Literary

An 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 […]

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Valli, 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 […]

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A 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 […]

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Pure 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 […]

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The 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, […]

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Spotlight – 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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How High We Go in the Dark, Sequoia Nagamatsu

“Wondrous, and not just in the feats of imagination, which are so numerous it makes me dizzy to recall them, but also in the humanity and tenderness with which Sequoia Nagamatsu helps us navigate this landscape. . . . This is a truly amazing book, one to keep close as […]

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Sea of Tranquility, Emily St. John Mandel

Coming in April 2022, this novel nods to Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel, and follows a teenager named Edwin into a Canadian forest and wilderness. In this beautiful natural surrounding, he hears a violin…from possibly a later time? I am looking forward to another book by St John Mandel! […]

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City of Orange, David Yoon

Coming in May 2022: A man who can not remember his own name wakes up in an apocalyptic landscape, injured and alone. He has vague memories of life before, but he can’t see it clearly and can’t grasp how his current situation came to be. He must learn to survive […]

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The Last Woman in the World, Inga Simpson

The Last Woman in the World is heart-racing, page-turning, hiding-under-the-doona stuff. A smart and pacey thriller that is also a lament for a world we have failed to care for. –Kate Mildenhall, bestselling author of The Mother Fault Read more at Hatchett.

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The Morning Star, Karl Ove Knausgård

Translated by Martin Aitken in 2021 and originally published in 2020, The Morning Star has received positive reviews in the media lately. From Penguin Random House: One long night in August, Arne and Tove are staying with their children in their summer house in southern Norway. Their friend Egil has […]

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The Listeners, Jordan Tannahill

“The Listeners is at once a revery for the sublime, for the innocuous tapestry of sounds that make up the rhythms of our lives — and the pollution of sounds that can tear and devour. It is at once a masterful interrogation of the body, as well as the desperate […]

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Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr

In Cloud Cuckoo Land, the world may be falling apart but everything and everyone must come together…This novel of performative storytelling that is also a novel about storytelling is dedicated to “the librarians then, now, and in the years to come.” Two anxieties, reinforcing each other, are at play: the […]

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The Annual Migration of Clouds, Premee Mohamed

This slim, literary dystopia explores a mother and daughter’s relationship in a setting ravaged by climate change. –Buzzfeed With keen insight and biting prose, Premee Mohamed delivers a deeply personal tale in this post-apocalyptic hopepunk novella that reflects on the meaning of community and asks what we owe to those […]

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Matrix, Lauren Groff

Pandemics recur in her stories, as do natural landscapes ravaged by climate change, as do women who are quietly incandescent with rage. –The Atlantic

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