2025

September 2025

All the Way to the River (#118) By Elizabeth Gilbert Memoir: In her first nonfiction book in a decade, the #1 bestselling writer who taught millions of readers to live authentically (Eat Pray Love) and creatively (Big Magic) shows how to break ... free. In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: The two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe. What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening? All the Way to the River is a landmark memoir that will resonate with anyone who has ever been captive to love-or to any other passion, substance, or craving-and who yearns, at long last, for liberation. From the publisher Riverhead Books |Sep 9, 2025 | 400 pages | 978-0593540985 | Memoir Praise INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK "A delicious mashup of narrative that's by turns harrowing and healing." -People "Entertaining, insightful, wrenching … punch-to-the-gut powerful." -The Washington Post "A blockbuster: brutally honest, lurid, transcendent, and compelling...Gilbert is undoubtedly a force." -Boston Globe read more

August 2025

Bridge of Sighs (#117) By Richard Russo Fiction: Six years after the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls, Richard Russo returns with a novel that expands even further his widely heralded achievement. Louis Charles ("Lucy") Lynch ... has spent all his sixty years in upstate Thomaston, New York, married to the same woman, Sarah, for forty of them, their son now a grown man. Like his late, beloved father, Lucy is an optimist, though he's had plenty of reasons not to be-chief among them his mother, still indomitably alive. Yet it was her shrewdness, combined with that Lynch optimism, that had propelled them years ago to the right side of the tracks and created an "empire" of convenience stores about to be passed on to the next generation. Lucy and Sarah are also preparing for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy, where his oldest friend, a renowned painter, has exiled himself far from anything they'd known in childhood. In fact, the exact nature of their friendship is one of the many mysteries Lucy hopes to untangle in the "history" he's writing of his hometown and family. And with his story interspersed with that of Noonan, the native son who'd fled so long ago, the destinies building up around both of them (and Sarah, too) are relentless, constantly surprising, and utterly revealing. Bridge of Sighs is classic Russo, coursing with small-town rhythms and the claims of family, yet it is brilliantly enlarged by an expatriate whose motivations and experiences-often contrary, sometimes not-prove every bit as mesmerizing as they resonate through these richly different lives. Here is a town, as well as a world, defined by magnificent and nearly devastating contradictions. From the publisher Alfred A. Knopf |Sep 25, 2007 | 528 pages | 978-0375414954 | Fiction Praise OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls comes "a magnificent, bighearted" novel (The Boston Globe) about small-town America that follows Louis Charles Lynch ("Lucy") and his wife of forty years as they prepare to embark on a vacation to Italy. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor "A story of constantly evolving complexity and depth... [Bridge of Sighs is] Russo's most intricate, multifaceted novel … enormous and enormously moving." -The Washington Post Book World "A novel of great warmth, charm and intimacy ... richly evocative and beautifully wrought." -The New York Times read more

July 2025

Culpability (#116) By Bruce Holsinger Psychological Thriller: A suspenseful family drama about moral responsibility in the age of artificial intelligence. When the Cassidy-Shaws' autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, ... seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver's seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret, implicating them all in the tragic accident. During a weeklong recuperation on the Chesapeake Bay, the family confronts the excruciating moral dilemmas triggered by the crash. Noah tries to hold the family together as a seemingly routine police investigation jeopardizes Charlie's future. Alice and Izzy turn strangely furtive. And Lorelei's odd behavior tugs at Noah's suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident-suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal. When Charlie falls for Monet's teenaged daughter, the stakes are raised even higher in this propulsive family drama that is also a fascinating exploration of the moral responsibility and ethical consequences of AI. Culpability explores a world newly shaped by chatbots, autonomous cars, drones, and other nonhuman forces in ways that are thrilling, challenging, and unimaginably provocative. From the publisher Spiegel & Grau | Jul 8, 2025 | 380 pages | ISBN:978-1954118966 | Psychological Thriller Praise OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - NATIONAL BESTSELLER "I was riveted until the very last shocking sentence!"-Oprah Winfrey "The most of-the-moment novel I've read all year, and it's the book of the summer."-Real Simple "If you want an engaging novel sure to spark great discussion about that thorny [AI] future, this is it."-Ron Charles, The Washington Post read more

June 2025

The River Is Waiting (#115) By Wally Lamb Women's Fiction: #1 New York Times bestselling author Wally Lamb, celebrated for two prior Oprah Book Club selections, returns with an exceptional third pick, a propulsive novel following a young ... father grappling with unbearable tragedy as he searches for hope, redemption, and the possibility of forgiveness. Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother's enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves? From the publisher S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books | June 10, 2025 | 480 pages | 978-1668006399 | Women's Fiction Praise AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK A USA TODAY BESTSELLER "[A] heart-wrenching story of redemption... Lamb lays bare the vagaries of his protagonist's life in accessible prose and concludes on a bittersweet note. This will please the author's fans." -Publishers Weekly "Riveting... Lamb expertly shows [Corby's] arduous, bumpy progression... a gripping [...] story of grief, guilt, and healing." -Kirkus read more

May 2025

The Emperor of Gladness (#114) By Ocean Vuong Literary Fiction : The hardest thing in the world is to live only once...One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the ... edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai's relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink. Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong's writing-formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness-are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life's most fleeting mercies: a second chance. From the publisher Penguin Press | May 13, 2025 | 416 pages | 978-0593831878 | LGBTQ + Literary Fiction Praise The instant New York Times bestseller - Oprah's Book Club Pick - Ocean Vuong returns with a bighearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive "Stunning ... A heartfelt and powerful examination of those living on the fringes of society, and the unique challenges they face to survive and thrive." -Oprah Winfrey "Magnificent ... In writing this book, Vuong may have joined the ranks of an elite few great novelists." -Leigh Haber, Los Angeles Times read more

April 2025

Matriarch (#113) By Tina Knowles Memoir: You are Celestine," she said. She squatted to push the hair off my face and pull leaves off my pajama legs. "Like my sister and my grandmother." And there, under the pecan tree, as she did ... countless times, that day my mother told me stories of the mothers and daughters that went before me. Tina Knowles, the mother of iconic singer-songwriters Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Solange Knowles, and bonus daughter Kelly Rowland, is known the world over as a Matriarch with a capital M: a determined, self-possessed, self-aware, and wise woman who raised and inspired some of the great artists of our time. But this story is about so much more than that. Matriarch begins with a precocious, if unruly, little girl growing up in 1950s Galveston, the youngest of seven. She is in love with her world, with extended family on every other porch and the sounds of Motown and the lapping beach always within earshot. But as the realities of race and the limitations of girlhood set in, she begins to dream of a more grandiose world. Her instincts and impulsive nature drive her far beyond the shores of Texas to discover the life awaiting her on the other side of childhood. That life's journey-through grief and tragedy, creative and romantic risks and turmoil, the nurturing of superstar offspring and of her own special gifts-is the remarkable story she shares with readers here. This is a page-turning chronicle of family love and heartbreak, of loss and perseverance, and of the kind of creativity, audacity, and will it takes for a girl from Galveston to change the world. It's one brilliant woman's intimate and revealing story, and a multigenerational family saga that carries within it the story of America-and the wisdom that women pass on to one another, mothers to daughters, across generations. From the publisher One World | Apr 22, 2025 | 352 Pages | ISBN 978-0593597408 | Memoir Praise #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - A revealing personal life story like no other-enlightening, entertaining, surprising, empowering...and a testament to the world-making power of Black motherhood "A fascinating memoir of Tina Knowles's journey to become the global figure she is today."-Oprah Winfrey "Both her great-grandmother and grandmother fought to keep their children from being sold away or otherwise separated in slavery. How remains a mystery. Matriarchs, Knowles writes, 'are filled with the most enduring and ferocious love.'"-The New York Times read more

March 2025

The Tell (#112) By Amy Griffin Memoir: An astonishing memoir that explores how far we will go to protect ourselves, and the healing made possible when we face our secrets and begin to share our stories For decades, Amy ... ran. Through the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, where she grew up; to the campus of the University of Virginia, as a student athlete; on the streets of New York, where she built her adult life; through marriage, motherhood, and a thriving career. To outsiders, it all looked, in many ways, perfect. But Amy was running from something-a secret she was keeping not only from her family and friends, but unconsciously from herself. "You're here, but you're not here," her daughter said to her one night. "Where are you, Mom?" So began Amy's quest to solve a mystery trapped in the deep recesses of her own memory-a journey that would take her into the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy, to the limits of the judicial system, and ultimately, home to the Texas panhandle, where her story began. In her search for the truth, to understand and begin to recover from buried childhood trauma, Griffin interrogates the pursuit of perfectionism, control, and maintaining appearances that drives so many women, asking, when, in our path from girlhood to womanhood, did we learn to look outside ourselves for validation? What kind of freedom is possible if we accept the whole story and embrace who we really are? With hope, heart, and relentless honesty, she points a way forward for all of us, revealing the power of radical truth-telling to deepen our connections-with others and ourselves. The Dial Press | Mar 11, 2025 | 288 pages | ISBN:978-0593731208| Memoir Praise NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK "The Tell encourages us to recognize that sometimes you must understand your own pain to fully experience life's greatest joys-and Amy's courage, vulnerability, and insight are a gift to us all."-Reese Witherspoon, TIME 100 Most Influential People of 2025 "A beautiful account of the journey of courage it takes to face the truth of one's past."-Bessel van der Kolk, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score read more

February 2025

Dream State (#111) By Eric Puchner Women's Fiction: Cece is in love. She has arrived early at her future in-laws' lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planning her wedding to Charlie, a young doctor with a brilliant life ahead of him. ... Charlie has asked Garrett, his best friend from college,to officiate the ceremony, though Cece can't imagine anyone more ill-suited for the task-an airport baggage handler haunted by a tragedy from his and Charlie's shared past. But as Cece spends time with Garrett, his gruff mask slips, and she grows increasingly uncertain about her future. And why does Garrett, after meeting Cece, begin to feel, well, human again? As a contagious stomach flu threatens to scuttle the wedding, and Charlie and Garrett's friendship is put to the ultimate test, Cece must decide between the life she's dreamed of and a life she's never imagined. The events of that summer have long-lasting repercussions, not only on the three friends caught in its shadow but also on their children, who struggle to escape their parents' story. Spanning fifty years and set against the backdrop of a rapidly warming Montana, Dream State explores what it means to live with the mistakes of the past-both our own and the ones we've inherited. Written with humor, precision, and enormous heart, both a love letter and an elegy to the American West, Dream State is a thrillingly ambitious ode to the power of friendship, the weird weather of marriage, and the beauty of impermanence. From the publisher Doubleday | Feb 18, 2025 | 448 pages | ISBN:978-0385550666 | Women's Fiction Praise AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK A March 2025 Indie Next Pick - One of BBC's Best Books of 2025 - One of Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 - One The Times' (UK) Best Books of 2025 - One of The Guardian's 50 Hottest Books To Read Now "The story of relationships built and broken, mistakes inherited and repeated, and the beauty of trying again... already one of the year's best." -People read more

January 2025

A New Earth (#110) By Eckhart Tolle Spiritual Self-Help: With his bestselling spiritual guide The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle inspired millions of readers to discover the freedom and joy of a life lived "in the now." In A New Earth, Tolle ... expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence. Illuminating, enlightening, and uplifting, A New Earth is a profoundly spiritual manifesto for a better way of life-and for building a better world. From the publisher Penguin | Jan 30, 2008 | 336 pages | ISBN:978-0452289963 | Spiritual Self-Help Praise OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK 2025 #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "As we welcome a new year, I wanted to revisit the book that had more effect on me than any other book by a living author has had on my perception of how I understand my connection to the world." -Oprah Winfrey (Oprah's Book Club January 2025) "One of the best books to come along in years. Every sentence rings with truth and power-the power to bring you into the gap, the space between our thoughts, where we find, as Eckhart so beautifully puts it, deep serenity, stillness, and a sacred Presence." -Deepak Chopra, author of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success read more

2024

December 2024

Small Things Like These (#109) By Claire Keegan Holiday Fiction: Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family It is 1985 in a small ... Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. An international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers. From the publisher Grove Oress | Nov 30, 2021 | 128 pages | ISBN:978-0802158741| Holiday Fiction Publisher Praise OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK 2024 - NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB PICK 2024 - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CILLIAN MURPHY A New York Times Bestseller - Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize - Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century The Irish Times Best Book of the 21st Century "A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." -Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers "The latest from multi-award-winning Irish novelist Keegan (Antarctica) indicts the social culture that enabled Ireland's Magdalene Laundries and brilliantly articulates a decent person's struggle of conscience…Keegan's beautiful prose is quiet and precise, jewel-like in its clarity. Highly recommended."-Library Journal (starred review) Irish story writer Keegan's gorgeously textured second novella (after Foster) centers on a family man who wants to do the right thing...Keegan beautifully conveys Bill's interior life as he returns to the house where he was raised…It all leads to a bittersweet culmination, a sort of anti–Christmas Carol, but to Bill it's simply sweet. Readers will be touched."-Publishers Weekly read more

October 2024

From Here to the Great Unknown (#108) By Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough Memoir: Born to an American myth and raised in the wilds of Graceland, Lisa Marie Presley tells her whole story for the first time in this raw, riveting, one-of-a-kind memoir faithfully ... completed by her daughter, Riley Keough. In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter to help finally finish her long-gestating memoir. A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and now grieved. Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, lay in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran toward his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they had in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother's wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world. To make her mother known. This extraordinary book is written in both Lisa Marie's and Riley's voices, a mother and daughter communicating-from this world to the one beyond-as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other-the last words of the only child of an American icon. From the publisher Random House | Oct 8, 2024 | 304 pages | ISBN 978-0593733875 | Memoir Praise #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER - NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - A PEOPLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "Instead of tap dancing around the hard parts, we're drilling into the bedrock. We hear less from Presley and more from Keough, who comes across as level headed, valiant and kind. . . . Keough approaches the episode with respectful levity, the best tool available to members of a dysfunctional family. . . . Presley still gets a word in here and there, and these passages show how determined she was to stand up to her demons."-The New York Times read more

September 2024

Tell Me Everything (#107) By Elizabeth Strout Women's Fiction: With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast ... of characters-Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more-as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, "What does anyone's life mean?" It's autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive's apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known-"unrecorded lives," Olive calls them-reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning. Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, "Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love." From the publisher Random House | Sep 10, 2024 | 352 pages | ISBN:978-0593446096 | Women's Fiction Praise NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout comes a "stunner" (People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world. "Tell Me Everything hits like a bucolic fable...A novel of moods, how they govern our personal lives and public spaces, reflected in Strout's shimmering technique."-The Washington Post SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR, Vogue, Parade read more

June 2024

Familiaris (#106) By David Wroblewski Magical Realism: The follow-up to the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling modern classic The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Familiaris is the stirring origin story of the Sawtelle family and the ... remarkable dogs that carry the Sawtelle name. It is spring 1919, and John Sawtelle's imagination has gotten him into trouble ... again. Now John and his newlywed wife, Mary, along with their two best friends and their three dogs, are setting off for Wisconsin's northwoods, where they hope to make a fresh start--and, with a little luck, discover what it takes to live a life of meaning, purpose, and adventure. But the place they are headed for is far stranger and more perilous than they realize, and it will take all their ingenuity, along with a few new friends--human, animal, and otherworldly--to realize their dreams. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, mysterious and enchanting, Familiaris takes readers on an unforgettable journey from the halls of a small-town automobile factory, through an epic midwestern firestorm and an ambitious WWII dog-training program, and far back into mankind's ancient past, examining the dynamics of love and friendship, the vexing nature of families, the universal desire to create something lasting and beautiful, and of course, the species-long partnership between Homo sapiens and Canis familiaris. From the publsher Blackstone Publishing, Inc. | Jun 11, 2024 | 992 pages | ISBN: 979-8212194297 | Magical Realism Praise Oprah's Book Club Pick for Summer 2024 "An extraordinary journey that brilliantly interweaves history, philosophy, adventure, and mysticism to explore the meaning of love, friendship, and living your life's true purpose."-Oprah Winfrey Already having drawn comparisons to Russo, Irving, Strout, McCarthy, and Gilbert, with Garcia Márquez added here, Wroblewski earns them all, amply rewarding readers who have been waiting impatiently for fifteen years…This colossus of a book will own you, and you will weep to be freed." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review) read more

May 2024

Long Island (#105) By Colm Toibin Historical Fiction: From the beloved, critically acclaimed, bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving novel featuring Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Toibin's most ... popular work in twenty years. Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony's parents, a huge extended family. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis is now forty with two teenage children. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades. One day, when Tony is at work an Irishman comes to the door asking for Eilis by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony's child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis's doorstep. It is what Eilis does-and what she refuses to do-in response to this stunning news that makes Toibin's novel so riveting and suspenseful. Long Island is a gorgeous story "about a woman thrashing against the constraints of fate" (Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air). It is "a wonder, rich with yearning and regret" (Star Tribune, Minneapolis). From the publisher Scribner | May 07, 2024 | 300 pages | ISBN:978-1476785110 | Historical Fiction Praise - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - - NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY TIME MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, WASHINGTON POST, VULTURE, GLAMOUR, FRESH AIR, NPR, THE GUARDIAN, THE ECONOMIST, THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, THE TIMES (London),THE IRISH TIMES, THE NEW STATESMAN, THE INDEPENDENT, THE OBSERVER, and more - "Stunning." -People - "Dazzling yet devastating...Toibin is simply one of the world's best living literary writers." -The Boston Globe - "Momentous and hugely affecting." -The Wall Street Journal - read more

Feb 2024

The Many Lives of Mama Love (#104) By Lara Love Hardin Memoir: New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin recounts her slide from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot caller and her unlikely comeback as a highly successful ... ghostwriter in this harrowing, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir.No one expects the police to knock on the door of the million-dollar two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors' credit cards. Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She finds that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes, and Snickers bars are currency. But Lara quickly learns the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder and acquires the nickname "Mama Love," showing that jailhouse politics aren't that different from the PTA meetings she used to attend. When she's released, she reinvents herself as a ghostwriter. Now, she's legally co-opting other people's identities and getting to meet Oprah, meditate with the Dalai Lama, and have dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But the shadow of her past follows her. Shame is a poison worse than heroin-there is no way to detox. Lara must learn how to forgive herself and others, navigate life as a felon on probation, and prove to herself that she is more good than bad, among other essential lessons. The Many Lives of Mama Love is a heartbreaking and tender journey from shame to redemption, despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we have ever done. From the publisher Simon & Schuster | Feb 27, 2024 | 300 pages | ISBN:978-1668069608 | Memoir Praise "Heartfelt, humor-tinged prose...The Many Lives of Mama Love contains notes of Wild, Orange is the New Black, and Catch me if you Can. -The New York Times "A courageous and inspiring memoir." -Kirkus Reviews OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK read more

2023

Oct 2023

Let Us Descend (#103) By Jesmyn Ward Historical Fiction: Let Us Descend describes a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome ... heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. A journey that is as beautifully rendered as it is heart wrenching, the novel is "[t]he literary equivalent of an open wound from which poetry pours" (NPR). Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide. As she struggles through the miles-long march, Annis turns inward, seeking comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother. Throughout, she opens herself to a world beyond this world, one teeming with spirits: of earth and water, of myth and history; spirits who nurture and give, and those who manipulate and take. While Annis leads readers through the descent, hers is ultimately a story of rebirth and reclamation. From one of the most singularly brilliant and beloved writers of her generation, this "[s]earing and lyrical…raw, transcendent, and ultimately hopeful" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) novel inscribes Black American grief and joy into the very land-the rich but unforgiving forests, swamps, and rivers of the American South. Let Us Descend is Jesmyn Ward's most magnificent novel yet. From the publisher Scribner | Oct 24, 2023 | 320 pages | ISBN: 978-9781982104498 | Historical Fiction Praise OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - Instant New York Times Bestseller - Named one of the best books of 2023 by The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, Time, The New Yorker, and more. "Nothing short of epic, magical, and intensely moving." -Vogue - "A novel of triumph." -The Washington Post - "Harrowing, immersive, and other-worldly." -People From "one of America's finest living writers" (San Francisco Chronicle) and "heir apparent to Toni Morrison" (LitHub)-comes a haunting masterpiece about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War that's destined to become a classic. read more

Sep 2023

Wellness (#102) By Nathan Hill Fiction: The New York Times best-selling author of The Nix is back with a poignant and witty novel about a modern marriage and the bonds that keep people together. Mining the absurdities of ... contemporary society, Wellness reimagines lard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what the love story with a healthy dose of insight, irony, and heart. When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the gritty '90s Chicago art scene, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in the thriving underground scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to suburban married life, and alongside the challenges of parenting, they encounter the often-baffling pursuits of health and happiness from polyamorous would-be suitors to home-renovation hysteria. For the first time, Jack and Elizabeth struggle to recognize each other, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process, Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other. From the publisher Knopf | Sep 19, 2023 | 624 pages | ISNB:978-0593536117 | Fiction Praise NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "A modern take on love, marriage, and society's obsession on improving almost every aspect of our lives–and the impact technology and social media has on our culture and in our lives. This brilliant novel will leave you thinking about the truth of your own life and the stories we tell ourselves and each other." -Oprah Winfrey "A stunning novel about the stories that we tell about our lives and our loves, and how we sustain relationships throughout time-it's beyond remarkable, both funny and heartbreaking, sometimes on the same page." -NPR read more

May 2023

The Covenant of Water (#101) By Abraham Verghese Fiction: From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three g ... enerations of a family eeking the answers to a strange secret The Covenants of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller Cutting for Stone, which has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India's Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning-and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl-and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi-will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years. From the publisher Grove Press| May 2, 2024 | 736 pages | ISBN:978-0802162175 | Fiction Praise OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - Winner of the Golden Poppy Award for Fiction - Longlisted for the New American Voices Award An Instant New York Times Bestseller - Named One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of the Year - Named the #7 Best Book of the Year by Amazon Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, TIME, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage, Library Journal, Apple, Minnesota Public Radio, Washington Independent Review of Books, and Chicago Public Library "One of the best books I've read in my entire life. It's epic. It's transportive ... It was unputdownable!"-Oprah Winfrey, OprahDaily.com read more

March 2023

Hello Beautiful (#100) By Ann Napolitano Women's Fiction: William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him-so when he meets the spirited and ambitious ... Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it's as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family's dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. With the Padavanos, William experiences a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos. But then darkness from William's past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia's carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters' unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most? An exquisite homage to Louisa May Alcott's timeless classic, Little Women, Hello Beautiful is a profoundly moving portrait of what is possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it. From the publisher The Dial Press | Mar 14, 2023 | 400 pages | ISBN:978-0593243732 | Women's Fiction Praise NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - MORE THAN ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD! From the author of Dear Edward comes a "powerfully affecting" (People) family story that asks: Can love make a broken person whole? "Another tender tearjerker ... Napolitano chronicles life's highs and lows with aching precision."-The Washington Post ONE OF THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Washington Post, Time, Vogue, Glamour, Harper's Bazaar, New York Post, She Reads, Bookreporter read more

February 2023

Bittersweet (#99) By Susan Cain Literary Fiction: The author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet explores the power of the bittersweet personality, revealing a misunderstood side of mental health and creativity while ... offering a roadmap to facing heartbreak in order to live life to the fullest. Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute aware­ness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death-bitter and sweet-are forever paired. If you've ever wondered why you like sad music ... If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day ... If you react intensely to music, art, nature, and beauty ... Then you probably identify with the bittersweet state of mind. With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an untapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she em­ploys the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, connection, and transcendence. Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain, whether from a death or breakup, addiction or illness. If we don't acknowledge our own heartache, she says, we can end up inflicting it on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know-or will know-loss and suffering, we can turn toward one another. At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways. From the publisher Crown | Apr 5, 2022 | 352 pages | ISBN:978-0451499783| Spiritual Self-Help Praise #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK "Bittersweet has the power to transform the way you see your life and the world."-OPRAH "Grabs you by the heart and doesn't let go."-BRENE BROWN, author of Atlas of the Heart "Susan Cain has described and validated my existence once again!"-GLENNON DOYLE, author of Untamed "The perfect cure for toxic positivity."-ADAM GRANT, author of Think Again LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT BUSINESS BOOK AWARD - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, Mashable read more

2022

October 2022

Demon Copperhead (#98) By Barbara Kingsolver Fiction: From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees and the recipient of the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, a brilliant ... novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind. From the publisher Harper | Oct 18, 2022 | 560 pages | ISBN:978-0063251922 | Fiction Praise WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE - WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION New York Times Readers' Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21st Century - An Oprah's Book Club Selection - An Instant New York Times Bestseller - An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller - A #1 Washington Post Bestseller - A New York Times "Ten Best Books of the Year" "Demon is a voice for the ages-akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield-only even more resilient." -Beth Macy, author of Dopesick "May be the best novel of [the year]... Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love." -Ron Charles, Washington Post read more

September 2022

That Bird Has My Wings (#97) By Jarvis Jay Masters Memoir: That Bird Has My Wings is the astounding memoir of death row inmate Jarvis Masters and a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit and the talent of a fine writer. Offering scenes from his life ...that are at times poignant, revelatory, frightening, soul-stirring, painful, funny, and uplifting, That Bird Has My Wings tells the story of the author's childhood with parents addicted to heroin, an abusive foster family, a life of crime and imprisonment, and the eventual embracing of Buddhism. From the publisher Harper One | Sep 22, 2009 | 304 pages | ISBN 978-0061730450 | Memoir Praise "A gripping indictment of poverty and the foster-care system." - Kirkus Reviews A heartbreaking memoir; the brutal conditions of Masters's boyhood will be difficult for some readers to take, but his ultimate message of hope and reconciliation is moving and inspiring. Highly recommended. - Library Journal "In this polished tale that belies the author's raw origins, Masters, who has been imprisoned on San Quentin's death row since 1990 ... recalls the neglect, abuse and cycle of crime and hopelessness that relegated him to prison by age 19." - Publishers Weekly read more

June 2022

Nightcrawling (#96) By Leila Mottley Fiction: Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison But while Marcus ... clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed. One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department. Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before. From the publsher Knopf | Jun 7, 2022 | 288 pages | ISBN: 978-0593318935 | Fiction Praise NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK - A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system. This debut of a blazingly original voice "bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole" (Tommy Orange, author of There There). A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, TIME, GOODREADS read more

April 2022

Finding Me (#95) By Viola Davis Memoir: In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever.This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to ... the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn't always see me. As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be ... you. wn life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you. Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you. From the publisher Harper One | Apr 26, 2022 | 304 pages | ISBN: 978-0063037328 | Memoir Praise OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK - A HARPERS BAZAAR BEST BOOK OF 2022 - A PARADE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK - A MARIE CLAIRE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK "It's clear from the first page that Davis is going to serve a more intimate, unpolished account than is typical of the average (often ghost-written) celebrity memoir; Finding Me reads like Davis is sitting you down for a one-on-one conversation about her life, warts and all."-USA Today "[A] fulfilling narrative of struggle and success... Her gorgeous storytelling will inspire anyone wishing to shed old labels."-Los Angeles Times read more

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