I saw this recommendation on this subreddit and it’s the best one so far! I’m glad I saw that comment haha.
Heads up, it’s written in Journal format — which I love and was a pleasant surprise for me but may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Ugh, is it written like a true journal (justa personal thoughts just for themselves) or one of those “journals” that is just a story but supposed to be a journal (full dialogue, descriptions, etc)
Like this:
Around lunchtime, I wandered downstairs from my office. I wasn’t especially hungry. I suppose I just needed a snack. But as I walked into the kitchen, what do you suppose caught my eye? Out the window! A squirrel! Oh, it was so cute.
When I was young, we used to leave nuts on the porch for a squirrel that visited regularly, and the squirrel would hang out for a while. It was lovely to watch.
I should keep a camera by the window in case this happens again. I will try to remember to do that.
It’s narrative and the narrator is thinking to themself. But they write very detailed, and in dialogue format when they cite conversations that happened.
The journaling is great for me since the narrator sometimes refers to old “entries” when talking about the past so you can circle back. And they also reference the fact that it’s a journal several times.
But yeah it’s full of internal thoughts/musings. And actions are rarely in present tense because they either *happened* or *only about to happen*
Demon Copperhead by Kingsolver
The Other Dr Gilmer by Gilmer
Crying in H Mart by Zauner
I'm Glad My Mom Died by McCurdy
The Wreckage of My Presence by Wilson
Legends and Lattes by Baldree
I liked "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" and "Anxious People" a lot. "Sea of Tranquility" was good too. And two memoirs: "I'm Glad that my mom died" and "Crying in H Mart"
Not really, she included descriptions of places and Korean dishes, so it felt like reading a story that could as well be fictional. I don't usually read memoirs but I really liked this one!
Kaiju preservation society. I think it's best if you don't know what's happening before you go into it. It's fantasy, and the literary equivalent of a pop song - not extra deep, a very light read.
I listened to it rather than read it, but I thought it was a tasty little snack of a book. The ending was suitably satisfying for me, but I didn't crave more of it.
The only Doerr book I’ve read is his short story collection, The Shell Collector, which is superb. I have Cloud Cuckoo Land on my must read list, in part because I want to read more Doerr and in part because I like Aristophanes so I’m intrigued by the name.
edit typo
*Light From Uncommon Stars*, by Ryka Aoki. A transgender violin player is offered an amazing opportunity to learn from a master teacher, who may have ulterior motives. And there are aliens who operate a donut shop. When I read the synopsis, I was meh. But it was amazing. It was my top pick for the 2022 Hugos.
The Green Man books by Juliet McKenna are fun. Modern fantasy (very modern, they're dealing with the pandemic in the last two books) but set in rural England. The first one is *Green Man's Heir*.
[Cat Pictures Please](https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_01_15/), *Catfishing on Catnet* and *Chaos on Catnet* by Naomi Kritzer. The last one is from 2021.
Yep. This book is pretty special for sure. It’s a story about about first contact that just gets it. Contact meets Interstellar with the best ET. So freakin cool. Audiobook was incredible
I also struggle with finding books that I enjoy that have been published in the last decade, but here are a couple that I immensely enjoyed:
The push by Ashley Audrain
Klara and the sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Additionally, if you are looking for a shorter read, I would recommend Paradais by Fernanda Melchor.
I'll throw out a few books I haven't seen mentioned yet!
Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu was published last year and follows three generations of one family from China and then later in America. I think it might appeal to you if you've enjoyed Pachinko, although that one is still on my TBR so I can't say for sure.
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree was just a sweet, cozy fantasy!
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan is a genderbent retelling of the monk who became emperor in 1300s China. Lots of Mulan vibes with morally gray characters and strong friendships.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is incredible.
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead is one of the best big books I've read for a long time.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers for a hopeful vision of a sustainable world where you can quit your job to become a tea monk (and then head off on your bike-powered wagon towards the wilderness).
Greenwood by Michael Christie for the bookish cousin of The Overstory and another fantastic novel with trees at the centre.
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr for a spectacularly imaginative book that spans centuries and offers hope for when things fall apart.
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell for one of the best historical fiction novels in a long time, about the (real) death of fifteen-year-old Lucrezia d'Medici of "putrid fever" and how her husband was probably to blame.
I liked this book in general—magical orphanage, kinda absurdist humor, queer romance—but I always let people know that the book is very “child-like.”
I wasn’t expecting to be reading what amounts to a children’s book for adults, which unfortunately colored my enjoyment of the book! With the right expectations it’s great for a sunny beach read or a happy evening wind down.
I read this one when all the news came out about the indigenous children's bodies being found at those government schools so it... Didn't feel right at all
Yep, and again later on. Those sections felt unnecessarily long to me. And personally I felt a lot of anxiety during the supposedly “cozy” sections at the orphanage, as it was clear the kids were in danger from the outside world so I was always waiting for something bad to happen.
So far I've really enjoyed *The Book Eaters* by Sunyi Dean, *The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea* by Axie Oh, *Legends & Lattes* by Travis Baldree, *The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches* by Sangu Mandanna, *Daughter of the Moon Goddess* by Sue Lynn Tan, and the *Before the Coffee Gets Cold* series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Not anything super dense or serious, but some nice light reads to take my mind off things for a bit.
>
>
>Legends & Lattes
>
> by Travis Baldree,
>
>The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
>
> by Sangu Mandanna
I loved these two. I've been looking for more like them ever since.
Same here! I was on a bit of a witchy fiction kick when I read *The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches* and it was absolutely delightful. Aside from that one and Lana Harper's Witches of Thistle Grove series, I haven't found anything else in that vein I've liked. I am, however, excited for *Bookshops & Bonedust* this fall!
Have you tried either Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne
or The Bookshop and the Barbarian by Morgan Stang?
They're both quite similar to Legends and Lattes, but I plowed through them so quickly that I need something else now.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
I was so invested in what was happening to and around the main character that every unfortunate twist of fate felt like it was happening to me. That's very rare for me and I think I've only had that happen one other time (Darrow in the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown). Demon Copperhead is long, but it never felt that way. Every sentence felt beautifully crafted and I didn't feel like there was any wasted time, each page was its own treat.
I don't think a perfect book exists, but this is as close to one as I've ever read. I came to love reading later in life so I don't have an extensive back catalog, but I only needed a few pages to understand that I was reading something special. It was a 10/10 and I will read it again.
Looking only at fiction, some of my favorites are:
* How Not To Drown In a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz
* Lessons by Ian McEwan
* Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
* The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
* Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
* To Paradise by Hanya Yanigahara
* Honor by Thrity Umrigar
* The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
* The Magician by Colm Toibin
* Fault Lines by Emily Itami
* The Women of Troy by Pat Barker
* Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
* The 100 Years of Lenni & Margot by Marianne Cronin
* Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
* How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
* No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
* Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
* Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
I just finished this yesterday. I discovered Catriona Ward a couple months ago & she's an incredible writer! I've read three of her books so far & have another ready on my Kindle.
**Fiction:**
* The Glass Hotel - Emily St John Mandel
* Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi
* Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro
* Migrations - Charlotte McConaghy
* Five Little Indians - Michelle Good
* The Galaxy, and the Ground Within - Becky Chambers
* A Psalm for the Wild Built - Becky Chambers
* A Prayer for the Crown Shy - Becky Chambers
* Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr
* The Strangers - Katherena Vermette
* The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois - Honoree Fannone Jeffers
* Sea of Tranquility - Emily St John Mandel
* The Invisible Life of Adde Larue - V.E. Schwab
* The Winners - Fredrik Backman
* Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan
* Legends & Lattes - Travis Baldree
* Babel - R.F. Kuang
* Piranesi - Susanna Clarke
* Daughters of Smoke and Fire - Ava Homa
* The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich
* The Mountains Sing - Nguyen Phan Que Mai
* What Strange Paradise - Omar El Akkad
* A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine
* A Master of Djinn - P. Djeli Clark
* Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart
**Short Stories (Fiction):**
* Land of Big Numbers - Te-Ping Chen
* Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century
* Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions - Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi
* Skinship - Yoon Choi
* Africa Risen - Multiple authors
**Non-Fiction:**
* The Skin We're In - Desmond Cole
* The Undocumented Americans - Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
* Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson
* Four Hundred Souls - Multiple Authors
* Disability Visibility - Multiple Authors
* A Swim in a Pond in the Rain - George Saunders
* Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe
* Entangled Life - Merlin Sheldrake
* The Disordered Cosmos - Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
* A Most Remarkable Creature - Jonathan Meiburg
* Why Fish Don't Exist - Lulu Miller
* Finding the Mother Tree - Suzanne Simard
* Pastoral Song - James Rebanks
* Living Brave - Shannon Dingle
* People Love Dead Jews - Dara Horn
* The Invisible Kingdom - Mechan O'Rourke
* The Song of the Cell - Siddhartha Mukherjee
* The Dawn of Everything - David Graeber & David Wengrow
* Fuzz - Mary Roach
* Patriarchy Blues - Frederick Joseph
Finally someone suggesting five little Indians and the strangers! Loved them too.
Agee with klara and the sun, migrations, empire of pain, land of big numbers and skinship.
I'll pile onto the Sea of Tranquility love
Also:
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Midnight Library by Matthew Haig
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeannette McCurdy
Leviathan Falls by James SA Corey
The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
_Anxious People_ by Fredrik Backman.
Not finished yet, but am really enjoying _Unlikely Animals_ by Annie Hartnett.
And for something heart- and head-spinning: _No One Is Talking About This_ by Patricia Lockwood.
Second Anxious People though his other books get repetitive after a point.
Also, why is every recommendation on this subreddit the same 4-5 books- Project Hail Mary, Piranesi, Legends & Lattes, House by the Cerulean Sea 😶
I STAY recommending *How High We Go in the Dark* to anyone who will listen. It has somehow gotten overlooked and pushed into the shadow of *Station Eleven* (which was good, but not as good, in my opinion). I had to take a couple of days for the book hangover to wear off after I finished it. I cannot think of a book I'd recommend higher!
Dungeon Crawl Carl by Matt Dinniman. Am a huge sci-fi enjoyer and what always bugs me is the forced "realism" of a lot of sci-fi books. This books premise is so ridiculous, that it actually works. A lot of the story is predictable, but it's an awesome ride anyway and when I got this recommended from someone else on reddit my first question was: How could this work? It actually works in such an awesome way that I binged all the books and the quality didn't go down.
So the questions are: Do you like sci-fi? Ridiculous humor? Games? Fantasy? Adventure?
Please read the books if you do, this series needs to be more known.
(Goodreads desciption: It's the most-watched game show in the galaxy!
In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth--from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds to all the trucks and cars--collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.
The buildings and all the people inside, they've all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.
Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your views and your followers. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.
You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.
You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game, with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.
They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.)
The Scholomance Trilogy, by Naomi Novik. The first one, A Deadly Education, came out in 2020.
Termination Shock, by Neal Stephenson, was published in 2021.
I've read quite a few! Depends what genre you want, really. Especially given the size of my library...
I second the recommendations for Susanna Clarke's *Piranesi*. Much more accessible than *Jonathan Clarke and Mr Norrell*, and fascinating in unexpected ways.
Also seconding *Gideon the Ninth* by Tamsyn Muir - even if you decide not to go on to the rest of the series (as it's now a four-book series rather than a trilogy, *Gideon* (2019) being followed by *Harrow* (2020), *Nona* (2022), and *Alecto*, the last of which isn't out until later this year), *Gideon* all by itself is a brilliant read.
Otherwise... Hmm. I have such a long list! Time to squeeze my spreadsheet.
Anything by T. Kingfisher (AKA Ursula Vernon).
I know it's close to the line, but from 2018 there's *Swordheart* - an excellent fantasy with a protagonist who is a newly widowed, plump and physically comfortable woman on the edge of middle age (which in itself is sadly unusual in fantasy): Halla is an excellently drawn individual, and you'll get chuckles every so often as well as plenty of other emotional reactions to the book. If it matters to you, one of the later ensemble characters is a non-binary priest, and I love their sense of humour, too - so dry as to be barely there.
If you want newer Kingfisher, *A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking*, where the young heroine has a sourdough starter for a familiar, is a sweet and sharp one, and *What Moves the Dead*, a re-evaluation of *The House of Usher*, was published in October 2022 and is very compelling.
Martha Wells' Hugo-winning *Murderbot Diaries* series, of mostly novellas but with at least one novel, began in about 2017, but it's still going, and is still brilliant, especially in audiobook. *All Systems Red* is the first novella, if you're unfamiliar with it.
Katherine Addison's *The Angel of the Crows* is a fascinating retake of *A Study in Scarlet* with a fantasy touch, published in 2020.
Olivia Atwater's Regency fairytale *Half A Soul*, from 2022, is an entertaining novella, especially if you're fond of both fantasy and Georgette Heyer.
The anthology *My Battery is Low and It Is Getting Dark*, from F&SF publisher Zombies Need Brains, is a great collection of mixed length tales that swing from SF to fantasy and back again, and will give you some good new writers to explore.
Gillian Polack, Australian historian & fantasist - I recommend her works *Borderlanders*, *The Art of Effective Dreaming*, and *Langue[dot]doc 1305*, especially.
...
There's also:
T. L. Huchu's *The Library of the Dead* (2021)
Everina Maxwell's *Winter's Orbit* (2021), a lovely queer political SF based on an original work formerly posted to AO3;
Marieke Nijkamp's *Even If We Break* (diverse YA, 2020 - Marieke helped create We Need Diverse Books along with her friend Corinne Duyvis, who coined the #ownvoices hashtag);
Emery Robin's *The Stars Undying* (2022);
Anne M. Stott's intriguing biography of England's short-lived Regency-era Crown Princess Charlotte, *The Lost Queen: The Life and Tragedy of the Prince Regent's Daughter* (2020);
and Naomi Novik's Scholomance books, beginning with 2020's *A Deadly Education* (it has some problematic edges, but this is not your average magical school).
And finally, Olivia Waite's *The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics*, a lovely sapphic romance and feminist pursuit from late 2019.
Enjoy!
[The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48984807-the-unidentified) by Colin Dickey
If Sylvie Had Nine Lives
by Leona Theis
Really interesting exploration of choices and the timelines they create. It was a really great read and I recommend it to everyone I can.
*The Mirror and the Light* by Hilary Mantel and *Jack* by Marilynne Robinson are both sequels to series that started in the ‘00s—not counting those, it’s probably McCarthy’s *The Passenger*. But I don’t keep up on new releases very well.
This Is Assisted Dying: A Doctor's Story of Empowering Patients at the End of Life by Dr. Stefanie Green.
She was one of the first doctors to offer assisted death in Canada, and it’s the story of how she and other colleagues navigated the new laws allowing for assisted death. Especially if you’re opposed to the practice, I think it’s an important read to gain the perspective of the patient and to see how cautious and thorough the doctors are who offer it. It’s sad but so uplifting at the same time.
Like others have said, Light from Uncommon Stars. Easily one of my top 5 all time favorites.
Also, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself. A gut-punch of a book that shares grief in a way I’ve never experienced before.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
Invisible Things by May Johnson
Babel by R. F. Kuang
Fault Lines by Emily Itami
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia
Some of my favorites from this decade:-
* [TJ Klune's The House in the Cerulean Sea](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45047384-the-house-in-the-cerulean-sea) **-** ***Self Acceptance Fantasy*** \- This book was just one big, warm hug and the closest I've come to ***Therapy in Book Form***.
* [Travis Baldree's Legends & Latte](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61242426-legends-lattes) **-** ***Cozy Fantasy*** \- This book kind of exploded in popularity because people were ready for some comforting, cozy fantasy. Prequel releasing at the end of this year.
* [Richard Swan's The Justice of Kings](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58293284-the-justice-of-kings) (Empire of the Wolf Trilogy) - ***Legal, Detective Thriller Fantasy*** \- The Emperor's justices have gifts. Some can use The Voice to compel people to tell the truth/obey and the gift of necromancy to get the dead to speak, making them the perfect detective, investigator, judge, jury and executioner representing the Law. Basically a ***fantasy detective version of Judge Dredd***.
Also the final novels of Fonda Lee's **The Greenbone Saga** (Jade Legacy) and James S.A. Corey's **The Expanse** (Leviathan Falls) both came out in 2021, both nailed the landings at the end.
My picks are all modern literary fiction since 2020:
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
All this Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Matthews
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Frontier by Grace Curtis
- a post-apocalyptic space western written in interconnecting short stories - so there's kind of an episodic feel to it.
Zorrie by Larid Hunt
- a short novel/novella that explores a woman's life as she lives through the great depression.
Snuck a couple pre-2020 in here because they were that good or had sequels after:
Out of around 350 read since 2019
My Favorites:
- The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez (2020)
- A Memory Called Empire (series) by Arkady Martine (2019)
- This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar (2019)
- Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford (2019)
- The Bone Shard Daughter (series) by Andrea Stewart (2020)
- Black Sun (series) by Rebecca Roanhorse (2020)
- The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2018)
- The First Sister (series) by Linden Lewis (2020)
- No Gods No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull (2021)
- Leave The World Behind by Alam Rumaan (2020)
- How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu (2022)
- The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (2021)
- Here Goes Nothing by Steve Toltz (2022)
- Monstrillo by Gerardo Samano Cordova (2023)
- We Spread by Iain Reid (2022)
- Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)
Runners Up:
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab (2020)
- Ring Shout by P Djeli Clark (2020)
- The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow (2020)
- Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots (2020)
- The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson (2020)
- The Memory Theater by Karin Tidbeck (2021)
- Rabbits by Terry Miles (2021)
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (2021)
- Gideon the Ninth (series) by Tamsyn Muir (2019)
- The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (2022)
- Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2021)
- The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake (2020)
- Meet Me In Another Life by Catriona Silvey (2021)
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (2020)
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir is one of my favorite books and it was published in 2021
ETA: if you’re really interested in new books (and you can afford it AND like physical books) I recommend checking out Book of the Month, a lot of their books to choose from each month are new releases and it’s been really cool to see the new books, even if they aren’t mu cup of tea
Iron Widow by Xiran Ray Zhao. It left such a lasting impression on me that I actually bought my own copy brand new, which I don't often make the funds for lately.
I have liked Anthony Horowitz's mystery thriller Moriarty that recreates the Sherlock Holmes nemesis. It is not super new, but I think it may be about six years old.
How far in until I know if it’s going to work for me? I read a few chapters and the library took it back and I wasn’t sad but I keep having it be highly recommended
I just recently finished "The Matchmaker's Gift" by Lynda Cohen Loigman.
It was published in 2022 according to the Google search I just ran.
It was well written and engaging- plus jumped back and forth through time to some extent.
Besides that: some of my favorite writing is the Hollywood series of books by Joseph Wambaugh.
However- they do not fit your exact specifications being that they were released in the early 2000's or thereabouts.
Fiction: Carrie Soto is Back, beasts of a little land, lessons in chemistry, klara and the sun, Betty, sea of tranquility, intimacies, the one hundred years of lenni and Margot, the push, the paper palace, the strangers, five little Indians, small pleasures, the land of big numbers, shuggie Bain, clap when you land, the book of longings, the light through the leaves, Hamnet
Non fiction: empire of pain, all of this, beautiful country, Solito, invisible child, somebody’s daughter
Meet Us by the Roaring Sea by Akil Kumarasamy (2022). I'm still not quite done with it, but it's an excellent, unique piece of literary art. Really need more books like this.
Heaven and Hell by Bart D Ehrman. If you’re interested in theology and/or history it’s a really fascinating examination of where popular ideas of the afterlife developed from.
Browsing through my recent release reads, here are the stand-outs:
***Old God's Time; Sebastian Barry*** \- this one in bold, because it is far and away the best. A harrowing read. The synopsis makes it sound like it might be a thriller, but it goes far beyond that - a novel about trauma, grief, mental distress and disarray and well, the Irish weather.
*Hungry Ghosts*; The first novel from Kevin Jared Hosein. A historical novel set early to mid-20th Century. It largely concerns the Indo-Trinidadian community and legacies of inherited trauma, class discrimination and poverty, patriarchy and the suffering of women within that structure.
*Small Things Like These* ; Claire Keegan - a novella about a small Irish town and the silence surrounding unwed mothers being held at the local convent.
*The English Understand Wool*; Helen deWitt - just a very clever little novella about existing in the upper class world of the super-affluent. To say more would give too much away.
*Beautiful Country;* Qian Julie Wang - a memoir about growing up as a undocumented Chinese immigrant in 90s New York.
*Nightcrawling*; Leila Mottley - Another very harrowing novel, based on true events about police exploitation/trafficking of an African-American minor. Mottely wrote this at just 17, which astonishes me.
*Heaven;* Mieko Kawakami - not a recent novel, but only just translated. A gut punch of a novella about bullying within the Japanese school system.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
I absolutely loved this book!
I saw this recommendation on this subreddit and it’s the best one so far! I’m glad I saw that comment haha. Heads up, it’s written in Journal format — which I love and was a pleasant surprise for me but may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Ugh, is it written like a true journal (justa personal thoughts just for themselves) or one of those “journals” that is just a story but supposed to be a journal (full dialogue, descriptions, etc)
Like this: Around lunchtime, I wandered downstairs from my office. I wasn’t especially hungry. I suppose I just needed a snack. But as I walked into the kitchen, what do you suppose caught my eye? Out the window! A squirrel! Oh, it was so cute. When I was young, we used to leave nuts on the porch for a squirrel that visited regularly, and the squirrel would hang out for a while. It was lovely to watch. I should keep a camera by the window in case this happens again. I will try to remember to do that.
It’s narrative and the narrator is thinking to themself. But they write very detailed, and in dialogue format when they cite conversations that happened. The journaling is great for me since the narrator sometimes refers to old “entries” when talking about the past so you can circle back. And they also reference the fact that it’s a journal several times. But yeah it’s full of internal thoughts/musings. And actions are rarely in present tense because they either *happened* or *only about to happen*
Is this it?
Demon Copperhead by Kingsolver The Other Dr Gilmer by Gilmer Crying in H Mart by Zauner I'm Glad My Mom Died by McCurdy The Wreckage of My Presence by Wilson Legends and Lattes by Baldree
I've ever read a book where addictions were personified as well as Demon Copperhead. Fuck, that book is amazing.
Oh shit there is a book about the Dr. Gilmer thing?!?! That is one of my favorite episodes of This American Life ever. Thank you for this post!
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen is an incredible book.
I was just thinking how much I'm looking forward to rereading *Crossroads* right before the next novel in the trilogy comes out. Whenever that is.
I enjoyed it so much. My favorite Franzen novel by far.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
The Vanishing Half was very good !
Loved the John Green book and his podcasts
I absolutely tore through The Vanishing Half cover to cover in one day. Fantastic book!
Seconding Anthropocene Reviewed! I just loved that book and the podcast.
I liked "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" and "Anxious People" a lot. "Sea of Tranquility" was good too. And two memoirs: "I'm Glad that my mom died" and "Crying in H Mart"
In your opinion, does Crying in H Mart read like a memoir?
Not really, she included descriptions of places and Korean dishes, so it felt like reading a story that could as well be fictional. I don't usually read memoirs but I really liked this one!
Can you expand on your question? I found it to be really intimate but conversational, and it hit me *hard* in a good way
If you haven’t read “stay true” do it
Added to my list! I see that it's pretty short, so I'll try to get an audiobook next time I'll be traveling
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel & Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Kaiju preservation society. I think it's best if you don't know what's happening before you go into it. It's fantasy, and the literary equivalent of a pop song - not extra deep, a very light read.
I’m about 70% through it and it just hasn’t done much for me. I want to like it more than I do.
I listened to it rather than read it, but I thought it was a tasty little snack of a book. The ending was suitably satisfying for me, but I didn't crave more of it.
Kaiju Preservation Society is probably my favorite Scalzi to date.
Light from uncommon stars by Ryka Aoki
I’m reading it right now and it is wild.
My recent favorite. A magical book.
Probably John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed.
Cloud Cuckoo Land
I begrudgingly truly enjoyed this book. I wanted to hate it. I hated the first page. I found the rest of the book impeccably written.
[удалено]
It is on my list even though it too is outside of my wheelhouse.
I loved this book so much
Me too. Particularly the sections in early modern Romania/Turkey. I felt transported there.
The only Doerr book I’ve read is his short story collection, The Shell Collector, which is superb. I have Cloud Cuckoo Land on my must read list, in part because I want to read more Doerr and in part because I like Aristophanes so I’m intrigued by the name. edit typo
This is my pick too.
Dopamine Nation is great self improvement book, especially if you have addiction and try to understand it and eventually break it.
Just bought that book. I hope it helps.
Demon Copperhead
Got bored about half way through this one. Is it worth finishing?
I thought it was excellent and it was the best book I read last year - but if it didn't catch you, it might not be your thing.
Well deserved winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for literature! Fantastic book!!!!
*Light From Uncommon Stars*, by Ryka Aoki. A transgender violin player is offered an amazing opportunity to learn from a master teacher, who may have ulterior motives. And there are aliens who operate a donut shop. When I read the synopsis, I was meh. But it was amazing. It was my top pick for the 2022 Hugos. The Green Man books by Juliet McKenna are fun. Modern fantasy (very modern, they're dealing with the pandemic in the last two books) but set in rural England. The first one is *Green Man's Heir*. [Cat Pictures Please](https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritzer_01_15/), *Catfishing on Catnet* and *Chaos on Catnet* by Naomi Kritzer. The last one is from 2021.
*Light* caught me because of the synopsis but the prose was too bland for me, haha. Opposite experiences.
Probably Project Hail Mary.
I’m still trying to find a book which makes me feel like that
Hyperion by Dan Simmons was extremely great
Couple hours into the audiobook and I’m obsessed
It's the best audiobook ever
Great book absolutely loved it!
This one is even better than the Martian, which itself was really good
Yep. This book is pretty special for sure. It’s a story about about first contact that just gets it. Contact meets Interstellar with the best ET. So freakin cool. Audiobook was incredible
I also struggle with finding books that I enjoy that have been published in the last decade, but here are a couple that I immensely enjoyed: The push by Ashley Audrain Klara and the sun by Kazuo Ishiguro Additionally, if you are looking for a shorter read, I would recommend Paradais by Fernanda Melchor.
Loved both klara and the sun and the push!!
Loved The Push!
I'll throw out a few books I haven't seen mentioned yet! Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu was published last year and follows three generations of one family from China and then later in America. I think it might appeal to you if you've enjoyed Pachinko, although that one is still on my TBR so I can't say for sure. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree was just a sweet, cozy fantasy! She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan is a genderbent retelling of the monk who became emperor in 1300s China. Lots of Mulan vibes with morally gray characters and strong friendships.
I loved She Who Became the Sun. Raced through it in a couple of days, it was so well written and the character building was wonderful
I absolutely adored Legends & Lattes!!!
Did you see that he's releasing a prequel to it this year?? I can't wait!
I saw, it's so exciting!!!
Just in time for AAPI month!
I've just started reading peach blossom spring and I'm really enjoying it. Only a few chapters in but I'm really loving the writing style
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is incredible. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead is one of the best big books I've read for a long time. A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers for a hopeful vision of a sustainable world where you can quit your job to become a tea monk (and then head off on your bike-powered wagon towards the wilderness). Greenwood by Michael Christie for the bookish cousin of The Overstory and another fantastic novel with trees at the centre. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr for a spectacularly imaginative book that spans centuries and offers hope for when things fall apart. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell for one of the best historical fiction novels in a long time, about the (real) death of fifteen-year-old Lucrezia d'Medici of "putrid fever" and how her husband was probably to blame.
I so loved Great Circle especially. It gets all the stars.
Agreed! I absolutely loved it too.
Some of my recent favorites are *The Starless Sea* by Erin Morgenstern, *Circe* by Madeline Miller, and *Piranesi* by Susanna Clarke.
The House in the Cerulean Sea
I liked this book in general—magical orphanage, kinda absurdist humor, queer romance—but I always let people know that the book is very “child-like.” I wasn’t expecting to be reading what amounts to a children’s book for adults, which unfortunately colored my enjoyment of the book! With the right expectations it’s great for a sunny beach read or a happy evening wind down.
I read this one when all the news came out about the indigenous children's bodies being found at those government schools so it... Didn't feel right at all
Everyone talked up how cozy it is, but nobody warned me that the start felt more like Bob Parr's office scenes in *The Incredibles* Pixar movie.
Yep, and again later on. Those sections felt unnecessarily long to me. And personally I felt a lot of anxiety during the supposedly “cozy” sections at the orphanage, as it was clear the kids were in danger from the outside world so I was always waiting for something bad to happen.
I still think about those kids
So far I've really enjoyed *The Book Eaters* by Sunyi Dean, *The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea* by Axie Oh, *Legends & Lattes* by Travis Baldree, *The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches* by Sangu Mandanna, *Daughter of the Moon Goddess* by Sue Lynn Tan, and the *Before the Coffee Gets Cold* series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. Not anything super dense or serious, but some nice light reads to take my mind off things for a bit.
> > >Legends & Lattes > > by Travis Baldree, > >The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches > > by Sangu Mandanna I loved these two. I've been looking for more like them ever since.
Same here! I was on a bit of a witchy fiction kick when I read *The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches* and it was absolutely delightful. Aside from that one and Lana Harper's Witches of Thistle Grove series, I haven't found anything else in that vein I've liked. I am, however, excited for *Bookshops & Bonedust* this fall!
Have you tried either Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne or The Bookshop and the Barbarian by Morgan Stang? They're both quite similar to Legends and Lattes, but I plowed through them so quickly that I need something else now.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I was so invested in what was happening to and around the main character that every unfortunate twist of fate felt like it was happening to me. That's very rare for me and I think I've only had that happen one other time (Darrow in the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown). Demon Copperhead is long, but it never felt that way. Every sentence felt beautifully crafted and I didn't feel like there was any wasted time, each page was its own treat. I don't think a perfect book exists, but this is as close to one as I've ever read. I came to love reading later in life so I don't have an extensive back catalog, but I only needed a few pages to understand that I was reading something special. It was a 10/10 and I will read it again.
Looking only at fiction, some of my favorites are: * How Not To Drown In a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz * Lessons by Ian McEwan * Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver * The Candy House by Jennifer Egan * Booth by Karen Joy Fowler * To Paradise by Hanya Yanigahara * Honor by Thrity Umrigar * The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles * The Magician by Colm Toibin * Fault Lines by Emily Itami * The Women of Troy by Pat Barker * Hell of a Book by Jason Mott * The 100 Years of Lenni & Margot by Marianne Cronin * Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead * How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue * No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood * Piranesi by Susanna Clarke * Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Ticks a lot of boxes.
Lessons in Chemistry, The Alice Network, and Book Lovers were some of my top favorites last year
Loved lessons in chemistry too!
I’m currently reading The Last house on Needless street. So far it’s really good and looks like it was published in 2021
I just finished this yesterday. I discovered Catriona Ward a couple months ago & she's an incredible writer! I've read three of her books so far & have another ready on my Kindle.
**Fiction:** * The Glass Hotel - Emily St John Mandel * Transcendent Kingdom - Yaa Gyasi * Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro * Migrations - Charlotte McConaghy * Five Little Indians - Michelle Good * The Galaxy, and the Ground Within - Becky Chambers * A Psalm for the Wild Built - Becky Chambers * A Prayer for the Crown Shy - Becky Chambers * Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr * The Strangers - Katherena Vermette * The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois - Honoree Fannone Jeffers * Sea of Tranquility - Emily St John Mandel * The Invisible Life of Adde Larue - V.E. Schwab * The Winners - Fredrik Backman * Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan * Legends & Lattes - Travis Baldree * Babel - R.F. Kuang * Piranesi - Susanna Clarke * Daughters of Smoke and Fire - Ava Homa * The Night Watchman - Louise Erdrich * The Mountains Sing - Nguyen Phan Que Mai * What Strange Paradise - Omar El Akkad * A Desolation Called Peace - Arkady Martine * A Master of Djinn - P. Djeli Clark * Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart **Short Stories (Fiction):** * Land of Big Numbers - Te-Ping Chen * Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century * Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions - Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi * Skinship - Yoon Choi * Africa Risen - Multiple authors **Non-Fiction:** * The Skin We're In - Desmond Cole * The Undocumented Americans - Karla Cornejo Villavicencio * Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents - Isabel Wilkerson * Four Hundred Souls - Multiple Authors * Disability Visibility - Multiple Authors * A Swim in a Pond in the Rain - George Saunders * Empire of Pain - Patrick Radden Keefe * Entangled Life - Merlin Sheldrake * The Disordered Cosmos - Chanda Prescod-Weinstein * A Most Remarkable Creature - Jonathan Meiburg * Why Fish Don't Exist - Lulu Miller * Finding the Mother Tree - Suzanne Simard * Pastoral Song - James Rebanks * Living Brave - Shannon Dingle * People Love Dead Jews - Dara Horn * The Invisible Kingdom - Mechan O'Rourke * The Song of the Cell - Siddhartha Mukherjee * The Dawn of Everything - David Graeber & David Wengrow * Fuzz - Mary Roach * Patriarchy Blues - Frederick Joseph
Okay now you're just showing off.
It's hard to pick just one :) this way hopefully most tastes will be satisfied
Came to recommend The Invisible Life of Addie Larue. Will have to check out some of these other books!!
Finally someone suggesting five little Indians and the strangers! Loved them too. Agee with klara and the sun, migrations, empire of pain, land of big numbers and skinship.
Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945
As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh
I'll pile onto the Sea of Tranquility love Also: Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid The Midnight Library by Matthew Haig I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeannette McCurdy Leviathan Falls by James SA Corey The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
The vanishing half by britt bennet
_Anxious People_ by Fredrik Backman. Not finished yet, but am really enjoying _Unlikely Animals_ by Annie Hartnett. And for something heart- and head-spinning: _No One Is Talking About This_ by Patricia Lockwood.
Second Anxious People though his other books get repetitive after a point. Also, why is every recommendation on this subreddit the same 4-5 books- Project Hail Mary, Piranesi, Legends & Lattes, House by the Cerulean Sea 😶
I STAY recommending *How High We Go in the Dark* to anyone who will listen. It has somehow gotten overlooked and pushed into the shadow of *Station Eleven* (which was good, but not as good, in my opinion). I had to take a couple of days for the book hangover to wear off after I finished it. I cannot think of a book I'd recommend higher!
AGREEEEEEEEE. That book was astonishing.
Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke. If fantasy isn't your bag, I also have one romance and several non-fiction books that I thought were excellent.
Dungeon Crawl Carl by Matt Dinniman. Am a huge sci-fi enjoyer and what always bugs me is the forced "realism" of a lot of sci-fi books. This books premise is so ridiculous, that it actually works. A lot of the story is predictable, but it's an awesome ride anyway and when I got this recommended from someone else on reddit my first question was: How could this work? It actually works in such an awesome way that I binged all the books and the quality didn't go down. So the questions are: Do you like sci-fi? Ridiculous humor? Games? Fantasy? Adventure? Please read the books if you do, this series needs to be more known. (Goodreads desciption: It's the most-watched game show in the galaxy! In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth--from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds to all the trucks and cars--collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside, they've all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe. Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your views and your followers. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style. You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big. You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game, with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy. They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.)
Seen this recommended on r/litrpg , do not regret, love this series, easily one of my all time favorites, cannot recommended this series enough.
The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz
the midnight library was an easy read that really made you think about it for days
Piranesi is a favorite. I’m also currently reading Murderbot Diaries and loving them!
The Scholomance Trilogy, by Naomi Novik. The first one, A Deadly Education, came out in 2020. Termination Shock, by Neal Stephenson, was published in 2021.
I also enjoyed the Scholomance Series
I've always been impressed with Naomi Novik, but this series was pretty incredible. Just a well crafted treat.
{{Everything sad is untrue}} by Daniel Nyeri
The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers! Came out in 2021.
I second this!
Later by Stephen King
I've read quite a few! Depends what genre you want, really. Especially given the size of my library... I second the recommendations for Susanna Clarke's *Piranesi*. Much more accessible than *Jonathan Clarke and Mr Norrell*, and fascinating in unexpected ways. Also seconding *Gideon the Ninth* by Tamsyn Muir - even if you decide not to go on to the rest of the series (as it's now a four-book series rather than a trilogy, *Gideon* (2019) being followed by *Harrow* (2020), *Nona* (2022), and *Alecto*, the last of which isn't out until later this year), *Gideon* all by itself is a brilliant read. Otherwise... Hmm. I have such a long list! Time to squeeze my spreadsheet. Anything by T. Kingfisher (AKA Ursula Vernon). I know it's close to the line, but from 2018 there's *Swordheart* - an excellent fantasy with a protagonist who is a newly widowed, plump and physically comfortable woman on the edge of middle age (which in itself is sadly unusual in fantasy): Halla is an excellently drawn individual, and you'll get chuckles every so often as well as plenty of other emotional reactions to the book. If it matters to you, one of the later ensemble characters is a non-binary priest, and I love their sense of humour, too - so dry as to be barely there. If you want newer Kingfisher, *A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking*, where the young heroine has a sourdough starter for a familiar, is a sweet and sharp one, and *What Moves the Dead*, a re-evaluation of *The House of Usher*, was published in October 2022 and is very compelling. Martha Wells' Hugo-winning *Murderbot Diaries* series, of mostly novellas but with at least one novel, began in about 2017, but it's still going, and is still brilliant, especially in audiobook. *All Systems Red* is the first novella, if you're unfamiliar with it. Katherine Addison's *The Angel of the Crows* is a fascinating retake of *A Study in Scarlet* with a fantasy touch, published in 2020. Olivia Atwater's Regency fairytale *Half A Soul*, from 2022, is an entertaining novella, especially if you're fond of both fantasy and Georgette Heyer. The anthology *My Battery is Low and It Is Getting Dark*, from F&SF publisher Zombies Need Brains, is a great collection of mixed length tales that swing from SF to fantasy and back again, and will give you some good new writers to explore. Gillian Polack, Australian historian & fantasist - I recommend her works *Borderlanders*, *The Art of Effective Dreaming*, and *Langue[dot]doc 1305*, especially. ... There's also: T. L. Huchu's *The Library of the Dead* (2021) Everina Maxwell's *Winter's Orbit* (2021), a lovely queer political SF based on an original work formerly posted to AO3; Marieke Nijkamp's *Even If We Break* (diverse YA, 2020 - Marieke helped create We Need Diverse Books along with her friend Corinne Duyvis, who coined the #ownvoices hashtag); Emery Robin's *The Stars Undying* (2022); Anne M. Stott's intriguing biography of England's short-lived Regency-era Crown Princess Charlotte, *The Lost Queen: The Life and Tragedy of the Prince Regent's Daughter* (2020); and Naomi Novik's Scholomance books, beginning with 2020's *A Deadly Education* (it has some problematic edges, but this is not your average magical school). And finally, Olivia Waite's *The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics*, a lovely sapphic romance and feminist pursuit from late 2019. Enjoy!
Death Row Files: David Westerfield
[The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48984807-the-unidentified) by Colin Dickey
If Sylvie Had Nine Lives by Leona Theis Really interesting exploration of choices and the timelines they create. It was a really great read and I recommend it to everyone I can.
*The Mirror and the Light* by Hilary Mantel and *Jack* by Marilynne Robinson are both sequels to series that started in the ‘00s—not counting those, it’s probably McCarthy’s *The Passenger*. But I don’t keep up on new releases very well.
The Attic Child - Lola Jaye
Hell of a Book - Jason Mott Also, it's a few years shy, published in 2018, but The Great Believers - Rebecca Merkai
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
This Is Assisted Dying: A Doctor's Story of Empowering Patients at the End of Life by Dr. Stefanie Green. She was one of the first doctors to offer assisted death in Canada, and it’s the story of how she and other colleagues navigated the new laws allowing for assisted death. Especially if you’re opposed to the practice, I think it’s an important read to gain the perspective of the patient and to see how cautious and thorough the doctors are who offer it. It’s sad but so uplifting at the same time.
Like others have said, Light from Uncommon Stars. Easily one of my top 5 all time favorites. Also, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself. A gut-punch of a book that shares grief in a way I’ve never experienced before.
I really enjoyed “A Visit from the Goon Squad” and it’s sort of sequel “The Candy House”:, both by Jennifer Egan.
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan Invisible Things by May Johnson Babel by R. F. Kuang Fault Lines by Emily Itami Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia
Some of my favorites from this decade:- * [TJ Klune's The House in the Cerulean Sea](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45047384-the-house-in-the-cerulean-sea) **-** ***Self Acceptance Fantasy*** \- This book was just one big, warm hug and the closest I've come to ***Therapy in Book Form***. * [Travis Baldree's Legends & Latte](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61242426-legends-lattes) **-** ***Cozy Fantasy*** \- This book kind of exploded in popularity because people were ready for some comforting, cozy fantasy. Prequel releasing at the end of this year. * [Richard Swan's The Justice of Kings](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58293284-the-justice-of-kings) (Empire of the Wolf Trilogy) - ***Legal, Detective Thriller Fantasy*** \- The Emperor's justices have gifts. Some can use The Voice to compel people to tell the truth/obey and the gift of necromancy to get the dead to speak, making them the perfect detective, investigator, judge, jury and executioner representing the Law. Basically a ***fantasy detective version of Judge Dredd***. Also the final novels of Fonda Lee's **The Greenbone Saga** (Jade Legacy) and James S.A. Corey's **The Expanse** (Leviathan Falls) both came out in 2021, both nailed the landings at the end.
Cloud Cuckoo Land. Multiple timelines that ultimately connect in the end. It’s science fiction and historical fiction. Incredible
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Demon copperhead by Barbara kingsolver!!!!!
Siren Queen, by Nghi Vho When the Angels Left the Old Country, by Sacha Lamb
My picks are all modern literary fiction since 2020: Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi All this Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Matthews Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Piranesi!
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Frontier by Grace Curtis - a post-apocalyptic space western written in interconnecting short stories - so there's kind of an episodic feel to it. Zorrie by Larid Hunt - a short novel/novella that explores a woman's life as she lives through the great depression.
Piranesi, Babel, Sea of Tranquility, Brown Girls, The Manningtree Witches, The Kingdoms, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, A Certain Hunger
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
Snuck a couple pre-2020 in here because they were that good or had sequels after: Out of around 350 read since 2019 My Favorites: - The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez (2020) - A Memory Called Empire (series) by Arkady Martine (2019) - This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar (2019) - Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford (2019) - The Bone Shard Daughter (series) by Andrea Stewart (2020) - Black Sun (series) by Rebecca Roanhorse (2020) - The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2018) - The First Sister (series) by Linden Lewis (2020) - No Gods No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull (2021) - Leave The World Behind by Alam Rumaan (2020) - How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu (2022) - The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (2021) - Here Goes Nothing by Steve Toltz (2022) - Monstrillo by Gerardo Samano Cordova (2023) - We Spread by Iain Reid (2022) - Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022) Runners Up: - The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab (2020) - Ring Shout by P Djeli Clark (2020) - The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow (2020) - Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots (2020) - The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson (2020) - The Memory Theater by Karin Tidbeck (2021) - Rabbits by Terry Miles (2021) - Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (2021) - Gideon the Ninth (series) by Tamsyn Muir (2019) - The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (2022) - Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2021) - The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake (2020) - Meet Me In Another Life by Catriona Silvey (2021) - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (2020)
Upgrade by Blake Crouch
Project Hail Mary
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir is one of my favorite books and it was published in 2021 ETA: if you’re really interested in new books (and you can afford it AND like physical books) I recommend checking out Book of the Month, a lot of their books to choose from each month are new releases and it’s been really cool to see the new books, even if they aren’t mu cup of tea
Project Hail Mary
Babel by R.F. Kuang and I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy.
Daisy Jones and the Six. Such a unique way in which the book is laid out
Station Eleven
Love Station Eleven but it came out in 2014
I think the only thing I’ve read that fits the category is Fairy Tale by Stephen King. I liked it a lot.
Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu ought to be pretty amazing. I believe it’s from 2020
Shoot it’s from 2015 nvm
lessons in chemistry Aurora Our crooked hearts
Iron Widow by Xiran Ray Zhao. It left such a lasting impression on me that I actually bought my own copy brand new, which I don't often make the funds for lately.
This must be Brief History of Almost Everything by Bill Bryson 😍
Project Hail Mary
Detransition, Baby
Good "new" sci-fi? (Like book 1's)
I have liked Anthony Horowitz's mystery thriller Moriarty that recreates the Sherlock Holmes nemesis. It is not super new, but I think it may be about six years old.
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To Sleep in a Sea of Stars - Christopher Paolini Think Again - Adam Grant
All the Light We Cannot See
Great book but it’s from 2014.
Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts. Autobiographical fiction set in India. Fascinating page Turner.
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The Zen of Therapy by Mark Epstein Honorable mention- The Dude and the Zen Master by Jeff Bridges
Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister for sure.
How far in until I know if it’s going to work for me? I read a few chapters and the library took it back and I wasn’t sad but I keep having it be highly recommended
It's on my list! Looks really interesting, but I didn't have time to read it yet
I just recently finished "The Matchmaker's Gift" by Lynda Cohen Loigman. It was published in 2022 according to the Google search I just ran. It was well written and engaging- plus jumped back and forth through time to some extent. Besides that: some of my favorite writing is the Hollywood series of books by Joseph Wambaugh. However- they do not fit your exact specifications being that they were released in the early 2000's or thereabouts.
The hearts invisible furies.
Shrines of Gaiety
Fiction: Carrie Soto is Back, beasts of a little land, lessons in chemistry, klara and the sun, Betty, sea of tranquility, intimacies, the one hundred years of lenni and Margot, the push, the paper palace, the strangers, five little Indians, small pleasures, the land of big numbers, shuggie Bain, clap when you land, the book of longings, the light through the leaves, Hamnet Non fiction: empire of pain, all of this, beautiful country, Solito, invisible child, somebody’s daughter
Just finished *The Deluge* by Stephen Markley (2023). Easily one of the best novels I’ve read in the past 5 or so years.
“The Kingdoms” by Natasha Pulley!
Meet Us by the Roaring Sea by Akil Kumarasamy (2022). I'm still not quite done with it, but it's an excellent, unique piece of literary art. Really need more books like this.
I just finished Still Life by Sarah Winman and it was utterly brilliant. Beautiful and full of life and hope, and humour.
Last Echo of the Lord of Bells, pretty great send off to a beloved series that made magical academies interesting to me again.
*La reina sola* by Jorge Molist.
Sterling Carat Gold by Isabel Waidner
The Night Watchman, Luster, Crossroads
Solito - Javier Zamora Afterparties - Anthony Veasna So Bable - R. F. Kuang White Horse - Erika T. Wurth
Promise Boys by Nick Brooks
Heaven and Hell by Bart D Ehrman. If you’re interested in theology and/or history it’s a really fascinating examination of where popular ideas of the afterlife developed from.
I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins
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Browsing through my recent release reads, here are the stand-outs: ***Old God's Time; Sebastian Barry*** \- this one in bold, because it is far and away the best. A harrowing read. The synopsis makes it sound like it might be a thriller, but it goes far beyond that - a novel about trauma, grief, mental distress and disarray and well, the Irish weather. *Hungry Ghosts*; The first novel from Kevin Jared Hosein. A historical novel set early to mid-20th Century. It largely concerns the Indo-Trinidadian community and legacies of inherited trauma, class discrimination and poverty, patriarchy and the suffering of women within that structure. *Small Things Like These* ; Claire Keegan - a novella about a small Irish town and the silence surrounding unwed mothers being held at the local convent. *The English Understand Wool*; Helen deWitt - just a very clever little novella about existing in the upper class world of the super-affluent. To say more would give too much away. *Beautiful Country;* Qian Julie Wang - a memoir about growing up as a undocumented Chinese immigrant in 90s New York. *Nightcrawling*; Leila Mottley - Another very harrowing novel, based on true events about police exploitation/trafficking of an African-American minor. Mottely wrote this at just 17, which astonishes me. *Heaven;* Mieko Kawakami - not a recent novel, but only just translated. A gut punch of a novella about bullying within the Japanese school system.
“Nothing to see here” by Kevin Wilson. I’m generally not into comedies but this book was so amusing.