Favorite Non-fiction of 2018!

Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush

This book is equal parts gorgeous and terrifying. It’s a travelogue, a memoir, and most of all, an incredibly powerful piece of journalism about the eroding effects of climate change on our coastlines and coastal communities. Reading it felt like looking over Rush’s shoulder as she traveled to each devastated coastline location, discovering again and again the damage being done by rising sea levels-- the homes being lost, the lives being lost, the ecology being forever changed.

She mixes her reporting with first person accounts from people living in the locations she covers and her own personal story to create something really unique, truly compelling, and deeply vital. (Plus, gorgeous, eminently underlineable writing.)

Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh 

What a gorgeous book this is. Smarsh's prose is damn near poetry and her family story is both crazy and all too normal an experience for the "white working class" farm families in the heartland of America. 

Smarsh pulls some real wisdom about class and income inequality and prejudice out of her own history, yet is never remiss in pointing out that Black people in poverty had it much worse than families like hers. Her voice is strong and clear, nostalgic but realistic. You come away from the book really liking her, which is not always the case with memoir. She’s smart and strong and a formidable writer. I loved it.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

I absolutely could not put this book down once I started it. I carried it from room to room. I read it in the car while my husband was driving, which is pretty rude. I read it on a boat! Like while someone was water skiing! Seriously! It’s just the nuttiest story, and Carreyrou does a great job of bringing all of the craziness to life.

You may have heard about Elizabeth Holmes, the 19 year old Stanford dropout who started a blood testing company with a novel idea—test people for diseases with just a drop of blood, instead of a whole needle-full, and get their results in mere moments. It sounded great, and lots of venture capitalists and companies agreed. 

Unfortunately, she couldn’t make the tech work. The team behind Theranos made so many bad decisions, compounded by wild hubris and a psychotic need for complete control. And greed. And blind ambition. It’s nuts they got as far as they did. 

90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality by Allison Yarrow

I AM OBSESSED WITH THIS BOOK. I could not put it down. It was actually a problem. 

So, I was ages 6-16 during the 90s—old enough to know what was going on but not old enough to really get it. I knew about Nicole Brown, Monica Lewinsky, Lorena Bobbit, Murphy Brown, and Britney Spears. I knew the names and a rough idea of why people were talking shit about them but HOLY CRAP THE 90s WERE CRUEL TO WOMEN. These women were called bitches and no one saw a problem with it. Yarrow pulls all of these pieces of 90s cultural ephemera together into a cogent argument— “empowerment” was on the rise but so was the commodification of “girl power.” Women were making strides in business and politics but sexism was still rampant. The appearance was of progress but the reality was the same old shit. And the media had a lot to do with it. This book is so fascinating, entertaining, and compelling as hell. 

So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo

OKAY, WHITE PEOPLE. PICK UP THIS BOOK. BUY IT. READ IT. BE BETTER. Oluo has done us a HUGE service by writing this book. She addresses all the ways white people are getting race wrong, all the ways we are still talking and thinking about it wrong—affirmative action, white privilege, intersectionality, police brutality, microaggressions, and more. She explains what it is, how we can talk about it, why it’s important, and how we can be better. She gives examples of racist encounters from her own life—so not only is this a guidebook, it’s also a very personal look at Oluo’s life. (She’s amazing by the way.) Even for someone who thinks they are a great ally—you will come away with notes on how you can do better. 

My biggest takeaway—when you get something wrong, apologize and do better next time. Don’t be defensive. 

Pale Horse Rider: William Cooper, the Rise of Conspiracy, and the Fall of Trust by Mark Jacobsen

Well this book is 100% certifiably NUTS. It’s also an absolute must read if you are fascinated by conspiracy theories and the people who believe them/make them up. The subtitle makes it sounds like it’s a grand history about Truth in America, but it’s totally not. It’s just one nut’s story. It does say a lot about America and why some people believe what they believe, despite how ludicrous it is (I’m looking at you, Flat Earthers) and that makes it very relevant for today, “fake news” and Fox news and all. 

William Cooper is probably not someone you have heard of, though if you have? WEIRD BUT OKAY. He published a book with an obscure press called Behold a Pale Horse in 1991 that has gone on to sell 100s of thousands of copies—right wing nuts, rappers, and prison inmates are the most rabid fans. Which yup, that’s an odd group of people. Cooper had a crazy life and he believed some DEEPLY INSANE THINGS. This book is X Files come to life. I could not put it down or stop talking about it. (Ask my husband.) 

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee
This essay collection absolutely blew me away. I loved every minute of it. It’s the perfect thing for writers or aspiring writers, or readers who love to know how the sausage is made, how stories are pulled from a life, how that life remains intact and protected despite it. Chee is both a phenomenal writer, and I assume from this book, a gifted writing teacher. 

Through his essays, he takes us from his life growing up in rural Maine to college where he impulsively applied to be in Annie Dillard’s writing class, and what he learned when he got in. It’s about his life as a gay man, in San Francisco during the early 90s when AIDs was like a crashing wave. (His piece “After Peter” is one of the collection’s strongest and absolutely wrecked me.) He writes about his time at Iowa, learning how to craft stories, and his experiences as a cater waiter, most notably and wildly for the Buckleys. I loved his pieces about his rose garden and learning to read tarot. Uggghhhh it’s just sooooo goooooooooood. Read it.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

This book could not be lovelier. “Wait, isn’t it about a library fire,” you ask. “Like, just tons of books going up in smoke? Wait, are you one of those sickos who burns books? Why do you work at a bookstore? Wait...why...do...you...work...here. What is going on. Where is the fire exit.”

OKAY YES TECHNICALLY IT IS ABOUT A GREAT BIG AWFUL LIBRARY FIRE. But really, it’s about books and the people who love them. It’s about the goodness and needfulness of libraries. It’s about how the Los Angeles library system came into being, the leaders who made it what it is today (many were wonderful strong women), and the resiliency that was required to bring it back from the worst library fire in American history. And because it’s Susan Orlean, it’s fascinating— full of history you didn’t know you needed and written in the style of your coolest best friend telling you an unforgettable story about a strange thing that happened, oh, and also, about herself. 

Favorite Fiction of 2018

Fiction:

Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper

This novel is a homesick song of its own, written about a town on the coast in Canada on the verge of slipping away. Finn, a young boy who lives there with his sister and parents, until his sister runs away and his parents take turns leaving to work at the logging camps, will do anything he can to save his town, and his family. Finn’s parents, Martha and Aidan, have a beautiful love story of their own—met and fell in love, he a singing fisherman, she a mender of fishing nets, lured to the water by the sound of his voice.

It's a lovely story of a family, coming together, falling apart, and coming together again, laden with sweet sentimentality, populated with indelible characters you will love, and written in dreamy prose. I love it so much I just want to squeeze it. *squeezes book* *book squeezes back* *shoot is this book alive*

Florida by Lauren Groff
Such a stellar collection of stories, all centered around Florida—the place, the idea, the VIBE. Groff’s writing is just so freaking perfect, and a few of these stories left me absolutely motionless. (I think my favorite is “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners,” which is one of those incredible short stories that spans decades and yet is only 29 pages—a year is a paragraph and you feel that somehow you learned every pertinent detail you needed to know through her spare sentences and the ending is absolutely perfect.)

If you enjoy being totally stunned by magical writing, this is the book for you. (And when you’re done, read Fates and Furies and Arcadia and by all means read her New York Times “By the Book” interview in which she NAILS THE DAMN PATRIARCY.) She’s an absolute treasure. She’s our Alice Munro y’all.

Severance by Ling Ma
What would you do if you were the only person left in New York City? Why would you stay? That's what the group of survivors, headed for "the Facility," where they can shelter together and begin to rebuild after a catastrophic pandemic, are wondering about Candace Chen when they find her passed out in a Yellow Cab on a deserted highway in Pennsylvania. The story circles back to the beginning of the outbreak of Shen Fever, to Candace's experiences in China, and how she found herself alone on the 34th floor of an office building in Times Square, ransacking her coworkers' desks for face cream and Ramen.

It's funny, thoughtful, crazy suspenseful, and so well written. I couldn’t stop thinking about. Still haven’t. I loved it.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
This is suuuuuuuch a beautiful book. Makkai captures the AIDS epidemic in Chicago just the way a good ally should—with compassion, outrage, honesty, and huge amounts of research and acknowledgements. It feels close to her heart. She has also written just a dynamite story of friendship, love, innocence, and betrayal among a group of friends at the center of the crisis. It’s also a story of art and the long shadow of memory. Oh and then there’s a whole other storyline too, about motherhood and forgiveness and not being able to forgive, and PARIS. It’s all weaved together seamlessly and beautifully, with lovely writing and indelible characters.

It’s a full story with a big cast of characters, one to curl up with. It’s heartbreaking, yet also joyful. I loved it.

The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon
You know that thing where it feels like a writer is trying to impress you with their word choice? I’m not just talking straight up thesaurus abuse, which is bad enough, but that thing some writers do where they just try to twirl together interesting sounding verbs and phrases and similes until the sentence doesn’t even hold water anymore? WELL R.O. Kwon is so dang good at writing that I marveled at her gorgeous word choices and sentences (linden trees in a cemetery “raised their limbs in hallelujah”) yet I didn’t lose the thread of the story in the marveling. You could underline every sentence in this book. It’s just perfect.

And that says nothing about the story, which is also a wonder! Religion, both losing it and finding it, love, the losing and finding, the shackles of family and the freedom of being on your own. It’s about faith and fear and passion. It’s everything.
 
Washington Black by Esi Eduygan
This is an incredible novel. It does SO much. Reading it, you will be entertained and delighted, have your heart broken, be pissed off and shamed anew at the damage we did to Black people through slavery, educated, and utterly swept away by the narration.

Our narrator, Washington Black, “Wash,” is born into slavery on a plantation in Barbados. He’s protected by Kit, a hard woman who has a soft spot for him. She promises that when they die, they’ll be returned to the homeland, Africa. But before that can happen, Wash is chosen as the manservant to Titch, the younger brother of their cruel master. Though Titch benefits from the slave system, he doesn’t agree with it. When Wash is about to be implicated in a crime, Titch takes him and they escape in his flying machine, the balloon they have been working on for months. Their journey takes them around the world, working on scientific discoveries and running from the slave catchers. It’s an adventure story, a coming of age novel, a slave narrative, all in one. The writing is excellent and the story will take you on a journey you won’t soon forget.

She Would be King by Wayetu Moore
This truly important novel tells the story of the making of the nation of Liberia, not from the point of view of American politicians but from the unique perspectives of a Vai witch who cannot die, a freed slave with incredible strength, and a young Jamaican man with the power to become invisible, who use their gifts to save their people. It is poetic and gorgeously written, crazy powerful, and a stark reminder of the injustice of slavery and the will to survive. The only challenge I found was wanting to read it both quickly, because of how compelling it was, and slowly, to savor the prose.

Comparisons can be made to Homegoing, for its epic sweep of history that spans the US and countries in Africa, and The Underground Railroad, for the its touch of magic realism, but She Would Be King is truly a singular work of brilliance.

Scribe by Alyson Hagy
This truly peculiar (in the best possible sense!) novel of a woman living in a... pre-industrial post-apocalyptic future? ...an alternative history past?...who knows? whose mysterious skill is writing letters for people, letters that somehow say the unsayable, is holed up alone in a farmhouse when a stranger appears. Her life, as they say, will never be the same. Can she trust this man? Does he deserve her help? Dare she let him in?

This novel is fascinating, unsettling, and mysterious, with one of the best endings I've read in ages.

Stef's Favorite Books of 2018!

What a year of incredible books. Every year seems to be better than the last, doesn't it?  I didn't read as many small press books as I wanted to, but I am keeping to my goals of reading mostly women and POC, aka basically the only books worth reading. (Yeah I know, two white men made my list but damn, those books were goooood.) I told myself that in December I would start reading 2019 books but you know I'm just going to desperately try to finish all the books I started and didn't finish this year...it's a stack of about 30 books. Wish me luck.

I tried to narrow my favorites of 2018 down to five of each, but that just wasn't possible. Too much goodness. The next two posts will have my short reviews for each book. 

Fiction:
-Our Homesick Songs by Emma Hooper 
-Florida by Lauren Groff 

-Severance by Ling Ma 
-The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon
-Washington Black by Esi Eduygan
-The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
-She Would be King by Wayetu Moore
-Scribe by Alyson Hagy

Nonfiction:
-Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush
-Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh 
-Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

-90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality by Allison Yarrow
-So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo
-Pale Horse Rider: William Cooper, the Rise of Conspiracy, and the Fall of Trust by Mark Jacobsen
-How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee
-The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Fave Short Story Collections!

The Redemption of Galen Pike by Caryn Davies (Biblioasis)

This is a wonderful collection of short stories. Don’t be put off by the somewhat grotesque cover--Davies is actually a fairly traditional storyteller. Some of the stories reminded me of Alice Munro, in the way that she can lull you into thinking you understand a situation, only to pull the rug out from under you right at the last moment. Davies doesn’t do that every time, that would take the fun out of it, but the few times she does really work. I was pleasantly surprised or creeped out or delighted or horrified. It’s quite a nice payoff in a short story. Her writing is clean and solid, with just the right amount of lovely turns-of-phrases-- “herons and egrets picking their way delicately through the muddy sand.” She’s one of those “professional” writers--you know you’re in good hands when you enter one of her stories. Each one is a perfectly created little jewel box--solid, intricate, closing with the most satisfying snap.

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado  (Graywolf) 

Look at that cover! Feel the pages! Do you feel something sparkly and maybe a little weird holding this book? That’s the MAGIC, my friends. Don’t let it go! This unusual collection of stories veer from delightfully maudlin campfire ghost stories (a la Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, your favorite freak-out read from elementary school) to an absolutely heart-wrenching end-of-the-world dystopian told through a woman's increasingly significant relationships to the story of a girl, the goth dress shop she works at in the mall, and the dresses she sells that vibrate with life. !!!!! The writing is snappy and electric and utterly underline-able. Each story is its own weird little world but they all glow with sex, love, fear, and the terror of being alive. 

Fen: Stories by Daisy Johnson (Graywolf)

This collection of stories scrambled my brain a little bit, in the best possible sense-- they made me re-read, wonder, turn the book upside down, shake it a bit, see what other fantastical imaginings would fall out. Girls turning into eels, men into foxes, a house obsessed with a woman, a blood sucking girl gang preying on their internet dates. And a few stories that broke my heart too-- Johnson has a way of manifesting loneliness and loss into physical pain and malady that shocks the senses. I didn't read and worry that the same fate would befall me, but I did understand how the characters felt, how their tragedy grew so large it took physical form. Startling, unusual, and sneakily profound, Fen is an unforgettable collection. 

Stef's Favorite Books of 2017

My favorite books of 2017! Basically in the order that I read them, not the order that I liked them. I can't choose favorites among my favorites! What am I, a monster?

My reading goal for 2017 was to read more nonfiction by women (journalistic/research-based nonfiction--not memoir. No offense intended, memoir.) and I did read so many amazing books by brilliant women. It's a dang good goal if you're looking for one, and it does take a bit of effort-- there is undoubtedly a bias towards men when it comes to this type of nonfiction. I also kept up with my 2016 goal to read more women of color-- that remains the best reading decision of my adult life, easy. My 2018 reading goal is to read nonfiction by women of color, and to make it a priority to read small press books over the hyped hits from the Big Five.

My last goal is to break my habit of listening to audio books of "girl" thrillers. Sure, they're entertaining but it occurred to me recently that the protagonists are all white women, who are beautiful and who have nice things. Has there been a "girl" thriller with a main character who is a women of color? (Let me know if there has been-- I will read it!)

Best Book I Apparently Waited Until 2017 for Cosmic Reasons to Read: The Handmaid's Tale by duh

Fiction- Novels
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott
Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo
Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong
A Catalog of Birds by Laura Harrington
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Fiction- Short Story Collections:
The Redemption of Galen Pike by Carys Davies
Fen: Stories by Daisy Johnson
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado

Nonfiction
The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
The New Odyssey: The Story of the Twenty-First Century Refugee Crisis by Patrick Kingsley
The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple by Jeff Guinn
Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy by Tressie McMillan Cottom
Janesville: An American Story by Jane Goldstein
American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse
God in Captivity: The Rise of Faith-Based Prison Ministries in the Age of Mass Incarceration by Tanya Erzen
Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy by Sheryll Cashin
After the Eclipse: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Search by Sarah Perry
Real American: A Memoir by Julie Lythcott-Hayes

Nonfiction- Essay Collections
The Wrong Way to Save Your Life: Essays by Megan Stielstra
Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays by Durga Chew-Bose
The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit

YA
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Genuine Fraud by E Lockhart
Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu

And because I'm petty, the number of books I read all the way through but was BITTERLY disappointed with: 10 (That's a lot! Stop disappointing me, books!)

I'll follow up with more details about each book! She said confidently! 

Water Street Bookstore's Bestselling Books of 2016

Check out Water Street Bookstore's bestselling books for 2016, broken out by category. #1 with a bullet goes to The Fireman by Joe Hill! Thanks Joe!

Fiction- Hardcover

1. The Fireman by Joe Hill*

2. The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead 

3. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

4. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

5. My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

6. Storm Cell by Brendan DuBois*

7. Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

8. LaRose by Louise Erdrich

9. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett 

10. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Fiction- Paperback    
1. A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

2. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante 

3. The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

4. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

5. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman 

6. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

7. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

8. In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

9. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

10. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson 

Nonfiction- Hardcover

1. Belichick and Brady by Michael Holley

2. The Penny Poet of Portsmouth by Katherine Towler*

3. Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

4. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

5. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

6. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

7. Black Trumpet by Evan Mallett*

8. Tribe by Sebastian Junger

9. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo 

10. The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis

Nonfiction- Paperback

1. Waking Up White by Debby Irving

2. Glorify by Emily C. Heath*

3. The Old Farmer's Almanac 2017 

4. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

5. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

6. The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

7. H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

8. Hope and Healing for Transcending Loss by Ashley Davis Bush*

9. Exeter, Historically Speaking by Barbara Rimkunas*

10. Dead Wake by Erik Larson

Children's- Hardcover

1. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne

2. The Luck Uglies #3: Rise of the Ragged Clover by Paul Durham*

3. Wonder by R.J. Palacio

4. Mother Bruce by Ryan T. Higgins

5. The Thank You Book (An Elephant and Piggie Book) by Mo Willems 

6. Double Down (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #11) by Jeff Kinney

7. When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin

8. The Story of Diva and Flea by Mo Willems

9. The Trials of Apollo #1: The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan 

10. Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #2: The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan

Children's- Paperback

1. Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier

2. The Luck Uglies #1 by Paul Durham*

3. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

4. Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin

5. Apollo by George O'Connor

6. The Luck Uglies #2: Fork Tongued Charmers by Paul Durham*

7. Science Comics: Coral Reefs by Maris Wicks

8. The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

9. Smile by Raina Telgemeier

10. Zeus by George O'Connor 

* connotes a local author (way to go local authors!)

2017 Books to Anticipate! YAAAA!

So many great books are being published in 2017. These are just the ones I have ARCs for or have noticed in catalogs while ordering. So I know there are many more, many that I have missed. It's an embarrassment of riches, friends. Getting reading (and pre-ordering)! 

JANUARY
Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran (Putnam) (Already read this one-- it's INCREDIBLE)
Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan by Ruth Gilligan (Tin House)
Caraval by Stephanie Garber (Flatiron)
Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin (Riverhead) (So good, so trippy)
The Spider and the Fly: A Reporter, a Serial Killer, and the Meaning of Murder by Claudia Rowe (Dey St.)
4321 by Paul Auster (Henry Holt)
A Word for Love by Emily Robbins (Riverhead)
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich (Random House)
American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus by Lisa Wade (WW Norton)
The Man Who Shot Out My Eye is Dead by Chenelle Benz (Ecco)
Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson (Ecco)
The New Odyssey: The Story of the Twenty-First Century Refugee Crisis by Patrick Kingsley (Liveright)
Thirteen Shells by Nadia Bozak (House of Anansi)
Always Happy Hour: Stories by Mary Miller (Liveright)
Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin by Sybrina Fulton (Spiegel & Grau)
The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson (Simon & Schuster)
Once We Were Sisters by Sheila Kohler (Penguin)
What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump's America edited by Denis Johnson and Valerie Merians (Melville House)

FEBRUARY 
300 Arguments: Essays by Sarah Manguso (Graywolf)
Autumn by Ali Smith (Pantheon)
Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez (Hogarth)
Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller (Tin House)
All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai (Dutton)
The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill (Riverhead)
A Separation by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead)
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Grand Central) (Read it already-- WOW. It is magnificent.)
Everything Belongs to Us by Yoojin Grace Wuertz (Random House)
Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School by Carla Shalaby (New Press)
Beasts of Burden: Animal and Disability Liberation by Sunaura Taylor (New Press)

MARCH
Follow Me into the Dark by Felicia Sullivan (Feminist Press)
Edgar and Lucy by Victor Lodato (St. Martin's)
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg (HMH)
Wait Till You See Me: Stories by Deb Olin Unferth (Graywolf)
The Impossible Fairy Tale by Han Yujoo (Graywolf)

The One-Eyed Man by Ron Currie (Viking)
Sonora by Hannah Lillith Assadi (Soho)
The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy (Random House)
Our Short History by Lauren Grodstein (Algonquin)
Ill Will by Dan Chaon (Ballantine)
The Wanderers by Meg Howrey (Putnam)
The Idiot by Elif Batuman (Penguin Press)
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead)
The Hearts of Men by Nickolas Butler (Ecco)
The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel (Knopf)
Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett (Tin House)
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti (Dial)
How to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood by Peter Moskowitz (Nation Books) 
South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion (Knopf)
The Vine That Ate the South by J.D. Wilkes (Two Dollar Radio)
For Love of the Dollar by J.M Servin (Unnamed Press)

APRIL
Kingdom of the Young: Stories  by Edie Meidav (Sarabande)
Underground Fugue by Margot Singer (Melville House)
The Givers: Money, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age by David Callahan (Knopf)
Unreliable by Lee Irby (Doubleday)
Rebel Mother by Peter Andreas (Simon & Schuster) 
The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn (Simon & Schuster)
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch (Harper)
Marlena by Julie Buntin (Henry Holt)
American War by Omar El Akkad (Knopf)
No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts (Ecco)
What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky: Stories by Lesley Nneka Arimah (Riverhead)
Sunshine State: Essays by Sarah Gerard (Harper Perennial)

MAY 
Fen: Stories by Daisy Johnson (Graywolf) 
Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women by Susan Burton and Cari Lynn (New Press) 
Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki (Hogarth)
Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny (Knopf)
The Leavers by Lisa Ko (Algonquin)
Priestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood (Riverhead)
The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die by Keith Payne (Viking)
The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (Flatiron) (Reading it now--holy cow)
The Invisible Mile by David Conventry (Europa Editions)
Broken River by J. Robert Lennon (Graywolf)
My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir by Jessica B. Harris (Scribner)
Seeing People Off by Jana Benova (Two Dollar Radio)

JUNE
Wolf Whistle Politics: Feminists on the Most Misogynistic Presidential Election in American History edited by Sarah Burnes and Kera Bolonik (New Press)
Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy (Riverhead)
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (Harper)
Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash (Coffee House Press)
Perfect Conditions by Vanessa Blakeslee (Curbside Splendor)
Fingerprints of Previous Owners by Rebecca Entel (Unnamed Press)
Blue Money by Janet Capron (Unnamed Press)

JULY
Made for Love by Alissa Nutting (Ecco)
What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons (Viking)

AUGUST
Addicted to Reform: A Twelve Step Program to Rescue Public Education by John Merrow (New Press)
Infinite Things All at Once by Rachel Yoder (Curbside Splendor)

SEPTEMBER
The Twelve Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson (Ecco) (reading it now--spectacular)

SOMEDAY...

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (Penguin Press)