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Reading Deacon King Kong reminded me of listening to a rich and soulful jazz composition played by a brilliant ensemble that improvises playfully like nobody's business and in doing so takes my breath away. I won't even try and extend this metaphor.

I loved this new time travel novel from Emily St. John Mandel. Covering a span of several hundred years from 1912 onwards, we are taken to moments in time connected to a mysterious time slip or glitch.

In 2021, poet, scholar, and Atlantic Magazine staff writer Clint Smith published his first major work of nonfiction,

The Sparrow (1996), by Mary Doria Russell, opens in 2059, in the aftermath of a disastrous Jesuit mission to make first contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. Emilio Sandoz, a priest and linguist who is the only survivor among the mission’s crew, has just returned to Earth physically mutilated and spiritually broken.

If you enjoy poetry, I recommend this collection of classics. There are a variety of long and short poems as well as a plethora of authors and topics. 

-Teen Reviewer

Yes, or dying, would be Metaxas' answer to the title of his book Is Atheism Dead? (2021). 

Kate Grenville takes us back to the colonization of Australia in this hauntingly atmospheric tale. Thornhill, a British convict, is sentenced to be deported to Australia for a petty crime committed in his quest to survive poverty.

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (2021), by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, is a Chinese fantasy novel series centering on cultivators, magic users who develop supernatural powers through training and meditation.

As the only Black woman working at prestigious Wagner Publishing in Manhattan, Nella Rogers yearns for another Black female colleague, someone able to empathize with the stresses and pressures Black people face on a daily basis, working in industries and socializing in work-related situations which, like publishing, are rife with the challenges of classism and racism, despite efforts exerted by the powers-that-be to pretend otherwise.

I personally enjoyed The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think that the plot was very engaging and the characters added to the story. The dream-like feel added to the setting and made it a very great book to escape into.

Looking for a feel-good book?

The first book in the magical and action-filled Farsala trilogy.