Hi friends,
I hope everyone is cozy and warm and enjoying the holidays in your own way.
My family is interfaith and we celebrate Chanukah and Christmas, so we do it however we can with the energy and time we have. It’s always perfect. This year we had a quiet, snowed-in Chanukah celebration and a lovely two-part Christmas dinner with my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, and our two nieces.
Also, this year for a piece in Literary Hub on Iceland’s traditional Christmas “book flood," Jess deCourcy Hinds asked me and a few other authors which books we would like to give as holiday gifts. As she notes in the article, I sent her two frantic emails with more books than she could include! So I’m dedicating this week’s issue of First Draft to sharing some of my favorite books, specifically novels and story collections for adults — mostly from those I’ve read in the last few years, but also of all time.
Please know that I had to narrow the field or the list would be too unwieldy, and I still haven’t managed to capture anywhere close to everything. There are many, many more books I would love to recommend, so consider this only a start!
Finally, I had dreams of including images of all the covers and writing a few sentences about why I’ve chosen each one, but it soon became clear that I would never get this done, so without further ado, I offer you my list of novel and short story recommendations for the new year, in no particular order:
Fight Night by Miriam Toews (also All My Puny Sorrows and Women Talking)
Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
Chouette by Claire Oshetsky
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier
What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
Memorial by Bryan Washington
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Clean Air by Sarah Blake
The Nobody People and The Somebody People by Bob Proehl
The Likely World by Melanie Conroy-Goldman
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
After the Parade by Lori Ostlund
Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress
Let’s Get Back to the Party by Zak Salih
The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West
Ida by Gertrude Stein
Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
The Mountains Sing by Que Mai Phan Nguyen
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
The All-Night Sun by Diane Zinna
Familiar by J. Robert Lennon
The Stone Loves the World by Brian Hall
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer (I was fortunate to read an advance copy; comes out May 23, 2023, available for preorder)
And here’s a short list of books I plan to devour in 2023:
Everything I haven’t read yet by Miriam Toews
The Cloisters by Katy Hays
I Meant It Once by Kate Doyle
As If She Had a Say by Jennifer Fliss
World Running Down by Al Hess
I Keep My Exoskeletons To Myself by Marisa Crane
The Two Lives of Sara by Catherine Adel West
Dust Child by Que Mai Phan Nguyen
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Finally, a special book for the writers here and the ones in your life. I’ve recommended this before, but I truly can’t recommend it enough:
How to Write a Novel in 20 Pies by Amy Wallen
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading, and feel free to leave some recommendations in the comments! Meanwhile, Happy New Year and I look forward to next time.
Yours,
Jen
Thanks for this list! My two favorite books I read this year are both queer YA fiction novels: “The Sunbearer Trials” by Aiden Thomas and “Summer in the City of Roses” by Michelle Ruiz Keil.