Back to the 2020 Holiday Gift Guide
Deliciously unsettling, Leave the World Behind is best approached without any foreknowledge of the plot. Just flip to the first page and let the author take you on a finely observed journey from banality to horror.
An absolutely incredible story collection. I devoured this book in two sittings. And isn't the cover divine?
With Deacon King Kong you're in the hands of a master and it almost doesn't matter what the story is about. The set pieces are hilarious, the dialogue is clever, the characters are written with warmth and heart. I'm in a book club with a bunch of smart, selective people, and this one met with rare universal acclaim.
A fascinating slice-of-life look at the world that is baseball spring training, interweaving stories of the washed-up hitting coach, the byzantine group dynamics of the players' wives klatsch, a rookie with an opioid addiction, an groupie coming to terms with her fading looks, a golden-boy star player with an increasingly dark side, and a lot of dry desert air. A baseball fan's delight, although a non-sports fan will love the pathos in this novel just as much.
A descent into madness, or is it? A disaffected writer slowly unravels over his obsession with an alt-right puppetmaster as the lines between past and current fascist regimes blur. And then the ending. Eesh. This one wedged its way into my mind and festered long after I'd finished.
In this memoir, Wayétu Moore, author of the oh-so-good novel She Would be King, recounts the journey that led her from Liberia to the US and back again. An incredibly moving testament to the power of family, love and storytelling.
This gorgeous collection of short stories left me incredibly grateful for the beauty Randall Kenan put out into the world.
Sharks in the Time of Saviors has a perfect opening chapter. The rest of the book delivers, but the beginning is sublime. The story of a Hawaiian family -- three siblings and their parents -- alternatingly gritty and beautiful.
This is the book that got me out of my pandemic reading slump. Afi accepts a proposal to marry a man she doesn’t know, the extremely wealthy and handsome Eli. Before long she finds herself installed in a fancy Accra apartment ready to fall in love - but will it with Eli or with Accra, the city where her dreams begin to blossom? A sparkling debut.
A harrowing account of the 2018 Camp Fire that swept through Paradise, Calif. I read this on a plane (it was January) and while it was a struggle keeping it together in public reading about the devastation wreaked on this mountain town, it was also impossible to look away.
Percival Everett's range is truly impressive (for example, check out I Am Not Sidney Poitier). In this novel, a college professor reckons with his professional and personal life, particularly his daughter's devastating illness, when a hidden note in his jacket pulls him into an altogether different drama. Here's the thing: Everett released three different versions of this book with three different endings. I read the NW version - if you read another edition, let's compare notes?
