Robert Jordan
[isbn]
The Wheel of Time series is an ambitious transition from the Tolkien-inspired books that dominated much of the fantasy market decades ago. The plot, the world-building, and the characters are all products of traditional and contemporary themes. If you like traditional, pre-'90s fantasy, you'll appreciate this series. If you enjoy much of our current era of fantasy, you'll enjoy this series. I strongly believe everyone can find something they... (read more)
Recommended by Jun L.
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Patrick Rothfuss
[isbn]
This is the book that hooked me into the fantasy genre. This is the book that transformed me into an avid reader. This is fantasy in its most beautifully meticulous, subtle form. The world-building is dense, but not so dense that you become overwhelmed by exposition or your own retention. The characters become real products of this world, and they act so genuinely human that it sometimes hurts. The prose is poetic and rarely matched by other... (read more)
Recommended by Jun L.
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Hanya Yanagihara
[isbn]
In To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara takes themes from her previous novels — queerness, family, shame, love — and revisits them in this expansive story that spans 200 years, from an alternate past into a terrifyingly possible future. No matter the time period, her characters look desperately at their ordinary surroundings, and then take extraordinary risks in hopes of securing a better future for themselves and their loved ones.
Recommended by Adam P.
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Sang Young Park and Anton Hur
[isbn]
We’re in a real renaissance of great Korean literature being translated into English. Sang Young Park has continued that trend, but opened up a window into a milieu I’ve never seen depicted before: contemporary queer life in Seoul. His book is revealing, moving, and beautiful.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Brent Spiner
[isbn]
Brent Spiner, the actor who portrayed the beloved android Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation, pens this fictional memoir of his time on the show. It’s a delightful whodunit full of laugh-out-loud moments, twists, turns, and heart. I read the book in one sitting — it’s that entertaining. The perfect gift for the Star Trek fan in your life!
Recommended by Matt K.
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Sayaka Murata and Ginny Tapley Takemori
[isbn]
It may be taken for granted what we have in our ability to understand and connect with other people. Keiko Furukura doesn't want to be othered. She seeks a place and a purpose in the world like anybody else. The trouble arises from the fact that she can understand the what and the how of humanity, but she can't understand the why. She can exhibit tactfulness and social norms, but only as a means of blending in. Convenience Store Woman is... (read more)
Recommended by Jun L.
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Calvin Kasulke
[isbn]
Initially, Calvin Kasulke’s debut novel seems like an absurdist take on the remote worker’s sense of being disembodied — by making it literal. It is that, but also a great deal more. Several People Are Typing is consistently smart and hilarious, which is harder than it seems. It also makes innovative use of the pervasive tools and lifestyles of the modern office. How is it that this novel is a satire in which nothing seems to be... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Meredith Westgate
[isbn]
Meredith Westgate’s debut novel stood apart from the dozens of books I read in 2021 as timely and innovative. Sophie and Lucien meet at a rehabilitation center for people who are addicted to Memoroxin, an Alzheimer’s medication that allows patients to choose and encapsulate their memories and to relive them. In The Shimmering State, we experience the pain and joy, the loneliness and the friendship of these characters. Woven masterfully... (read more)
Recommended by Kim S.
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Robin Robinson
[isbn]
Portland author Robin Robinson wrote and illustrated this fantasy graphic novel. Adventure awaits goblin sisters Pella, the thrill-seeker, and Bix, the reluctant adventurer. Stunning, fantastical illustrations take the reader on a trip though the enchanted forest, a wondrous land filled with demigods and monsters, alongside the compelling Pella and Bix. Perfect for ages eight and up.
Recommended by Kim T.
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Haruki Murakami
[isbn]
I'm a sucker for a thoughtful collection, and Haruki Murakami is (despite his own preface claiming indifference) a very thoughtful collector. With photos of his T-shirts accompanied by short essays of associated memories, this is the perfect book for a slightly snoopy fan, or anyone who likes to ponder how printed clothing accumulates in your wardrobe and what it adds up to.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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adrienne maree brown
[isbn]
Brown has emerged as a powerhouse of the social justice movement in recent years. Her fiction debut is a bleak, haunting exploration of loss, grief, and anger shot through with resilience and hope. Like all of her works, Grievers explores how we work to create a world in which we want to live.
Recommended by Emily B.
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Rebecca Solnit
[isbn]
A contemplation on the life of one of the 20th century's greatest essayists, journalists, and truth-tellers by one of the 21st century's greatest? I'm in! I dropped everything on my TBR with plans to fly through it in a weekend, but quickly slowed down because this is an adroit, scholarly collection that deserves to be savored with deliberative reflection.
Recommended by Emily B.
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Joy Harjo
[isbn]
Adroitly combining poetry and prose, Harjo details her journey from leaving home as a teenager to escape abuse to becoming a celebrated poet and teacher. Compassionate, wise, and lyrical, Poet Warrior details Harjo's love of words and her deep connection with the world around her.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Charlotte Higgins, Chris Ofili
[isbn]
Using tapestry as framework and metaphor, Higgins draws her retellings from imaginary textiles the female characters are weaving. A cunning and intriguing structure that allows for beautiful illustrations (and nods to the centrality of weaving in Greek mythology), Greek Myths is for lovers of Madeline Miller, Pat Barker, and D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths.
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Joe Pera, Joe Bennett
[isbn]
Joe Pera has written the sweetest, softest, funniest book to address everyday social anxiety. Please consider picking up this gentle book if you've ever appreciated a small room with a lock as a short-lived safe haven from social obligations or responsibilities — or if you just want to be surprised by your own chuckles while reading a very good and kind illustrated guide.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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David Sedaris
[isbn]
The voyeur in me loves to peek inside the daily life of a stranger, especially one who writes with such humor, sarcasm, and whimsy. With this second volume of diary entries, we embark on the daily adventures and observations of a more seasoned, more experienced David Sedaris. The hilarity of the everyday is still there — newspapers blowing across the street, overheard conversations in cafes or airplanes, HOA meetings in Paris — but there is also... (read more)
Recommended by McKenzie W.
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Jonathan Franzen
[isbn]
If you've never read Jonathan Franzen's fiction, you may be surprised by how insightful and moving Crossroads is. If you're a fan, you'll see a new humbleness and empathy in his writing that makes this story of a family in crisis in the early 1970s Franzen's best book yet.
Recommended by Adam P.
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Louise Glück
[isbn]
I am overjoyed to have a new collection from Nobel Laureate Louise Glück! These poems are beautiful and haunting, and I have many rereads ahead of me as I continue to engage with their language and consider their depths.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Richard Powers
[isbn]
Powers’s author note made me cry, and its simple, astonishing empathy for children and the natural world only strengthens with each page of this beautifully wrought, difficult story about a loving father and raging son grieving for the Earth and its inhabitants.
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Miriam Toews
[isbn]
How my bookseller heart leapt when I heard there was a new Miriam Toews novel on the horizon! This tender, funny family portrait, narrated by nine-year-old Swiv in a letter to her estranged father, had me in stitches and in tears and introduced me to a grandmother I won’t soon forget.
Recommended by Tove H.
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Hiromi Kawakami and Ted Goossen
[isbn]
People From My Neighborhood marries small-town drama with magical realism in a series of interconnected flash fiction vignettes. Every person in this neighborhood could inspire a book of their own, but the glimpses we’re afforded here, in Kawakami’s spare and agile prose, make for a beguiling (and quick!) read.
Recommended by Tove H.
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Wanda M. Morris
[isbn]
Ellice Littlejohn is a corporate attorney in Atlanta, who goes into the office for a meeting and finds her boss dead. She is offered his job, but can she trust the others in the executive circle? This debut thriller is a page-turner full of twists you won’t see coming.
Recommended by Jennifer H.
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Anthony Doerr
[isbn]
I’m not sure how Anthony Doerr made this beautiful novel simultaneously epic and intimate, but he did. It’s also impressively imaginative, hopeful, and a glorious celebration of the power of books and stories. Just what I needed.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Amor Towles
[isbn]
Few book releases make me as happy as a new Amor Towles release because few books make me as happy as every novel he’s ever written. His latest feat, a 1950s cross-country picaresque set on a freight train, might even top the charm, inventiveness, and sheer delight of A Gentleman in Moscow, which is still my number one pick for books that’ll make you smile.
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Amanda Gorman
[isbn]
Like so many, I was transfixed and moved by Amanda Gorman’s performance of her poem "The Hill We Climb" at President Biden's inauguration, and now I can’t wait to read her first full collection.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Ruth Ozeki
[isbn]
I love this heartbreaking, inventive story about teenage Benny, who hears voices from the objects around him, and his mother Annabelle, who has a hoarding problem. The eclectic group of friends that Benny makes along the way adds a richness to this story that made it a true pleasure to read.
Recommended by Jennifer H.
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Louise Erdrich
[isbn]
Tookie is a remarkably unique and intriguing protagonist. After a betrayal and years of incarceration, she gets a job at Birchbark Books (a real bookstore owned by Erdrich). Ghosts pervade the story — a former customer haunts the bookstore, the ghosts of Tookie’s past haunt her memories, and the horrific history of genocide perpetrated against Native Americans haunts all the characters. Set in Minneapolis between 2019 and 2020, Tookie, her... (read more)
Recommended by Lucinda G.
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Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, Karen Tei Yamashita, Yuki Obayashi
[isbn]
As a Japanese American, this is perhaps one of the most important books in my life so far. It provides a much-needed glimpse into older, traditional Japanese life, while still maintaining a surprisingly large degree of relevance. The author works hard not just to write a good autobiography, but also a great work of art. Her story of life in Japan and America is stunning, and I urge people to jump into this book to better understand Japanese... (read more)
Recommended by Jun L.
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Tj Klune
[isbn]
Wallace Price is a nasty, heartless workaholic who unexpectedly dies of a heart attack. Afterlife for him is neither heaven nor hell, but a tea shop called Charon's Crossing run by Hugo, who makes a kickass cup of tea, but also helps people to cross over. Under the Whispering Door is TJ Klune in fine form: tender, romantic, terrifying, and full of heart.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Ryka Aoki
[isbn]
Refugees from another solar system running a donut shop, a violin teacher who needs one last soul to harvest for hell, and a young trans runaway violinist are all magnificently blended together in Ryka Aoki's superb and heartwarming Light From Uncommon Stars. The descriptions of food and music are especially good, and you'll certainly be craving donuts before the book ends.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Lana Harper
[isbn]
Lana Harper's romance debut fairly shouts SPOOKY SEASON. Emmy returns to her hometown to arbitrate a magical tournament, but she is roped in by high school classmates Linden and Talia to defeat their shared enemy: cocky, clueless Gareth Blackmoore. Payback's a Witch delivers cozy, witchy, autumnal vibes on every page. It's sweet and sexy and perfect for fall reading.
Recommended by McKenzie W.
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NK Jemisin, Jamal Campbell
[isbn]
N. K. Jemisin is the remarkable writer of the award-winning Broken Earth trilogy. Here she creates a new Green Lantern, African American Jo Mullein. As Green Lantern, Jo has been protecting a city in the far reaches of the galaxy, a city ruled by peace and nonviolence. Until it all changes. Having seen what Jemisin brings to the world of science fiction, I can't wait to see what she brings to the renowned science fiction universe of Green... (read more)
Recommended by Doug C.
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James S. A. Corey
[isbn]
The great hard science fiction saga of the Expanse comes to a close with this ninth and final volume. This universe that seems so recognizable, because the politics, the motives, the people who inhabit this great story, they are all things we see every day. Now the stakes, which have been raised in each book, couldn't be higher, the danger more existential. What a wonderful and satisfying read.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Nnedi Okorafor
[isbn]
Nnedi Okorafor creates great characters, rich and real future worlds, and stories filled with high stakes and tension. Here she does it again, a fast-paced and thrilling tale with a protagonist faced with rejection from all around her, imminent danger, a questionable companion, and a race against time.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Osamu Dazai and Donald Keene
[isbn]
This book is mentally taxing. It's beautiful, rough, and difficult. You are asked to observe the life of a man who generally struggles to empathize or connect with other people. Where you might find yourself empathizing, the protagonist, Yozo, will not. His alienation is the core of the narrative, leading him into a lifestyle of faking humanity in attempts at feeling anything. It hurts. His relationships (friends, family, romance) are tough.... (read more)
Recommended by Jun L.
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Nathan Harris
[isbn]
Sweetness of Water is a beautiful debut novel. Nathan Harris has created a wonderful
story with richly portrayed characters. Gorgeous writing. Stunning!
Recommended by Adrienne C.
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Junji Ito
[isbn]
In classic Junji Ito style, this horrifying commentary on the Japanese Idol industry will leave readers captivated, but, most of all, disgusted. Perfectly paired with putrid illustrations, Remina is a wonderfully revolting tragedy that is must-read for all horror and sci-fi fans alike!
Recommended by Joshua S.
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Cherie Priest
[isbn]
Hugo and Nebula Awards nominee Priest has written her first mystery novel, and I hope it is the first of many. Leda is a travel agent and inconsistent psychic. Based on a very strong feeling, she rebooks a customer’s flight and accidentally saves them from an airplane that catches fire. When that customer, detective Grady Merritt, returns to Seattle, he tracks down Leda and recruits her to help with a case he can’t crack. I look forward to... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer H.
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Andrea Gibson
[isbn]
Gibson’s poetry of love, loss, light, and survival leaves me wordless and goose-bumped, and when I found out they had a new book of poetry coming out, I nearly broke my phone hitting the Preorder button so hard.
Recommended by Deana R.
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Karen Tei Yamashita
[isbn]
Yamashita composes a magnetic tale through the intersecting narratives of seven characters over the span of seven days. Its dynamic construction and alluring characterization are sure to keep readers leaning in. Heralded as one of the best novels set in Los Angeles, Tropic of Orange is an unforgettable work for readers who enjoy multi-perspective storytelling.
Recommended by Alexis B.
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Doireann Ní Ghríofa
[isbn]
Ní Ghríofa’s A Ghost in the Throat is the most interesting and beautiful book I’ve read this year. Biography, memoir, and autofiction (an intoxicating blend for anyone with lit critical impulses), A Ghost explores Ní Ghríofa’s obsession with Eibhlín Dubh and her 18th-century lament “Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire.” Unable to find much scholarship about Dubh, Ní Ghríofa plunges headfirst into translation and archival records,... (read more)
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Colson Whitehead
[isbn]
Colson Whitehead has shown himself to be a master of multiple genres, and here he adds to that list with his take on crime fiction. Following a furniture salesman in 1960s Harlem, Whitehead shows that when historical forces meet a fast-changing city, it creates many opportunities for the crooked.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Natasha Brown
[isbn]
This short book packs an outsized punch, as a Black British woman with a high-flying career must confront the dehumanizing treatment she experiences in every aspect of her carefully assembled life. This powerful novel is revelatory and unflinching.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Emily Itami
[isbn]
Rarely has a story of domestic discontent been this much fun. This is due entirely to the charm and clear-eyed honesty of Mizuki, a mother residing in a Tokyo high-rise who is not living the life she once imagined for herself. Fault Lines explores the social conventions of modern Japan, and the costs of violating them.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Leigh Stein
[isbn]
Initially, you may think these poems are witty. They are. Upon reflection, you may decide these poems are piercingly honest reflections of contemporary desires, run headlong into a plague year. They are. In the dark of a sleepless night, you may feel that these poems saw through your ironic façade and got at something deeper. They did.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Sally Rooney
[isbn]
Beautiful World, Where Are You follows longtime friends Eileen, an editorial assistant, and Alice, a novelist, grappling with their lives, relationships, contradictions, and cynicism. Emails between the two women — written the way you and your friends hope you sound in your smartest, wittiest, and most introspective moments — give Rooney a venue to explore everything from mental health to politics and climate change to sex.
(read more)
Recommended by Sarah R.
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Maggie Nelson
[isbn]
Maggie Nelson reclaims the concept of “freedom” from overused, empty rhetoric and examines what it truly means in four areas of contemporary life. Once again, Nelson’s rigorous analysis and unique perspective show her to be an essential voice in uncertain times.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Megan Giddings
[isbn]
Reeling from the loss of her grandmother, and unable to provide her ailing mother with the financial and medical support she needs, Lena drops out of college and volunteers to take part in a mysterious research study. The benefits are unreal: a handsome payout; free room and board; and — most crucially — full coverage of her mother’s medical expenses. But the study’s strict nondisclosure agreement and invasive screening process are the first of... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Megha Majumdar
[isbn]
An accused terrorist, an aspiring actress, and a P.E. teacher... Three narratives so incongruous they could serve as the setup for a joke instead intertwine to form this compelling literary debut. With powerful (and timely) social commentary, empathetic character development, and a propulsive plot, A Burning does not disappoint. I held out hope for every hopeless character, and marveled at Majumdar’s skill — I can’t wait to see what else... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Diana Clarke
[isbn]
The bond between twin sisters Rose and Lily, though palpably strong — they can taste each other's emotions and feel each other's pain — is more of a tangled knot than a taut line, and as their own struggles intensify, so does the complexity of their relationship. Thin Girls is by no means a comfortable read (and readers sensitive to discussions of body image and eating disorders should take extra care), but it’s an engrossing,... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Lynda Barry
[isbn]
If you have ever wanted to draw and thought, "I can't even draw a stick figure," pick up this book. Lynda Barry and I share the same philosophy: everyone has the ability to be creative. While this book focuses on the beautiful marriage of words and pictures, I love that the exercises really bring out a passion for drawing regardless of your skill level.
Recommended by Rose H.
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Adams, Douglas
[isbn]
Intelligent, philosophical, witty, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny. Douglas Adams's conversational style of writing makes this strange journey an absolute joy to read. This is my favorite book of all time, and "Don't Panic" is tattooed on my arm in large, friendly letters as a permanent reminder of this most important lesson from the most important book in the galaxy — The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! This is a book everyone... (read more)
Recommended by Joseph P.
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Zachary Schomburg
[isbn]
Nine years after the first surreal treasure of Fjords: Vol. I, comes Schomburg's equally surreal (yet plaintive) follow-up. Will there be a Fjords: Vol. III? With Schomburg's endless genius, I'm sure there will be. This set of paragraph-size prose poems slip us (water slide-style) into a theater of clouds, bears, trees, James Tate-like everymans, icebergs, and flashes of stunning nothingness. It's so fun to see where Schomburg... (read more)
Recommended by Kevin S.
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Helen Hoang
[isbn]
Every novel Helen Hoang writes is powerful, but The Heart Principle left me incoherent with emotion. I giggled, sighed, and cried ugly tears throughout. The story of Anna and Quan is all about falling in love, but especially falling in love with yourself. Plus, swoony kisses, motorcycle rides, and a mischievous octopus.
Recommended by McKenzie W.
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John Lewis and Andrew Aydind and Nate Powell
[isbn]
First you march, then you run! That’s what John Lewis did after more than five years as a leader in the civil rights movement, after being the youngest speaker at the march on Washington, after getting beaten and arrested for his nonviolent resistance. Lewis then ran for Congress and became a powerful voice for justice from the seat of government. Run follows the great John Lewis in the years following the events of the award-winning and... (read more)
Recommended by Doug C.
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Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
[isbn]
Philosophical and introspective rather than plot-driven, Savage Tongues is a cerebral excavation of the interlacing violences of immigration and dislocation, Islamophobia and racism, sexual violence and predatory men. Oloomi’s writing is beautiful and meditative even while it is decimating. A difficult but salient exploration of trauma.
Recommended by Emily B.
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Stephen Graham Jones
[isbn]
Jade is the ultimate slasher fan, and her prayers are answered when her dead-end hometown starts mimicking the plot points of her favorite films. Like all the best of these movies, My Heart is both a gory popcorn thrill ride and a warped lens to better see the very real horrors that humans inflict on each other. Don't start reading it after dark, and stay clear of the abandoned summer camp filled with secrets.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Mona Awad
[isbn]
All's Well is a swirling, intoxicating, otherworldy story about chronic pain, power imbalances, and the theatre. While putting on one of Shakespeare's problem plays, Miranda Fitz has an encounter with a mysterious trio that magically cures her debilitating pain (at a cost), and sets her on a dizzying path toward opening night and protecting her newfound lightness. It's dark, it's comedic, it's surreal and relatable — it's Mona Awad at... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Randall Kenan
[isbn]
If I Had Two Wings marked Randall Kenan's triumphant return to fiction, 28 years after his previous collection. Tragically, Kenan passed away less than a month after publication, leaving his readers to treasure all the more these stories of primarily Queer, Black characters living in the American South.
Recommended by Adam P.
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Hope Mirlees
[isbn]
An underrated pre-Tolkien fantasy, Mirrlees's background in poetry shines through the text, painting a vivid picture of the fictional land of Dorimare. Lud-in-the-Mist pulls from faerie folklore with the element of the faerie in the story speaking to death, superstitions, and the arts in culture.
Recommended by Harper C.
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Claire Luchette
[isbn]
Agatha of Little Neon follows the rarest of groups — four 21st-century nuns “called” to run a halfway house in a rundown RI town. Gently funny and subversive, Luchette populates her sparkling debut with memorable characters who help Agatha accept the ways both she and the Church she’s pinned her life to are changing.
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Ash Davidson
[isbn]
Davidson speaks to my soggy, PNW-born soul. The clarity and empathy with which she writes about a coastal Pacific Northwest logging town and its working-class residents left me feeling as though I had inhabited the world she created. Damnation Spring is a spectacular debut that will take a well-earned place in the pantheon of PNW and environmental classics.
Recommended by Emily B.
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Anthony Veasna So
[isbn]
This collection of stories about the Cambodian American community in central California is funny, insightful, and exuberant. Anthony Veasna So was an author with an eye for both the precision of the telling detail and the generalized weight of history.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Thilde Kold Holdt
[isbn]
Historical fiction at its finest, and it happens to be the first book in an epic fantasy trilogy! An intoxicating blend of realistic characters and fantastical happenings, anyone with even a passing interest in the Norse pantheon needs to read this book.
Recommended by Fletcher O.
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Pajtim Statovci, David Hackston
[isbn]
Pajtim Statovci’s Bolla is a moving and often difficult novel about the forces of war, within and without. Set in Kosovo, before and after the war, the forces of ethnic sectarianism and homophobia both lead to societal and individual breakdown, and drive people to commit unforgivable acts. Bolla is not without hope, but it makes clear that hope can only come after one faces the hardest questions.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Simon Orpana
[isbn]
Graphic storytelling is the perfect format for this book, as its message is simultaneously complex and painfully simple: we are killing our planet, and the means of our destruction is so embedded in our society that we can’t fully see the extent of its influence. Gasoline Dreams makes difficult and urgent truths digestible and actionable.
Recommended by Keith M.
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James Kelman
[isbn]
Winner of the 1994 Man Booker Prize, How Late It Was, How Late follows the trials and tribulations of our main character Sammy after he unwisely picks a fight with some plainclothes police. Getting beaten senseless, literally, he wakes up the next day completely blind. Written in Kelman's inimitable style with an emphasis on the first-person stream-of-consciousness technique, Scottish literature is a law unto its own self and this book... (read more)
Recommended by Fletcher O.
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Susan DeFreitas
[isbn]
Dispatches From Anarres is why I read. This remarkable anthology of short stories in tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin is filled with thoughtful, heartbreaking, funny tales. Some will remind you of Le Guin and others of her spirit. I found myself pausing to think and breathe after many of the stories. This book is both readable and deep.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Richard Adams
[isbn]
My dad used to read to me and my brother almost every night before bed, and those nights are some of my favorite childhood memories. Many of the books we read together have stuck with me through the intervening years, but I have particularly fond memories of listening to him read Watership Down. 25 years later, I can still remember the feeling of being completely absorbed in the story. I was so enthralled that, when he had to go on a... (read more)
Recommended by Emily B.
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Larry McMurtry
[isbn]
Suddenly I liked cowboy stories. Retired Texas Rangers, cattle drives, small western town shenanigans, what it means to get old, humor, drama (and, oh, the radishes!). This is why I read: a fictional world in which you can hide, a story you don’t want to end.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Kim Stanley Robinson
[isbn]
This is a book about right now and next year and 50 years from now. A blistering yet quiet story about what climate change will do to us all. Somehow, hope is pulled out of utter hopelessness, kindness out of greed, humor out of darkness. Kim Stanley Robinson makes the science in his science fiction a place the reader can dwell, and he makes the characters into people we want to know and quietly support.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Larry McMurtry
[isbn]
I hate westerns so much, but my entire family read Lonesome Dove, and I got shamed into reading it! Nice, huh? It's a good thing I did, because this 1986 Pulitzer Prize winner is an absolute masterpiece. McMurtry's storytelling skills are at their peak here, and it is one hell of a book. Take it from this western-hater: you will love this!
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Robinson, Marilynne
[isbn]
Beautifully quiet, quirky, heartbreaking, transcendent. There are so many reasons to love Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping. Above all for me: the sentences. Her language is so beautiful that it occurred to me one day, simply reading a description of two women looking flushed in the steam of cooking stock in a kitchen, that Robinson’s language made me want to try harder to find things to be joyful about in my day.
Recommended by Gigi L.
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Emily Austin
[isbn]
Gilda is an extremely anxious 20-something with a fear of dying. In Austin’s debut novel, she brings us deep into Gilda’s world through her internal dialogue, a continuous expressionless prose, through which we experience her intricate relationships and an unexpected mystery.
Recommended by Kim S.
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Kristen Radtke
[isbn]
In Seek You, Kristen Radtke approaches the epidemic of American loneliness from a variety of angles. Each view is taken with tremendous empathy and conveyed with Radtke’s engaging and elegant illustrations. Seek You is a thoughtful exploration of a complex problem that offers understanding, not easy answers.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Ethan Hawke
[isbn]
Wow! I am suitably impressed with this wonderfully written book, A Bright Ray of Darkness by Ethan Hawke. Illuminating the actor's personal life and the theater world, especially the behind-the-scenes details of staging a play, Hawke does a splendid job. I really loved this!
Recommended by Adrienne C.
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Cherie Dimaline
[isbn]
Joan’s husband has been missing for a year when she sees a man who looks and sounds like him, but he keeps insisting he is someone else. With a cast of quirky and idiosyncratic characters, Joan sets out to discover what happened to her husband, and why.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Laura Van Den Berg
[isbn]
Powerful short stories from Laura van den Berg, each centered around a pivotal moment in the life of a woman. These stories are unsettling, slightly off-kilter, and filled with an urgent sadness. A polished and haunting collection filled with the unexpected.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Laura Van Den Berg
[isbn]
Eleven surreal stories following middle-aged women on disturbing quests through lives that prove to be both mystical and mundane. While these are dark themes, there is always a thread of humor running across the pages. Every tale is an absorbing treasure.
Recommended by Tracey T.
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Jasmine Guillory
[isbn]
Jasmine Guillory delivers all the humor, drama, and sex that you could ask for in a summer rom-com! Ben and Anna are the perfect pair as they turn from coworkers to lovers to fake-for-the-cameras boyfriend and girlfriend. But their lovebird act starts to feel real, even when no one is watching. While We Were Dating is fun and flirty, perfect for holiday reading.
Recommended by McKenzie W.
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David Sedaris
[isbn]
David Sedaris’s second book — and his first to be composed entirely of autobiographical essays — Naked is the rare sophomore effort that is a truer reflection of the author than the debut. Sedaris was already known for "Santaland Diaries," his essay about working as a Macy’s elf that he read aloud on NPR. His voice is so distinctive that it became inseparable from his writing before he published anything. Sedaris is now an icon of... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Denis Johnson
[isbn]
Some books are unforgettable. This one is indelible. Denis Johnson’s short stories don’t quite start, and they don’t quite end. They’re connected, but just how they fit together is unclear. Addiction is front and center in most of the stories, but this isn’t a cautionary tale, or at least not quite. There is a distinctive lack of authorial judgement of the decisions made and the impulses indulged. Questions about how to regard the book, its... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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Leslie Marmon Silko
[isbn]
A profound portrait of PTSD and cultural marginalization, on and off the Laguna Pueblo reservation, Silko’s classic novel remains cutting-edge 44 years after its original publication. Weaving between past and present, Native folklore and stark depictions of reservation life, Silko uses formal innovation and lyricism to convey how trauma, depression, and colonization coalesce to break the spirit, and the potential of Native storytelling and... (read more)
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Dubravka Ugresic
[isbn]
Yugoslav author Dubravka Ugrešić may well be the smartest, wittiest, most captivating author you’re not (yet) reading. With more than a dozen fiction and nonfiction works available in English translation, Ugrešić's brilliance is amply displayed. American Fictionary (rendered from the Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth and Ellen Elias-Bursac) — first published in 1993 and revised and republished 25 years later — is a collection of keen,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Stephen King
[isbn]
First published in 1978, The Stand is a force to be reckoned with in the canon of post-apocalyptic literature. It’s a doorstop of a book that grabs hold of the reader, as all the best Stephen King books do, and the roller coaster of a plot will spit you out into an ending that is deeply satisfying.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Octavia E. Butler
[isbn]
We don’t shelve Parable of the Sower in the Horror section here at Powell’s, but this book scares the holy crap out of me. Although it first appeared in 1993, this smoldering gem of a dystopia reads like it was written recently. You could say this was Octavia Butler’s masterpiece, and you wouldn’t be wrong.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Leslie Jamison
[isbn]
We are definitely living in the Golden Age of Essays. There’s a wealth of authors to choose from and a myriad of viewpoints. Leslie Jamison is among the best, starting with her 2014 Empathy Exams, and Make It Scream, Make it Burn is another fascinating collection from a top-notch author.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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William Goldman
[isbn]
Like so many people, I fell in love with the film first. It’s like the grandfather says: “Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles.” There’s something for everyone, and it taps into something so magically, extraordinarily human. Also like so many people, I found a battered paperback with a broken spine on my shelf that I couldn’t remember buying, and then I fell in love all over again. Goldman’s... (read more)
Recommended by Madeline S.
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Toni Morrison
[isbn]
Toni Morrison started her career as an editor — the first Black female editor at Random House — and her literary criticism is incisive and brilliant. She had an unparalleled ability to apply those skills to her own works, and I can’t possibly do more justice to Sula (her second novel, which circles around expectations and expressions of Black womanhood in the mid-20th century) than she herself does in the foreword: “In much literature a... (read more)
Recommended by Madeline S.
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Barry Lopez
[isbn]
It feels reductive to call Barry Lopez's work nature writing. He had a gift for taking the awe that the natural world can inspire and distilling it into prose. It is difficult to choose just one of his books to recommend — read them all! — but Arctic Dreams is exceptional. Epic in scope and execution, it covers every aspect of the Arctic: its Native peoples, flora, fauna, geology, explorers, climate. In Lopez's skilled hands the barren... (read more)
Recommended by Emily B.
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Min Jin Lee
[isbn]
Pachinko — part family saga, part historical epic — starts with a perfect line: “History has failed us, but no matter.” Min Jin Lee’s masterpiece unspools to cover nearly 80 years of the 20th century, following a Korean family from their occupied fishing village to uneasily inhabiting multiple Japanese cities, and the choices and circumstances of history that redirect their lives. It's a novel of astonishing depth, thanks to skillful... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Natalie Diaz
[isbn]
I was drawn to Diaz’s harsh, illuminative poems about watching her brother struggle with meth addiction, but her speakers contend with many kinds of appetite. The poems collected in When My Brother Was an Aztec range between mournful, angry, reflective, funny, and red hot, but at their centers are Diaz’s observations of life on the Mojave reservation where she grew up and her dizzying aptitudes for plainspokenness and the kind of surreal... (read more)
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Tim O'Brien
[isbn]
No single book has had more of an impact on how I interact with fiction than Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Still, it is difficult to articulate just how monumental this novel is. I could tell you that this is the one book assigned in high school with a place of honor on my bookshelf. I could examine failings of US history classes and how O’Brien’s “war story” — his “love story” — was my first entry point to the Vietnam war. You... (read more)
Recommended by Sarah R.
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Sandra Cisneros
[isbn]
In the introduction to the 25th Anniversary edition, Sandra Cisneros refers to the collection of vignettes that make up The House on Mango Street as “a jar of buttons.” Mismatched “little stories” that came together in the telling into one of literature's most enduring portraits of a neighborhood, a time, a coming-of-age. The House on Mango Street was my first brush with vignettes — how exciting to find that a novel could be... (read more)
Recommended by Sarah R.
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Jeanette Winterson
[isbn]
Trusting that truth was better than fiction, I first picked up Winterson’s memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? It’s wonderful, but Winterson’s wry take on her Pentecostal childhood made me eager to reencounter the same themes and characters in novel form, where she could play outside the dictates of lived experience. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit didn’t disappoint. It’s rich and playful, blending autobiography with... (read more)
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Salman Rushdie
[isbn]
I read Rushdie’s infamous novel at the gym, which is almost as ridiculous as the fact that it still feels a little scary to go on the record as liking it. The story of Gibreel and Saladin, who survive a plane crash by transforming into the Archangel Gabriel and the Devil, respectively, The Satanic Verses is a picaresque fueled by religious hallucinations and mundane misfortunes. It’s a brilliant allegory for the internal and social... (read more)
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Alice Walker
[isbn]
Alice Walker’s beautifully crafted epistolary tale about Celie, a poor Black woman finding her way to fulfillment and love in an ugly world, is an important book about race, identity, sisterhood, and human connection, and is more than worthy of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award it won. A brilliant work that is as timely today as when it was published almost 40 years ago.
Recommended by Gigi L.
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Terry Tempest Williams
[isbn]
Activist, author, and conservationist Terry Tempest Williams is as vital as the wildernesses she so magnificently writes about (whether on a map or located within). For nearly four decades now, this advocate, defender, and all-around American treasure has been an unwavering voice for environmental and social justice, encouraging compassion for and (re)connection with the natural world. In Erosion: Essays of Undoing, Williams balances... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Edward Abbey
[isbn]
Nearly a half-century old now, Edward Abbey’s influential 1975 novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, remains the classic novel of the environmental movement. A raucous work (credited with inspiring Earth First!, the radical advocacy organization), Cactus Ed’s most beloved fiction is the bold, boisterous tale of a rambunctious, ragtag foursome and their earnest efforts to save the American Southwest — by any means necessary — from the rapacious... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Valeria Luiselli
[isbn]
In 2015, when Valeria Luiselli started interpreting for migrant youths in the New York immigration court, the system was in crisis and a target of demagogues and disinformation, but not nearly to the extent that it soon would be as American politics took a dehumanizing turn. When this book was published in 2017, it offered a much-needed corrective — it is a humane account that doesn’t traffic in answers; rather, it is literally centered on... (read more)
Recommended by Keith M.
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