With heartrending scenes, lyrical prose, and Shobha Rao's masterful storytelling, Girls Burn Brighter blazes forth a tale of perseverance and fate. Poornima's and Savitha's strength and love shine through their friendship. I relished this compelling novel!

A retelling of the story of the fall of Troy told from a woman's perspective — but not just any woman, a queen, Briseis, who becomes a slave when captured. Her rape and subsequent life as a piece of property owned by Achilles form the center of this story. It is a story about a particular time and place, but also a timeless story of the plight of women in a war zone.

Lockwood's riotous retelling of growing up in a rectory with her Catholic priest father and her disease-obsessed mother is a memoir like no other. Her poetic talents elevate her prose to skyscraper levels of absurdity and warmth, creating an immensely enjoyable and impactful read.

I am in love with Tim Kreider. Which — given the romantic anecdotes scattered abundantly throughout these beautifully composed and hilarious essays — suggests I have questionable taste in men... but excellent taste in literature.

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.

Laura van den Berg's new novel, The Third Hotel, is an exquisite exploration of grief, travel, and intimacy. It's also got an extremely compelling story: Clare, an elevator sales rep, goes alone to a horror movie festival in Havana after her husband, a film scholar, dies in a car accident. A few days later, to her shock, she sees him standing in front of a museum. Thus begins a surreal, intuitive, unsettling journey through Clare's past and psyche that is my favorite book of 2018.

Melissa Broder's The Pisces was my most anticipated book of 2018, and it was well worth the wait. This is the story of a woman undone, written in precise prose. With an essay collection and multiple poetry books under her belt before publishing this novel, I knew Broder could write, but still her writing shocked and moved me, and the story was both sour and sweet, like the writer herself.

A town built on mud and garbage; a nefarious partnership between corrupt politicians, thugs, and business men; and a reporter investigating the disappearance of hundreds of women. Poso Wells is part satire and part detective story. It's unlike any book I've read in a long time, and I'll be recommending it to everyone I know.

This razor-sharp collection of satirical stories made me gasp, laugh, scoff, groan, and otherwise draw attention to myself while reading in public. You won't regret picking up a copy.

I loved this gentle, quiet novel about a stray cat named Nana and Satoru, the human who takes him in. One day the pair starts taking road trips around Japan to visit Satoru's friends. The relationship between these two characters is very sweet and will resonate with anyone who has ever been devoted to a pet.

Oh, man. I truly wept when I finished reading this book simply because it was over. This beautifully written novel is at once painful and lovely. It is the story of a 30-year friendship between two very different men who share a love of hiking in the Dolomites. Serious hikers will marvel at the descriptions of these unique Italian mountains.

Nate Chinen has written an accessible guide to the state of jazz in the 21st century. In it, he gives readers a framework that we can use to discover new musicians and make connections between genres. Playing Changes helped me listen more carefully, freely, and boldly, inspired by the music it describes. Read it with both your mind and ears open.

It's a treat to experience the humor and satire in deWitt's latest novel about a family's fall from high society and its bemusing mother-son relationship. You will become emotionally attached to Frances and Malcolm, wanting to steer them away from self-destruction — but that story would be far less interesting than French Exit.

I don't remember the last time I've been so suddenly and convincingly landed in a book. A young slave with a talent for scientific illustration escapes bondage only to find that the wider world is both perilous and full of wonder. Written in a style evocative of Victorian adventure tales, this novel is like a smarter, more grown-up Treasure Island.

This spare, poetic memoir has stuck with me more than any other book I read this year. Mailhot unflinchingly bares her history of loss, betrayal, and survival in beautifully written essays that compel you to keep reading, and to read again.

Kiese Laymon combines the personal and the political to come up with one of the most beautiful, compassionate, and courageous memoirs I have ever read. It's not an easy read, but it is a powerful and important one.

Laymon has a voice that is singular and devastating in its honesty. I'm not in the business of claiming a book changed my life, but reading this book shifted something foundational. A truly outstanding memoir.

You've never read a voice like Jessilyn Harney's. Think Cold Mountain meets All the Pretty Horses, but told from a 17-year-old woman's perspective. Larison crafts a beautiful, adventurous, emotional tale of family and survival, complete with sharp-shooting outlaws and stunning descriptions of the landscape of the 19th-century American West.

Julián Is a Mermaid was the Best Book of the Year as soon as it was released. The art and colors alone are goosebumps-inducing. It's also a multilayered story, as it can be read in a number of ways: it can be about a boy who loves dressing up; it can be about self-discovery and a boy coming out; and it can be about unconditional love — or all of the above. It'll leave you mesmerized by how incredible it truly is.

Killing Commendatore is a Gatsby-esque novel that meditates on art, death, the spirit world, fate, and free will. I loved the experience of slowly losing myself to the surreal, magical world of Murakami's imagination. This novel may have finally pushed me into the camp of devoted Harukists.

As I read this book, a line from the cartoon movie Robots kept coming to mind: "See a need, fill a need." Chef Andrés flew to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria to help feed residents for a few days. He ended up staying for weeks and eventually coordinated over two million meals across the island. We Fed an Island is an uplifting tale of community action. Andrés wears his heart on his sleeve, and his tenacity and compassion in the face of great devastation are incredibly inspiring.

This book is important and necessary. Anyone concerned about the deep divides in American politics must read this book. Saslow is a brilliant reporter and the story of how a young leader of the white nationalist movement was engaged, befriended, challenged, and ultimately changed by college friends who deeply disagreed with his politics is an example of the rays of hope that we need right now. It's also a terrifying portrait of the white nationalist movement and the shift of rage-fueled racism into the mainstream. I was deeply disturbed, sickened, and scared. I was also moved by the compassion and relentless engagement across political divides.

Comingling the past and the present (while presaging the future), the sacred and the profane, the concrete and the abstract, Sjón's CoDex 1962 is as ambitious a work as it is an enveloping one. Combining several genres, CoDex 1962 incorporates (as most of Sjón’s fiction seems to do) Icelandic mythology and folklore, creation stories, historical accounts, autobiographical elements, and more. Between Sjón’s rich atmospherics, uncanny ability to lure the reader into his tale, and his melodic, expressive prose, CoDex 1962 further proves his unquestionable standing as a major figure of the international literary scene.

Rosson tackles the big life questions in this book, picking apart themes of purpose, redemption, suffering, forgiveness, addiction, passion, talent, guilt, the unknowable nature of life and death, the ways in which we help each other and the ways in which we hinder, the joy of living and the anticipation of death, and the absolute necessity of an examined life. His talent is staggering, his craft is meticulous, and his story is one of the quirkiest but most heartfelt I have ever read. He will clench your heart and drag you through his landscape of horror and bliss. You'll be so utterly grateful for it.

Elizabeth Strout is my favorite contemporary author, a writer of "perfect" fiction, with every word exquisitely chosen and every feeling coursing with authenticity and pathos. And the characters? Complex, wonderful, and frustrating. A remarkable sequel to My Name Is Lucy Barton.

100 Things Phish Fans Should Know is a great look back at some of the marvelous adventures four guys from Vermont have taken their hordes of fans on over their 35+ year career. This book functions as both a way to relive memories of yesterday’s past and to learn a little more about a band that has some of the best interactions and pranks with, and participation by, their fervent followers. FACE-PLANT INTO ROCK!!

As soon as I finished its blistering prologue, I knew this was my favorite title of the year. It is miraculous, the way Tommy Orange took the rage, pain, and trauma of centuries of violence and injustice and poured them into this perfect book. There There put me in mind of an oil slick rainbow, a literary manifestation of the beauty that can be wrested from ugliness — frankly, I didn't feel worthy of it.

Never underestimate Holly Black's power to write incredible faerie tales. The Cruel Prince is every bit as lush and perfect as The Darkest Part of the Forest; this is devil's food cake for lovers of the fey and their realm.

Redvelations is truly a revelation. Building on her bestselling memoir, Red Hot and Holy, Sera Beak digs even deeper into the workings of her own soul and brings us a book that is both incredibly personal and highly relevant. Her book is full of heart and soul and fire and poetry. I recommend it to anyone and everyone, and I hope it brings you as much joy and clarity as it brought me.

And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready is such a refreshing book for me because it brings up the idea that no one is ever ready for motherhood, no matter what you may think personally. O'Connell doesn't sugarcoat any part of her journey. In fact, she does the complete opposite. By discussing what postpartum depression was like for her, O'Connell attempts to bridge the gap between "This is the best time of my life" and "I wish that my baby had never been born." O'Connell loves her baby, and I love her.

Oh boy, did I love this book. The Polar Bear Explorers' Club is Golden Compass-esque in all the best ways — there's adventure, friendship, a plucky female protagonist, a role model dad, quirky and fun magical creatures... and this time, it's light enough to appeal to a VERY broad range of audiences. An eight-year-old can enjoy this book, an adult looking for an escape from the real world can enjoy this book... there's something here for everyone. The only thing I don't like is having to wait for the next book in the series — I would like it now, please!

I read this ambitious history of the Third Reich in small doses over a period of nine months. So often, I closed the book with my jaw completely dropped. Exceptionally readable and thoroughly researched, historian Thomas Childers's newest work has been hailed as possibly the best one-volume overview of Nazi Germany available, with frequent comparisons to William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. But with access to documents and research Shirer never had, Childers corrects some of the misconceptions of that earlier work. It's a chilling, engrossing read, and absolutely essential to understanding the rise of Hitler's totalitarian regime.

Tommy Orange's stunning debut weaves a polyphonic narrative of Native experience, with each character grappling with the hope and heartbreak that comes from hundreds of years of trauma. These voices reach a crescendo at the Big Oakland Powwow in a finale that is both apt and horrifying — much like the untold history of Native Americans. Orange writes surely and resolutely of the Native experience, and he commands the reader's acknowledgment of our history.

I don't think I have ever laughed so hard while reading a book, EVER! I was wonderfully surprised by the craziness that is the MacKilligan honey badger sisters. Their deadbeat conniving father gets them into such insane situations, and then the lengths they have to go to get out of them is pure chaos. This book has a higher body count than sex scenes. The heart of the story does come down to family, though — how much you love them even when you want to strangle them. I cannot wait to see what the MacKilligan sisters get up to next.

I was smitten with this book from the first couple pages. Joukhadar weaves two storylines together, one from 800 years ago and one set in the present day, to relate the plight of a Syrian refugee family. She tells this story with a tenderness that is heartbreakingly beautiful, exploring themes of diaspora, humanity, and hope. It's such an important rendering of the hardships faced by those forced out of their homes, and should be required reading for the times we live in. This is a stunning debut novel! Please read this book, and keep this explosive young writer on your radar!

Nothing brought me as much joy in 2018 as The Adventure Zone. The McElroy’s D&D/live play podcast started by making me laugh and ended up making me feel like humanity might just be okay after all. This genius first graphic novel adaptation sacrifices none of the podcast's comedy or heart, and Carey Pietsch's lovingly crafted illustrations of Merle, Magnus, Taako (yes, really), and Dungeon Master Griffin (YES, REALLY) are dynamic and engaging. The finished product is sure to entertain podcast fans and new readers alike. I can't wait for volume two!

Set during the AIDS crisis in Chicago in the 1980s, The Great Believers is a book about the personal and the political, about love and loss, grief and guilt, memory and art. It’s an unsparing book that doesn’t shy away from the horrors of the epidemic or the holes it left in the lives of those who lived through it, but it’s also a joyful book about the power of friendship, family, and art to sustain us, even in the face of devastation. The Great Believers is an urgent and unrelentingly human story.

Men and Apparitions is a magnum opus of ekphrastic genealogy as seen through a spurned anthropologist's loupe, an optics-saturated examination of the heteronormative male psyche circa fourth-wave feminism, and a mordant monologue on objectivity. No American novelist is better suited to this task than Lynne Tillman. Her singular, engrossing narrator — a card-carrying member of the liberally educated, media-consuming cohort — zips from tic to tangent, leavening the text with self-deprecating rejoinders and cultural miscellany in a doomed bid to better understand the masculine mode in which he resides. An end-to-end act of literary possession from an absolute icon.

Claire is obsessed with the show Demon Heart. She writes fan fiction and "ships" the two male main characters together. When she gets the chance to go to a Demon Heart convention she wins the opportunity to meet the cast and crew! She then makes it her mission to try to convince the showrunner to have more queer representation. In the process, Claire meets a super cute girl who she might have a crush on?! I loved this story and I absolutely loved the writing. If you love fan fiction, queer representation, and supernatural-y shows, this is the book for you.

Tony Kushner's masterpiece Angels in America is probably the best play of the 20th century. Isaac Butler and Dan Kois have expertly assembled an oral history drawn from hundreds of interviews with the playwright, actors, directors, artists, critics and audiences that made it, lived it, and took it from workshops to Broadway to HBO and then back to Broadway. In telling the story of the play, Butler and Kois have crafted both a vital retelling of an important moment in queer history and an engaging exploration of artistic creation and collaboration.

Kat Gardiner's Little Wonder is a wondrous little book. In tiny, engaging fragments, it tells the tale of Gardiner's one-year foray into owning a business — a coffee shop music venue in Anacortes, Washington. Poignantly, beautifully written, Little Wonder examines the joy and heartbreak of trying and failing at something you love.

Never have I encountered such a powerful and compelling memoir. That should explain why I had no problem gobbling all 3,768 pages of the series, including the 1,160 in the final installment. Knausgaard's been struggling for so long that his final book is about the release of the first five and how it affected his life, not to mention a 400-page essay on Adolph Hitler. It beautifully wraps up one of the finest books I've ever read.

Not normally the kind of book I read (I'm a pretty dedicated fiction reader), I nevertheless remembered the satanic panic of the late '80s and was curious. Tallmadge's clear voice, solid writing, and easy, skilled transitions between the journalistic and the deeply personal kept me reading. Months later, the questions about the nature of memory and reality at the core of this book are still with me and I find myself viewing current events and even my own history through a new lens.

Intimate and earnest, like a late-night conversation with a friend, Whitehead's novel captures the challenges of leaving home and being an outsider no matter where one goes. Weaving together Jonny's memories of reservation life with his present one as an online sex worker in Winnipeg, the titular character ruminates on the grit it takes to get by.

It wasn't easy for me to choose between Anna Burns's brilliantly menacing Milkman and The Silence of the Girls, but Barker's powerfully haunting and gut-wrenching retelling of The Iliad won out by a squeak. By giving a voice to those made powerless by war, Pat Barker's novel will stand the test of time and custom and is a very grim reminder about what war and slavery entail. And it is more pertinent than ever!

Everything Tillie Walden draws into this world is stunning, and On a Sunbeam is no exception. We follow Mia through two timelines, in the present with her chosen family, a group of women and a nonbinary person who travel the galaxy repairing old buildings, and in the past with a love she lost. Themes of loss and heartbreak are paired with themes of acceptance and finding purpose to create a bittersweet atmosphere that slow burns into an exciting sci-fi adventure. Watching as her worlds collide took my breath away and refused to return it until the last panel. It's a beautiful, queer, intergalactic triumph of a story.

In her introduction to Everyday People, editor Jennifer Baker writes that she hopes this anthology will one day join "other seminal anthologies used for study and inspiration...on shelves not only for reference but for pleasure." I think this collection is a success in that regard. Collecting an outstanding array of writers of color, some you may know (Yiyun Li, Jason Reynolds) and some you may not know just yet (Dennis Norris II, Allison Mills), this anthology is one of the few out there that is strong and engaging from start to finish. Pick this one up and you're bound to find a new favorite author within these pages.

Anyone who thinks that when push comes to shove U.S. elites will choose to allow Bernie Sanders-style Euro-socialism to prevail over Trumpism must be operating either under the illusion that today's American elite are less craven and venal than the German elites of 1932-1933 or that American democracy is less compromised than Germany's was. This book, as well as every day's headlines in this low, dishonest decade, demonstrate otherwise.

Sustainable fashion. Slow fashion. Whatever your terminology, making, mending and reusing clothes and avoiding factory fashion can help make the world a better place. Author and crafter Katrina Rodabaugh will inspire you to mend your old battered clothes and turn them into chic wear with environmentalist flair. Mending Matters opens with a quote from Arthur Ashe: "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." Wow. It’s not every day that a sewing book helps to improve my ethics.

What, if anything, do your values signify in the context of evolutionary history? How might moral truths emerge from (and be justified through) the feedbacking chaos of evolution? Peter J. Woodford explores these problems of value-grounding via the historical and philosophical works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Simmel, and Heinrich Rickert, i.e. those who "gazed into the abyss," as Nietzsche phrased it. With this book, your sacred cows are at stake: the value of love, equality, objectivity, justice, and life itself. The Moral Meaning of Nature is a wild ride through a wilder abyss.

Jesse Ball's latest book is like nothing you’ve ever read before. Set in an unnamed country composed of towns arranged from A to Z, the novel traces the path of its terminally ill narrator who, for his final act, is traveling as a census taker with his mentally disabled son. As he visits home after home, measuring lives while reexamining his own, it becomes impossible to ignore where this fateful journey is taking him. Both immersive and wondrous, Census is a meditative book about the modest roles we play in a sprawling world and the strength of human connections in the face of such enormity.

More of a memoir than a guidebook, The Year of Less is a deep dive into what happens when you take a giant step away from consumerism. Cait Flanders paid off $30K of debt, and then imposed a year-long shopping ban. She chronicles her journey with unflinching honesty and careful self-examination.

I first read this book in early 2018 and was simply overwhelmed. I slept with the lights on and refused to answer the door for weeks! Then in April, when the Golden State Killer was finally identified, I reread McNamara's "Letter to an Old Man" and felt the hairs on my arms stand straight up. I've never encountered a work of nonfiction that left me feeling quite so terrified and amazed.

Little Fish is a story centered around Wendy — a trans woman who, after a family death, begins to suspect her late Mennonite grandparent may have been trans too. While tackling the complexities of sex work, suicide, relationships, and harassment, author Casey Plett doesn't shy away from the fact that people and identity are messy, or that to be trans is to exist in conflicting modalities with the worlds we inhabit and the time that builds up to a life. Her writing is devastatingly good. With more books like this one, we can start to believe that, despite any evidence to the contrary, we might be okay.

The first graphic novel nominated for the Man Booker Prize, but don't let that put you off. Drnaso's Beverly was an odd and sweaty masterpiece, and Sabrina is too. If Chris Ware wrote a story about grief taboos, the perverse logic of false flag conspiracy theorists, and TV dinners, it might be like this. Sabrina is that good.

The Line That Held Us is a gorgeous and brutal story of love, violence, and loyalty so fierce it has the power to destroy everything in its path. David Joy has a gift for writing Southern noir, and he can hold his own with Cormac McCarthy, Donald Ray Pollock, Daniel Woodrell, and other gods of grit lit.

And Now We Have Everything is the most honest book about becoming a mom I've read. I don't have kids and don't know that I ever will, but I have a lot of anxieties about parenting and childrearing and Meaghan's writing aligns with them perfectly. This book is really funny in a kick-you-in-the-stomach kind of way, and I found myself laughing and sobbing a lot while reading it. As a childless bookseller, I wholeheartedly believe everyone — mothers in any sense of the term and others — would benefit from reading this book.

In which we find Cat realizing that — far from being eradicated — the virus is evolving and killing faster than before. Her personal life is a mess, there are far too many secrets, and she's struggling with repressed memories coming back hard and fast. Worse, to find her "father," she's going to have to partner with the one group she has most reason to fear and distrust: Cartaxus. Because if she's not careful, when the end comes, it will come with a bang — and she may not be around to stop it. Building on This Mortal Coil, my top pick from last year, Emily Suvada has crafted a fast-paced, intense, and intriguing read for sci-fi fans of all ages!

Zora Neale Hurston left us a rich legacy of black cultural history through her recordings as an anthropologist of the African American folk narrative, striving to, as she puts it "set down essential truth." Here in this vital addition to her already known work are interviews documenting Cudjo Lewis's own story, the last known living African American to arrive on a black slave ship. Because she preserves his original vernacular in writing, it provides us with the rare opportunity to take in Cudjo's experiences as firsthand observers, giving an account of history so important to America and Africa's past.

Sometimes I read a book that wrings me out so thoroughly I barely know who I am anymore. It's disturbing and disorienting, and although I'm glad it doesn't happen often, it is one of my very favorite things about reading. I had no idea that The Pisces was going to be one of those books. I was expecting a fluffy summer beach read about a hot merdude, and instead I got this book which absolutely destroyed me. I can't stop thinking about The Pisces; I already want to read it again.

There is no one writing like Ben Marcus and this book of devastating stories is so darkly weird, so sentence-drivenly spectacular, and so otherworldly while still being recognizably in our world. Notes From the Fog is funny, perverse, and maybe Marcus's best book in an influential writing career.

This book is like if Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had a baby with Ziggy Stardust and Eurovision. Valente's use of language is beautiful, funny, and it will not stop for you in this glitter- and stardust-strewn story of when aliens first come to earth. The universal community has decided that wars are stupid and instead they hold a music competition to work through the competitive nature of civilization. The punishment for last place is the destruction of the planet, so you had better rock your heart out. I cannot overstress how fun this book was to read.

In a small town in northern Minnesota, Virgil Wander is living his life on autopilot until his car careens off a snowy cliff road and into Lake Superior. Afterward, he struggles with memory and vocabulary issues, while still trying to maintain his fledgling single-screen movie theater and job in City Hall. A likable cast of characters rounds out the story, including a kite-flying older Norwegian trying to find out more about his long-missing son, of whose existence he only recently learned. This is a feel-good read, and sometimes that's exactly what is needed in these trying times.

This tiny graphic novel was easily the most influential book of 2018 for me. Archie (a nonbinary person like me) and Tristan (a cisgender man) break down gendered language in a funny, patient, and understandable manner. I immediately gifted my copy to the employee breakroom anonymously (hi, it was me, I'm allowed to out myself). Your mom needs this book. Your boss needs this book. You need this book.

Going too far is not something Brian K. Vaughan believes in. He has, and I assume will always, push the boundaries of genre and storytelling, particularly in this ninth volume of Saga. There's still the same mix of fantasy, sci-fi, and realism; the same gorgeous illustrating by Staples; the same rich world full of the crazy, interesting characters that I love; and the same storylines that are firmly planted in their world, yet hit on real issues we face today. But everything is elevated a couple notches. Though the ending wrecked me, it's a reminder that life is beautiful, yet often terrible, but love always wins.