Bookshelf

Today, I began reading Sayaka Murata‘s Vanishing World, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori. This novel, from the author of the bestselling literary sensations Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, presents a surprising and highly imaginative story set in an alternate version of Japan where sexual relations between married couples have disappeared, and all children are conceived through artificial insemination.

Sayaka Murata has established herself as a remarkable observer of society’s peculiarities, delving into our contemporary world with bizarre and unsettling insights. Her portrayals of a contentedly unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman who believes she is an alien in Earthlings have resonated with millions of readers globally. In Vanishing World, Murata takes her vision to a bold new level, envisioning an alternative Japan where attitudes toward sex and procreation diverge significantly from our own.

As a girl, Amane is horrified to learn that her parents “copulated” to conceive her rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. She seeks to escape what she perceives as her mother’s indoctrination into this peculiar “system.” Despite her efforts, Amane’s attractions to both anime characters and real people carry an undeniable sexual weight.

As an adult in a suitably sexless marriage—where sex between married couples is regarded as taboo, akin to incest—Amane and her husband, Saku, decide to relocate to a mysterious new town called Experiment City, or Paradise-Eden. In this community, all children are raised collectively, and every person is considered a mother to all children. Men are beginning to experience pregnancy through artificial wombs that exist outside their bodies, resembling balloons, and children are nameless, referred to simply as “Kodomo-chan.” Will this new world finally cleanse Amane of her strangeness?

Sayaka Murata is the author of several books, including Convenience Store Woman, which won the Akutagawa Prize, Earthlings, and Life Ceremony. Freeman has recognized her as a “Future of New Writing” author, and Vogue Japan has honored her as a Woman of the Year.

Ginny Tapley Takemori has translated works from more than a dozen Japanese writers, including Ryu Murakami. She resides at the foot of a mountain in Eastern Japan.

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Today, I started reading “Kala: A Novel” by Colin Walsh, a gripping literary page-turner from a rising Irish talent. Former friends, estranged for twenty years, reckon with the terrifying events of the summer that changed their lives. Three old friends are reunited in the seaside town of Kinlough, on Ireland’s west coast, for the first time in years.

Helen, Joe, and Mush were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann as their group’s white-hot center. Soon after that summer’s peak, Kala disappeared without a trace.

Now it’s fifteen years later:

• Helen has reluctantly returned to Ireland for her father’s wedding.
• Joe is a world-famous musician who is newly back in town.
• Mush has never left, too scared to venture beyond the counter of his mother’s café.

But human remains are discovered in the woods. Two more girls have gone missing. As past and present begin to collide, the estranged friends are forced to confront their involvement in the events that led to Kala’s disappearance.

Against the backdrop of a town suffocating on its secrets, in a story that builds from a smolder to a stunning climax, Kala brilliantly examines the sometimes brutal costs of belonging and the battle in the human heart between vengeance and forgiveness, despair and redemption.

My journey with “Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel” by George Saunders began with recognition as one of The New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the Century. As I turned its pages, I was immersed in its profound exploration of living and loving in the face of inevitable endings. The book, which struck a personal chord with me after a loss, is a testament to Saunders’ storytelling prowess and a must-read for those interested in Abraham Lincoln.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has already realized it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body.

From a seed of historical truth, George Saunders weaves an unforgettable tale of familial love and loss that transcends its realistic, historical framework. The story takes a daring leap into a realm that is hilarious and terrifyingly supernatural. Willie Lincoln’s journey in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance, is a testament to Saunders’ imaginative prowess. The monumental struggle over young Willie’s soul in this transitional state, known as the bardo in the Tibetan tradition, is a narrative that will leave you spellbound.

Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of his generation’s most important and influential writers. Formally daring, generous in spirit, and deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully about the things that matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know everything we love must end?

George Saunders is the author of thirteen books, including the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize, and five collections of stories, including Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the recent collection Liberation Day (selected by former President Obama as one of his ten favorite books of 2022).

Three of Saunders’s books—Pastoralia, Tenth of December, and Lincoln in the Bardo—were chosen for The New York Times’s list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Saunders hosts the popular Story Club on Substack, which grew out of his book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. In 2013, he was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

Today, I started reading Junot Diaz‘s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, one of The New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the Century. The book also won a Pulitzer Prize. Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old-world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love.

But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience. It explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love.

An end-of-the-world love story, Earth 7 is filled with both pathos and humor, exploring what aspects of our planet can still be cherished. Unfortunately, the tale of planet Earth is disheartening; it has been diminished to little more than a lump of burnt coal. However, as Deb Olin Unferth demonstrates in her latest electrifying novel, life and love can endure even in the most unexpected and inhospitable circumstances.

Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean, and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?

By the end of Unferth’s wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers.

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of six books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work has appeared in Granta, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and The Paris Review.

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Written with the same depth of character and insight that readers have come to expect from author Amy Bloom‘s novels and memoirs, “Blunt Instrument” is an engaging and entertaining mystery featuring a clever, complex protagonist. The case of the bludgeoned lecturer has left everyone at Cromwell University reeling, even though the elderly Professor Bullfinch wasn’t particularly well-liked.

His ornery nature and Old World approach to campus politics ruffled more than a few feathers over the years, and present tensions within his department mean there are more suspects than mourners in the wake of his death. And the murder weapon—a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne—does seem to indicate that the attack may have been academically motivated…

Enter Dell Chandler, the failed English professor turned self-taught private detective whom Dr. Cutty calls in to investigate the crime. She has the background to tease out the motives among the staff and just enough experience to conduct a thorough inquiry. If she solves the case before the cops do, the university could keep the whole thing quiet, avoiding sensational media about the dark side of campus life. But to do so, she’ll have to dodge her own demons from her past life as a disgraced academic.

Amy Bloom is the New York Times bestselling author of novels, short stories, memoir, and nonfiction. She has written for magazines such as The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Elle, The Atlantic, Slate, and Salon. Her work has been translated into seventeen languages. Blunt Instrument is her first crime novel. Amy resides in Connecticut and recently retired as Wesleyan University’s Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing, while continuing to work as a psychotherapist and a novelist.

Discover your next favorite book and explore curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. Your support truly helps me share more meaningful stories and insights with you, enriching your reading journey.

Birnam Wood: A Novel by Eleanor Catton is a gripping psychological thriller from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Luminaries. Birnam Wood is Shakespearean in its wit, drama, and immersion in character. A brilliantly constructed consideration of intentions, actions, and consequences is an unflinching examination of the human impulse to ensure our survival. I highly recommend this novel.

The review in The New Yorker and a personal recommendation made this novel my next read.

At first, the conflict between the guerrilla gardening group and a wealthy American billionaire seemed like a story that had been told too many times. However, Ms. Catton has created a page-turner that is a must-read during our current climate emergency and the growing income gap. Although the end is foretold, it may surprise the reader while confirming the conviction that we must find an alternate way forward.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Five years ago, Mira Bunting founded a guerrilla gardening group: Birnam Wood. An undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic gathering of friends, this activist collective plants crops wherever no one will notice: on the sides of roads, in forgotten parks, and in neglected backyards. For years, the group has struggled to break even. Then Mira stumbles on an answer, a way to finally set the group up for the long term: a landslide has closed the Korowai Pass, cutting off the town of Thorndike. A natural disaster has created an opportunity, a sizable farm seemingly abandoned.

But Mira is not the only one interested in Thorndike. Robert Lemoine, the enigmatic American billionaire, has snatched it up to build his end-times bunker–or so he tells Mira when he catches her on the property. Intrigued by Mira, Birnam Wood, and their entrepreneurial spirit, he suggests they work this land. But can they trust him? And, as their ideals and ideologies are tested, can they trust each other?

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Max Porter‘s extraordinary debut, “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers,” is a unique blend of novella, polyphonic fable, and essay about grief. Combining compassion with a bold writing style, it delivers a powerful impact. Filled with sharp humor and deep insights, this haunting and original work introduces an important new talent. The book will be released as a major motion picture titled “The Thing with Feathers,” starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar–a man adrift in the wake of his wife’s sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons, who, like him, struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness, while the boys wander, savage and unsupervised.

In this moment of violent despair, they are visited by Crow–antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and babysitter. This self-described “sentimental bird,” at once wild and tender, who “finds humans dull except in grief,” threatens to stay with the wounded family until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss lessens with the balm of memories, Crow’s efforts are rewarded, and the little unit of three begins to recover: Dad resumes his book about the poet Ted Hughes; the boys get on with it, grow up.

Max Porter is a publishing professional who lives in South London with his wife and children. “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers” is his debut book.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books I’ve personally vetted for quality and enjoyment. Supporting these selections not only helps me continue to provide you with personalized recommendations but also ensures you have access to meaningful stories that enrich your life. Your support truly makes a difference in helping me share more books and insights with you!

Today, I dove into Betsy Lerner‘s debut novel, “Shred Sisters.” Lerner is also known for her acclaimed work, “The Bridge Ladies.” This gripping story beautifully unravels the intricate tapestry of family bonds, mental illness, and the tumultuous relationship between two sisters. It’s compelling enough to have earned a spot on the longlist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

The tagline resonates deeply: “No one will love or hurt you more than a sister.” When one family member is unstable, the entire family feels the impact. Enter the Shreds. Olivia, the sister in the spotlight, finds her once-stunning confidence becoming erratic and unpredictable, causing chaos in her wake. Her younger sister, Amy, is cautious and studious, believing in facts, proof, and empirical evidence. Yet none of that can explain what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma hide the mental illness that will ultimately disrupt Amy’s carefully constructed life.

As Amy ages, she strives to find her place—first in academics, then in New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships. With every step she takes, she encounters Ollie, who unpredictably slips in and out of the Shred family’s life. Despite the challenges threatening their sibling bond, Amy and Ollie cannot escape or deny the unbreakable sisterly connection that ties them together.

“Shred Sisters” is an intimate and bittersweet story that explores the complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss, and love over two decades. In the end, Amy learns a valuable lesson on her journey to self-acceptance: no one will love or hurt you more than a sister. I can’t wait to see where this emotional journey takes me!

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Juhea Kim, the acclaimed author of Beasts of a Little Land and City of Night Birds, presents an exquisite collection of stories that explores the delicate balance between humans and the natural world. With the clear-eyed reverence of Richard Powers and the sparkling sincerity of George Saunders, her first story collection, A Love Story from the End of the World, offers a breathtaking view of our fractured world—and our broken hearts. Through its passionate narrative, the collection serves as a poignant reminder that, as humans, we are nothing without nature.

Spanning multiple locales and time periods, and rendered in fine detail and vivid color, this transportive collection illustrates what it means to live as human inhabitants of our singular, miraculous planet.

Lyrical, at times hilarious, and always heartfelt, each of these ten stories reflects individual choices in the face of “man-made” apocalypses. In a near-future Seoul, where air pollution has become so severe that a translucent biodome has covered the city, a civil engineer responsible for its upkeep considers an arranged marriage. A painter, disenchanted with New York City, travels to the South of France and becomes romantically involved with an entrepreneur who claims to have invented a new color. Meanwhile, on an island where the Indian and Pacific Oceans converge, and where foreign countries have dumped their waste, causing a landfill mountain to form, a local boy facing daily hardships gains internet fame for his K-pop-inspired dances.

Juhea Kim is the author of the novel Beasts of a Little Land, which was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the winner of the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award, Russia’s most significant annual award in literature. It has been translated into many languages and is for television. She is also the author of City of Night Birds, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick.

A graduate of Princeton University, her writing has been published in Granta, the Times Literary Supplement, the Independent, Zyzzyva, Guernica<, and other outlets. She is an advocate for wildlife conservation, animal rights, and education and aid in Africa. Born in Korea and raised in Portland, Oregon, Kim now lives in London.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books that I’ve personally vetted to ensure quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

I recommend reading “North Woods: A Novel” by Daniel Mason today. It is the story of two young lovers who leave a Puritan colony and find shelter in a humble cabin in the woods. They are unaware this cabin will become home to a succession of extraordinary human and nonhuman characters. North Woods” has been named one of the ten best books of 2023 by both the New York Times Book Review and the Washington Post.

An English soldier who was destined for glory decides to abandon the battlefields of the New World to dedicate himself to growing apples. Meanwhile, a pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, dealing with envy and desire. A crime reporter discovers an ancient mass grave but soon realizes the earth refuses to give up its secrets. In the same town, a lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, and a lusty beetle are all present. As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they realize that the dark, raucous, and beautiful past is still alive.

This remarkable and highly imaginative novel by Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason is full of love, insanity, humor, and optimism. North Woods follows the cycles of history, nature, and language to reveal the numerous, enchanting ways we are connected to our surroundings, history, and each other. It is not just a memorable story about secrets and fates but a perspective on the world that poses the timeless question: How can we continue living even after we are gone?

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman is a book I encouraged friends to read before I finished reading it. I highly recommend this page-turner novel, which is punctuated by both joy and loss, full of ’80s music and beloved books. Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a must-read coming-of-age story of Razia Mirza, a girl struggling to reconcile her heritage and faith with her desire to be true to herself.

Razia Mirza, the protagonist, leaps off the page or screen. Bushra Rehman describes Corona with prose that is vibrant and clear-eyed. When I lived in Brooklyn, I had, on a few occasions, meetings in Corona a decade before the novel’s setting. Reading the book made me remember that time and place and understand intuitively the world that Razia was struggling to reconcile.

Razia’s choice between her heart and her family is one I will not reveal. However, the novel defines the conflicts between the Pakistani-American community and the love that Razia and Anglea experience in clear prose, and the reader can easily accept various resolutions.

The choice that Rasia makes left me desiring to know what happens next. I have added Bushra Rehman to my favorite authors and plan to read more of her novels.

I had this novel on my list for the last month but could not get to it until now. I wish I had read it sooner. It is the eighth book I have read in 2023.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. Razia’s heart is broken when a family rift drives the girls apart. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close-knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing miniskirts, and cutting school to explore the city.

When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens. At Stuyvesant, Razia meets Angela and is attracted to her in a way that blossoms into a new understanding. When an Aunty discovers their relationship in the community, Razia must choose between her family and her future.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Send for Me by Lauren Fox. Send for Me is an achingly beautiful work of historical fiction that moves between Germany on the eve of World War II and present-day Wisconsin, unspooling a thread of love, longing, and the constant push and pull of family. Annelise is a dreamer: imagining her future while working at her parents’ famous bakery in Feldenheim, Germany, anticipating all the delicious possibilities yet to come. There are rumors that anti-Jewish sentiment is on the rise, but Annelise and her parents can’t quite believe that it will affect them; they’re hardly religious at all. But as Annelise falls in love, marries, and gives birth to her daughter, the dangers grow closer: a brick was thrown through her window; a childhood friend who cuts ties with her; customers refuse to patronize the bakery.

This novel explores mothers and daughters, duty and obligation, hope and forgiveness of four generations of mothers and daughters – Klara, Annelise, Ruth, and Clare.

Klara is the matriarch who remains in Germany, where she dies at the beginning of the war. Annelise is her daughter who becomes a refugee in Milwaukee. The poignant letters from her mother ask for help to leave Germany and reunite with her daughter and granddaughter Ruthie, tying together the four generations.

The letters are found by Clara, who pays to have them translated. Can we ever escape from the past, and how does it shape our futures.

I enjoyed reading this book as I prefer historical fiction, especially about the rise of Germany and antisemitism.

Send for Me is also a reminder that we are refugees.

Our lives are forever intertwined between two cultures, the past and the future.

I highly recommend Send for Me.

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I recently recommended reading “Brooklyn Crime Novel: A Novel” by Jonathan Lethem. The story is set in 1970s Brooklyn, where a daily ritual occurs on the streets. This ritual involves exchanging money, surrendering belongings, and asserting power. Violence is promised everywhere and becomes a currency itself.

Regardless of race, the street is like a stage in the shadows for the children. In the background, other players hide, including parents, cops, renovators, landlords, those who write the headlines, histories, and laws, and those who award this neighborhood its name.

Although the rules seem apparent initially, in memory’s prism, the roles of criminals and victims may appear to trade places. The voices of the past rise and gather as if in harmony, then war with one another. A street may seem to crack open and reveal what lies behind its shimmering facade. None who lived through it are ever permitted to forget.

Jonathan Lethem has written this story with kaleidoscopic verve and delirious wit, making it a breathtaking tour de force by a writer at the top of his powers. He has crafted an epic interrogation of how we fashion stories to contain the uncontainable: our remorse at the world we’ve made. He is known as “one of America’s greatest storytellers” by the Washington Post.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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I recently dove into The Tokyo Suite by Giovana Madalosso, expertly translated by Bruna Dantas Lobato. This captivating book represents the English-language debut of one of Brazil’s most thrilling contemporary voices. It intricately unravels the complexities of modern family dynamics, diving deep into the hidden tensions that simmer just beneath the surface of everyday life. Each page draws you in, inviting you to explore the rich tapestry of emotions and experiences that define our relationships.

It’s a seemingly ordinary morning when Maju, a nanny, boards a bus with Cora, the young girl she’s been caring for and disappears. The abduction, an act as impulsive as it is extreme, sets off a series of events that will force each character to confront their deepest fears and desires.

Cora’s mother, Fernanda, is a successful executive who is so engulfed in her crisis that she initially fails to notice her daughter’s disappearance. Her marriage is strained, and she finds solace in an affair, distancing herself further from her family. Meanwhile, her husband, overwhelmed by the complexities of their domestic life, remains emotionally detached. As Maju navigates the streets of São Paulo with Cora, the “white army” of nannies, a term coined by Fernanda, seems to watch her every move, heightening her sense of paranoia and urgency.

Madalosso’s narrative delves deep into the human psyche, examining themes of maternal guilt, societal expectations, and the search for personal identity. Rich and multi-layered, The Tokyo Suite is a poignant and gripping tale that captures the essence of modern urban life and the lengths people will go to reclaim a sense of control and meaning.

Giovana Madalosso is a Brazilian writer and screenwriter born in Curitiba in 1975. She has been a finalist for the Biblioteca Nacional Award and the São Paulo Prize of Literature. The Tokyo Suite is her English-language debut.

Bruna Dantas Lobato is a fiction writer and translator. Her translation of Stênio Gardel‘s The Words That Remain won the 2023 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker,  Guernica, A Public Space, and The Common. Raised in Natal, Brazil, she is an incoming Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Grinnell College.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

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Today, as heavy thunderstorms rumbled outside and flash flood warnings loomed, I dove into “King of Ashes,” a gripping Southern crime saga that draws inspiration from “The Godfather.” Written by the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby, this novel was a long-awaited treat for me. I read “All the Sinners Bleed” nearly two years ago and have been itching for Cosby’s next masterpiece ever since.

As I turned the pages, the opening paragraphs immediately pulled me in and confirmed that the wait was worthwhile. The summoning of eldest son Roman Carruthers’ home after his father’s car accident not only sets the stage for a gripping plot but also resonates with the universal theme of family. He finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident, and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a knack for numbers and a talent for making his clients wealthy, has some money to help his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself and his own particular set of financial skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared under mysterious or suspicious circumstances when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.

S. A. Cosby is a New York Times bestselling writer from southeastern Virginia. He is the author of All the Sinners Bleed, which was on more than forty Best of the Year lists, including Barack Obama’s, as well as Edgar Award finalist Razorblade Tears and Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Blacktop Wasteland. He has also won the Anthony Award, ITW Thriller Award, Barry Award, Macavity Award, BCALA Award, and Audie Award. He has been longlisted for the ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

Enjoy a limited-time offer of 20% off your next book purchase at Bookshop.org!

Seduction Theory by Emily Adrian is a captivating exploration of the complex interplay between power and attraction. This thought-provoking narrative beautifully illustrates how love and betrayal can intertwine. As two married professors navigate the delicate path toward infidelity, a graduate student’s compelling thesis project unveils their hidden struggles, creating a fascinating tale of desire and consequence.

Simone is a shining star in the creative writing department at Edwards University, celebrated for her scholarship on Woolf, her poignant memoirs of grief, and her captivating presence on campus. Her husband, Ethan, although not as widely recognized, is a dedicated lecturer and author whose work has a quietly impactful impact. Together, they portray a picture of marital bliss that everyone admires—until an unexpected turn shakes their world when Ethan has an affair with Abigail, the department’s administrative assistant.

As summer unfolds, Simone faces her own struggles. With Ethan away, she becomes increasingly close to her talented advisee, graduate student Roberta “Robbie” Green. They share runs, secrets, and dreams. Still, unbeknownst to Simone, Robbie is crafting an MFA thesis that delves into the complexities of Simone’s marriage, weaving a narrative that may reveal more than Simone anticipates.

Through Robbie’s unique lens, the intricacies of relationships, truth, and self-discovery come to the fore, creating a captivating story that promises to explore the delicate threads binding their lives together in unexpected ways.

Emily Adrian is the author of Everything Here is Under Control and The Second Season, as well as the memoir Daughterhood and two critically acclaimed novels for young adults. Her work has appeared in Granta, Joyland, The Point, EPOCH, Alta Journal, and Los Angeles Review of Books. Originally from Portland, Oregon, Adrian currently lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

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The Unfolding by A.M. Homes is a darkly comic political parable braided with a Bildungsroman that takes us inside the heart of a divided country. The Unfolding is an alternative history that is terrifyingly prescient, profoundly tender, and devastatingly funny. Will this novel help me to understand how we became a nation that no longer shares the same definitions of truth, freedom, and democracy, much less a shared vision of the future?

Although I understand more clearly the crisis facing the US, I highly recommend this novel.

Ms. Homes has written a must-read book that compliments the January 6th Committee report and should make us all more vigilant.

The characters are so well defined that at the end of the novel, I wanted to continue to read about them, especially Meghan.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

The Big Guy loves his family, money, and country. Undone by the 2008 presidential election results, he taps a group of like-minded men to reclaim their version of the American Dream. As they build a scheme to disturb and disrupt, the Big Guy also faces turbulence within his family. His wife, Charlotte, grieves a life not lived, while his 18-year-old daughter, Meghan, realizes that her favorite subject–history–is not exactly what her father taught her.

In a story that is as much about the dynamics within a family as it is about the desire for those in power to remain in force, Homes presciently unpacks a dangerous rift in American identity, prompting a reconsideration of the definition of truth, freedom, and democracy–and exploring the explosive consequences of what happens when the exact words mean such different things to people living together under one roof.

In her first novel since the Women’s Prize award-winning May We Be Forgiven, A.M. Homes delivers us back to ourselves in this stunning alternative history that is both terrifyingly prescient, deeply tender, and devastatingly funny.

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In the bestselling novel that has captivated readers in Italy, The Letter Carrier by Francesca Giannone depicts a small town in southern Italy that reflects the experiences of many others. It portrays the lives of women and men—husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters—as they strive to navigate the world while remaining true to their hearts. The Letter Carrier explores the universal theme of connection and examines the consequences that arise when those connections occur at the wrong time.

Salento, Italy, June 1934: A coach stops in the main square of Lizzanello, a tight-knit village where everyone knows each other. A couple gets off: The man, Carlo, a Southerner, is happy to be back home after a long time away; the woman, Anna—his wife—is a Northerner. Carlo’s brother is there to meet them, and he, along with everyone else, can’t help but notice that Anna is as beautiful as a Greek statue.

But Anna is not like the other wives. She doesn’t gossip or attend church. She reads books no one else has ever heard of, exploring ideas that some find threatening. She even wears pants, just like a man, and thinks a woman should have rights, just like a man.

There aren’t many options for a woman with Anna’s sensibilities, so when she learns that the post office is hiring, she leaps at the opportunity. A female letter carrier? It is unthinkable! But Anna passes the postal exam and soon becomes the invisible thread connecting the town as she delivers letters between clandestine lovers, families waiting to hear news of loved ones away at war, and even helps those who can’t read.

Letters connect people, conveying both information and emotion. But for some in Lizzanello, letters are too little and too late.

Francesca Giannone holds a degree in communication science and studied at the CSC, the oldest film school in Europe, located in Rome. She has published several short stories in literary magazines, both in print and online. Currently, Giannone resides in Milan, but her heart remains in her hometown of Lizzanello, a seaside town in the Salento region of Italy. She hopes to return there to live one day.

Elettra Pauletto translated The Letter Carrier. After earning her MFA from Columbia University, she has split her time between writing about her experiences in Africa—specifically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Senegal—and translating fiction and nonfiction works from Italian and French into English. In both her writing and translations, she heavily relies on her background as a former political risk analyst who covered Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

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From Julia Armfield, the beloved and award-winning author of Our Wives Under the Sea, comes a speculative reimagining of King Lear. Private Rites centers on three sisters navigating queer love and loss in a world that is drowning. It has been raining for so long that the landscape has reshaped itself, and old rituals and religions are beginning to resurface. Sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes have not spoken to each other in some time.

However, when their father—an architect who was both cruel and revered—passes away, their lives are forever changed. His death offers the sisters an opportunity to come together in a new way. In the grand glass house they grew up in, their father’s most famous creation, the sisters sort through the secrets and memories he left behind, until a revelation in his will shatters their fragile bond.

The sisters are more estranged than ever, and their lives spin out of control: Irene’s relationship is straining at the seams, Isla’s ex-wife keeps calling, and cynical Agnes is falling in love for the first time. But something even more sinister might be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always seemed unusually interested in the sisters’ lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters were chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperiled world.

Julia Armfield is the author of the novels Private Rites and Our Wives Under the Sea, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for Best Horror and Best Debut Novel, and the story collection salt slow. Her work has appeared in Granta, Lighthouse, Analog Magazine, Neon, and Best British Short Stories 2019 and 2021. She is the winner of the White Review Short Story Prize and a Pushcart Prize, and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Awards in 2019. She lives and works in London.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books I’ve personally vetted for quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!

“Chess Story,” also known as “The Royal Game,” is the final work of Austrian author Stefan Zweig. He completed it while in exile in Brazil and sent it to his American publisher just days before his suicide in 1942. This story is unique as it is the only one in which Zweig directly examines Nazism, portraying it through his characteristic focus on psychological themes.

The narrative follows travelers aboard a ship bound for Buenos Aires, where they encounter an arrogant, unfriendly world chess champion. Attempting to challenge him, they find themselves thoroughly defeated. However, a mysterious passenger steps forward to offer them advice, dramatically shifting their fortunes. The story delves into how this enigmatic figure acquired his extraordinary chess skills and the personal toll that it entailed.

This new translation of “Chess Story” highlights the work’s distinctive blend of high suspense and poignant reflection.

Stefan Zweig (1881–1942), novelist, biographer, poet, and translator, was born in Vienna into a wealthy Austrian Jewish family. During the 1930s, he was one of the best-selling writers in Europe and was among the most translated German-language writers before the Second World War. With the rise of Nazism, he moved from Salzburg to London (taking British citizenship), to New York, and finally to Brazil, where he committed suicide with his wife. New York Review Books has published Zweig’s novels The Post-Office Girl and Beware of Pity, as well as the novella Chess Story.

Peter Gay was Director of the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. He wrote Schnitzler’s Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture, 1815–1914.

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My journey from the Island of Grief back to the Land of Love is long and arduous. Friends, especially those who have also lost a loved one, are the guideposts on this journey. One of these friends, Sue Gramacy, sent this book to me during the early phases of my grief journey.

My Friend, I Care: The Grief Experience may be one of the shortest books I have ever read, but it is also one that has been most helpful. Barbara Karnes, RN, provides a concise understanding of grief, and she includes a list of dos and don’ts that are very helpful to someone who has recently lost the love of their life.

She provides a compelling explanation of the new life that we all must strive to achieve.

Our inability to further enjoy life does not measure our loss. The quality of our relationship with the person who has died is found in our strength, our resilience and our ability to create a new and meaningful life.

The endpoint of my journey is a new and meaningful life. This book has helped remind me that it is an achievable goal.

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When we experience something irreversible or unfixable, how do we continue living? How do we find our guiding star in the absence of clear answers? These questions lie at the heart of M. L. Stedman‘s unforgettable new novel, A Far-flung Life. From the acclaimed author of the beloved bestseller The Light Between Oceans, this sweeping epic explores a family, a tragedy, and the repercussions that echo for decades.

Set in remote Western Australia in 1958, the MacBride family has lived for generations on a vast sheep station called Meredith Downs, which spans a million acres of arid landscape. On an ordinary day, as patriarch Phil MacBride drives down a lonely road under the endless blue sky, he swerves to avoid a kangaroo. In that instant, it shatters the lives of the entire MacBride family. Tragedy strikes again when the consequences of this moment claim the life of one sibling and lead another to sacrifice everything for the well-being of an innocent child. Matt, the youngest MacBride, embarks on a moral and emotional journey for which there is neither a map nor a guide. The secrets at the core of this heartbreaking and beautiful story compel him to choose between love and duty, sacrifice and happiness.

A Far-flung Life is a tale of family and belonging, fate and time. It depicts individuals striving to do their best while each, for their own reasons, seeks shelter from life’s storms.

Can a fleeting moment unravel a life, marking it permanently and irrevocably? Can compassion, resilience, and forgiveness help us come to terms with our human imperfections? These are the profound questions Stedman explores in A Far-flung Life, her moving, uplifting, and luminous novel about the endurance of the heart for love’s sake.

M.L. Stedman was born and raised in Western Australia and now lives in London. The Light Between Oceans was her first novel. A Far-flung Life is her second novel.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books I’ve personally vetted for quality and enjoyment. Supporting these selections not only helps me continue to provide you with personalized recommendations but also ensures you have access to meaningful stories that enrich your life. Your support truly makes a difference in helping me share more books and insights with you!

Today, I embarked on the journey of Heartwood by Amity Gaige. This novel unfolds a gripping narrative as a search and rescue team races against time to find an experienced hiker who mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. The suspense of the search for Valerie is palpable, drawing you into the story with great literary ambition and love at its core.

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie’s emotional struggle is palpable as she pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother, battling the elements and struggling to keep hoping.

At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. What’s unique about this narrative is that a puzzle emerges between these compelling narratives, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.

Heartwood is a “gem of a thousand facets—suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending” (Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning). It tells the story of a lost hiker’s odyssey and is a moving rendering of each character’s interior journey. The mystery inspires more significant questions about how we get lost and how we are found.

Amity Gaige is the author of four previous novels: O My Darling, The Folded World, Schroder, Sea Wife, a 2020 New York Times Notable Book, and a Mark Twain American Voice Award finalist. Schroder was also a New York Times Notable Book and the best book of 2013 according to The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, and was shortlisted for the UK’s Folio Prize in 2014. Her work has been translated into eighteen languages. In 2018, Amity was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction. She lives with her family in West Hartford, Connecticut, and teaches creative writing at Yale.

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Today, I dove into Sally Rooney‘s latest novel, “Intermezzo: A Novel,” which instantly captivated me. It’s a profoundly moving exploration of grief, love, and the intricacies of family life, with love at its heart. Reflecting on my journey through grief, I remember how Ms. Rooney‘s earlier work, “Beautiful World, Where Are You,” resonated with me during my second year of processing loss.

It beautifully highlighted love’s enduring nature and reminded me that, even in the depths of sorrow, love’s essence never truly fades. Intermezzo focuses on the fact that, aside from being brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

In this poignant interlude, we delve into the lives of two brothers grappling with their profound grief, accompanied by those who care for them. It’s a raw journey woven with threads of longing, heartbreak, and the flickering light of hope. Together, they navigate the uncharted territory of loss, uncovering how much the human spirit can withstand before it shatters.

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