Martha Wells
[isbn]
The always intriguing, inventive, and fun Martha Wells gives us a fabulous fantasy tale and hours of reading pleasure and adventure.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Kristen Jokinen, Cheryl Strayed
[isbn]
A remarkable and wondrous ride that feels like it never happens anymore, as if Cheryl Strayed's Wild were mixed with dreams and love and a miraculous spirit of exploration.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Walter Mosley
[isbn]
There's no writer like Walter Mosley and no protagonists like his creations: Easy Rawlins, Leonid McGill, and now Joe King, returning in a new era noir, facing tough moral choices, and pulling the reader — you — up close and into every fraught moment.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Stephen King
[isbn]
In this difficult world we're in, sometimes we want to wrap ourselves in the fantastic lands and breath and story that Stephen King can bring. Fairy Tale is such a place. It is all we know, but covered with the beautiful skin of King's imagination.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Jonathan Hill
[isbn]
For anyone who hides their true and timid self, who wants to fit in, who wishes they weren't a misfit, this book is for you. Especially if you're convinced you must be an alien or a mutant or maybe a whole other species from all those happy and normal people around you, this book is for you. Or if you're just a nerd, and you like seeing the world through different lenses, this book is for you.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Jamila Rowser, Robyn Smith
[isbn]
Here is a great idealization of making the specific and everyday something that can resonate with us all. Here is a reason to read, and to specifically read graphic novels — to be allowed into lives and worlds other than our own. This book loves its characters and it loves its readers.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
R. F. Kuang
[isbn]
This was the loveliest and most fulfilling read. The story is smart and exciting and thoughtful and human. The author, R. F. Kuang, makes magic and science out of etymology, and the words in this book, the characters, what they have to say — it all rings true.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Jordan Crane
[isbn]
Keeping Two is a quiet, thoughtful, impressionistic story of a couple. The author uses the comic strip form to tell the many timelines and threads of their difficult and challenging relationship. This deeply felt tale makes full use of the graphic novel format to pull the reader in, make the reader stop and reread and think. This is a smart and human book.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Morgan Talty
[isbn]
Night of the Living Rez was such a completely satisfying read, and I wanted more. Told in the form of short stories, but really a novel that is both deeply personal and very big, incidents in the life of a Penobscot family as told by one member, a boy you get to know well and closely, and hope against hope that life would give him and everyone here a break. This book could be sad, but it resonates so deeply that it goes past sadness.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Lidia Yuknavitch
[isbn]
Lidia Yuknavitch breaks through every false barrier of genre in her writing, and here she does it like never before. Past and future bound together to uncover stories and save lives, possibly those of her readers.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Diana Abujaber
[isbn]
Diana Abu-Jaber moves seamlessly in the experience of the stranger coming home (but there is no home), and of the slow-motion shock of culture and family and the differences between generations. This book will open your heart and mind to the world outside you.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang
[isbn]
What fun! Brian K. Vaughan puts us right into the '80s. Or maybe the '90s. Or the future. Newspaper delivery girls, weird creatures, a war between the youth and the old people of tomorrow! Get your popcorn. This is entertainment!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Shawn Levy
[isbn]
Shawn Levy does it again, this time bringing his impeccable research, engaging story-telling, and expansive taste to the telling of the early queens of standup comedy, the women who broke barriers and opened doors for those that followed.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Liz Prato
[isbn]
Liz Prato writes with clear vision about the generation that followed the baby boomers, the generation that today moves into the spaces created by that older generation. This book is a long-overdue examination and reconciliation of the people and the era.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Laura Stanfill
[isbn]
This lovely, whimsical, humorous, smart, and fantastical book brightened up my winter reading (lucky enough to read an advanced copy). Take yourself out of this wearisome world and into Laura Stanfill's magic.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Shawn Levy
[isbn]
This book is a serious delight, a dish you can snack on or dine on. The greatest delight is reading the heart of the author in who he writes about and how he writes. And finally, I find I will also make a mark on someone’s life, although maybe not be remembered by the New York Times or by such a personable poet.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
N K Jemisin, Jamal Campbell
[isbn]
N. K. Jemisin is the remarkable writer of the award-winning Broken Earth trilogy. Here she creates a new Green Lantern, African American Jo Mullein. As Green Lantern, Jo has been protecting a city in the far reaches of the galaxy, a city ruled by peace and nonviolence. Until it all changes. Having seen what Jemisin brings to the world of science fiction, I can't wait to see what she brings to the renowned science fiction universe of Green... (read more)
Recommended by Doug C.
|
James S. A. Corey
[isbn]
The great hard science fiction saga of the Expanse comes to a close with this ninth and final volume. This universe that seems so recognizable, because the politics, the motives, the people who inhabit this great story, they are all things we see every day. Now the stakes, which have been raised in each book, couldn't be higher, the danger more existential. What a wonderful and satisfying read.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Nnedi Okorafor
[isbn]
Nnedi Okorafor creates great characters, rich and real future worlds, and stories filled with high stakes and tension. Here she does it again, a fast-paced and thrilling tale with a protagonist faced with rejection from all around her, imminent danger, a questionable companion, and a race against time.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
John Lewis and Andrew Aydind and Nate Powell
[isbn]
First you march, then you run! That’s what John Lewis did after more than five years as a leader in the civil rights movement, after being the youngest speaker at the march on Washington, after getting beaten and arrested for his nonviolent resistance. Lewis then ran for Congress and became a powerful voice for justice from the seat of government. Run follows the great John Lewis in the years following the events of the award-winning and... (read more)
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Susan DeFreitas
[isbn]
Dispatches From Anarres is why I read. This remarkable anthology of short stories in tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin is filled with thoughtful, heartbreaking, funny tales. Some will remind you of Le Guin and others of her spirit. I found myself pausing to think and breathe after many of the stories. This book is both readable and deep.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Larry McMurtry
[isbn]
Suddenly I liked cowboy stories. Retired Texas Rangers, cattle drives, small western town shenanigans, what it means to get old, humor, drama (and, oh, the radishes!). This is why I read: a fictional world in which you can hide, a story you don’t want to end.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Kim Stanley Robinson
[isbn]
This is a book about right now and next year and 50 years from now. A blistering yet quiet story about what climate change will do to us all. Somehow, hope is pulled out of utter hopelessness, kindness out of greed, humor out of darkness. Kim Stanley Robinson makes the science in his science fiction a place the reader can dwell, and he makes the characters into people we want to know and quietly support.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Various, Kenzie Allen
[isbn]
This is a gorgeous, powerful, heartrending and heart-filling book, an anthology of poems illustrated and presented as a beautiful, diverse, yet unified graphic novel. Each poem is presented with illustrations, and again afterward in text as the writer first presented it. Reading these poems was like hearing them interpreted two different ways. This is the kind of book you spend time with, read, re-read, stop and think and learn and breathe, and... (read more)
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Vanessa Veselka
[isbn]
The Great Offshore Grounds is the great American novel turned on its head. I was lost in the pleasure of the language, the characters, and their real but transformative journeys. This book is why I read.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Lidia Yuknavitch
[isbn]
I need better language to talk about this book, these stories. Brokenness. Fury. Quiet. Orgasm. Triumph. Death. Impressions of the misfit life, the human experience. Lidia Yuknavitch writes with fire about the frozen souls of the lost. And we’re all lost. You have to read slowly, read again, stop and let settle. This book is short, but it’s so big I have to take time to breathe now that I’m done.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Willy Vlautin
[isbn]
Willy Vlautin tells remarkable stories with plain language and real characters. His is the kind of writing that puts the reader in the body and heart of the protagonist, in this case, a working-class woman trying to survive and do right in a gentrified, moneyed world. We need to read these fraught stories, and Vlautin makes it compelling to do so.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Michelle Ruiz Keil
[isbn]
I loved Summer in the City of Roses for the journey. The regular everyday was magic, and the magic was more magic. I don’t know if such things could happen in the Portland of today, but they surely happened in the Portland of then.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Kathleen Lane
[isbn]
I loved this book. Granted, I'm 50 years older than the target audience, but it still made me feel so much better. Insightful, funny, playful, and very helpful!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Chelsea Cain and Elise McCall and Lia Miternique and Rachelle Rosenberg
[isbn]
This graphic novel is scary, sexy, funny, and it makes you think! To quote the publisher, this is "the perfect comic book for anyone who enjoys travel, chardonnay, krakens, Atlantis, volcanos, scuba diving, mermaids, ghost pirates, tropical espionage, secret agents, and/or island-casual Sean Connery."
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Mark Russell and Bryce Ingman and Craig Rousseau
[isbn]
Mark Russell has turned the comic book world on its head with his smart, irreverent takes on classic characters (see Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles). Now he takes on the powerful, rude, sexy sword and sorcery icon, Red Sonja. The best writes the best!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Nnedi Okorafor, Vita Ayala, Leonardo Romero
[isbn]
Hey Kids! Comics! There's way too much serious business in the business of comics! Here is a story by the incomparable Nnedi Okorafor, fun for kids... and grown-ups, too.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Rebecca Roanhorse
[isbn]
This remarkable book from the original and fresh voice of Rebecca Roanhorse is epic and personal all at once. A world completely new, yet born from the Native stories of the Americas. Characters that pull at your heart. Humor, sex, danger, adventure, intrigue, and in all its fantasy, filled with humanity.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Roxane Gay and Tracy Lynne Oliver
[isbn]
From the remarkable Roxane Gay, a graphic novel of her bestselling short story, a world where a tragic event has taken away the light of the sun.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Alison Bechdel
[isbn]
Before Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, this brilliant creator brought us the long-running, hilarious, insightful, and heartbreaking comic strip, "Dykes to Watch Out For." My all-time favorite soap opera in cartoon form.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Vanessa Veselka
[isbn]
The Great Offshore Grounds is the great American novel turned on its head. I was lost in the pleasure of the language, the characters, and their real but transformative journeys. This book is why I read.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Greg Rucka
[isbn]
Rucka is the cocreator and writer of a long list of great comics, graphic novels, and thrillers. He brought us the series Stumptown, set in a very real and current Portland, and the new Netflix hit, The Old Guard. This is my superhero pick of the season, but there's not much of the costumed kind here.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Alyssa Cole
[isbn]
The publisher describes this as Rear Window meets Get Out. The heartbreak of your lifelong neighborhood being lost to gentrification turns to fear, paranoia, and wonder. What is happening to all those people who moved out of the neighborhood? I can't wait to find out.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Jo Nesbo
[isbn]
Here is a standalone thriller from the master of Scandinavian dark mysteries. I'll make sure to read this with the lights on. Sure glad I don't live in Norway!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
John Banville
[isbn]
This traditional mystery threatens to become much more. It's the 1950s in Ireland, and the Catholic Church stands against any truth the police might uncover in the untimely murder of a priest.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
ND Stevenson
[isbn]
Noelle Stevenson tells us heavy things in an accessible way — her struggles with self, with talent and creativity and drive — and as any successful memoir will do, we empathize, feel her pain, and celebrate with her. She is a remarkable artist. I look forward to all that is yet to come.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Mark Russell, Richard Pace, Leonard Kirk
[isbn]
Earth’s mightiest superhero has a new roommate — Jesus! And Jesus himself is shocked by what has happened to his message over the last 2,000 years. There’s work to be done!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Tom Gauld
[isbn]
Tom Gauld’s dry wit and literate sensibility takes on science and technology in this collection of his New Scientist comic strips.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Ken Liu
[isbn]
Ken Liu's writing seems effortless, his characters are full and human, his world-building seamless and logical, and his story is epic. I'm glad this is the first part of a series, because when I got to the end I wanted more.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Ken Liu
[isbn]
Ken Liu's stories are rich and diverse, bringing science to his fantasy, fantasy to his science, and humanity to his characters. This book made me think and it made me feel.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Garth Stein and Matthew Southworth
[isbn]
The Cloven is the beginning of an intriguing story, with elements of urban fantasy, science gone wrong, and a great protagonist, Tuck, mostly human, but with a lot of goat. No, really, it makes sense, and it's very cool. Garth Stein and Matthew Southworth are making a fascinating, thoughtful thriller of a graphic novel.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Brandon Hobson
[isbn]
Brandon Hobson brings us the story and voice of a 15-year-old Cherokee boy in foster care. The story is dark and full of pain, but the voice of the narrator pulls us in and makes us want to know more. This is a book where bleakness shows us the beauty of the human heart.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Marlon James
[isbn]
This is an epic told through the cynical voice of Tracker, a hero of a different kind of world, a different kind of quest. It is a hard to define but engrossing fantasy, with scenes and dialogue that pull you in deep and make you think and laugh, make you afraid, and hardly ever make you triumphant. It's the beginning of a series, and I really want to read what's next.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
N. K. Jemisin
[isbn]
One reviewer wrote that N. K. Jemisin can do anything. I agree! Some of these stories are worked out more fully in her novels, and some of them are simply intriguing in themselves, pulling in the reader, exploring worlds and ideas, filled with the most human of characters. Reading Jemisin, whether short stories or novels, is a joy.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
N. K. Jemisin
[isbn]
I love N. K. Jemisin's books, I love New York City, and I love this book about the soul and personification of New York. The City We Became might just be my favorite book to be published in 2020. Tension, humor, great characters, with a guest appearance near and dear to me from Jersey City. I also got a little Wrinkle in Time vibe. This book is apparently the beginning of a trilogy, but it is completely satisfying as a... (read more)
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Nathan W Pyle
[isbn]
This small collection of strange comic strips is quietly hilarious. I found myself grinning over and over as I read through. Completely unique, satisfying, thoughtful, and very funny.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Dana Simpson
[isbn]
Hurray! Phoebe and Her Unicorn joins Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, and Cul-de-Sac in the small pantheon of children’s comic strips that are mostly for adults. Or, at least for me.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Melanie Gillman
[isbn]
Stage Dreams is a fun and satisfying all-ages graphic novel set in the old West, featuring LGBTQ characters, a lot of humor and love, and a bit of adventure. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would love to read more from the creator, Melanie Gillman.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
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.
|
Karen Armstrong
[isbn]
Karen Armstrong’s newest book uncovers the big picture idea that the holy writings of the great religions are mostly misunderstood, and that together they are most purposeful in inspiring the devout to a greater spiritual life. Thus a relationship with the divine is the essence of the world’s scriptures.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Michelle Ruiz Keil
[isbn]
All of Us With Wings is a remarkable, refreshing, dangerous book filled with
beautiful language. Michelle Ruiz Keil brings the supernatural, the world of
art and music, themes of abuse and agency, and characters so real, my heart
broke for more than one of them. This was such a satisfying read, I didn’t want
it to end, yet it ended where it should. I want more from this author.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Margaret Malone
[isbn]
Margaret Malone's debut book of short stories will grab you and amuse you and maybe horrify you with its wry and dark look at the small imperfections that make us human. A lovely, clear, engaging voice.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Fonda Lee
[isbn]
Jade War is a deeply satisfying continuation of the story begun in Jade City. An amazing foundation of world building, realistic and very human characters, and the kind of tension found in the very best tales. I can’t wait for what comes next from Fonda Lee.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Wendy N Wagner
[isbn]
An enjoyable thriller on an alien world. The story moved quickly, but with thoughtful pauses in the action for character and meaning. Relatable to our own world, but not in a preachy way. I’d love to see more of the protagonists and just more in general from this author.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
R F Kuang
[isbn]
The first part of this book might remind you of J. K. Rowling or Nnedi Okorafor. The second part just goes dark, and if you want to see your protagonist make the biggest wrong choices, and if you want your hero to break bad, this is the joint for you. I loved it!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Rene Denfeld
[isbn]
This sequel to The Child Finder tells its own story of humanity, heartbreak, and
the long-term redemption of the characters who inhabit it. It is a thriller,
but it is more. It is a tale fed by compassion for the human heart. Rene
Denfeld’s intelligence and soul is in every page.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Liz Scott
[isbn]
This Never Happened is a memoir served in small bites. Liz Scott looks back over a lifetime with her narcissistic mother. She uncovers old documents, remembers stories of stories, and in all of it reconciles this difficult relationship. And Scott surprises with her candor and humor. This book is easy to read even as the subject is hard. It is humanity, and I find pieces of myself in this memoir.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
K ONeill, Katie ONeill, Kay ONeill
[isbn]
Katie O'Neill does it again. Her stories give us big and important ideas with the kindness that a person of any age can love. Her characters represent everyone. I keep falling in love with every page and word.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Katie O'Neill
[isbn]
This book made me happy! The inclusion, the joy, the characters, all seemingly effortless in telling the story. Katie O'Neill is a gift!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Chelsea Cain and Kate Niemczyk and Lia Miternique
[isbn]
These comics are filled with the reasons I love Chelsea’s writing. The dark humor that tells the truth, the small detail that fills in the whole, and the sad realization that it’s all too real to be a metaphor. Cain mastered plot and story a long time ago, but she fills the story now with the exact amount of all the other things that surprise and delight my reading jones.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Thompson Walker, Karen
[isbn]
The narrator in this dystopian story is sweet but knowing, an introverted middle school girl having to navigate a world slowly falling apart. It is her voice that carried me through, that drew me in and made it all real. There are no false notes in this book, just the genuine life of a girl trying to get by and grow up.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Rawi Hage
[isbn]
I was enthralled while reading this remarkable book. It reminded me in spirit of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, but it has its own story and voice. The novel follows the son of an undertaker living through the years of the civil war in Lebanon, a protagonist you immediately feel empathy for and soon see through his eyes. This book is the kind of gem that compels me to read.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Carmen Maria Machado
[isbn]
This remarkable set of stories takes us right into the battle of who owns a woman's body, and, working in multiple genres, blows open a hole of thought and understanding in any reader with empathy.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
G Willow Wilson
[isbn]
This beautiful story is real and magical, funny and heartbreaking. It tells of all our current struggles, but through a tale that takes place centuries and continents away. This is one of those rare books that grabbed me from the start, and that I didn't want to end.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Ben Winters
[isbn]
This book is 1984 and Philip K. Dick joined in a tense meditation on today, rolled into a story of a weird and too real tomorrow. A remarkable narrator who will grip your heart and break it and give you the smallest glimmer of hope at the end.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Madeline Miller
[isbn]
This book is a thing of beauty. Tragedy, love story, myth, reality. Madeline Miller takes the heart of a legend and makes it into human pain, frailty, hope, and strength. I read it slowly, small pieces at a time, and let it build inside me its great empathy and joy.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Mike Mignola and John Byrne
[isbn]
Hellboy is always fun and entertaining, and just enough off from the usual superhero comic. This first omnibus edition takes us back to the beginning. Fantastic read!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Mike Mignola
[isbn]
The Hellboy stories are such a pleasure to read. A tough-talking yet empathetic hero, weird and funny horror, and that great Mike Mignola art.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Archie Bongiovanni and Tristan Jimerson
[isbn]
This little book is fun, easy, humorous, and really, it's so important. It's an engaging guide to using they/them pronouns, and it's priced so you can get multiple copies to give out (if you want).
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Greg Rucka, Justin Greenwood, Ryan Hill
[isbn]
Greg Rucka's great Portland detective Dex takes on rabid Portland soccer fans, rabid Seattle soccer fans, scalpers, the police, the bad guys, sex with a soccer star, and everything else you could want from this series! Fantastic!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Greg Rucka, Matthew Southworth, Lee Loughridge and Rico Renzi
[isbn]
Greg Rucka writes a tough detective in this Portland-based, gritty graphic novel. Fantastic! Moody! Just my cup o' joe!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Greg Rucka, Matthew Southworth and Rico Renzi
[isbn]
More noir from Greg Rucka! Tough and funny and filled with all the characters you want! A happy and satisfying read!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Rosalie Knecht
[isbn]
This book was a great pleasure to read. It feels simple, combining elements of the thriller genre with a coming-of-age tale, all told by a clear-voiced first person narrator. And the sum is greater than its parts. Vera Kelly grew on me, and I finished the book wanting more.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Stevan Allred
[isbn]
A fable, an adventure, a story filled with treats for us lovers of words and culture and the world. This is one of the rare books that I never wanted to end. Completely satisfying, dramatic, hilarious — a wonderful world. I'll buy a lot of copies of this book for my holiday gift list.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Cecil Castellucci, Marley Zarcone
[isbn]
If you take a coming-of-age tale and blow it up with aliens, madness, psychedelia, and a ton of fun, you get Shade the Changing Girl!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Lidia Yuknavitch
[isbn]
Lidia Yuknavitch uses the tropes of dystopian fiction to write something more, a story of spirit and body, of despair and hope, of something new rising from the destruction of the old. I had to read this book in pieces, stopping to allow myself emotional and mental digestion. This writer has brilliance and heart.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Madeline Miller
[isbn]
I loved this book and was sorry to get to the end of it. I loved Circe herself, her absolute realness, her struggles, her triumphs. She is a woman for the ancients and for today. Madeline Miller puts me right in the middle of the old gods, and she speaks to my 21st-century heart.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Nnedi Okorafor
[isbn]
Nnedi Okorafor is a remarkable writer, bringing fresh ideas, humanity, and all the requisite excitement to her novels. Akata Witch is a great and satisfying story, and an excellent beginning to a series. I look forward to more.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Jesmyn Ward
[isbn]
Jesmyn Ward’s first novel, set in the same town as Salvage the Bones and Sing, Unburied, Sing, tells the story of twin boys raised in the poverty and despair of the post-Katrina Gulf coast. Over one summer the boys take different paths, only to face the threat of their wounded, estranged parents and their own precarious lives. This story of family, pain, and love brings a world many of us don’t know close to our hearts. Here is... (read more)
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Willy Vlautin
[isbn]
There was a moment two-thirds of the way through
this book when I said, “Oh no!” out loud. And I don’t do that kind of thing.
This book broke my heart and then pieced it back together. The quiet language
of the narrator trying to make sense of every hard circumstance, the characters
he runs across, the humanity of it all. Beautiful.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Willy Vlautin
[isbn]
Willy Vlautin brings you heartbreak, hope, and wry humor in this book that is grounded and yet dreamlike. Remarkable.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Jenny Forrester
[isbn]
Jenny Forrester’s memoir drew me in, then got under my skin, then filled me with sadness and life and joy. A beautiful book.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Fonda Lee
[isbn]
I'm excited about this original new voice in urban fantasy and science fiction. Jade City was filled with fascinating new takes on politics and gang life; cultures that seem both familiar and foreign; and the very human trials we all understand. I had to keep reading to see what happened, and I was surprised, happily so, all the way through. I look forward to more from Fonda Lee.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Natasha Pulley
[isbn]
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street kept growing on me all the way to the end. I loved the timing of the reveals, the characters and how they developed, the setting, and the combination of the familiar and the strange. This was a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Kelly Sue Deconnick
[isbn]
I've read this collection three times over the past two years. Each time I've found and understood more of the depth of this story. Every page requires the reader's attention, and the art deserves as much attention as the writing. Pretty Deadly is a story with many layers, epic in theme and scope.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro
[isbn]
Bitch Planet is over the top like the exploitation movies it borrows from, but this graphic novel is also deep, funny, portentous, and timely as hell — writing and art in one glorious terror.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Kelly Sue Deconnick, Valentine De Landro, Taki Soma
[isbn]
The Bitch Planet saga continues. The worm turns. There's more to noncompliance than you might have thought. Kelly Sue DeConnick and Valentine De Landro are making the most original, the most fun, the most make-you-want-to-do-something comic book out there!
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Leni Zumas
[isbn]
Leni Zumas's new novel is remarkable in its humor, characterizations, and its deft way of putting you into a world whose dystopia is too close to our own. This is an important and amazingly readable book.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
Charlie Jane Anders
[isbn]
I flew through this book! It was fun and original, but like much dystopian fiction, a little too close to home. It's a great summer read.
Recommended by Doug C.
|
N K Jemisin
[isbn]
This is a satisfying, thoughtful story that explores the themes of gender and relationship roles while staying within what could be considered the traditional fantasy genre. Each of the main characters is flawed and real. I'm glad to have spent time with each of them.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Rene Denfeld
[isbn]
I was ready to have my heart broken by Rene Denfeld's The Child Finder. What I didn't expect was that by the end of the story, I felt joy and healing. A simple but remarkable telling of a world close to all of us.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Michael Shou-Yung Shum
[isbn]
This book is a highly satisfying read with a wonderful ending. Magic runs throughout the story... or is it the math of odds and gambling? I spent a lovely weekend reading this novel. I'm left feeling like I might just get lucky, too. And I'll never forget, to the discerning hand, some playing cards are heavier than others.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Bradley K. Rosen
[isbn]
There's no book like Bunkie Spills and no voice like Bunkie himself telling the story of his tribe of teenage friends in the 1970s. The novel breaks your heart and makes you laugh, all at the same time, and it is compulsively readable. You'll beg Bunkie not to do that, not to go there, not to try that, even as you go with him to all those places.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Mark Russell, Steve Pugh
[isbn]
Mark Russell brings smart satire and heart in equal measure to this entertaining update of the Stone-Age family. You won't even realize how much he's leading you to think. And Steve Pugh's artwork is a great 21st-century take on the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons. There are visual treats on every page. Bonus: the real Adam and Steve.
Recommended by Doug C.
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Marc Andreyko
[isbn]
This collection will break your heart over and over, but it will lift you up and give you hope, too. Because love is love.
Recommended by Doug C.
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