E Lockhart
[isbn]
I'm usually pretty good at spotting surprise endings, but this one is so well done I'm glad I didn't see it coming. Beautifully written, emotionally powerful, and a scathing exploration of the corrosive effect of privilege.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Oliver Burkeman
[isbn]
I loved this book because it drops a bomb on the tacit societal assumption that "more and faster" is better. Did you ever see the Twilight Zone episode about the little town of Willoughby? This is the book that makes a case for it. A patiently reasoned, illuminating, and firm but humorous rebuttal to the PUSH PUSH PUSH that comes at us every day. I felt so much better by the time I finished it.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Peter Straub
[isbn]
Unrelenting — by the end I was begging it to stop and praying that it wouldn't. Like a bad dream in all the best ways.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Peng Shepherd
[isbn]
The central conceit of this novel — a cheap gas station map — is so enchanting and strange that it carries the whole story of how its discovery affects the lives of the group of people who find it. You'll never look at a map the same way again!
Recommended by Warren B.
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Melissa Febos
[isbn]
I felt like I had grabbed a live electrical wire shortly after starting this book. I knew she would say what she needed to say and would not hesitate to go down into the deepest and darkest places and take us with her — and in so doing demonstrate that such release is available to all of us if we're willing to take the risk and do the work.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Christina Hunger
[isbn]
If you've ever felt like your dog is trying to tell you something — "if they only had the words" — then this book is for you!
Recommended by Warren B.
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Alex Pavesi
[isbn]
Like a series of nested Russian dolls, this clever, twisting story claims to lay out the rules by which all murder mysteries must abide, while slyly breaking them all.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Lydia Millet
[isbn]
A broken mirror of a novel — some of what you see is recognizable, some is not. Images relate in unsettled ways, a new whole just of out of reach. Mesmerizing.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Edgar Cantero
[isbn]
If you have fond memories of Scooby Doo, and wonder what it might look like updated to today, laced with some Lovecraftian rocket fuel, and stripped of the cheesy rubber masks at the end, this book is a nonstop thrill ride!
Recommended by Warren B.
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Jill McCorkle
[isbn]
For anyone who has ever wondered about the mystery of their parents — has been stunned to discover they are people with lives of their own, not much different than us, and worthy of as much empathy as we can muster.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
[isbn]
One of the most achingly beautiful and intensely romantic books I've ever read — totally unexpected and deeply, lyrically human, right in the middle of a science fiction story about two far-future agents on opposing sides — one a technotopia, the other an organic hive. If these two opposites can fall in love, then there is hope for all of us.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Craig Davidson
[isbn]
Ghosts aren't real, right? What about memories? An engaging, entertaining, coming-of-age story that subtly shifts gears into a moving, bittersweet exploration of what truly haunts us.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Stephen Graham Jones
[isbn]
Not for the squeamish — this story starts with a rush and rarely lets up. Along with the horror, though, comes a heartbreaking, eye-opening look at the consequences of the tectonic stresses building and releasing at the borders between the Indigenous and white cultures.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Jeff VanderMeer
[isbn]
Wow. Utterly weird, utterly captivating, dizzily creative, frothily exciting, spit-take funny. There's no way to describe this pastiche of hero's journey, magic, alternate history, and Napoleon's disembodied head — you simply must read it for yourself!
Recommended by Warren B.
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Megan Campisi
[isbn]
Megan Campisi weaves a story around a strong female character condemned to live by literally eating the sins of others, symbolized by various foods. This was an actual thing back in the 16th century but makes for a startlingly apt read today.
Recommended by Warren B.
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Thornton Wilder
[isbn]
Theophilus quits his job in the summer of 1926 and retreats to Newport, Rhode Island, where he soon finds himself entangled in the lives of the residents, whose social status stretch across all of what he calls the "Nine Cities" of Newport. Using his wits and compassionate grasp of human nature he endeavors to help where he can while preserving his own independence. Sly, humorous, and authentic, this is a heartfelt investigation into the many... (read more)
Recommended by Warren B.
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John Crowley
[isbn]
"There is more than one history of the world." Pierce Moffett stumbles out of what he thought was his life to find that it was merely a shadow of a much larger existence that had been happening all around him — he just had lost the ability to see it. A shimmering, time-shifting kaleidoscopic read that leaves you feeling that what we call "real" has more to do with imagination than reason. I reread this book every few years and every few years it... (read more)
Recommended by Warren B.
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