Osipov makes his English-language debut with this masterful and sublime collection, largely set in rural Russian villages. In “Moscow-Petrozavodsk” a young doctor is taking the 14-hour trip from Moscow to Petrozavodsk for a medical conference. When Tolya, a fellow traveler, goes into alcohol withdra... Continue reading »

Set in 1983, Shimada’s brilliant sequel to 2015’s The Tokyo Zodiac Murders will thrill fans of golden age puzzle mysteries. Kozaburo Hamamoto, the president of the Hama Diesel company, has invited guests to celebrate Christmas at the unusual home he has constructed on Hokkaido. The building... Continue reading »

Wendig (the Miriam Black series) pulls no punches in this blockbuster apocalyptic novel, which confronts some of the darkest and most divisive aspects of present-day America with urgency, humanity, and hope. The day after a comet blazes over the west coast of North America, Benji Ray, a disgraced fo... Continue reading »

Fan favorite Prince Johan von Braustein takes center stage in Cole’s delicious third and final Reluctant Royals contemporary. A vote that could end the Liechtienbourg monarchy is looming, but Johan escapes the political pressure and travels to Thesolo for a royal wedding. Nya Jermai has retreated in... Continue reading »

Hernandez explores the tensions between idealized young love and comfy mature reality in this powerful follow-up to The Love Bunglers. The saga of punk lesbian lovers Maggie and Hopey has been unfolding for more than 30 years in the Love and Rockets series, and this masterful episode gives ... Continue reading »

In her fifth book, Rekdal (Imaginary Vessels) reenvisions Ovid’s Metamorphoses to offer a haunting meditation on the vulnerability of the body and an exploration of how one goes on living after literal or metaphorical loss. In one poem, a woman experiences her child’s gender transi... Continue reading »

In this finely wrought story, Vogel Sawyer (Waiting for Summer’s Return) takes reader to the 1895 Cotton Exposition in Atlanta. Willie Sharp takes a job at the Expo to pay for his father’s medical treatment after he suffers a stroke. Laurel Millard, meanwhile, is expected by her older sibli... Continue reading »

In this soaring combination of social critique, memoir, and manifesto, Odets (In the Shadow of the Epidemic) urges gay men “to discover or rediscover identities that are internally rooted, self-expressive, and revealed in authentically lived lives.” Drawing on his psychological forebears (E... Continue reading »

Dagdeviren, a Turkish restaurateur and chronicler of the country’s foodways, draws clear lines between culture and cuisine in this impressive, comprehensive work. “Soup heals the sick and feeds the poor,” he writes in the introduction to a chapter that includes recipes for red lentil and cracked whe... Continue reading »

In her impressive debut, Scorah recounts her years as a Jehovah’s Witness in China, her decision to leave the faith, and her ongoing spiritual questioning. In 2005, Scorah and her husband left Vancouver for Taipei before volunteering to move to Shanghai, where being a Jehovah’s Witness could get the... Continue reading »

Kathrine Switzer turned heads when she ran—doing laps around her yard at a time when girls weren’t supposed to sweat, competing with the boys’ track team in college, and, in 1967, as the first woman to officially complete the Boston Marathon. Chaffee’s effective telling of Switzer’s iconic story emp... Continue reading »