of our favorite people, including keynote speaker Hanif Abdurraqib, seen here in discussion of his new book GO AHEAD IN THE RAIN. 💛❤️💚🖤 #WI14 (at Albuquerque, New Mexico) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtBS5wJHHk3/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=jsk9n3w2awhp

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"When I read Sontag for the first time... I kept having those sudden, subtle, and possibly microchemical raptures—little lights flickering deep inside the brain tissue—back and forth with that some people experience when they finally find words for a very simple and yet till then unspeakable feeling. When someone else's words enter your consciousness like that, they become small conceptual light-marks. They're not necessarily illuminating. A match struck alight in a dark hallway, the light tip of a cigarette smoked in bed at midnight, embers in a dying chimney: none of these things has enough light of its own to reveal anything. Neither do anyone's words. But sometimes a little light can make you aware of the dark, unknown space that surrounds it, of the enormous ignorance that envelops everything we think we knew. And that recognition and coming to terms with darkness is more valuable then all the factual knowledge we may ever accumulate." – Valeria Luiselli • It's January 18th, and Katharine is  prepared to declare LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE her favorite novel of 2019. We can't wait to put this book in your hands when it pubs on February 12th. Pre-order today to receive 20% off. • #forthcomingfriday #valerialuiselli #lostchildrenarchive #bestbooksof2019 #indiebookstore #independentbookstore #bookstagram #booksandcoffee #bookporn #igreads (at The Grind Cafe Co) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsyCwyJnkkZ/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1y1u8hidhrmci

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We are so grateful that we got to share this world with Mary Oliver ♥️ #unabooksboardthoughts #maryoliver #maryoliverpoetry (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/BsvoLHDn4KH/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=yeodrphegmkw

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IN OUR MAD AND FURIOUS CITY by Guy Gunaratne is a contemporary love letter to the language of London’s streets. It's a blistering look into lives lived on the edge, where an entire world of immigrant, polyglot London, filled with fury and violence, comes to life. The polyphonic voices (each with its distinctive slang and working-class dialect) are stunning, and the narrative, with the slowly revealed backstories and nuanced characterizations, hooks the reader from the start and all the way through the devastating conclusion. Guy Gunaratne’s characters are drawn with compassion and humanity, and each narrator’s first-person voice—Selvon’s, Ardan’s, Yusuf’s, Caroline’s, Nelson’s—is uniquely impassioned and unforgettable, describing attempts to beat back the hate, the extremism, and the bigotry that threatens to engulf each of them. At once gritty and graceful, tragic and alive, IN OUR MAD AND FURIOUS CITY is searing, heartbreaking, and unforgettable. ♥️ #unabridgedbookoftheweek #guygunaratne (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/BstboyYnQue/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ltiagl0a6w68

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📚 Book club enthusiasts! 📚January's #litsyndicate pick is Natalia Ginzburg's FAMILY LEXICON. We'll meet to discuss this autobiographical novel on Tuesday, February 5th at 7PM. Those who wish to chat and unwind beforehand are welcome to join us at 6:30 for complimentary sweets and wine. 🍷🍪Copies of the book are available for purchase at our front counter. Join us! • About the book: . "An Italian family, sizable, with its routines and rituals, crazes, pet phrases, and stories, doubtful, comical, indispensable, comes to life in the pages of Natalia Ginzburg’s Family Lexicon. Giuseppe Levi, the father, is a scientist, consumed by his work and a mania for hiking—when he isn’t provoked into angry remonstration by someone misspeaking or misbehaving or wearing the wrong thing. Giuseppe is Jewish, married to Lidia, a Catholic, though neither is religious; they live in the industrial city of Turin where, as the years pass, their children find ways of their own to medicine, marriage, literature, politics. It is all very ordinary, except that the background to the story is Mussolini’s Italy in its steady downward descent to race law and world war. The Levis are, among other things, unshakeable anti-fascists. That will complicate their lives. . Family Lexicon is about a family and language—and about storytelling not only as a form of survival but also as an instrument of deception and domination. The book takes the shape of a novel, yet everything is true. 'Every time that I have found myself inventing something in accordance with my old habits as a novelist, I have felt impelled at once to destroy [it],' Ginzburg tells us at the start. 'The places, events, and people are all real.'" - NYRB Classics (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsq9RwqHWdt/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1u5ox6s6jhz1q

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It is a ❄️ perfect ❄️ winter day in Lakeview, book worms. Come be cozy with us! 📚❤️ (at Unabridged Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsiwp1hnxix/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1q4nsv3ro53oe