Friday Book Debrief Vol 11

Every week we’re sharing what our some of our writers are currently reading. Please join in the chorus and tell us what you’ve been enjoying or slogging through in the comments!

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult - Melissa

Jodi Picoult is the author that feels like home to me. In taking a break from the ups and downs of the thriller world, I came back to what I know.

Buy it here.

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Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman - Mel

I’m about a third of the way through and I have no idea where Eleanor is going to take me. It’s been slow going so far but the dark notes referring to her past and her ongoing issues have kept me motivated to read.

Buy it here.

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Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler - Karen

Right from the start I was immersed in a world eerily similar to the current events we are experiencing today including a presidential candidate that wants to "Make America Great Again." [Ed. note: this novel was published in 1998] The prologue shocked me from the start and I'm intrigued to find out how this series will end.

Buy it here.

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Weather by Jenny Offill (!!!) - Victoria

This is probably my most anticipated book of the year, and halfway-through it's delivering splendidly. It's told in a similar style to Dept. of Speculation (she calls them constellations, not fragments), and is full of the same intelligence, wit, and warmth.

Buy it here.

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Up in the Main House & Other Stories by Nadeem Zaman - Akilah

A short stories collection first published in Bangladesh which Unnamed Press discovered and brought over. That publishing story alone made me feel so lucky to get to read these stories that hang in the air long after they're over.

Buy it here.

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The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea - Maggie

This might possibly be the most fucked-up, sad, traumatizing book I've ever read. 26 men tried to cross the deadliest desert in North America and only 12 made it out. It is written with detail, testimony, history, analysis, and above all—empathy.

Buy it here.

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Passing by Nella Larsen - Jessica Maria

Just cracked this open after completing Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo. Written over 90 years ago, I have a feeling it will have some of the same themes that Evaristo contemplated in her Booker Prize-winner.

Buy it here.