Andrés Neuman
[isbn]
Across 66 vignette-like chapters, Andrés Neuman’s Bariloche tells the story of Buenos Aires garbage collector Demetrio Rota. With melancholic beauty and his trademark emotional depth, Neuman chronicles Rota’s life, alighting on moments past and present, memories bucolic and brutal, to offer a stirring, rich portrait of an individual life awash in loneliness and hauling around so many discarded dreams. Matching the novel’s mournfulness is... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Chris Hedges
[isbn]
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Presbyterian minister Chris Hedges is as trenchant a writer as his writing is urgent. A sobering portrait of a nation in swift decline, America: The Farewell Tour is an incisive work equally devastating and disturbing. A failing health care system, the opioid crisis, debt servitude, the resurgence of hate groups, a for-profit carceral state, prostitution and sex trafficking, the decline of union... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Jeff Chang
[isbn]
Journalist, historian, and music critic (and cofounder of one of the greatest hip-hop labels of all time!) Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop is a sweeping cultural, political, and musical history of hip-hop (now the globe’s most lucrative genre). Spanning over three decades from its humble beginnings to the start of the new millennium, Chang’s comprehensive account of hip-hop culture has become its definitive text. As much a... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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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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Max Besora
[isbn]
With the sort of ribaldry and salacity that would have made even de Sade blush, Max Besora’s The Adventures and Misadventures of the Extraordinary and Admirable Joan Orpí, Conquistador and Founder of New Catalonia, is, by far, the most hilarious book I’ve read in years. A quasi-historical, self-referential picaresque tale, Besora’s novel of unbridled imagination brims with bawdiness, jokes, witticisms, entendres, lampoons, send-ups,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Kaouther Adimi and Chris Andrews
[isbn]
Kaouther Adimi's Our Riches (translated from the French by Chris Andrews) is the story of Edmond Charlot, Algerian publisher and bookshop owner (credited with discovering a young Albert Camus). Based on historical fact, Adimi's charming novel spans some 80 years and is a tale of struggle, politics, community, culture, independence, and, maybe above all, the love, promise, and enduring nature of all things bookish. Thoughtful and... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Andres Barba and Lisa Dillman
[isbn]
A Luminous Republic (translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman) is the fifth of Andrés Barba’s books rendered into English — and is quite nearly flawless. Recipient of the prestigious Premio Herralde, Barba’s new novel is a tense, foreboding, and unforgettable work. The unease and dread that so characterized his previous book, Such Small Hands, is even more abundant, making A Luminous Republic easily his finest outing... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Ha Seong-nan and Janet Hong
[isbn]
The new collection of short stories from Korean author Ha Seong-nan, Bluebeard's First Wife (translated from the Korean by Janet Hong), delights and disquiets as much as its exceptional predecessor, Flowers of Mold. Featuring 11 new stories, Ha again offers a selection of short fiction where things are frequently more ominous than they first appear. With their seedy underbellies, a readerly presumption of intentions dastardly... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Julian Herbert and Christina MacSweeney
[isbn]
The 10 stories in Mexican author Julián Herbert’s new collection, Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino (translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney), offer a hearty/heady dose of narcoviolence, sex, and an almost absurdist imagination. Herbert’s strong prose, acerbic wit, and unflinching foray into peripheries funny, fantastical, and ferocious, mirror the darkness of a world increasingly out of control. A must-read for fans of... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Fernanda Melchor and Sophie Hughes
[isbn]
Fernanda Melchor's English debut, Hurricane Season (translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes), was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. Written with unflinching ferocity and propulsive prose, Hurricane Season is an unrelenting torrent of violence, barbarity, recrimination, sex, greed, trauma, corruption, neglect, fear, lust, deceit, baseness, and... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Sara Mesa and Katie Whittemore
[isbn]
A dark, foreboding novel of shadow, insinuation, and institutional depravity, Sara Mesa’s Four by Four (translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore) is the tale of fictional Wybrany College, where the progeny of both the well-to-do and the needy comingle — and where everything seems just ever so slightly off. With its eerie tableaus, perfect pacing, and suspenseful storytelling arc, Mesa’s story is at once deeply unsettling... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Marie NDiaye and Jordan Stump
[isbn]
The underlying sinisterism that pervades nearly all of Marie NDiaye's fiction is absolutely irresistible. Set in a provincial town well outside of Paris, That Time of Year (translated from the French by Jordan Stump) is the story of Parisian math teacher Herman, whose wife and child go missing during their final days of summer holiday. Are the townsfolk messing with him on purpose? Are they all involved in some malevolent plot? Why does... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Pilar Quintana and Lisa Dillman
[isbn]
Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature, Colombian writer Pilar Quintana's The Bitch (translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman) is a taut, terse tale of guilt, shame, and frustrated desire. Quintana’s slim, yet powerful story is sparse on the prose, yet plentiful in its impact. As violence and brutality abound, The Bitch lays bare the precipitous emotional and existential toll accumulated... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Mónica Ramón Ríos and Robin Myers
[isbn]
An eclectic, sensational collection of short fiction, Chilean author Mónica Ramón Ríos's Cars on Fire (translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers) is suffused with death and violence and writerly lives and perspectives askew. There is a tantalizing charm to Ríos's writing, as well as a focus on the marginalized and maligned, offering recompense to those so often forsaken and rejected (or worse).
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Wa Thiongo Ngugi
[isbn]
Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong'o's new novel, The Perfect Nine, is a dazzling retelling of the Gĩkũyũ origin myth (Kenya's largest ethnic group), interpreted and translated into English by Ngugi wa Thiong'o' himself. An exuberant epic entwining storytelling-in-verse and edifying mythology, The Perfect Nine is an action-packed, adventurous fable abounding with joy and wisdom. Rich, memorable, and magnificently composed, Ngugi... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Yu Miri
[isbn]
A doleful, ethereal, even diaphanous tale of the forgotten and forlorn, Yu Miri's Tokyo Ueno Station (translated from the Japanese by Morgan Giles) — a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature — conjures considerations of class, loss, memory, history, and societal indifference. Kazu has already shuffled off this mortal coil, but he must, even in death, endure more suffering still (after losing his career, his... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Robert MacFarlane
[isbn]
With poetic command of language, keen observational gifts, and worldly perspective, Robert Macfarlane seamlessly blends scientific inquiry, nature writing, travelogue, adventure tale, reportage, history, and requiem for our Anthropocenic age. Perceptive, reflective, and educative, Underland is unequivocally one of the year's must-read books; it is a masterful, magnificent work.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Maxwell King
[isbn]
Maxwell King’s The Good Neighbor is a comprehensive biography of Fred Rogers, the beloved host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. King paints a vivid portrait of a man who was dedicated to embodying and exemplifying the very ideals he strove to instill in others — especially children.
Recommended by Jeremy 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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Terry Tempest Williams
[isbn]
Activist, nature writer, and conservationist Terry Tempest Williams
is also an American treasure. In Erosion:
Essays of Undoing, Williams balances empathy and outrage, anger and
forgiveness, beauty and loss, hope and despair. Williams is a magnificent
writer and Erosion is simultaneously
a salvo and salve for our disquieting Anthropocenic age.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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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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Don Berry
[isbn]
Set along the northern Oregon coast range in the late 1840s, Don Berry’s 1960 landmark novel, Trask, was inspired by the life of settler, mountain man, and fur trapper Elbridge Trask (for whom both a river and a mountain are named here in the Beaver State). Compelling and adventurous, the story follows the titular character as he tries to become the first white man to settle in Tillamook Bay. Along the arduous journey, he and his guide... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Michael Pollan
[isbn]
As captivating and wholly engaging as each of his previous books, Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind explores the intriguing history of psychedelics and the remarkable promise they currently show in treating a variety of medical and psychological maladies, including PTSD and depression.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Sjon, Victoria Cribb
[isbn]
Comingling the past and the present (while presaging the future), the sacred and the profane, the concrete and the abstract, Sjón's CoDex 1962 is as ambitious a work as it is an enveloping one. Combining several genres, CoDex 1962 incorporates (as most of Sjón’s fiction seems to do) Icelandic mythology and folklore, creation stories, historical accounts, autobiographical elements, and more. Between Sjón’s rich atmospherics,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Rodrigo Fresan, Will Vanderhyden
[isbn]
The Bottom of the Sky is the third of Rodrigo Fresán's novels to appear in English (and the first since his Best Translated Book Award-winning The Invented Part). "Not a novel of science fiction," but instead "a novel with science fiction," The Bottom of the Sky is an exuberant story transcending both space and time. Paying homage to the sci-fi greats, Fresán's ambitious tale is, at once, a love story,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Rodrigo Fresan, Will Vanderhyden
[isbn]
From the 16 epigraphs that open Rodrigo Fresán’s astonishingly ambitious novel through its 550 pages of how-the-hell-could-a-mere-mortal-possibly-compose-something-this-magnificent, The Invented Part spans the scope of our hypertechnical age, sending up and taking down so much of our contemporary world. Fresán masterfully weaves so many pop culture threads (most notably F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pink Floyd, and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Chris Hedges
[isbn]
Chris Hedges is one of our most incisive, trenchant thinkers and writers. In his now-classic first book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, the former war correspondent (and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist) offers an unflinching portrait of armed conflict’s seductive — and ultimately destructive — allure to soldier and society alike. Blending history, reportage, philosophy, personal accounts, and literary allusions, Hedges makes a... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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James Comey
[isbn]
In his much-anticipated book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, former FBI Director James Comey recounts first-hand experiences from over 20 years in public service, offering a timely, necessary reckoning of effective leadership. Lordy, there’s even an audiobook version (read by Comey himself)!
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Mychal Denzel Smith
[isbn]
The debut book from Knobler Fellow and Nation writer Mychal Denzel Smith, Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, is a personal and political coming-of-age that melds candid detail with trenchant analysis. Taking its title from a Mos Def lyric, Smith's book shares a revealing and self-aware recap of his development as a young black millennial and budding wordsmith. Confronting his own assumptions (about a variety of... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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David Banis and Hunter Shobe
[isbn]
A remarkable, visually stunning collection of infographic maps that allow an unparalleled view of the Rose City, Portlandness is an impressive accomplishment offering indispensable insight into our beloved city. Go ahead, take a look — it may well be the perfect gift for everyone on your list!
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Michael Chabon
[isbn]
From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon comes Pops, a personal, intimate collection of essays on fatherhood. With his trademark gorgeous prose and insightful, tender observations, Chabon muses, often humorously, upon individuality and weirdness, feminism, teenage coolness, and more.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Roberto Bolaño
[isbn]
Completed in 2003 shortly before his death, 2666 is not only Roberto Bolaño's masterpiece but also one of the finest and most important novels of the 21st century. It's an entire world unto itself, one — not unlike our own — filled with horror, neglect, depravity, brilliance, and beauty. Epic in scope and epitomizing the "total novel," 2666 fuses many different genres and styles to create a singular and unforgettable work of... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Carlo Rovelli
[isbn]
Much as he did previously in Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, in his new book, The Order of Time, theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli beautifully distills the most complex of subjects (time!) into a lyrical, edifying work of curiosity, profundity, and inspired wonder.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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George Saunders
[isbn]
With hilarity, ribaldry, and some very poignant moments of tenderness, George Saunders tells a wondrous tale of love, loss, longing, and time — raising important questions of both mortality and morality while mesmerizing the reader with an absorbing mix of trademark wit, spirited dialogue, and impressive technique.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Denis Johnson
[isbn]
Denis Johnson's posthumous story collection, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden, is a fitting coda to an accomplished career. Shaded by a wash of resignation or hard-won wisdom, a sense of wonder weaves its way through these five magnificent, unforgettable stories. RIP.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Lorraine Hansberry
[isbn]
Best known for her award-winning 1959 stage drama, A Raisin in the Sun, playwright Lorraine Hansberry was also an activist for civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, fair housing, and peace (and dear friends with both Nina Simone and James Baldwin). Though she passed away at the age of 34 from pancreatic cancer, Hansberry’s literary legacy looms large. Published posthumously, Hansberry’s To Be Young, Gifted and Black features... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Andres Barba, Lisa Dillman (Translator)
[isbn]
Such Small Hands is the third of Andrés Barba's books to be translated into English and may well be the best one yet. Slim, yet remarkably taut, the Spanish author’s novella murmurs with increasing dread and unease. Following a car accident which claims the lives of her parents, seven-year-old Marina is sent to an orphanage where her once-privileged life contrasts sharply with those of her fellow orphans. Marina invents a nocturnal game... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Carlo Rovelli
[isbn]
True to its title, Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons on Physics offers a septet of introductory teachings into the mysteries of physics. "Written for those who know little or nothing about modern science," Rovelli offers cursory explanations of relativity ("the most beautiful of theories"), quantum mechanics, the cosmos, elementary particles, quantum gravity, and black holes. While likely well-familiar to anyone with even a passing... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Geoff Manaugh
[isbn]
In his wholly engaging foray into urban spatial crimes, A Burglar's Guide to the City, BLDGBLOG author Geoff Manaugh offers a close-up look into the often-unseen connection between architecture and burglary. Covering a wide range of subjects related to burglary, including (in)famous crimes, getaways, risk factors, evasion techniques, architectural design, security, historical precedents, legal definitions, and tools of the trade, Manaugh... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Antoine Volodine
[isbn]
As a neophyte in post-exotic Volodinia, I'm still finding my bearings (much as those newly arrived in the bardo might do). For the fellow uninitiated, Volodine's two-part essay in The New Inquiry is essential reading. The pseudonymous/heteronymous French writer has set out for himself the ambitious task of creating an entire literary universe (a la Pessoa via Oulipo), and the story of said ambition is as compelling as his fiction is... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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James Nestor
[isbn]
Shortlisted for the 2015 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, James Nestor's Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves is a perfect blend of pop science, personal narrative, and compelling reporting. Beginning at sea level and descending nearly 30,000 feet, Nestor's book delves into the realm of oceanic intrigue, exploring freediving, magnetoreception, echolocation, attempts at inter-species... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Jose Eduardo Agualusa, Daniel Hahn
[isbn]
Angolan writer José Eduardo Agualusa, Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-winning author of The Book of Chameleons, has penned some two dozen works, yet A General Theory of Oblivion is but the fifth to be rendered into English. Inspired by the true story of Ludovica Fernandes Mano, who bricked herself into her Luandan apartment on the eve of Angolan independence (and would reside there for the next three decades — subsisting on... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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David Searcy
[isbn]
A collection of 21 essays from novelist David Searcy, Shame and Wonder covers an impressively wide range of subjects, but its salient feature is an entrancing command of language. Searcy's prose, handsome and undulating, could make even the most seemingly mundane topic be of great interest. In Shame and Wonder, he touches on disparate themes, yet each essay is marked not so much by what he's writing about, but how he's writing... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Stambolova, Albena
[isbn]
Winner of the 2013 (or 2012, depending on your source) Contemporary Bulgarian Writers Contest, Everything Happens as It Does is Albena Stambolova's debut novel (originally published in 2002). Stambolova, also a practicing psychotherapist, has since gone on to write two additional novels (preceded by a collection of short stories from 1985 and "A Psychoanalytical Study on Marguerite Duras"). Everything Happens as It Does begins... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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José Saramago
[isbn]
When the great José Saramago passed away last spring at the age of 87, the renowned Nobel Laureate left behind a diverse and accomplished body of work. Small Memories is a rich, touching memoir of Saramago's childhood in Portugal. Doleful, poignant, and often jocular, this moving work conveys the essence of Saramago's arduous and curious youth. With the resplendent prose that characterized his fiction, Small Memories is a... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Victor Pelevin, Andrew Bromfield
[isbn]
Victor Pelevin's The Hall of the Singing Caryatids is a slim work brimming with satire and imagination. The Russian novelist and short-story writer's appeal seems to be growing steadily with English readers (thanks, in no small part, to wonderful translations by Andrew Bromfield). Singing Caryatids takes aim at present-day Russian politics, consumer culture, and exploitative male dominance with an inventive tale. It manages to... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Pinero, Miguel
[isbn]
Twenty-two years after his death, the collected writings of the great Miguel Piñero are finally back in print. Best known for his award-winning play Short Eyes, the influential Nuyorican poet, playwright, and actor had a short yet remarkable life. Emigrating from his native Puerto Rico to Manhattan's Lower East Side (Loisaida) when he was four, much of Piñero's life was marked by repeated criminal convictions (his first coming at the age... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Peter Ames Carlin, Peter A Carlin
[isbn]
Too often rock biographies seek to canonize their subjects, offering up for consecration the revelatory details of sexual conquests, pharmacological overindulgences, and distended egos. In an art awash with tragic figures and truncated careers, perhaps the story of a musician possessed of an integrity matched only by his commitment to craft is the exception that belies the rule. Bruce, Peter Ames Carlin's third work about one of rock 'n'... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Quim Monzo
[isbn]
Three decades after it was first published, Quim Monzó's Gasoline still offers seductive insight into the lives of artists and the myriad challenges inherent in the creative process. The Catalan author's novel (one of five of his books available in English translation), split into two parts, features two protagonists at very different points in their artistic careers. Heribert, with his best successes behind him, has become bored, aloof,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Steinbeck, John
[isbn]
The third and final of Steinbeck's "play-novelettes" (after Of Mice and Men and The Moon Is Down), Burning Bright is a brief yet remarkably powerful exploration of pride and paternity. Steinbeck considered the work an experiment, "a combination of many old forms." In the foreword he outlines his reasons for attempting this synthesis, well aware of the format's inherent obstacles: "The difficulties of the technique are... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Degrasse Tyson, Neil
[isbn]
The great Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium, PBS/Nova host, and ambassador to all sorts of interstellar and cosmic awesomeness, is also the author of nearly a dozen books. His newest, Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, is a collection of three dozen articles, speeches, and interviews (and even a poem!) previously published or delivered in public. Divided into three main parts ("Why,"... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Eduardo Galeano
[isbn]
The great Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist, has spent some five decades in literary pursuit of restoring memory, veracity, and justice to their once-exalted heights. Resounding throughout his works are the amplified echoes of the forgotten, forsaken, silenced, and slandered. In giving voice to the voiceless, Galeano ensures that history's authorship shall not be entrusted solely to the wealthy, powerful, and victorious.
(read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Matt Love
[isbn]
The enthusiasm that permeates Matt Love's writing is both contagious and inspiring. As an author focused almost exclusively on Oregon and her history, Love's works have established him as one of the region's eminent writers. In Gimme Refuge: The Education of a Caretaker, his first book since winning the 2009 Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award, Love tells the tale of how a chance opportunity to serve as caretaker of a neglected... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Duncan, Dayton and Burns, Ken
[isbn]
The dazzling companion volume to the acclaimed Ken Burns documentary, The National Parks: America's Best Idea chronicles the fascinating history of the world-renowned United States National Park system. Four hundred pages of richly composed text by Dayton Duncan accompany hundreds of magnificent, awe-inspiring photographs.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Raymond Queneau
[isbn]
Raymond Queneau's brilliant 1947 classic could have just as easily been titled Achievements of Ingenuity. Written more than a decade before he would cofound the "Workshop of Potential Literature" (Oulipo), Exercises in Style is one of the preeminent examples (and executions) of constrained writing. Beginning with a short account of an entirely inconsequential event, Queneau tells the same episode 99 times, but each... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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John Steinbeck
[isbn]
Published some 75 years ago, In Dubious Battle must surely be ranked amongst Steinbeck's greatest and most accomplished works. Set amidst the apple orchards of the fictional Torgas Valley in California, the novel focuses on the labor dispute between the apple pickers ("fruit tramps") and the orchards' owners. Steinbeck casts as his protagonists two party members (though unstated, it's presumed to be the Communist Party) who travel to the... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Daniel Sada
[isbn]
Perhaps like Roberto Bolaño before him, Daniel Sada may well be on his way to achieving posthumous fame amongst English-language readers of literary fiction in translation. Almost Never, the first of the late Mexican writer's books to be translated into English, was awarded the prestigious Herralde Prize in 2008. Sada's work has attracted both critical and popular acclaim, culminating in his receiving Mexico's National Prize for Arts and... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Patricio Pron, Mara Faye Lethem
[isbn]
Patricio Pron's "A Few Words on the Life Cycles of Frogs" appeared as one of the 22 selections featured in Granta's 2010 "The Best of Young Spanish Language Novelists" issue. The award-winning Argentine writer (though still a couple of years shy of his 40th birthday) has written five novels and three collections of short stories. My Fathers' Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain is the first of Pron's novels to be translated into... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Jose Saramago, Giovanni Pontiero
[isbn]
Originally published in Portuguese in 1978 (as Objecto Quase), The Lives of Things collects six short stories that are amongst the earliest of José Saramago's writings to have yet been translated into English. Released the year after Manual of Painting and Calligraphy (long out of print in English, but recently republished) and some four years before his epic Baltasar and Blimunda, The Lives of Things... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Zack Hample
[isbn]
One would think, perhaps, with the many thousands of books written about baseball over the decades, there would be little to add in the way of novelty or insight regarding the greatest game ever devised by man. But behind the history, the rivalries, and the legends of the game is the often-overlooked object that makes it all possible in the first place: the baseball.
Zack Hample, a well-known ball hawk who has snagged nearly 4,700... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Cesar Aira
[isbn]
One of the more striking characteristics of César Aira's fiction is how much fun it seems he must be having while writing his stories. Not limited by the constraints of genre, Aira's novellas often move effortlessly between them, without ever an inkling of it seeming forced or contrived. Despite their relative brevity, Aira's works (though I am unable as yet to determine just how) have an enduring effect far greater than books I thought I... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Wislawa Szymborska
[isbn]
One of only 13 women to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (out of 111 total laureates), Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (pronounced vees-WAH-vah shim-BOR-ska) was awarded the world's highest literary honor in 1996. A career-spanning work that features poems from eight separate collections, Poems New and Collected offers some four decades of the poet's finest verse. Despite having published only a few hundred poems during her lifetime,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Max Porter
[isbn]
The debut outing from Granta Books senior editor Max Porter, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is a distinctive, outstanding work of fiction. Short yet impressive, Porter's novel(la) is the story of a father (and Ted Hughes scholar) left a single parent following the unexpected death of his wife. Alone to raise his twin boys, the father must contend with his own sorrow while alleviating the emotional struggles of his young sons. The three... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Steve Olson
[isbn]
A well-written, often riveting account of Mount St. Helens before, during, and after its famed 1980 reawakening, Steve Olson's Eruption delves into the weeks of uncertainty that preceded and followed the mountain's explosion, framing the monumental event in the context of the timber industry, Pacific Northwest politics, the history of the Forest Service, and ongoing conversation efforts. In addition to chronicling the blast, avalanche,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Bruce Springsteen
[isbn]
The long-awaited autobiography from rock legend Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run offers candid, personal insights into his childhood, coming-of-age as a musician, and storied career with the incomparable E Street Band. A must-have for casual and lifelong fans alike: ‘Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run!
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Jose Saramago, Giovanni Pontiero
[isbn]
A devastating and often horrific look at societal breakdown, Blindness is one of the most acclaimed novels from José Saramago, Portugal's only Nobel laureate for literature. Far more than a mere dystopian plague novel, Blindness is a metaphorical account of society's basest tendencies in the face of catastrophe. Saramago's magnificently wending sentences and trademark style lend grace and beauty to an otherwise gruesome tale of... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Michael Pollan
[isbn]
Michael Pollan may be incapable of uninteresting writing. Discerning and lucid, his works tend to provoke the reader to engage themselves (at least in thought, if not deed) well beyond the final page. Second Nature: A Gardener's Education is Pollan's first book yet reads like a timeless work by a seasoned writer. While lacking in the overall cohesive force of his later efforts, this book may encourage more reflection and greater... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Valeria Luiselli
[isbn]
With gifted prose and a compassionate but penetrating gaze, Luiselli personalizes the ongoing plight of Latin American child migrants in the United States. A trenchant firsthand account, Tell Me How It Ends offers a humane yet often horrifying look at the labyrinthine legal processes and bureaucratic indifference faced by undocumented youth.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Lorraine Hansberry
[isbn]
Best known for her play, A Raisin in the Sun, author and playwright Lorraine Hansberry was at the forefront of civil rights activism (along with the likes of Paul Robeson, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Nina Simone, and others). Despite succumbing to pancreatic cancer at the young age of 34, Hansberry’s influence still resounds today. Published posthumously, To Be Young, Gifted and Black collects journal entries, assorted... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Grinspoon, David
[isbn]
In his rousing, sanguine, and far-reaching new book, Earth in Human Hands, astrobiologist, NASA advisor, and acclaimed science writer David Grinspoon offers an unforgettably singular view of humanity’s simultaneously promising and perilous place on our home planet. The must-read science book of this year… and the next — essential and engrossing! Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Clarice Lispector and Alison Entrekin
[isbn]
Clarice Lispector's debut novel (published when she was in her early 20s) hums with a heady mix of existential distress and youthful uncertainty. Joana, Near to the Wild Heart's main character, is encumbered by the myriad vagaries of everyday reality and, given her introspective and indecisive temperament, finds herself nearly estranged from all those close to her (and often even herself). Near to the Wild Heart is an... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Eduardo Galeano, Mark Fried
[isbn]
In Mirrors, Uruguayan journalist and author Eduardo Galeano continued his poetic illumination of the forgotten, offering his most sweeping, cohesive, and empathetic work. Written in the singular style that characterizes all of his books, Mirrors is composed of some 600 beautifully crafted vignettes. Galeano, in a dazzling display of literary prowess, recollects 5,000 years of human history — paying due attention to the silenced,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Salman Rushdie
[isbn]
Like an allegorical Avengers/Peter Pan/Arabian Nights mash-up, Salman Rushdie's latest novel is heavy on both mythology and cinematic action. Spanning 1,000 years of narrative, the hybrid good-versus-evil/love story is great fun, populated with otherworldly characters and a civilization on the brink.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Alejandra Pizarnik
[isbn]
Collecting 10 years of poetry from her brief life, Extracting the Stone of Madness is the most comprehensive selection of Alejandra Pizarnik's work currently available in English translation. Featuring the Argentine poet's final three collections, this bilingual edition also includes uncollected poems and three posthumously published entries.
Recipient of both a Guggenheim fellowship and a Fulbright scholarship, Pizarnik's... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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David Sax
[isbn]
David Sax's wonderful, relentlessly informative new book, The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, upends the tired (and tiresome) notion that digital technology will usher in an era of interpersonal connectivity, efficient manufacturing, educational advances, and utopian innovation. With chapters on vinyl records, paper products and print books, film, board games, retail, manufacturing, work, school, and others, Sax... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Merce Rodoreda, Martha Tennent, Maruxa Relano Tennent
[isbn]
Published a few years before she passed away in 1980 of liver cancer, Mercè Rodoreda's War, So Much War is a picaresque bildungsroman of great sorrow. Set in Catalonia, the author's home region, War, So Much War follows young Adrià and his itinerant wanderings through war-scarred towns, villages, and countryside, encountering a surfeit of horrors tempered by the occasional kindness.
The brutality of Adrià's... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Dorthe Nors, Misha Hoekstra
[isbn]
Danish author Dorthe Nors is a most curious and innovative writer. If that wasn't evident in her short story collection, Karate Chop (the first of her books to be translated into English), surely the two stylistically inventive novellas in her new work, So Much for That Winter, will make it abundantly clear. Composed of two different pieces, "Minna Needs Rehearsal Space" and "Days," Nors's latest book to be rendered from the... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Wolfgang Hilbig, Isabel Fargo Cole
[isbn]
Dark, desolate, and somber, Wolfgang Hilbig's The Sleep of the Righteous is as much a collection of linked stories as it is a single work of fiction. Set in the decades following World War II, Hilbig's (apparently semi-autobiographical) reminiscences span the years from adolescence to post-reunification. Funereal, stark, and dimly light, The Sleep of the Righteous inhabits whatever realm is beyond foreboding, a dreadful tedium... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Daniel Saldana Paris
[isbn]
Daniel Saldaña París's debut novel (published in 2013, before his 30th birthday), Among Strange Victims, heralds yet another distinctive, promising voice in Spanish-language literature. The first of Saldaña París's books to appear in English translation, Among Strange Victims is an anti-bildungsroman picaresque starring mid/late-twentysomething Rodrigo, a remarkably sketched protagonist who'd perhaps more closely resemble a... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Edward Hirsch
[isbn]
Poignant and punctuationless, Edward Hirsch's book-length poem, Gabriel, contends with the death of his adopted son at 22. A master task it would be for any mortal to make their way through these pages without tears a'welling. Hirsch chronicles Gabriel's difficult, often tumultuous life with affection, tenderness, and many a fond memory, but as he recounts the horror and dread upon learning of his son's passing, the stanzas approach... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Mary Roach
[isbn]
Mary Roach's winning blend of popular science, contagious curiosity, abundant humor, and engaging style are quite the successful combination. In her sixth book, Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Roach turns her inquisitive reporting to the fascinating (and often unbelievable) realm of military science. Covering everything from garment efficacy, combat vehicle vulnerability, warfare audiology, genital injuries, phalloplasty,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Chuck Klosterman
[isbn]
At the start of his seventh nonfiction book, Chuck Klosterman makes clear (twice) that his new work is "not a collection of essays." While But What If We're Wrong? alights on a number of disparate subjects, it functions best as a unified idea. Exploring books, music, space/time, gravity, science, dreams, conspiracy theories, television, sports, democracy, and government, Klosterman imagines not only what our future may well look like,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Michael Chabon
[isbn]
Since winning the Pulitzer Prize for his spectacular 2000 novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon has gone on to write a diverse array of books restrained by neither style nor genre. Of the distinctive qualities to be found within whatever form his versatile storytelling may take is a prose marked by eloquence and vivaciousness, an uncanny ability to immerse his readers within the lives of his characters, and a... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Cory Booker
[isbn]
Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey, has enjoyed a remarkable political ascendancy. In his first book, United: Thoughts On Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good, the former Newark mayor and city councilman offers the obligatory biographical sketch, as well as insight into the formative personal and political experiences that have molded and informed his belief system and governing priorities. Perhaps most... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Jon Ronson
[isbn]
A fascinating look at public shaming in the age of social media, Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed recounts, in often cringe-worthy detail, many of the most notorious incidents of the past five years – along with their devastating consequences.
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Charb
[isbn]
Completed two days before he was murdered in the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression is an essay commentary on free speech, racism, and intellectual hypocrisy from French cartoonist, journalist, and editor-in-chief Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier). Emphatic, impassioned, and resolute, Open Letter sharply criticizes those that capitalize (and... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Kesey, Ken Kesey
[isbn]
Often called the "quintessential Oregon novel," Sometimes a Great Notion bears remarkable similarity to our fabled Beaver State winters: seemingly sprawling and unending at first, characterized by incessant rain, somewhat disorienting until you become acclimated, yet ultimately compelling, fecund, and, dare I say, necessary. Ken Kesey is perhaps Oregon's most famous adopted son, known best, of course, for his debut novel One Flew... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Edward Abbey
[isbn]
No author encapsulated and celebrated the American Southwest more engagingly than iconoclast and raconteur Edward Abbey. Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness — now nearly a half-century old — is a classic of environmental writing. In this autobiographical work, Abbey chronicles his time as a park ranger and reflects on landscape, culture, politics, tourism, environmental disregard, and degradation — doing so with a unique blend... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Sjon, Victoria Cribb
[isbn]
Much like The Blue Fox, Sjón's The Whispering Muse is possessed of qualities that linger long after the novel has concluded. Combining elements of Greek mythology with modern storytelling (as well as incorporating his grandfather's fascination with Icelandic and Nordic fish consumption), The Whispering Muse is a lyrical, imaginative work. Set mostly upon a merchant ship in the spring of 1949, the crew is regaled nightly... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Michael Chabon
[isbn]
Michael Chabon composes dazzling prose. His love for the art of storytelling is evident in everything he writes. His writing is smart, insightful, candid, funny, sympathetic, and mischievous. This gifted combination makes for one of the rare writers from whom a reader always knows to expect something altogether enjoyable. Some of Chabon's works are indeed gems, but all of them are great books.
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Nick Flynn
[isbn]
Nick Flynn's newest work, The Ticking Is the Bomb, is a memoir much in the same vein as its predecessor, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, although much grander in scope and insight. Whereas the earlier book was mainly concerned with the personal, in The Ticking Is the Bomb Flynn trains his poetic gaze upon a post-9/11 America that condones torture and entwines this troubling aspect of our present with his own... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Bernal, Rafael
[isbn]
Mexico City–born novelist, playwright, and poet Rafael Bernal is best known for his detective fiction. The Mongolian Conspiracy, the most popular of his works, follows Filiberto García, a cantankerous hired gun tasked with uncovering an alleged plot to assassinate both the American and Mexican presidents. García's investigation leads him throughout the Mexican capital, chasing leads into Chinatown, working together with American and... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Matt Love
[isbn]
Matt Love epitomizes the Oregon writer. After 10 years of serving as the caretaker of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge (near Pacific City), Love returned to teaching and has since been publishing with fervor. Super Sunday in Newport: Notes from My First Year in Town recounts Love's first year in the coastal Oregon town (and home of the world's finest brewery: Rogue Ales!). Comprised of brief essays that were originally read at a... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Lawrence Krauss, Richard Dawkins
[isbn]
Lawrence Krauss's new book, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, summarizes the continuing developments in the field of cosmology. In addition to championing these new insights in the study of modern physics, Krauss also frames these advances in the appropriate context of their resulting implications for theologians and deists. Adapted from a lecture he delivered at the 2009 Atheist Alliance international... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Ken Jennings
[isbn]
Ken Jennings's Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks is an intriguing (dare I say, captivating?) look into the realm of maps, geography, and cartophiles. Jennings writes remarkably well, infusing his engrossing subject with a surprising amount of both wit and humor. Each chapter of Maphead offers insight into a different aspect of map lore, from the historical to the hypermodern. Collectors, cartographers,... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Antonino Dambrosio
[isbn]
Johnny Cash's 1964 concept album Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian is certainly one of the finest (and most underrated) records of his career. D'Ambrosio's book A Heartbeat and a Guitar: Johnny Cash and the Making of Bitter Tears, while well-researched and mostly fascinating, is perhaps somewhat mistitled. Though Cash's album, devoted to the vicious and unfair treatment of indigenous peoples, is the pivot upon which... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Susan Casey
[isbn]
It has long been asserted that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do the vast seascapes that cover some 70 percent of our planet. Susan Casey's seductive book, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean, goes a long way to support this claim. As Casey, award-winning journalist and editor-in-chief of O magazine, traverses the globe in search of the world's mightiest waves, we are... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Alan Light
[isbn]
In the nearly 30 years since Leonard Cohen first recorded "Hallelujah," it has gone from a largely overlooked album track to one of the most covered songs in recent history. Rock editor and journalist Alan Light traces the improbable trajectory of this now-infamous song from its painstaking birth (it took years to compose) to its enduring ubiquity. The Holy or the Broken focuses mostly on the bard of Montreal and the late... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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Elizabeth Kolbert
[isbn]
In her Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Sixth Extinction, New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert confronts what may well be the most compelling, portentous, and defining characteristic of our modernity: the nearly inconceivable and irretrievable loss of earth's biodiversity at the hands of our own species. Although earth has endured five mass extinctions over the last half-billion years — during which "the planet has... (read more)
Recommended by Jeremy G.
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