Staff Picks: Erika's Ten Favorite Books
 Each month, we ask one employee to tell us about their ten favorite books. This list is no holds barred -- any genre, any size -- whatever they really want to talk about. The only restriction is that the books still be in print so that we can help you find them if they sound good.This month's presenter is Erika. Erika is a native of New Mexico and has worked at Stacey's for ten years, currently as the "Magazine Girl," doing the majority of the buying and stocking of our fabulous periodicals section in San Francisco. |
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 Tiganaby Guy Gavriel Kay  "Discovered during an exploration of the fantasy genre but carelessly set aside after reading only the prologue. Thanks to my roommate finding and investigating my abandoned copy and raving about 'the scene in the hunting lodge,' I bought another one for myself and read a beautiful, engrossing and tragic story. I have since read it at least once a year and imagine I will go back to it throughout my life." |
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 The Golden Compassby Philip Pullman "I love this book because the heroine, Lyra, is such a wonderful rascal." |
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 Microserfsby Douglas Coupland "There are books that the phrase 'finger on the pulse' was invented for, and this is one of them. I read this book straight out of the box in 1995 before the start-up explosion, etc. Now I read it every couple of years amazed at how Coupland nailed it. Microserfs also has plenty of Douglas Coupland's touchy-feely sentimentality that I so enjoy." |
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 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the Worldby Haruki Murakami "I'd heard raves about the new book by a Japanese author named Haruki Murakami. When I checked stock I saw that we were sold out but that he had several other titles on the shelf, so I picked out the most recent publication to read while I waited for the new book, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, to come back in. Well, I'd never read anything like this--the rhythm, the narrator's language and attitude, the strangeness of the story, the inclusion of the normal and everyday actions and details, the humor--it was phenomenal. I've since read all of his translated books and though i think that Wind-Up Bird and Norwegian Wood are his best books, my sentimental favorite is Hard-Boiled Wonderland because it was my first." |
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 Pomona Queenby Kem Nunn "I think this is one of the best books ever written in the English language. It truly has to be read to be believed. The first section of Chapter 5 is mindblowing." |
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 The Open Boat and Other Storiesby Stephen Crane "The 20 pages that are The Open Boat are perfect." |
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 The All-Music Guide to Rock"I haven't found a more useful or fascinating reference tool for rock/pop music, albums and musicians. It also meets two requirements i have for such books; it includes lists of as much of the known recorded material by each artist as the authors have uncovered, no matter their opinion of the work, and it has a nice big index." |
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 The American Heritage Dictionary"I am fond of words. For the past nine or so years the American Heritage Dictionary has helped me be a more discriminating user of words, guided me towards the correct spelling of the words I choose and given me the meaning of words I hadn't had the occasion to know before." |
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 The Goat in the Rugby Charles L. Blood and Martin Link illustrated by Nancy Winslow Parker "A childrens picture book about Navajo rugweaving narrated by a goat named Geraldine whose wool is used for the rug in the story. How could I not adore this book?" |
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 Death Comes for the Archbishopby WIlla Cather "In this book Willa Cather puts words to the images I see of my homeland when I close my eyes." |
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