Every month, we select a book that we love so much that we feel confident guaranteeing that you'll love it too, so much so that we'll give you your money back if you don't. Peruse this list if you're trying to remember one you missed or are looking for more recommendations like it. You can also see previous months by clicking here.
November 2019
I couldn't put The Revisioners down once I started it! It's an inter-generational tale focusing on the women of a Louisiana Black family, from Ava in 2017 to her great-great-great-great grandma Josephine in 1924, and then to 10-year old Josephine in 1855 who is still a slave. Sexton highlights the cyclical nature of history and family, the connections between generations, and a natural magic that infuses the prose as well as the characters. I loved the fierce loyalty the women show each other and themselves throughout their various ordeals with racism and "well-meaning" (emphasis mine, not Sexton's) white people. The Revisioners is both a warning and a beacon of hope for a country that hasn't healed or overcome its white supremacy. It's definitely one of my 2019 faves! —Sara
October 2019
I’d read a Jamison essay about asphalt. She’s that smart, big-hearted, and funny. I was so often moved and thrilled by the 14 essays in this book that I had to pause and just let them sink in before reading more. She’s true master of the form. — STS
September 2019
Award-winning writer Ibram Kendi takes us on a personal and historical journey through racism. He also incorporates science, law, and ethics as he updates the definition of racism, explores its negative effects (on whites, too!), and helps teach readers to be anti-racist (rather than a neutral "not racist."). We can all do better, and Kendi is here to help. —Pete
August 2019
Jia Tolentino's first book of essays takes on topics from her fundamentalist upbringing and her teenage stint on an early aughts reality show (Boys vs. Girls) to 21st Century capitalism's push to make us all productive -- and all of us products-- in every spare moment. At the heart of the book is always our idea of the self, and our current misunderstanding of it. Am I my Instagram selfies? Are we the spandex in our athleisure? Even as she takes down mainstream feminism's acceptance of hours-long skincare regimes and barre exercise classes (not for a man, for 'me'), she allows for empathy and understanding for each of us, how we're all coping with what sometimes feels like the end of the world. Economic precarity, political unpredictability and impossible standards of beauty notwithstanding, Tolentino is still finding moments like church, moments of wonder, in everything from bio luminescence to the chopped and screwed Houston sound. And she's writing the hell out of all of it.--Leigh
July 2019
Like Marilynne Robinson or Alice Munro, San Francisco writer Lila Savage's first novel is a tender, generous sliver of compassion about the difficulties in caring for ourselves and for others. Ella is a home care worker who floats between other people's tragedies, hired to join a family just long enough to witness her clients' decline. Ella has a girlfriend but there’s an immediate attraction between her and a new client's husband. While that fraught relationship is the center of this novel, the real excitement here is the language, which recasts the steady and familiar (our bodies, our hopes) as quivering ephemera. Seriously, read the first page and you’ll feel sad about jellybeans. An exquisite, heartbreaking novel that dwells in the quiet moments when people know they are falling short of their best selves. —Benjy
June 2019
Incredibly well-written & totally engaging, it would be an understatement to say this book covers a broad territory. Landscape, travelogue, memoir & literary criticism... But also science & history. Each section could be a brilliant short book. Together they form something grounded & sublime. I particularly enjoyed the underlands of Paris. To encounter Macfarlane running with a pack of subterranean guerilla explorers while at the same time meditating on Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project...What could be better?—E.H.
May 2019
Black Death at the Golden Gate is a fast-paced, fascinating narrative of local history. Centering on cases of The Plague in early San Francisco, it's a story about epidemiology, racism, public health versus individual rights, a burgeoning California, and bacteriology. Don't let the "ologies" turn you off, though. This is not too technical. More just a lively history. —Pete
April 2019
If you are a fan of Amy Hempel, then we have some good news for you: she is still writing distilled, wry, tragicomic stories. If you haven’t had a chance to read her work, this new collection is an excellent introduction to one of the best short fiction writers working today. —Andrew
March 2019
So, let's say we build a wall. A great big beautiful wall all around the country. What then? A wall without soldiers is just a physical barrier, not very hard to cross. So we staff the wall with an appropriate amount of soldiers. And to make the soldiers effective, they'll need ammunition, and a clearly defined set of orders to defend the homeland at all costs. What does that say about a country, that it is so afraid of 'the other' that it is willing to kill to defend what it sees as its rightful way of life? And what does one do with the 'others' who make it across the border? Sometimes the only difference between "us" and "them" is pure chance and luck. John Lanchester writes a tale eerily appropriate for our not so distant future.-Martin & Jessica
February 2019
January 2019
Samanta Schweblin's short story collection brings the same, stunning strangeness we came to expect of her in Fever Dream. Arresting and peculiar, these tories will engross you in their brutal irony, restored hope, and magical logic. Schweblin's work carries the deftness and surrealist satisfaction of writers like Julio Cortázar and Kelly Link. Eerie and enticing, you might need to close this book, if only for a moment, before reaching for it hungrily. —Kar