Fiction
The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
Set in the post-industrial Midwest, this story of loneliness and community, entrapment and freedom, follows Blandine, who lives with three other teens in a run-down apartment building known as the Rabbit Hutch, as she embarks on a quest for transcendence that culminates in a shocking act of violence.
The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones
On the white-washed island of Ibiza, the narrator, writer Amanda Wordlaw, describes in great detail her peculiar relationship with her closet friend, a gifted sculptor, who is repeatedly institutionalized for trying to kill a husband who never leaves her.
The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories by Jamil Jan Kochai
A luminous meditation on sons and fathers, ghosts of war, and living history that moves between modern-day Afghanistan and the Afghan diaspora.
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews
Follows a young Indian American woman who is grappling with graduating into a recession, working a grueling entry-level corporate job, and trying to date Marina, a beautiful dancer who always seems just beyond her grasp.
The Town of Babylon by Alejandro Varela
Returning to his hometown to care for his ailing father, Andres, a gay Latinx professor, decides to attend his 20-year high school reunion where he encounters the long-lost characters of his youth and must confront these relationships to better understand his own life.
Nonfiction
The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke
Drawing on her own medical experiences as well as a decade of interviews with doctors, patients, researchers, and public health experts, the author offers a revelatory investigation into the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases that resist easy description or simple cures.
South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry
This intricately woven tapestry of stories of immigrant communities, exploitative opportunists, enslaved peoples, unsung heroes and lived experiences shows the meaning of American is inextricably linked to the South—and understanding its history and culture is the key to understanding our nation as a whole.
Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus by Daniel Quammen
The story of the worldwide scientific quest to decipher the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, trace its source and make possible the vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Interweaving spellbinding family stories, resurrected Colombian history, and her own deeply personal reckonings with the bounds of reality, the author shares her inheritance of “the secrets”—the power to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick and move the clouds.
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
Two Washington Post reporters examine how systemic racism impacted both the life and death of the 46-year old black man who was murdered in broad daylight outside a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin.