Made-Up Books

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)

New-ish Book of the Week Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072 by M.E. O'Brien and Eman Abdelhadi I love oral history and I love speculative fiction so I grabbed... (Liz)

I returned to another author of an all-time favorite this month. I often name Charles Burns''s 2005 graphic novel, Black Hole, a jet-dark story of a disease sweeping through '70s teens, as my favorite... (Tom)

I Know How to Draw an Owl is my favorite picture book of 2024. Beautiful and heart-wrenching, yet as quiet as an owl gliding through the trees, it depicts a serious issue with subtlety and sensitivity... (Haley)

Anyone who has ever had a kitchen mishap will wish they had the Little Chefs on speed dial after reading this creative picture book. The next time your cookies burn or your soup is tasteless, look for... (Haley)

This book reminded me of the 1983 movie, The Big Chill, but with more nuance and an off-beat soundtrack (and an Australian setting). Published just a year later, it’s also about college classmates fro... (Liz)

Forget space, or the dark depths of the oceans: the true unexplored human frontier is the third of our lives we spend suspended in the strange netherworld of sleep. For all the talk of dreams, how lit... (Tom)

Greenwell's first two books, What Belongs to You and Cleanness, each made my year-end top 10, and this third one is likely to as well. Those earlier books were both disarmingly frank (and often breath... (Tom)

The New Yorker cartoon is one of those venerable comedy institutions that, like Saturday Night Live, is at this point often more "funny" than funny. But, as also happens on Saturday Night Live, once i... (Tom)

I didn’t realize this was a Young Adult novel when I first picked it up, but I was immediately sucked into this gorgeous, multi-generational tale of a Northern California family that has more than its... (Doree)

Young Adult Book of the Week Phinney by Post Kids Book #106 Aldo: Ghost Dog by Joaquín Camp, translated by Kit Maude One day while playing catch, Aldo the dog gets caught in a white sheet hanging from... (Haley)

Ethel Wilson lived over ninety years, most of them in Vancouver, B.C., and many of them as a self-described “doctor’s wife,” but starting when she was nearly sixty, she published a handful of books, i... (Tom)

Lucienne and Gaston “believe as much in their country as in their love.” Their country is Algeria, which at the time (the late '20s) was also France; their love is mismatched (Tom)

Six students of various ages and backgrounds all sign up for a new master's level art class at a university in England. The senior art tutor needs this class to work so it can be added to the universi... (Doree)

Dictionary contains all the words that have ever been read, but unlike the other books, she doesn't tell her own story. So one day she decides to bring her words to life, starting with a hungry alliga... (Haley)

A delicate and lyrical counterpoint to the weighty Challenger, Orbital is called a novel, but it bears about as much relation to your average novel as its characters' sixteen daily zero-gravity orbits... (Tom)

This little book carried such a reputation—as one of those exquisite literary gems whose compact perfection is a miracle of tone and concision—that for a long time I didn't want to actually read it an... (Tom)

Godwin is, as advertised, about the search for a teenage soccer prodigy who may or may not exist in West Africa and who may or may not be the next Messi. But it's also about a minor power struggle at... (Tom)

Reading the latest offering from McNally Editions, you might think it’s a reissue of a slim Victorian classic. It’s actually a historical novel that was shortlisted for the 1981 Booker Prize. Schlee n... (Tom)

Young mouse Rumie and Uncle Hawthorne build a mouse-sized raft from twigs, bark, and ribbons. But when Uncle Hawthorne oversleeps the next morning, it's too hard to be patient and Rumie decides to try... (Haley)

On the first page of Pavane, Queen Elizabeth I is assassinated. On the second, after the resulting chaos, the Catholic Church regains its medieval authority over Britain. And in the next, the story le... (Tom)

After a long phone call one day, author/illustrator Felicita Sala's daughter asked her, “Mum, what if you talk so much that you run out of words, and then there won’t be any left for me?” Her daughter... (Haley)

A young woman unexpectedly becomes a young mother after an affair with her English professor. As a broke college drop-out with a newborn, Margo's running out of rent money and employment options. She... (Anika)

My favorite historical fiction author, Beatriz Williams, is back with her 16th book (not counting her collaborations with fellow authors Karen White and Lauren Willig), all but one of which have inter... (Doree)

I binge-read the first 17 books in Jacqueline Winspear’s historical fiction/mystery Maisie Dobbs series during the pandemic. Somehow, immersing myself in the years between World War I to World War II... (Doree)

For every mother everywhere, this book is a primal scream of new motherhood. The schizophrenic nature of those early days—when you're bursting with love for this little creature, but also dying inside... (Doree)

Kids' Book of the Week by Alki Lei, translated by Karen Emmerich If you're an adult who doesn't usually read middle-grade books, I highly recommend you give this one a try! Set in 1936, and originally... (Tom)

Well, this might be the best book I've read so far this year. For all the flutter of "quirkiness" that surrounds July, she is a stone cold serious artist, in whatever form she chooses, and this is a c... (Tom)

Your first clue that this romantic comedy is a break-up story is the list that kicks it off: Reasons Why It's Good I'm Not with Jen. Here begins Andy's obsessive wallowing. To be fair, he deserves a g... (Anika)

Mavis the Bravest's excellent text and illustrations pair perfectly to tell a classic farmyard tale of heroism (with a good dose of silliness). Mavis is a chicken, both in the figurative and literal s... (Haley)

What happens when an author crushes on a real-life 19th-century polar explorer's photograph? The resulting obsession developed into The Ministry of Time, a book for anyone who has ever wondered what i... (Haley)

What a big, strange, good book the folks at Boiler House Press have recovered. Harris published nearly twenty inventive and eclectic novels between 1961 and 1993, nearly all out of print now. This one... (Tom)