30 ideas to help you answer the question of what to read next .... click here to see a list of our most eagerly anticipated books of the season.
Last updated January 19.
This book makes living right here and right now all worth it. Here's a real writer: style and heart and wit and depth--nothing's missing. His great talent: reminding you and me of joy. These stories, collected from The New Yorker and Harper's and more, describe fathers and sons, country doctors, rural cops, and miracles, and once you read one, you'll re-read it in your mind forever. The Uncollected Stories of Allan Gurganus is a true beauty from one of our greatest writers. --Erica (Signed bookplates available!)
(Limited signed copies available.)
I am at a loss for words. How can words even begin to describe the breathtaking language in the story that Robert Jones Jr. has gifted us with his debut novel, The Prophets? How can I begin to explain how he achieves a feat so marvelous, it almost seems impossible? Well, that's the key word: almost. From his innovative restructuring of the Bible through the lens of America's history with slavery to characters that leap off the page with colorful grace and dignity, Robert Jones Jr. masterfully weaves a narrative that serves as a warning from the past, a prophecy for the future, and a testament to the present. His writing defies all Great American Novels that have come before, and in doing so, becomes one of the Greatest I've ever had the pleasure of reading. I can't wait for everyone to be as spellbound by this book as I am; it will stay with me forever. --Gage
Now in paperback! Dear Ann Patchett, Some years ago, I wrote you a letter telling you about how I read Bel Canto aloud to my mother as she was recovering from eye surgery, and how much it meant to us to be so lifted up—she and I have spent our lives with books, and it’s always been via books that we have been our best selves to each other. She’s pretty ancient now, and so it’s the perfect time for me to read The Dutch House, aloud to her. She could read it herself, but your novel—with its layers of what families do to each other: how they love one another, how they repeat mistakes, how they reach past the past, how they live in fear and fury and then, if they’re lucky, forgiveness (not the smarmy kind but instead the real kind)-- is the way I’ll link myself to her, my mother, here in her very old age. So: my thanks. --Erica
Signed copies available. Join us on Thursday, January 28, for a discussion with the author. More details here.
Hands down, this was the most comforting book I read during the (ongoing) COVID pandemic. Full of wisdom pulled from literature, mythology, nature, and science, Wintering is an exquisitely beautiful, and ultimately uplifting, book about living through difficult times. -Jen
As the title suggests, this book is both a memoir and a biography—an intimate experiment in nonfiction that simultaneously explores two identities at once. Jenn Shapland knows that the figures that occupy our minds – especially writers, in my experience, who particularly seem to make a nest of my brain – are not entirely independent of us. The mythic figures that live somewhere between the pages of history and our own imaginations are as much a part of our narrative as the world's. Shapland didn't know McCullers but she knows a version of her, one that this book posits as potentially as real as the 'real' author herself. Gorgeously queer, superbly honest, and ultimately a beautiful tribute, Shapland's trailblazing form shines without dulling either her own story or Carson's. An exquisite debut. --Ryan
If you loved the Netflix show or just want a good romance, look no further.
Grandmother and granddaughter swap homes in this delightfully British novel. Having thrown herself into her work following her sister's death, Leena's debilitating grief threatens to catch up with & overwhelm her. Her boss tells her to take a month away from the office and do some proper processing. Meanwhile, her grandmother Eileen is itching for a new romance, one that she feels unlikely to find in her rural village. So Eileen ventures into the big city, leaving Leena to house-sit and take over her gran's parochial Neighborhood Watch responsibilities. Charming & heartwarming experiences ensue for both women. --Talia
Signed copies available.
Dare to dream.
R.I.P. Alex Trebek
