Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club
Episode: "The Booksellers' Guide to Gifting with Emma Straub and Lucy Yu"
Date: December 9, 2025
Host: Danielle Robay
Guests: Emma Straub (Books Are Magic, Brooklyn), Lucy Yu (Yu & Me Books, Chinatown NYC)
Overview:
This festive episode is a bibliophile’s dream, diving into the art of book gifting with two inspirational New York indie bookstore owners: Emma Straub and Lucy Yu. Host Danielle Robay invites them to share secrets of running beloved bookshops, how they curate for their communities, and, most importantly, a wide array of holiday gift recommendations for every kind of reader. The conversation is cozy, candid, and full of “add to TBR” moments for anyone who loves books, bookstores, and community.
Key Discussion Points
The Magic and Personality of Indie Bookstores
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Store "Personalities"
- Emma describes Books Are Magic as “bright, bubbly, outgoing… a little pink, a little loud, and really fun” (05:58).
- “It is what it is. It’s a little pink. It’s a little loud. And it’s really fun. It’s populated with smart, fun people all the time.” — Emma Straub [06:25]
- Lucy likens Yu & Me’s vibe to an ENFP/INTJ combo, with astrological ties to Scorpio, Aquarius, and Taurus—“really grounded, just a little secret-y, little subversive, individual” (07:05).
- “We toggle between a ENFP and an INTJ combo… grounded, just little secret-y. Little subversives. Also, Aquarius: every Aquarius is an individual and I feel that way about our book selection.” — Lucy Yu [07:05]
- Emma describes Books Are Magic as “bright, bubbly, outgoing… a little pink, a little loud, and really fun” (05:58).
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Owning a Bookstore: Solitude and Rituals
- Lucy enjoys playing music and napping on store poofs when alone (07:58).
- “I love to put on an album and I just lie on our poofs… I just take a nap.” — Lucy Yu [08:16]
- Emma treasures quiet mornings at the dark store after walking her kids to school—her “closest to the fantasy” moments (08:24).
- “When I’m in the store and the lights are off and it’s totally quiet and it’s just me surrounded by books, that is when it actually feels like the closest, like, to the fantasy of owning a bookstore.” — Emma Straub [09:25]
- Lucy enjoys playing music and napping on store poofs when alone (07:58).
Community, Resilience & Bookstore as “Third Place”
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Yu & Me Books: Resilience Story
- Lucy opened in Chinatown post-COVID to create a needed human connection, after experiencing grief and witnessing anti-Asian hate (09:38).
- “I was willing to take that chance because I was so hungry for human connection… desperate for this deep understanding for other people that is only possible in, in person, third spaces.” — Lucy Yu [10:52]
- When Yu & Me suffered a devastating fire, the literary community, including Emma, rallied to support the rebuild (11:32).
- “Emma was such a big part of my community during that time… she gave me a key to Books are Magic. Whenever you need to use the store, you can.” — Lucy Yu [11:48]
- “I don’t want to say that's my favorite part, because it was a tragedy, but I do think that, like, when things are hard, you do get to show up for people, and that that feels good.” — Emma Straub [12:59]
- Lucy opened in Chinatown post-COVID to create a needed human connection, after experiencing grief and witnessing anti-Asian hate (09:38).
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Bookstores as Safe, Romantic, and Matchmaking Spaces
- Both stores have hosted engagements, first dates, and have become community sanctuaries (30:23).
- “It’s so cool to see someone decide that the store is somewhere where they want to… start their next journey with someone else.” — Lucy Yu [30:25]
- “It’s a safe place to meet a stranger… it’s staffed by smart, attentive people who will definitely notice if something bad is happening.” — Emma Straub [31:09]
- Both stores have hosted engagements, first dates, and have become community sanctuaries (30:23).
Insider Bookseller Insights
The Art & Challenge of Curation
- How They Choose Books
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Yu & Me: Focuses on immigrant stories, writers of color, frequent inventory rotation, and “longevity of taste,” not trends (21:49).
- “What I want to offer people is for them to come in every week and see a bunch of new titles they’ve never seen before… our taste is focusing on language and stories that really push apart the layers of perception and get to the core of what it means to live in this person’s brain.” — Lucy Yu [22:49]
- “When you chase trends, by the time you get up to it, the trend has changed.” — Lucy Yu [23:22]
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Books Are Magic: Distinct profiles in both locations, avoids over-saturation by “old white man” writers, focuses on vibrant young and diverse authors and expanded poetry/translated sections (24:01).
- “We’ve always been like… anti old white man writers—not that there aren’t ones I love—but we really wanted that not to be the num. Like, when you look at a stack, like, that’s not what you’re going to see at Books Are Magic.” — Emma Straub [25:06]
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Merchandising as Magic: Placement can make or break a book’s sales, shelf talkers and color/light ‘microclimates’ drive discovery.
- “There will be a book… we sell a couple copies a year, and then if we put a big stack by the register, suddenly we’re selling 20 copies a week… merchandising!” — Emma Straub [26:03]
- “Displaying, especially in a retail space, is such an art… block it in terms of colors and block it in terms of lighting so that you can gravitate towards different energy.” — Lucy Yu [26:38]
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Unexpected Bookstore Trends & Bestsellers
- Self-help/Niche Therapy Titles: Books like Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers are unexpectedly popular as Lucy’s staff picks—“a running joke” (28:15).
- Perennial Must-haves: The Artist’s Way and Bird by Bird always sell, becoming “genre killers” for their topics (29:17).
Bookstore as Unfinished Project—Reading Guilt and Freedom
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Both read 50–60 books a year but always feel surrounded by more yet to be read.
- “All I see are books I haven’t read… spending my whole life catching up.” — Emma Straub [46:49]
- “That’s the beauty of it—it’s always going to be unfinished. The great joy of unfinished reading.” — Lucy Yu [47:28]
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The freedom to not finish:
- “You don’t have to finish something if you don’t like it… If I am not loving a book, then it’s done. Like, I don’t have the time to waste.” — Emma Straub [48:13]
2025 Book Gifting Guide: Recommendations for Every Reader
(Listener requests answered live — timestamp 49:37+)
1. Literary Fiction, Christmas Season
- Very Steamy Christmas Romance Novels — Sierra Simone & Julie Murphy’s holiday series [49:42]
- Days at the Murasaki Bookshop (cozy), We'll Prescribe You a Cat, I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying by Youngmi Mayer (memoir for solo holiday reading) — Lucy Yu [50:21]
2. Historical Fiction + Romance
- Taiwan Travelogue — Lucy Yu [51:07]
- Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead (“one of the best books of the last hundred years… like Amelia Earhart”) — Emma Straub [51:13]
- A Tale of Two Cities — Danielle Robay [51:38]
3. Books Set in Europe with Focus on Culture & Architecture
- A Couple (recent French translation, explores Parisian memory and architecture) — Lucy Yu [51:53]
4. Female Protagonist, Age 50s–60s
- Mother Mary Comes to Me — Lucy Yu [52:50]
- Go Gentle by Maria Semple (out April; focuses on midlife female friendship and practical covens) — Emma Straub [53:05]
- Recent Gish Jen novel for “mommy issues in anachronistic way”
5. Heart-Wrenching Love Story with No Happily Ever After
- Heart the Lover by Lily King (“for every person who has a former love they still think about”) — Emma Straub [54:00]
- The Great Reclamation (covers previous historical + romance rec too) — Lucy Yu [54:09]
- A Little Life for the ultimate tragedy — Lucy Yu [54:25]
6. Sapphic Romance
- Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory (“so good… in California’s wine country—sexy, food, drink, happiness”) — Emma Straub [54:41]
- Bánh Mì for Two by Trinity Nguyen (YA)
- Carmilla (novella/horror)
- All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews — Lucy Yu [55:19]
7. Page-Turner for a Friend Just Getting Back to Reading
- The Art Thief by Michael Finkel (short, true-crime, “Couple steals priceless art and just decorates with it—never resells!”) — Emma Straub [56:04]
- The Details by E.A. Genberg (short, for “short attention span,” first-person friendship stories) — Lucy Yu [56:54]
- “My hot take is just: people aren’t into reading because they haven’t figured out a book that works for them.” — Lucy Yu [57:20]
2025 Bookstore Bestsellers & Trends
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Yu & Me:
- Martyr, Rejection, A Village Beyond the Mist, Japanese translated mysteries/horrors, Strange Pictures, Strange Houses (40:41)
- Rise in horror (translated/novella).
- “The world is horrific and we need to get to processing that circuitously… maybe mystery is the route.” — Lucy Yu [41:04]
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Books Are Magic:
- Murder on Sex Island (“campy mystery, bestseller for months”) — Emma Straub [42:20]
- Audition by Katie Kitamura (“so interesting and destabilizing; people respond because it’s unsettling”)
- Heart the Lover by Lily King is a persistent word-of-mouth favorite — “for every person who has a former love they still think about” [43:51], see above.
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- “I don’t think we actually feel anything as humans in isolation.” — Lucy Yu [11:14]
- “When things are hard, you do get to show up for people, and that feels good.” — Emma Straub [12:59]
- “It’s a safe place to meet a stranger… It’s staffed by smart, attentive people.” — Emma Straub [31:09]
- “People aren’t into reading because they haven’t figured out a book that works for them.” — Lucy Yu [57:20]
- “You also don’t have to finish something if you don’t like it… If I am not loving a book, then it’s done.” — Emma Straub [48:13]
Timestamps for Major Segments
- [03:30] — Introduction and guest reveal
- [05:31] — Bookstore personalities and rituals
- [09:38] — Lucy’s story: post-pandemic Chinatown, bookstore fire, resilient community
- [18:46] — Emma’s “magic” and why brick-and-mortar matters
- [21:49] — Curation philosophies: trends, taste, and display
- [28:08] — Books that cause debate/laughs (therapy and creativity genres)
- [30:23] — Bookstore matchmaking, proposals, and community moments
- [40:22] — 2025 fiction trends, bestsellers, sub-genres: horror, mysteries, middle-aged reckoning
- [46:21] — “Unfinished reading,” bookstore anxiety, and book quitting
- [49:37] — Holiday book gifting guide (listener requests lightning round)
Closing Thoughts
This episode spotlights how indie bookstores are about more than shelves and sales—they’re epicenters of empathy, cultural curation, and personal connection. Emma and Lucy’s warmth (and endless recommendations) remind us why a well-chosen book makes the best gift and why bookstores—especially the pink, loud, bubbly, or secret-y ones—are irreplaceable “third places” in our lives.
If you’re shopping for a reader (or future reader!), this is your ultimate guide—and Emma and Lucy just made your holiday shopping so much easier.