The Best Books of 2019

On a remote peninsula in Russia, two sisters—one eight years old, the other 11—accept a ride home from a stranger and disappear. Over the next year, the investigation into their abduction goes nowhere. Disappearing Earth follows the lives of the other women and men on the peninsula, who go on living and working even as the missing girls' case remains unsolved. Phillips introduces readers to a part of Russia not often found in literature. This is a thriller for those who also want to sink their teeth into arresting, literary prose.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Are dreams a window into the future or merely random thoughts? In Karen Thompson Walker’s The Dreamers, a small California college town is suddenly the site of a mysterious, rapidly spreading disease that causes victims to fall into a deep sleep. With mellifluous prose, Walker traces victims’ experiences (awake and asleep), along with how their family members, friends, and doctors respond to the crisis.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In her beautifully written Red at the Bone, Jacqueline Woodson traces the story of two black families who are linked when their teenage children have a baby. The novel opens as the pair’s daughter, Melody, is readying for her coming-of-age ceremony and moves back in time, switching characters, exploring how decisions ripple through generations. A slim novel with tremendous emotional power.

To buy: $20, amazon.com.

Bowlaway, author Elizabeth McCracken's first novel in 20 years, centers around a candlepin bowling alley in a small Massachusetts town at the turn of the 20th Century and the alley's mysterious owner, Bertha Truitt, who blew into town one day. From where? Nobody knows. Over her years living in the town and opening Truitt Alleys, Bertha becomes a living legend. After she dies unexpectedly, a man arrives in town proclaiming he's her son and the rightful heir to the business, and Bertha's past begins to emerge. McCracken's delightful prose and rich historical details make this the perfect book to get lost in.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Ann Patchett examines sibling relationships in her latest novel, The Dutch House. After their father buys a lavish estate, Danny and Maeve find their lives upturned—and their bond solidified—when their mother, appalled by the purchase, runs off. Later, their new stepmother exiles them. Patchett’s rich story follows Danny’s and Maeve’s paths, showing how the past has a hold on their present.

To buy: $20, amazon.com.

Marie Mitchell isn’t the usual Cold War novel protagonist: She’s a young black woman working in an almost entirely white, male-staffed FBI. As her career stalls, she’s recruited by a CIA operative to help the U.S. overthrow the leader of an ­African country by seduction. But when she de­velops real feelings for the revo­lutionary, she begins to question her duty to ­country. ­Lauren ­Wilkinson’s Ameri­can Spy, ­inspired by true events, is a thrilling, original read. 

To buy: $27, amazon.com.

Harriet Lee is raising her daughter, Perdita, and navigating the school’s parents association. Her life is pretty typical of a London mom’s except for the fact that the dolls in her apartment talk, she’s from a country that doesn’t exist, and she bakes a powerful gingerbread that connects her to home and her childhood friend Gretel. Helen Oyeyemi’s wholly original Gingerbread is a modern fairy tale about family history and legacy.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Newly separated, Toby is trying to balance spending weekends with his kids; managing a schedule with his ex, Rachel; and working a demanding job as a hepatologist. Then there’s his busy life on dating apps. He’s coping until Rachel drops the kids off and doesn’t return. Piecing together her disappearance, Toby has to look back. Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Fleishman Is in Trouble is a wry novel about marriage with a fully realized protagonist.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In 1953, Roya finds solace from school, family, and Tehran’s political upheaval in a stationery shop, where she meets Bahman, a striking, opinionated young man. Despite his family’s objections, they plan to marry in secret. But Bahman doesn’t show, and Roya leaves Iran. Decades later, she gets a chance to ask him what happened that day. Marjan Kamali’s The Stationery Shop is an affecting novel about first love.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

The amenities at Golden Oaks sound like those of a picture-perfect wellness retreat: beautiful grounds, daily organic meals, fitness trainers, massages and other treatments. Only, the women staying there aren't there to unplug and recharge. They're there to give birth. And not to their own children. They're there to give birth to the babies the uberwealthy, who pay exorbitant fees to ensure their surrogates are at peak healthiness. The surrogates—mostly immigrants—in turn cannot leave. When struggling single mother and Filipina immigrant Jane signs on, she figures she can live without seeing her daughter for nine months for the life-changing fee she'll earn. The Farm is a page-turning novel about motherhood, immigration, and class that's perfect for the times we're living in. Buckle up for this one.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In Nicole Dennis-Benn’s Patsy, the title character leaves Jamaica—and her daughter, Tru—to start a new life in the United States and reunite with her onetime girlfriend, Cicely. But she’s quickly disheartened: The only job she can get is as a bathroom cleaner, and she discovers Cicely has married a man. Alternating between Patsy’s and Tru’s perspectives, Dennis-Benn tells a brutally honest story with ample topics for discussion.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In her thoughtful, page-turning debut memoir, Scorah gives readers a look at daily life as a Jehovah's Witnesses—the routine, the constant church obligations, the sacrifices she and her husband make for their faith—and as illegal missionaries in China. Exposed to new sights and nonbelievers outside her insular world, she begins to question her faith. Fans of Educated and The Book of Separation itching for a new read about finding freedom and leaving a strict religion, will find much to enjoy.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

After war breaks out in Syria, Nuri and his wife, Afra, flee Aleppo, traveling toward the United Kingdom, where they plan to apply for asylum. The trying physical and mental journey is made more so by Afra’s sudden, unexplained blindness and the recent traumas that haunt them both. In The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy Lefteri, who volunteered at a refugee center in Athens, tells a powerful story about the refugee experience, hope, and love.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

Elizabeth Ames’s impressive debut, The Other’s Gold, follows the lives of Alice, Ji Sun, Lainey, and Margaret, who are assigned as roommates at a Harvard-esque college and forge an immediate, intense friendship. As they navigate college and then parenthood, their seemingly unbreakable bond is tested by a mistake each woman makes. Ames’s well-drawn characters and startling prose will linger with you.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

Téa Obreht finally returns, eight years after The Tiger’s Wife, with the genre-defying Inland. Out in the bone-dry Arizona Territory in 1893, Nora is waiting for her husband to come back with water. Lurie is on the run from the law and joins a camel calvary. Over the course of the novel, Obreht masterfully intertwines their seemingly unconnected stories with the rich prose, nods to history, and elements of magical realism she’s known for.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

Novelist and critic Zadie Smith needs no introduction. This month, she releases her first-ever book of short stories, Grand Union. In these pages, Brexiteers vacation at an all-inclusive resort in Spain and two old friends talk aging over dinner in Paris. Smith shows off her range—the stories span genres from post-modernism to dystopian fiction—in this imaginative collection.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

In All This Could Be Yours, a heart attack sends a ruthless real estate developer to his deathbed. On his final day, his wife, two adult children, and daughter-in-law reflect on family secrets with potentially huge consequences and their relationships with the patriarch. Jami Attenberg’s characters (family members as well as outsiders via clever cameos) are deftly developed, making for a fast but satisfying read.

To buy: $24, amazon.com.

Though today Díaz has all the markers of a successful writer (several literary prizes, stories in prestigious magazines and journals), she grew up in poverty in Humacao, Puerto Rico and later, Miami, struggling with addiction and drug abuse, and wrestling with her identity as a queer, mixed race woman. In her memoir Ordinary Girls, she shares the story of her sometimes brutal childhood and teenage years and how she began to see herself as worthy of more.

To buy: $27, amazon.com.

In this arresting memoir, Brodeur (cofounder, with Francis Ford Coppola, of literary magazine Zoetrope and director of Aspen Words) writes about her unusual relationship with her mother. At their Cape Cod summer house, Malabar divulges to Brodeur, then 14 years old, that she's kissed their longtime family friend, Ben. As Ben and Malabar begin a long affair, Brodeur becomes her mother's confidant and co-conspirator. Brodeur writes devastatingly about how this affected her relationships as she got older and how she struggled to untether herself from her enigmatic mother and come into her own. 

To buy: $24, amazon.com.

In 1925, former slave Josephine owns a thriving farm. But a friendship with a white neighbor threatens all she’s built. In 2017, her descendant, single mom Ava, moves in with her white grandmother, who starts to turn on her. Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s The Revisioners is a stunning, necessary novel about racism, family history, and survival.

To buy: $23, amazon.com.

If you're a Jenny Slate fan hoping for a comical, Bossypants-esque memoir from the creator of Marcel the Shell, star of Obvious Child, and fan favorite on shows like Parks & Rec, Little Weirds is definitely...not that. But if you love more experimental short stories and essays, it's a delightful and often insightful read. She intersperses longer pieces touching on everything from heartbreak and divorce to finding self-love (with a fictional short story thrown in the mix), with "little weirds," very short, quirky little breathers and musings. "I Died: Listening" is a standout, an essay about an interaction with a man who is interrupting and mansplaining, causing Slate's head to spin and fall off and "bonk" down on the floor (metaphorically, of course, but still, every woman will nod).

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

Looking to settle in with something spine-chilling this fall or winter? Jewell's latest thriller The Family Upstairs is the book. On her 25th birthday, Libby Jones gets a letter she's been waiting for—the one that finally reveals who her birth parents are and what happened to them. Only, she's in for the shock of her life. Her parents were horrifically, disturbingly murdered and, if that wasn't shocking enough, have left her their multi-million dollar London townhouse. As Libby navigates her new reality, little does she know that there are other people who have been waiting for this day. With a satisfying twist and loads of rich detail (especially about that townhouse!), Jewell solidifies herself as one of our favorite thriller writers.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

RELATED: 35 Chilling Psychological Thrillers and Mysteries to Add To Your Reading List Now

In Shannon Pufahl’s atmospheric novel, On Swift Horses, a woman and her brother-in-law crave freedom in the 1950s American West. Restless Muriel secretly bets on horses and keeps her winnings from her husband. Itinerant, closeted Julius searches for his lover in Las Vegas and Tijuana. With satisfyingly slow prose, Pufahl explores identity and paths not taken.

To buy: $27, amazon.com.

Morgenstern follows up her blockbuster debut novel The Night Circus with The Starless Sea, a book for book lovers if there ever was one. In the library on campus, graduate student Zachary discovers a curious tome, featuring a story from his own life, that eventually leads him to a secret society and the fantastical underground world (the Starless Sea, as in the novel's name) they're trying to protect. Clocking in at an epic 500 pages, The Starless Sea is deeply engrossing novel full of myths, metaphors, and layers readers will love to unpack.

To buy: $21, amazon.com.

To raise a healthy eater, all you’ve got to do is feed your kid a balanced diet and get some veggies in, right? It’s not so simple, writes Bettina Elias Siegel in Kid Food. In expert detail, the writer, activist, and parent highlights the many ways children’s eating habits are influenced by outside forces—from the halls of Congress to the offices of ad agencies. A compelling, informative read for any parent.

To buy: $24, amazon.com.

Young-adult and fantasy author Daniel José Older blends magical realism, mystery, and a bit of his own family history in his first adult novel, The Book of Lost Saints. During the Cuban Revolution, Marisol disappears. Later, as a spirit, she haunts her nephew through his dreams, prompting him to look for the truth about what happened to her. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking tale.

To buy: $27, amazon.com.

For the conflict-averse, arguing is deeply uncomfortable, frustrating, and often upsetting. Worse, in our increasingly fractious world, we’re losing the ability to productively disagree with others, writes tech entrepreneur Buster Benson in Why Are We Yelling? Benson offers helpful strategies for identifying anxieties and biases and asking questions that lead to better debate.

To buy: $27, amazon.com.

Olive Kitteridge fans rejoice: Strout returns to her famous character (which won her a Pulitzer Prize in 2009, in Olive, Again, a collection of 13 related stories. In these pages, set in the fictional Crosby, Maine, Olive remarries, navigates loss and grief, and reflects on her relationship with her son, Christopher. As complicated, sad, but somehow hopeful as the original.

To buy: $24, amazon.com.

Much has been written—in scientific literature and commercial books and magazine articles—about the importance of the pill in helping women inch closer to equality and choose when they want to start a family. But less explored in mainstream writing is how the pill can affect women physically and mentally, from lowering a woman's sex drive to affecting her choice of partner. This Is Your Brain on Birth Control is pro-pill, but author Hill, who studies evolutionary psychology, highlights some thought-provoking research and findings that many women will appreciate knowing.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In No Stopping Us Now, the New York Times columnist and social commentator turns her attention to something of a still-taboo topic: American women and aging. Sure, there's plenty of advice about how women can try to stave off the physical signs of getting older (including on this very website). But the less-told story is the inspiring one: from Hillary Clinton to human rights activist Ella Baker, older women have been hugely influential—changing policy and America for the better. Collins' new book is joyous celebration.

To buy: $30, amazon.com.

Plenty has been written about the invisible work women shoulder at home, but there hasn’t been as much in the way of actionable advice. Enter Fair Play. Based on research and interviews with 500 people of different income levels, races, and backgrounds, author and organizational management expert Eve Rodsky outlines a hands-on strategy to divide tasks and achieve household harmony.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

The next time you’re looking for a comforting personal essay, curl up with Eat Joy, a collection of food stories (with recipes and sweet illustrations) from a group of 31 notable writers, including Alexander Chee, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Claire Messud. Editor Natalie Eve Garrett breaks up the essays into four themes—growing pains, loss, healing, and home-coming—so readers can dip in and out as they like.

To buy: $22, amazon.com.

When she was 11, Axton Betz-Hamilton’s parents had their identities stolen and finances ruined. She watched them fight constantly—with each other and with various lenders—before distancing themselves from their loved ones out of paranoia. In her true crime memoir, The Less People Know About Us, Betz-Hamilton investigates her family’s past and how this crime rippled through her whole life.

To buy: $27, amazon.com.

In this rich, heartbreaking immigrant story, 15-year-old Ana Cancion marries a man twice her age who promises her a ticket out of the Dominican Republic. In New York City, where they settle, her new husband is controlling and abusive. But when he returns to the island to take care of family, Ana begins to come into her own and hatch a plan to leave him. Cruz's Dominicana is a coming-of-age story about making choices for survival versus love.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

After losing her fiancé in in the first world war, Violet is relegated to life as a "surplus woman" (a term used to describe a generation of women unable to marry after so many men were killed in the war) caring for her mother. Defying societal expectations for the time, Violet saves enough money to leave her mother's house, moving to Winchester to become an embroiderer for a British cathedral. There, she finds a community of women like herself and, finally, fulfillment. But as another war looms, Violet's newfound independence is threatened. A satisfyingly slow, character-driven historical novel about friendship, sexuality, and choices. 

To buy: $24, amazon.com.

A young Italian woman falls for a black American Buffalo Soldier fighting the German invasion of her Tuscan hometown in Campbell's epic romantic novel, The Sound of the Hours. As Vita and Frank grow closer, sneaking off together when they can, the war rages on, forcing them to confront devastating losses, prejudice, and an uncertain future. These are two characters, and a love story, to get lost in.

To buy: $29, amazon.com.

In the latest novel from the author of Room, Noah, a retired professor, suddenly becomes his estranged 11-year-old nephew Michael's guardian on the eve of a big trip. After unearthing a few mysterious photos of his mother's, Noah plans to go to Nice, France, where she had stayed behind during the Nazi occupation. Begrudgingly, Noah brings Michael along. As the two uncover Noah's mother's past, they'll make surprising discoveries about each other along the way. A highly readable and emotional novel.

To buy: $20, amazon.com.

When Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s army invades Ethiopia in 1935, Emperor Haile Selassie and his men struggle to curtail their advance. Meanwhile, women like Hirut, an officer’s maid, want to do more than tend to wounded men. As the national fight seems lost, Hirut hatches a plan. Maaza Mengiste’s ambitious and illuminating novel, The Shadow King, is about the impact of war on women and the question of who gets to write history.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

A century in the future, the earth has flooded. As some people settle colonies and others—including pirates—take to the sea, Myra and her daughter survive on their fishing boat. When Myra is tipped off to the location of her other daughter, they embark on a dangerous journey. Kassandra Montag’s After the Flood is an intense, gripping debut about motherhood and grief.

To buy: $28, amazon.com.

Disillusioned by the culture of one-upmanship in the D.C. suburb where they’re raising their two daughters, Dan Kois and his wife set off to experience different ways of life and parenting in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. How to Be a Family is a hilarious and honest book about family and how wherever you (and your kids) go, there you (and their screens) are.

To buy: $28, amazon.com.

In a (maybe not too distant future) an ecommerce company called Cloud has taken over the American economy, proporting to be trying to make everyone's lives easier. Paxton, whose own independent business was ruined by Cloud, finds himself so desperate for a job that he takes a job in one of the company's work-live warehouses. At orientation, he meets Zinnia, who (unbeknownst to him and everyone else) has been hired by a mysterious client to get dirt on Cloud. As Zinnia digs deeper into Cloud's security networks, programs, and mission—using Paxton and his connections in the Cloud security department—she'll uncover secrets and make gambles she, and the country, may not be prepared for. The Warehouse is an absolutely thrilling read that asks timely questions about tech, how we shop now, and who gets to be included in a company's mission to make the world a better place. 

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

In this novel, two Egyptian sisters, Rose and Gameela, go on separate paths and drift apart. Rose leaves Cairo for New York City to work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Egyptian history galleries. Gameela, a devout Muslim, stays behind and is killed in a suicide bombing a few years after the 2011 revolution. Rose travels back to Cairo to tend to her sister's affairs, but soon begins to learn things about her sister and her choices she never knew. A Pure Heart is an emotional portrait of sisterly relationships and how political strife and change affects even the most personal aspects of our lives. 

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

In the Country of Women is as much a memoir about the author's life (being mentored by James Baldwin, marrying a black man and raising three mixed-race daughters as a white woman) as it is a big-hearted tribute to the strength of women. Straight, writing to her daughters, explores the lives of the women on both sides of their family, who immigrated to America, fled the Jim Crow-era South, and more. Through her family's story, she tells the story of America.

To buy: $26, amazon.com.

Two couples—Nan and James, and Lily and Charles—are connected by the church they belong to in Greenwich Village. Over about five decades, and against the backdrop of a changing New York City, they navigate marriage, change, rivalry, and questions and crises of their Christian faith in this impressive debut. It's a novel for nonbelievers as much as true believers and one with deeply human characters anyone will want to follow.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

In The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom weaves her personal and family history with the history of New Orleans. In 1961 her mother bought a shotgun house in a burgeoning neighborhood. Broom recounts how the house began to crumble after her father’s death and as the neighborhood took a bad turn, and she interviews family members about Hurricane Katrina. She writes most movingly about the pull of home and what it means to return.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Many of us probably want to buy a little more ethically and sustainably when it comes to our clothes. But it can be hard to move away from fast-fashion habits, purge closets, and distinguish between authentic and deceptive marketing. Let Elizabeth L. Cline be your guide to shopping better—whether you’re a minimalist or a fashionista—in her reassuring, resource-filled book, The Conscious Closet.

To buy: $12, amazon.com.

If unlikeable characters aren't your thing, move along to the next book. The cast of Dermansky's new novel are...not very nice. But that's what makes this smart satire so delicious. After Rachel becomes involved with her college professor, Zahid, he leaves her with his standard poodle while he visits family abroad. When he returns to the Gold Coast Connecticut home Rachel shares with her mother, Becca, Zahid starts an affair with her, too. This character-driven, unputdownable farce makes for the perfect summer book.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

Two women—depressed, coasting along Roberta and artistic, enigmatic Stevie—meet and start an unconventional supper club where women imbibe and let loose to the extreme in Williams' debut novel. As their club grows in size and boldness, Roberta must confront some past baggage. Supper Club is a wholly original look at literal and figurative hunger, female friendship, and finding yourself.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In this ambitious work of literary historical fiction, Koe traces the lives of actresses Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, and Leni Riefenstahl after they are photographed together in 1928 Berlin. Crossing continents and moving through decades, Koe explores these women's sexual lives, ambitions, and compromises, perfectly blending real history with imagined narratives.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

Maddie, a former housewife-turned-divorcée and aspiring reporter, becomes obsessed with the unsolved murder of Cleo, a black woman whose body turns up in a lake, in Lippman's latest mystery. Lippman (a Real Simple contributor) conjures the city of Baltimore and a Baltimore Sun-esque newsroom in the 1960s and explores race, sexism, class, and more through the alternating perspectives of Maddie, the ghost of Cleo, and a cast of other characters.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In the aftermath of a global political and economic meltdown, two lovers on opposite sides of the country try to find each other without a way to communicate or travel. Though there are dangers (a deadly flu, a radio proselytizer trying to recruit people to join his group), this is a post-apocalyptic novel in the vein of Station Eleven about hope.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Parents in a wealthy town find out their public school system is about to get even better. The new Crystal Academy magnet will cater to “exceptional learners” entering sixth grade who pass an aptitude test and portfolio review. As the pressure to get in rises, relationships unravel and parents and kids behave very badly. Bruce Holsinger’s The Gifted School is a propulsive story about class and parental one-upmanship.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

Gretchen McCulloch’s Because Internet is not your English teacher’s grammar guide—not even close. Self-described internet linguist McCulloch traces how the web has changed the way we communicate—whether through emoji, lowercase letters, or cat memes—and makes a compelling, entertaining argument that this change is good for the English language as a whole.

To buy: $15, amazon.com.

When Abigail Sorensen was on the cusp of 16, her brother went missing, and she was mailed the first chapter of a book that promised to change her life. Over the next two decades, she sporadically received the rest. Now Abigail is invited to a retreat to “learn the truth” about the book, leading her on a journey to deeper truths about her brother and herself. Jaclyn Moriarty’s Gravity Is the Thing is a quirky novel with a lot of heart.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

For eight years, Lisa Taddeo moved around the country, embedding herself in the lives of three American women with drastically different sexual experiences to understand their deepest and sometimes darkest desires. The resulting work of literary nonfiction, Three Women, is an emotionally powerful and narratively enthralling portrait of these women’s—and indeed many women’s—wants, needs, pains, pleasures, and heartbreaks.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In Kalisha Buckhanon’s Speaking of Summer, a woman is consumed by her search for her missing sister. One winter night in Harlem, Autumn Spencer’s twin, Summer, goes onto their apartment roof and vanishes without even leaving footprints in the snow. When police dismiss Summer’s disappearance and stop looking for leads, Autumn’s obsession spirals. This is a page-turning mystery with much to say about race and family.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

In her ambitious new novel, Mrs. Everything, we follow two sisters, Jo and Bethie, from their idyllic childhood in 1950s Detroit to the 2016 election—showing how hardships, large and small, and trauma can derail dreams and change the course of an entire life. Weiner paints rich, full portraits of these sisters—and the experiences and expectations of women over the last seven decades. A sweeping, unputdownable new novel from the beloved writer. 

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Winslow's impressive debut novel introduces readers to both a flawed, fascinating character in fiction and a wonderful new voice in literature. Knot, a hard-living black woman who loves men, booze, and books, is ostracized from her family and her small, gossipy North Carolina town, but strikes up some semblance of a friendship with her neighbor, Otis, who helps her find a couple to adopt the baby she's having out of wedlock. Winslow traces their friendship over four decades, revealing their own pasts and secrets along the way. Knot and Otis will stay with you a long time after you turn the final page.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

Elizabeth Gilbert needs no introduction, except to say that if you haven't read her fiction, you've been missing out. Her latest novel, City of Girls, is an electrifying novel about a 19-year-old girl who fails out of Vassar and moves to Manhattan to live with her aunt—the owner of a failing theater. Introduced to the playhouse's showgirls who make 1940s New York their playground—sleeping with men, staying out drinking until morning—Vivian embeds herself in the theater and comes to realize what kind of life she wants to live. Now, as she's about to enter her nintieth decade, she is ready to tell her story. This is sure to be a big summer read.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

It has been more than six decades since Georgianna's mother was murdered by her father on a canoe trip at a summer camp the couple owned in Wisconsin. When, on her seventieth birthday, she gets a letter in the mail from the only other person alive who saw them that day, Georgianna decides to go back to the camp for the first time and take her grown children and grandchildren with her. A tightly written family drama that still manages to pack in deeper points about racism, memory, and time. 

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

If you're traveling down South this somewhere or looking for a novel with lush, atmospheric prose a la Where The Crawdads Sing, Deb Spera's debut novel belongs in your bag. In Call Your Daughter Home, the lives of three women—battered wife and mother Gertrude, freed slave Retta, and plantation matriarch Annie—become unpredictably intertwined against the backdrop of the Great Depression and a changing South. The novel shines in its portrait of women's strength and friendship.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Raised by relatives in the Netherlands for the first decade of her life, Sylvie moves to the United States to live with her Chinese immigrant parents and sister. She goes back to the Netherlands years later to see her ailing grandmother for the last time—and disappears. Distraught, her sister, Amy, travels to find her. Jean Kwok’s Searching for Sylvie Lee has a mystery at its core, but it’s more an enlightening exploration of racism and the immigrant experience.

To buy: $22, amazon.com.

A lot has changed since Geraldine, Sunny, and Rachel were working at a magazine together. In Toronto, Geraldine’s career has stalled. In New York City, Rachel is trying to write a young-adult novel while raising a baby, and everything is coming up roses as usual for Sunny. When Geraldine moves to New York, old slights and tensions bubble up. In How Could She, Lauren Mechling captures the power dynamics, competitiveness, and beauty of female friendships.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

This sweeping family epic, The Guest Book, follows three generations of the Miltons. Your classic American WASPs, they've amassed great wealth and enjoyed the many privileges afforded to them for the last century. Through tumult and change, across decades, there has always been the island off Maine, where they've summered. But come present-day, the new generation of Miltons might be forced to sell—and must reckon with uncomfortable family history. Blake masterfully tells the Miltons' history—racism, prejudice, betrayal, loss, and all—and in the process, captures a slice of American history as well. 

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In today's world of social media highlight reels, gone are the days where we did things just for fun or didn't worry about being terrible at those things. Expanding on her popular New York Times op-ed, Rinaldi writes about being a terrible surfer. Even though she's spent two decades surfing, she's not much better at it than when she started. And that's a good thing, she argues. Drawing from social science research, psychology, literature, and more, Rinaldi explores how sucking can actually help us find joy.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

University gardener May Attaway is granted 30 days paid vacation from her job and, inspired by Homer's The Odyssey, decides to use this time to visit four long-distance friends—each dealing with their own twists and turns in life—across the country and abroad. As May makes these visits, she reflects on grief and losing her mother years prior, stepping out of her comfort zone, and reconnecting with people from the past. Full of witticisms and broader life lessons, Rules for Visiting will stay with readers.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

Recently divorced, grieving curmudgeon Louis McDonald Jr. has haphazardly retired from his job in anticipation of an inheritance from his late father and now spends his days watching TV. On the way to pick up a prescription, he takes a detour to avoid his ex-wife and stumbles on a sign for free dogs. Impulsively, he walks in and adopts border collie Layla. With Layla, his life will change, but not in the ways he or the reader will expect. Miller has written a sweet, finely written novel about aging and second chances.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

As the title of Juliet Grames’s novel, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna, implies, Stella has had a lot of brushes with death. While growing up in poverty in Italy, she is horribly burned by hot oil; much later, she falls and is lobotomized, waking up suddenly hating her sister. The novel’s unnamed narrator traces Stella’s life through these near misses. The result is a portrait of a resilient woman who, despite the often brutal, patriarchal world she lives in, carries on.

To buy: $20, amazon.com.

Magazine editor Justine is surprised when she bumps into her childhood crush, Nick. While they’re catching up, he reveals his obsession with horoscopes—specifically the ones in her publication. When Justine begins editing the astrology column, she gets a little creative with her rewrites to sway Nick into realizing they’re meant for each other. Minnie Darke’s Star-Crossed is a charming love story with deeper points about belief and consequences.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

In Ladysitting, Lorene Cary recounts her grandmother’s rich life—one that spanned a century, from the Great Migration to the election of the first black president—and her final year, at age 100, when she moved in with Cary. The author movingly portrays what it’s like caring for a loved one—bureaucratic frustrations, angry outbursts, and all—and reckons with her grandmother’s contradictions.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

Eleven-year-old Nedda dreams of becoming an astronaut, while her father longs to find a way to slow time—literally—to keep his daughter young a bit longer. But his time-altering device goes horribly awry. Decades later, Nedda is on a mission to another planet when her ship malfunctions. In Light from Other Stars, Erika Swyler masterfully connects these two narratives to reach a stunning conclusion.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

At 19 years old, Lara Prior-Palmer signed up for the Mongol Derby, widely considered the hardest and (at about 620 miles) longest horse race in the world. With little endurance-riding experience and almost no preparation, she wasn’t even expected to finish. In her stylish, thrilling memoir, Rough Magic, Prior-Palmer charts the grueling physical and mental race and shows how she embraced her ambition to become the first female winner.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

You've done everything right your whole life. You got stellar grades in school. You launched your career and thrived. You married and had children. You got promotions and raises. You traveled. And yet. You feel unfulfilled and maybe a little guilty that you feel so unfulfilled. Mary Laura Philpott knows this feeling. In her debut memoir-in-essays I Miss You When I Blink, Philpott writes so honestly and intimately about perfectionism, expectations (of ourselves, of our lives, of others), depression and anxiety, and more. Be forewarned that you'll laugh out loud and cry, probably in the same essay. Philpott has a wonderful way of finding humor, even in darker moments. This is a book you'll want to buy for yourself and every other woman you know.

To buy: $17, amazon.com.

You no doubt know Ruth Reichl's name as the former editor in chief of Gourmet magazine (RIP) or you've read her other bestselling memoirs, including Tender at the Bone and Not Becoming My Mother. In her latest memoir, Save Me the Plums, she finally recounts her years as editor in chief of the country's most esteemed food magazine. She dishes on working with David Foster Wallace on his famous story, "Consider the Lobster," reporting to Si Newhouse and other Condé Nast execs, and discovering revered chefs like David Chang. There's plenty of insider-y media gossip Gourmet fans will eat up, but anyone will love and relate to her chapters on being a working mother and navigating a changing workplace. Don't sleep on the German apple pancake recipe at the end, either. 

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In an isolated Mennonite community, eight women develop their own whisper network about the grotesque abuses (rape, physical abuse) the woman on the colony have all faced. They have been convinced a demon has been punishing them for their sins, until coming together and realizing members of their own community have drugged and abused them. Now, the women must decide whether to stay or escape the only home they've ever known. Based on a real case in Bolivia during the mid-aughts, Miriam Toews's Women Talking blends true details with fiction to craft powerful and important book.

To buy: $16, amazon.com.

Physicist and distinguished MIT professor Helen believes in science and doubts the supernatural. But when her best friend Charlie dies, Helen can't explain why she would be getting text messages that sound as if they could only have been composed by her late friend. In Lost and Wanted, Nell Freudenberger explores and blends physics, female friendship, memory, and grief in one finely crafted, touching novel.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Young and Pak Yoo think they’ve got their slice of the American dream when they open a business offering hyperbaric oxygen therapy, an alternative treatment for autism, infertility, and other conditions, in which patients breathe pure oxygen in a pressurized tank. When there’s a deadly explosion, the Yoos, their patients, and others are im­­plicated. In Miracle Creek, Angie Kim (a former trial lawyer) delivers a propulsive courtroom drama.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Ana Falcón and her husband, Lucho, are undocumented immigrants in New York City, working all hours to feed their kids, save enough money for their own apartment, and pay off the loan shark they’re indebted to. As their situation becomes more precarious, forcing them to consider returning to a violent Peru, Ana must make desperate decisions. Melissa Rivero’s The Affairs of the Falcóns is an urgent read for our times.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

Jennifer Cody Epstein’s engrossing Wunderland begins in 1989 in New York City, where Ava has just received the ashes of her estranged mother, Ilse, and a stack of letters addressed to a woman named Renate. In 1930s Berlin, Ilse joins the Hitler Youth as her best friend, Renate, reels from a discovery about her heritage. Moving between decades and continents, Epstein reveals the devastating choices these women make.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb offers an intimate look at her sessions with an array of patients—an arrogant jerk, a woman chasing unavailable men—and what she’s really thinking behind her notepad. Gottlieb adds another layer: Faced with a crisis, she seeks her own therapist. This relatable memoir reminds us that many of our struggles are universal and just plain human.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

For 34 years, Cathy Guisewite animated the struggles of being a working woman in her iconic comic strip, Cathy. With the strip retired, Guisewite has now written her first book of essays, Fifty Things That Aren’t My Fault. She returns to some familiar territory—there are musings on dating, M&M’s binges, and fitting rooms—and explores the trials of middle age. With touching honesty and humor, she reflects on caring for her aging parents and raising her daughter. It’s a book for Cathy fans and everyone else.

To buy: $18, amazon.com.

In this debut family drama, author Etaf Rum follows three generations of Palestinian-American women in a tight-knit, conservative family. In Palestine, 17-year-old Isra is quickly married off in an arranged marriage and moves to Brooklyn, where she struggles as she gives birth to daughters instead of sons. Nearly two decades later, Isra's daughter Deya struggles with living under the watchful eye of her maternal grandmother, who wants to see Deya married. A Woman Is No Man is not only richly told, but an essential read about a community and ethnic group that's rarely featured in literature today. 

To buy: $22, amazon.com.

Owuor's epic novel is difficult to boil down into a quick summary, but trust us: You'll want to settle in with this multi-layered, ambitious tale over the next couple weeks. In it, a girl living on an Island off the coast of Kenya in the Indian Ocean finds out she is descended from Zheng He, a Chinese explorer, and agrees to travel to China to meet his other relatives. But when she reaches China, she finds she's as much an outsider there as she was at home. Owuor tackles identity, colonialism, and so many other themes.

To buy: $19, amazon.com.

In this smart suburban drama perfect for fans of Emma Straub's Modern Lovers and J.K. Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, Nick Cox—owner of the neighborhood's most garish house—and Ted and Allison Miller go to war when Nick cuts down the Millers' beloved maple tree. Following Nick, Ted, Allison and their other neighbors as tensions rise and scandals unfold, Langsdorf explores what happens when personalities collide. 

To buy: $27, amazon.com.

Scientist Emily prefers to spend her days and nights in the lab, where she studies genes and the sense of smell. When her lab gets a new researcher, Aeden, she begins to feel something like affection and their relationship deepens quickly. But Aeden abruptly decides to leave the lab, giving Emily an ultimatum: Keep working on research she believes will affect humanity or move with him. Rothman's refreshing novel asks urgent questions about female ambition. Fans of Lab Girl have found a worthy successor. 

To buy: $18, amazon.com.