Living on our human-centered planet can be stressful, beautiful, devastating, and wonderful all at once, especially while you're living through a pandemic. John Green manages to capture all those complex, intertwined emotions in this collection of…
Oliver has it all: a handsome, rich partner who loves him, a fabulous house in DC, and finally, sobriety. But maybe he wants a little bit more. Like going to an underground bathhouse to switch things up. Sadly for Oliver, new experiences can be TOO…
Author and blogger Lawson is back with another painfully hilarious, brutally honest memoir about living with mental illness. If you don't suffer from anxiety and depression, her writing, with its incredible insight and self-awareness, will make it…
Loosely based on the horrific real-life case of the three young women held captive in a Cleveland house for over a decade, this remarkable debut novel is not for the faint of heart. Challenging both emotionally and stylistically, Ferrell takes…
Nimura's fascinating dual biography of the Blackwell sisters, Elizabeth and Emily, tells a little-known story about female medical pioneers. The Blackwell family emigrated from England in 1832 when Elizabeth and Emily were still children. Their…
Booker Prize Finalist and CPL Best of the Best author Brandon Taylor (Real Life) revisits scenes of midwestern life in Filthy Animals. With a strong focus on sexuality and intimacy, this character-driven collection of short stories pushes the…
In the vein of Daisy Jones and the Six, this is the fictional oral history of the short-lived, bright, burning rock duo that was Neville Charles and Opal Jewel. The story revolves around two central events, one in the past and one in the present.…
Brammer brings his warm and relatable writing style, honed over several years of writing an advice column, to this collection of self-help essays about coming out, dating and relationships, self-worth, Latinx identity and life in general. Along the…
Hough's candid, funny and sometimes heartbreaking memoir-in-essays is about being raised in the Children of God cult, joining the Air Force out of high school, being queer, and trying to scrape by in America as a bartender and cable guy. As she lays…
Fred Daniels, a Black man, is framed for a murder he did not commit. He escapes his captors and hides in the sewers and basements below Harlem. This novel could be inspired by today's headlines but was written in 1941. Essential reading from the…
For those of us who don't spend our time in the darkest corners of the internet, the rise of violent misogyny in recent years was probably a shock. Seemingly out of nowhere, it turned out men and boys were (and are) being radicalized, sometimes to…
Nella Rogers works as an editorial assistant for a prestigious publishing house in New York City, Wagner Books, and until recently has been the only black woman working there. She is thrilled when the newest hire, Hazel, another black women, joins…
A middle-aged woman (M.) lives close to nature with her family in a beautiful, remote marshland where they keep a second house, which they reserve for guests. She invites a famous painter (L.) to stay as a kind of sabbatical. She once encountered…
In her third graphic memoir, Bechdel views her life through the lens of her fitness endeavors, and they are considerable. Although she set out to write a light "fitness book," what unfolds is something with the heft of previous Bechdel memoirs. As…
51-year-old twins Jeannie and Julius live an isolated, hand-to-mouth existence with their mother Dot in a ramshackle, off-the-grid cottage in the English countryside. Still devastated by the accidental death of their father when the twins were…
This lyrical, introspective novel tells the story of a 46-year-old single woman living in an Italian city through a series of vignettes with titles like "In the Bookstore" and "In my Head." The unnamed protagonist, a university professor,…
