Coming-of-age stories, a life lived out-of-order, baseball in a dystopian United States, queer librarian spies on horseback, and a dedicated Victorian detective – February has some gems waiting for you to discover!
2/4: Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi Abraham – A family saga follows one family over two decades in Nigeria, as each sibling searches for agency, love, and meaning in a society rife with hypocrisy but also endless life.
2/4: Everywhere You Don’t Belong by Gabriel Bump – In this coming of age novel, Claude McKay Love leaves the South Side of Chicago for college, only to discover that there is no safe haven for a young Black man in today’s America.
2/4: The Resisters by Gish Jen –In a near-future world ruthlessly divided between the employed and unemployed, a once-professional couple gives birth to an athletically gifted child whose transition from an underground baseball league to the Olympics challenges the very foundations of their divided society. A Peak Pick!
2/4: Things in Jars by Jess Kidd – In Victorian London, a female sleuth is pulled into the macabre world of fanatical anatomists and crooked surgeons while investigating the kidnapping of an extraordinary child.
2/4: Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey – The future American Southwest is full of bandits, fascists, and queer librarian spies on horseback trying to do the right thing.
2/4: Verge by Lidia Yuknavitch – A collection of short stories that creates a fiercely empathetic group portrait of the marginalized and outcast in moments of crisis.
2/4: The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa – After wedding planner Lina Santos is left at the altar, she shifts focus to winning her dream job. Unfortunately, to do so she’ll have to work with Max, the man she blames for sabotaging her wedding. But animosity may not be the only emotion creating sparks between them…
2/11: And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges by Amber Sparks – Blending fables and myths with apocalyptic technologies, these humorous and unapologetically fierce stories are tethered by shades of rage.
2/11: The Bear by Andrew Krivak – In an Edenic future, a girl and her father, the last of humankind, live close to the land. When the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her both back home and to the greatest lessons of all.
2/11: The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson – In this supernatural thriller, young Miranda Crabtree faces down ancient dark forces, both human and supernatural, at work in the bayou.
2/11: The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood – In this debut fantasy novel, orc priestess Csorwe always knew how she would die – as a sacrifice. Instead, a powerful mage gives her a choice, and she becomes a wizard’s assassin.
2/11: Weather by Jenny Offill –A librarian who loves giving advice is invited by a former mentor to answer the mail for a podcast, fielding questions from increasingly polarized fans and struggling with the limits of her knowledge in the face of escalating crises in society. A Peak Pick!
2/18: Amnesty by Aravind Adiga – Danny, an undocumented Sri Lankan immigrant living in Australia but denied refugee status, must decide whether to report information about a murder and risk deportation.
2/18: Real Life by Brandon Taylor – Wallace, a Black and queer young man from Alabama, feels at odds with the Midwestern university town where he pursues biochem degree, until it all comes to a head one when long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within the community are exposed.
2/18: Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin – Years after her sister’s unsolved murder during a family vacation in the Caribbean, Claire meets one of the original suspects of the crime and becomes newly obsessed with her sister’s death while reckoning with aspects of her sister she didn’t know.
2/25: Apartment by Teddy Wayne – In this novel about loneliness and friendship, gender and sexuality, and the political schisms that dominate our times, two men in the MFA writing program at Columbia find a rapport and friendship undermined by tensions borne out of their radically different upbringings.
2/25: Apeirogon by Colum McCann – Two fathers – one Palestinian, the other Israeli – are united in friendship by the sudden loss of children.
2/25: Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore– New Year’s Eve 1982, and 19-year-old Oona is trying to figure out the direction of her life: go to school in London, or hit the road with her band. The next morning she wakes up 32 years in the future. And so it begins, every January 1 waking up in an out-of-order year.
Book descriptions adapted from publisher copy.
~ posted by Andrea G.
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