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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.

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.

Well, I did it: I read one of the first works of “Pandemic Fiction” by a North American author. Too soon, you ask, for any author to do justice to the subject? Too soon to read about the last two complex and challenging years, laced with so much tragedy, especially as we’re not exactly out of the woods yet? I wondered too.

4 out of 5 Stars

“He had suddenly begun to have a sense that the reason he wanted the escape was not only in order to sacrifice thirty thousand on it and thus heal his scar, but also for some other reason. 'Is it because within my soul I am a murderer, too?' He had started to wonder. Something distant but burning had stung his soul.”

Uniquely narrated by a fig tree, The Island of Missing Trees switches between two timelines to tell a story of love, heartbreak and a nation torn apart.  

What a powerful read. That this book exists is a miracle: originally written for a contest in 1930s Eastern Europe (in what is now Poland and Lithuania), these six essays were among hundreds hidden from the Nazis multiple times and eventually discovered in a church in 2017.