Inspired by Book Riot’s recent post, “​If We See These Books On Your Shelves, We Should Probably Be Friends,” we asked our NYPL book experts,

 "What's a book that—upon seeing it on someone's shelf—makes you think you've found a kindred spirit?"

Here’s what they said. Librarian BFFs, coming right up!

Memoirs

If I spot the Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne on your bookshelf, I know that we can ride bikes and listen to the Talking Heads together—the foundation of a very good friendship. —Charlie Radin, Inwood

The Autobiography of Malcolm X because it is just so good! Someone who has read it outside of school and truly understands it is more than worth my time. You literally get into the mind of one of the greatest activists of our time. I love that as you read you get to see his transition from a person of anger to one of compassion and seeking change through working together. One thing that stands out and holds true throughout is his intelligence and perceptiveness, which is truly inspiring. —Chasity Moreno, Ask NYPL

A book that would make my heart sing to see on someone’s shelf is Love Is a Mix Tape.  It was the first book I bought when I moved to New York.  I had no friends and I would read that book in the park and majorly get the feels (a.k.a “drunk in the bathtub face,” as Jenna Maroney would say). —Melanie Locay, Research

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai. Adults, students and strangers alike have been subject to my book talking and promoting this amazing book about this amazing girl. The ability to go to school every day is something we have all taken for granted and Malala brings attention to the plight of women’s education. —Morgan O’Reilly, Aguilar

Geography/Travel

I fell in love with Caribbean fiction as an undergrad, so if I see anything on your shelf like Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones or Loida Maritza Perez’s Geographies of Home, it will strike up an immediate conversation. The literature represents the deep thread of mysticism and enchantment that permeates Caribbean culture and lifestyle. —Sherise Pagan, Grand Concourse

I may know a kindred spirit in New York if I saw A Land Remembered by Patrick Smith on your bookshelf. This is not because it is my favorite book. Rather, I read it in 8^th or 9^th grade, and it was the first book that connected me to the land I was growing up in (Central Florida). It gave me a sense of understanding for how the community around me had developed and something to daydream about while staring across vast flat swampland when driving from Cocoa to Orlando. —Jessica Cline, Mid-Manhattan

Keep the River on Your Right by Tobias Schneebaum. No other book (fiction or non) that takes place in a jungle has ever placed me inside the jungle in so real and immediate a fashion. Also the way in which the author embraces the cannibalistic natives that he meets, lives with, and writes about is very humanistic and made me want to go live with them myself. —Melisa Tien, Library of the Performing Arts

Definitely Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. I’m a U.S. president history junkie, and when this book came out, I was in heaven. Vowell takes the macabre theme of presidential assassinations and makes it informative and funny! —Rebecca Kluberdanz, Kingsbridge

Fairy Tales & Fantasy

The Princess Bride by William Goldman. One of my favorite movies and I like the book even more. I absolutely adored this book when I younger and even sent my father on a three-month wild goose chase for the “original” by S. Morgenstern. If I see you reading the book, I’m almost guaranteed to talk your ear off about how much I love it. —Leslie Bernstein, Mott Haven

If I saw Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce sitting on your shelf, we would have be friends, because her books are responsible for most of my friendships. Alanna and her brother about to be split up so that they might grow to become fine nobles. But Alanna  doesn’t want to become a “lady” or learn more in the art of magic; in fact, she’s a little afraid of it. Thom, her twin, would much rather be a mage than a knight. So Alanna chops off her hair and switches places with her brother. Full of intrigue, guile, and perseverance, Alanna purses her dream to become a lady knight. —Chantalle Uzan, Francis Martin

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch will be my cue to engage with a fellow traveler on the strange seas. I’m always down for gentlemen thieves, witty repartee and writing with a mordant sense of humor. —Joshua Soule, Spuyten Duyvil

If I saw any of Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books on your shelves, I would know I have found my realist bud. We knew Santa wasn’t real and the Easter Bunny didn’t exist. We knew where the money from our baby teeth came from - not the tooth fairy. We could talk for hours about fairy tales as they was originally told, not the Disneyified ones. People might say we grew up too early, but I like to think we caught on at just the right time. —Susen Shi, Mid-Manhattan

Humor

Furiously Happy: A Funny Book about Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson for sure! This book made me laugh out loud so many times on the train, I am definitely deemed THAT crazy person to the regulars. If I see this on your shelf, I’m going to immediately start reeling off my favorite anecdotes. —Jessica DiVisconte, Library Administration 

Jessica, we should talk because I know I can be friends with anyone who has Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson on their shelves. It means I can invite you to one of my family’s holiday get-togethers and their eccentricities and overall weirdness won’t freak you out! And, the next day we can laugh uproariously over their antics. —Maura Muller, Volunteer Office

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Cathcart and Daniel Klein would indicate that the person who owns this book is curious about the world and willing to engage in deep, rambling conversations, but unwilling to do so without a heavy dose of groan-worthy jokes. —Laura Stein, Grand Central

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore. I love Moore’s twisted and irreverent sense of humor, delivered in wise-cracking dialogue and engaging plot twists. I can get away with not watching so much TV because Moore and authors like him write entertaining books. —Christopher Platt, Library Administration

Mysteries/Detective Stories

Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest is one of my favorites and perfect for readers who like their mysteries nice and pulpy. You get extra BFF points if, like me, you bought the book thinking the “red harvest” referred to mid-century farming (I was wrong; so very, very wrong). —Crystal Chen, Muhlenberg

If Harriet the Spy is on your shelf, I’ll share a tomato sandwich with you any time!  A cast of fascinating characters led by the inquisitive Harriet M. Welsch brings me back for frequent rereads.  As if that weren’t enough, the scene where Harriet practices being an onion for the school recital never gets old. —Jordan Graham, MyLibraryNYC

If I see Kate Racculia’s Bellweather Rhapsody on your bookshelf, I will corner you and discuss all of the ridiculously great aspects of the book, including how amazingly Racculia broke down the emotion that a listener feels when hearing The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight”, which is a totally accurate description. —Katrina Ortega, Hamilton Grange

Books, Movies, Art, & Sports

If I were to see Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read on your shelves, I would know we should become bosom friends. How could we ever run out of topics of conversation, with all those endless libraries full of books neither of us has read to talk about? Bonus points if you have the work in the original French (Comment parler des livres que l’on n’a pas lus?). —Kathie Coblentz, Rare Materials

If you own a copy of I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie by Roger Ebert, we should probably be friends because we have so many things in common.  We enjoy great writing, bad movies, subjecting our friends and loved ones to those bad movies, and laughing out loud…often at the expense of those friends and loved ones! —Andrea Lipinski, Kingsbridge

If you have Amphigorey—Edward Gorey’s eerie, funny, moody, perverse collection of ersatz Victorian illustrated tales—on your shelf, we will probably be friends. Well, maybe we won’t be friends, but we’ll know where we stand with each other. —David Nochimson, Pelham Parkway-Van Nest

Baseball FAQ by Tom DeMichael because baseball is my bae: Baseball Ahead o’ Everything. —Joe Pascullo, Grand Central

Adult Fiction

Don Chaon’s Await Your Reply. It’s a thinky thriller with a huge twist and a sense of doom that pervades every page. It’s unconventional and not for everyone—which is exactly why I want to be friends with the people it IS for. —Gwen Glazer, Readers Services

In her quiet book Among Other Things I’ve Taken Up Smoking, Aoibheann (pronounced “Even”) Sweeney writes Miranda’s story. Miranda grows up in Maine accompanied only by her father, who translates Ovid’s Metamorphoses for a living. When she graduates and moves to New York City she falls madly in love with a woman and discovers a messiness that complements the solitude she has always known. If this is on your shelf, we should probably go get a glass of wine and talk about it. —Caitlyn Colman-McGaw, Young Adult Programming

She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb hits me right in the feels every time I read it. Dolores Price suffers a broad spectrum of hurts, including her parents’ divorce, sexual abuse, obesity, depression, and the horror that is preppy sorority girls. Even at her lowest points, her dry wit, tangible yearning to be loved, and a motley cast of a support network keep her going.  You will be rooting for her to succeed and I dare you not to shed a tear or two. —Rebecca Dash Donsky, 67^th Street

If you have The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, then I will feel like we will be besties! The circus arrives without warning and is only open at night. Where patrons are excited to be part of the magical world, this wondrous spectacle is more than what meets the eye. The circus is the battleground in this fantastical story where two star crossed lovers who must battle each other…and only one can be left standing. —Sandra Farag, BookOps

Philosophy & Poetry

I can be friends with anyone who has Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time on their shelf, especially if it’s a worn out copy like mine.  It’s the one book I’ve read over and over, because I’m so intrigued by its discussion of what we really know, and why we think we know that. —Gretchen Smith, Human Resources

Spotting a volume of Jorge Borges’ fiction or nonfiction on someone else’s shelf is a sure sign I’ve met a fellow humanist with a sense of humor who will be down to talk in circles with me for hours on end.  —Nancy Aravecz, Jefferson Market

I know I’ve found a kindred spirit when I see poetry on a bookshelf, especially collections by Ted Kooser and Linda Pastan, my favorite favorites. Here's “Pocket Poem” by Ted Kooser:

If this comes creased and creased again and soiled
as if I’d opened it a thousand times
to see if what I’d written here was right,
it’s all because I looked for you too long
to put it in your pocket.  Midnight says
the little gifts of loneliness come wrapped
by nervous fingers.  What I wanted this
to say was that I want to be so close
that when you find it, it is warm from me.

—Susie Heimbach, Mulberry Street

Time-Traveling Fiction

If I saw L.M. Montgomery’s Blue Castle on your bookshelf, I’d like that we would both take risks and take the road less traveled, and that would make all the difference. —Ruth Guerrier-Pierre, Kips Bay

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. It has proven to be a rather polarizing book; people seem to either love it or hate it, and I am solidly in the Love It camp. Her style is detailed and eloquent, while the perspective is a bit unusual and challenging. —Jennifer Craft, Mulberry Street

If you have I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith on your shelf, than I can safely assume that we are completely simpatico. It’s the story of a girl and her eccentric family living in genteel poverty in a crumbling castle in 1930s England. It has everything an Anglophile and romance reader like myself could want: a smart, journal-writing heroine, a hot stable boy, rainy days in the English countryside, shopping trips to London, rich Americans, as well as wit and charm. If these plot points appeal to you then email me because I love you already. —Anne Rouyer, Mulberry Street

Children

You have This Moose Belongs To Me by Oliver Jeffers on your shelf? Not only am I going to assume that you, too, may be feeding Marcel the moose, but I’m also going to assume that now we’re besties. —Lyndsie Guy, Chatham Square

E.L. Konigsburg’s The View From Saturday. In my early years as a children’s librarian, this is the first book that I correctly predicted would win the Newbery.  It’s a wonderful story about a group of misfits on a 6th grade academic bowl team, and the insightful teacher who brings them together. This was a somewhat controversial winner, so if you love it enough to own it, as I do, then we must be on the same wavelength! —Ronni Krasnow, Morningside Heights

From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsberg. The mystery, the research, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, all lead me to want to be a librarian here in NYC. To this day I view the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a safe haven. I have gone there when I was happy but more importantly when I was sad. The art and architecture seems to work like a soothing blanket for me. —Dawn Collins, West Farms

I think if I saw any of Leo Lionni’s original stories, like Frederick, Matthew’s Dream, or Geraldine the Music Mouse, especially if it were an adult, we would be kindred spirits. The splendor of art and the need to explore new sensations mixed with sweet, empathetic mice characters is something I will always remember from these childhood favorites. —Alessandro Affinito, Chatham Square

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Staff picks are chosen by NYPL staff members and are not intended to be comprehensive lists. We'd love to hear your ideas too, so leave a comment and tell us what you’d recommend. And check out our Staff Picks browse tool for more recommendations!