1. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. Narratives from the past, present and future overlap through time travel, the beauty of the North American wilderness and the song of the violin. Fans of The Glass Hotel will be excited to revisit some of the same characters, however Mandel’s past work is not a prerequisite to this latest.
  2. Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong. Vuong contends with personal and political grief in the aftermath of his mother’s death in his second book of poetry.
  3. Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow. A mother and two young daughters flee domestic violence to discover their lineage of trauma as well as powerful matrilineal line in Memphis.
  4. The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar. A closeted Syrian-American trans boy discovers secrets of his mother’s ornithological research after her death.
  5. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. A retired Hollywood starlet asks a seemingly random journalist to set the record straight about her scandalous life before it ends and reveal moments untouched by the limelight, one of which implicates the journalist.
  6. The Secrets of Character by Matt Bird. This writer’s guide offers actionable tools to make your reader believe in the reality of, care about the circumstances of, and invest their hopes in your hero.
  7. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. An “Artificial Friend” observes the world in great detail from the window of her store until the family of a gifted child brings her home to demonstrate the limits of humanity up close.
  8. The Candy House by Jennifer Egan. A tech giant discovers how to access every memory one has ever had and to share these memories in exchange for access to the memories of others. Interlocking narratives demonstrate the victimhood, exploitation and dismissal of ever-expanding technological feats.
  9. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. Vuong explores the loving but fraught relationship between single mother and son, along with race class, and masculinity in the form of a letter from the novel’s narrator to his mother, who can’t read.
  10. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad.