Staff Picks: Gabrielle Van Tassel’s Favorites
Gabrielle Van Tassel (@itsgabbygabbie) is an editor at Clarkson Potter, one of Penguin Random House’s dedicated lifestyle imprints. She is an avid hiker, an easily daunted mountain biker, an intrepid traveler, and a life-long horse girl. Gabrielle comes from a background in cooking, but now focuses on acquiring as many gift books,stationery products, and games in the travel and outdoors category as she can get her hands on. Her reading interests, however, are all over the map but tend to skew more towards coming-of-age stories, mysteries, anything aboutcults and/orserial killers, and, of course, YA fantasy. When she’s not binge-reading, you can find her brewing a fresh batch of beer or snuggling with her mutt Leah
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Add to BookshelfCity of Girls
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Living in New York City, I often take all of its wonders for granted; this book made the concrete and steel sparkle feel brand new. I’m sure that when anyone who lives outside of New York imagines The Big Apple, they picture the sweeping city shown in aerial opening credits of romantic comedies or in the glamorous vignettes in Sex and the City. When I first moved here, I myself was expecting that glam, but instead, I got garbage (literally). Gilbert’s book brought New York alive for me really for the first time and I was able to see it and love it through new eyes in this delightful coming-of-age story that matches the eclectic glitz, grit, and charm of the city itself.
Add to BookshelfPaperback
$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Patterns of India
by Christine Chitnis
Patterns of India was the first book I ever edited on my own editor and it turned out to be so much more rewarding than I ever could have hoped for. Not only are the images full of vibrancy and life, but the book as a whole also inspires people to travel to far-flung destinations and be more than just a tourist; it encourages travelers to delve into the culture and history and capture the essence of a place with respect and a uniquely personal perspective.
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$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Wild (Movie Tie-in Edition)
by Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed is a personal hero of mine because of Wild. This was really the first memoir I had connected to like I did with my favorite fiction titles. It helped me through an incredibly hard time in my young life and, as a result, one of my bucket list items is to hike the Appalachian Mountain Trail in homage to Cheryl’s life-changing trek. Her later-in-life coming of age story helped me dig myself out of a deep depressed hole I found myself entrenched in during my sophomore at Wellesley College.
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$35.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Gone Girl
by Gillian Flynn
Gone Girl was my foray into murder mysteries, and now I am hopelessly hooked. There’s just no reading experience quite like getting butterflies and sweaty palms as you try to speed through the words to get to the big reveal(s). I was working as a counselor at a girls’summer camp in Maine at the time and Amy Dunne occupied my every thought—I read on my breaks, days off, and at night under the covers waiting to figure out the next mind-blowing twist. The only bad part about this book is that I haven’t picked up one quite as exciting since.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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An Ember in the Ashes
by Sabaa Tahir
I recommend this book (and the series) to anyone who asks. It’s captivating, heart-wrenching, and fast paced as the reader gets to know Laia, a slave girl, Elias, a highly trained soldier, and the cruel empire they suffer under. They teach us (and each other) about compassion, loyalty, humanity, and love–it is YA, after all, but beyond all that Tahir manages to pull off excellent characterization and an incredibly unpredictable plot.You won’t be able to put it down.
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$13.99Buy from Other Retailers:
