Made-Up Books

To preface, this is the fourth glowing review of an Emily Austin novel I've had the pleasure of writing in the past five years. Yes, I'm a fan. Yes, she's a favorite. In this one, our protagonist Darc... (Anika)

The first book I finished this year—published in Germany in 1951 but recently translated into English by NYRB Classics—does two things at once. It immersed me so deeply in pre-WWII, bourgeois Jewish B... (Liz)

Shanbhag's debut here, Ghachar Ghochar, was one of the first novels written in Kannada, a language spoken by tens of millions in southwestern India, to be translated into English. His second, also tra... (Tom)

I was charmed into reading this novel by its first pages, in which a self-sabotaging former ad exec revels in the slushy city beauty of a Minnesota December as he trudges to his weekly group therapy a... (Tom)

The arrival of full shelves of Persephone Books was one of the highlights of our year, so it seemed appropriate to close 2025 by choosing a Persephone book—in one of their slightly less expensive but... (Tom)

"If you make a call on a banana phone, who will answer?" The boy in this picture book finds out when he strikes up a long-distance friendship with a gorilla. Emily Hughes's soft-looking illustrations... (Haley)

Emily Jane’s first novel was about aliens, her second about sea monsters, and her third is about, as the title makes clear, werewolves. In each of her books, Jane uses supernatural beings to fully plu... (Doree)

The concept of Buzz! Boom! Bang! is simple: look at each page and make the noise you think the illustration would sound like. But once you start to "clip clop," "boink," and "hiss," you may find yours... (Haley)

The public drama of Penelope Fitzgerald's life came late, as she burst into literary fame in her sixties after years of poverty and quiet desperation. She mined those private years for much of her fic... (Tom)

I remain intrigued that the same person wrote the plain-spoken farmer's memoir, A Garlic Testament, that was our January Phinney by Post pick this year and this brilliant piece of weirdo fiction, but... (Tom)

Tuck Everlasting is one of my top ten favorite books of all time, so it's hardly surprising that this beautiful illustrated adaptation will be one of my top ten reads of the year. The original tells t... (Anika)

I am slowly catching up with the genius of Joseph Roth. After the multigenerational sweep of his masterpiece, The Radetzky March, this little novel reads like a minor chamber piece, but in some ways i... (Tom)

Over the more than five decades spanned by this lovingly curated collection, Carol Emshwiller held to something distinctly Emshwillerian in the stories she invented: out of the most straightforward la... (Tom)

In Cat Nap, a sleepy kitten follows a mouse into a Metropolitan Museum of Art poster. From there, the chase is on, through ancient Egyptian carvings, Mexican ceramics, a medieval prayer book, and more... (Haley)

In addition to writing the exquisite little novel A Month in the Country, which ensorcelled our staff last year, wrote a number of other little novels, and even published them himself, in oddball edit... (Tom)

It has all the ingredients for my ideal comfort read: a family tree, a house with a name, and a story that spans at least a century. As one plotline unfolds over two weeks in 1960, tales of earlier ge... (Liz)

Silvia Borando's Short Stories is flash fiction for kids. Each of these eleven cheeky stories is just a few sentences long, with the simple illustrations adding to the visual gags. Night falls while a... (Haley)

The Art of a Lie is my favorite book of 2025 so far! I was drawn in by the main character's eighteenth-century confectionery shop and treated to a page-turner full of more twists and turns than a Hitc... (Haley)

Aboard the Indian sleeper train, everyone is getting ready for bed. But one little girl is too excited to sleep. She thinks it might help to try to remember all the places she has slept in the past, l... (Haley)

I had never heard of Rosalyn Drexler before I opened this novel, published in 1972 and reissued this year as the first book from the cool new imprint Hagfish, but she seems like a heck of a woman. Mos... (Tom)

A light touch in fiction can be the hardest to master. Gary Shteyngart has always been overloaded with talent, especially with a kind of manic clairvoyance that sees about six months ahead of whenever... (Tom)

“Now is the time between birth and slaughter. Another Summer has arrived.” Summer has come to Crossmore, and Lucy is waiting for some anything to happen. She’s waiting to love her best friend, Martin,... (Shane)

Recently I sifted through our new releases in search of—well, I wasn't sure. A certain kind of book I knew I needed without quite knowing what it was. And this little novel, I realized almost as soon... (Tom)

Mama Owl unexpectedly needs to leave home, but whooo will help put her ten little owls to bed? Readers get the chance to play babysitter by showing the mischievous little owls how to hop and flap to b... (Haley)

Some writers have such fun with our shared language—stretching it, wandering down its more neglected byways, reveling in its regionalisms—that it makes you wonder why so many of their peers are conten... (Tom)

There are a lot of folks in the Northwest who want to get away from it all. One of them is Rhys Kinnick, an ex-journalist who pissed off his family, chucked out his smartphone, and disappeared into th... (Tom)

The young protagonist in Anything tells us she can wish for very hard things—a rainbow in her room or the biggest slice of pizza in the whole world! But wishes (or "anythings," as she calls them) only... (Haley)

At the Window is a celebration of the people we become accustomed to seeing throughout our daily routine (especially in a neighborhood like Phinney Ridge). You may never exchange a word, but there is... (Haley)

In Dungeon Crawler Carl, Carl’s world collapses. Literally. Every interior on Earth with a roof is collapsed and absorbed into the 18-Level World Dungeon. Part Hunger Games, part role-playing game, Th... (Shane)

Would you prefer never to relive your awkward teen fumbling again, or would you jump at the chance to repeat those misspent moments again and again until you finally perfect connecting with the person... (Tom)

I hesitate to use an overworked booksellers’ phrase, but I can’t get around the fact that this 1947 novel epitomizes the “rediscovered gem.” It’s a 170-page story about a woman, a family, and a villag... (Liz)

Audio Book of the Week Heat 2 by Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner, read by Peter Giles Heat is not my own favorite Michael Mann film—I'll take The Insider or Thief—but thirty years after it pitted Pacino... (Tom)

Every novel that Fredrik Backman writes immediately becomes my favorite. There is simply no one better at illustrating the human experience of love and friendship. In his latest, My Friends, he remind... (Doree)

Have you ever wondered who you might be with a different name? Have you ever grappled with the decision of what to name your own child, knowing it's something they'll have to carry the rest of their l... (Anika)

Told in a modern epistolary form that includes emails, texts, and social media posts, Dear Edna Sloane is a delight. With the ambition and earnestness of an MFA graduate who's landed a dream-adjacent... (Anika)

We pay attention to Michael Hofmann's translations here, not only for his skill in turning German into English (e.g., Joseph Roth's The Radetzky March and Jenny Erpenbeck's Kairos) but for his taste i... (Tom)

This little novel has always been hard to find in the U.S., but it's been a staple of school reading lists in England ever since it came out in 1968—and for good reason, as it's the sort of story, of... (Tom)

The biographical fallacy—the assumption that fiction comes directly from the author's own life—is full of dangers, but nevertheless I was not at all surprised to learn that Adam Ross was a child actor... (Tom)

Suddenly, the Big One—the catastrophic earthquake predicted to ravage the PNW in the next half century—is no longer a matter of What If but of What Now? Annie is nine months pregnant in IKEA stressing... (Anika)

If the first thing you think when you finish a book is, “How did he do that!?”, you can be sure the author has pulled off something remarkable. I’ve long admired Szalay’s style and enjoyed his previou... (Liz)

Young Mabel has a very important appointment every Monday morning. Her sister thinks it's boring, her mom thinks it's cute, and her dad thinks it's funny. But to Mabel, watching the garbage truck rumb... (Haley)

I Am Not Jessica Chen is a haunting portrait of social pressure and academic burnout. When Jenna Chen's wish to become her golden child cousin literally comes true, she's initially elated. She finds h... (Anika)

Jane Eyre meets Shirley Jackson (think: We Have Always Lived in the Castle) in this Victorian horror-comedy. In the movie in my mind, Tim Burton is the director. Upon arriving at Ensor House, the new... (Anika)

Does your heart race with anticipated pleasure when you see not only a list of characters but a family tree on the first pages of a fat novel? If so, prepare to luxuriate, as this is just the first of... (Tom)

Emily Jane’s very funny debut novel, On Earth as It Is on Television, was one of my favorite books two years ago, and I frequently recommend it to people who want something hilarious yet also poignant... (Doree)

We Needed a You is my new go-to baby shower recommendation. This delightfully sweet picture book features soft and colorful artwork and gentle text describing all the beautiful things in the world ("t... (Haley)

As I've come to expect from Emily Austin's previous two novels, the beating heart of We Could Be Rats lies in its deeply flawed but lovable characters. However, where we were given the singular perspe... (Anika)

This picture book colorfully illustrates a year in the life of the five-member Tanaka family, following them through holidays, milestones, meals, and seasons. Chihiro Takeuchi's detailed papercut illu... (Haley)

Fox sisters Celeste and Miriam explore a sparkling winter wonderland in this cozy picture book. Older sister Miriam tells Celeste all about snow dragons—they collect "diamond dust," breathe frostfire,... (Haley)

At the center of this novel is a single, inexplicable incident from the end of the Spanish Civil War, when an unknown Republican soldier caught a leader of the right-wing Falange escaping a Republican... (Tom)