After long days focused on the facts, our newsroom reads a lot of fiction at home. We asked our NPR colleagues what they've enjoyed reading so far this year, and these are the titles they shared. (You can also check out their nonfiction picks here; and sign up for our Books newsletter for weekly recommendations.)
All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman
This book got me out of a reading rut! It's about a mom who is struggling to keep her life together – while simultaneously trying to solve the mystery of her son's missing classmate. It's got fun twists and turns and characters who surprise you. Very plot driven and definitely hard to put down. — Elissa Nadworny, correspondent
Among Friends by Hal Ebbott
It's your oldest friends who can really grind your gears. Hal Ebbott's debut novel starts off as an examination of this relationship – two families spend a weekend in a house together to celebrate a birthday and, of course, old resentments and jealousies creep in and out of friendly tennis games and predinner drinks. But then something happens and everything shifts and all those resentments don't seem so old anymore and the jealousy blooms into something else altogether. — Andrew Limbong, correspondent, host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast
Animal Instinct by Amy Shearn
In the middle of reading Animal Instinct, I had to stop to text this to a friend: "Divorce is so HOT right now!" In this story, Rachel is stuck inside her Brooklyn apartment at the start of the COVID-19 shutdowns. She craves everything from flirting to full-on sex after her divorce, and as she cruises through the dating apps, she starts to think: What if I could create the perfect AI partner, who would always say just the right thing? She's got the tech savvy to bring her idea to "life," but it might take more than chat to satisfy her animal instincts. — Sarah Handel, senior editor, All Things Considered
The Antidote by Karen Russell
A novel that's both an epic and an omen, this work of historical fiction is rooted in Dust Bowl tragedies that transcend time and place. In a landscape that surely feels cursed, Karen Russell introduces us to, among others, a Prairie Witch, whose gift is radical listening, providing a kind of proto-therapy that takes the weight of "whatever they can't stand to know" from her patrons. Histories we collectively cannot withstand and what they mean for our future are at the core of this novel, in which Russell masterfully renders the strange quotidian and imbues the everyday with menace or magic. — Tayla Burney, director, Network Programming and Production
Audition by Katie Kitamura
I guess I could explain the plot to you – a woman meets up with a man who is convinced she's his mother. It turns out she's not. I think? Maybe she is? Or, maybe she's not but actually kind of is? What is a mother? The most impressive thing about this book is how Katie Kitamura plays with narrative and toys with these questions presented to the reader without being overly clever about it all. She's stingy with details and answers, but generous with intrigue and depth. — Andrew Limbong, correspondent, host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Author Grady Green thinks he has the perfect marriage, an adoring wife – Abby – who will celebrate a long-awaited success with him. But when he calls her with the good news, the line goes dead and she doesn't make it home to him. A year after Abby goes missing, he's downtrodden and wrestling writer's block when his agent convinces him that time on a remote Scottish island is what he needs to finish his next novel. Once there, he thinks he sees Abby among the inhabitants and it becomes clear that both they, and he, aren't as they appear. Twisty reveals galore. — Tayla Burney, director, Network Programming and Production
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is many things: a clever nesting doll of narratives, a sanguine revenge thriller stitched inside the corpse of an old vampire yarn, and a fearsome accounting of America's murderous past. Lucky for us, Stephen Graham Jones has bound it all together with a hero (antihero?) for the ages – a man from the Blackfeet tribe, aptly named Good Stab, who is determined to right the wrongs of the past, even if it takes him a few lifetimes. — Cory Turner, correspondent, Education
The Catch by Yrsa Daley-Ward
This novel bends genres and time. It opens on the 30th birthday of twin sisters Clara and Dempsey. As children, after the death of their mother, they were raised in different families and have little in common – until that birthday, when they are pulled together after Clara swears she sees their dead mother, very much alive and also ... 30 years old. The first half of The Catch is riveting. It's a nearly impossible story to "land," but an ending is perhaps beside the point – the story could go on and on ... — Shannon Rhoades, senior editor, Weekend Edition
Darkenbloom by Eva Menasse, translated by Charlotte Collins
It is 1989, and the residents of the Austrian village of Darkenbloom are uneasy. East German refugees on the village's border with Hungary are raising the specter of World War II. The town has secrets; "good Nazis" and bad Nazis abound, and there are no Jews left. The book succeeds on multiple levels – it's a gossipy small-town satire that's laugh-out-loud funny but also a historical mystery that lays bare the complicity of characters who have convinced themselves it is possible to see evil only in hindsight. It is this last idea that sticks with you. "There was always so much to do, we couldn't pay attention to that," the Greek chorus whispers. Pay attention, says the book. — Barrie Hardymon, senior editor
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Archivist and mother Sara T. Hussein gets detained at an airport. Her crime? A dream deemed too high risk by an AI algorithm. Writing incisively, Laila Lalami brilliantly builds a world where a pre-crime system collides with surveillance capitalism. With the novel's compelling cast of characters and endless parallels to today, I found The Dream Hotel instructive for navigating a society beset by mass surveillance – where the only escape can be found in shouldering risk together. — Emily Kwong, host, Short Wave and Inheriting
The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong
The banal sentence, "This is the best novel I've read in years," captures what I've told friends about The Emperor of Gladness – which is that Ocean Vuong's gorgeous prose makes every line I've ever written seem wan by comparison. "Best novel I've read in years"? How insipid! This book tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a college dropout and an elderly woman with dementia. It paints a picture of the bond that forms among workers at a fast-food restaurant in a small New England town. And writing these sentences, all I can think is – Vuong would phrase it so much more beautifully. — Ari Shapiro, host, All Things Considered
Fair Play by Louise Hegarty
Abigail hosts a New Year's Eve murder mystery party at a countryside Airbnb – but in the morning her brother is dead for real. Who killed him? Can a renowned detective solve the crime? Or is it a crime? Is Abigail's mind playing tricks on her, grasping for all the tropes of a fair play mystery as it seeks comfort and escape from this incredible loss? I cannot believe this clever and ultimately deep story about grief is Louise Hegarty's first novel: It is a mystery within a mystery within the most existential of mysteries. — Melissa Gray, senior producer, Weekend Edition
The Garden by Nick Newman
I normally edge away from post-apocalyptic stories, but this one drew me in with its intimate, slow-burn focus on two elderly sisters. Evelyn tends their garden sanctuary, collecting the eggs and picking slugs off the spinach. Lily ... dances. When the life they have built is threatened, they approach this new test in very different ways. What haunted me afterwards was the implicit question this climate fiction fable asks: Is it better to focus on the daily duties of life or on its beauties? On survival or on meaning? And can you have one without the other? — Jennifer Vanasco, senior editor, Culture Desk
Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson
Ebby Freeman's idyllic childhood turned upside down the day she saw her big brother Baz shot and killed during a home invasion. Her peace shattered alongside the stoneware jar that broke the day Baz died, a jar that generations of her family had passed along starting in slavery to eventual prosperity. As she grows into adulthood, Ebby reckons with the lingering effects of prejudice and secrets in her broken engagement to a white man. This novel is a timely reminder that values, strength and connection sustain us more deeply than falsely taken power or the worship of status or things. — Tayla Burney, director, Network Programming and Production
Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi
Heart Lamp hurls you into southwest India, where Muslim women survive in a world of casual cruelty, one of rules made for – and by – men. In one story, a woman despairs in marital abandonment but finds strength in her daughter. Another woman is ignored as she begs for help for her daughter, later describing her relief at her baby's death. Banu Mushtaq's book isn't a simplistic takedown of Islam. These women are evocative and fully formed. They are inspired by Mushtaq's own experiences as a lawyer representing women in her own Kannada-speaking community. When the book won the International Booker Prize, Mushtaq described it as "like a thousand fireflies lighting up a single sky." That's how I felt reading this book. — Diaa Hadid, correspondent, International Desk
Helen of Troy, 1993: Poems by Maria Zoccola
What if Helen of Troy was a small-town beauty in Sparta, Tenn., with a crappy washing machine? What if absconding with a stranger launched not a single ship, but set a thousand tongues to wagging? The thought experiment might sound a little goofy, but in Maria Zoccola's hands, the results are clarifying. These poems expand, complicate and enrich. Zoccola favors the golden shovel, a poetic form – like an acrostic's more sophisticated cousin – that hides another text within itself. Her collection pulls off a similar trick, threading the Iliad into something wholly new. — Camila Domonoske, correspondent
Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang
Julie and her estranged twin, Chloe, may look identical, but that's where the similarities end. Julie works at a supermarket, while her sister revels in the love of millions as a social media influencer. But when Chloe dies, Julie realizes she can pass for her twin – if people don't look too closely. What follows is a thrilling, haunting look at the upkeep of pretending to be someone you're not, whether on-screen or in person. As Julie goes to brow-raising lengths to keep up the farce and maintain her newfound audience's love, you'll find yourself asking whether she has a limit. — Hafsa Fathima, assistant producer, Pop Culture Happy Hour
King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
Family secrets are something and in this Southern crime drama, they burn! When Roman Carruthers' elderly father is incapacitated by the local drug gang, this prodigal son returns to set things right and protect his hapless younger brother and his hardworking sister. She needs help keeping the family crematorium business going. Know what's good for getting rid of a body you don't want around? A crematorium! Roman gets pulled in deeper and deeper as he tries to take down the gang from the inside, just as his sister thinks she's uncovered the mystery of what really happened to their long-missing mother. This story spins and spins violently to a dark and satisfying conclusion. — Melissa Gray, senior producer, Weekend Edition
Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani
An unnamed ex-academic decides to marry rich to escape the grim university job market and her lackluster love life. She makes a spreadsheet and tracks her dates, while navigating life in LA and Tehran, her Iranian Indian heritage and a close will-they-won't-they friendship. The novel is stylish and quick-witted, and it blends heady theory – about love, capitalism, immigration, sex and death – with the brass tacks of parties, hookups, post-9/11 surveillance in the U.S., health care in Iran and more. Mariam Rahmani includes the best details. And the cover art is gorgeous. — Neena Pathak, senior editor
Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz is back with a new mystery-within-a-mystery book featuring returning character Susan Ryeland. She has to edit a new novel by Eliot Crace centered on world famous detective Atticus Pünd. Pünd finds himself in the South of France solving the murder of his friend, wealthy Lady Margaret Chalfont. After she is poisoned, Pünd has to figure out who in her family is the killer. As Ryeland tries to figure out who the killer is in Crace's Pünd novel, she becomes a suspect in a murder herself. Horowitz delivers another cleverly written story full of hidden anagrams, secrets and disguises that is well worth the trip back into the world of Susan Ryeland and Atticus Pünd. — Ameera Butt, editor, Audience Engagement
My Friends by Fredrik Backman, translated by Neil Smith
This is Fredrik Backman at the height of his empathy and resonance. It's the story of a painting – its artist and its subjects – and the journey of a young woman to understand how it came to be. It's also a deeply personal exploration of art, what we sacrifice of ourselves to bring beauty into the world and what we gain when others find a home within it. I frequently paused to marvel at the way Backman captured the rebellion of joy, the ferocity of devotion and the cruelty of indifference. Every Backman book should come with the warning that your heart will be split in two but also, more importantly, with the assurance that it will be repaired with restored faith in the small miracles of being human. — Elena Burnett, producer, All Things Considered
My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende, translated by Frances Riddle
I wish I could be more like Emilia del Valle! She doesn't let the fact that she's a woman (in the late 19th century) stop her from first becoming an author – and then a war correspondent. Deciding to explore her Chilean roots, Emilia plunges headlong into Chile's civil war, travels with the troops and manages to fall in love. Yet she never loses her sense of who she is and what she wants. The book immersed me in history I didn't know and gave me someone I could really root for. — Emiko Tamagawa, senior producer, Here & Now
The Naming of the Birds by Paraic O'Donnell
This Victorian mystery novel is Dickens meets Sherlock Holmes meets La Femme Nikita, and it wears its genre conventions proudly. The heroes: a brilliant, gruff police officer and his bumbling assistant, aided by a plucky lady journalist. The crimes: elaborate serial murders of insignificant elderly men. The killings are connected to the book's prologue, a harrowing tale of mistreated orphans seemingly in training to be assassins. The reader knows this, but the detectives do not, giving the events a frisson of dramatic irony as the body count ticks up. — Holly J. Morris, digital trainer
Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow
This smart and pacey "historical techno-thriller" – the third in a series by the Anglo-Canadian writer Cory Doctorow – transports readers to the dawn of the PC era. It's the mid-1980s in San Francisco and a young MIT dropout turned freelance tech accountant, Martin Hench, finds himself working, somewhat improbably, for a computer manufacturing company run by a Mormon bishop, a Catholic priest and an Orthodox rabbi. When it turns out to be a huge scam aimed at fleecing religious groups, Hench joins a competitor startup run by a trio of defiant women. Hench and his new colleagues risk their lives in a fight to make the PC revolution more open source. — Chloe Veltman, correspondent, Culture Desk
The Pretender by Jo Harkin
Perhaps you thought the Wolf Hall trilogy was the last of historical fiction that combines Tudor history and psychological exploration so brilliantly? I present to you Jo Harkin's novel about Tudor impostor Lambert Simnel. The book is narrated by the pretender himself: a 10-year-old, manipulated by powerful adults, robbed of his personhood again and again, a pawn in a European power struggle. It contains some of the most authentic writing in a child's voice I've ever read. And while the book is a deeply engaging read, it underlines profoundly the experience of those who must try to forge and keep their identity without agency, caught in the powerful maw of history. — Barrie Hardymon, senior editor
Promise Me Sunshine by Cara Bastone
Most nights, Lenny rides the Staten Island Ferry until sunrise. She can't bear to go back to the apartment she once shared with Lou, her now-dead best friend. As she struggles to bear each day without Lou, a grumpy stranger named Miles falls into her life. Like some sort of guardian angel of grieving, Miles offers Lenny a balm for when the pain overwhelms: Do something good for you. Something bad for you. And, a change of scenery. Slowly, Miles coaxes Lenny back to life. On its surface, grief may seem an odd theme for a romance novel, but then again, what is grief if not the purest expression of love? — Lauren Migaki, senior producer
The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson
Let me start by saying that writing a really good epic fantasy is hard to do. But with The Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson makes it look like a breeze. The story takes place in Orrun, where a fierce competition to replace the emperor is about to take place. When a contender is found dead before the tournament begins, Neema Kraa, a scholar – with admittedly dubious morals – is tasked with finding the killer. This tale of murder, tragedy and familial betrayal is firing on all cylinders. It's too smart for its own good – layering multiple mysteries with characters who defy their own archetypes. The year may still be young but, so far, The Raven Scholar feels like the 2025 fantasy novel to beat. — Kalyani Saxena, associate producer, Here & Now
The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie
Babs is a clear-eyed, ruthless grandmother who is the de facto ruler of her small, predominately Franco-American town in Maine. The town has seen better days, and when her control of the drug trade is usurped, everything comes crashing down. One daughter goes missing, the other daughter seeks the truth, and Babs makes a defiant final choice. Ron Currie creates compelling and complex female characters operating with cool logic in a morally corrupt world. Funny at times and entirely enthralling. — Melissa Gray, senior producer, Weekend Edition
Sounds Like Love by Ashley Poston
This magical romance follows a songwriter trying to make her next hit while struggling with writer's block. She returns to her hometown and develops an undeniable connection with a musician she meets there. They have a telepathic line of communication, and they hope that by collaborating, they might break free of a haunting melody they share in their heads. The story explores love in many forms, from family connections to romantic bonds. This musical story reads like a ballad. — Brittney Melton, writer, Up First newsletter
Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories by Torrey Peters
Stag Dance is an incredibly engrossing collection of stories spread out among very different genres. There's a lumberjack's tall tale, a dystopian sci-fi, a teen romance and a horror story – but they all have a couple of things in common: One, they're all wonderfully rendered, and two, they all explore the margins of gender. These stories explore the murky area between what we understand as cis and trans. Torrey Peters brings her signature wit and heart to get past the labels and into the core of how we all negotiate the ways we want to be seen. — Liam McBain, producer, It's Been a Minute
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
Rebel plots, bootleg liquor, underdog alliances and Edgar Allan Poe-try all await you in the latest addition to the Hunger Games universe. Sunrise on the Reaping is the long-awaited account of Haymitch Abernathy's path to victory during the 50th annual Hunger Games. With double the number of children sent into the arena and appearances from a cast of familiar characters, this book provides an entirely new perspective on the history of Panem. While Haymitch's victory at the end of this book is not a surprise, the stakes still feel higher than ever in the small wins and losses that Haymitch and his loved ones face both in, and outside, the arena. — Dhanika Pineda, assistant producer, NPR Music
There's Something About Mira by Sonali Dev
Mira's pre-wedding trip to New York is turning out to be interesting: Her fiancé is too busy with work to travel, her twin brother is mad at her and she stumbles upon a mysterious ring. She's determined to find the ring's owner, but she needs the help of surly journalist Krish Hale. Meanwhile, in parallel, we hear through letters the story of two women in India in the 1980s – friends who are forbidden to be anything more – who are connected by, you guessed it, a ring. This is one of Sonali Dev's most powerful works yet, going beyond just romance to explore identity, family and resilience. — Hafsa Fathima, assistant producer, Pop Culture Happy Hour
These Days by Lucy Caldwell
It's April 1941, just before the "Belfast Blitz," Germany's deadly bombing of the capital of Northern Ireland. Two sisters, Audrey and Emma Bell, are both testing boundaries – society's and their own – to find out what kind of women they want to be. Lucy Caldwell so beautifully balances a book that feels intimate and deeply personal, as if you're reading someone's diary, with the greater historical resonance of this very real chapter of World War II history (one readers might not know). — Shannon Rhoades, senior editor, Weekend Edition
Tilt by Emma Pattee
An extremely pregnant woman has to go to Ikea – and yet her day somehow gets worse from there when an earthquake hits. In a lot of ways, Emma Pattee's debut is a lean, action-adventure novel about a woman who has to overcome obstacles to get from Point A to Point B. But the book is tender in its approach to the singular will to survive, while also making time to poke fun at the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses of modern-day motherhood. — Andrew Limbong, correspondent, host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast
Too Soon by Betty Shamieh
Betty Shamieh's page-turner of a family epic, Too Soon, tells the story of three generations of Palestinian American women finding their places in the world, looking for love and, as Shamieh put it, wringing "an acceptable amount of joy out of a world that is not designed for them to do so." The story starts with granddaughter Arabella, a theater director given a chance to put on Hamlet in the West Bank. Her grandmother sets her up with her old flame's grandson, a doctor saving lives in Gaza. But Arabella can't stop thinking about the Israeli American she's leaving behind in New York. — Christina Cala, senior producer, Code Switch
Twelve Post-War Tales by Graham Swift
Like its title, the stories in this collection are deceptively simple. "Where were you when" is invoked explicitly in one; more often, the stories concern themselves, very quietly, with how great historical events linger in the lives of ordinary men and women. I'm still thinking about "Blushes" – when a 72-year-old doctor thinks back on his 10th birthday while driving to the hospital for a shift in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. I'll be adding this book to my shelf. I'm not ready to part with it. — Shannon Rhoades, senior editor, Weekend Edition
Vantage Point by Sara Sligar
A summer mystery with a troubled rich family and a curse? Sign me up. Vantage Point is set on a secluded island in Maine and reads like a tech thriller with the soul of a gothic dynastic horror story. It's told from the dual perspectives of Clara, the youngest member of the wealthy, politically connected and highly unlucky Wieland family, and Jess, Clara's childhood best friend who's married to Clara's brother, Senate hopeful Teddy. When a series of deepfake videos targets Clara and then Jess, it feels as though the famous Wieland curse has come into the digital age. The book is a rich drama about friendship, class and inherited trauma – all in the package of a propulsive yarn. — Barrie Hardymon, senior editor
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
Dear Reader, if you crave an exquisitely unhinged novel, look no further. Within these pages, you'll find simmering rage, aristocrats behaving badly and more than a little murder. When our protagonist, Winifred Notty, arrives at Ensor House to become the Pounds' family governess, we can't help but admire her dark humor and sharp wit. But Winifred has grisly urges and deranged plans. Virginia Feito choreographs a literary waltz of intrusive thoughts and vile actions – I found it impossible to put down. — Nikki Birch, video producer, NPR Music/Visuals
When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi
How would you respond to a world-changing event that probably means the end of humanity as we know it? And what if that event were completely silly and absurd? That's the premise of When the Moon Hits Your Eye. It's the last of a loose trilogy of absurdist sci-fi books by sci-fi author John Scalzi. It imagines how humanity might respond to the moon suddenly being replaced by a massive chunk of "organic matrix," aka cheese. This breezy beach read will keep you giggling as dozens of characters come to terms with the idea that the world may not end with a whimper or a bang, but rather in a layer of hot mozzarella. — Brett Neely, supervising editor
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