My very favorite books from November! These are the books I most loved reading during the past month. The Best of Me, a funny David Sedaris collection with plenty of heart; Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney's newest triumph; Isabel Wilkerson's disturbing, fascinating, and important nonfiction work Caste; Five Tuesdays in Winter, Lily King's newest collection of stories; Jessica Anya Blau's 1970s-set story of a young woman figuring out her place in the world, Mary J

The wilderness and isolation of the story combined with the looming dangers posed by the outside world make These Silent Woods feel claustrophobic as it builds to an unexpected resolution. In the northern Appalachian mountains, Cooper and his young daughter Finch live in complete isolation. They have no electricity, no family, and almost no connection to the outside world. Which is just how Cooper wants it, because he knows it's the only way they'll be safe. But lately Finch

Which books are you gifting this holiday season? This is my second book gift list of the season (the first was last week's Shhh! Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays), and I hope the ideas here (and those in the lists to come) will help you with ideas for beautiful book gifts for anyone on your list! For even more ideas, check out my past book gift guides on the site: Shhh! Books I'm Giving As Gifts This Holiday Shhh! More Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays Shhh! Books I'm Giving K

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Tessa Harris's recently published World War II-set story Beneath a Starless Sky; Nathanial Ian Miller's atmospheric novel The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven; and Kimi Cunningham Grant's recent novel set in the remote forest of Appalachia, These Silent Woods. What are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms? 01 Beneath a Starless Sky by Tessa Harris In the newest World War II-set novel by Tessa Harris (author of the Dr. Thomas Silkstone

May explains her own yearning to power down and turn inward during difficult times, and she connects with other interesting people who "winter" to nourish themselves during cold or unforgiving periods. In Katherine May's nonfiction ode to settling in, stepping back, and slowing down, she explores her own experiences with times of her life in which this unique approach has not only felt called for, but valuable in various ways. When May's husband became ill, her son's spirit f

In Blau's gleefully 1970s-set novel, Mary Jane doesn't merely shift from emotional innocence to young adulthood, she comes into her own, and it's a joy to watch it all unfold. In Jessica Anya Blau's novel Mary Jane, we're in 1970s Baltimore (with all of the glorious, immersive details of the era), and straitlaced teen Mary Jane has landed a nanny job with a nearby family. The Coneses are a "respectable" family, her mother says approvingly, and the father of the family is a ps

King builds each story within Five Tuesdays in Winter to be full, rich, and full of pain and poignancy. I loved this collection. In Lily King's new story collection, she turns her eye for detail and for wonderfully faulted characters on explorations of love, desire, loss, and tragedy. From a bookseller closed off emotionally from the world who begins to consider letting someone in again to the complicated, tragic reunion of former college roommates; from a mourning elderly ma

Which books are you gifting this holiday season? I already offer many of my fiction and nonfiction book recommendations through this blog. But I love love love to give books as gifts, so they tend to be books that can be read in short bursts and/or books related to a specific interest of my giftee's (cooking, comedy, music, or science, for example). I hope the ideas here (and those in the lists to come) will help you with ideas for beautiful book gifts for anyone on your list

Kline's poignant, lovely book explores a family's emotional missteps and enduring love after a painful loss, and their hard-fought resolutions and tentative steps forward. Young Ollie finds people confusing. They don't always say what they mean, and lately they're often crying. Harriet Kline's This Shining Life tracks Ollie's attempts to make sense of things after his father Rich's death from cancer; it follows his mother Ruth's adjustment to life without her free-spirited, j

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Jessica Anya Blau's 1970s-set music-focused story Mary Jane; I'm listening to Katherine May's nonfiction study of settling in and turning inward, Wintering; and I'm reading Margo Orlando Littell's novel The Distance from Four Points. What are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms? 01 Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau In Jessica Anya Blau's novel Mary Jane, it's 1970s Baltimore, and straitlaced teen Mary Jane has landed a nanny job w

Grohl is funny, self-deprecating, and irresistibly tender-hearted as he recounts his musical influences, the twists and turns of his life, and his enthusiasm for music and musicians. I listened to Dave Grohl's memoir, in which he tracks his youth in Springfield, Virginia; through his stint in the band Scream; his incredible rise to fame as the drummer for Nirvana; through his grief and losses; to the incarnation and growth of his band Foo Fighters and beyond. His funny, self-

Migrations features a tragic ecological setup of a world in which wild animals are largely nonexistent, a cold and relentless ocean setting, and frequently dramatic, sometimes tragic character interactions--but also glimmers of hope. "...I think there is meaning, and it lives in nurturing, in making life sweeter for ourselves, and for those around us." In the world of Franny Stone, wild animals are largely extinct, mere rumors and fabled wonders of the past because of human e

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Lily King's newest, her recent short story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter; I'm listening to Dave Grohl's immersive memoir The Storyteller; and I'm reading Harriet Kline's This Shining Life. What are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms? 01 Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King In Lily King's new story collection, she turns her eye for detail and for wonderfully faulted characters on explorations of love, desire, loss, and tra

The book's pace felt halting at times and its substance somewhat light at points. The strongest aspect for me was Evans's ongoing exploration of her doubts and hard-fought realizations. Rachel Held Evans was the author of multiple books about Christian faith, and she spoke across the country about her conservative upbringing, her ongoing search for answers, and her striving toward openhearted love when she died suddenly at age 37 in 2019. Wholehearted Faith is a posthumously

ICYMI: Forty Autumns offers fascinating, wonderfully detailed perspectives in a rich, layered family memoir that reads like fiction. The subtitle of Willner's Forty Autumns is A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall, and her memoir details the former American intelligence officer's true story of her family during the Cold War. Nina's mother Hanna fled from East to West Germany in a harrowing escape at age twenty. While yearning to see her eig

ICYMI: Shattuck offers faulted protagonists and a fascinating, complicated set of factors in her World War II historical fiction. Jessica Shattuck's The Women in the Castle felt different to me than many of the other World War II books I've read. Her historical fiction story hooked me. For me, much of the story’s depth lay in its exploration of conflicting elements of morality and necessity, and of the play between ignorance and damning knowledge. The desire for redemption is

You may see much of this young adult story coming, but Warcross is an action-packed quest to right wrongs in an immersive video game and beyond--with some romance! “...sometimes people kick you to the ground at recess because they think the shape of your eyes is funny. They lunge at you because they see a vulnerable body. Or a different skin color. Or a different name. Or a girl. They think that you won't hit back--that you'll just lower your eyes and hide. And sometimes, to

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Natasha Pulley's The Kingdoms, which involves historical fiction and time travel; I'm listening to Marie Lu's young adult science fiction book Warcross, the first in the series, which centers around an unlikely futuristic heroine of a bounty hunter and an immersive online game; and for my book club I'm reading Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations, about a woman tracking the last Arctic terns on what may be their final migration--and escaping

Leky's book is full of magical realism, friends who are like family, some absurd, fablelike elements, and an ongoing exploration of mortality and of living a full life. Selma has dreamed of an omen, an okapi (a real animal sometimes called a "forest giraffe"). The omen traditionally means that someone in her small West German village is about to die. As each of her neighbors imagine that they may be destined to end their earthly stay, they struggle with unresolved issues, uns

Rooney's characters engage in extensive self-reflection while struggling to open up emotionally to each other. Their vulnerabilities feel hard-won and powerful. “Maybe we're just born to love and worry about the people we know, and to go on loving and worrying even when there are more important things we should be doing. And if that means the human species is going to die out, isn't it in a way a nice reason to die out, the nicest reason you can imagine?... Because we loved e