Joy Chant
[isbn]
Red Moon and Black Mountain has everything you might expect from a fantasy novel written in the 1970s — a trio of children who stumble down a 'rabbit hole,' towers of fierce warrior eagles, mythical and wise horses, and of course, plenty of magic. But what's unique about Joy Chant's take on the fantasy genre is how she tugs you along, expecting you to keep up with the world in which you and the young children are dumped. If at times it... (read more)
Recommended by Alex Y.
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Rodrigo Marquez Tizano
[isbn]
Rampant destitution, unchecked avarice, vermin ferrying sickness from one host to the next as mangy carrion canines scavenge the remains. This is Rodrigo Márquez Tizano's Jakarta, a bile-and-brimstone grotesquerie that deserves to be sold with a surgeon general's warning attached. The rare ultra-bleak vision worthy of being called a dystopia's dystopia.
Recommended by Justin W.
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Saeed Jones
[isbn]
Saeed Jones has written a great memoir. Told with a poet’s skill at expression, the true strength of How We Fight for Our Lives is the clarity with which Jones can view both his interior and exterior selves. Each of Jones’s intersectional identities is conveyed in the holistic manner that he experiences them, providing every reader with a broader understanding.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Max Porter
[isbn]
A contemporary English folktale, a hybrid re-envisioning of ancient Green Man legends, and a multifaceted glimpse of a small, post-Brexit British village, Lanny interweaves ancient and contemporary British culture through its playful reinvention of fairy tale and myth. Dark, lyrical, and full of pathos, Porter is a master of writing about the challenges and joys of family, and particularly, of parental love. While many parts of the book... (read more)
Recommended by Ariel K.
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Ariana Harwicz, Sarah Moses, Carolina Orloff
[isbn]
Harwicz's debut is an agitated nerve cluster of a novel that tangles old school psychological chills with a vicious strain of postpartum paranoia. Each page gleams with an unhinged intensity that's as seductive as it is disquieting, as assured as it is volatile, and as flagrantly contentious as anything in modern literature. A vertiginous descent into domesticity, Die, My Love positively drips with dread.
Recommended by Justin W.
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Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Ottilie Mulzet
[isbn]
The Hungarian master's purported grand finale is a cacophonous comedy of manners and machinations populated by a motley crew of cynics, swindlers, extremists, and dupes. Appropriately apocalyptic, polyphonic, and serpentine, Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming delivers a virtuosic performance without sentiment or ceremony. A chaotic choral arrangement for the end of the world.
Recommended by Justin W.
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Noelle Stevenson
[isbn]
A refreshing and swashbuckling adventure, Nimona by Noelle Stevenson illustrates the importance of self-control and following your instincts.
Recommended by Alex Y.
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Robinson, Marilynne
[isbn]
This gorgeous and heartbreaking novel RUINED me. Robinson's prose is deliberate and expansive, her characters vividly delineated, the world of her novel achingly familiar and yet full of astonishment.
Recommended by Darla M.
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Carola Lovering
[isbn]
This addictive part coming-of-age, part romance, and part emotional thriller takes place in the background of seeing an ex at a wedding. The story is told from two perspectives, the past and the present, showing the cycle of Lucy and Stephen's toxic yet thrilling relationship.
Recommended by Emma C.
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Therese Anne Fowler
[isbn]
When the Whitman family moves into the quiet Oak Knoll neighborhood, they have finally achieved ultimate success: home, family, and happiness. But their arrival causes the unraveling of a chain of events, and there is no stopping what is on its way. Narrated by a Greek chorus of neighbors, who see all and know all, they are nonetheless drawn into the vortex that the Whitmans create, and the scene is set for an explosion. Fowler writes a timely... (read more)
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Dorothy B Hughes
[isbn]
A WWII veteran with a dark secret winds up in California... will the law catch up with him before the body count rises? Hughes's terse, suspenseful style is marvelous. If you love classic noir or The Talented Mr. Ripley, you'll probably love this brief, gripping novel.
Recommended by Eva F.
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Jonathan Safran Foer
[isbn]
A thoughtful and urgent examination of climate change anxiety and how we can — and must — overcome it to take action.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Nabila Lovelace
[isbn]
In Sons of Achilles, Lovelace deals in inherited violence — that which is passed down from our families, our countries, our cultures, our lovers, our myths — a violence which threads itself through every facet of our lives. I am particularly drawn to the relationship between violence and intimacy in these poems, the expression of love as violence: What can it mean that even (or especially) love is expressed through violence? How do we... (read more)
Recommended by Darla M.
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Jericho Brown
[isbn]
I don't have words for how amazing this collection of poetry is, except to say that every word in it is a revelation. I read these poems again and again, and the best thing I can say is that it refreshed my heart and made me feel less alone, which is maybe the most important thing we can ask language to do.
Recommended by Tim B.
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Regina Porter
[isbn]
This book goes all over the place — Georgia, Germany, Coney Island, New Hampshire, France, and back again — looping around two families, black and white, across five decades. The result is a stunning novel that grabs hold of big questions and doesn't let go: What does it mean to be a family? Can you outrun the past, and should you try? Who gets to belong in this messed-up, beautiful country we call America?
Recommended by Tim B.
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Sarah Perry
[isbn]
Sarah Perry’s beautiful novels richly reward the patient reader. Her world building is lavish and precise; though her prose often tilts into poetry, her characters are crystalline, giving the writing a paradoxical quality that is both ornate and bare. This confusion between what is exposed and what only imagined drives the wonderfully creepy Melmoth, in which a fabled wanderer combs the world for human wickedness, doling out consolation... (read more)
Recommended by Rhianna W.
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Liane Moriarty
[isbn]
Nine strangers meet at a health spa in a remote part of Australia. Moriarty works her magic once again, with empathetic characterization, taut narrative, and heart-pounding suspense. Meet the washed-up romance novelist, the family of three, and the rest of this disparate group.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Chuck Palahniuk
[isbn]
Adjustment Day is the Palahniuk book that 2018 requires. A satire in his typical style, this book is disturbing, uncomfortable, and nearly impossible to put down. Comparisons to Fight Club are inevitable, but I stuck with Adjustment Day for its relevance to the current news cycle, and it didn't disappoint.
Recommended by Lucinda G.
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Stephen Markley
[isbn]
Stephen Markley’s remarkable debut novel, Ohio, is a Rust Belt tale of longing and loss, desperation and despair. With empathy and compassion, Markley chronicles the bottoming out of the so-called American Dream. It's a painful (yet beautifully written) story for our current age of widespread anxiety and anguish.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Carlos Ruiz Zafon
[isbn]
I loved this so much I carried all 848 pages both to and from NYC on a recent trip. It's the last of the series that started with The Shadow of the Wind, but it certainly stands alone as an epic, gripping read. Alicia Gris is a conflicted secret agent of the Franco regime sent back to her native Barcelona in search for a missing state official. Nothing is at it seems in the dark world of Franco's Spain. Alicia follows clues that lead her... (read more)
Recommended by Kathi K.
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Samantha Hunt, Maggie Nelson
[isbn]
Samantha Hunt's amazing first novel, The Seas, has been out of print for several years; I am so happy that Tin House has republished it in this gorgeous new edition, so that a whole new group of readers can enjoy Hunt's graceful, brilliant prose. The Seas is a beautiful and feverish tale of grief, love, and magic narrated by a possible mermaid. Hunt's unique voice and vision are intoxicating.
Recommended by Jill O.
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Paulina Flores
[isbn]
Paulina Flores’s debut is a remarkably accomplished collection that centers on the singular pain that comes with humiliation, despite the varied circumstances that lead to it. Flores skillfully varies voice and form, but the collection is unified and consistently engaging — exactly what I look for in a short story collection.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Mark Savage
[isbn]
This is a genre-bending novel featuring a narrator who attempts to review a series of movies that don't exist. What first begins with a series of academic footnotes about notable films throughout history becomes an obsessive journey into his mind and life, revealing a personal history that overwhelms and challenges the reviews themselves. This book will appeal to fans of Nabokov's Pale Fire, Jorge Luis Borges, film history and theory,... (read more)
Recommended by Ariel K.
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Jenny Hval
[isbn]
This is a wonderfully odd novella about a Norwegian exchange student who experiences a queer sexual awakening while studying in Australia. Full of psychedelic eroticism, lush descriptions that are gross yet elegant, and dreamlike sensuality that disorients just as it seduces, this psychologically twisted bildungsroman by musician Jenny Hval is an eerie romance that asks all the right questions.
Recommended by Ariel K.
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Maurizio Torchio, Anne Milano Appel
[isbn]
An unflinchingly difficult look at one man's life of crime, imprisonment, and finally, solitary confinement. Solitary is a deeply disturbing and complex exploration of the intersections between crime and punishment, and asks timely questions about the ethics and consequences of isolating human beings from each other. A challenging and rewarding read.
Recommended by Darla M.
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Elly Griffiths
[isbn]
Elly Griffiths writes a spooky ghost story and a chilling murder mystery tangled into one creepy novel. Set in a school on the moors of rural England, with a haunted mansion and plenty of intrigue, The Stranger Diaries is framed by a sinister horror story, and absolutely every character is hiding something. Peppered throughout with literary references and — surprisingly — some spot-on humor, this is the brilliant gothic/ghost/school... (read more)
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Aislinn Hunter
[isbn]
The World Before Us is a complex story about the disappearances of a young woman and a small girl into the same forest over 100 years apart. Based partially on an actual event involving Alfred Lord Tennyson, and narrated effectively by a chorus of dead inmates from a long-defunct local lunatic asylum, this novel deftly examines memory, social status, mental illness, self, and human nature. Trying desperately to understand what has... (read more)
Recommended by Dianah H.
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James Baldwin
[isbn]
Wow, Giovanni's Room really ripped my heart out — and I loved every minute of it! Baldwin's distinctly American story is set in Paris, and the "most romantic city in the world" is an effective backdrop for this devastating exploration of repressed sexuality and squandered love, an exploration that is inspiring in its honest representation of American masculinity, bisexuality, and what's at stake in the battle between fear and love.
Recommended by Darla M.
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Mark Dunn
[isbn]
A series of letters between family members in times when language and
alphabet usage is restricted and punishable by banishment.As the letters of
the alphabet are banned, the author stops using them while still telling a
wonderful tale.
Recommended by Angelo R.
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Cynthia Hand and Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows
[isbn]
My favorite retelling of Jane Eyre! In My Plain Jane, Charlotte Brontë goes to school with Jane, there are ghosts (and a pre-Victorian Ghostbusters-esque society), and Jane's best friend is a dead girl who gives snarky, feminist critiques of Rochester's somewhat problematic approach to romance. This dynamic trio of authors — Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows — brilliantly handles this beloved classic with... (read more)
Recommended by Joanna S.
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Emily Kendal Frey
[isbn]
There are few books I return to as frequently as I do Sorrow Arrow. It's the kind of book you pick up when you want to read a single page or even a single line to carry you through the day, but it's also the kind of book that, once you've picked it up, you're likely to read cover to cover in one sitting. Frey's lines are sharp as the titular arrow — they lodge themselves deep, and while yes, some of them are likely to bring the sharp... (read more)
Recommended by Darla M.
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Magda Szabo
[isbn]
The Door is an astonishing novel. It left me speechless, reeling, heart between my teeth. Szabo's characters are so real, so lived in, so particular and surprising in the way that everyone is particular and surprising, if only we had the time and the perceptive capacities to see each other clearly, wholly, without judgement or fear. Her story is truly unlike anything I've read. If I were the kind of person to throw around words like... (read more)
Recommended by Darla M.
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Joy Williams
[isbn]
Strange, haunting, esoteric, unlike anything I've read before or since — Williams is a gem, and Changeling is not to be overlooked.
Recommended by Darla M.
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Mary Ruefle
[isbn]
I came late to Mary Ruefle's poetry, influenced by her many passionate admirers among the Powell's staff. Her language is at times unadorned, somewhat like W. S. Merwin's, filled with grace, revelatory juxtapositions, and the beauty of the natural world. If you haven't yet read her, let the extraordinary Dunce, her 19th collection, be your starting point as well.
Recommended by Jill O.
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Sharon Olds
[isbn]
Sharon Olds is one of the most prestigious and critically acclaimed living American poets today, and her latest collection (her 15th!), Arias, contains some of her strongest, most distinct verse to date. Ranging in subject from birth to the modern TV to language itself, Olds illuminates the universal through the particular.
Recommended by Lucinda G.
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Zadie Smith
[isbn]
The first short story collection from master novelist Zadie Smith is an assemblage of brief but potent vignettes, ranging from aimless Spanish resort holidays to uncomfortable Manhattan lingerie shopping, that all offer reflections on identity in changing times.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Leigh Bardugo
[isbn]
Leigh Bardugo’s adult debut is an immersive, heart-pounding, brain-twisting read set in an alternate New Haven. Alex Stern’s connection to Yale’s secret societies may be more dangerous than she bargained for. Drenched in magic and darkness, this world will clench you between its bony fingers until the end.
Recommended by Mary Jo S.
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Karen Thompson Walker
[isbn]
In a California college town, a young woman falls into a deep sleep and won’t wake up. This sleeping sickness spreads to more and more people until the town is quarantined. The Dreamers is eerie, beautifully written, and the pacing is spot-on. This book absolutely captivated me.
Recommended by Jennifer H.
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Jenny Slate
[isbn]
There couldn’t be a more perfect title for this book. These tiny and delightfully bizarre essays are an intimate look into Jenny Slate’s inner life. They’re whimsical, hilarious, insightful, and with their short length, you can’t help but speed through them. This book will give you some chuckles, but also all the feels.
Recommended by Lucinda G.
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Elizabeth Strout
[isbn]
Elizabeth Strout continues the fascinating story of Olive Kitteridge in Olive, Again. Strout's unforgettable character is older now, though just as blunt and unapologetic. In this follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Strout's incisive portrayals of Olive and the other townspeople of Crosby, Maine, shine.
Recommended by Lucinda G.
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Margaret Atwood
[isbn]
In The Testaments, Atwood finally explores what happened after Offred was trundled into a van by... well, for 34 years it's been a mystery. Undoubtedly the literary event of 2019, The Testaments is a feminist masterpiece by speculative fiction’s grand dame.
Recommended by Moses M.
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Ursula K Le Guin
[isbn]
Other Wind is such an amazing finale to a series that is close to my heart. Everything ties together, but not in a way that you would expect. The journeys you began with these characters are ending, but there are also new journeys beginning that are left to your imagination.
Recommended by Rin S.
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Carmen Maria Machado
[isbn]
Carmen Maria Machado’s beautiful, fearless memoir, In The Dream House, spins her memories in a centrifuge and examines the constituent parts. By divvying the tale into tiny, delicate fragments, Machado makes the emotional pain more vivid while also putting the reader in the same removed, dissociative viewpoint that trauma victims often experience. This is one of the smartest and most moving books of the year.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Dexter Palmer
[isbn]
Dexter Palmer digs up an old gem of a story from 1700s England and puts his particular touch to this tale based on the real-life account of Mary Toft, a wife and field laborer who appeared to give birth to several dead rabbits. Doctors of the era were at first horrified and confused, then wondered if they were witness to a miracle, then later, despite actually delivering rabbit parts from Toft, were doubtful and suspicious. They called in more... (read more)
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Vigdis Hjorth, Charlotte Barslund
[isbn]
An unblinking exposé wrapped in a familial thriller, Will and Testament details a delicate latticework of unacknowledged wrongdoing and razor-wire resentment. It's like Clouzot's The Wages of Fear with "cabin valuations" in place of the nitroglycerin.
Recommended by Justin W.
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Chris Ware
[isbn]
Chris Ware takes the ordinary lives we all live, weaves them together, makes them small and big. His art and his story are one complex yet clear story. Ware is a master of cartooning and storytelling, and Rusty Brown is a masterpiece.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Paul Tremblay
[isbn]
There might be five pages that aren't suspenseful in The Cabin at the End of the World, and that's only if you don't read the synopsis. Tremblay will draw you in beginning with a friendly stranger stopping by to chat with a little girl playing in her front yard, and it won't end until the final page. Be prepared to stay up past your bedtime.
Recommended by Jeffrey J.
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Christine Angot, Tess Lewis
[isbn]
Angot's Incest is one of the strangest and most disturbing books that I've read, and also one of the most effective. It confronts the long-lasting emotional impacts of sexual abuse, and it is not for the faint of heart — the narrator's descent into a devastating trauma loop is difficult to witness. A reminder that the most destructive people are often the most destroyed, this book was a crash-course in empathy — I didn't know if I could... (read more)
Recommended by Darla M.
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Solmaz Sharif
[isbn]
In Look, Solmaz Sharif rewrites the military dictionary to investigate the ways that language may be appropriated and changed, the way definition can be used to obscure meaning rather than to illuminate. One of the most powerfully intelligent and formally fascinating books of poetry I've read, Sharif's debut collection is urgent, asking us to care for the language we use, reminding us that words matter, have consequences, and that it is... (read more)
Recommended by Darla M.
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Patti Smith
[isbn]
I'm not the type to underline passages, but this book tested my resolve. A poetic, ruminative dream of a book, Year of the Monkey chronicles a difficult year in a mesmerizing and unpredictable way. Everything Smith writes feels like a gift, and this is no exception.
Recommended by Tove H.
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Sayaka Murata and Ginny Tapley Takemori
[isbn]
Keiko just wants to fit in. Willing to do, literally, anything to please the people around her, Keiko stops two boys from fighting by hitting one over the head with a spade. She soon finds herself a childhood pariah among her peers and elders alike. To redeem herself, as an adult, Keiko gets a job at Smile Mart — and quickly assimilates all of the rules, embraces the expectations, and finds her place in society.
Convenience... (read more)
Recommended by John K.
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Jp Delaney
[isbn]
Wow! The Perfect Wife hooked me right from the start! Fascinating and suspenseful
throughout, this is a must-read. Super awesome and brilliant!
Recommended by Adrienne C.
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Kate Zambreno
[isbn]
Zambreno's book belongs, in my mind, to a growing collection of memoirs that mourn the loss of complicated, fully human mothers via fragment, memory and meditation, borrowed voices — if you've read and liked Mothers by Rachel Zucker, or Mother Winter by Sofia Shalmiyev, you'd do well to pick Book of Mutter up next.
Recommended by Darla M.
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Paul Auster
[isbn]
When you finish 4 3 2 1 you'll be able to say you've finished four novels. Auster's novel follows Archibald Isaac Ferguson through four different lives that alter based on little differences from the first chapters. It's an extremely inventive and compelling piece of work. For readers who have ever looked back at their lives and thought, "I wonder what my life would be like if X hadn't happened," Auster has the answer.
Recommended by Jeffrey J.
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Jeff Guinn
[isbn]
Guinn's biography of one of the most famous mass murderers in history brings you into the details of Charlie Manson's life. The guy was good friends with the Beach Boys' drummer Dennis Wilson and had big aspirations to not only hide out in the desert while American erupted into another civil war, but also get a recording contract to make him big and famous. Guinn's writing left me looking forward to each chapter and got me up to speed on a story... (read more)
Recommended by Jeffrey J.
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Tom Spanbauer
[isbn]
"It's the responsibility of the survivor to tell the story."
The weight of this responsibility is taken seriously in Tom Spanbauer's tragic novel In the City of Shy Hunters. Following the central character Will as he navigates New York City at the height of the AIDS crisis in the late '80s and early '90s, readers will experience the devastation the disease wreaked on the gay population. It is a crushing tale of friendship, love, and... (read more)
Recommended by Alex Y.
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Tillie Walden
[isbn]
Mia works on a six-person restoration crew in outer space. As she reconstructs beautiful ruins throughout the galaxy, her memories simultaneously reassemble, revealing a tragic, tender love story. Triumphantly queer, heartwarming, and stunningly illustrated, Walden's masterful space epic has secured its place on my favorites shelf!
Recommended by Caroline M.
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George Eliot
[isbn]
This perfectly rendered classic tells the tale of a miserly tailor who loses all his money, but gains something much more precious. A great story with moral dilemmas, ironic twists, and insight into human nature at its best and its very worst. Gorgeous.
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Brian Doyle
[isbn]
I came across a question in a book group on social media the other day: If you were stranded on a desert island, which author's work would you wish you had? The answer bubbled up immediately for me, but I wasn't surprised: Brian Doyle. Has ever a human written such a glorious body of work? His ability to capture the human condition, with the enormous spectrum of emotions we all feel, is almost otherworldly. While you sit in awe of that talent,... (read more)
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Isabella Hammad
[isbn]
This beautiful debut novel may be my favorite this year! It tells the story of Palestine's changes in WWI through the life of the cosmopolitan Midhat Kamal. Language lovers, take note! French and Arabic are abundant in the text and layer an already sweeping story with rich imagery.
Recommended by Ruth J.
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Mady G. and J.R. Zuckerberg
[isbn]
This brief comic uses whimsical illustrations paired with straightforward text to introduce folks to queer and trans identities and to further educate others who may be questioning or looking to learn more about the queer community. If you're looking for resources to share with peers or loved ones that address these topics, this book serves as a perfect and accessible first choice.
Recommended by Haley B.
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Philip Roth
[isbn]
At a New England college, an elderly classics professor lets slip a comment that is taken for, but not meant as, a racial slur. What happens next changes his life and reveals the carefully hidden past he's taken great pains to conceal. Exploring themes of racism, family, deceit, and shame, this is an amazing book, and it made me fall in love with Roth!
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Nona Fernández
[isbn]
A brief but potent look at how the memories and confusions of childhood are intensified by life under dictatorship, when unreality is imposed by the state.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Zadie Smith
[isbn]
A snapshot of the multitudes of experience in 1970s London. White Teeth won Zadie Smith the Guardian First Book Award, the Betty Trask Award, and others. This is also Smith's debut novel.
Recommended by Alex Y.
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Yoko Tawada, Susan Bernofsky
[isbn]
Memoirs of a Polar Bear is such a strange, enchanting book. Told from the point of view of three different generations of polar bears, it is both a work of magic and a poignant look at parenting and abandonment, and all the ways those terms can be complicated.
Recommended by Darla M.
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Diana Khoi Nguyen
[isbn]
Nguyen's poems aren't just ABOUT grief — they embody it in every line break, in every disruption of white space, in the way words and images repeat themselves — taking on different nuances and shapes, echoing themselves, shape-shifting. Since I first read it, Ghost Of has never been far from my thoughts — it's haunted and haunting, driven by sound and the absence of sound, painfully human and painstakingly constructed.
Recommended by Darla M.
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Madeline Miller
[isbn]
I devoured this book in two sittings and then immediately began rereading it: it's that good! Immersive, imaginative, tragic, and gorgeously written — Madeline Miller's novel makes you wish you never had to leave the world between its pages.
Recommended by Darla M.
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André Aciman
[isbn]
Aciman returns to many of the characters in Call Me By Your Name, now 20 years older, as new relationships are formed and old ones are still honored. Like its predecessor, Find Me is a beautifully written reflection on discovering new love, but like its characters, this book is more reflective and wiser. This magnificent novel was a wonderful and unexpected gift.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Juan Jose Millas, Thomas Bunstead, Daniel Hahn
[isbn]
A compellingly weird reflection on identity and alienation, From the Shadows follows Damien, the talk show host in his head, and the family he gets unexpectedly close to. Slightly absurd and often uncomfortable, this is a different kind of ghost story.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Anne Carson
[isbn]
The obsession with the Trojan War and the events leading up to it have inspired countless works of art, but in Oresteia readers experience the brutal aftermath of it. Anne Carson's way with words, and her talent for translating Greek in an accessible manner, allow both knowledgeable and fresh readers to see how the epic war concluded.
Recommended by Alex Y.
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Selva Almada
[isbn]
Selva Almada has written a dust-blown parable as lean and affecting as anything this side of Flannery O'Connor. Steeped in the competing ideologies of two headstrong fathers, The Wind That Lays Waste offers insightful meditations on faith, compassion, autonomy, and loss. A spare novel that hits with all the penetrating force of a lightning strike.
Recommended by Justin W.
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Mark Haber
[isbn]
A powder keg romp booming with quixotic elan, Reinhardt's Garden combines foolhardy hubris with slapstick adventure in pursuit of an elusive, and highly dubious, fount of melancholic enlightenment. Without so much as a paragraph break to impede its blistering inertia, Haber's novel slaloms through switchback turns and juddering topography while spouting a relentless stream of wild-eyed bluster. Irresistible, intricate, and wickedly... (read more)
Recommended by Justin W.
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Jack Black, William S Burroughs, Joe Coleman
[isbn]
Jack Black rode the rails up and down the west coast, living a life of crime and freedom. If you love On the Road and turn-of-the-century Americana, try this entertaining memoir. It inspired William S. Burroughs and many of the Beat generation and is an amazing firsthand account of a long-gone era.
Recommended by Eva F.
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Benjamin Moser
[isbn]
Benjamin Moser's extraordinary biography of Susan Sontag is a great gift to her many fans, and a wonderful introduction to those who might not know her work. Sontag: Her Life and Work is a remarkably thorough and utterly compelling portrait of one of the most important literary icons of the 20th century, and a necessary and intelligent companion to her work.
Recommended by Jill O.
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Jacqueline Woodson
[isbn]
Red at the Bone tells the story of a multigenerational Brooklyn family. Told from alternating viewpoints and various timelines, we learn about each family member and how their lives came together. Woodson’s writing is spectacular, packing so much detail and emotion into each short chapter.
Recommended by Jennifer H.
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Stephen King
[isbn]
Last summer's The Outsider was one of Stephen King's best books in years, and this summer's The Institute proves that King is again writing some of his best work. With echoes of Firestarter, Carrie, and It, The Institute includes some of King's strongest ingredients — kids with telekinetic and telepathic powers, government conspiracy, and a showdown between good and evil elements in the world... (read more)
Recommended by Lucinda G.
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Erin Morgenstern
[isbn]
This is a love story, but it's not the love story you think it might be. Sure, two people fall in love, and their stories are interwoven with other love stories in other times and places. But, ultimately, this book is a love story about stories; about the pull and draw of those stories that stick with you across time and space. About those who keep the stories safe, and those who want to keep the stories hidden, and those who want to share the... (read more)
Recommended by Deana R.
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Shari Lapena
[isbn]
I loved The Couple Next Door, so I was excited to read Shari Lapena's new book. Someone We Know is a delicious domestic thriller, fast-paced and filled with lies,
secrets, suspicion, and gossip. So much fun! I really enjoyed this compelling, twisty, and highly entertaining mystery!
Recommended by Adrienne C.
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Carl Phillips
[isbn]
These poems are syntactically slippery; they digress, they double back, they split off in opposite directions, they turn to face themselves, they shimmer, they plunge. Phillips reminds me what I love best about poetry — the tending to mystery, which is at once a task of prolonged attention and also of turning away. These poems ache to the rhythms of love and loneliness, to happiness that is tinged by sadness, to questions that only become more... (read more)
Recommended by Darla M.
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Craig Russell
[isbn]
Are you brave enough to read this novel of intense crime and horror?
In 1935, outside of Prague, is a castle that houses an asylum for the criminally insane.
With only six inmates, Dr. Kosarek desires to find the Devil Aspect.
At the same time, a serial killer stalks Prague.
A macabre and Gothic tale. Chilling!
Recommended by Adrienne C.
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Sean Grigsby
[isbn]
Cole Brannigan and Tamerica Williams are back in the explosive (yes, I went there) follow-up to the super fun shenanigans of Smoke Eaters. With a crazed cult, new dragons, and a flaming phoenix... lives are definitely on the line. Read it and weep.
Recommended by Mecca A.
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Sarah Maclean
[isbn]
The Bareknuckle Bastards are back with Whit "Beast" at the helm alongside the incomparable, curvaceous Hattie Sedley. Full of intrigue, witty banter, and sizzling chemistry (with a few naughty nautical knots thrown in for fun). The Year of Hattie is here and she's taking no prisoners in her quest to rule her world.
Recommended by Mecca A.
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Virginia Woolf
[isbn]
Anyone who's read and loved Woolf's more popular work would be remiss not to seek out The Waves, and anyone who has yet to discover her work would do well to start with this highly poetic and wonderfully experimental novel told from various points of view over the course of its characters' lives. If you're the kind of reader who has to underline beautiful sentences, you might want to sharpen your pencil — you'll be savoring paragraph... (read more)
Recommended by Darla M.
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Bjorn Rasmussen
[isbn]
Pocked with unnerving tableaux, distinctly sensory depictions, and a heady admixture of shame-fueled desire, Bjørn Rasmussen's The Skin Is the Elastic Covering That Encases the Entire Body is no less than an innocence-obliterating maelstrom of illicit eroticism. A jumbled reckoning with abuse that's as otherworldly as it is intensely corporeal.
Recommended by Justin W.
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Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
[isbn]
This gorgeous sci-fi novella — which follows two women who are rival agents in a war across timelines — is brilliant, heart-wrenching, intense, and, at its core, deeply romantic. The prose is so beautiful that I found myself snapping my fingers like I was at a poetry reading. An immediate favorite.
Recommended by Joanna S.
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Claire Louise Bennett
[isbn]
Few books have shaped my sense of what fiction can be so simply and radically as Bennett's Pond. Quiet yet bold, meditative and strange, sometimes fracturing into poetry, other times lingering long in prose that is driven by interiority, specificity, and a highly self-conscious syntax — I come to this book over and over again to remember that there is nothing more strange or surprising than the ordinary — if one is paying attention.
Recommended by Darla M.
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Andromeda Romano Lax
[isbn]
Speculative sci-fi, historical fiction, and an unconventional romance combine to form an emotionally satisfying story. This book is a joy that defies genre and should just be shelved under “terrific book."
Recommended by Bill L.
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Rick Remender
[isbn]
This is an excellent cyberpunk story. It follows two hit men, one addicted to technology/drugs and the other desperately trying to clean him up. The social commentary kind of slaps you in the face. I love the technology vs. nature theme as well. The story is a blend of Mad Max and Blade Runner, with a dash of Akira thrown in for good measure. And the art absolutely blew me away. Intense and tragic. Love it.
Recommended by Rose H.
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Dorota Maslowska
[isbn]
Maslowska's latest is a sucrose-loaded simulacrum for the American monoculture, recklessly scrambling barbed sarcasm with irreverent sight gags to stupendous effect. A knives-out dissection of aesthetic vulgarity that refuses to be calmed, corralled, or otherwise contained. Honey, I Killed the Cats is delightfully demented fun.
Recommended by Justin W.
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Stephane Larue, Pablo Strauss
[isbn]
The Dishwasher is a gruff-yet-affable working class lament, seasoned with hangdog determination and bleary verisimilitude. From the slop sinks to the shooting galleries of a painstakingly rendered Montreal, Larue proves himself a more than adept raconteur of blackout debauchery and wage labor drudgery. Think Nelson Algren by way of Bud Smith, such is the hardscrabble exactitude on offer in this wincing grin of a novel.
Recommended by Justin W.
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Kaveh Akbar
[isbn]
This slim volume of poems contains a glimmering galaxy of feelings: Kaveh Akbar chronicles the awfulness of addiction alongside experiences of benevolence, gratitude, and joy. These poems are oriented always in the direction of wonder, curiosity, and bewilderment: be it toward god, the violence and tenacity of the natural world, addiction, the quietly beautiful moments of daily life, or language itself, which becomes a kind of lifeline. Akbar's... (read more)
Recommended by Darla M.
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Felicity McLean
[isbn]
The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone is a languidly told novel set in a sizzling long hot Australian summer, as Tikka, her sister, and their neighbor friends spend their time together.
Yet, like multi-layered onion skin, there is hidden subterfuge. Intriguing and atmospheric.
Recommended by Adrienne C.
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Kimberly King Parsons
[isbn]
In Black Light, Parsons mines the dingy side of life: the messy, the worn, the dirty. These stories are populated with the poor, the addicted, the liars, the wounded, the cheaters. Parsons deftly strings together this handful of compelling stories out of that muck of darkness. I blasted through this book in an evening, mesmerized by her stark stories, her hapless characters, the muddied insight into pallid lives, the feeble hope for... (read more)
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Iain Reid
[isbn]
After being blown away by Iain Reid's Foe, I picked up I'm Thinking of Ending Things — wow, smart move! He's mostly a nonfiction writer, but, man, this guy can write the hell out of fiction. This story starts with Jake and his girlfriend taking a long drive out to the country to have dinner with Jake's parents. She's having doubts about the relationship, but sticking with it for now. So far so good, but hang on... this thing... (read more)
Recommended by Dianah H.
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Shintaro Kago
[isbn]
Imagine if horror manga master Junji Ito took psychedelics and then attempted to write erotica. That's basically everything Shintaro Kago does, and it's glorious.
Recommended by Cosima C.
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David R Dow
[isbn]
I went into this book expecting a violent story of revenge — and that would have been fine with me — but instead I got an incredibly tender and affecting portrait of a man failed both by the judicial system and by himself. I loved Rafa despite his flaws (and they're big ones), and that's something I really value in a character.
Recommended by Emily F.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates
[isbn]
The best nonfiction writer of our generation makes his fiction debut with this intricately constructed novel about slavery in America. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s voice is distinctive and powerful, and this book is one to cherish. For fans of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black.
Recommended by Mary S.
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Javier Marias
[isbn]
I flew through Marias's newest book in a matter of days, losing myself in a world European intrigue. Marias writes long, beautiful sentences, and in doing so, shows the complications of relationships both personal and political.
Recommended by Adam P.
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Hanif Abdurraqib
[isbn]
Hanif Abdurraqib’s unflinching and unabashed new poetry collection is a deeply personal work of grief, sorrow, loss, self-reflection, remembrance, violence, love, and death. Gritty and graceful, piercing and profound, A Fortune for Your Disaster connects the forgotten and the unforgettable — stirring your heart almost as easily as it breaks it.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Cathy Ulrich
[isbn]
"The thing about being the murdered [fill in the blank] is that you set the plot in motion." With that statement, these tiny bits of flash fiction flesh out the murdered female and how her absence — as opposed to her presence — affects those around her. The importance of a book like this during this particular time in history is not lost on this reader, and Ulrich digs deep to expose and underscore the disposability of women; the way our lives... (read more)
Recommended by Dianah H.
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