The Book of Records

The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien is the best book I have read this year. 

A novel that leaps across centuries past and future, as if different eras were separated by only a door.

Lina and her father arrive at an enclave called The Sea, a staging post between migrations, with only a few possessions. In this mysterious and shape-shifting place, a building made of time, pasts and futures collide. Lina befriends her neighbors: Bento, a Jewish scholar in seventeenth-century Amsterdam; Blucher, a philosopher in 1930s Germany fleeing Nazi persecution; and Jupiter, a poet of Tang Dynasty China.

Memory, political revolution, generational change, and the ethical imagination are at the heart of Lina’s illuminating conversations with her fellows in the Sea: how we come to believe what we believe, and how every person is an irreplaceable, unique vessel of history. Through the guidance of these great thinkers, Lina equips herself to reckon with difficult questions of guilt, responsibility, and the possibility of redemption when her ailing father begins to reveal his role in their family’s tragic past.

As Lina confronts her father’s troubling admissions, she begins to reconceptualize the world around her, gaining a deeper understanding of how our individual futures are shaped by our political circumstances, and she relies on the collective joy of art and intellectual endeavors to carry her through difficulty. A novel that voyages between centuries, generations, and ideas, The Book of Records is an indelible testament to the migratory nature of humanity and our ceaseless search for a home—in the physical world, in cyberspace, in history, and in the imagination—in the wake of catastrophe.

Thien is a beautiful writer who pulls readers into the story. She must have a brilliant mind to be able to wrestle the time periods, philosophy, and poetry into a truly amazing book. Buy this book today.

Thien, Madeleine. (2025). The Book of Records. New York: WW Norton & Co.

Sudden Death

Sudden Death by Alvaro Enrigue is a writer who crafts a story like no other.

A daring, kaleidoscopic novel about the clash of empires and ideas, told through a tennis match in the sixteenth century between the radical Italian artist Caravaggio and the Spanish poet Francisco de Quevedo, played with a ball made from the hair of the beheaded Anne Boleyn.

The poet and the artist battle it out in Rome before a crowd that includes Galileo, a Mary Magdalene, and a generation of popes who would throw the world into flames. In England, Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII execute Anne Boleyn, and her crafty executioner transforms her legendary locks into those most-sought-after tennis balls. Across the ocean in Mexico, the last Aztec emperors play their own games, as the conquistador Hernán Cortés and his Mayan translator and lover, La Malinche, scheme and conquer, fight and f**k, not knowing that their domestic comedy will change the course of history. In a remote Mexican colony a bishop reads Thomas More’s Utopia and thinks that it’s a manual instead of a parody. And in today’s New York City, a man searches for answers to impossible questions, for a book that is both an archive and an oracle.

Álvaro Enrigue’s mind-bending story features assassinations and executions, hallucinogenic mushrooms, bawdy criminals, carnal liaisons and papal schemes, artistic and religious revolutions, love and war. A blazingly original voice and a postmodern visionary, Enrigue tells the grand adventure of the dawn of the modern era, breaking down traditions and upending expectations, in this bold, powerful gut-punch of a novel.

Enrigue, Alvaro. (2013). Sudden Death. New York: Riverhead. 

The Original

The Original by Nell Stevens is another brilliant historical novel about art and queerness.

Oxfordshire, 1899. Grace Inderwick grows up on the peripheries of a once-great household, an unwanted guest in her uncle’s home. She has unusual skills and unusual predilections: for painting, though faces elude her; for lurking in the shadows; for other girls.
 
Then a letter arrives, postmarked Saint Helena. After years missing at sea, Grace’s cousin Charles is ready to come home. When Charles returns, unrecognisable and uncanny, a rift emerges between those who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. And Grace, whose intimate knowledge of forgeries is her own closely-guarded secret, must decide who and what to believe in, and what kind of life she wants to live.
 
Deftly-plotted and shimmering with Nell Stevens’s distinctive intelligence, style and wit, The Original is a novel about the value of authenticity in art and in love, and what it means to be a true original.

Stevens is a brilliant writer! Read everything she publishes.

Stevens, Nell. (2025). The Original. New York: W.W. Norton and Co.

James: A Novel

James: A Novel by Percival Everett is a masterpiece. It is a retelling of the story of Huck Finn through the eyes of Jim / James, which changes everything about the tale.

The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he flees to nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town.

So begins a dangerous and transcendent journey along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise. And together, the unlikely pair embark on the most life-changing odyssey of them all . . .

I first read Percival Everett almost twenty years ago. I still think about his book Wounded. He is one of the best writers of our time and has so much to say. Put one of his books on hold today - or two, as James will likely have a long wait! 

Everett, Percival. (2024). James: A Novel. New York: Penguin.

The Palace of Eros

The Palace of Eros by Caro de Robertis is the story of the Greek god Eros and their bride.

Young, headstrong Psyche has captured the eye of every suitor with her beauty – but also, unfortunately, the jealous gaze of the goddess Aphrodite. As punishment, Psyche is tied to a rock to be sacrificed to a ‘monstrous husband’. And yet, no monster arrives: instead, she is spirited away by Aphrodite’s daughter Eros.

Eros, goddess of desire, can change gender at will. And in her hidden palace, she visits her bride under the cloak of darkness: Psyche is forbidden to gaze upon the face of her lover. But as they explore each other’s bodies and discover new pleasures, Psyche is tempted to break her vow… even if it brings down the wrath of the gods.

De Robertis is one of my favorite authors. Buy this book today, then proceed to read everything they ever publish.

De Robertis, Caro. (2024). The Palace of Eros. New York: Atria Books.

Loot

Loot by Tania James follows a young boy as he apprentices with the Sultan's clockmaker and helps to build a giant automaton tiger.

Young toy maker and dreamer Abbas is whisked away to Tipu Sultan's glorious palace in Mysore and ordered to create a musical tiger to delight Tipu's sons.

When he is apprenticed to eccentric clockmaker Monsieur Du Leze, Abbas finds an unexpected friend who encourages his skill and hunger for learning. Through Du Leze, he also meets the unforgettable Jehanne, who has questions and ambitions of her own.

But when British soldiers attack and loot Mysore, Abbas's world is turned upside down and his prized tiger is shipped off to a country estate in England. In order to carve out his place in the world, he must follow.

A hero's quest, a love story, an exuberant heist novel that traces the bloody legacy of colonialism across the world, Loot is a dazzling, wildly inventive and irresistible feat of storytelling.

James has written a wonderful tale that spans continents. Read this book!

James, Tania. (2023). Loot. New York: Alfred A Knopf.

You Dreamed of Empires

You Dreamed of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue, translated to English by Natasha Wimmer, is the story of Moctezuma and Cortes in 1915 Mayapan. 

In 1519, Conquistador Hernán Cortés and his troops ride into the floating city of Tenoxtitlan in this hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story.

Invited to a ceremonial meal with the steely princess Atotoxtli, sister and wife of the emperor Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance into the city and its labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.

Moctezuma himself is at a political, spiritual and physical crossroads, relying on hallucinogens in a quest for any kind of answer from the gods. When Cortés and Moctezuma meet, two worlds, empires, languages, and possible futures collide.

You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenoxtitlan at its height – and reimagines its destiny. It sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream. This book is amazing! Enrigue has written a fabulous book. You may want to follow up with the book Malinalli about one of Cortes's translators who is a fascinating woman.

Enrigue, Alvaro. (2024). You Dreamed of Empires. New York: Riverhead Books.

The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye

The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron is the fictionalized story of a real woman who was one of the more successful pirates of the Caribbean in the mid-1600s.

In the tumultuous town of Yáquimo, Santo Domingo, Jacquotte Delahaye is an unknown but up-and-coming shipwright. Her dreams are bold but her ambitions are bound by the confines of her life with her self-seeking French father. When her way of life and the delicate balance of power in the town are threatened, she is forced to flee her home and become a woman on the run along with a motley crew of refugees, including a mysterious young woman named Teresa.

Jacquotte and her band become indentured servants to the infamous Blackhand, a ruthless pirate captain who rules his ship with an iron fist. As they struggle to survive his brutality, Jacquotte finds herself unable to resist Teresa despite their differences. When Blackhand hatches a dangerous scheme to steal a Portuguese shipment of jewels, Jacquotte must rely on her wits, resourcefulness, and friends to survive. But she discovers there is a grander, darker scheme of treachery at play, and she ultimately must decide what price she is willing to pay to secure a better future for them all.

An unforgettable tale told in three parts, The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye is a thrilling, buccaneering escapade filled with siege and battle, and is also a tender exploration of friendship, love, and the search for freedom and home.

Cameron, Briony. (2024). The Ballad of Jacquotte Delehaye. New York: Atria Books.

Briefly, A Delicious Life

Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens is an unforgettable glimpse into George Sand's life with Frederic Chopin, via the eyes of a ghost. 

In 1473, fourteen-year-old Blanca dies in a hilltop monastery in Mallorca. Nearly four hundred years later, when George Sand, her two children, and her lover Frederic Chopin arrive in the village, Blanca is still there: a spirited, funny, righteous ghost, she's been hanging around the monastery since her accidental death, spying on the monks and the townspeople and keeping track of her descendants. 

Blanca is enchanted the moment she sees George, and the magical novel unfolds as a story of deeply felt, unrequited longing - the impossible love of a teenage ghost for a woman who can't see her and doesn't know she exists. As George and Chopin, who wear their unconventionality on their sleeves, find themselves in deepening trouble with the provincial, 19th-century villagers, Blanca watches helplessly and reflects on the circumstances of her own death.

A creative and compelling story written beautifully.

Stevens, Nell. (2022). Briefly, A Delicious Live. New York: Scribner.

Lessons in Chemistry

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is one of the most delightful books I have read this year. 

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist. In the early 1960s there are not many women who have braved the gauntlet required to get an advanced degree. Now she works at the Hastings Research Institute. And Hastings is where she meets Calvin Evans - a man who sees her like no one else has. 

Filled with amazing characters and laugh-out-loud scenes, but also containing the realities of the time, the struggle to be taken seriously and one of the best dogs ever written. 

Read this book. I have listened to the audiobook and am now reading it - back to back. 

Garmus, Bonnie. (2022). Lessons in Chemistry. New York: Doubleday. 

Patience is a Subtle Thief

Patience is a Subtle Thief by Abi Ishola-Ayodeji

Hope and circumstance define a young woman’s life in this heartbreaking tale of lost innocence, set in politically volatile 1990s Nigeria, from an exciting and fresh voice in global literature. 

For as long as she can remember, Patience Adewale, the eldest daughter of Chief Kolade Adewale, has been waiting for confirmation that she is loved, that there is a place where she truly belongs. Patience lives a sheltered life within the secure walls of the family’s mansion in Ibadan, but finds no comfort from her distant father and stepmother Modupe. Her only ally is her younger sister, yet even Margaret’s love and support cannot overcome Patience’s insecurity and uncertainty.

More than anything, Patience wants to know why her father and uncle banished her mother from their compound years ago—and whether her mother is even alive. Determined to discover the truth, Patience embarks on a desperate search to find her mother. Answers begin to surface when she moves to Lagos for university and unexpectedly reconnects with her cousin Kash.

Kash and his friend Emeka are petty thieves with an opportunity to make a big score. To pull it off they need help—and enlist Patience and Emeka’s straight-arrow brother, Chike, to become partners in their scheme. The thieves’ plan is to quit after this job. But unforeseen events lead to unexpected consequences—and demand a price from Patience that may be too steep to pay.

Suspenseful and evoking the subtleties of Nigerian life in an fresh and unexpected way, Patience Is a Subtle Thief is a heart-wrenching story of one young woman’s precarious journey to adulthood, and the risks and sacrifices it takes to follow her heart.

[from Harper Collins]

Ishola-Ayodeji, Abi. (2022). Patience is a Subtle Thief. New York: Harper Collins.

Daughter of the Merciful Deep

Daughter of the Merciful Deep by Leslye Penelope is the author's second book that deals with a hard subject in our history beautifully. 

Jane Edwards lives in Awenasa, a Black town in the South. Awenasa is along a river that is to be dammed, which will cause the town to be underwater by winter. 

Government officials come to town and interview home owners, offering a small amount of money to relocate. Many in the town rent from the town's founder who set up the town as a haven for formerly enslaved folks and their families. 

Jane, who has not spoken since she was about ten years old,  spots a stranger - a man who looks exactly like her sister's former boyfriend who was lynched in their old town. 

Can he be the key to saving Awenasa? Or is he a ghost from the past come to collect what she owes him?

Leslye Penelope is a brilliant storyteller. She weaves magical realism into historically accurate portrayals Black American's lives in our history. If you live in the States, read her books.

Penelope, Leslye. (2024). Daughter of the Merciful Deep. New York: Redhook.

City of Laughter

 

City of Laughter by Temim Fruchter is a family saga through four generations of women.

A rich and riveting debut spanning four generations of Eastern European Jewish women bound by blood, half-hidden secrets and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years.

City of Laughter follows a young queer woman stuck in a thicket of generational secrets back to her family's origins, where ancestral clues begin to reveal a lineage both haunted and shaped by desire.

Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an 18th-century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make wedding guests laugh, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger - bringing the laughter the people of Ropshitz desperately need, and triggering a sequence of events that will reverberate across the coming century.

In the present day, Shiva Margolin, recovering from the heartbreak of her first big queer love and grieving the death of her beloved father, struggles to connect with her guarded mother, who spends most of her time at the local funeral home. A student of Jewish folklore, Shiva seizes an opportunity to visit Poland, hoping her family's mysteries will make more sense if she walks in the footsteps of her great-grandmother, Mira, about whom no one speaks.

What she finds will make her question not only her past and her future, but also her present. Electric and sharply intimate, City of Laughter zigzags between our universe and a tapestry of real and invented Jewish folklore, asking how far we can travel from the stories that have raised us without leaving them behind. [from fantastic fiction]

Fruchter, Temim. (2024). City of Laughter. New York: Grove Press.

The Safekeep

 

The Safekeep by Yael Van der Woulden is an historical fiction novel that packs a punch. 

1961, Dutch province of Overijssel. 

Isabel lives by herself in her mother's house. She spends her time maintaining the house and garden, and managing the maid who comes in the daytime. By all accounts she is lonely and closed off.

When she is coaxed to have dinner with her two brothers in the city, her brother Louis arrives with his latest girlfriend. Eva is the opposite of Isabel, and Isabel dislikes her on sight. 

A few weeks later, when Louis have to travel for work, he show up at the house (which he technically owns) with Eva in tow. Eva is to stay with Isabel for a few weeks. 

What follows is a rough push and pull as they get to know more about each other. Using flashbacks, Van der Wouden explores what happened to each of their families in the war - an how they are tied together.

The Safekeep is on the long list for the 2024 Man Booker Prize, quite deservedly. If the only book you have read about the Dutch in WWII is the Diary of Anne Frank, this will be a surprise! Read it today.

Van der Wouden, Yael. (2024). The Safekeep. New York: Avid Reader Press.

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Story by James McBride is one of the best books I read this year, or any year. Set in the 1920s and 30s in Pottstown, Pennsylvania's neighborhood of Chicken Hill, a mixed Black and Jewish part of town. 

Chona is the daughter of a store owner. She has a limp from Polio as a child. She married Moshe, a Romanian Jewish immigrant who owns a dance hall. As Chona was raised in Chicken Hill she convinces Moshe to bring Black musicians and bands along with the Yiddish he has already planned.

Though they don't need the money, and actually lose money on it, Chona keeps running the grocery. She allows anyone to shop there and extends credit to her Black neighbors. 

When a young boy is in need of hiding from the state agent who wants to take him to a home because he is deaf, Chona takes him in. 

McBride is one of the great writers of our time. Read all of his books, but start here!

McBride, James. (2023). The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. New York: Riverhead Books. 

The Vaster Wilds

 

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff is a look at life for women in the American colonies.

A servant girl has escaped from a starving colony. The colony is so destitute that there is no wood left to burn or food to eat. She thinks she has a better chance of surviving in the wilds that in a place that where people will do anything to make it through winter.

She has planned ahead and stolen a knife, an ax, books, a cup, a flint and two covers and wears all of the clothing she could fit on her body. 

She will try to make it in the wilderness - living off of the land and hiding from those sent to find her while avoiding the nations of the land and dangerous animals. 

Lauren Groff is one of the great writers of our time. She captures the feelings and harshness of the land while making readers root for a likely doomed young woman. This is a masterpiece of evocative writing. 

Groff, Lauren. (2023). The Vaster Wilds. New York: Riverhead Books. 

He Who Drowned the World (Radiant Emperor #2)

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan is the stunning conclusion to her Radiant Emperor series, an alternate history to the end of the Great Yuan and the founding of the Ming Dynasty. 

Zhu Yuanzhang, formerly Zhu Chongba, has crowned themself king of a large part of southern China, land taken back from the Mongol Yuan dynasty.

General Ouyang, who fought against Zhu, will form an uneasy alliance with Zhu to continue the destruction of the Yuan. Someone else is also pulling strings to gain the throne himself. So far, Zhu cannot figure out who that could be.

In this heart-wrenching conclusion, Parker-Chan closes this brilliantly written alternate history, queer retelling of a pivotal time in Chinese and world history. If you are a fan of history or great writing read this series. It is a feat of literature. 

Parker-Chan, Shelley. (2023). He Who Drowned the World. New York: Tor.

The Monsters We Defy

The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope is an historical fiction novel set in 1920s DC.

Clara Johnson can talk to spirits. It was likely to happen as she was born at a crossroads. Then she made a deal with an enigma - which always comes with a trick. 

Clara has the chance to free herself of her trick if she steals a ring. She agrees, no questions asked. It is not until later that she wonders how someone in the spirit world can use a ring.

Either way, she will need a team to help with this heist. Especially after she realizes that the ring may be responsible for poor people going missing. 

Penelope has written story set during the Roaring Twenties and the Harlem Renaissance (which took place in more cities than just NYC). Read this wonderful book.

Penelope, Leslye. (2022). The Monsters We Defy. New York: Red Hook.

Clara "Carrie" Johnson was a real person. She is known for being shot in her apartment during the 1919 DC Race War, then accused of killing a police officer who broke in shooting. There were 18 bullets in her bedroom door. Her and her father both shot. Sound familiar? Like nothing much changed between Carrie Johnson in 1919 and Breonna Taylor in 2020?

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (al-Sirafi #1)

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty is a wonderful pirate adventure set in the twelfth century in the Indian Ocean. 

Amina al-Sarafi is a nakhudha, a pirate and a smuggler. She is a legend who brings fear to sailors and merchants. 

She retired ten years ago. She found a dilapidated house in the jungle and fixed it up for her daughter. Her mother often lives with them and her brother visits when he can. She has a quiet, peaceful life though she does miss the sea. 

When a wealthy woman offers her a huge amount of money to find her kidnapped granddaughter – the daughter of one of al-Sirafi’s crew – she cannot pass up the chance for a quick sail. Afterall, her ship is ready to go. She promises to look for four months for an upfront fee… 

Chakraborty is a great storyteller weaving in right lore to create a reading experience that is fun and adventurous. 

Chakraborty, Shannon. (2023). The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. New York: Harper Voyager.

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho is a wonderful novella. (And perfect to become a series - hint, hint!) It has a similar feel to the Nigh Vo novella series.

A Bandit walks into a coffee house and stops a fight, starts another fight and leaves with a new member of his group. Or rather, the woman he got fired follows him to his camp in the woods and announces she is joining them.

Guet Imm was a votary of the Order but has been on her own since the tokong was burned. She is tracking some of the sacred artifacts that were stolen, hoping to return them to the goddess.

Cho has written a wonderful story of adventure, fighting, and humor. Read this so she will write more! 

Cho, Zen. (2020). The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water. New York: Tom Doherty Associates.