Fiction

If “Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down” is your battle cry, read this book. A Handmaid’s Tale for 2018, Red Clocks follows five women as they navigate private burdens and desires regarding pregnancy, fertility, and motherhood. Set in a world that’s like ours but with even more misogynistic laws, Red Clocks is a book for anyone who worries for the future of this country. - Jessica

This is a timely, beautifully written novel that reads like a fragmented memoir. Kimia Sadr fled Iran for France at age 10. She now sits in a fertility clinic recounting her family's history starting with her great grandfather, a feudal lord, and leading on to her dissident parents who protested the Shah's monarchy and then found themselves hated by the Islamists who deposed him. - Trey

More experimental than his other popular novels, Ondaatje's fictionalised account of the life of the legendary founding father of jazz, Buddy Bolden, is a thing of kaleidoscopic beauty. By turns poetic, disorienting, visceral, and erotic, Coming Through Slaughter depicts turn of the century New Orleans, and Bolden's developing schizophrenia, with haunting results. - Ilana

Stegner’s masterpiece features two plots, one modern-day and the other from the 1800s, as it tells the story of a historian trying to write the biography of his long-dead grandmother. Featuring gorgeous prose and characters as real and tangible as granite, the book is an iconic novel of the west and a deeply moving narrative of one family and our national collective past. - Rico

I kind of have an obsession with books where a woman is raised in extreme religious families. This fictional tale of a girl raised on TV with her preacher father, machinating mother, and five siblings fit the bill perfectly. I love the way Essie figures out how to escape by  using the rules and restrictions her parents set up against her. It is fantastically written. - Karena

Set at the moment of the Brexit vote, this book captures the fractured emotions of a post-election world while intelligently playing with reality and language. It’s full of tenderness and darkness, regrets and new opportunities for hope. I get excited whenever Ali Smith produces a new work because her writing reminds me of what a privilege it is to be alive. - Jessica

Believe the hype! This novel is a scorcher. Set around a powwow at the Oakland Coliseum, the book follows a large cast of characters as they navigate through their individual experiences as “urban Indians.” With prose that will pound at your heart, Orange draws us into the world of each character, and ultimately forces us to confront the darker truths of colonialism’s legacy. - Jessica

If you loved The Historian or People of the Book, this should be your next read. Dr. Voth, a modern-day historian, faces relationship troubles while researching a unique manuscript from 18th century London. Part counter-history, part historical-thriller, Rosenberg tackles transgender history and incarceration in this deeply satisfying mystery. - Clara

This quiet, unassuming novel has a strange power that grows with every page. Putatively telling the story of a meek academic beset by seemingly small setbacks, it captures, in heartbreaking detail, the story of a human life—flawed, poignant and ultimately tragic. Once out of print, it’s now more popular than ever, and will likely be around for a very long time to come. - Rico

This is epic historical fiction in line with fantasy favorites like A Game of Thrones and Half a King. Brother and sister duo Ragnvald and Svanhild are smack dab in the middle of a web of allegiances, ambitions and revenge. Hartsuyker reimagines the Viking sagas with deeply personal struggles amidst an environment of violence and shifting tides. - Clara