Shelly Westerhausen Worcel, Wyatt Worcel
[isbn]
I'm always shifting into soup mode, and Every Season Is Soup Season is the cookbook that understands. Each recipe is crafted to let abundant, delicious, hearty vegetables shine (with optional instructions on adding meat), and includes two spinoffs (a remix to dress things up for a fancy dinner party, and a way to turn the leftovers into something totally new). Also, the photography is gorgeous and makes me want to live in a... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Jeff Yang
[isbn]
The Golden Screen celebrates Asian American cinema through profiles of iconic films — their cultural impact, the stories of success for each picture, and the personal commentary from the actors, writers, directors, and other artists who carry these movies into their work. While Jeff Yang's latest includes the recent renaissance in Asian American film, the book looks back much earlier than 2018 to create a fascinating map of influences... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Steve McCarthy
[isbn]
Oktober Vasylenko is part of a giant family that loves to explore in the wild — but Oktober loves to read books about how scary it is Out There. When Oktober ventures out and meets the Wilderness face-to-face, the ensuing adventure proves that "scared is how you feeldo." The Wilderness is so charming and cozy and beautiful and brave, and I will be personally gifting it to all the Oktobers and Mays in my life.... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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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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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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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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Alicia Thompson
[isbn]
With Love, From Cold World is about two coworkers at a failing, beloved, non-trademarked, winter-themed amusement park in Orlando. Lauren is all business while Asa is all fun (or is there more than meets the eye?), and they have to overcome their ongoing rivalry to come up with a wacky-yet-grounded solution to save their beloved anomaly of a workplace. And maybe... sparks fly, even in artificially cold conditions?? Alicia... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Jamie Loftus
[isbn]
Do you know the Maurice Sendak story about loving something so much you eat it? (Please look it up, I will not do him justice.) I thought of this story a lot while reading Raw Dog — both because I loved it SO MUCH, and because Jamie Loftus approaches everything with the abundant, honest, chaotic (complimentary!!) energy of loving something so much you have to make it a part of yourself. This book is decidedly about hot dogs... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Gloria Dickie
[isbn]
Bears are beloved, and terrifying, and worthy of careful and empathetic study (the human impact on bear life is both obvious and greater than you think)! Gloria Dickie takes us a thoughtful, thorough, and eminently readable tour of the eight remaining bear species, which is (of course!) a tour through the challenges and creative coping methods required for living on our increasingly complicated planet. Pick this one up if you're a fan of Fat Bear... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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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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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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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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Alexandra Chang
[isbn]
I read Days of Distraction in the eerie, early days of lockdown, as the trees started to bloom and the world fell apart. It's a phenomenal book that precisely captures the main character's uncertainties with her career, interracial relationship, family history, and her broader sense of belonging. It's also a witty, interior, and observant novel with great travel scenes, which turned out to be the right combination to combat (or face?) my... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Jinwoo Chong
[isbn]
In trying to describe Flux, I felt myself reaching for comparisons. In no particular order, I landed on: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow; the photo of Elizabeth Holmes holding a tiny vial of blood; Interior Chinatown; Inception; the bittersweet experience of aging; Glass Onion... Flux is a little bit of all these things, and yet totally unique. You will gasp, and cheer, and cry, and you... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Ken Forkish
[isbn]
Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast is one of my favorite cookbooks, and I feel incredibly lucky to have this bread master giving us even more knead-to-know knowledge in a second book. (I'm sorry.) The great thing about bread (other than everything about consuming it) is it's a fun, achievable challenge to bake your first loaf, and a lifelong, delicious challenge to expand and perfect a recipe anew with every new technique and change in... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Nnedi Okorafor
[isbn]
Binti runs away from her beloved desert home and family on Earth to go to the most prestigious university in the galaxy. She starts her journey as an outlier, as the first-ever Himba to be accepted. Mid-way, her ship is attacked and she witnesses a horrific massacre — and has to come up with a way to survive and broker peace between two warring groups before the ship lands. The experience colors Binti’s life, world, and sense of self in... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Marlon James
[isbn]
This National Book Award finalist starts with a failure — Tracker, a man with an uncommonly good nose, is telling the story of how he ended up in this jail cell, about the boy he was meant to find, about how he came to have the eye of a wolf. Black Leopard, Red Wolf unspools in spirals, and we learn more about how he came to this quest (and the ragtag rogue’s gallery that he uneasily agreed to work with), when he first met the leopard... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Elaine Hsieh Chou
[isbn]
Disorientation is a thrilling exploration of self and Asian American identity; a pitch-perfect satire of academia, institutions, and power; a literary mystery propelled by slightly bumbling sleuths; and (somehow) uproariously unhinged while being painfully familiar. No one is quite who they seem, as Chou expertly reveals the hidden depths and deceptions of every character in this knockout of a novel.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Emma Straub
[isbn]
I came to This Time Tomorrow excited for a time-travelling, time-loop story with emotional resonance, and Emma Straub delivered. Reading this book gave me that ever-rarer feeling of obsessive teen excitement, but in a very adult way (I felt myself aggressively underlining poignant observations about the not-quite-disappointments with aging out of potential life paths while staying up all night to finish it). A perfect novel... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Jennifer Egan
[isbn]
Jennifer Egan has a special talent for making you feel filled with hope for her characters and their futures, while being just a little bit devastated about the branches and paths that their lives take (or don't take). The Candy House shifts between viewpoints in the decades around a glitzy consumer tech invention — a social network that enables you to share and view other people's memories. While the book explores the insidious ways... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Lan Samantha Chang
[isbn]
Lan Samantha Chang's Family Chao is a captivating retelling of The Brothers Karamazov. Set in small-town Wisconsin, it's centered on the family that runs the Chinese restaurant and their hopes, frustrations, secrets, and passionate, foundational disagreements. Part whodunit, part courtroom drama, part great American novel, Family Chao is filled with difficult characters making understandable choices and actions — and... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Brandon Taylor
[isbn]
Taking place over a hazy August weekend, Real Life is a pitch-perfect capture of so many things: a Midwestern university town, frustrations and uncertainty in academia, and emotionally charged 30-something dinner parties, to name a few. Biochem grad student Wallace takes a protective, guarded stance in his relationships, and the weekend holds multiple confrontations between and among his friends and labmates that challenge his ability to... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Fukiharu Toshimitsu , Bone Eugenia
[isbn]
Mushrooms are having a moment (or maybe are always en vogue in the Pacific Northwest). These gorgeous illustrations from the 18th and 19th centuries are captivating, whether you're a fan of fungi in the culinary, scientific, or strictly aesthetic realm.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Haruki Murakami
[isbn]
I'm a sucker for a thoughtful collection, and Haruki Murakami is (despite his own preface claiming indifference) a very thoughtful collector. With photos of his T-shirts accompanied by short essays of associated memories, this is the perfect book for a slightly snoopy fan, or anyone who likes to ponder how printed clothing accumulates in your wardrobe and what it adds up to.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Shea Serrano and Arturo Torres
[isbn]
All the books in the And Other Things series are like the best kind of road trip conversations, when everyone is at their funniest and smartest and willing to dive deep into seemingly silly pop culture debates. Hip Hop (And Other Things) is no exception. Shea is perfect, Arturo is perfect, these essays will give you new (and sometimes goofy) ways to appreciate some top-tier musical greats.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Joe Pera, Joe Bennett
[isbn]
Joe Pera has written the sweetest, softest, funniest book to address everyday social anxiety. Please consider picking up this gentle book if you've ever appreciated a small room with a lock as a short-lived safe haven from social obligations or responsibilities — or if you just want to be surprised by your own chuckles while reading a very good and kind illustrated guide.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Angela Dimayuga and Ligaya Mishan
[isbn]
Is Filipinx the perfect cookbook? Every recipe is mouthwatering, every page is gorgeous and informative. I feel incredibly lucky that Dimayuga has shared these tasty dishes, made them accessible (even for a so-so cook like myself), and brought so much joy to my kitchen table. Be prepared to cook through the whole book.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Stephen Graham Jones
[isbn]
Jade is the ultimate slasher fan, and her prayers are answered when her dead-end hometown starts mimicking the plot points of her favorite films. Like all the best of these movies, My Heart is both a gory popcorn thrill ride and a warped lens to better see the very real horrors that humans inflict on each other. Don't start reading it after dark, and stay clear of the abandoned summer camp filled with secrets.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Mona Awad
[isbn]
All's Well is a swirling, intoxicating, otherworldy story about chronic pain, power imbalances, and the theatre. While putting on one of Shakespeare's problem plays, Miranda Fitz has an encounter with a mysterious trio that magically cures her debilitating pain (at a cost), and sets her on a dizzying path toward opening night and protecting her newfound lightness. It's dark, it's comedic, it's surreal and relatable — it's Mona Awad at... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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N. K. Jemisin
[isbn]
N. K. Jemisin is a powerhouse author — the first to win three consecutive Hugo Awards, to pick just one accolade. In How Long ’Til Black Future Month, Jemisin’s writing shines while she spins tales as varied as a steampunk New Orleans heist, a suspenseful mystery told only in the first-contact report remnants of a space crew, and a restaurant that can recreate any meal in remembered history. This collection offers a master class in... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Min Jin Lee
[isbn]
Pachinko — part family saga, part historical epic — starts with a perfect line: “History has failed us, but no matter.” Min Jin Lee’s masterpiece unspools to cover nearly 80 years of the 20th century, following a Korean family from their occupied fishing village to uneasily inhabiting multiple Japanese cities, and the choices and circumstances of history that redirect their lives. It's a novel of astonishing depth, thanks to skillful... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Zadie Smith
[isbn]
I first read White Teeth as a teenager, and it was mind-blowing. The novel was propulsive and energetic in a way I’d never experienced, and the characters were dealing with microaggressions and frustrations that I recognized but had never seen put to print. The story of the Joneses and the Iqbals, brought together by the fathers' war service, contends with the reality that the past is always informing our future in surprising and (often)... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Quinta Brunson
[isbn]
Quinta Brunson's sharp, insightful memoir is filled with essays about her childhood in Philly, nurturing her comedic voice (including a double life of improv practice), and the joys and dangers of the Internet. She Memes Well is a delight, and a fascinating look at how she forged her path as a performer.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Zakiya Dalila Harris
[isbn]
Zakiya Dalila Harris's debut is a brilliant mix of social satire and page-turning thriller that blurs the line between staying late at the office and hearing something when you're alone in a dark building. The Other Black Girl is exciting, expertly crafted, and made me gasp both in recognition and surprise.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Emiko Jean
[isbn]
Tokyo Ever After has everything: long-lost royal family, palace secrets, forbidden romance, mouth-watering izakaya descriptions, an unbeatable girl gang, a fully realized cast of handmaidens and imperial guards, an incredibly satisfying search for a sense of belonging. Izumi is my new hero, and my only complaint is this perfect book wasn't around when I was a teen.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Helen Oyeyemi
[isbn]
Peaces is an engrossing book with stunning twists and turns, not unlike the sparsely populated, luxurious train where the many mysteries unfold. It's also, somehow, about how your past shapes you and your relationships, and what it means to be seen and known. We're so lucky Helen Oyeyemi gifted us with this dazzling, surrealist gem of a novel.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Patricia Lockwood
[isbn]
Patricia Lockwood does some of my favorite writing — precise, weird, laugh-out-loud funny, and emotionally resonant. No One Is Talking About This is a phenomenal novel for everyone who interacts with the Internet, and everyone thinking about what it means to exist as a person.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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George Saunders
[isbn]
What a treat, to have George Saunders as a guide! He dives deep into stories he's taught for years, emanating a joy and respect for the craft of storytelling that's incredibly inviting. A delightfully enjoyable and approachable book that has enriched all my reading ever since I picked it up.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Bill Bryson
[isbn]
Bill Bryson takes the reader through fascinating facts of the human body (the kidneys process over 3 pounds of salt a day!); best guesses as to why we exist the way we do (is the uvula a "mudflap for the mouth"?); and the often questionable medical experiments and characters that have helped illuminate how the body works. The Body is a surprisingly cheerful journey through both the ways in which we seem to be perfectly designed, and the... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Paul Yoon
[isbn]
Run Me to Earth is a story of human connection in times of unimaginable horror, and the aftereffects of both those relationships and that trauma. It tells the stories of three orphans, separated after working in a makeshift, bombed-out hospital in 1960s Laos. Yoon’s deeply felt novel follows their divergent paths, and tells their tender, heartbreaking stories in a way that feels both intensely personal and vastly universal.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Anna Wiener
[isbn]
Uncanny Valley is the truest thing I’ve ever read. It’s such a precise picture of the last decade in the tech industry, told in matter-of-fact prose that made me gasp and cringe and laugh. Anna Wiener takes readers on her journey from barely-scraping-by publishing assistant to well-compensated tech worker, and how she grapples with the slow burn of false promises and the unforeseen consequences of the venture-backed playground of Silicon... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Yotam Ottolenghi and Ixta Belfrage
[isbn]
What more can I say about Ottolenghi? Every cookbook is a delight of unbelievably delectable plant-based recipes, and will do wonders for chefs of all levels. Ottolenghi Flavor offers more than 100 mouth-watering dishes, and dives into fascinating core concepts like flavor pairings and cooking reactions that will enhance every meal you make.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Foster Huntington
[isbn]
I always wanted to live in a treehouse as a kid, and spend a maybe-embarrassing amount of my adult life watching tiny home TV shows and scrolling through the #vanlife hashtag. Off Grid Life is the perfectly curated collection of my dreams, showcasing beautiful homes — yurts, converted shipping containers, tiny houses of all stripes — in stunning landscapes. With hundreds of photographs and interviews with some fascinating folks living... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Jenn Louis
[isbn]
I was a little skeptical when I first saw this title, but as soon as I saw the table of contents I understood — this is not about a single soup. With over 100 recipes from all over the world, Jenn Louis proves this hearty, comforting staple comes in many delicious forms: tom kha gai, poule au pot, green chili chicken stew, to name a few. The “chicken essentials” section has already improved my stock and changed my life.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Dolly Parton and Robert K. Oermann
[isbn]
It’s hard to talk about Dolly Parton without sounding like you’re describing a mythical figure, even outside of her stage presence and myriad hits. She wrote “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You” in the same day! Her Imagination Library program has sent hundreds of millions of free books to children to help combat illiteracy! In Dolly Parton, Songteller, she shares the fascinating stories behind the lyrics of her popular songs,... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant
[isbn]
Building on their popular podcast with this fascinating book, the SYSK hosts are going to change the way you look at everything — Mr. Potato Head, getting lost, facial hair, and more. The ideal read for anyone who’s ever wondered why things are the way they are.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Karen Russell
[isbn]
In Sleep Donation, insomnia is a mysteriously contracted and potentially fatal condition. Trish works for an organization that has sprung up to help — encouraging people to donate their sleep and parceling it out to sleepless people in need. Ethical quandaries, scientific marvels, and a literal nightmare public relations disaster ensue. Karen Russell is a master of atmosphere: This book gave me goosebumps in a heatwave. It reminded me of... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Yaa Gyasi
[isbn]
Transcendent Kingdom is a stunning exploration of a family and faith, of self and science. Gifty is a brilliant neuroscience grad student trying to isolate and study addiction in the brain, who is tasked with taking care of her depressed mother when she stops getting out of bed. Yaa Gyasi creates an intimate and complex portrait of Gifty, centered on her family's attempts to cope with her older brother's death by opioid overdose, and the... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Ali Wong
[isbn]
Dear Girls — made up of chapter-length letters by comedian Ali Wong to her two daughters — is a genuine delight. It was a joy to follow her life story and share in her life lessons, and the book left me with a lot of thoughts and feelings about making and finding places and communities. It is also so funny, to the surprise of no one who has seen her stand-up.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Rebecca Solnit
[isbn]
This memoir is a marvel. Rebecca Solnit writes with the cool, studied sense of a person who has always had to provide a great deal of proof, and makes a compelling case for how issues of representation, visibility, and credibility fit into the epidemic of violence against women. This book filled me with rage and hope in equal measure, and I loved every word.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Lily King
[isbn]
This is the exact book you need right now. Casey is 31 years old, deeply in debt, and splitting her time between waitressing and working on her novel. Her mother recently died, and she grieves her way into an accidental love triangle. Lily King has perfectly captured holding onto a creative practice while juggling the expectations and narrowing constraints of an adult life.
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Anna Burns
[isbn]
Little Constructions is, somehow, a madcap and comedic novel about intergenerational trauma, violence, and sexual abuse. Focusing on a sprawling crime family with only J-names, a meandering narrator lays out the history and hopes of the superstitious criminals, victims, and complicit bystanders in the town of Tiptoe Floorboard. It speaks to the skill of Anna Burns that her energetic and genuinely funny novel is so effective at... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Carmen Maria Machado
[isbn]
This is a heartbreaking memoir of an abusive relationship and the person who enters, lives, and leaves the experience. Machado tells her story in short pieces that play with different forms and genres, which serves to capture the dizzying feeling of trying to make sense of abuse as it’s happening, and to understand its ramifications as a survivor. It’s a beautiful, devastating, and hopeful book that broke me open and built new chambers in my... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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Shea Serrano and Arturo Torres
[isbn]
Movies (And Other Things) is an illustrated delight, combining perfect pop culture analysis with the specific joy of watching a movie scene accomplish exactly what it set out to do. Serrano’s essays center on the type of questions that come up with your closest friends — which films were robbed at the Oscars, the best action movie kills, whether Finding Nemo or Face/Off has a more devastating opening — and make... (read more)
Recommended by Michelle C.
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