Before we share info about this month’s book, we’re excited to announce that this year, we launched a new monthly “Community Kindness Sponsorship,” which helps offset the cost of the extra 15 books we hide after scavenger hunt weekend every month (the “random act of kindness” books!). We are so grateful to share that The Ninth House is our Community Kindness Sponsor for June/Pride Month!!!

Do you know someone who might be interested in partnering with us as a Community Kindness Sponsor in 2025 ($250)? We have two months left! Please send us an email (tucsontomegnome[at] gmail.com) and we can send you some information 🙂

AND NOW, for what you’ve been waiting for: all about this month’s hidden book!

About the book, from The University of Nebraska Press:

“It’s the new millennium and the anxiety of midlife is creeping up on Sam Singer, a thirty-seven-year-old art advisor. Fed up with his partner and his life in New York, Sam flies to Berlin to attend a gallery opening. There he finds a once-divided city facing an identity crisis of its own. In Berlin the past is everywhere: the graffiti-stained streets, the candlelit cafés and techno clubs, the astonishing mash-up of architecture, monuments, and memorials.

A trip that begins in isolation evolves into one of deep connection and possibility. In an intensely concentrated series of days, Sam finds himself awash in the city, stretched in limbo between his own past and future—in nightclubs with Jeremy, a lonely wannabe DJ; navigating a flirtation with Kaspar, an East Berlin artist he meets at a café; and engaged in a budding relationship with Magda, the enigmatic and icy manager of Sam’s hotel, whom Sam finds himself drawn to and determined to thaw. I Make Envy on Your Disco is at once a tribute to Berlin, a novel of longing and connection, and a coming-of-middle-age story about confronting the person you were and becoming the person you want to be.” 

About the author, Eric Schnall:

“Eric has worked on and off Broadway as a producer and marketing director for more than twenty-five years. He won a Tony Award for the Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a Lucille Lortel Award for Fleabag. He has also written about techno and electronic music for Billboard and Revolution, profiling DJs and musicians from around the world. Eric lives in New York City with his partner and his dog. I MAKE ENVY ON YOUR DISCO—winner of the Barbara DiBernard Prize in Fiction—is his first novel.”

Why I selected I Make Envy On Your Disco for the June 2025 Giveaway:

• This is an amazing and compelling character-driven story that I didn’t want to put down – I fell in love with these characters and needed to see how their various relationships would unfold.
• This story provides a fascinating look at characters, and cities that feel like characters – – – all are haunted by the past but forging ahead – facing change and the unknown.
• If you are of a certain generation (Elder Millennials and Gen Xers???), this book will evoke your nostalgia for the early/mid-aughts. This gnome very much related to Sam, the main character who is oozing wanderlust and mid-life anxiety/ennui.
• This story will linger with you long after the last page has been read and the book is closed. I finished it and wanted to start it again just to experience Sam’s travels all over again.
• While the characters are all lonely in their own ways, they are also lovable, complicated, and feel like real people that you want to be friends with ❤