Are you ready to believe a few impossible things? If so, Sue Zumberge of SubText Bookstore in St. Paul recommends the novel “Enormous Wings” by Laurie Frankel.

“The moment I mention that it is about a 77-year-old woman who becomes pregnant, people sort of back away from me,” Zumberge said. “I think it is best described by the epigraph at the beginning of the book, which is from Hilary Mantel's book, ‘Mirror and Light.’ ‘We know it is impossible. The question is, who can best endure impossibility?’”

The novel follows Pepper Mills, who moves into a retirement home at her grown children’s insistence. There, she falls in love with another resident and, to the shock of everyone, becomes pregnant.

They live in Texas, and a doctor threatens Pepper’s children and their livelihoods if she should seek an abortion.

Zumberge said this novel makes an excellent summer read, with themes that feel both timeless and urgent: “our relationship with our family, our relationship with our partners, our ability to make our own choices—not just about keeping a pregnancy, but whether we are able to live on our own.”

“The important aspect of this book is that it opens us, through this impossible scenario, to so many other possibilities within our lives. It is a beautiful book.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers across Minnesota and beyond to find out what books they’re most excited about right now

Jeff Danz of Zandbros Variety in Sioux Falls, S.D., was looking for some escapist fiction when he was drawn to the story of a traveling carnival. He calls Dan Chaon’s gothic horror novel “One of Us” an engaging read with compelling characters that felt like a darker version of a Mark Twin or Charles Dickens adventure.

Set in 1915, the novel follows 13-year-old twins Eleanor and Bolt, who have a flawless ability to read each other's minds. When their mother dies, leaving them orphaned, a rather terrifying man calling himself their Uncle Charlie shows up to adopt them.

They quickly realize Charlie is a con man who expects them to help with his schemes, and the children devise an escape. They find themselves on an orphan train, traveling through the Midwest with dwindling hopes of being chosen, when a man in a red waistcoat with gold epaulets appears and tells the children “I see you.”

He is Mr. Jengling, and he adopts them into the world of Mr. Jengling’s Emporium of Wonders. The traveling carnival world offers a new family in a sometimes-brutal American frontier, as well as opportunities that may cause the twins to grow apart.

And Uncle Charlie is on their trail...

“It ends,” he said, “in an unexpected way that is satisfying, in that it connects a lot of things. It kept me interested the whole time.”

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers across Minnesota to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.

Eric Plumb of Amazing Alonzo Bookstore in Duluth recommends the memoir "It Wasn't Meant to Be Perfect" by fellow Duluthian Gaelynn Lea.

Lea is a composer, musician, speaker and disability advocate whose accolades include winning NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest in 2016 and composing and recording the score for “Macbeth” on Broadway.

Writing in a conversational style, Lea traces her love of music and the many paths on which it has taken her. Plumb enjoyed learning about Lea’s collaborations with other Duluth musicians, including Alan Sparhawk from Low and blues musician Charlie Parr.

If you can, Plumb says, listen to the audiobook, which incorporates some of her music interspersed with her story.

Listen to Lea’s interview with MPR’s Kelly Gordon, which aired on Minnesota Now.

Plumb recommended the memoir at a live Ask a Bookseller event at the Zeitgeist in Duluth last week. Find summer reading recommendations from North Shore bookstores and libraries here.