Vero has always felt at odds with his community. As a trans man in near-future Puerto Rico, he struggles to gain acceptance for his identity and his vision of an inclusive society. After a hurricane decimates the island and Puerto Rico is abandoned by the United States, Vero leaves his […]
Read MoreLiterary
Dinosaurs, Lydia Millet
Dinosaurs is both sharp-edged and tender, an emotionally moving, intellectually resonant novel that asks: In the shadow of existential threat, where does hope live?
Read MoreBlack River, Nilanjana S. Roy
For the most part, Delhi turns its back on her, staining her swollen body with its ashes and garbage and sewage, choking her with the city’s waste, its discards, its corpses and diseases,” writes Nilanjana Roy in Black River. –The Print India This shockingly powerful literary thriller is set in […]
Read MoreThe Last Beekeper, Julie Carrick Dalton
“The Last Beekeeper is a moving novel about how radical hope can be kept alive in the face of personal grief and global loss.” -Matt Bell, author of Appleseed “Dalton writes with tension and sincerity that will thrill your soul. This wrenching story of the fate of the bees, and […]
Read MoreThe Light Pirate, Lily Brooks-Dalton
Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels gradually wreak havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker; his pregnant wife, Frida; and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the […]
Read MoreDemon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver
A re-imagined Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield story, set in the Appalachian Mountains, this large book (over 600 pages) explores the life of a boy born in a poverty-stricken area to a single mother and looks at the opioid crisis in southern America. But, also, the beauty of the backwoods and […]
Read MoreHarvest Moon, Agam Agenda
Harvest Moon is an anthology of loves and lives, of stories that thrive where borders and edges meet and where fates merge and collide like bodies of water seeking oceans and tides encountering clouds and landfall, habitats and hives. This anthology of 30 images and over 30 poems, stories, and […]
Read MoreThe Last Quarter of the Moon, Zijian Chi
Translated by Bruce Humes, this novel, first published in 2005, is being re-released by Penguin Random House, re-categorized in the genre of eco-fiction. In The Last Quarter of the Moon, prize-winning novelist Chi Zijian, creates a dazzling epic about an extraordinary woman bearing witness not just to the stories of […]
Read MoreLark Ascending, Silas House
As fires devastate most of the United States, Lark and his family secure a place on a refugee boat headed to Ireland, the last country not yet overrun by extremists and rumored to be accepting American refugees.
Read MoreAn Orchid Astronomy, Tasnuva Hayden
Just out by University of Calgary Press (July 2022), this book is a collection of stories, written in experimental prose, about a woman named Sophie. Sophie grew up in Veslefjord, deep in the Norwegian North, where the ice stretches to the horizon and the long polar night is filled with […]
Read MoreValli, Sheela Tomy
Originally published in Malayalam, in June 2021, Valli is Sheela Tomy’s debut novel. It’s being translated into English by Jayasree Kalathil. According to Financial Express, it’s about the hill district of Kerala nestled in the Western Ghats, which faces an environmental catastrophe. HarperCollins states: Spanning the time between the 1970s […]
Read MoreA House Between Earth and the Moon, Rebecca Scherm
A novel born out of speculation about climate change, this tale has the richest billionaire’s going to live on the moon while the rest suffer on an ecologically burnt Earth. Prescient and insightful, A House Between Earth and the Moon is at once a captivating epic about the machinations of big […]
Read MorePure Colour, Sheila Heti
Pure Colour is a galaxy of a novel: explosive, celestially bright, huge, and streaked with beauty. It is a contemporary bible, an atlas of feeling, and an absurdly funny guide to the great (and terrible) things about being alive. Sheila Heti is a philosopher of modern experience, and she has […]
Read MoreThe Doloriad, Missouri Williams
In the wake of a mysterious environmental cataclysm that has wiped out the rest of humankind, the Matriarch, her brother, and the family descended from their incest cling to existence on the edges of a deserted city. The Matriarch, ruling with fear and force, dreams of starting humanity over again, […]
Read MoreSpotlight – Erica Ferencik
Click here to return to the series About the Book This month we travel to the Arctic—Greenland, specifically—with author Erica Ferencik, via her novel Girl in Ice (March 1, 2022, Scout Press/S&S). I’m absolutely floored after chatting with Erica about her firsthand experiences when writing. Valerie “Val” Chesterfield is a […]
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