shop small, shop local!
Holiday
Gift Guide 2023
the gift guide for everyone on your list... and we mean everyone!
find our gift guide picks
online & in-store!
shop.lostcitybookstore.com
2467 18th Street NW in the beautiful Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC!
heads up! DECEMBER 13TH is the last day to place an order (ONLINE OR IN-STORE) for guaranteed arrival by Dec. 24th! if we don’t have the book you’re looking for, we’d love to help you find something just as good!
other gift alternatives on our website: gift cards! audiobooks! (via Libro.fm) a curated selection of collectible (and otherwise special) used books! THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING SMALL INDEPENDENT BUSINESSES THIS HOLIDAY SEASON! AND AS ALWAYS, F*CK AMAZON
the perfect gift for anyone on your list...
MERCH! Limited edition "Spooky" t-shirts and totes! All proceeds benefitting HIPS throught December 31st, 2023!
Designed by Ruthie Lewis @kendall_gender
Shirts $25 Totes $15
HIPS PROMOTES THE HEALTH, RIGHTS, AND DIGNITY OF INDIVIDUALS AND COMMUNITIES IMPACTED BY SEXUAL EXCHANGE AND/OR DRUG USE DUE TO CHOICE, COERCION, OR CIRCUMSTANCE. HIPS PROVIDES COMPASSIONATE HARM REDUCTION SERVICES, ADVOCACY, AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT THAT IS RESPECTFUL, NON-JUDGMENTAL, AND AFFIRMS AND HONORS INDIVIDUAL POWER AND AGENCY.
Available online or in-store!
even more LCB MERCH!
LCB logo shirts and totes! natural
navy
Shirts $20 Totes $15 Shopping totes $30
(did we mention the big totes have pockets?!?!)
*phantom hand, cool books & wine bottles not included*
Available online or in-store!
Matchbox $1
Baseball cap $25 Bandana $8 BAGGU x LCB Fanny Pack !!! $65 *very limited stock* Koozie $5 front
CREWNECK STAY COZY SWEATSHIRTS THIS WINTER! $45 BEANIES $30
back
and now... for the books!
FALL/WINTER FICTION
“I went to Lost City Books and all I got was Delayed Gratification” Lies and Sorcery, Septology, The Maniac, The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers Guild
For your deranged zoomer coworker Rouge, Candelaria, I’m a Fan
TRANSLATED LITERATURE
My Work, Roman Stories, The Apple in the Dark, Vengeance is Mine
FOR THE PARENTS For your dad who can’t be bothered to crack a novel but spends all day “reading” the Yahoo homepage Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Elon Musk
For the book club moms The Fraud, The Vaster Wilds, The Vulnerables, The Iliad (Emily Wilson translation)
The Calvin & Hobbes kid to Sammy Harkham grown-up pipeline My Brilliant Friend: The Graphic Novel, Blood of the Virgin, Pittsburgh, Artificial: A Love Story
“Oat milk presenting, whole milk identifying” (4 the queers) Family Meal, Blackouts, 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World
GENRE FICTION What to read after F**rth W*ng and Ir*n Fl*me A River of Golden Bones, Sword Catcher, Bone Season: 10th Anniversary Edition, Bookshops & Bonedust
Loves to be snug as a bug in a rug but also read about murder (MYSTERY AND TRUE CRIME) Murder and Mamon, This House of Grief, Hot Pot Murder
SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY, & HORROR Dead Take the A Train, System Collapse, Narrow Road Between Desires
Calamity, The Free People’s Village, Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror
ROMANCE
Their other ride is the love interest in a grumpy x sunshine romance; together they’ve got a complicated background but the inn’s only got one bed! Raiders of the Lost Heart, The Seven Year Slip, You, Again
For the Meet Cute regulars <3
The Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon, Cleat Cute, Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date
FOOD (AND BEVERAGE) BOOKS
For your elder millennial friend who’s happy Cosmos are back in style Signature Cocktails, Encyclopedia of Cocktails: The People, Bars & Drinks, with More Than 100 Recipes, Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs and Juice: Cocktails from Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks
For your friend who’s “down to hang once they’re back from the Dupont farmers market” Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook, Veg-table: Recipes, Techniques, and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals, Jacques Pépin: Cooking My Way, My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home & in the Diaspora
FOOD WRITING Core of an Onion: Peeling the Rarest Common Food,, Invitation to a Banquet: The Story of Chinese Food, The Upstairs Delicatessen: On Eating, Reading, Reading About Eating, and Eating While Reading
MUSIC BOOKS
For the Swiftie looking to expand their pop princess frame of reference Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones, The Woman in Me, My Name is Barbra
MORE MUSIC BOOKS Black Punk Now, This Must Be the Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better, The Book of Rhyme and Reason: Hip Hop 1994-1997
Two headed calf can read twice as many poetry books Another Last Call, Organs of Little Importance, Removal Acts
For your friend who’s idea of “communing with nature” is getting day drunk in the grass at Malcolm X Park Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, Entangled Life: The Illustrated Edition, Cacophony of Bone: The Circle of a Year, Audobon’s Birds of America
Congrats to the strikers! (FILM BOOKS)
Pedro Almodóvar: Instalación/Installation, Agnès Varda: Director's Inspiration, Bresson on Bresson: Interviews, 1943-1983
Not judging books by their covers but these ones are beautiful! (ART MONOGRAPHS) Dear Jean Pierre, Kerry James Marshall: The Complete Prints, Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence, Simone Leigh
YOUNG READERS For your teen cousin who you actually want to sit at the kid’s table with so they can tell you what’s cool (YOUNG ADULT) Betting on You, Check & Mate, Divine Rivals
MIDDLE GRADE
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer, Serwa Boateng’s Guide to Witchcraft and Mayhem, The Mossheart’s Promise
For the baby bookworm Winter: A Solstice Story, If I Had A Polar Bear, Imagine a Garden: Stories of Courage Changing the World, Come and Join Us: 18 Holidays Celebrated All Year Long
staff picks of the year ryan
The Iliterate, Agota Kristof “I’m often enamored with writers who can do more with less. I think no one captures that feeling better than Kristof. Her struggle with losing her native language as a writer forced her to create something so sparse yet so full of emotion that it’s hard to imagine needing words at all.”
talita
The Forbidden Notebook, Alba de Cespedes “Valeria bought a notebook by chance. After this purchase, her life was transformed. How can writing change people’s life? In this novel, the notebook is converted in Valeria’s diary. She is afraid someone find her notes. Does she need a room for her own to be confident on writing?”
JAY
perry
Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, Ashley Herring Blake “Delilah Green is a photographer who doesn’t need nothing or nobody. She returns from NYC to rural Oregon for her estranged step sister’s wedding... as the wedding photographer. But returning home learns that her romantic connection is nothing to run from, and that all was not as it seemed growing up...”
abby
The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa “Don’t let a fear of math dissuade you from reading this book -- somehow, numbers and equations become so emotionally resonant, in this simple, yet deeply moving book. It is not a romance, but it is intrinsically about love.”
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, Resmaa Menakem “There are so many books out there on trauma, self-help and improvement and somatics (somatic meaning bodybased); as a person who is in this field and am familiar with many, I’d say….if you read one, make it this one. While SO many books fail to acknowledge the ways we are all existing in different forms of racialized trauma which inform how our bodies and minds react – this book does a deep dive. If a book, a school, a system, etc. is not race-informed, there is simply no way for it to be trauma-informed. Practice this book in community, with discussions with loved ones. Take it slow.”
meghan
The Wall, Marlen Haushofer “For all the introverts and homebodies who ever secretly wished *just a little bit* that everyone else would disappear so they could live alone in the woods with a dog and a cat for company and not be bothered… The narrator of this novel discovers that the world has stopped and she may be the last person alive. The rest of her life, alone in the Austrian Alps, is by turns blissful and nightmarish. The forces of nature and solitude erode everything she once believed about herself, uncovering a new perspective. I plan to reread this book many times to experience again the clarity, peace, and amazement.”
ben
Stringers, Chris Panatier “From a new press focusing on experimental/bizarre speculative fiction/sci-fi -- and this one is bizarre indeed. Basically, all consciousness is a universally shared form of matter. So when a regular loser has the secret of the universe buried in his skull, chaos ensues. Weird, grotesque, & full of random bug sex.”
eliza
Mating, Norman Rush “Girls, who among us hasn’t ever been crushing so hard on a man 20 years their senior that they’ve walked for days across the southern African desert to surprise him at his remote feminist utopian village? Not you? Me neither, but this unnamed narrator’s portrayal of love is wholly relatable. I envy anyone who gets to read this book for the first time! ”
staff picks of the year jac
Raiders of the Lost Heart, Jo Segura “Nothing beats starting a new book and —one chapter in—knowing that it’s going to be so damn fun. Corrie Mejía and Ford Matthews are rival archaeologists working together at an important dig in Oaxaca and let me tell you… Indiana Jones turned romantic comedy, RAIDERS is a swoon-worthy adventure and I LOVE a man that eats his dessert. That’s all.”
jodie Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America, Abraham Josephine Reisman “You don’t even have to be a wrestling fan to gain something from this book. Basically, the growth of WWE and McMahon came at the expense of real people’s REAL lives... Nothin’ fake about the violence of capitalism and industry monopolization. The other cool thing about this book is that she draws from & contributes to real history and serious reporting about an incredible and horrible artform that most people don’t take seriously at all.”
JOSHUA
MIKAYLA
How to Say Babylon, Safiyah Sinclair “I could not put this book down! A beautiful story of a woman’s comingof-age under a strict and abusive Rastafari household. My favorite book of 2023.”
Ripe, Sarah Rose Etter “Ripe follows a 30 year old, Cassie, working a tech job in Silicon Valley navigating capitalism, mental health, and darkness. This book was so tense from the start, yet you don’t want to put it down. It was giving Woman v. the Void. Get ready.”
nell
corinne
Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu, Junji Ito “Turns out the master of modern horror manga is a skilled humorist as well! Ito utilizes his signature eerie illustrations to relate the antics of his feline companions. By turns delightfully absurd to heartwarming, any cat lover will enjoy this volume. Long time Ito fans will be entertained by the genre switch!”
What Storm, What Thunder, Myriam J. A. Chancy “A jaw dropping beauty! Exploring the complexity of such a sudden, traumatic disaster. We feel the impact of the earthquake through 10 characters in Haiti and the diaspora -- each having a unique voice. It’s brilliant and Myriam J. A. Chancy deserves all the praise!
bestsellers of 2023
thanks for all the support this year - we can’t do this without you and we’re very grateful for our community. here’s to more great books in 2024!
happy holidays! love, LCB