Nestled in a warm little corner of LA’s Brentwood Country Mart you’ll find Diesel, A Bookstore, the kind of cozy local neighborhood spot you might wander into on a lazy Sunday, whiling away the afternoon, and where regulars can always count on the book-loving staff’s recs. We asked owner John Evans, the man behind the store’s special curation—from the newest fiction, unique coffee table books, and easily the best children’s sections around—to recommend four great books to read right now.
MOUTH TO MOUTH
by Antoine Wilson
Avid Reader Press
“This is a book for every intelligent reader hungering for a smart, gripping, beautifully written, artfully constructed, and gracefully paced novel. Family dynamics, the workings of the artworld, the tentative structuring of the self/selves, and what constitutes us in relation to others, all provide a background for this virtuoso feat of storytelling. It is a pleasure from beginning to end and, surprisingly, makes 2022 a hope-filled year for reading.
Two men sit down in an airport lounge and one of them tells a story. Simple enough? Anything but. Mouth to Mouth is hypnotic, philosophical, and devourable. You’ll likely finish it in one bite, but the taste will linger for days.”
THE NINETIES: A BOOK
by Chuck Klosterman
Penguin Press
“How did we get here? Ever brilliant and funny, cultural critic Klosterman turns his unique brand of laser-focussed humor on the era of grunge. The Nineties, roughly from the fall of the Berlin Wall to bombing of the Twin Towers, carry so much of the cultural, ideological, and technological shifts out of which our crazy present has grown. Politics, prozac, pop culture of the decade are laid bare in all their glory, innocence and foreboding.”
THERE AND BACK: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE EDGE
by Jimmy Chin
Ten Speed Press
“Explorer, photographer, Academy award-winning filmmaker, and professional mountain climber athlete—can Jimmy Chin be any cooler? He doesn’t need to be! But check out this stunning portfolio of 20 years’ worth of his expeditions around the world. It includes the backstories of the shots, and of the adventurers and athletes featured in them. Wonder and awe blazing on every page: inspirational!”
GIOVANNI’S ROOM
by James Baldwin
Vintage International
“A Diesel CLASSIC! Baldwin is one of the greatest writers this country (this world) has ever read. He speaks to the American soul like the soul’s best friend: with brutal honesty, big-heartedness, hardmindedness, and a dark hope that we can all rise to the occasion. He puts more intelligence and emotion in one sentence than you can find in whole novels. Giovanni’s Room is a quick deep-dive into the center of love, death and passion like no other. All of which is why it is a contemporary classic!”
DIESEL, A BOOKSTORE
225 26TH ST SUITE 33, SANTA MONICA, CA
310.576.9960
