fiction
-
The Atmospherians
A social media influencer who’s hit rock bottom after being canceled online agrees to lead a rehab program for men dealing with toxic masculinity in this sharp, darkly funny satire from first-time novelist McElroy.
— Michael Schaub
-
Brownsville: Stories
You don’t have to brave the Texas heat to take a trip to the border city of Brownsville — Casares’s wonderfully observant short stories bring the Gulf Coast town to life in all its vibrant beauty.
— Michael Schaub
-
The Changeling
LaValle’s novel, about a New York rare-book dealer who goes in search for his wife and child when they suddenly go missing, is everything you want a horror novel to be — exciting, beautifully written, and scary as hell.
— Michael Schaub
-
Confessions of the Fox
UMass Amherst professor Rosenberg’s debut novel, which follows a scholar who discovers a manuscript about an 18th-century transgender jailbreaker, is enchanting, smart, and most of all, a whole lot of fun.
— Michael Schaub
-
Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
Timely, smart, and hilarious, this novel follows Gilda, a young lesbian atheist who finds into a job as a receptionist at a Catholic church and becomes obsessed with her predecessor’s mysterious death while trying to fit in.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
Ghost Forest
This novel’s unnamed protagonist is forced to deal with grief in silence after her father’s death. Some families refuse to talk about things, and this is a tender exploration of the ways people navigate their feelings when that happens.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
Gold Diggers
A high-school debater growing up outside Atlanta discovers that his more successful best friend’s achievements are due to a potion concocted by her mother in this twisty, funny novel that’s being adapted for TV by Mindy Kaling.
— Michael Schaub
-
Good Neighbors
Perfect picnics under beautiful blue skies are not always what they seem, and this novel digs deep into what can hide behind smiling faces and pleasant suburban homes. A wonderfully creepy novel about the secrets behind every door.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
Home of the Floating Lily
A debut literary collection centered on migration and set in both Canada and Bangladesh, “Home of the Floating Lily” chronicles the lives of several characters as they cope with displacement and learn to exist as others away from home.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
In the Company of Men
More than a story about the devastating effects of the Ebola pandemic of 2014, this is a tender, sorrowful novel about life and death that brings the nature and people of West Africa to the page with shining clarity.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
Light Perpetual
Five children lost their lives in London on a Saturday in 1944, and this novel imagines the futures they could have had. Profound, touching, and beautifully written, this book turns disaster into hope.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
Mysterious Skin
Boston author Heim’s novel about a child sexual abuse survivor in rural Kansas was memorably adapted into a film by Gregg Araki. The movie was excellent, but the book — shocking, beautiful, and brilliant — is a modern classic.
— Michael Schaub
-
Open Water
In this gorgeous and lyrical debut novel, British-Ghanaian photographer and author Azumah Nelson follows two young Black artists in London who fall in love, and whose intense relationship is threatened by unforeseen circumstances.
— Michael Schaub
-
Pachinko
Lee’s beautiful, perfectly realized novel, a National Book Award finalist, follows multiple generations of a Korean family who have been exiled to Japan. It’s a beautifully structured book from one of America’s most vital writers.
— Michael Schaub
-
Peaces
Oyeyemi is one of the best, most original authors of her generation, and her stunning latest novel — about a couple and their pet mongoose who take a voyage on a mysterious train — is the perfect introduction to her work.
— Michael Schaub
-
Rabbit Island
An outstanding literary collection from one of the most exciting voices in contemporary fiction, this gem in translation defies categorization with each of its 11 stories. Summers are for traveling, and this boundary-breaking work takes readers into truly unexpected places.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
Revival Season
A standout debut about spending summers on the road for revival season and learning that everything you’ve been told could be a lie, this is a smart novel about empowerment with a memorable character at its core.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
A Song Everlasting
The award-winning author of “Waiting” is back next month with a novel about displacement and new beginnings that follows a popular singer in China who gets in trouble with his country’s repressive government and escapes to America looking for freedom and a new life.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job
A Japanese woman’s search for a mindless, undemanding job doesn’t go as she planned in Tsumura’s surreal and frequently hilarious novel, the prolific author’s first book to be translated into English.
— Michael Schaub
-
The Turner House
When the matriarch of a large Detroit family becomes seriously ill, the future of their storied house becomes uncertain. Flournoy’s breathtaking, sensitive novel is one of the best literary debuts of recent years.
— Michael Schaub
-
Wayward
Simultaneously moving, humane, and funny, this novel explores the complexities women must navigate as they inhabit the interstitial spaces between their roles as women, mothers, daughters, and wives, all while the country titters on the edge of collapse.
— Gabino Iglesias
-
You Made Me Love You: Selected Stories, 1981-2018
Wideman is known for his bold, ambitious novels like “Philadelphia Fire,” but his short stories are just as original and brilliant. This new volume collects 35 of his stories from the past four decades.
— Michael Schaub
mysteries
-
Bryant & May: Oranges and Lemons
After a high-level British politician has what seems to be an unfortunate incident with a truckload of fruit, London’s Peculiar Crimes Unit is called into action, ensuing in merry, murderous mayhem infused with Fowler’s indelible pun-inflected humor.
— Daneet Steffens
-
City of Bohane
Barry’s linguistically dazzling 2011 debut novel, a veritable feast for the reading senses as well as rollicking crime fiction, explores small-town politics, corruption, and tribal alliances in a noir near future that’s void of most contemporary technologies.
— Daneet Steffens
-
Dead of Winter
Fending off super-baddies from running real-estate fraud in his beloved Mexicantown neighborhood of Detroit, August Snow tussles with enemies old and new in this edgy thriller that includes cannily delivered observations on climate change and systemic racism.
— Daneet Steffens
-
Exit
Bauer mixes top-notch horror with wickedly black humor in this topsy-turvy story of a retired widower, Felix Pink, who helps terminally ill people pass peacefully, until one case of carefully planned suicide collides headlong into something quite disturbingly different.
— Daneet Steffens
-
The Good Sister
Compelling characters and around-the-bend twists drive this page-turner in which Fern, an on-the-spectrum librarian, decides to have a baby for her sister, Rose, a decision that raises unsettling questions about the siblings’ relationship.
— Daneet Steffens
-
The Intrusions
Dynamic detective-duo Jack Carrigan and Geneva Miller — here in their third outing — come face-to-unpleasant-face with a criminal who uses the darkest arts of the Dark Web as his playground in this terrifying tale of technical stalking, surveillance, and murder.
— Daneet Steffens
-
The Killing Hills
Offutt’s spare prose throws the life — and lives — of a tightly knit Eastern Kentucky community into sharp relief, especially when US Army criminal detective Mick Hardin, temporarily home on military leave, helps to investigate a local killing.
— Daneet Steffens
-
Razorblade Tears
When their sons are murdered in what appears to be a professional hit and the police stop pursuing the case, two very different Virginia fathers — one white, one Black, both ex-cons — form a tension-fueled partnership, bent on both justice and vengeance.
— Daneet Steffens
-
Resistance
Adapted from a radio drama that McDermid conceived prior to COVID, this form of “Resistance” is a stark graphic novel about a fast-spreading illness, its global impact, and the tenacious journalist pursuing the story while trying to protect her family.
— Daneet Steffens
-
Slough House
Herron’s excellent series featuring a motley crew of sidelined MI5 agents united under the fearless leadership of the unforgettable Jackson Lamb, has grown ever-more reflective — if not downright prescient — of contemporary political machinations, and is all the richer for it.
— Daneet Steffens
-
Squeeze Me
Hands down one of the best satires to emerge from the last five years of America’s political and social swampland, “Squeeze Me” features the terrific wildlife-removal expert Angie Armstrong wrangling pythons and people in Palm Beach, Fla.
— Daneet Steffens
-
The Turnout
Abbot casts her disquieting fictional magic as the obsessive dynamics of a self-contained family — sisters Dara and Marie, and Dara’s husband Charlie — running a small-town, run-down ballet school, collide with the presence of a sinister newcomer.
— Daneet Steffens
nonfiction
-
100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write
An innovative and award-winning playwright, here Ruhl winningly reflects on all manner of the quotidian: as her subtitle tells you, she covers “umbrellas and sword fights, parades and dogs, fire alarms, children, and theater.” A bounty of short pieces, perfect to dip into and out of.
— Kate Tuttle
-
Austen Years
Conjoining literary criticism and memoir, Cohen honors both her late father and Jane Austen, a writer they both loved. In the process, Cohen demonstrates how reading literary fiction can amplify one’s emotional intelligence and offer balm to those in mourning.
— Walton Muyumba
-
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
The perfidy of Elizabeth Holmes and her fake invention to revolutionize health care are by now well known. But that takes nothing away from the dizzying rollercoaster of this book, a thoroughly entertaining exposé that’ll make you glad for your own comparatively boring job.
— Kate Tuttle
-
The Book of Delights
There may not be a more significant promoter of joyousness and gratitude than Ross Gay. Full of laughter, bonhomie, and wonder, his daybook collects a year of delights; it could be read as a guidebook for reconnecting with those very things in our post-lockdown lives.
— Walton Muyumba
-
The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance
This fascinating, richly immersive book introduces us to Vespasiano da Bisticci, known as “the king of the world’s booksellers” at a time of great intellectual and literary ferment in 15th-century Europe. His timing was great until it wasn’t; the printing press loomed. A vivid, expansive read.
— Kate Tuttle
-
Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America
Berman’s history of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ought to be our collective national read this summer. State by state, as conservative legislatures block access to the franchise, no other book seems as pressing and necessary immediately.
— Walton Muyumba
-
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee
Much of Treuer’s literary output “de-myth-ifies” Manifest Destiny, clearing space for the histories and contemporary realities of Indigenous life. This book suggests that in recognizing Native American communities as thriving — not simply surviving — we might also learn how to envision our national and environmental future.
— Walton Muyumba
-
The History of White People
The history here is of the seductive and ultimately specious idea of racial classifications in general. Extremely entertaining and sharply presented, this 2010 book feels quite relevant today, in an era marked by necessary reckonings with race and racism.
— Kate Tuttle
-
Hoop Roots
This year Wideman celebrates both his 80th birthday and the 20th anniversary of his great basketball book, “Hoop Roots.” In stirring, urgent prose, Wideman weaves together memoir, short story, and cultural criticism. The craftsmanship proves he’s an innovative master of creative nonfiction.
— Walton Muyumba
-
A House of My Own
Cisneros’s memoir-in-essays is also a book about building and maintaining a writing life. The book is big enough to move around in; read the pieces out of sequence, dip in and out, reread it in reverse. Cisneros’s storytelling, riven with humor and wisdom, compels close attention.
— Walton Muyumba
-
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays
Chee, author of “Edinburgh” and “Queen of the Night,” here presents a kind of costumed memoir, a set of essays that both reveal and instruct. A gorgeous writer himself, Chee presents himself and his work in an act of literary generosity.
— Kate Tuttle
-
King Richard: Nixon and Watergate: An American Tragedy
It’s not your typical beach reading, perhaps, but Dobbs manages here to make the Nixon story feel fresh, paradoxically by casting it as a kind of classical tragedy story — a man drawn into disaster by his own rotten ambitions.
— Kate Tuttle
-
Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing: Essays
She’s been in the military and worked as a bouncer and a “cable guy” — the essay about that job went viral — and now Hough has written a memoir-in-essays about childhood in a cult, an adulthood of seeking, and coming to terms with her desire to be a writer.
— Kate Tuttle
-
Liner Notes for the Revolution
Brooks is a great music writer and cultural critic. Narrating the histories of American music and music criticism with Black women as the central voices and innovators, “Liner Notes” is a playlist doubling as intellectual history, written with love and joy.
— Walton Muyumba
-
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
As a poet, Hong fashions Creole languages to tell keenly observed stories about imperial histories and conceptual futures. She remixes those impulses in “Minor Feelings,” her dazzling and incisive essay collection about Asian American identities and experiences.
— Walton Muyumba
-
Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir
Broome’s debut tells of growing up Black, gay, and poor in a country that values none of those things. Taking his titles from Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool,” Broome’s writing, even when recalling the roughest experiences, is rich and satisfying, often funny, and always alive.
— Kate Tuttle
-
Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature
Hardwick’s essays are ruminative spaces, as capacious as her intellect, as broad as her interests: Hedda Gabler, Plath’s poems, Woolf’s novels, and sexually betrayed literary heroines. Hardwick’s prose here is always at least as artful as the work under consideration.
— Walton Muyumba
-
Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness
Coming just as we begin to emerge from pandemic-related isolation, Radtke’s gorgeously drawn book examines our modern tendency toward an unhappy aloneness — a sad topic, but one she hopes we can understand and conquer, leading us back toward loving community.
— Kate Tuttle
-
A Small Place
Coming out of quarantine (though the pandemic is still ongoing) many people will restore themselves with Caribbean beach resort vacations. Kincaid’s 1988 brief is a prerequisite read, asking us to interrogate travel’s meaning, to reconsider our notions of leisure, and to analyze why our conceptions of “paradise” seem to always involve settler colonist fantasy and cosplay.
— Walton Muyumba
-
What Happened to Paula: On the Death of An American Girl
A missing person, an unsolved mystery — but this is no typical true crime book. Instead, Dykstra looks at the context, the life Paula lived, in all its small moments of violence and violation, before she was murdered. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.
— Kate Tuttle
sports
-
24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid
Baseball great Willie Mays tells his life story in compelling fashion, with 24 chapters to match his uniform number. His co-author, Shea, is a longtime San Francisco Chronicle baseball reporter, and the audiobook features Globe Red Sox reporter Julian McWilliams as the voice of Willie Mays.
— Matt Pepin
-
30 Years in a White Haze
Extreme skiing pioneer Dan Egan, a Boston native who has appeared in many Warren Miller and other ski films, documents the ups and downs of a life as a ski bum, both on the mountain and in his personal affairs. From growing up in Milton to nearly dying in a snow cave on Mt. Elbrus, it is a raw and poignant look at the lure of the adventure lifestyle.
— Matt Pepin
-
All the Colors Came Out: A Father, a Daughter, and a Lifetime of Lessons
Love, life, and basketball — this memoir covers them all, as Fagan writes about an early father-daughter bond over the New York Knicks and a later-in-life reconnection with the sport after her father was diagnosed with ALS. A heartfelt meditation on what matters.
— Kate Tuttle
-
Chasing the Thrill: Obsession, Death, and Glory in America’s Most Extraordinary Treasure Hunt
It’s not exactly in the sports genre, yet the idea of a years-long quest throughout the Rocky Mountains in search of treasure represents competition of a different, fascinating sort. Barbarisi’s exploration of the who and how and why of those who hunted for the hidden treasure left by Forrest Fenn confronts fascinating questions about the sometimes indistinct realms of adventure and obsession.
— Alex Speier
-
Cheated: The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing
How could the Astros have conceived of and perpetrated their diabolical sign-stealing/trash can-banging scheme? Andy Martino offers historical and contemporary context for the sign-stealing scandals that shook baseball — particularly the Astros and Red Sox — in 2020.
— Alex Speier
-
Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran, and the Last Great Era of Boxing
Boxing fans who were saddened by the death of former middleweight boxing champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler in March will enjoy this book, originally published in 2009, chronicling the remarkable and intertwined careers of Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Roberto Duran.
— Andrew Mahoney
-
The Girls: An All-American Town, a Predatory Doctor, and the Untold Story of the Gymnasts Who Brought Him Down
When Larry Nassar started out, he gained a reputation as the doctor to help aspiring gymnasts, treating dozens of girls at his Michigan practice. In this harrowing exposé, Pesta focuses on the survivors to explore how the abuser Nassar gained access to the Olympic team, and even more victims.
— Kate Tuttle
-
Gods at Play: An Eyewitness Account of Great Moments in American Sports
Callahan has seen plenty in his many years as a sportswriter for publications like Time magazine and the Washington Post, and has compiled a collection of tales from a life spent as a firsthand witness. He blends observations on major figures such as Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe, and Joe Montana with a peek into the crazy world of a sports journalist.
— Matt Pepin
-
I Came as a Shadow: An Autobiography
Georgetown’s legendary basketball coach recounts stories of life both on and off the court. This is a gritty, no-holds-barred tale by a man who had to overcome preconceptions to build a towering legacy.
— Kate Tuttle
-
The Spencer Haywood Rule: Battles, Basketball, and the Making of an American Iconoclast
Washburn, who covers the Celtics and NBA for the Boston Globe, and Spears, who covers the NBA for ESPN, deliver the detailed and fascinating behind the scenes story of the landmark court case that cleared the way for college basketball players who were underclassmen to leave school early to enter the NBA. Haywood and the now-defunct Seattle SuperSonics were the lead defendants in the 1970s court case.
— Matt Pepin
young adult
-
Almost American Girl
When she was 14, Ha she traveled from Korea to Huntsville, Ala., with her mother, thinking she was on a summer vacation. They never returned. This graphic memoir beautifully expresses the joys and thorny misunderstandings between mother and teen daughter, and the search for identity.
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
-
Butterfly Yellow
This National Book Award winner’s YA debut starts in the final days of the Vietnam War when Hằng brings her infant brother to Operation Babylift but gets left behind, migrates to a refugee camp, and eventually to deepest Texas to find her brother.
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
-
The Enigma Game
An exciting, well-researched World War II tale full of mystery set in Scotland with double agents, a codebreaking Enigma machine, fighter pilots, Nazi double agents, and distinctly strong female characters. A doorstopper of a book for history buffs and those who love a good story.
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
-
From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial That Galvanized the Asian American Movement
Knowledge about Asian American history is needed now more than ever, but where to start? This nonfiction book is heavily researched but written in an engaging, even suspenseful, way, and it will make many readers question what they think they know about anti-Asian hate and racism.
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
-
How It All Blew Up
Amir, the 18-year-old son of Iranian immigrants, is on the run when a high school enemy threatens to out him at graduation. In a panic, he jumps on a plane and ends up in Rome and falls into a welcoming gay community that gives him unexpected hope.
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
-
The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart
When Ken Z meets Ran in a food court at the mall, Ken Z has his first kiss and eventually his first love. But when Ran unexpectedly disappears, Ken Z faces the heartbreak and confusion via the advice of his surreally appearing hero, Oscar Wilde.
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
-
Made In Korea
A perfect beach read for fans of K beauty and K dramas. Valerie Kwon and her cousin’s K beauty store is the most popular student-run business at their school. Enter the new kid who comes to school with a bag full of possibly even better products. He immediately steps on a few toes — and hearts.
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
-
Miles Morales: Spider-Man
Miles Morales is an average Brooklyn teen — and also Spider-Man. When his Spidey sense seems to be on the fritz, causing a school suspension, he has to figure out, can he be a Black Latino kid and a superhero?
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
-
Pet
Jam is horrified to discover a creature named Pet emerging from one of her mother’s paintings. Pet turns out to not actually be a monster but a monster hunter; Jam must not only protect her new friend but also figure out how save the world from monsters when no one believes they exist.
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
-
Wicked Fox
This modern take on the gumiho, the nine-tailed fox of Korean folklore who needs to eat men to survive, is an exciting read. A rich urban fantasy paired with a love story, this 400+ page book will keep readers up at night, turning all the pages.
— Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Contributors:
Gabino Iglesias is a literary critic, professor, editor, and the author of “Coyote Songs” and “Zero Saints.”
Marie Myung-Ok Lee is the author of “Finding My Voice” and the forthcoming “Hurt You” — a contemporary retelling of “Of Mice and Men.”
Andrew Mahoney is a sports producer for BostonGlobe.com who also writes about combat sports and college hockey.
Walton Muyumba is the author of “The Shadow and the Act: Black Intellectual Practice, Jazz Improvisation, and Philosophical Pragmatism.” He teaches cultural and literary studies at Indiana University-Bloomington.
Matt Pepin has been the Globe’s sports editor since 2018 after serving as digital sports editor of Boston.com and BostonGlobe.com.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and a vice president of the National Book Critics Circle.
Alex Speier writes about the Red Sox for the Boston Globe. His book, “Homegrown: How the Red Sox Built a Champion From the Ground Up,” is now out in paperback, with a new afterword on how the Red Sox disassembled said champion from the top down.
Daneet Steffens is a journalist and book critic. Follow her on Twitter @daneetsteffens.
Kate Tuttle is a freelance writer and editor.
