In the last twelve months, I read a variety of books in several genres. More nonfiction books fill this year’s list than in previous years. I believe that’s because I’ve been searching for truth and yearning for facts and narrative to help me understand and see the reasons why that matters. I also read great novels with brilliant, enticing word pictures that took me outside of myself and made me care deeply about what happened to characters I grew to love like family. When I was tired or upset with the world, I hungered for escape into happy endings and flights of fancy or into intriguing mysteries that kept me on edge. I’m grateful to the reviewers, publisher’s reps, booksellers, authors, and friends who suggested titles that fit my hunger for good books. When we talk with each other about books, we fill a hunger for human connection and we experience joy in knowing that someone who doesn’t necessarily seem like us in the ways our culture considers significant might just be our intellectual and spiritual twin.
Hungry for Good Books? Annual Book List, 2025
Copyright December 1, 2025, by Trina Hayes
Letters after each selection designate the book as CC: Chinese Carryout (page-turners, great for plane rides), D: Desserts (delightful indulgences), DC: Diet Coke and Gummi Bears (books for teens and young adults), G: Gourmet (exquisite writing, requires concentration), GPR: Grandma’s Pot Roast (books that get your attention and stick with you), GS: Grits (evocative of the American south), M: Meringue (speculative fiction including fantasy, magical realism, and science fiction that magically transform simple ingredients), OC: Over Cooked (good ingredients, but overwritten), PBJ: Peanut Butter and Jelly (children’s books adults will like), PP: Pigeon Pie (historical fiction, parts or all of the novel set at least 50 years ago), R: Road Food (audio books for road trips and more), S: Sushi with Green Tea Sorbet (satire, irony, black humor, acquired taste), SBP: Sweet Bean Paste (translated and international books), SF: Soul Food (spirituality, theology, books for your soul), SN: Super Nutrition (lots of information, yet tasty as fresh blueberries), and T: Tapas (small bites including short stories, novellas, essays, and poetry). The letters BC denote books for book clubs. Asterisks (*) depict the most outstanding titles in each designation. The plus sign (+) is for books I recommend. The number sign (#) is for books with reviews on my blog. All books listed were published in 2025 unless noted otherwise.
Fiction
*Austen, Alice, 33 Place Brugmann, Told in the voices of a dozen residents of 33 Place Brugmann in 1939 Brussels including a Jewish art dealer and his family, a colorblind artist and her widowed father, and an immigrant seamstress, the novel asks what decisions must be made as the Nazis take over and how art influences us. An exquisite chapter records a nurse’s notes on the treatment of seven soldiers in caring but excruciating detail that broke my heart in a good way. The novel also offers a perfect definition of friendship and/or love: “I’m not afraid of solitude and I love being alone…. But here’s another secret: when I’m with Julian, I’m alone and also complete.” GPR/PP/SN BC
*Backman, Fredrik, My Friends, Eighteen-year-old Louisa, who’s aged out of foster care, sneaks into an auction to see a famous painting she adores. She’s removed and meets the dying artist whom she thinks is a homeless man and he tasks Ted, his friend who appears in the painting, to find and give her the masterpiece. Going back 25 years to when Ted and the artist were teens, they share their story. Be prepared; this emotional rollercoaster will gut even the most jaded reader. The short chapters pack an affecting tale that made this reader slow down to make it last and to be able to handle the impact. Backman infuses grief with humor and soul while showing that creativity blossoms in unlikely ways especially with the ballast of friends. GPR/SF, BC
+Bauermeister, Erica, The School for Essential Ingredients, a light read that emphasizes essential ingredients for living a good life and celebrates cooking with joy. The chapters focus on members of a cooking class and their connections. Our book club felt it was tied up too neatly and the characters were somewhat confusing and not clearly delineated, but it made you appreciate life. D/GPR/SF (2009)
+Bostwick, Marie, The Book Club for Troublesome Women takes place in the early 1960s in a Washington D.C. suburb where four women form a book club and read The Feminine Mystique. Sharing the trials of marriage, child-rearing, and finding fulfillment when they can’t even open a bank account without a husband’s signature, “the Bettys” support each other and grow. Perfect for book clubs. GPR/PP, BC
*#Botnick, Diane, Becoming Sarah tells the tale of Auschwitz survivor Sarah Vogel’s years from being a toddler mothered by several women during the war to America where motherhood and love helped her survive through losses during her 100 years. With language so beautiful it might overpower many novels, Becoming Sarah’s characters and engaging story prevail. GPR/PP, BC
*#Butler, Nickolas, A Forty-Year Kiss is a mug of hot chocolate on a cold day. Charlie returned to Wisconsin forty years after his divorce from Vivian hoping to rekindle their love while he fixed up a farm he inherited. Vivian never left, remarried, cared for her husband until he died, and had a daughter whom she now lives with while babysitting her granddaughters. She also has a secret. Charlie drinks, but when he’s with Vivian he yearns to be better. This is an old-fashioned, Kent Haruf-style, upper Midwest love story of good people trying to do the right thing. Butler is masterful in the art of portraying older characters without stereotyping. D/GPR, BC
+Carpenter, Stephanie, Moral Treatment accurately and completely captures life in 1889 in the state psychiatric hospital in Traverse City, Michigan where 17-year-old Amy Underwood’s family committed her after some unsettling incidents. At first, she’s unable to cope with the rules and other residents, but she soon adjusts and begins to see that she’ll either spend the rest of her life there or have to return to the family home she abhors. The doctor in charge of the hospital and his wife offer a view of the prevailing attitudes toward the mentally ill at the time. Recommended for those interested in the treatment of the mentally ill in such institutions. PP/SN, BC
+Center, Katherine, The Love Haters follows Katie who travels to Key West to make a promotional video featuring Hutch, her boss’s brother. Hutch is perfect. He’s drop-dead handsome, does 200 pushups every morning when he wakes, rescues people and dogs from the ocean, and is devoted to Rue who raised him. Katie falls for him, but his brother interferes. It’s a simple, clever love story with a good message about body positivity. D
*Center, Katherine, The Rom-Commers is romantic comedy gold. Emma’s taken care of her disabled father 24/7 for ten years while sacrificing her screenwriting dreams. When her high school friend Logan, now a mega Hollywood agent, brings her in to fix a rom-com screenplay written by her favorite writer, her life should change, but Logan hasn’t told the writer who, once he learns of it, opposes the partnership. When they eventually begin working together, sparks fly. It’s funny and tender, and it has depth and realism to make you care. Chase the blues away with this tasty morsel. D/GPR/S (2024)
Center, Katherine, What You Wish For features an “enemies-to-friends” trope with Duncan, the new principal and Samantha’s enemy-turned-love interest, who has no redeeming qualities until 150 pages into the 306-page novel. Additionally, the new school board chair is entirely one-dimensional, and that dimension is all evil. I need characters with at least a hint of nuance. Still, the budding romance is palpable once it begins, the comedy is real, and the adorable kid nerd is sweet. CC (2020)
*#Clancy, Christina, The Snowbirds, Kim and Grant have been together for thirty years but have never married. They love each other and their grown daughters. Kim doesn’t want to tempt fate, but Grant thinks they should make it official. When the college where Grant teaches closes and Kim’s gay ex-husband offers them his Palm Springs condo for the winter, Kim convinces Grant to leave their comfortable life in Wisconsin. She embraces the close-knit desert community while Grant is adrift until he begins hiking with a neighbor. All’s well until Grant goes on a solo hike and disappears. Is he lost or has he left her? The crisis forces Kim and the reader to consider the vagaries of our own relationships and wonder what love and commitment actually mean. With humor, clever and engaging minor characters (especially Kim’s ex-mother-in-law), lively dialogue, and a light touch, this is a wise, insightful page-turner. Publishers Weekly calls it “sparkling” and it is. D/GPR, BC
*Colgan, Jenny, Close Knit: Scottish Island of Mure #7, Thirty-year-old Gertie lives with her mother and grandmother in her tiny hometown at the northern tip of Scotland in this stand-alone tale. Her life revolves around the local knitting circle. When Morag, pilot of the local airline that serves the northerly islands, offers her a job, Gertie takes it and moves into an apartment with the hope of attracting the wealthy airline owner. This is an endearing, clever, and engaging romantic romp with an unexpectedly harrowing twist that’s so realistic, I couldn’t breathe. D (2024)
*Collins, Billy, Water, Water: Poems is a collection of sixty new poems by the former Poet Laureate of the United States. In his own inimitable manner, Collins illuminates the quotidian although he’d surely call it the “everyday.” His intimate observations on life are joyful, curious, and simple but never simplistic. GPR/T (2024)
+Desai, Anita, Rosarita, Bonita travels from her home in India to study Spanish in San Miguel Allende, Mexico where as she sits on a bench in a flower filled JardÃn, a flamboyantly dressed elderly woman greets her with “you must be, my adored Rosarita’s little girl. You are the image of her. . .” Bonita is sure her mother never went to Mexico and certainly never studied art there or elsewhere, but Vicky, the woman Bonita refers to as the Trickster, persists. Who was Bonita’s mother? Who is Bonita? This brief, elegant novella feels like a tropical dream about marriage and maternal relationships particularly when Vicky and Bonita tour the places her mother was said to have visited. That the novel is in the second-person adds to the fabulistic aura. Desai’s new direction at age 87 both haunts and challenges. G/M/T, BC
+Edwards, Kyle, Small Ceremonies blends the stories of Tommy and Clinton, two Ojibwe teens, and their friends for whom hockey serves as a daily ceremony. Their high school team never wins and this may be their last season as the other teams in their league are forming a new group and excluding them. They live on the north end of Winnipeg and are isolated by invisible borders between cultures in their city and beyond. The viewpoints of the characters contribute to the Greek chorus atmosphere in this heartbreaking and humorous novel. GPR/SN, BC
+Erlick, Nickki, The Poppy Fields is a high concept novel centered around The Poppy Fields, a remote California center dedicated to healing grief, where people go for a sedated, monitored, and restorative one-to-two month sleep to overcome the loss of a loved one. Three strangers on their way to the Fields, meet in Kansas City and drive to The Fields together. What they learn on their Oz-like journey makes for a deliberately paced tale with a magnificent ending. It's similar in its originality and the questions it raises to Erlick’s superb debut The Measure. GPR/M/SF, BC
*Evans, Virginia, The Correspondent is an epistolary novel. Sybil, a divorced and retired attorney and former clerk to a prominent judge, writes letters to her brother, her best friend, famous authors, and several others including one who isn’t named. Sibyl’s crusty, smart, and persnickety. She loves and finds solace in good books. She’s still grieving the death of one of her sons when he was a child and she has little contact with her daughter. Will she allow others into her life? This is a lovely meditation on life with enough dry humor to keep it real. If you loved 84 Charing Cross Road and Sipsworth, this is your kind of novel. GPR/SF, BC
*Everett, Percival, James was one of my favorite books last year. I don’t reread books often, but I started to skim James to prepare to lead my book club’s discussion, AND I couldn’t put it down for the second time. I reread every word in less than two days and found so much that I had missed in my initial reading. Everyone in our book club loved the book—and that never happens. Their comments were insightful and deep. Select this for your book group. This reimagining of Huck Finn won this year’s Pulitzer Prize. G/GPR/PP/R (2024)
*#Fay, Kim, Kate & Frida, In 1991, when Frida moves to Paris hoping to become a war correspondent, she writes bookseller Kate in Seattle to send her books. Their epistolary friendship grows and they support each other during wartime tragedies and romantic relationships. Those who loved 84 Charing Cross Road will find similarities in this celebration of books, bookstores, food, and friendship. GPR/SN, BC
+Flourney, Angela, The Wilderness opens as 22-year-old Desiree and her grandfather revisit his past in Paris before traveling to Switzerland for his assisted suicide. After losing him and becoming estranged from her sister, Desiree moves to New York and finds family with Nakia, January, and Monique as they feed each other literally and figuratively. Over the next twenty years, this brilliant novel evolves in vignettes that occasionally feel disjointed, yet healing, and the climax makes the reader yearn for connection in the wilderness of life. Entering the lives of this intimate circle of young Black women reveals their universality. “I didn’t give in to despair. I looked up and despair had already entered the room and made itself at home.” G, BC
Gilmore, Laurie, The Pumpkin Spice Café is a light romance. Jeanie inherits a small-town coffee shop and falls for sexy farmer Logan, the man everyone in town loves. If you like spicy sex scenes and a predictable plot, you may enjoy it. CC (2023)
+Goodman, Allegra, Isola is based on 16th-century noblewoman Marguerite de la Roque de Roberval whose inheritance was spent by her guardian who then forced her at age twenty to accompany him to New France (now Canada). Upon learning of the attraction between his assistant and Marguerite, her guardian abandoned them and a maidservant on an unpopulated island in the St. Lawrence River where they fished, hunted, and fought off polar bears for two years. Marguerite's growth on the island will appeal to readers looking for a unique feminist tale. The island scenes are vivid and exciting in this Kirkus Prize finalist. GPR/PP, BC
*#Harvey, Samantha, Orbital, the 2024 Booker Prize winner, is a sumptuous symphony of images, a glittering volume of spectacularly gorgeous sentences on almost every one of its 144 pages. Six astronauts orbit 250 miles above the Earth in a single 24-hour day as they experience sixteen sunrises and sunsets. I listened to this and then reread it inhaling the prose as I viewed “a rolling invisible globe which knows no possibility of separation” alongside the astronauts. “The Milky Way is a smoking trail of gunpowder shot through a satin sky.” G/R/SBP/SN/T, BC (2023)
+Heller, Peter, Burn, Best friends since childhood, Jess and Storey take a long hunting trip together every year. This year, every home, village, and barn has been burned down in this part of inland Maine. Once they find a radio and a broadcast from Quebec, they learn that secessionists have assassinated the U.S. President and that bridges and dams have been blown up leaving thousands dead. The towns they enter are empty, but they find a 5-year-old girl hiding and Jess is forced to kill a man. “This crazy person with a shotgun is going to die. And I will dispatch them. Because, though I cannot come up with a great reason to live, I have no patience for people trying to kill me.” Jess has been adrift since his divorce. Storey is desperate to get back to his wife and daughters in Vermont. Their journey to find the girl’s family and get home forms a great adventure story and a cautionary tale. GPR, BC (2024)
Henry, Emily, Funny Story is set in northern Michigan and it’s by an author I like, but it doesn’t have the cohesiveness of her other rom-coms. Yes, Daphne, the children’s librarian who gets dumped by her fiancé and Miles whose girlfriend gets engaged to Daphne’s ex are adorable characters and their connection is sweet, clever, and romantic, but it doesn’t work as well as her other books. D (2024)
+Ivey, Eowyn, Black Woods, Blue Sky, The author of Pulitzer finalist The Snow Child, showcases the power of the natural world where young, single mother Birdie and her imaginative six-year-old daughter Emaleen live on the edge of poverty, wilderness, and survival. They move to a disheveled, remote cabin with strange Arthur who isn’t who he seems to be. Can love change someone’s essential being or do some things doom a relationship? Can nature heal? Raising these questions makes the twist into the supernatural realistic. The novel’s fairytale narrative is beautifully written. Ivey’s gorgeous rendering of the landscape down to the tiniest flower is the beauty of this novel. She evokes Alaska in full. GPR/M, BC
+Jimenez, Abby, Part of Your World (Book 1) Alexis, an ER doctor and daughter of mega-rich parents who want her to carry on the family tradition of renowned surgeons, falls for a young carpenter in a remote, small town where he’s revered. Neither can give up their lives, so is their relationship doomed? It’s a fun exploration of love, joy, and class differences with the perfect blend of humor. D (2022)
+Jimenez, Abby, Just for the Summer (Part of Your World: Book 3), Every woman Justin dates moves on to immediately find their soul mate. When Emma, a traveling nurse with the same problem, learns about Justin, they plot to date each other and break up so they can find true love. It’s not supposed to last, but there’s too much chemistry to end it until Justin has to stay in Minnesota and Emma must leave. Pack it in your beach bag. D (2024)
*Jimenez, Abby, Say You’ll Remember Me is a delightful rom-com featuring Xavier, a quiet veterinarian, who doesn’t impress Samantha when she takes her new rescue kitten to his practice. She returns and he asks her out for a date despite her moving to California the following day. They fall in love but he can’t leave his practice in Minnesota and she must help her family care for her mother who has Alzheimer’s. The long-distance romance almost does them in. It’s so clever, witty, kind, and fast-paced, you’re bound to read it in a day. A few characters from her previous Part of Your World appear here, but this is a stand-alone novel. Treat yourself. D/GPR
+Jimenez, Abby, Yours Truly (Part of Your World: Book 2), Briana, a doctor who expects to be named head of the ED, isn’t happy when Jacob, a “golden boy” doctor arrives and she learns he’s her rival for the job. He anonymously tests and is a match for the kidney transplant her brother desperately needs and he agrees to donate. When his uncaring ex-wife and his brother announce their engagement, Briana offers to pose as Jacob’s girlfriend. They fall for each other but his anxiety and her feelings of abandonment interfere despite the romantic sparks and his kindness. D/SN (2023)
+Johnston, Anna, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife disappointed me. Yes, it’s heartwarming and humorous, but it didn't feel real. It will still appeal to many looking for a poignant, kind book with a happy ending though, and I can recommend it as such. Fred, 82 and evicted from his home, discovers a man slumped in a wheelchair on a nature path. Fred tries to help him, but the man has died and falls into the river with Fred’s wallet. The two men look uncannily alike so when the nursing home staff sees Fred, they assume he’s Bernard, the deceased man, and take Fred back to the nursing home where they attribute his saying he’s not Bernard to Bernard’s dementia. Fred, happy with good food and a place to sleep, charms the staff and makes new friends until a troubled aide begins to suspect him and Bernard’s estranged daughter shows up. It’s predictable, but sometimes that’s what readers want. D/SBP (2024)
*#Joslin, Nell, Measure of Devotion is a spectacular debut odyssey of the Civil War featuring 36-year-old Susannah who travels from her South Carolina home to Lookout Mountain, TN to nurse her son who’s been severely wounded in battle. It evokes the landscape and the issues of the war as it focuses on the minor characters who work together to stand “against chaos with nothing but the force of determination to uphold a delicate civilization.” In these contentious times, we need to learn from our past and those who courageously worked for love and justice. Susannah is a brilliant character, a woman who models her beliefs despite her son thinking her a fool. Joslin’s writing is magnificent and the book belongs in the canon of classic Civil War literature. G/PP/SN, BC
Joyce, Rachel, The Homemade God, features the strange siblings, three daughters and a son, of a famous London artist who falls in love with a woman younger than his children. When their father dies, the siblings investigate his drowning at the lakeside Italian villa where he married Bella-Mae. The book meanders through ten years as it wends toward happy endings with romances and unexpected twists. It’s a light, plot-driven, summer romp with little character development. CC
*Kenney, John, I See You've Called in Dead is a clever, droll, yet tender novel that will make you laugh out loud and then tear up as you ponder life’s meaning. Obituary writer Bud Stanley has had a tough time since his wife left him and a blind date ended badly. He drowned his sorrows and wrote and posted a wildly inaccurate obituary of himself that will surely get him fired. His friends worry about him so he begins attending wakes and funerals with a wise friend to learn what matters in life in this gem. “Maybe we’re all obituary writers. And our job is to write the best story we can now.” Read this book! GPR/S/SF, BC
+#Knapp, Florence, The Names is an imaginative debut that will make you and your book club ponder unique questions. At the beginning of the novel, Cora’s husband reminds her to register the name of their baby son. The book proceeds in alternating chapters titled with the three names she chose. When she calls the baby Gordon, her husband’s name and the name he expects her to use, their lives take one trajectory with her cowering under his abuse. When she chooses her favorite name Julian, the abuse is still real but has different consequences. Her daughter wants her to name the baby Bear and when she does, things take another turn. The novel continues with glimpses of their lives every seven years. This is an intriguing look into abuse and resilience. While it’s a compelling page-turner, the reader must carefully juggle the three stories to see the nuances in them. It’s brilliantly plotted and manages to escape from being gimmicky despite the plot device. I used a cheat sheet with notes about the characters in each scenario. A Read with Jenna Pick, GPR/SBP, BC
*Lennon, Ferdia, Glorious Exploits is a unique debut novel set in 412 B.C. in Syracuse, Sicily where defeated Athenians lie imprisoned and starving in a deep quarry. Lampo and Gelon, two down-on-their-luck potters, decide to employ the Athenians and stage a production of Medea as the Athenians know Euripides well. This story of unwavering friendship is told through a haze of alcohol in a modern-day Irish voice featuring oddly compelling blokes. This brilliant novel crescendos with comedy, tragedy, and compassion. I don’t think I’ve ever read realistic fiction as original as this clever, engrossing tale. G/PP/S/SBP, BC (2024)
*Levi, Allen, Theo of Golden is a debut novel about an 86-year-old Portuguese man who leaves his home in New York City and arrives entirely unknown in the fictional town of Golden, Georgia. Theo, who is known only by his first name, doesn’t know how long he’ll be in Golden, but when he sees 92 framed pencil portraits on the wall of the local coffee shop, he begins purchasing them and giving them to their subjects. In this tale of love, kindness, art, and generosity, Theo changes the lives of those he meets and finds a glorious purpose in his life. Some might find this tender, kind, spiritual book overly sentimental, but I think it beautifully explores the difficulties of life and its sweetness. It has strong Christian themes that welcome all and emphasize love over doctrine. It was originally self published in 2023 and was difficult to find. This fall, Simon & Schuster republished it which means that it’s now available in libraries and in hardcover, paperback, digital, and audio formats. GPR/SF, BC (2023/2025)
*McEwan, Ian, What We Can Know, In 2119 in a world shaken by nuclear war and rising seas, a scholar searches for the only copy of a 2014 poem. Returning to the initial reading of that poem by one of the world’s finest poets at a dinner in honor of his wife’s birthday, the mystery begins. Because all previous digital data is public, we know intimate details about the poet, his wife, and their contemporaries. But, how can we know what we think we know? This is a stunner of a tightly woven tale requiring close attention that will be rewarded by plot twists and revelations. “The past, jumbled in the mind, survives in its own special tense, a form of ahistorical present.” If you loved A.S. Byatt’s Possession and McEwan’s Atonement, this is for you. G/SBP, BC
+Miller, Nathaniel Ian, Red Dog Farm follows Orri who goes home to his family’s remote, rock-filled, Icelandic farm to help his farmer father while taking a hiatus from college in Reykjavik. Orri’s mother, the daughter of a Jewish Lithuanian immigrant doctor, teaches at the small, nearby college and has never liked farm life. As in Miller’s magnum opus The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven, a dog and the land matter. Rykug, the farm dog, loves Mihan, the woman Orri falls for online. Rúna, a lesbian neighbor, adds expertise and support. Orri and the women characters in particular are uniquely clever, wry, fascinating, and well drawn making this gritty coming-of-age tale of muck and farm disasters a good read. G/GPR/SN, BC
+Mulhauser, Travis, The Trouble Up North follows a unique northern Michigan family of bootleggers who’ve long owned a large swath of river property near a resort that’s taken over miles of Lake Michigan shore. Edward is dying of cancer and has no insurance. Wife Rhoda controls their land and tries to control her children. Lucy’s a park ranger who’s put her share of the land in a conservancy trust. Buckner drinks so Lucy gets him in rehab. Jewel plays poker and bartends but can't get ahead, so she agrees to torch a boat for the insurance, but tragedy strikes, and the family is under suspicion. Place is the main character reflecting Mulhauser’s attention and love for the area. He shows the family members as poignant, funny, strange, and real. His portrayal of the land and the hold it has on those living on it is powerful in this page-turner that captures the people who populate the area. GPR/S, BC
+Naymon, Katie, You Between the Lines is a clever rom-com debut about Leigh who quits her copywriting job and gets into a prestigious MFA program where she hopes to hone her skills as a poet. At orientation, she discovers that Will, her high school crush who once disappointed her, is in her workshop. The scenes workshopping their poetry are well done and Leigh’s online therapy sessions and texts with her best friend are great, but it drags a touch. D
*Nichols, David, You Are Here is a breath of fresh air from the author of the marvelous One Day. Two introverts, 38-year-old Marnie, who’s a divorced freelance copy editor, and Michael, a 42-year-old geography teacher whose divorce will soon be final, meet on a hiking trip in the English Lake District. Their mutual friend, who planned the trip, wants them both to leave their cloistered worlds. The tale is told in alternating chapters along their journey by Marnie and Michael so listening to it feels like walking with them. Only Nichols’s wry British humor could be this delightfully funny without becoming twee. This immersion in love, vulnerability, and second chances is simply lovely and will transform dreary days. GPR/R/SBP, BC (2024)
*Okorafor, Nnedi, Death of the Author, The Nebula Award winning author explores the power of story as it manifests truth and love. Combining disabled Chicago author/professor Zelu’s process in creating a novel pitting robots against AI set in Nigeria after the demise of human life with the inventive Rusted Robots novel she created allows the book to easily transition from linear, page-turning storytelling to African futuristic delight. Zelu and Ngozi, the last human on earth, are exquisite characters. Reading the physical book allows the reader to simultaneously see and touch the bright cyan blue fore-edges that reflect Zelu and her world’s brightness and creativity. Ankara, the robot, notes: “Stories are what holds all things together. They make things matter, they make all things be, exist.” This is speculative fiction at its finest. It’s a novel that readers of all genres will love and appreciate. “Creation flows both ways.” This novel matters. G/M/SF, BC
+Palmer, Iva-Marie, Christmas People is recommended for residents of Chicago’s Southside and southern suburbs as it weaves its way through Evergreen Park and 95th Street in a romance taking place in a Hallmark Channel Christmas setting. It’s nothing special, but the setting may resonate with locals. D/M
+Roberts, Adam, Food Person, Isabella gets fired from her job after writing boring columns for a trendy food magazine. She’s quickly hired for a dream job ghostwriting a cookbook for Molly, a celebrity star who needs good publicity, but Isabella can’t please anyone, and catastrophe strikes. This is a delicious treat for foodies and those who can’t boil an egg. Fans of Ruth Reichl will savor this tasty morsel. D/GPR
*Russell, Karen, The Antidote, The National Book Award finalist is set in the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska in 1935 when the Black Sunday dust storm destroyed the area. Taking inspiration from both Uz, the home of Biblical Job, and Oz from The Wizard of Oz, the novel incorporates magical realism to illustrate how our view of life informs our beliefs and actions as seen through four unique characters. Brilliant dialogue and evocative descriptions with the exploration of the taking of native land and the crime of Indian boarding schools make this a unique and spectacular novel from Pulitzer finalist Russell. It illuminates our ability to forget our collective responsibilities through a Prairie Witch known as “The Antidote,” who acts as a vault storing memories people can’t bear to retain. Other characters include a New Deal photographer whose photographs capture the past and the possible future. “When the whirlwind set Job down again, he was still in Uz, but his vision had been transformed.” The inclusion of actual period photographs is genius. G/M/PP, BC
*Ryan, Patrick, Buckeye follows two families in a small Ohio town from 1939 through the end of the 20th century. Cal and Becky fall into marriage. She communicates with the dead and he, having one leg shorter than the other, can’t serve in the war after which their son is born. Margaret, a beautiful, troubled orphan, marries Felix, a closeted gay man who serves in the Pacific and comes home with trauma, and they have a son after the war. The novel opens when Margaret walks into the hardware store where Cal works and upon hearing that the war is over in Europe, kisses Cal passionately. Gorgeous, omniscient narration allows the reader to both observe these four characters, their sons, and their neighbors, and feel part of their lives as they make mistakes, suffer loss, seek reconciliation, and learn to love and forgive. This is an old-fashioned, thoroughly mesmerizing tale. GPR/G/PP, BC
*Seethaler, Robert, The Café with No Name begins in 1966 when Robert Simon quits his job and opens a café in an unremarkable area of Vienna. A short time later as his business grows, Mila, who’s out of work with the closing of the nearby textile factory, faints outside the café door. Simon offers her a job and she becomes an integral part of the growing Café community. Novels about community are among my favorites and this one with its portraits of a cast of average citizens finding connection and its poetic prose and evocation of belonging is pure joy on the page. The way it celebrates humble work is exquisite. Seethaler makes the cleaning of a countertop feel like communion. Making the ordinary extraordinary in 191 pages is his gift to readers. He was a Man Booker International finalist in 2017. G/SF/SBP/T, BC
*Senna, Danzy, Colored Television is an addictive novel about art, identity, race, creativity, and writing that combines literary fiction with twisty, compelling, gossipy characters who force the reader to flip the pages ever faster. Jane, a mother of two young children and the daughter of a Black man and a white woman, is a published author hoping for tenure in her teaching job. Her husband, a Black artist whose paintings don't sell, calls Jane’s new novel a “mulatto War and Peace.” When the novel fails to find a home and their house-sitting job is soon to end, Jane desperately looks to television and collaboration on a mixed-race comedy. “Novel writing was too much. . . . There was another relief too. A relief that whatever she wrote now was only supposed to entertain. Literary fiction writers seemed to have forgotten how to do that.” Senna both entertains and enlightens in this gem. G/GPR/S, BC (2024)
+Shipman, Viola, The Page Turner is a Michigan beach town celebration of books, family, place, and being yourself. Emma, a recent college graduate grieving the loss of her grandmother, has written a novel that she doesn’t want to share with her parents who publish only the most literary of books despite losing money on them. Her sister and parents want to change her, and she’s wary of a creepy, best-selling author paying attention to them and their publishing house. Larger-than-life publisher Vivian adds color and humor. Sometimes, you just need a beach read, even a predictable one. I wish it had been given a better copy edit. D
+Soffer, Jessica, This is a Love Story, a Read with Jenna pick, explores the fifty years of love and marriage between writer Abe and artist Jane. Jane is dying during her third bout with cancer. She had severe postpartum depression after the birth of their only child, Max, and their relationship is still tenuous. The best of the book is in their remembrances of NYC’s Central Park. The novel feels overdone early, but the ending with its homage to enduring love and grief is spectacular. GPR/OC, BC
+Stiefvater, Maggie, The Listeners chronicles the 1942 arrival of Axis diplomats at the Avallon, an elegant West Virginia resort. June Hudson, the hotel’s general manager, a local whose managerial skill and insight are brilliant, finds a way to make the hotel work with Border agents, the State Department, and the FBI ostensibly in charge. Tucker Minnick, the FBI agent in charge, is both a mystery and a diamond in the rough. Excellent characters and great writing lift this compelling tale. “It was a full moon and a mountain town and June was dreaming about the ways to sabotage a coal mine.” About a minor character: “She had gotten right to the edge of childhood’s country and then somehow remained at the end of the dock, waving as others left her behind.” A touch of magical realism fits the characters. GPR/M/PP/SN, BC
+Sullivan, Ariel, Conform is a dystopian romance for adults who love YA fantasy. Emeline is classified as a “minor defect” in her caste-driven world where the Illum rule and minor defects dress in gray and are only a step from elimination. When Emeline is chosen to be the mate for Collin, a privileged Elite with ties to the Illum, all should be well, but Hal, one of the least, haunts her. The sexy romance scenes with Hal are tender, but those with Collin feel uncomfortable because of his power over Emeline. Sullivan’s world-building skills will appeal to her readers who will also love the romantic entanglements in this the first in a trilogy from the new Jenna Bush Hager imprint. M
*Thorpe, Rufi, Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Young Margo’s married community college professor gets her pregnant and dumps her. He and her mother want Margo to abort, but she keeps the baby and loses her job when she can’t find or afford childcare. Jinx, her dad, a retired pro wrestler just out of rehab, moves in and helps and Margo starts writing descriptions of male anatomy and posting pictures on OnlyFans to support her baby. Margo narrates in first person when she’s content and proud of her actions but switches to third person when morally conflicted. The characters are fabulous in this heartfelt, humorous page-turner that celebrates kindness, love, and motherhood. The superb ending supports the overall excellence of this winner. This Kirkus Prize Finalist is one of my favorite books in a long time. “Skim milk masquerades as cream” in this unexpected delight that also serves as a lesson on novel writing. Drop your misconceptions and read it. GPR/R/S, BC (2024)
+Wang, Kathy, The Satisfaction Café follows Joan from Taiwan to college at Stanford in the 1970s when she quickly marries and divorces a cad. She then meets and marries wealthy, white Bill who's more than twenty years her senior. They have a son then adopt Bill's sister's baby girl. Joan and her children love the warmth and comfort of their famous Palo Alto estate. Years later when Bill dies of cancer, Joan opens the Satisfaction Café where patrons find people who listen to them and alleviate loneliness. Joan is a multi-faceted character whose aging feels real. This novel makes the reader long for an actual Satisfaction Café. GPR/SF, BC
+Wilkerson, Charmaine, Good Dirt links the wealthy Black descendants of an enslaved potter with “Old Mo,” the exquisite jar he created. Ebby Freeman was ten when robbers broke into her family’s exclusive Connecticut shore home, killed her 15-year-old brother, and broke the jar while she was upstairs. Later, adult Ebby is inexplicably left at the altar by Henry, her rich, white fiancé. The jar’s history is fascinating as is the family, but when the story moves to France where Henry and his new girlfriend coincidentally appear, the extraneous narrative and new characters disrupt the flow. I loved Wilkerson’s Black Cake and wish this hadn’t veered from the compelling story that despite the distraction is still a good one. GPR/PP/SN, BC
*Williams, Niall, This is Happiness, Noel “Noe” Crowe is 78 and looking back sixty years to 1958 when he dropped out of seminary and moved in with his grandparents in the tiny fictional County Clare village of Faha. The village is on the cusp of modernity as electrification arrives. Christy McMahon, there to lay cable, rents a room from Noe’s grandparents and searches for forgiveness for a long-ago transgression. Layered details, wry humor, and exquisite reminiscences, form a portrait of a changing land and people in one spectacular novel. The sentences on rain alone are ones you’ll long savor. “This is happiness, because of the simple truth you were alive to say it.” This novel is pure happiness on the page. G//PP/R/SF/SBP, BC (2019)
*Williams, Niall, Time of the Child is set just before Christmas in 1962 in Faha, a fictional, west Ireland village. In this stand-alone companion to This is Happiness, Dr. Jack Troy lives with his 29-year-old daughter Ronnie who manages his surgery and home. When 12-year-old Jude, an exceptional minor character, finds a dying baby outside the church, the doctor takes it in and he and Ronnie fall in love with it. Jack thinks he can manufacture a way for Ronnie to keep the child. Village life continues as the priest goes mute mid-sermon, the postmistress exerts control, Mrs. Crowe lies dying in her home, and Ronnie writes in her notebook while living a seemingly invisible life. Gorgeous prose and a simple tale of love, duty, and learning to live make for one of the best books of any year. G/GPR/PP/SBP, BC (2024)
Mysteries, Suspense, and Thrillers
+Barrett, Lorna, Murder is Binding: A Booktown Mystery, Book 1, Trish opened “Haven’t a Clue,” a new and used mystery bookstore in the “Booktown” area of a small New Hampshire village. Discovering the stabbed body of the owner of the cookbook store next door makes Trish a suspect to the sheriff and finding a rare old cooking pamphlet missing from the cookbook store in Trish’s store cements the sheriff’s opinion. Trish’s sister and an amiable cast of villagers add to the delight. Whodunnit takes a backseat to the characters’ camaraderie. D (2008)
+Boulley, Angeline, Sisters in the Wind, See Diet Coke and Gummy Bears: Young Adult titles for an engaging mystery about an adopted Chippewa teen.
+Burke, Alifair, Find Me, Lindsay found Hope at the scene of an accident that left her with amnesia. They’d become best friends and Hope had moved to start over, and then she disappeared. When Hope was implicated in the shooting of a local man, Lindsay investigated a long-ago murder in Kansas with connections to Hope. This propulsive tale has just enough twists to keep it intriguing. It’s very good. CC (2022)
+Burke, Alifair, The Note, May, Lauren, and Kelsey have been friends since music camp. On vacation in the Hamptons, they’re miffed when a couple steals their parking place. After several drinks, one of them may have left a prank note on the offending car. Later when a man who could be tied to their past goes missing, May’s snooping threatens the three women. The many twists add drama and the three women are compelling. CC
*Cosby, S. A., King of Ashes is as gritty and graphic as a mystery can be. Cosby’s insight into the inner terrors of those who grieve and live in moral conflict elevates this tale of brilliant, successful Roman who returns home where his father is in a coma after a supposed hit-and-run accident. Roman’s brother Dante’s drug debts threaten their family and Roman decides to fix things to protect them despite the haunting moral dilemmas his actions will bring. As always, Cosby shines in this Southern noir winner. GPR/GS
*Dave, Laura, The First Time I Saw Him is the sequel to the award-winning The Last Thing He Told Me, one of my favorites. Hannah, a fabulous character, rebuilt her life after her husband Owen disappeared. Her adopted daughter Bailey graduated from college and they’ve been safe until her grandfather, a mob attorney, dies, Owen surfaces, and they become prey. Brilliant suspense. Publication date: 1/6/26. GPR
+Finder, Joseph, The Oligarch’s Daughter follows the parallel lives of Grant Anderson, a boat builder living in obscurity in a small town, and his former self, Paul, a financier married to a billionaire Russian’s daughter. Paul's involvement with the FBI falls apart, so he flees for his life in this fast-paced espionage thriller that starts strong and finishes with over-the-top complications but is still compelling. CC
+Gaige, Amity, Heartwood is a suspense-filled, literary page-turner that begins when hiker Valerie disappears just short of her destination on the Appalachian Trail deep in the woods of Maine. Following Valerie’s struggles as she journals them to her late mother, the book picks up the story of Beverly, the trailblazing Maine State Game Warden heading up the search-and-rescue effort, and weaves in the insights of Lena, a wheelchair-bound Connecticut retirement community resident. This novel, like Gaige’s engaging Sea Wife, explores marriage and parental relationships. As Valerie jots down her thoughts while fighting to survive, Gaige shows how those searching for Valerie embody the healing power of nature and community. Each character’s kindness and resilience underpin a rich and compelling read. GPR/SF/SN, BC
+Harman, Sarah, All the Other Mothers Hate Me is a clever suspense tale. Florence, a former Girl band singer and single mom is a chaotic flake. Her nerdy son Dylan is bullied by a boy who disappears. Florence and her new friend investigate the disappearance in this wry riff on wealthy London moms and schools. It's more about the people involved than the missing kid. CC
+Hurwittz, Gregg, Nemesis: An Orphan X Novel, Book 10, Looking for action, violence, and macho, macho heroes? Find them here alongside a moral quest to stop good guys from going bad. Evan, the assassin known as Orphan X, thinks Tommy, his best friend and munitions provider, has gone to the dark side. How will either survive if they battle? Intriguing minor characters add to the moral dilemmas. CC
+Larsen, Melissa, The Lost House is a chilling Nordic noir. After an accident that leaves her fighting to get off painkillers, Agnes travels to the small Icelandic town where her grandmother is believed to have been killed by Agnes’s beloved grandfather. The unsolved murder of the famous “Frozen Madonna” memorialized with her baby draws Agnes to meet with a true-crime podcast host with the hope of clearing her recently deceased grandfather’s name. When she arrives, a college student has just disappeared in the snow and could be tied to the 40-year-old case. The eerie Icelandic winter landscape infuses this page-turner with atmosphere. CC
*Locke, Attica, Guide Me Home: A Highway 59 Novel, Book 3, In this, the last in the stellar trilogy that began with the Edgar Award winner Bluebird, Bluebird highlighting conflicted Black Texas Ranger Darren Mathews, Darren drinks too much, quits his job, and has a fight with the woman he wants to marry. When his estranged mother shows up with a story about a Black girl, a member of an all-white college sorority, who his mother believes is missing, Darren must decide whether to trust his mother whom he believes is incapable of truth telling. While the plot is gripping, it’s Darren’s inner demons that make this special. Reading the first two in the series isn’t essential, but it will make this one richer. Attica Locke is one of America's best fiction writers and all her novels are exceptional. GPR, BC (2024)
+May, Peter, The Black Loch, Fin McLeod returns to the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides on Scotland’s northwestern edge that was the setting of his previous Lewis trilogy novels. His son has been arrested for the rape and murder of 18-year-old Caitlin, a TV personality fighting for environmental causes who was Fin’s son’s lover. Fin learns that the massive salmon farm owned by his childhood friend may hold a clue to Caitlin’s death. May’s mysteries always deliver, but the ending in this one felt too quickly resolved, but it was incredibly suspenseful and exciting. CC/SBP (2024)
+Moore, Graham, The Last Days of Night envisions the legal battle between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to control the provision of electric power in 1888. Westinghouse hires young lawyer Paul Cravath to litigate the dispute over who invented the light bulb. This novel illuminates the dawn of the electrical age and the greedy schemes that almost extinguished it. Fascinating! PP/SN, BC (2016)
+Moore, Liz, The God of the Woods, In 1975, Barbara, the thirteen-year-old daughter of wealthy camp founders, disappears from an Adirondacks camp. Louise, Barbara’s counselor, had left their cabin and fears being fired from her job for being absent. The police think rebellious Barbara must have runaway, but Barbara’s mother is haunted by the previous 1961 disappearance of her eight-year-old son Bear who was never found. The family dynamics are fascinating and the book is a page-turner filled with twists and red herrings. Adding to the drama is that a man convicted of several killings in the area in the 1960s has escaped from prison and is thought to be in the area. Great characters shine. CC/GPR, BC (2024)
+Osman, Richard, The Impossible Fortune: A Thursday Murder Club Mystery, Book 5, a page-turner, begins at Joyce’s daughter’s wedding with the entire crew assembled. Best Man Nick embarrasses himself then finds Elizabeth to help him determine how to handle a problem with a hidden fortune in bitcoin and someone who’s trying to kill him. This one feels more contemplative than the first four in the series, while the humor, kindness, and love the four smart sleuths show one another shine through. GPR
*Pavone, Chris, The Doorman is a twisty, compelling psychological thriller. Widowed Chicky, the longtime doorman at one of New York City’s grandest co-ops, is in debt and desperately needs cash. Building resident Emily, the gorgeous socialite wife of a massively wealthy and unkind man, yearns for more but won’t leave her husband because of their prenup and young children. She finds purpose volunteering at a soup kitchen and then in a relationship with fellow resident Julian. Julian’s business is in financial and ethical trouble and he faces medical issues he hasn’t shared, while days spent with Emily buoy him. While the city is in chaos after the police shooting of a Black man, a crew uses the drama to break into the building resulting in unintended consequences. The clever ending is deeply satisfying. GPR, BC
*Penny, Louise, The Black Wolf is a continuation of The Gray Wolf that begins after Gamache and his colleagues stopped the planned poisoning of Montreal’s water supply. An even more debilitating attack is in the works and no one can determine if those at the top of the government are in on it. When Penny wrote this last year, no one thought of the U.S. wanting to annex Canada, but this brilliantly explores what could happen if the U.S. needed Canada’s water due to the effects of climate change. It’s scary, realistic, and, as always, Gamache works for good against evil. GPR, BC
+Petrie, Nick, Burning Bright: A Peter Ash Novel, Book 2 introduces June hiding from the men who killed her mother atop a canopy of redwoods when Peter climbs a nearby tree to escape a bear. Their chemistry is immediate and June’s survival skills match Peter’s helping them live through a rollover crash as the bad guys chase them. The algorithm at the heart of the story is amazing. CC/GPR/SN (2017)
Reay, Katherine, The English Masterpiece, set in 1973, is told from two viewpoints: that of Diana, a poised, wealthy woman who heads a division of the Tate Modern and Lily, her assistant who's a budding artist. When Lily blurts that a Picasso painting in a Tate exhibit is a forgery, she's accused of being the forger. This tries to be a historical fiction novel focused on art, a romance, and a crime thriller. It doesn’t work. Some in my book club liked it as a beach read. Others decried it as disjointed. CC/PP
+Rendon, Marcie R., Murder on the Red River, A Cash Blackbear Mystery: Book 1 introduces Cash, a 19-year-old Ojibwe beet truck driver, drinker, and pool hustler who works unofficially with Sheriff Wheaton, who helped rescue her from foster care, in this 1970 tale. When a Native man is stabbed to death, Cash’s visions and ideas help solve the case. This debut offers insight into Native culture. While the abrupt ending surprised me, it made me want to read the next book in the series as soon as possible and it didn’t disappoint. GPR/PP/SN, BC (2017)
*Rendon, Marcie R., Girl Gone Missing: A Cash Blackbear Mystery: Book 2, Sheriff Wheaton has arranged for Cash to enroll at Moorhead State College. School is easy for her and she can continue driving a beet truck at night while trying to figure out the disappearance of a girl in one of her classes. When her older brother, whom she can barely remember, shows up with PTSD, she faces a new challenge. Cash, with her intuitive vision, resilience, and intelligence, finds her way out of a new dilemma. She is fast becoming one of my favorite characters. Rendon, an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, brings authenticity to Cash’s story. GPR/PP/SN, BC (2019)
*Rendon, Marcie R., Sinister Graves: A Cash Blackbear Mystery: Book 3, Cash investigates the death of a Native woman in the flooding of the Red River Valley. Finding a torn piece of a hymn written in English and Ojibwe, Cash looks for clues at a rural “speaking-in-tongues” church where two small graves lie in the cemetery. Cash connects with the Pastor’s wife and another Native woman dies after giving birth and there’s no sign of her child. Cash’s trauma from foster care and her new vulnerability with a kind, caring man make a stellar tale. GPR/PP/SF/SN, BC (2022)
*Rendon, Marcie R., Broken Fields: A Cash Blackbear Mystery: Book 4, Cash is an emotional wreck. She’s drinking too much as the effects of her childhood in foster care and a recent shooting catch up with her. Her discovery of a dead man and a young Native child hiding in a tenant farmhouse leads her into new danger. Rendon compellingly illustrates racism toward natives via a wealthy farm wife and others. Cash and Wheaton feel like family; I adore them. GPR/PP/SN, BC
+Richard, Saralyn, Mrs. Oliver’s Twist: A Quinn McFarland Mystery, Quinn returns from her honeymoon to her job in her family’s funeral home and police ask her to identify the body of her former teacher Mrs. Oliver, but the body isn’t her teacher’s. Soon Quinn gets trapped in Mrs. Oliver’s histrionics and possible criminal connections as Quinn’s husband’s concerns for her safety build. After another body connected to Mrs. Oliver shows up, tension mounts. Clever twists make this book impossible to put down. The second in this series stands alone. CC/GPR
Scottoline, Lisa, The Unraveling of Julia begins as Julia and her husband walk home after a late dinner and a man leaps out and stabs her husband to death. After Julia surprisingly inherits money and a Tuscan estate, she travels to Italy and stays at the crumbling estate where horror-filled images tied to her possibly being related to a famous Renaissance duchess interrupt her sleep and someone follows her. Escaping her tracker, she meets and falls for a kind, Italian librarian. The extraordinary number of terrible things that happen to Julia and her new beau along with Julia’s endless nightmares make for a suspense novel that doesn't know if it's horror, romance, or a thriller. Too many unexplored bad guys, motives, and creepy scenes spoil this. CC
Nonfiction:
*Abduraquib, Hanif, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension uses basketball as a vehicle to explore the culture of place, expectations, and belonging. Abduraquib structures the book in four quarters like a game and focuses on the courts of his Columbus, Ohio hometown and on LeBron James and his time in Cleveland and the pride his local fans felt in his success. Abduraquib masterfully blends exquisite language, pop culture, and hoops to create a gorgeous mosaic. Listening to Abduaquib read his story was a gift. G/R, BC (2024)
*Adams, Michelle, The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North reads like a courtroom drama that makes the reader wonder what will happen next as judges wrestle with solving school segregation in Detroit. Adams simply and completely explains de facto segregation versus de jure and the widely held belief that containment in Detroit had nothing to do with Brown v. Board of Education making the outcome predictable despite the possible remedies. This is a book everyone needs to read if only to comprehend what might have been and to ponder what we can still achieve. GPR/SN, BC
*Anderson, Scott, King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation reveals and explores the mind-boggling ineptitude of the Carter administration, the interference from Kissinger and Reagan’s supporters, and the ignoring of reports from American diplomats in Tehran that along with the self-important Shah who surrounded himself with yes men led to the revolution, the hostage crisis, and the rise of Khomeini. Anderson lays the history out in painstaking detail that must be read slowly and carefully to appreciate just how bizarre the outcome was. Everyone should read this cautionary tale. G/SN, BC
*Brooks, Geraldine, Memorial Days is a chronicle of Brooks’ grief after the untimely death of her husband. Having lost my husband less than two years ago, I feared reading it, but her honest account rang true in both the shared emotional impact and in our different circumstances. That she was accosted with such a traumatic and sudden loss made me even more grateful for my husband’s peaceful last days. Her advice is sound and her pain is thoughtfully explored. G/GPR/SF/T, BC
*Chu, Jeff, Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand, When Chu leaves his job as a magazine writer to study at Princeton Theological Seminary, he spends most of his time in the ”Farminary,” a working farm where seminarians learn and grow together. Following the seasons, Chu shows how good soil comes from waste. He illustrates the cycles of life and rebirth by “unfolding” his story in a series of observations. Tending his own soil with supporting friends when his parents refuse to accept his being gay is powerful. Chu’s kindness prevails. He shows readers how continuing to love makes love come alive in new ways. Spark meaningful conversations in your church book group with this gem. GPR/SF/SN, BC
*Du Mez, Kristin Kobes, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation cured me of my naïveté regarding Trump’s white evangelical support as I led a February 2025 study of the book. Du Mez’s thesis: “what it means to be a ‘conservative evangelical’ is as much about culture as it is a specific theology” and her belief that the “emphasis on rugged masculinity has been a feature, not a bug, of evangelical culture from the very start” made us see and fear parallels to today. The book shows how white evangelicals have been building toward Christian nationalism since 1900. I’ve led hundreds of book discussions for more than thirty years, and this was by far the most engaging. Everyone should read this book. SF/SN, BC (2020)
*El Akkad, Omar, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, The National Book Award winner takes everyone, including and perhaps especially liberals, who he chides for performative caring about the people of Gaza, to task for not doing enough to stop the genocide of the Palestinians. His spectacular writing, his life story, and his research should make readers think about how we’re all complicit. Listen to it for his narration that feels like an intimate conversation. G/R/SN, BC
*Fleming, Candace, Death in the Jungle, see Diet Coke and Gummi Bears for a brilliant reporting of the Jonestown Massacre written for ages 14-18 but informative and compelling for adults as well.
+Foley, Malcolm, The Anti-Greed Gospel: Why the Love of Money is the Root of Racism and How the Church Can Create a New Way Forward, The ideas Foley presents are so logical and compelling that it makes one wonder why others haven’t talked about racism as similar to colonialism in being about profit and power and not about attitudes. His stand against any kind of war or violence, even just war, will make most of us squirm, but it makes sense. The book is somewhat belabored, but wow will this make for excellent discussion, and let’s hope, change. SF/SN, BC
+Garten, Ina, Be Ready When the Luck Happens is the “Barefoot Contessa’s” memoir of growing up in the sixties and starting her catering and food business. It chronicles her life from meeting her future husband Jeffrey when she was in high school through her time working in the White House and deciding almost on a whim to buy Barefoot Contessa, a food emporium in West Hampton, New York through her cooking career and into her cookbook writing and her TV show. It sparkles as she does and shows the comfortable person she is. It’s charming. D/GPR/SN (2024)
*Green, John, Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, John Green is one of my favorite authors and I’m grateful he used the megaphone of his fame to write this book. It gives a detailed history of the science and treatment of the disease along with its costs to civilization. He calls our inability to cure TB worldwide “a failure of the imagination” fueled by our dehumanization of African people. The book makes us care about Henry, an optimistic teen fighting drug-resistant TB, and Phumeza, a leading voice in the fight against TB. Noting that injustice is the root cause of TB today, Green calls us to stop the vicious disease cycles with virtuous cycles that provide food, adequate testing, and correct drugs so women like Phumeza are cured to lead the fight. Word usage matters as in the use of the word invalid which often means that sufferers are deemed invalid and unworthy so they don’t get timely testing or treatment. SN, BC
*Kimmerer, Robin Wall, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Kimmerer, an Indigenous scientist, the author of the classic Braiding Sweetgrass, shows how the serviceberry plant embodies a gift economy empowered by reciprocity. Serviceberries give their wealth, their nourishing sweet berries, to all around them and show us that flourishing is mutual. Filled with exquisite illustrations, this little gem celebrates the best of us including public libraries that remind us that we don’t have to own everything to benefit from it. This is an invitation to connect with each other and nature. G/SN/T, BC (2024)
*May, Katherine, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, Just before her 40th birthday, May’s husband suffered a dangerous burst appendix. Soon she became ill, went on leave, and eventually left her job. Her son wasn’t happy at school so she began homeschooling him. She began to see that she needed to embrace this dark season in her life and found a metaphor in the winter season itself. “We must learn to invite winter in. We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how.” May’s poetic elegy of allowing the self to slow down, recuperate, and replenish—even to hibernate in a sense—is an essential winter read. G/SBP/SF, BC (2020)
*Poppick, Laura, Strata: Stories from Deep Time is a scholarly delve into earth’s layers that moves slowly as the reader continually absorbs information. Poppick’s gift for just the right word and her eloquent descriptions of stratigraphy make finding ancient grains of uranium “that had clanked and clattered against one another as they toppled downstream” a literary treasure hunt. Her reconstruction of a narrative “that unfolded more than 2,000,000,000 years ago” is masterful. It made me feel like I was gaining several IQ points as I read it. Learning that a rise of one degree Celsius can increase lightning strikes by 40 percent made me both fear and understand the Canadian wildfires better. Take your time with this one. G/SN
+Presley, Lisa Marie and Keough, Riley, From Here to the Great Unknown is a “no-holds-barred” autobiography by the daughter and granddaughter of Elvis Presley that shares the uncomfortable and pain-filled moments of Lisa Presley’s life. It's mostly told by Presley, but her daughter Riley fills in the empty spaces with relevant and insightful information that’s even more impressive in its brevity. Drugs, fame, depression, Michael Jackson, and more make this a book everyone is reading. Overall, it’s a book of deep love and grief. It brilliantly illuminates the twin terrors of addiction and celebrity making it an intense and emotional read. GPR/SF, BC (2024)
*Renkl, Margaret, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year, This love letter to the natural world by the NY Times columnist warmed me on the coldest of days. I listened to Renkl’s calm, northern Alabama/Tennessee accent as she showed me the world outside her Nashville home. I planned to read the applicable chapters during each season they covered, but the moment I heard Renkl reading, I couldn’t stop listening. I’m still rereading chapters in their seasons though. G/GPR/R/SN, BC (2023)
+Smith, C. Christoper, The Virtue of Dialogue: Becoming a Thriving Church Through Conversation is a 60-page guide to nurturing conversation and genuine hospitality within church spaces. Noting that conversation in church is a lost practice because it’s slow and messy and we like fast and neat, Smith offers guidelines and sample questions encouraging the practice. SF/SN/T, BC
*Taffa, Deborah Jackson, Whiskey Tender, a National Book Award Finalist, debut memoir, explores Taffa’s childhood and adolescence. With her Quechuan (Yuma) father and her Catholic Latina mother, she doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere. When she lived on the reservation in Yuma surrounded by family, she hadn’t thought about identity, but after moving to Farmington where she’s bullied by whites for being Indian while being shunned by Navajo kids, she wants to learn about her ancestors. Her search for identity and self-actualization is gorgeously told. She says her story is “as common as dirt. Thousands of Native Americans. . . could tell it.” Perhaps they could, but only she tells it in full technicolor which makes us appreciate her connection to the land and her family and its history. G/GPR/R/SF/SN, BC (2024)
*Whybrow, Helen, The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life, Listen to this National Book Award finalist read by Cassidy Brown who brings Whybrow’s pastoral farm existence and melodious, intelligent use of word pictures into full glory. Raising sheep doesn’t make for an easy life and Whybrow’s memoir shares the hardships along with the joys of her connection to the land and her animals. It’s spectacular and it reinvigorated one dreary November week for me. Whether you choose to read on the page or to listen, her words will reward you as will her exploration of belonging, being a mother, and living a meaningful, connected life. G/R/SN, BC
Peanut Butter and Jelly, Books for Children and Pre-Teens
*Applegate, Katherine, Pocket Bear, An old stuffed bear, once a war souvenir, oversees a home for abandoned toys found by clever cat Zephyrina. It’s sweet and sassy and kids who love their stuffed animals and dry humor will adore it. PBJ/SN, Ages 8 - 12
*Duncan, Violet, Buffalo Dreamer, Twelve-year-old Summer, whose parents are Cree and Apache, is on her annual summer visit to her grandparents in northern Alberta where graves of children have been found near the residential school her grandfather attended. Summer has vivid dreams of a girl running in the night in this National Book Award Finalist. A celebration of culture and family, the book explores the trauma of residential schools with hope and care. “. . . we must remember that we are still here.” PBJ/SF/SN, BC, Ages 10-14 (2024)
*Fairbanks, Sorche, illustrated by Terry Runyan, Good Luck, Ice Cream Truck is a delightful read-aloud that this Nana read several times and still enjoyed. A certain almost four-year-old girl adored it and continually requested it. PBJ, Ages 3 - 7
*Jonker, Travis, Just One Wave, Liam goes to the beach on a warm, sunny day and all he wants is to ride one wave, but alas, the lake is calm and there are no waves, so he decides to create “just one.” This is a delightful picture book that makes a great read-aloud. PBJ, Ages 3 - 8
*Kelly, Erin Entrada, The First State of Being, in this sci-fi Newbery Medal winner and National Book Award Finalist, Michael Rosario is an anxious 12-year-old Filipino boy in 1999. He worries about having no money or friends, surviving Y2K, and about his crush on his babysitter Gibby. Strange teen Ridge shows up unexpectedly from the year 2199 and won’t reveal the future. Instead, he helps Michael learn that the present, what Ridge calls “the first state of being,” is what matters and there’s always one good outcome to consider particularly if you concentrate on being your best every day. Kelly strikes gold in this wonder that should be read aloud in every classroom. Themes: friendship, grief, and honesty. PBJ/SF, Ages 9 -13 (2024)
*Millington, Allie, Once for Yes is told by the Oldenburgh, an old New York City apartment building that’s been sold and will be demolished. Eleven-year-old Prue needs to stop the demolition as the building is what she has left of her deceased sister Lina, so she makes a plan to save their home. Lewis, who lives across the street, knows more about Prue and her story than she realizes. Together, the building tenants support one another. This kind, age-appropriate, yet wise beyond its years, book is just what sensitive and caring kids need. PBJ/GPR, Ages 9 - 13
*Nayeri, Daniel, The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story, The National Book Award winner tells a story set in neutral Iran in World War II. Babak and his little sister Sana are newly orphaned and hoping a Nomad tribe will accept them. They meet Ben, a Jewish boy hiding from a Nazi spy, and they run to escape. Sana and Babak’s kindness and intelligence help them survive. This adult learned more about how the conflicts in Iran in WWII influence today. PBJ/SN, Ages 8 -12
+Okorafor, Nnedi, Space Cat, Periwinkle, an imaginative Oriental shorthair, zooms about his Space Cat universe while his humans sleep, but his family is moving to Nigeria for a year and Periwinkle learns that Nigerian humans don’t like cats. Luckily, Periwinkle’s flights of imagination will save him in this clever graphic novel that kids love. PBJ, Ages 8 - 12
*Rogers, Andrea L., illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz, Chooch Helped won the 2025 Caldecott Medal. Sissy’s brother Chooch is two and he interferes in everything, but their parents say he’s just helping. The exquisite collage art makes the story come alive as children learn Cherokee words while feeling a part of the family’s home. I could stare at these pages all day. PBJ/SN, Ages 4 - 8 (2024)
Diet Coke and Gummi Bears, Young Adult Titles
*Boulley, Angeline, Sisters in the Wind, Lucy’s white father rarely spoke about her mother. He remarried, then died leaving Lucy with her strange stepmother who told Lucy that her mother was Native American. At age fourteen, Lucy began a harrowing stint in foster care. When she aged out, she was wary of “helpers” especially after a bomb went off in the diner where she worked. Books, found family, and good people saved Lucy in this fine novel of identity, justice, and the meaning of family. The connections to Boulley’s stellar The Firekeeper’s Daughter, especially via Jamie who’s now a lawyer helping former foster kids connect with their Native families, make this thriller a must-read for fans. Much of the book is set in the Harbor Springs, MI area. DC/GPR/SN, BC, Ages 14 - 18
*Brooks, Nick, Up in Smoke, When Coop’s longtime friend Jason asks him to keep watch as he and two others loot a store during a Black Lives Matter-style protest, Coop hesitates knowing it’s wrong. Afterward, Jason is arrested for the murder of a woman during the protest, Coop and Jason’s sister Mo look for clues to solve the murder and free Jason, but Mo doesn’t know Coop was involved in the looting. They discover a coverup and begin to fall for each other in this tale that will attract the most reluctant readers. Adults will enjoy it as much as teens. CC/DC/SN, Ages 14 - 18
*Fleming, Candace, Death in the Jungle is a brilliant chronicle of the development of Jim Jones’s People’s Temple that ended in murder and suicide in the Jonestown community in the jungle in Guyana in 1978. Fleming’s extensive research and interviews with survivors make history come alive. She paints a compelling portrait of Jim Jones and shows compassion toward him while letting readers see why his charisma captivated so many. DC/GPR/SN, BC, Ages 14 - 18
