Marguerite Duras
[isbn]
One of the most elegant and devastating novels in existence. There is no wisdom like the wisdom of a young girl determined to unwind life's mysteries on her own terms.
Recommended by Nadia N.
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Kelly Barnhill
[isbn]
A few things to know about me as a reader: I’m a sucker for a literalized metaphor; I’m very invested in the expression of female rage; and I love dragons. I’m also a huge fan of Kelly Barnhill’s middle grade writing (The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a masterpiece that should be devoured by readers of all ages), so when I found out she was writing an adult fiction novel in which unhappy, furious women spontaneously turned into dragons, my... (read more)
Recommended by Madeline S.
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Jandy Nelson
[isbn]
The best contemporary YA fiction I've ever read, hands down. Twins Noah and Jude (both artists) alternate as storytellers, with a three-year gap between their narratives. Both have beautiful, clear voices, and you won't be able to rest until you see their stories through (and find out what happened in the years in between).
Recommended by Madeline S.
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Neil Gaiman
[isbn]
"I think
that I would rather recollect
a life mis-spent on fragile things
than spent avoiding moral debt."
So begins Gaiman's introduction to this collection of "short fictions and wonders," which reads as a short story itself. The writing herein is some of Gaiman's best, and this oft-overlooked book makes an excellent gift for any fan of this master storyteller's other works.
Recommended by Madeline S.
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Neil Gaiman
[isbn]
This slim book holds heavy truths about the human heart, family, friendship, and sacrifice, all written in classic Gaiman style. Steeped in mythology and longing, it's a book I could not put down but nonetheless didn't want to finish.
Recommended by Marianne T
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Temim Fruchter
[isbn]
I honestly can't get enough of folklore and queer protagonists. So, whenever a title has both, I'm instantly intrigued. This debut is beautifully constructed and will remain in your thoughts long after you put it down.
Recommended by Lindsay P
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Rene Denfeld
[isbn]
"This time will be different," I tell myself. "This time, I won't tear through the new Rene Denfeld book in twenty-four hours and then be sad I don't have it to look forward to anymore," I lie as I turn another page. "This time, I'll savor it," I mutter unconvincingly as I look up from my half-read book to discover day has turned to night.
Recommended by Tove H.
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Roshani Chokshi
[isbn]
Dark and dreamy. Haunting and beautiful. Seeing is deceiving in this gothic fairytale that serves as Chokshi's adult debut. Even in our greatest fantasy, the past won't stay buried long.
Recommended by Sarah J
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Genki Kawamura, Eric Selland
[isbn]
This small book tackles some big questions and will leave you wondering — what would you be willing to give up to live just one more day?
Recommended by Sarah J
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Jhumpa Lahiri and Jeff Portnowitz
[isbn]
If you love Rome, either because you've visited this stunning city or because you long to visit it, these stories will sweep you into its contemporary, throbbing heart. The characters — friends and families, some deeply rooted in the city and some marginal — are authentic in the way that all Lahiri's characters are, and their circumstances are familiar despite their splendid setting. And then there's something extra and intimate, perhaps because... (read more)
Recommended by Marianne T
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Kelly Link
[isbn]
Kelly Link's debut novel is as expansive, funny, human, and strange as I could've possibly hoped. The Book of Love reads like it has a heart, beating so strongly and desperately, it strains at its container. The story is full of grief and friendship and acrimony, teenagers trying to sort through impossible feelings and circumstances, memories that erode and rewrite themselves and turn inside out. It's such a phenomenal feat; I'm so... (read more)
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Frederika Amalia Finkelstein and Isabel Cout and Christopher Elson
[isbn]
A twenty-something-year-old woman wanders the streets of 2010s Paris at night battling insomnia and intergenerational trauma. Her grandfather was a Holocaust survivor but has recently passed, and as she begins the difficult journey of processing that grief she begins to find a deeper understanding of how what he went through continues to affect her and her family and she begins to reconsider how the events of his life lead her to where she is... (read more)
Recommended by Aster A.
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Kiley Reid
[isbn]
Reid’s second novel follows a cast of messy and charming characters whose lives intersect at the University of Arkansas. There are so many awkward and cringe-worthy moments that I live for in a book and it gets uncomfortable in different ways for everyone. I love the delicate yet biting nature of Reid’s work that reels the reader in to a world that's relatable and engrossing.
Recommended by Vicky K.
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Julie Myerson
[isbn]
Oh man, this book broke me — in the best way. A beautiful, blistering autofiction about a woman doing what she can to, without being able to do very much, to look after a daughter, while also working to reconcile her own history with her mother, her art, and the world. Fans of Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti will love this one.
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Eliza Barry Callahan
[isbn]
As soon as I picked up this book, I couldn’t put it down. The writing is fresh and sharp and quietly devastating. After the narrator, a woman who makes money by scoring short films, is diagnosed with Sudden Deafness, her relationship to the world and people around her shifts. As she attempts to understand what her new circumstances mean and how to reconstruct a meaningful life for herself within these freshly drawn limits, she thinks about music... (read more)
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Mircea Cartarescu and Sean Cotter
[isbn]
You might not think you need a 630-page Romanian surrealist novel to take over your life for a month, but I'm here to encourage the incineration of your to-read list in favor of this sui generis trip through the underbelly of 1970s/80s Romania. From the childhood visions of a schoolteacher with a predilection for termites and dreams of revelation, to meandering notes on philosophy, undecipherable manuscripts, and the fourth dimension, this is a... (read more)
Recommended by Nadia N.
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E.J. Koh
[isbn]
E. J. Koh’s debut novel, The Liberators is her follow-up to the stunning memoir, The Magical Language of Others. I was so excited to read the novel; I started as soon as I got the galley, and couldn’t put it down. The story covers decades and contents, and follows one family as its members try to figure out what it means to choose a lover, a life, a home. The relationships between the characters are so lovingly and beautifully... (read more)
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Alexandra Tanner
[isbn]
So deliciously and expertly existential. To the point where I've begun noting every minutia of my day like they're somehow new and strange and connected and everything is an opportunity and nothing matters anymore and I want to hate that but it's kind of freeing and why am I desperately wanting to pick fights with anti-vax moms on Instagram?
Recommended by Stacy W.
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Lorrie Moore
[isbn]
Lorrie Moore has always been a writer whose words root into my veins, setting up camp for months after I think I’m done with them. I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home — a book about love and death and passion and grief and how all of it can be messy and muddy and bad but also sometimes, somehow, occasionally good and worthwhile — has already found a home in my bones. This book is so beautifully written and filled with such wild pathos... (read more)
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Barbara Kingsolver
[isbn]
This is a beautiful, timely, and compelling book that does NOT require you to reread David Copperfield to appreciate it. Just know that Kingsolver is at her best, showing us the downside of the foster care system and the destruction to young lives and communities wrought by easy access to opioids. Always a superb storyteller, Kingsolver manages to break hearts while still offering glimmers of hope.
Recommended by Marianne T
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Edward Cahill
[isbn]
This historical novel captures the complexities of life as a gay man living in New York City in the early 1960s. In part a romance, in part a mystery, Disorderly Men is a thrilling and infuriating, but ultimately hopeful, read.
Recommended by Adam P.
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Lydia Davis
[isbn]
Lydia Davis's stories absolutely hum with strange beauty — contemplative, inventive, confident in their own singular power. This is the kind of book I want to throw across the room for being too good and also hug to my heart for existing. And it's only available at libraries and independent bookstores like Powell's!!
Recommended by Claire A.
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Sigrid Nunez
[isbn]
Another stunner from the inimitable Sigrid Nunez. The Vulnerables is a meditative, wry book that picks apart what it means to live in a world as unnerving as ours currently is, and what it means to create art (or at least, try to create art) in the midst of everything. The narrator is stuck in New York City during the height of the pandemic, caring for a friend of a friend’s parrot, trying to make meaning even as her brain feels like... (read more)
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Ben Lerner
[isbn]
For poets who hesitate to call themselves poets, this essay is a reminder of the futility of our beloved form. Lerner incisively guides the reader through transcendent and terrible poems, all of which are failures of a different kind, only some of which succeed by virtue of their failure. I'm partial to Lerner's idea that every poet harbors some resentment towards poetry, and every poetry hater masks a certain envy, maybe even a curiosity, of... (read more)
Recommended by Nadia N.
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Catherine Leroux and Susan Ouriou
[isbn]
This incredible work tackles problems both fictional and very real. Alongside the poisoned rivers and regenerative houses, Leroux also beautifully addresses ongoing racial and economic injustice, pollution, and violence. However, in this same struggle, we find strength, resilience, and power in community. In the strange world we live in today, this book is important and a great reminder that we are strongest as a community.
Recommended by Aster A.
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Roberto Bolaño
[isbn]
Deliriously good. A kaleidoscopic vision of 1970s Mexico City whose heart lies with its young poets. Rich in character and circumstance, with fibrous, idiosyncratic narratives that slither madly and swallow themselves. At once a bildungsroman, a road novel, a collection of worldclass short stories, a book of literary criticism, and a thinly veiled autobiography, The Savage Detectives effortlessly goes where few novels have dared.
Recommended by Nadia N.
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Bryan Washington
[isbn]
Bryan Washington's Lot and Memorial were two of my favorite queer fiction books of the past five years. I've also loved the food writing Washington's done. Family Meal combines his interests by telling the story of two queer friends examining their history and figuring out their future, while working side by side at a family bakery.
Recommended by Adam P.
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Oksana Vasyakina and Elina Alter
[isbn]
This book absolutely delivers on the promise of its simple title: it is a bruising, beautiful book that I couldn’t put down, even as each page pulsed with the heartache of existing in an unforgiving world. The narrator, Oksana, is a queer, Russian poet whose mother has recently passed. As she travels to their former home of Siberia, she thinks about her past with her mom and her mom’s tumultuous relationships; Oksana’s own complicated romantic... (read more)
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Sean Michaels
[isbn]
A famed poet gets an offer to collaborate with an advanced AI on a book length poem for a large sum of money. She accepts. This exhilarating novel explores what it really means to be an artist, a parent, and a consciousness. Anyone anxious about AI should read this book.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Isle McElroy
[isbn]
Isle McElroy has taken a well-used trope and breathed fresh life into it. People Collide has exactly what I look for in literary fiction: intriguing characters, keen insights, and great pacing, all in service of addressing big themes. This is an immensely enjoyable and thought-provoking novel.
Recommended by Keith M.
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Nona Fernandez, Natasha Wimmer
[isbn]
Chilean novelist Fernandez weaves her own constellation in this book-length essay that roots her mother's brain scans to the stars, to national grief, to loss and the fragility of memory, and to what is left behind for the living. A slow, deep breath in shimmering prose — one of my faves of the year.
Recommended by SitaraG
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Lauren Groff
[isbn]
I read this book in three delirious days and was so frustrated whenever I had to do anything other than read it! Absolutely stunning — on its surface an adventure, at its beating heart a story of human limitation and fire to survive, of how and why one claims a home, a name, a self, of the divine, and so much more.
Recommended by Claire A.
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Manuel Munoz
[isbn]
I usually struggle to finish short story collections, but the expertly woven connections between some of these narratives immediately drew me in and held my attention till the last page. Each story is so convincingly portrayed that you could easily forget it's a work of fiction.
Recommended by Rudy K.
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Melissa Broder
[isbn]
Melissa Broder's novel about an author dealing with her ailing dad and husband while being lost in the desert searching for a magical cactus speaks to me. Grief is a weird desert that allows you to get lost and parched while you're trying to find magic you thought you lost.
Recommended by Vicky K.
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Alexis M Smith
[isbn]
Glaciers technically spans one day in the life of Isabel, a twenty-something woman who works in the basement of the Central Library in downtown Portland, furnishes her life with vintage postcards and thrift store collections, and gently yearns for her coworker. Emotionally, it spans decades, visiting the memories of her childhood in Alaska and imagined stories of her secondhand treasures triggered by her movements through the day. While... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Ann Patchett
[isbn]
You're in the thrall of a fine storyteller when a book that's essentially a family conversation becomes impossible to put down. This is a love story and a timely family tale that calls out memory and the ways we edit it (or does it edit us?).
Recommended by Marianne T
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Raven Leilani
[isbn]
A dark, literary, funny, impossible-to-put-down book, Luster is centered on 23-year-old Edie. The novel covers a period of her life intersecting with a much older lover, his wife, and their adopted teenage daughter. In phenomenal prose (Edie's descriptions and observations about the world are impeccable), Raven Leilani has captured complex, intimate ways that people help and hurt each other, the drudgery of modern workplaces and the gig... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Zadie Smith
[isbn]
A rollicking work of historical fiction, Zadie Smith takes readers from Charles Dickens’s London to colonial Jamaica and back. Asking big questions about social roles, public morality, the value of art, and the usefulness of truth; Smith’s latest is entertaining and thought-provoking. A joy to read!
Recommended by Keith M.
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Tom Stoppard
[isbn]
Follow Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two minor characters in Hamlet, as they live through the events of the play. However, from the first scene, it is clear that what they're experiencing is not quite reality... after all, what are the odds of a coin landing heads-up ninety-two times in a row?
Witty, bittersweet, and strange, this play is a breathtaking reflection on art and storytelling — as well as one of the most brilliantly surreal... (read more)
Recommended by Edme G.
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Cleo Qian
[isbn]
I feel like I read this debut collection in one, fast, maniacal gulp. Filled with displacement and redemption, video games and karaoke, Cleo Qian’s writing is unnerving, strange, delicious — all of the things you might want out of a collection with this title and this cover. I promise, once you’ve read the first story (called “Chicken. Film. Youth.” — a title that’s a short story in and of itself), you’ll be all in. For fans of Ling Ma and... (read more)
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Jen DeLuca
[isbn]
Lulu "girl-bossed" too close to the sun. Luckily, when she fell back down to Earth, she landed in the arms of a hot guitar player. Not only is this book adorable, but it also let me live out my fantasy of quitting my job and following a band around the country.
Recommended by Lindsay P
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Stephen O'Donnell
[isbn]
Fine artist Stephen O’Donnell turns his artist’s eye toward the act of putting story on the page in this debut collection. With lush imagery and poetic turns of phrase, these stories are a moving — at times beautifully melancholy — meditation on the ways we strive to find kinship in the world.
Recommended by Gigi L.
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Mona Awad
[isbn]
You would never guess that Tom Cruise, skincare, jellyfish, cults, and roses would fit together, but here we are. When Belle’s mother dies mysteriously, she follows clues to figure out what happened, and it ultimately leads her down a dangerous path of the pursuit of beauty and youth.
Recommended by Vicky K.
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Lydia Kiesling
[isbn]
Mobility is a pitch-perfect look at one woman's life, a snapshot in geologic time that captures so much about how we're catastrophically harming the planet, even with the best of intentions. Lydia Kiesling gets so many precise feelings so perfectly right — workmanlike teen anxieties and activities; finding pride and ambition in a career you did not necessarily choose; prescient arcs in your personal story that only make... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Erika Kobayashi, Brian Bergstrom
[isbn]
Kobayashi continues to weave generations of women into stories of the wounds of nuclear power and the hubris of war, this time in a lyrical collection of eleven short stories. These stories follow the growth and change of nuclear power and how it mirrors the lives of the women in these stories. Though these generations are simply trying to live their lives, they each become their own perfect example of the irrevocable consequences of... (read more)
Recommended by Aster A.
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Maru Ayase and Haydn Trowell
[isbn]
The Forest Brims Over is the first of Ayase's novels to be translated into English, and both the themes and writing style remind me of Han Kang's The Vegetarian. Ayase's approach to examining gender roles and exploitation in the literary world via magical realism was interwoven throughout in a way that never felt jarring to the plot. I appreciated the varied perspectives within this book and the different self-reflections this... (read more)
Recommended by Charlotte S.
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Justin Torres
[isbn]
Blackouts, the long-awaited second book from Justin Torres, uses words and images to attempt to recover and illuminate stories of queer people living in the 20th century. Blackouts doesn't give its secrets away easily, or for free. Torres demands your time and focus, and earns your respect and awe. This is an experimental and moving book, sure to be read and reread in the years to come.
Recommended by Adam P.
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Kirino, Natsuo
[isbn]
In Grotesque, Kirino shows off her ability to dive into the most deplorable corners of the human psyche and make readers want to stay there even as they're squirming to get away. The book showcases three different perspectives, all of which are unreliable in their own ways. As one reads, their grasp on the reality within the book becomes tenuous, and that sense of tension forms all of the unease and discomfort you could possibly want... (read more)
Recommended by Mar S.
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Sabda Armandio, Lara Norgaard
[isbn]
In this incredible twist of genres, Armandio combines futuristic science fiction, crime thrillers, and surreal fiction. In the distant future, Indonesia’s crowded capital city is underwater and a novelist searches the remains of the vast city for the story of an old, infamous crime. Hunting for any trace at all of Gaspar, a private-eye-turned-criminal-mastermind plans a seemingly simple robbery of a jewelry store; however, the heist reveals a... (read more)
Recommended by Aster A.
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Bernardo Zannoni and Alex Andriesse
[isbn]
Archy is a beech marten, born into poverty, maimed by an accident, and sold into servitude by his mother. His master Solomon, a pawn-broking fox, teaches him to read and write based on knowledge he got after a bible fell on his head while he was distracted feeding on a hanged man. Unable to forget what he now knows about God, life, and death, Archy feels torn between intellect and instinct, despite desperately longing to be a “real animal.”
This... (read more)
Recommended by Aster A.
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Katherine Center
[isbn]
Hannah Brooks is probably the last person you'd expect to be a bodyguard. That's why, when action star Jack Stapleton needs someone to protect him from his stalker, she's the perfect choice. The two agree to enter into a fake relationship to spare Jack's mom's fragile state of mind. Hilarity ensues. I mean, how can you be afraid of cows? This book gave me the giggles and I really needed the giggles.
Recommended by Rose H.
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Agustina Bazterrica, Sarah Moses
[isbn]
This collection of nineteen short stories is exactly what you would expect from the author of Tender is the Flesh, and I mean that in the best way. Once again, Bazterrica drags our darkest fears to light with tales of dystopia, alienation, and violence, but in her vivid and clever style, she also manages to make you laugh. This collection is witty, disturbing, and an absolute must-read. In many ways, reading these stories gave me that... (read more)
Recommended by Aster A.
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Edith Pattou
[isbn]
A wonderful folktale retelling inspired by the oft-forgotten fairy tale, "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," infused with wit, romance, and adventure!
Recommended by Grace B
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Toni Morrison
[isbn]
This is the legendary Toni Morrison’s first novel, set in her own home town of Lorrain, Ohio, in 1941. It presents the pain and consequences of racism, but also of societal notions of beauty and ugliness. Written in a variety of voices, it tells a heartbreaking and unforgettable story. If you have already read this book, then share it with a friend, and if you haven’t, now you must.
Recommended by Marianne T
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Chelsea G. Summers
[isbn]
Deliciously horrifying, A Certain Hunger is not for the faint of heart. Dorothy Daniels unapologetically recounts her murderous culinary history (à la eating her ex's organs); this is not a novel where the protagonist will attempt to justify her actions, but she sure will share the juicy details! Truly, who thought a cannibalism novel would be so enjoyable while also offering such a satirical take of food snobbery and gender? Yay for... (read more)
Recommended by Charlotte S.
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Bora Chung and Anton Hur
[isbn]
What a delightfully strange short story collection! Each story is so original — often unnerving, sometimes gut-wrenching, and all in their own way a critique of capitalism and the patriarchy.
Recommended by Charlotte S.
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Amy Hempel
[isbn]
Amy Hempel was one of the first authors recommended to me by a coworker when I started at Powell's almost twenty years ago. I remember coming to work the day after I finished At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom and grabbing a copy of every other Hempel book from the Blue Room. Her writing is a feat, a marvel, a gift, and The Collected Stories — which combines all of her published work from 1985–2005 — will save you the inevitable... (read more)
Recommended by Tove H.
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Colson Whitehead
[isbn]
Returning to the world of Harlem Shuffle, Ray Carney finds himself in a jam: his daughter wants to go to a Jackson 5 concert, but tickets are hard to come by. Sales aren’t the greatest at the furniture store and he’s left behind the stolen goods game. He has a choice to make, and it gets complicated, to say the least. Whitehead takes us to Harlem in the 70s in all its grittiness and upheavals through Carney’s world in this brilliant new... (read more)
Recommended by Vicky K.
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Colin Winnette
[isbn]
Users immediately drew me in with its dark humor and clever commentary on the addictive nature of technology. Winnette creates a compelling, and anxiety-inducing world where the line between reality and illusion is blurred.
Recommended by Rudy K.
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Satoshi Yagisawa
[isbn]
One of those slice-of-lifes that tend to reveal the magic in the ordinary, the power of unintended connection, and the excitement in the undetermined. If kind gestures and gentle pleasantries are your thing: here, have a treat.
Recommended by Stacy W.
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Akwaeke Emezi
[isbn]
Five years after surviving a car accident that took her husband's life, Feyi is navigating the path from grief back to love when it takes an unexpected turn. Fans of Emezi’s previous work might find this foray into romance to be an unexpected turn as well, but they’ll be delighted with the result, which is vibrant, tangled, immersive, and verrry sexy.
Recommended by Tove H.
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Rebekah Bergman
[isbn]
I loved The Museum of Human History so much! The book hops through time and follows a collection of characters in a coastal town that's attracted shiny biomedical companies trying to rush anti-aging procedures to market, mostly staying in the decades before and after a twin girl falls into a coma and stops aging. It's a very literary, heartbreaking, speculative page-turner about the tragedy of memory, and the desire to hold onto the best... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Toni Morrison
[isbn]
This is the legendary Toni Morrison’s first novel, set in her own home town of Lorrain, Ohio, in 1941. It presents the pain and consequences of racism, but also of societal notions of beauty and ugliness. Written in a variety of voices, it tells a heartbreaking and unforgettable story. If you have already read this book, then share it with a friend, and if you haven’t, now you must.
Recommended by Marianne T
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Akwaeke Emezi
[isbn]
Five years after surviving a car accident that took her husband's life, Feyi is navigating the path from grief back to love when it takes an unexpected turn. Fans of Emezi’s previous work might find this foray into romance to be an unexpected turn as well, but they’ll be delighted with the result, which is vibrant, tangled, immersive, and verrry sexy.
Recommended by Tove H.
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Sylvia Plath
[isbn]
This bookstore is like a fig tree. Wonderful worlds beckoning on every shelf like branches. Overwhelmed with indecision on which fig to choose? Don't let this prescient, timeless work dry up and go to waste...
Recommended by Etan L.
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Virginia Woolf
[isbn]
This deeply poetic novel is often considered Woolf’s masterpiece. The novel itself serves as an excellent example of the complexity and diversity of topics and styles that Woolf includes throughout her work. This story begins with six children playing by the sea and discusses the light and joy in childhood and in friendship; in the very same novel, she uses these characters to show the reality of grief and sadness. Woolf did many interesting... (read more)
Recommended by Aster A.
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Dian Greenwood
[isbn]
Dian Greenwood's writing is precise, beautifully described, full of heart and insight. And what's the best treasure of all in this complex, moving, and thoroughly entertaining book? The way she puts her characters on the page. How can you not fall in love with these sisters? Every last wonderful, snarky, sad, funny, wise, raging, captivating, broken, human part of them.
Recommended by Gigi L.
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Willy Vlautin
[isbn]
I liked this one a lot. As a Portland local (and a fan of the Delines), Vlautin's Portland references made me giddy within the heaviness of the all-too-real story of gentrification and poverty in the area. It's a satisfying slap in the face to the "Keep Portland Weird" tourism steamrolling what's at the heart of the city. The sentences are tight, punchy. Hard to not compare them to Carver (for me at least, given that I'm a big Carver fan).... (read more)
Recommended by Jimbo C.
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Sylvia Plath
[isbn]
This book is one of my favorite works of fiction. However, stating that has earned me more than one concerned glance over the years. The thing about this book is, even sixty years after its publication, it is something that many young girls, and young people in general, still relate to. Truly the most wonderful thing about this novel is its truth and vulnerability, both of which are often the reason people turn away from it. It is meant to be... (read more)
Recommended by Aster A.
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Sue Lynn Tan
[isbn]
Based on Chinese mythology, the immortal world of the Celestial Kingdom is absolutely entrancing, as is Xingyin's journey from servant to celebrated archer of the royal army. It's a story about love and lies and just how far she's willing to go to free her mother from banishment.
Recommended by Carly J.
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Mieko Kanai and Polly Barton
[isbn]
The slice-of-life within Mild Vertigo offers the reader a startlingly similar reality to their own. A calm surface, only just barely disturbed by the creeping sensation of having been here before, done all of this before — not in a dramatic, Groundhog-Day sense, but of looking at your grocery list and realizing it's an exact copy of the one before, and the one before, and the one before. The way Natsumi's stream of consciousness... (read more)
Recommended by Charlotte S.
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David Benioff
[isbn]
Fans of the Last of Us series may recognize this title as a reference point left by Neil Druckmann in the second game, and it's easy to see Benihoff's influence on Druckmann's writing. City of Thieves is a bruising escapade, whipping the reader from a joke into contemplation into tragedy moment to moment. An extremely effective rumination on survival, suffering, and the absurdity of war.
Recommended by SitaraG
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Kyung-Sook Shin and Anton Hur
[isbn]
After years of emotional isolation, Hon is finally learning the whole truth about her father, her siblings, and the family's financial hardships
What we see Hon learn is not only a picture of her father and her family but a much larger portrait of a generation and gives a much better look at the scope of their sacrifice and heroism. Through this family and Shin’s beautifully detailed writing, a window is opened for us to look at family, grief,... (read more)
Recommended by Aster A.
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Mary Doria Russell
[isbn]
This book absolutely dazzled me, taking a common sci-fi premise — humanity finally makes contact with alien life — and making it feel completely new. A team of scientists, anthropologists, and linguists journeys into space to meet the newly discovered extraterrestial culture. Their mission is funded by the Jesuits, but there are a range of religious beliefs, and lack thereof, among them. The vision of what the alien world would be like is... (read more)
Recommended by Claire A.
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Rebecca Dinerstein Knight
[isbn]
This is one of most dazzling, weirdest, boldest books I've ever read and I'm so glad it exists. Our narrator recently left a PhD program in botany, studying poisons and their antidotes, and now spends her time obsessing over the people in her insular cohort, especially her charismatic advisor Joan, and filling her apartment with plants on which to conduct her rogue research. Dark academia, obsessive cathexis, weird love... (read more)
Recommended by Claire A.
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Bea Setton
[isbn]
A literary mystery which effortlessly switches between the creepy and mundane days of Daphne's new life in Berlin. We get to hear her (possibly paranoid) thoughts about her past and current loves, her stalker, her series of apartment misfortunes, and her continuous need to cut ties and begin again. This book holds you in suspense and makes you care for a main character you aren't even sure you want to like.
Recommended by Aster A.
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Esther Kinsky and Caroline Schmidt
[isbn]
Bewitching, exquisite, almost unbearably bittersweet (I had to blink back tears more than once), Rombo evokes the transience of all life through seven characters' accounts of what happened on the day and night of a devastating earthquake in the mountains of northern Italy in May 1976. Intermingled with their ruminations on the day that changed everything for them and their villages, as well as the long aftermath of the quake, is a kind... (read more)
Recommended by Jennifer K.
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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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Alice Hoffman
[isbn]
Like a lot of folks, I grew up with Practical Magic somehow constantly playing on TV somewhere in the house, so I think I went into Hoffman's book with low expectations and unintentionally did myself a favor. Pretty much a total departure from the movie, Hoffman's classic is still just as sweet and sexy — the Owen sisters navigate their supposed magical gifts and outwit complicated familial curses with their love for each other and their... (read more)
Recommended by SitaraG
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Erin Sterling
[isbn]
Magic is on the fritz again in this follow up to The Ex Hex. Gwyn continues to run her witchy-themed shop, Something Wicked, while also adopting some Baby Witches in need of magical guidance. To further complicate things, her brother-in-law has opened a shop across the street from hers, further proving that Sir Purrcival's nickname of "Dickbag" is correct. But when a (maybe) love spell goes awry, will Gwyn and Dickbag Wells see sparks?... (read more)
Recommended by Lauren M
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Sarah Rose Etter
[isbn]
This book is such a wonderful heartache. I felt that hovering, winking black hole as I read — felt it grow like a pit in my stomach, even though I wasn't the one being buffeted around by the whims of Silicon Valley and selfish men, corporate greed and bodily needs. Sarah Rose Etter has written an astounding, sharp, deeply intimate book. I've already started recommending it to everyone I know.
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Adrienne Celt
[isbn]
End of the World House is so many things: an irresistible trapped-in-a-time-loop story, an exploration of how the most important relationships in your life change over time, an all-too-realistic view of working a professional job during an apocalypse that’s unsettlingly close to our own (different details, same vibes). This novel is also so well-crafted — it shifted into different, unexpected shapes, and I loved every surprising turn.... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Imogen Binnie
[isbn]
A hilarious and often achingly uncomfortable book about a trans woman who decides to go on an ill-advised road trip after her life in New York falls apart. Incisive and smart and only occasionally wise — a great book.
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Hilary Leichter
[isbn]
I was late to the party with Leichter’s debut, Temporary, but now I’m devastatingly early to the party with Terrace Story, a book I am obsessed with and want to discuss with everyone, ASAP. It’s the story of a couple living in a small apartment with their baby and their sort-of friend who somehow opens a portal to a terrace outside their apartment whenever she visits — and only when she visits. The magic in this story... (read more)
Recommended by Kelsey F.
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Julia Fine
[isbn]
Sumptuous and lyrical, Maddalena and the Dark absolutely shines with the beauty of Venice, the terror of first loves, and the singular, gothic passion of musicians and artists. So deeply romantic! So alluring! I wanted to get lost in its pages forever.
Recommended by Nicole S
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Jade Song
[isbn]
A modern, thalassic gothic about girlhood, obsession, and queerness briny with wit so sharp I almost can't believe it's a debut. Song shines brighter than any mermaid scale you can dream up. Yes, even brighter than your older sister's tail in the pool all those summers ago. Drag us down into the depths, Jade. More, more, more!
Recommended by Stacy W.
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Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher
[isbn]
In these far-flung stories, Kesha Ajose-Fisher’s elegant prose explores themes of distance and closeness, motherhood and womanhood. Read this powerful, poetic collection, and you’ll quickly understand why it won the Oregon Book Award.
Recommended by Gigi L.
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Noor Naga
[isbn]
This book asks a lot of delicious rhetorical questions, both formally and philosophically. Flip through the first few pages and you'll see what I mean. (Go ahead and pick it up — I'll wait.) It is a love story that is not about love, but perspective, and it is wholly unlike anything else I have ever read, which is perhaps why nothing I can say about it will satisfy me as being enough. Listen: this book is dense yet propulsive; disorienting yet... (read more)
Recommended by Katie P
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Curtis Sittenfeld
[isbn]
I feel very vulnerable writing this recommendation, because it felt like Romantic Comedy was written specifically to appeal to me. If you are at all intrigued by the inner workings of a famous live late-night sketch comedy show, if you want to read a very realistic deep-dive getting-to-know-each-other sequence (the middle of this book both lifted and squeezed my heart, does that make any sense?), if you're looking for a fun, compulsively... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Thomas Pynchon
[isbn]
Pynchon at his most accessible, this labyrinthine noir has a pleasing and mind-bending internal logic. Immerse yourself in this hilarious, brainy, conspiracy-filled caper!
Recommended by Adam B.
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Taylor Jenkins Reid
[isbn]
It's easy to get swept back in time by this sun-dappled, character-rich read about fame, family, and the currents that move us through life.
Recommended by Taylor W.
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Marcy Dermansky
[isbn]
This book is the perfect beach read for the mentally ill.
Recommended by Taylor W.
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Stephanie Danler
[isbn]
If you're seeking a summer read filled with catharsis and palm trees... look no further than Stray.
Recommended by Taylor W.
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Stephanie Danler
[isbn]
Set in New York City, this is the book for anyone who's ever been curious about the inner life of restaurants. Or someone who is looking for delicious food and even more savory drama.
Recommended by Taylor W.
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Kate Weinberg
[isbn]
Set in the United Kingdom, this atmospheric novel has it all... Dark academia, morally ambiguous characters, love, obsession, and a mysterious death! You won't be able to put this down.
Recommended by Taylor W.
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Jessa Maxwell
[isbn]
Don't be fooled by the flashy cover — this is a deliciously cozy mystery through and through. Devout followers of the Great British Bake Off will devour this sweet homage and love the in-depth descriptions of the different bakes. Safe to say that stodgy bottoms are the least of anyone's worries when there's dead bodies about...
Recommended by Alice S.
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Jennifer Saint
[isbn]
Never in life have I been so hooked by a book just by reading the first page. I dare you to read the prologue and find a way to put this book down. We all know the story of Theseus, and his defeat of the Minotaur. Now prepare to know the woman who helped him do it.
Recommended by Lindsay P
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Damon Galgut
[isbn]
Winner of the Booker Prize in 2021, this is a powerful, concise piece of literature. It's the story of a troubled family in troubled South Africa. The writing is lovely.
Recommended by Nan S.
Recommended by Nan S.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates
[isbn]
Gosh, this book was lovely. His lyrical style works wonderfully in this book, which transforms the underground railroad with magical realism. Highly recommended!
Recommended by Lesley A.
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Kiare Ladner
[isbn]
A dark, emotive story of obsession and addiction, I got pulled into this story and couldn't look away. Set during the late 90s, the friendship between Meggie and Sabine drips with desire. There's a lot of tension, sure to make you squirm, but that's just part of its charm.
Recommended by Carrie K.
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