Elevate your 2025 reading list with these picks from Just Book-ish
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Get a head start on your 2025 reading goals with these recommendations from the booksellers at the newly opened Just Book-ish store in Fields Corner. Whether you’re searching for community-centric narratives, culturally conscious novels or an escape from reality, there’s something for every reader on this list.
Going Home to Teach
by Anthony C. Winkler
Recommended by Tamika R. Francis, Culinary Director at Just Book-ish
Part autobiography, part social commentary, this book follows Winkler’s experience traveling from the U.S. to teach in his native Jamaica for a year in 1975. In it, Winkler explores a tumultuous period in Jamaican history as well as the dangers of forcing a foreign ideology on a native culture.
Gideon the Ninth
by Tamsyn Muir
Recommended by Franchie, Bookstore Manager of Just Book-ish
“Gideon the Ninth” is part of the Locked Tomb series, an eerie science fantasy series by New Zealand writer Tamsyn Muir. This is the first book in the series and readers are introduced to the star system Dominicus and the houses that rule each of the nine planets within it. When the Emperor, the ultimate ruler of the system, invites each house to participate in a series of challenges for a dark prize, the action begins.
The community turned out for the November grand opening of Just Book-ish in Dorchester. Founded by Porsha Olayiwola and Bing Broderick, the new bookstore aims to serve the surrounding community with a curated selection of reading material, arts events and gatherings at its book-café. PHOTO: Isabel Leon/Mayor’s Office
Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black
by Cookie Mueller
Recommended by Bing Broderick, co-founder of Just Book-ish
This is the first collected edition of stories by writer and actress Cookie Mueller, featuring many previously unpublished essays and works. Though the piece delves into Mueller’s personal history, it also puts the reader in many pivotal moments during the 1970s and ’80s, including post-Stonewall Provincetown, avant-garde Italy, 1980s New York and the Baltimore shown in John Waters films, many of which Mueller acted in.
The Selected Poems of Nikki Giovanni
by Nikki Giovanni
Recommended by Porsha Olayiwola, co-founder of Just Book-ish
Giovanni’s poems became popular during the Black Rights Movement of the 1960s, causing both celebration and controversy. Though Giovanni passed on December 9, 2024, her work continues to provide introspective commentary on America’s political and poetic landscape. This volume of 150 poems, the first of hers to be published, showcases many of her powerful and enduring themes.
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia Butler
Recommended by Porsha Olayiwola, co-founder of Just Book-ish
Though it was first published in 1993, Octavia Butler’s most famous science fiction novel “Parable of the Sower,” gets more relevant every day. In it, climate and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s (sound familiar?) and the United States has become a dangerous place. Fifteen-year-old protagonist Lauren Olamina lives in a sheltered community away from the chaos, but she must find her voice to protect her loved ones.
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