Community Bookstore’s pick: “Moby Dick: Illustrated,” by Gilbert Wilson
This lovely, full-color, illustrated edition arrives just in time for the 200th anniversary of Melville’s masterpiece. It draws on decades of sketches and paintings from Gilbert Wilson’s archives, done over the course of a career that saw him study with Diego Rivera, cross paths with the likes of John Huston and Eleanor Roosevelt, and always return, Ahab-like to his obsession with Moby Dick. The perfect gift for the Ishmael in your life.
— Samuel Partal, Community Bookstore [43 Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.communitybookstore.net].
Greenlight Bookstore’s pick: “Essays One,” by Lydia Davis
Collecting over four decades of essays and lectures, this volume shows short fiction author Davis intimately parsing out her experience as a writer and lover of writing. Full of insightful commentary and criticism, the real treat is watching her unpack her own revising and editing process, from structural evolutions to the minutiae of working and reworking a single sentence (on page 169).
— Niko Tsocanos, Greenlight Bookstore [686 Fulton St. between S. Elliott Place and S. Portland Avenue in Fort Greene, (718) 246–0200, www.greenlightbookstore.com].
Word’s picks: “How to Be An Antiracist,” by Ibram Kendi
This book is a great mix between personal anecdotes and data displaying evidence that it is not only naive but incorrect to describe our current society or anyone in it as “colorblind” or “post-racial.” Kendi advises us all to avoid the temptation of not thinking about racism and instead actively try to be antiracist in ways that do not vilify people, but continually challenge our own ideas of power, self-interest, and race.
— Amanda Rivera, Word [126 Franklin St. at Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096, www.wordbookstores.com].
