Holiday Gift Guide
Ainsley Shaw • November 24, 2025

Find the perfect read for every book lover on your list with our curated Holiday Gift Guide! We have taken the time to highlight some show stopping presents to make your shopping a breeze. Shop small and support your local bookstore this holiday season by purchasing gifts through our Bookshop and Libro sites. View our entire selection of December book recommendations in physical and E-book format here and audiobooks here. From all of us at Lioness Books, thank you for supporting small businesses and Happy Holidays!


For the Romance Devotee

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Kiran Desai


When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.


Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Kiran Desai


When Sonia and Sunny first glimpse each other on an overnight train, they are immediately captivated yet also embarrassed by the fact that their grandparents had once tried to matchmake them, a clumsy meddling that served only to drive Sonia and Sunny apart.


Sonia, an aspiring novelist who recently completed her studies in the snowy mountains of Vermont, has returned to her family in India. She fears that she is haunted by a dark spell cast by an artist to whom she had once turned for intimacy and inspiration. Sunny, a struggling journalist resettled in New York City, is attempting to flee his imperious mother and the violence of his warring clan.

Uncertain of their future, Sonia and Sunny embark on a search for happiness together as they confront the many alienations of our modern world.


The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their lives: country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next. A love story, a family saga, and a rich novel of ideas, it is the most ambitious and accomplished work yet by one of our greatest novelists.


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The Autumn Leaf Bookshop

Kay Michaels


Raene Hart doesn't do fall.


Give her beaches, sun-soaked pages, and barefoot days under thunderstorm skies and she's golden. But when her beloved grandmother needs care, Raene trades her coastal condo and bestselling romance career for six weeks in Everly Hollow, a cozy town full of enchantment, magic and where not all beings are human.


Sylas Ashvale is everything she doesn't need right now. He's tall, too handsome for his own good, and the owner of The Autumn Leaf Bookshop.

The Autumn Leaf Bookshop

Kay Michaels


Raene Hart doesn't do fall.


Give her beaches, sun-soaked pages, and barefoot days under thunderstorm skies and she's golden. But when her beloved grandmother needs care, Raene trades her coastal condo and bestselling romance career for six weeks in Everly Hollow, a cozy town full of enchantment, magic and where not all beings are human.


Sylas Ashvale is everything she doesn't need right now. He's tall, too handsome for his own good, and the owner of The Autumn Leaf Bookshop.

The Autumn Leaf Bookshop

Kay Michaels


Raene Hart doesn't do fall.


Give her beaches, sun-soaked pages, and barefoot days under thunderstorm skies and she's golden. But when her beloved grandmother needs care, Raene trades her coastal condo and bestselling romance career for six weeks in Everly Hollow, a cozy town full of enchantment, magic and where not all beings are human.


Sylas Ashvale is everything she doesn't need right now. He's tall, too handsome for his own good, and the owner of The Autumn Leaf Bookshop.

He's the literal embodiment of fall with his cozy sweaters, fall magic, and cinnamon-scented charm. Oh, and did I mention he's Fae with a bonded miniature dragon?


Raene is a summer-loving author. Sylas is autumn incarnate.


But sometimes, the season you hate... becomes the one that changes everything. Will Raene survive pumpkin season without losing her mind or her heart?


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For the Contemporary Fiction Fan

The Correspondent

Virginia Evans


“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”


Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.


The Correspondent

Virginia Evans


“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”


Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.


Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it.


Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.


Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.


Sybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might be “a very small thing,” but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.


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Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it.


Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.


Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.


Sybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might be “a very small thing,” but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.


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We Do Not Part

Han Kang


One winter morning in Seoul, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at the hospital. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.

We Do Not Part

Han Kang


One winter morning in Seoul, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at the hospital. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.

We Do Not Part

Han Kang


One winter morning in Seoul, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at the hospital. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.

Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully brings to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable pain—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.


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For the Memoir Obsessed

The Anthony Bourdain Reader

Anthony Bourdain


The definitive, career-spanning collection of writing from Anthony Bourdain, assembled for the first time in book form.


Anthony Bourdain represented many things to many people—and he had many sides. But no part of his identity was more important to him, and more long-lasting, than that of a writer. The Anthony Bourdain Reader is a collection of his best and most fascinating writing, and touches on his many pursuits and passions, from restaurant life to family life to the “low life,” from TV to travel through places like Vietnam, Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai.

The Anthony Bourdain Reader

Anthony Bourdain


The definitive, career-spanning collection of writing from Anthony Bourdain, assembled for the first time in book form.


Anthony Bourdain represented many things to many people—and he had many sides. But no part of his identity was more important to him, and more long-lasting, than that of a writer. The Anthony Bourdain Reader is a collection of his best and most fascinating writing, and touches on his many pursuits and passions, from restaurant life to family life to the “low life,” from TV to travel through places like Vietnam, Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai.

The Anthony Bourdain Reader is also a showcase for new and never-before-seen material, like diary entries from Bourdain’s first trip to France as a teenager and “It’s Cruel and Unforgiving Terrain,” a piece on the New York restaurant scene, as well as unpublished short fiction like “I Quit My Job Yesterday” and chapters from No New Messages, his unfinished novel. These newly discovered pieces all contribute to give the fullest picture of the man behind the books.


The Anthony Bourdain Reader is a testament to the enduring and singular voice Bourdain crafted, with eclectic and curated chapters that encapsulate the unique brilliance of his restless mind. Edited by Bourdain’s longtime agent and friend Kimberly Witherspoon and with a foreword by Patrick Radden Keefe, this is an essential reader for any Bourdain fan as well as a vivid and moving recollection of the life and legacy of one of our most distinctive writers.


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The Uncool

Cameron Crowe


Cameron Crowe was an unlikely rock and roll insider. Born in 1957 to parents who strictly banned the genre from their house, he dove headfirst into the world of music. By the time he graduated high school at fifteen, Crowe was contributing to Rolling Stone. His parents became believers, uneasily allowing him to interview and tour with legends like Led Zeppelin; Lynyrd Skynyrd; Bob Dylan; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and Fleetwood Mac.


The Uncool offers a front-row ticket to the 1970s, a golden era for music and art when rock was young. There’s no such thing as a media junket—just the rare chance a young writer might be invited along for an adventure. Crowe spends his teens politely turning down the drugs and turning on his tape recorder.

The Uncool

Cameron Crowe


Cameron Crowe was an unlikely rock and roll insider. Born in 1957 to parents who strictly banned the genre from their house, he dove headfirst into the world of music. By the time he graduated high school at fifteen, Crowe was contributing to Rolling Stone. His parents became believers, uneasily allowing him to interview and tour with legends like Led Zeppelin; Lynyrd Skynyrd; Bob Dylan; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and Fleetwood Mac.


The Uncool offers a front-row ticket to the 1970s, a golden era for music and art when rock was young. There’s no such thing as a media junket—just the rare chance a young writer might be invited along for an adventure. Crowe spends his teens politely turning down the drugs and turning on his tape recorder.

The Uncool

Cameron Crowe


Cameron Crowe was an unlikely rock and roll insider. Born in 1957 to parents who strictly banned the genre from their house, he dove headfirst into the world of music. By the time he graduated high school at fifteen, Crowe was contributing to Rolling Stone. His parents became believers, uneasily allowing him to interview and tour with legends like Led Zeppelin; Lynyrd Skynyrd; Bob Dylan; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and Fleetwood Mac.


The Uncool offers a front-row ticket to the 1970s, a golden era for music and art when rock was young. There’s no such thing as a media junket—just the rare chance a young writer might be invited along for an adventure. Crowe spends his teens politely turning down the drugs and turning on his tape recorder.

He talks his journalism teacher into giving him class credit for his road trip covering Led Zeppelin’s 1975 tour, which lands him—and the band—on the cover of Rolling Stone. He embeds with David Bowie as the sequestered genius transforms himself into a new persona: the Thin White Duke. Why did Bowie give Crowe such unprecedented access? “Because you’re young enough to be honest,” Bowie tells him.


Youth and humility are Crowe’s ticket into the Eagles’ dressing room in 1972, where Glenn Frey vows to keep the band together forever; to his first major interview with Kris Kristofferson; to earning the trust of icons like Gregg Allman and Joni Mitchell, who had sworn to never again speak to Rolling Stone. It’s a magical odyssey, the journey of a teenage writer waved through the door to find his fellow dreamers, music geeks, and lifelong community. It’s a path that leads him to writing and directing some of the most beloved films of the past forty years, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Say Anything... to Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. His movies often resonate with the music of the artists he first met as a journalist, including Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Who, and Pearl Jam.


The Uncool is also a surprisingly intimate family drama. If you’ve seen Almost Famous, you may think you know this story—but you don’t. For the first time, Crowe opens up about his formative years in Palm Springs and pays tribute to his father, a decorated Army officer who taught him the irreplaceable value of the human voice. Crowe also offers a full portrait of his mother, whose singular spirit helped shape him into an unconventional visionary.


With its vivid snapshots of a bygone era and a celebration of creativity and connection, this memoir is an essential read for music lovers or anyone chasing their wildest dreams. At the end of that roller-coaster journey, you might just find what you were looking for: your place in the world.


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For the Fantasy Fanatic

The Hymn to Dionysus

Natasha Pulley


A timely reimagining of the story of Dionysus-Greek god of ecstasy, revelry, and ruin-and a captivating queer love story for readers of The Song of Achilles and Elektra.


Raised in a Greek legion, Phaidros has been taught to follow his commander's orders at all costs. But when Phaidros rescues a baby from a fire at Thebes's palace, his commander's orders cease to make sense: Phaidros is forced to abandon the blue-eyed boy at a temple, and to keep the baby's existence a total secret.


Years later, struggling with panic attacks and flashbacks, Phaidros is enlisted by the Queen to find her son, Thebes' young crown prince, who has vanished to escape an arranged marriage.

The Hymn to Dionysus

Natasha Pulley


A timely reimagining of the story of Dionysus-Greek god of ecstasy, revelry, and ruin-and a captivating queer love story for readers of The Song of Achilles and Elektra.


Raised in a Greek legion, Phaidros has been taught to follow his commander's orders at all costs. But when Phaidros rescues a baby from a fire at Thebes's palace, his commander's orders cease to make sense: Phaidros is forced to abandon the blue-eyed boy at a temple, and to keep the baby's existence a total secret.


Years later, struggling with panic attacks and flashbacks, Phaidros is enlisted by the Queen to find her son, Thebes' young crown prince, who has vanished to escape an arranged marriage.

The search leads him to a blue-eyed witch named Dionysus, whose guidance is as wise as the events that surround him are strange. In Dionysus's company, Phaidros witnesses sudden outbursts of riots and unrest, and everywhere Dionysus goes, rumors follow about a new god, one sired by Zeus but lost in a fire.


In The Hymn to Dionysus, bestselling author Natasha Pulley transports us to an ancient empire on the edge of ruin to tell an utterly captivating queer love story about a man needing a god to remind him how to be a human.


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Assassin’s Apprentice

Robin Hobb


Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father’s gruff stableman. He is treated as an outcast by all the royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him secretly tutored in the arts of the assassin. For in Fitz’s blood runs the magic Skill—and the darker knowledge of a child raised with the stable hounds and rejected by his family.

 

As barbarous raiders ravage the coasts, Fitz is growing to manhood. Soon he will face his first dangerous, soul-shattering mission. And though some regard him as a threat to the throne, he may just be the key to the survival of the kingdom.


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Assassin’s Apprentice

Robin Hobb


Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father’s gruff stableman. He is treated as an outcast by all the royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him secretly tutored in the arts of the assassin. For in Fitz’s blood runs the magic Skill—and the darker knowledge of a child raised with the stable hounds and rejected by his family.

 

As barbarous raiders ravage the coasts, Fitz is growing to manhood. Soon he will face his first dangerous, soul-shattering mission. And though some regard him as a threat to the throne, he may just be the key to the survival of the kingdom.


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Assassin’s Apprentice

Robin Hobb


Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by his father’s gruff stableman. He is treated as an outcast by all the royalty except the devious King Shrewd, who has him secretly tutored in the arts of the assassin. For in Fitz’s blood runs the magic Skill—and the darker knowledge of a child raised with the stable hounds and rejected by his family.

 

As barbarous raiders ravage the coasts, Fitz is growing to manhood. Soon he will face his first dangerous, soul-shattering mission. And though some regard him as a threat to the throne, he may just be the key to the survival of the kingdom.


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For the History Buff

Black Moses

Caleb Gayle


The remarkable story of Edward McCabe, a Black man who tried to establish a Black state within the United States.


In this paradigm-shattering work of American history, Caleb Gayle recounts the extraordinary tale of Edward McCabe, a Black man who championed the audacious idea to create a state within the Union governed by and for Black people — and the racism, politics, and greed that thwarted him.


As the sweeping changes and brief glimpses of hope brought by the Civil War and Reconstruction began to wither, anger at the opportunities available to newly freed Black people were on the rise. As a result, both Blacks and whites searched for new places to settle.

Black Moses

Caleb Gayle


The remarkable story of Edward McCabe, a Black man who tried to establish a Black state within the United States.


In this paradigm-shattering work of American history, Caleb Gayle recounts the extraordinary tale of Edward McCabe, a Black man who championed the audacious idea to create a state within the Union governed by and for Black people — and the racism, politics, and greed that thwarted him.


As the sweeping changes and brief glimpses of hope brought by the Civil War and Reconstruction began to wither, anger at the opportunities available to newly freed Black people were on the rise. As a result, both Blacks and whites searched for new places to settle.

That was when Edward McCabe, a Black businessman and a rising political star in the American West, set in motion his plans to found a state within the Union for Black people to live in and govern. His chosen site: Oklahoma, a place that the U.S. government had deeded to Indigenous people in the 1830s when it forced thousands of them to leave their homes under Indian Removal, which became known as the Trail of Tears.


McCabe lobbied politicians in Washington, D.C., Kansas, and elsewhere as he exhorted Black people to move to Oklahoma to achieve their dreams of self-determination and land ownership. His rising profile as a leader and spokesman for Black people as well as his willingness to confront white politicians led him to become known as Black Moses. And like his biblical counterpart, McCabe nearly made it to the promised land but was ultimately foiled by politics, business interests, and the growing ambitions of white settlers who also wanted the land.


In Black Moses, Gayle brings to vivid life the world of Edward McCabe: the Black people who believed in his dream of a Black state, the white politicians who didn't, and the larger challenges of confronting the racism and exclusion that bedeviled Black people's attempts to carve a place in America for themselves. Gayle draws from extraordinary research and reporting to reveal an America that almost was.


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We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution

Jill Lepore


The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades--and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths.


Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding--the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions--We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. "One of the Constitution's founding purposes was to prevent change," Lepore writes. "Another was to allow for change without violence."

We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution

Jill Lepore


The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades--and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths.


Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding--the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions--We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. "One of the Constitution's founding purposes was to prevent change," Lepore writes. "Another was to allow for change without violence."

We The People: A History of the U.S. Constitution

Jill Lepore


The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world but also one of the most difficult to amend. Jill Lepore, Harvard professor of history and law, explains why in We the People, the most original history of the Constitution in decades--and an essential companion to her landmark history of the United States, These Truths.


Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding--the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions--We the People offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. "One of the Constitution's founding purposes was to prevent change," Lepore writes. "Another was to allow for change without violence."

Relying on the extraordinary database she has assembled at the Amendments Project, Lepore recounts centuries of attempts, mostly by ordinary Americans, to realize the promise of the Constitution. Yet nearly all those efforts have failed. Although nearly twelve thousand amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only twenty-seven have ever been ratified.


More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat.


Challenging both the Supreme Court's monopoly on constitutional interpretation and the flawed theory of "originalism," Lepore contends in this "gripping and unfamiliar story of our own past" that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. The framers never intended for the Constitution to be preserved, like a butterfly, under glass, Lepore argues, but expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution through an orderly deliberative and democratic process.


Lepore's remarkable history seeks, too, to rekindle a sense of constitutional possibility. Congressman Jamie Raskin writes that Lepore "has thrown us a lifeline, a way of seeing the Constitution neither as an authoritarian straitjacket nor a foolproof magic amulet but as the arena of fierce, logical, passionate, and often deadly struggle for a more perfect union." At a time when the Constitution's vulnerability is all too evident, and the risk of political violence all too real, We the People, with its shimmering prose and pioneering research, hints at the prospects for a better constitutional future, an amended America.


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Don’t see what you’re looking for? View our entire Holiday Gift Guide on our Bookshop and Libro sites. Happy Holidays!

Black headphones resting on a fan of open books, top view.

12 Bedtime Audiobooks That Will Surely Help You Sleep

November 13, 2025
Find 12 soothing bedtime audiobooks for adults, kids, and toddlers with gentle stories and meditations to support better sleep and calm nights.
A hand holding an open, worn green book against a black background.

Local Author Spotlight: Kevin Ashton

By Ainsley Shaw • October 29, 2025
Local author Kevin Ashton talks with us about his upcoming book The Story of Stories , in which he outlines the history and development of human storytelling from night fires to the contemporary digital age. Look out for the release of Ashton’s book on March 3, 2026. Visit our Bookshop or Libro sites to pre-order The Story of Stories.
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The Gulag Archipelago: A Voice of Necessity

By Biff Rushton • October 17, 2025
Book Review by Biff Rushton
Black book cover with a white, childlike drawing of a house with a ghost above. Title:

Local Author Cassidie Salley’s Book Launch: Vanish in the Ambre

By Ainsley Shaw • October 13, 2025
Local author Cassidie Salley talks with us about her new gothic fantasy novel, Vanish in the Ambre . We spoke with Salley previously back in April about her book After the Light Died , and are now hosting her Book Launch Party at Wildfire Park in Leander on October 24th from 5pm to 9pm! There will be trick or treating, live music, and a food truck. Come in costume to receive a free Lioness Books tote bag! AS: Tell us about your new gothic fantasy book “Vanish in the Ambre”! CS: “It’s set in modern-day Texas, in a town called Trickem (based on the real-life town of Trickham!). All sorts of witches and fantastical creatures live there, but the town’s largest population is their infestation of ghosts. Our main character, Becca Newman, is a necromancer, specializing in reviving people’s pets and familiars. She’s on the job one day reviving a familiar when she stumbles upon a secret she wasn’t supposed to find.” AS: Do you have any favorite moments from the book—or writing it—that you can share with us? CS: “At the very beginning of the book is a chapter where Becca goes to the movies and a ghost interrupts her watching. That was the first time this story really clicked for me, trying to merge the modern-day teenager just trying to hang out with a deep and dark haunting. I spent the rest of the book trying to chase that energy I found in that one chapter.” AS: What messages or sentiments do you hope readers will take away from your book? CS: “While this is a very silly and (hopefully) funny book, a lot of its deeper themes are about grief and loneliness. Losing yourself after a traumatic event, losing friends and wondering what happened, trying to find yourself but still being labeled an outsider…all of this stuff is hard, and unfortunately a lot of young people can relate to it. While Becca is certainly not perfect, she is unapologetically herself. She’s alone because of it sometimes. Then one day, people who appreciate that about her start gravitating towards her. If there’s one thing I want people to take away from this book, it’s to not be afraid to be yourself even in the midst of grief and loneliness, because the right people will find you. If there’s another thing I want them to take away, it’s to not be afraid of being vulnerable in that grief, because sometimes that’s the only way to heal.”
White head sculpture with a floral arrangement growing from the top, against a blue background.

10 Must-Read Books That Break the Stigma Around Mental Health

October 7, 2025
Check out 10 powerful books on mental health that break the stigma. Discover these must-reads and enrich your perspective today.

Local Author Spotlight: Janice Airhart

By Ainsley Shaw • September 22, 2025
Local author Janice Airhart talks with us about her two memoirs, Mother of My Invention: A Motherless Daughter Memoir and (newly-released) Subject to Change: Teaching and Learning from Teen Moms . Airhart also shares her favorite moments from her writing process and a message she hopes readers take away from her work. Check out her website here .
Woman in yellow top reading an orange book by a window; sunny setting.

15 Incredible Books For Your Next Great Read On "National Read A Book Day"

September 12, 2025
Discover 15 incredible books for National Read A Book Day, featuring inspiring stories and hidden gems. Pick your next great read today.
Open book with soil and a green sprout growing from it.

10 Powerful Self-Help Books That Could Change Your Life

August 22, 2025
Discover 10 powerful self-help books that could change your life. Explore these inspiring reads and start your personal growth journey today.

Defiance and the Censorship of Free Discourse: A Reflection on Banned Books Month

By Biff Rushton • August 11, 2025
At Lioness Books, we believe that books are not merely a matter of ink and paper, but are armories brimming with the untamed ordinance of freedom, ideas, transformation, progress and inspiration; arsenals forged to fight the soul-silencing tyranny of ignorance and suppression. Under current political conditions, the United States has seen an alarming escalation in the scope and scale of book censorship, with our great state of Texas leading the charge in aggressive restriction of accessing books which explore race, gender, sexuality, and social justice. In 2025, the banning of books has re-emerged not as a fringe idea or lesson in history, but as a strategy within a broader effort to control cultural narratives and shift our truths. Disguised as protection, this current call for censorship threatens the very essence of what a bookstore believes in and represents… a free exchange of ideas. We, as Texans, are standing at an epochal crossroads, facing a challenge that is not simply a battleground for intellectual freedom, but a fatal threat to democracy herself. Here at Lioness Books, we are resolute in our dedication to this struggle, and we are committed to fight without compromise nor capitulation. Texas, more than any other state, leads the country in formal book challenges and bans. According to data from PEN America, a nonprofit organization that tracks censorship in literature, Texas school districts have led the nation in book bans for the past five years. These bans often target works of LGBTQ authors, books by and about people of color, and works that confront America’s historical injustices. The political justification tends to hinge on vague or loaded terms such as obscenity, indoctrination, or inappropriate content, without recognizing the literary or didactic value of the works in question.  What we are witnessing in Texas is not just a reaction to individual titles, but the deliberate use of censorship as a political weapon to reshape public education and discourse. State legislators have passed and proposed laws that limit how teachers can discuss race and gender in classrooms, and library materials are now under scrutiny from elected boards, whose knowledge of literature and learning is more often than not, slim to none. These developments are not isolated. They are part of a coordinated national trend that has pushed Texas out front as the ideological epicenter and political testing-ground for this refurnished brand of censorship. These bans do more than remove books; they erase the experiences of marginalized communities, signaling to students - especially those from underrepresented groups - that their stories don’t matter. We believe our youth deserve better. They deserve literature that reflects the full spectrum of human experience, and to deny access to those diverse perspectives is to rob them of a chance to develop critical thinking, empathy, insight, and a nuanced understanding of the world. The pages of history are stained with the consequences of book bans, a tactic employed by those who seek to suffocate the human spirit’s capacity for thought and soulful transformation. In Nazi Germany, the beginning flames of fascism were fed with kindling constructed of novels, poems, political papers, and science texts deemed un-German, degenerate , or contrary to the country’s nationalist ideology. Their 1933 book burnings were not vandalism but a calculated effort to erase ideas that threatened fascist control, setting the stage for the cultural and moral devastation that was soon to come. In the Jim Crow South, from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights era, books that affirmed the dignity of Black Americans or exposed the horrors of racism - like Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God - were systematically excluded from public access to preserve the narrative of racial inferiority. The McCarthy era in 1950s America also echoed this fear of ideas, as the government’s frantic, anti-communist crusade led to the blacklisting of authors, librarians, and teachers. Works such as Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes Of Wrath were pulled from library shelves beneath the accusation of promoting leftist ideals, and for daring to question the status quo. History offers countless parallels: the 16th century burning of Mayan codices, and the erasing of indigenous knowledge by the Spanish, or the Chinese Communist Party’s destruction of counterrevolutionary texts during the Cultural Revolution. Each instance reveals censorship as the weapon of choice for those who fear the power of knowledge and the capacity of the right words to awaken consciences, stir emotions, and ignite movements of change. These lessons from the past compel us to resist the book bans of today, recognizing them as assaults on the very essence of intellectual and moral freedom. Texas - where freedom and independence have long been considered God-given birthrights - we must resist being the next to fall into the goose-step march of oppression, censorship, and control. Our children deserve better. Our teachers deserve better. Our future deserves better, and our democracy - messy, plural, and defiant - demands better. For Lioness Books, our resistance to this suppression is not just a matter of principle. It is a recognition of literature’s role in the eternal struggle for justice and truth. We call home a state where the political climate has become increasingly hostile towards dissent, and where public education is being transformed into a war of ideological conformity. As a bookstore, we are under no illusion that our shelves alone can halt these efforts. But we believe in the power that books possess in uniting and sustaining resistance and delivering hope. By preserving access to stories, we preserve the heartful soul of culture; we preserve truth. When we defend the right to read; we affirm liberty and the right to question, dream, and dissent. This has nothing to do with nostalgia. This is survival. Lioness Books will continue to stock what is banned, what is hidden, what is suppressed, and we will celebrate what is silenced. We will carry the voices forward proudly and full-throated. Because history shows us, when you ban a book, you don’t erase its truth… you ignite its power.

Spotlight on the Texas Freedom to Read Project

By Ainsley Shaw • August 1, 2025
Lioness Books is highlighting the freedom to read and the dangers of censorship this August with Banned Books Month. Anne Russey, co-founder of the Texas Freedom to Read Project, talks with us about advocating against book bans and censorship, and the biggest roadblocks they face in the process. Russey also shares the inspiration for their nonprofit organization as well as their mission and values. We are running a social campaign all month long—DM us a photo of you with your favorite banned book to be featured on our socials (@lionessbookstx)! Check out our curated booklists featuring a variety of banned books on our Bookshop and Libro sites too.