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In My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (2017),  New York Times best-selling author and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem explores, according to the publisher, “the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma

Rosemary Harper, the main character of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, takes a job as a file clerk on a rundown spaceship called the Wayfarer in order to escape her painful past. When the Wayfarer is hired for an incredibly dangerous mission, Rosemary and her new crewmates—a ragtag mix of humans and aliens—must learn to trust each other with their lives, and soon she grows to consider them family.

Mo Rocca expands on his podcast of the same name in this engaging and wryly humorous collection of biographies. In Mobituaries (2019), Rocca writes obituaries for those who were not appropriately celebrated upon their death—or whose actions have been forgotten by history.

Richard Osman’s debut novel, The Thursday Murder Club, came to me as a recommendation from a friend who hadn’t read it, yet heard about it and thought of me. I’d take recommendations from a dirty shoe, so I went for it, and I had a great time.

Written as an oral history of a fictional punk rock duo in the 70’s, The Final Revival of Opal and Nev draws a lot of comparisons to 

The Ex Talk, set at a fictional Seattle public radio station, is a romantic comedy featuring Shay Goldstein. a longtime producer at the station who’s always dreamed of being on the air, and Dominic Yun, a hotshot young reporter fresh out of graduate school. Their instant dislike for each other is obvious to everyone, but when financial troubles force the station to come up with new programming ideas, they are told they will be laid off if they don’t agree to host a show together. The show?

Ever since she was a small child, August Landry, the main character of One Last Stop, has spent virtually all her free time helping her mother investigate a family member’s unsolved disappearance. As a result, she’s never really had friends before. That all changes when she transfers to a college in New York City, where she has to share an apartment with three roommates who forcibly befriend her and help her find a job waiting tables at a 24-hour diner.

Set in a Nigerian town, this book opens with a mother finding her son’s body on her front porch. This was no natural death and who took the time to wrap him in a cloth and place him in front of her house? Through flashbacks of Vivek’s life, we learn more about this intriguing, lovable boy and his friends, who seem to know more than they admit about his demise.

The Address Book explores the fascinating and little-known history of street addresses. It covers a wide range of locations and time periods, ranging from ancient Rome, 19^th-century London, and Gilded Age Manhattan to modern-day Florida, Japan, South Africa, and India.

Action Park is a memoir written by Andy Mulvihill, whose father, Gene, founded the titular amusement park in 1978. Located in New Jersey, Action Park was known for its innovative rides with lax safety standards, and was popularly known by nicknames such as “Traction Park” and “Class Action Park”. This book tells the horrifying, fascinating story of the park from its founding to its eventual closure in 1996 following six deaths and countless personal injury lawsuits.

In Before She Knew Him, artist Hen and her husband Lloyd have just moved to the suburbs to get a new start after her recovery from a manic episode during which she became obsessed with the unsolved murder of a young man named Dustin Miller. When their new neighbors, Matthew and Mira, invite them over for dinner, Hen is shocked to see a trophy in Matthew’s office that was taken from the scene of Miller’s murder.

in The Hating Game, Lucy is the executive assistant to the CEO of a publishing company. When her company merges with another, the heads of both companies are kept on as co-CEOs, and Lucy is forced to start sharing an office with her counterpart Joshua. In contrast to cheerful, quirky, approachable Lucy, Joshua is an intimidating and seemingly humorless workaholic. They hate each other instantly, and before long, they’ve made a game out of trying to outdo and annoy each other.