My ten before the end got hijacked by library holds, so who knows what the last few days of 2025 will bring reading wise. I just finished another National Book Award finalist – Bryan Washington’s Palaver (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2025). This is my first Washington; Memorial has been on my “to be put onContinue reading “PALAVER – Bryan Washington”
Tag Archives: 2025 release
BIG KISS, BYE-BYE – Claire-Louise Bennett
“And the days, I write the days in green, and the things I need, the things I need – I write those in green too.” As I prepare for next year’s Booker season, let me go ahead and say that Claire-Louise Bennett’s Big Kiss, Bye-Bye (Riverhead 2025) stands alone at this point in time onContinue reading “BIG KISS, BYE-BYE – Claire-Louise Bennett”
A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF – Megha Majumdar
“Hope for the future was no shy bloom but a blood-maddened creature, fanged and toothed, with its own knowledge of history’s hostilities and the cages of the present.” Next up on my NBA reading list is Megha Majumdar’s A Guardian and a Thief (Knopf 2025). This slim novel packs a powerful punch, each word aContinue reading “A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF – Megha Majumdar”
SHADOW TICKET – Thomas Pynchon
“Cheese – wait, cheese… has feelings, you say? You mean like… emotions?” “Long-time spiritual truth in Wisconsin. Thousands of secretly devout cheezatarians…” “Secretly?” “Only waiting for our moment. We have to be careful, don’t we… wouldn’t want to go through all that Christian-and-Romans business again, would we?” I once had a shirt that read “IContinue reading “SHADOW TICKET – Thomas Pynchon”
THE TRUE TRUE STORY OF RAJA THE GULLIBLE (AND HIS MOTHER) -Rabih Alameddine
“She asked me to tell you she would break the world for you.” “I begin this story with the lie, and like a great whale leading other sea creatures in her wake, it was followed by a whole pod. I wish I can say I had doubts. I didn’t. I jonahed that whale, swam rightContinue reading “THE TRUE TRUE STORY OF RAJA THE GULLIBLE (AND HIS MOTHER) -Rabih Alameddine”
THE IRISH GOODBYE – Heather Aimee O’Neill
“In her clenched hand, the ashes felt like the remains of something destroyed.” Heather Aimee O’Neill’s debut novel, The Irish Goodbye ( Henry Holt 2025) immediately called to mind Joyce Carol Oates’s We were the Mulvaneys (which I read in the ‘90s). Both are set in NY, both deal with family tragedy and family secrets,Continue reading “THE IRISH GOODBYE – Heather Aimee O’Neill”
THE WILDERNESS – Angela Flournoy
With the Booker dozen under my belt, I decided to swing for the National Book Award . (I’d already read two, so I figured why not.) First up is Angela Flournoy’s longlisted The Wilderness (Mariner 2025). An ambitious novel, it felt at times much longer than its 290 pages. It’s weighty, with so much heartContinue reading “THE WILDERNESS – Angela Flournoy”
WILL THERE EVER BE ANOTHER YOU – Patricia Lockwood
“A warm afternoon in winter, and Shakespeare’s wife was asking to see me. She wanted to buy my brain, but how to explain that is was no longer worth anything?” Y’all may recall the 2021 Booker season and my dark horse favorite, Patricia Lockwood’s No One is Talking About This. Her follow-up was published thisContinue reading “WILL THERE EVER BE ANOTHER YOU – Patricia Lockwood”
THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS – Annie Hartnett
PJ pet the cat in his lap. “Well, I think in his past life, Pancakes was a goat herder in Mongolia. And I believe I was one of his goats.” “A goat?” Ollie asked, laughing. “You think you were a goat?” “Yep. Or perhaps a yak. But Pancakes and I found each other again, inContinue reading “THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS – Annie Hartnett”
THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG – Leila Mottley
“Momma raised me right till she refused to raise me at all.” “They wanted us to be anything but what we were.” “’Cause hundreds of years ago, some pirate ship sunk and spilled treasures all over the bottom of our sea and now the water shines emerald green for us and if that don’t makeContinue reading “THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG – Leila Mottley”
A Girl Named Tommi 