book lists Archives - Independent Book Review https://independentbookreview.com/tag/book-lists/ A Celebration of Indie Press and Self-Published Books Tue, 10 Jun 2025 12:58:04 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://i0.wp.com/independentbookreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Untitled-design-100.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 book lists Archives - Independent Book Review https://independentbookreview.com/tag/book-lists/ 32 32 144643167 Literary Fiction Books That Are Punk AF https://independentbookreview.com/2025/06/10/literary-fiction-books-that-are-punk-af/ https://independentbookreview.com/2025/06/10/literary-fiction-books-that-are-punk-af/#respond Tue, 10 Jun 2025 11:33:00 +0000 https://independentbookreview.com/?p=87893 Indie lit has always been counterculture. Check out Nick Gardner's list of seven literary fiction books that are punk AF.

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]]> Literary Fiction Books That Are Punk AF

by Nick Gardner

Indie lit has always been counterculture.

It would honestly be nuts for a small press to open their door to submissions without the desire to fight the status quo. The very idea of indie lit is anticapitalist (small presses probably won’t get you rich), anti-establishment (the “Big Five” can eat it), and, for the most part, small presses like fiction that breaks the rules. But what makes a book punk-as-fuck goes beyond the author’s antiauthoritarian leanings. It must have some other pull. It needs music.

While this list is far from exhaustive, it focuses on books of literary fiction that don’t just have that punk fierceness, that blatant challenging of authority, but those that also have the music.

Think Bad Brains, Buzzcocks, Pere Ubu. You can get behind the lyrics, the message, the ethos, the power, but a punk group is nothing if the sound doesn’t make you want to mosh. That’s what makes these specific literary fiction authors stand out: not only the shared goal of challenging the way the reader sees the world, but also an understanding of the aesthetic necessary to keep a reader glued to the page. 

Here are 7 literary fiction books that challenge the status quo.

(Book lists on Independent Book Review are chosen by very picky people. As affiliates, we earn a commission on books you purchase through our links.)

1. Someone Who Isn’t Me

Author: Geoff Rickly

Publisher: Rose Books (2023)

Print Length: 258 pages

ISBN: 9798987581827



Okay, some can argue that he’s more post-hardcore than punk, but Geoff Rickly’s debut novel, Someone Who Isn’t Me, hums with musical prose that rivals the best lyrical writers of literary fiction.

A heroin addict and lead singer, the protagonist, Geoff, seeks sobriety through the psychedelic drug Ibogaine. His trip sends him on a psychic spiral through his guilt-laden past, forcing him to contend with the person he has become. Rickly depicts Geoff’s wild tour across the United States, not holding back on the bickering or the drugs. It’s a dirty novel in the way that addiction can be dirty. But it also breaks the trend of stories about addiction. Refusing to pause on the fallout, Rickly writes beyond into recovery and hope. 

2. No Names

Author: Greg Hewett

Publisher: Coffee House Press (April 2025)

Print Length: 352 pages

ISBN: 9781566897259


Greg Hewett’s No Names is by far the slowest moving of the works of literary fiction in this list. Think Sleep’s Dopesmoker. Okay, maybe it’s doom metal. Whatever the case, punk is the root.

As Hewett skips around from POV to POV, a large focus is a punk band called, of course, The No Names, and the sketchy European tour that ended the band. But there’s also quite a bit of classical music in the background, as well as a long exploration of friendships entangled with sexual experimentation. Maybe the end drags on a bit longer than expected, but the prose holds up, a song that slowly diminishes rather than ending with a crash. 

Looking for more literary fiction recommendations? Check out our best books of 2024!

3. Earth Angel

Author: Madeline Cash

Publisher: CLASH Books (April 18, 2023)

Print Length: 152 pages

ISBN: 9781955904698

Easy to read cover-to-cover in a single sitting, Earth Angel is all power chords, heavy and fast. Cash’s sentences are short and piercing and her endings cut to nothing rather than attempting a summation or even a meaning. Because everything is meaningless, right? 

Think Biblical plagues, Isis recruits, childless millennials and millennials with children that they’re not quite sure what to do with. Think designer drugs, broke city dwellers, homicidal fantasies, porn. Maybe Earth Angel is too modern to hold to the ‘80s DIY ethos, but it’s still counterculture AF. It still questions authority, culture, and god. It’s a witty collection for confused kids who definitely don’t want to grow up.

4. Scumbag Summer

Author: Jillian Luft

Publisher: House of Vlad Press (June 2024)

Print Length: 192 pages

ISBN: 9798320644059


More sex, more drugs, more blood and fallout, Scumbag Summer explores smoky bowling alleys and dive bars, the crass scenery of Orlando. Though she’s a college grad, the protagonist seems intent on continuing her nihilistic young-adulthood, refusing to settle into any kind of square, middle class grind.

Orlando for her is No Doz and 7 layer burritos, and as she lodges herself more deeply into the dumpster fire, she spots the pages with social commentary, a distrust of wealth and power and an understanding of  “trash culture,” of those stuck in on the lower rungs of the social hierarchy who sometimes can’t even imagine the climb. Scumbag Summer also contains one of the most punk lines I’ve ever read: “Love is a friendly butcher.”

5. Ghosts of East Baltimore

Author: David Simmons

Publisher: Broken River Books (2022)

Print Length: 202 pages

ISBN: 9781940885544

A Baltimore native with a deep understanding of the underground, David Simmons shrugs off the rules in his debut literary crime thriller. As with the other books on this list, there’s a unique and manic music behind Simmons’ prose. It’s rough music, blasted loud. I mean what’s more punk than a protagonist named Worm who gets out of prison to find that he’s the only one who can take out a drug ring smuggling dangerous chemicals into his community?

Simmons raises the bar for punk AF literature with his cutting social commentary, including “crack epidemic” history lessons and a deep understanding of Baltimore’s crime and corruption-ridden past. 

6. Hellions

Author: Julia Elliott

Publisher: Tin House Books (April 15, 2025)

Print Length: 272 pages

ISBN: 9781963108064

Witches, Cryptids, Ghosts, and other supernatural entities plague the pages of Julia Elliott’s strange collection of longer short fiction. No flash stories here. But just like when you enter a DIY venue and feel surrounded by like minds, the pages of Hellions is a comforting place for those who have normalized the weird.

In “The Maiden,” a community trampoline allows a witchy girl to show up the popular kids with her otherworldly acrobatics before disappearing to her woodland squat. And in “Hellion,” a tough twelve-year-old tames an alligator. Elliott’s stories are filled with loners and weirdos outperforming their normative peers and youngsters challenging their parents’ conservative ideals. What’s more punk than that?

7. Hey You Assholes

Author: Kyle Seibel

Publisher: CLASH Books (March 25, 2025)

Print Length: 272 pages

ISBN: 9781960988393

Seibel’s story of trying to publish this debut book of short literary fiction, Hey You Assholes is filled with almost as many bizarre twists as the book itself. It reminds me of a 21st century reenactment of ‘80s punk bands banging down doors to book a studio or distro a record. He couldn’t have found a better home for his book than Clash Books, a publisher of some of the strangest and most energetic fiction on the market. Energetic is the word, because even the longer stories don’t stop driving. ThinkLandowner Plays Dopesmoker 666% Faster and with No Distortion.

Hey You Assholes is a deep dive into the lives of unpopular people: soft-hearted alcoholics, wiley factory workers, and Navy veterans who feel forever lost at sea. None of Seibel’s characters have money or power and they definitely don’t have any respect for The Man. 

Want some thrills in your bookshelf? Check out the best indie thrillers!

About the Author


Nick Gardner is a writer, teacher, and critic who has worked as a winemaker, chef, painter, shoe salesman, and addiction counselor. His latest collection of stories from the Rust Belt, Delinquents And Other Escape Attempts, is out now from Madrona Books. He lives in Ohio and Washington, DC and works as a beer and wine monger in Maryland.

Thank you for reading Nick Gardner’s “Literary Fiction Books That Are Punk AF!” If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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]]> https://independentbookreview.com/2025/06/10/literary-fiction-books-that-are-punk-af/feed/ 0 87893 8 of the Best Book Series of the Last Few Years https://independentbookreview.com/2025/03/03/best-book-series-of-the-last-few-years/ https://independentbookreview.com/2025/03/03/best-book-series-of-the-last-few-years/#respond Mon, 03 Mar 2025 13:00:00 +0000 https://independentbookreview.com/?p=85124 Here are some of the best book series we've read over the last few years. The list includes books from Lisa Boyle, Joseph Stone, Richard Harland, and more.

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]]> 8 of the Best Book Series of the Last Few Years

by Joe Walters & the IBR Staff

best book series featured photo with fantastical swirl and bookmark

Read a series, experience a world.

Some stories can’t be told in one book. Some need time to develop. Some need context. Some characters are just too good to say goodbye to.

Writing a great fictional book series is its own dedicated art form. You’ve got to enthrall readers so much that they don’t want to leave for 1,000 pages. Even if you’re Leo Tolstoy, that’s a tough thing to convince a modern reader.

My team and I have reviewed over 2,000 indie books since 2018, so at this point, we know what you want.

We know it’s these books.

Here are some of the best book series of the last few years!

1. The Pinter P.I. Series

the pinter pi book series lisa boyle

Author: Lisa Boyle

Subgenre: Crime

Series Length: 3 Books

Reviewed by: Erin Britton


A rip-roaring crime series with complex, evolving characters and even better plot twists and curveballs

This series ticks all the boxes for modern crime fiction. It’s got unlikely heroes solving genuinely surprising mysteries with enough well-paced action to make the thriller aspects come to life. The Navajo setting also adds cultural richness to the storyline.

Both of the first two books received starred reviews at Independent Book Review, and good news for all involved: the third book is on its way out in July. So read the first two stars now, so you’re ready for The Pusher Man.

2. Moonshiner Mysteries

moonshiner mysteries series by sherilyn decter

Author: Sherilyn Decter

Subgenre: Historical Fiction / Women’s

Series Length: 4 Books

Reviewed by: Joelene Pynnonen

A historical mystery series that just keeps getting better

Set in Montana’s gold fields during prohibition, the Moonshiner Mysteries series follows Delores Bailey, a resilient young woman who flees a dangerous, abusive, crime-infested family in Philadelphia to make a home (and a moonshine still) in the middle of the Big Sky state.

Every single book in this series has been named to our best of the year book list in the year it was published. Decter’s recipe for this moonshining series is infused with sweetness, charm, good friends, historical clout, and backstabbing enemies.

If you’re looking for an authentic historical atmosphere and a lovable leading lady, you’ve struck gold with the Moonshiners Mysteries.

Here are my tips on how to develop a healthy reading habit!

3. Detective Hiroshi Series

detective hiroshi michael pronko book series

Author: Michael Pronko

Subgenre: Crime / Japan

Series Length: 6 books

Reviewed by: Joe Walters & Peggy Kurkowski

First-rate detective fiction; non-stop mystery

I was blown away by Azabu Getaway, the first novel we reviewed of Pronko’s. It’s not every day I encounter a thriller with as many mysteries as that one. It keeps you constantly asking questions, zipping around from perspective to perspective to complicate each situation and to develop the chase-down, but it always makes sure you don’t skip a beat at the same time.

Peggy Kurkowski says that Shitamachi Scam, the series’ most recent novel is, “a superb and timely plot with old school sleuthing and witty, compelling characters.”

It takes a deft writer to pull off prose and mysteries like these. Luckily there are 6!

4. The Lykanos Chronicles

lykanos chronicles joseph stone series

Author: Joseph Stone

Subgenre: Dark Fantasy

Series Length: 3 books

Reviewed by: Joe Walters & Alexandria Ducksworth

Addictive dark fantasy where the author always remains one step ahead

Werewolves traipse down the dark streets of 1920s France in The Lykanos Chronicles. It begins with Criminal Beware, “a dark web of paranormal mystery… that’ll give you more than you bargained for.”

Stone’s wolves are smart, sophisticated, and insanely powerful. Like reading Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire—but with werewolves—the world of this series is beyond intriguing. Alexandria Ducksworth says, “Stone has the magical touch with worldbuilding.”

5. The Phoenix Elite

Author: C.T. Clark

Subgenre: Science Fiction / Action & Adventure

Series Length: 2 books

Reviewed by: Chelsey Tucker

Fascinating technology, crazy schemes, a bit of freaky science, and a spectacular collision of historical people

Each one of The Phoenix Elite, a technically discontinued experiment made up of seven individuals from around the world, is 99.5% related to a prominent historical figure. A creative, eccentric genius; a devoutly religious teenager of the 15th century; a ground-breaking leader from Ancient Egypt; and a controversial revolutionary guerilla.

Cloning historical figures to create a super team to save the world against nuclear destruction is wild and worth the ride. 

6. Just In Time

best book series of the last few years Just In Time by Howard Wetsman

Author: Howard Wetsman

Subgenre: Science Fiction / Time Travel

Series Length: 2 books

Reviewed by: Joelene Pynnonen

Time traveling with a Roman Emperor gets even better as this enthralling series goes on.

When Joe Schwartz, a Late Roman and Byzantine professor at Tulane University, is approached by a young man after one of his lectures, he’s not prepared for how drastically his worldview will change. 

It turns out—this man, Jules, is actually Flavius Claudius Julianus, the eventual emperor of Rome. The Jules that Joe meets is a much younger man, nowhere near the age where he will take the crown and the realm. And he needs help.

This series explores time travel through a contemplative, thoughtful lens, which gives the distinct feeling of burrowing down for a bit of cozy sci-fi when you settle in to read it.

Many of the aspects that made the first book, House on Constantinople, such a phenomenal read return in Just in Time Service, only bigger and better. The fusion of real history and fiction is just as vital, and as more time travelers are introduced, we’re exposed to a far wider range of historical events and periods. 

Get yourself one of the best e-readers for reading at night and on the go!

7. The Ferren Trilogy

ferren trilogy

Author: Richard Harland

Subgenre: Fantasy / Angels & Demons

Series Length: 3 books

Reviewed by: Alexandria Ducksworth

Science and religion battle it out in this fast-paced dystopian fantasy with loads of fascinating lore.

In Richard Harland’s hands, the future contains humans, angels, wandering spirits, and technological monstrosities. And they’re constantly fighting for dominance of our post-apocalyptic world.

One of the most rewarding parts of this series is that you get to watch Ferren, a young man who watches an angel fall from Heaven, transform from a humdrum follower to a brave leader just as the conversation about science and religion really comes to a head.

This series is a non-stop thrill-ride that takes place in a cleverly crafted world where you can bet the characters will get their rightful endings.

8. The Adventures of the Flash Gang

adventures of the flash gang series

Author: M.M. Downing & S.J. Waugh

Subgenre: Middle Grade Fiction / Historical

Series Length: 3 books

Reviewed by: Warren Maxwell

A rollicking series of crooked schemes and youthful hijinks set in the gritty underworld of Depression-era Pittsburgh

Book one, Exploding Experiment, is a gripping story of two young children who foil a vast international conspiracy. Book two, Treasonous Tycoon, is an emotional, noir-tinged sequel that has street orphans investigating a Nazi plot, and it’s all splashed with humor and playful dialogue. The third…well, we can’t wait for that one either!

This middle grade series is a special one. It has a deep sense of history, especially in book two, and its characters are alive and vital and stand in the way of being young and overlooked. They are important; our younger ones are too.

What are your favorite book series of all time? Let us know in the comments!

Thank you for reading “8 of the Best Book Series of the Last Few Years!” If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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]]> https://independentbookreview.com/2025/03/03/best-book-series-of-the-last-few-years/feed/ 0 85124 13 Witchy Books Perfect for Fall Reading https://independentbookreview.com/2024/10/14/13-witchy-books-perfect-for-fall-reading/ https://independentbookreview.com/2024/10/14/13-witchy-books-perfect-for-fall-reading/#comments Mon, 14 Oct 2024 12:10:00 +0000 https://independentbookreview.com/?p=82611 Ring in the spooky season with these magical fall reads. 13 witchy books to get you basking in the Fall vibes. Written by Carley Carver!

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]]> 13 Witchy Books Perfect for Fall Reading

by Carley Carver

Ring in the spooky season with these magical fall reads.

Autumn is here! Halloween is nipping at its heels. It’s time for witches, ghosts, and all manner of spooky creatures to arrive in our homes, on our screens, and in our books.

Some believe the supernatural veil is thinner this time of year. They go looking for inspiration. I’ve got it. If you just want a happy haunt to get into the spirit of the season, I’ve got that too. No matter your motivations, here are some spooky, witchy books I’d be glad to recommend.

And best of all, they’re all indie books!

Here are 13 witchy books to bask in Fall vibes.

1. Yew Hallow

Author: Alexandria Clarke

Subgenre: Paranormal / Romance

Print Length: 300 pages

ISBN: 9798339593270


Yew Hollow is a cozy mystery with a magical twist. Paranormal detective Morgan Summers hates working with ghosts, but she is tasked to work with one. When she gets entangled in the secrets behind the ghost’s untimely death, she herself is considered a suspect. And she’s going to have to work against town gossip to solve it. This book is quippy with just the right amount of mystery and romance woven in. 

2. Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

Author: HP Mallory

Subgenre: Witches & Vampires / Romance

Print Length: 245 pages

ISBN: 9798509712531

The first book of H.P. Mallory’s 39 part collection of magical romances, Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble, feels like you’re hearing a story from your witchy best friend. Jolie, a witch living in Los Angeles, is hired by a handsome warlock to help a ghost. As they work together, they create more chaos when they accidentally raise the ghost from the dead.

This book has all the feels of a cozy romance with a generous amount of laughs along the way. 

What do you want for Christmas? Get these gifts for book lovers!

3. Fat Witch Summer

Author: Lizzy Ives

Subgenre: Witches / Friendship

Print Length: 318 pages

ISBN: 9780996232456

Publisher: Sounds True

Osmarra is a plus-sized witch about to come of age and receive her magical gifts, chosen by her mother. The only problem is that her mother is a slim glamor witch convinced that gifting Osmarra with the glamor gift will solve all their familial issues. Osmarra sets out on a summer road trip with other young witches on a mission to set their own destinies.

This is a light-hearted, comical book with body-positive messages and unexpected lessons. 

4. The Forgotten Witch

Author: Jessica Dodge

Subgenre: Romance

Print Length: 434 pages

ISBN: 9781737696650

Helen is burned out and tired of living in the city, so she makes a knee-jerk purchase and finds herself the new owner of a 500-year-old cottage in Scotland. In the cottage, she is introduced to a world of magic that she never knew was there. With the help of her handsome neighbor, she works to solve the mystery of this curious new home.

This book will keep you riveted! It’s got the right balance of genuine mystery and romance, and it’ll check all of your autumnal boxes. 

5. Dead Witch On a Bridge

Author: Gretchen Galway

Subgenre: Urban Fantasy

Print Length: 3388 pages

ISBN: 9781939872418

Another supernatural murder mystery to add to your reading list! Alma is a demon-hunting witch who finds herself at the center of a murder investigation thanks to some meddling fairies. In order to save herself, Alma must solve the murder and challenge a slew of unsavory (and dangerous) magical characters. 

6. The Last Witch of Scotland

Author: Philip Paris

Subgenre: Historical / World Lit

Print Length: 352 pages

ISBN: 9781785305245

Publisher: Black and White Publishing

This one is excellent for those always seeking more about real life witch hunts, as it follows the true story of the last person executed in the witch trials of Britain. Alia and her mother are left in pieces after a fire takes the life of her father. In an attempt to start over, they move to the small community of Loth. When a mysterious troupe of entertainers arrive, Alia is quickly drawn to them, churning up gossip from the people of Loth. 

Bedtime reading is the best time reading. Get yourself one of the best e-readers for the job.

7. The Sapling Cage

Author: Margaret Killjoy

Subgenre: Adventure / LGBTQ

Print Length: 321 pages

ISBN: 9781558613317

Publisher: Feminist Press

When a disease begins to kill trees in the forest, Lorel is keen to join up with the witches to find out why and how to stop it. But witches are all women, and Lorel was born a boy. Sapling Cage follows Lorel on her journey of identity, witchcraft, and covens in a novel Audrey Davis called, “a delight for anyone with a love of magical stories and high fantasy” [Review].

8. Burned: A Daughters of Salem Novel

Author: Kellie O’Neill

Subgenre: Historical / Salem

Print Length: 520 pages

ISBN: 9798989244348


A newly anointed witch, Eleanor, is balancing her normal life with witch lessons in the famed witchy town of Salem. When some of her fellow coven witches go missing, Eleanor teams up with her familiar to solve the mystery and in turn unearths a story that dates back to Salem’s infamous 17th century witch trials. Fans of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina will love this story. 

9. The Good Witch of the South

Author: T.C. Bartlett

Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy

Print Length: 354 pages

ISBN: 9781733908627

Publisher: Sandhill Publishers

Set in L. Frank Baum’s magical land of Oz, this story focuses on Samantha, daughter of Glinda the Good Witch. Samantha sets out on her own adventure to save the Land of Oz from a dark force rumored to be building an army to overthrow Oz. This book is great for any middle grade reader who is left wanting more from the world of Oz after Dorothy saves the day. 

10. I Escaped the Salem Witch Trials

Authors: Juliet Fry & Scott Peters

Subgenre: Historical / Adventure / Ages 8-12

Print Length: 118 pages

ISBN: 9781951019174

Another installment from the popular, “I Escaped” series, this 3rd grade level chapter book tells the story of Hannah, a young orphan who finds herself at the center of the suspicion and frenzy of her village’s witch hunt. Hannah, who is most certainly not a witch, must use her might and brains to escape her own witch trial. 

Surprise your kids with some of the best gifts for kids who love to read.

11. The Pomegranate Witch

Author: Denise Doyen

Subgenre: Spooky

Print Length: 40 pages / 4-8 year olds

ISBN: 9781452145891

Publisher: Chronicle Books

When a spooky tree begins to bloom juicy pomegranates on the property of the neighborhood witch, a group of children are tempted to harvest a few for themselves. By doing so, they invoke the great pomegranate war against their witchy neighbor. This story is silly and fun and perfect for readers looking for tricks and treats this Halloween season. 

12. Witchy Paths

Author: Cecily Ravenwood

Genre: Mysticism / Magic

Print Length: 52 pages

ISBN: 9798840474105

Half educational, half bedtime story magic, Witchy Paths introduces different types of witches to children in a fun and enlightening way. This quick read-aloud transports young readers into the world of magic and gently exposes them to all the ways of practicing their own magic. In addition to the storytelling, the watercolor art work is whimsical and breathtaking. 

13. The Witch’s Cat

Authors: Kirstie Watson & Magdalena Sawko

Genre: Picture Book / Ages 2-6

Print Length: 38 pages

ISBN: 9781914937064

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Sure-fire witchy fun for the littlest readers you know. This is a lighthearted rhyming story about a house cat who lives as a witch’s familiar and loves to stir up magic and mischief. A read-aloud story with quirky illustrations and fun imagery, you can bet any reader will be excited for Halloween after this one.

What are your favorite witchy books of all time? Let us know in the comments!

Author Bio

Carley Carver is an editorial lifestyle writer and aspiring novelist. She is based in North Carolina where she resides with her husband and their puppy, Daisy, and is a proud graduate of University of South Carolina. Carley is a lifelong bookworm who enjoys reading everything from the classics to modern romances. When she’s not reading or writing, she enjoys traveling, getting outside and trying new recipes at home.

Thank you for reading “13 Witchy Books Perfect for Fall Reading!” If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

Book Reviews | IBR Blog | Resources for Writers

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]]> https://independentbookreview.com/2024/10/14/13-witchy-books-perfect-for-fall-reading/feed/ 1 82611 The Must-Read Books from the First Half of 2024 https://independentbookreview.com/2024/05/28/the-must-read-books-from-the-first-half-of-2024/ https://independentbookreview.com/2024/05/28/the-must-read-books-from-the-first-half-of-2024/#comments Tue, 28 May 2024 11:33:00 +0000 https://independentbookreview.com/?p=78930 We've already reviewed hundreds of titles this year. Find out which ones are the must-read books of the first half of this year.

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]]> The Must-Read Books from the First Half of 2024

Chosen by the IBR Staff

must-read books list of the first half of 2024 with book covers displayed

What constitutes a must-read book?

Book recommendations are undeniably personal. Each reader is different and comes to each book with their own set of experiences and reading histories. One person could think a book is the best thing they’ve ever read, and their best friend could say, “Meh.”

So there’s got to be a way to differentiate, right? This isn’t just a good book. This is a YOU-HAVE-TO-READ-THIS-RIGHT-NOW book. This is a must-read book.

These things can be thrillers, thought-provoking literary tomes, escapist fantasy adventures, time-travel romances, self-help books, you name it. What matters most is that someone you trust read this thing, loved it, and thinks (if you like books similar to this), you HAVE to check it out.

Replete with genres all over the map, this collaborative list from the experts at IBR is populated by brand new indie books that so many readers are going to love. Some may call it some of the best books from the first half of 2024. We wouldn’t disagree.

Here are our 15 must-read books from the first half of 2024.

Must-read fiction books of 2024 header

1. Mother Doll

A brilliantly layered novel of connection and disconnection, of life and afterlife

Author: Katya Apekina

Genre: Literary Fiction / Family Life

Print Length: 320 pages

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Recommended by: Toni Woodruff

What it’s about:

Enter, the novel’s opening line: “It was ironic that Zhenia and Ben would come home from spending time with people who had kids and be so giddy with relief and self-righteousness over their decision not to have any that it would make them want to fuck.”

And then Zhenia gets pregnant. Mother Doll is a breathtaking dual-timeline story of motherhood, daughterhood, grandmotherhood, and the links of past and future. It’s a funny and deeply moving story about generations and the things we do that shape us and our bloodlines.

Is this her grandmother reincarnated in her womb? Is it the prospect of a future with this child the thing she’s been missing, or is it the past that she couldn’t do without? Something has made her like this. It couldn’t just be her.

Paul, a journalist medium who receives a message from Zhenia’s great-grandmother, is the one who breaks this story open. The ghost of Irina (her great-grandmother, who abandoned her beloved grandmother) needs to tell Zhenia the story of her surprising, wild, revolutionary life. Mother Doll intricately weaves three stories into one funny, unforgettable novel.

Why you should read it:

How do you follow up a novel as good as The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish? That novel broke me, stitched me up, left me in satisfied pieces. So I had high hopes for Mother Doll. And usually that spells a fumble.

But not for Katya Apekina.

Mother Doll is so spectacularly different from her first novel, and yet it’s just as memorable, textured, and surprising. I didn’t know Apekina had such humor in her repertoire! But here comes one of the funniest books I’ve read this year. And in such a tragic package.

Irina and Zhenia make Mother Doll the hit it is, but it’s the connection of the past, present, and future that brings its deepest satisfaction. Irina’s story of Russian revolution is unpredictable and vast, while Zhenia’s story is unpredictable and slight. I loved them both.

This is a masterclass of a sophomore novel.

–Toni Woodruff

2. Marco Polo Mother & Son

Exceptional writing [steeped in] missed opportunities

Author: Thoreau Lovell

Genre: Literary Fiction / Family Life

Print Length: 232 pages

Publisher: Wet Cement Press

Recommended by: Lauren Hayataka

What it’s about:

Thoreau Lovell’s Marco Polo Mother & Son is a poignant exploration of the intricate relationship between the recently deceased Georgiana and her grieving son George.

On the surface, Georgiana and George appear as different as chalk and cheese and have a distant relationship. Georgiana is a realist—pragmatic, proud, and private—who acknowledges that she is dying from congestive heart failure. Georgiana’s dream is to pass peacefully away in her sleep in her home in Fresno. In contrast, George is a dreamer whose mind is perpetually occupied with thoughts of abandoning his partner Paula and their daughter Lily to focus on his writing. Only the one that understands George the most is the one that he thinks understands him the least: his mother. 

Why you should read it:

Lovell crafts a masterful portrayal of an intimate yet distant relationship between mother and son, one filled with unspoken words and unshared memories. Georgiana and George resemble trains on parallel tracks, journeying together yet never intersecting, despite the reader’s yearning for their connection. 

His exploration of grief is raw, realistic, and simultaneously ugly, shameful, and beautiful. The portrayal exudes a profound sense of understanding. Every scene and every word serve a purpose, and as the reader experiences the loss alongside George, who surrounds himself with his mother’s belongings, the realization dawns that he never truly knew her at all.

Only an exceptional writer could immerse readers in such profound pain, leaving them reluctant to accept the conclusion of the story. Lovell’s novel adds layers of authenticity and devastation that are undeniably worth cherishing. In creating Marco Polo Mother & Son, Lovell has crafted something extraordinary.

–Lauren Hayataka (Full Review)

3. Bad Foundations

A working-class White Noise, a story about family, crap jobs, paranoia, and an uncertain future 

Author: Brian Allen Carr

Genre: Literary Fiction / Absurdism

Print Length: 256 pages

Publisher: Clash Books

Recommended by: Nick Rees Gardner

What it’s about:

Cook works in crawl spaces, inspecting them for rot, but even when he emerges from the claustrophobic confines, driving across Indiana to the next client, the crawl follows him. The damp basement smell of his coveralls permeates his Prius as his daughter argues that his sales slump is due to a curse. And basement walls crumble around him, a metaphor for his depression and his predicament-prone misadventures in Ohio, Indiana, and beyond. 

However, as Cook’s family life, work-life, and mental health erode, rather than turning to Jack Gladney’s preference for academia and, eventually, revenge, Cook fries his brain on legal weed and finds his answers in strange and surprising working class strangers. While the petty arguments and slightly askew realities Cook faces are reminiscent of White Noise, Carr’s characters turn away from academia, from teachers and students. With all of its banter, wit, and pure, unabashed heart, Bad Foundations is a hilarious and fresh drama about the crumbling crawlspaces Cook has built his life on and how he can scramble out of the rubble.

Why you should read it:

The writer of Motherfucking Sharks, Opioid Indiana, and several other surreal and unabashed books, Carr is at his best in Bad Foundations. The dialogue, often occurring as petty arguments that span subjects from Taylor Swift, to telepathy, to the earth being a computer program, is vibrant and often revealing of the contemporary worlds’ real life predicaments.

Carr’s characters are self-acknowledged “white trash,” day-drinking and discussing flat-earth theories with over-educated coworkers, trying to drum up a living in an inhospitable corporate social structure. While the ideas discussed in the book are intelligent, there is nothing too high-brow about Bad Foundations. The immaculate prose is fortified with excerpts from text message threads, drawings, and illustrations. While Bad Foundations reaches for depth and clarity in the midst of personal and social collapse, the prose is easily accessible for readers of all backgrounds and reading levels. It is a book that even a nonreader would enjoy.

From the canon of working-class literature and literary family stories comes Bad Foundations, an unputdownable dive into the crawlspace sludge of a working man’s life and the inevitable rebirth that comes when he emerges to see his family in a not-so-blindingly-fluorescent light.

-Nick Rees Gardner (Full Review)

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4. No Good Deed

One man’s act of kindness triggers an explosive sequence of events that threatens everything and everyone he loves.

Author: Jack Wallace

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense / Crime

Print Length: 268 pages

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

Recommended by: Peggy Kurkowski

What it’s about:

Inspired by true events, Wallace’s impressive sophomore novel No Good Deed examines the seedy criminal underworld of sex trafficking in the American South. It’s a compulsive story of everyday people selflessly sacrificing to help those in need among us. 

Christopher Jones is a divorced father working two jobs to make ends meet in Nashville, Tennessee, when his headlights shine across the huddled frame of a young Korean woman in a darkened business doorway along his morning newspaper route. Offering her a ride, he soon realizes that the woman, Kim, is running from trouble. Big trouble. Little does he know his “one good deed” to help a stranger will soon ripple into concentric rings of violence for himself, Kim, and those they care about.

Wallace thoughtfully transitions between Christopher’s and Kim’s backstories—both marked by loss, betrayal, loneliness, but also a stubborn hope for a better future.

Why you should read it:

Wallace’s pacing is pitch perfect as Christopher begins to take back his power in protecting Kim…The thrills are explosive and the cat-and-mouse game increasingly personal. 

Wallace effectively teases out the moral complexities of fighting fire with fire. His protagonists are good people facing unspeakable brutality and evil; they are ordinary people thrust into becoming the heroes they never knew they were. 

No Good Deed is a superbly written and propulsive story with an unforgettable climax, a novel with a soul that entertains as it educates about sex trafficking and the individuals sucked into its diabolical orbit. Do not miss this one.

-Peggy Kurkowski (Full Review)

5. Still Alive

The mesmerizing life journey of a woman just trying to find peace

Author: L.J. Pemberton

Genre: Literary Fiction / LGBTQ

Print Length: 290 pages

Publisher: Malarkey Books

Recommended by: Erica Ball

What it’s about:

Always reckoning with the consequences of her formative years, V experiments with different ways of living: trying out different buildings, neighborhoods, and even cities. She falls in love with different partners, some men, some women, and, ultimately, with her beloved Lex, and they try multiple times to see if now is the time they can make it work. 

Because of her many moves, and, because she has so much to work through, V consistently flashes back to her family’s dysfunction and how that was passed along to her. As such, the narrative jumps from the Portland of her childhood in the 1980s to New York City in the 2010s to the beaches of Los Angeles and onward. 

V is actively rejecting the life so many others seem to want with a wry and sarcastic take on the hypocrisies and phoniness she sees around her. Instead, she is seeking the real, the gritty, and the true. She looks for novel and especially sensory experiences, whether through underground punk shows, time spent in the depths of the woods, or falling head-over-heels in love at first sight. 

Why you should read it:

Poetic and philosophical, she dips into and out of these different lived experiences, at times throwing herself into them, and other times watching society from a distance. 

V is a fascinating and complex character who doesn’t seek to overly define her relationships or sexuality. With its beautiful prose and applicable commentary, Still Alive has broad appeal. It will be especially effective for fans of coming-of-age stories, underground culture and art communities, bisexual or pan-sexual relationships, and lesbian or sapphic fiction. 

It’s a coming of age story, and there’s some love in there as well, but in the end, it’s really a story of self-love, a story of craving freedom and finding it within instead of without, and a story of coming home to yourself.

-Erica Ball (Full Review)

6. Changes In the Land

An enthralling piece of fiction that seamlessly blends horror and mystery in an enigmatic, earthy New Hampshire setting

Author: Matthew Cheney

Genre: Horror / Dark Fantasy

Print Length: 90 pages

Publisher: Lethe Press

Recommended by: Melissa Suggitt

What it’s about:

Adams Park: one family’s curse, another family’s burden. 

Elias Thornton, along with his children Josiah and Drusilla, carry the weight of responsibility for their family’s purpose. Passed down from generation to generation, they are the caretakers and the protectors of the nature preserve known as Adams Park. Its thousands of acres of land, its animals, its estate’s human inhabitant (Valeria Adams), and its secrets. 

The heiress of the estate, Valeria, is somehow ageless, and she believes she knows all the secrets of her family’s curse; it has been bestowed upon her decades ago when she came across a strange cave and it changed her life forever. She is a viper in sheep’s clothing. The further we delve into her history, the more vile she becomes, however justified she believes she is in the actions of her past.

Dr. Steven A. Baird is a history professor, collecting research on the history of Adams Park and of its owners’ genealogy. As he’s drawn closer to the heart of the mystery and begins to unravel the truth of his connection to Valeria, the greater the peril he faces.

As these three characters, their families, and their destinies intertwine, a gruesome and wholly terrifying prophecy is set in motion.

Why you should read it:

Author Matthew Cheney delivers a hauntingly powerful tale with Changes in the Land. This book offers a potent lesson in karma and a stark reminder of the importance of respecting our land and each other.

The background of Adams Park and the heinous events that took place on its land over generations is an aspect of the narrative that helps create an atmosphere of palpable tension building tantalizingly through the story. Cheney weaves a compelling supernatural element and adeptly explores the way our actions leave an imprint on the earth—whether ethereal or concrete. You’ll find yourself almost rooting for the land to take its revenge on the Adams family by the end of this.

Cheney has crafted a succinct and efficient plot in a short amount of pages, leaving just enough room for mystery and well-rounded character development. Who knew nature could be so terrifying? Horror fans with a healthy respect for our environment are going to love this novella.

–Melissa Suggitt (Full Review)

7. Time Is Heartless

A profound adventure exploring the limits of AI and the possibilities of post-climate-collapse technology

Author: Sarah Lahey

Genre: Science Fiction / Romance

Print Length: 348 pages

Recommended by: Andrea Marks-Joseph

What it’s about:

Readers are placed on a ship with Quinn, who is not happy to be there. She feels trapped at sea, where she is parenting her toddler without her husband Tig. Quinn loves Tig, but he keeps disappearing on secret missions for much longer than he ever stays. 

Quinn is lonely: unheard and unfulfilled. She’s married to a cyborg who won’t take his mood-regulating medication, and she’s missing her friend who disappeared from her cryo-sleeping tank.

There is so much at stake at all times in this novel; action, plot-twists, and reveals come from every angle. But there is also so much joy in the way Lahey tells this story. These characters feel so real. The novel captures the stress, the   worry, and the pain of being human—but also the ridiculousness of everyday life.

Why you should read it:

Author Sarah Lahey and her eclectic ensemble of characters found their way into my heart, keeping me spellbound and energized with a constantly surprising narrative—In fact, I read this book in one sitting, twice.

Readers who follow the advancements of future tech and are confronting the ethics of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives (but who also love a great love story and mystery) should run, not walk, to pick up this near-future sci-fi novel.

If the topic of what the world will look like post-climate-collapse—biologically, reproductively, technologically, politically, and even fashionably—intrigues you, know that what this book delivers is nothing you expect and everything you want. 

Equal parts thought-provoking and riotously joyful, Time is Heartless is a book I’ll be thinking about for months—maybe years. 

–Andrea Marks-Joseph (Full Review)

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8. Fire Exit

A quiet and original novel about an outcast, a loner, who clings to hope even when the world is pitted against him

Author: Morgan Talty

Genre: Literary Fiction / Native American & Aboriginal

Print Length: 256 pages

Publisher: Tin House Books

Recommended by: Nick Rees Gardner

What it’s about:

Lamosway’s is a story about blood quantum, the controversial measure of how much “Indian blood” a body contains as a way to determine whether or not someone belongs as a member of their tribe. Because of blood quantum, Lamosway is booted off the Penobscot Reservation when he turns 18, and now, as a middle-aged man, he watches his estranged daughter Elizabeth who is being raised by a Penobscot stepfather and her mother across the river.

Charles observes the life he almost had unfolding across the river, wondering which parts of himself flow through his daughter’s veins, knowing what she doesn’t: that his blood is not legally native, that according to blood quantum, she doesn’t belong. When, as an adult, Elizabeth returns to her parents’ reservation home, Charles considers whether now is the right time to tell her the truth.

Lamosway, as a protagonist, isn’t necessarily driven by anything. He feels the need to tell his biological daughter the truth but is prohibited from doing so by his daughter’s mother. He wants to belong to the tribal community but is prohibited by arbitrary laws. He wants to drink, but he knows his tendency toward alcoholism and refrains. While Lamosway holds down a job “clearing the land,” all of his drive has been tempered by forces outside of his control. But as the family and community he surrounds himself with struggles and falls apart, he does his best to hold the world around him together. 

Why you should read it:

Creating quiet stories requires exceptional talent. In order to pull a novel like this off, the writer needs a memorable protagonist too: a Jay Gatsby or Anna Karenina or Ignatious J. Reily type who lodges in the reader’s mind like an old friend. Think Dennis Johnson’s “Fuckhead,” from Jesus’ Son, a character who readers would recognize from any Iowa dive bar, but whose depth, whose insights about life, ask the reader to reconsider what they know.

Now we can add Charles Lamosway to this list. 

Lamosway’s character growth, though minimal, is depicted quite brilliantly; each shift in personality, each flash of irrational anger sloshes out of a deep well. And Talty uses this backstory of injustice as a rising tension; to read Fire Exit is to wait either for Lamosway to get a break or for him to be broken.

While Talty’s narrative is already irresistible, especially for readers who enjoyed Night of the Living Rez, it is also filled with Charles Lamosway’s wisdom, a philosophical depth that lingers beyond the page…Fire Exit is one of those books that will become more meaningful with the days, weeks, and months after closing the cover.

–Nick Rees Gardner (Full Review)

9. Next Time

 A time-travel novel exceptionally worthy of a binge-read

Author: Randy Brown

Genre: Time Travel / Romance

Print Length: 332 pages

Recommended by: Kristine Eckart

What it’s about:

 When William extends a helping hand to Miriam, who seems to have appeared from nowhere, he gets more than he bargained for. But Miriam’s ignorance of the current date, modern culture, and her surroundings raise some red flags. That’s when she reveals her secret: she can travel through time. Working on his master’s degree in history, William is intrigued and offers to be a resource for the next time Miriam appears. But as William continues his life, studying and spending time with his girlfriend, he still can’t get Miriam out of his mind. 

Miriam appears more in William’s life over the years, and their relationship turns from friendship to romance. They must navigate the complexities of dating while existing in different dimensions of time. However, as the police start to take a particular interest in tracking down and questioning Miriam and William’s struggles with Miriam’s absence, complications arise. They must figure out how to deal with the investigations and how far they’re willing to go to save their relationship. 

Why you should read it:

Of the many time-travel novels I’ve read, this is undeniably among my favorites. The novel’s pacing is spot-on, never spending too much time in between Miriam’s appearances and always keeping the plot moving with action sequences of police interrogations and disagreements between family and friends. These scenes keep the reader invested, especially when one of the main characters is missing. Traversing through its spot-on pacing and the scenes that don’t miss, you too will be fervently flipping pages to find the answer of Miriam and William’s fate. 

I also appreciated the balance of realism and escapism present throughout the novel. Time-travel books can often feel like they create a world that’s completely different from our own, which provides plenty of entertainment and an escape from the worries we face on a daily basis. 

If you love time-travel stories complete with action and romance, Next Time would be the best choice you’ve made in a while.

–Kristine Eckart

Must-read nonfiction books of 2024 header

10. Everywhere I Look

A riveting look at the impact of dark family secrets

Author: Ona Gritz

Genre: Memoir / Family

Print Length: 250 pages

Publisher: Apprentice House Press

Recommended by: Elizabeth Reiser

What it’s about:

When Ona’s adopted older sister Angie disappears during Ona’s visit to San Francisco, she finds herself conflicted between being concerned and feeling indifferent. Ona is no stranger to Angie’s disappearing acts, so she is hesitant to worry. 

This all changes when her brother-in-law’s body is discovered, shot execution-style. Soon after, a pregnant Angie and her infant son are found murdered as well. Ona finds herself struggling with grief, but in some ways Angie’s terrible end is not ultimately shocking. As Ona explores her feelings surrounding the loss of her sister, she realizes how many aspects of Angie’s life she misunderstood and is led on a long journey of uncovering secrets she chose to ignore. 

Why you should read it:

There are a number of fascinating twists and turns in this story, but nothing is salacious. At its core, this is more of a reflection on a misunderstood life than a true crime story, and it is clear how important it is to Ona that she respects her sister’s memory.

Ona is also refreshingly honest about herself and does not sugarcoat her actions growing up. Rather than falling into the trap of portraying herself as the put-upon “good” sister, she instead shows how her flaws were simply more easily forgiven by her family. The guilt she feels over being the favored and nurtured child is palpable; it’s a heartbreaking realization the author goes through as she comes to terms with her culpability in Angie’s feelings of being unwanted. 

At its core, Everywhere I Look is a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, and wildly fascinating story about families and the secrets that destroy them. It is sure to stick with you.

-Elizabeth Reiser (Full Review)

11. Overthink

 Successfully transform your overwhelming thoughts with this valuable self-help book.

Author: Lyndsey Getty

Genre: Self-Help

Print Length: 150 pages

Recommended by: Lisa Parker Hayreh, PhD

What it’s about:

This book asks the reader to identify their thinking difficulties and to apply the most effective techniques to consistently improve them. It walks you through the basics of becoming more aware of your thoughts and how to accurately label unhelpful thinking as it occurs. 

The author’s detailed and well-articulated guidance helps us distinguish between unproductive and productive thoughts. The principles of productive thinking are discussed in detail for readers to try in real time, and detailed worksheets are given to help each person track their progress and build success.

Moved to help others find relief quicker than she did, Getty has shared a vital and practical manual that blends psychological wisdom, proven strategies, and personal triumph.

Why you should read it:

Part memoir, part straight-talking guidebook, this resource can help create lasting positive change. Overthink is like having a highly trained expert by your side, guiding you to stop negative self-talk and think productively.

Overthink shines the way forward out of mental torment. Lyndsey Getty maintains a compassionate understanding of the daunting anguish connected to unproductive thinking. She encourages us to become our best selves and shares her own truths & agonies to show us it’s okay to have them.

I have been geeking out a bit in response to Lyndsey Getty’s Overthink. It is utterly remarkable that a lay person wrote such a technically sound and effective self-help book while also appropriately sharing her own struggles and successes. I hold a really high standard for self-help books so my praise in this area is hard won. Overthink sidesteps the technical jargon dominating the mental health/self-help fields. She has created an impeccably streamlined guide that can be applied broadly to a whole host of unproductive thinking difficulties.

–Lisa Parker Hayreh, PhD (Full Review)

12. Tap Dancing on Everest

 A riveting memoir about the travails of growing up, the trauma of mountain climbing, and the elation of being in the great outdoors

Author: Mimi Zieman

Genre: Memoir / Adventure

Print Length: 244 pages

Recommended by: Warren Maxwell

What it’s about:

Beginning at the dramatic climax of a years-in-the-making expedition to climb Everest’s east face without oxygen for the first time, Zieman’s memoir doubles back to trace the bumpy path that led her to become the team medical officer as a twenty-five year old medical school student. 

What materializes is a deep portrait of Mimi’s youth and milieu in New York as the ambitious daughter of two Holocaust survivors. Her father’s entire family was killed in Latvia while her maternal grandmother fled Germany for Palestine with her young daughter, Mimi’s mother. Living with the legacy of such a brutal and incomprehensible past reverberates in Zieman, triggering eating disorders, an unrequited love of dance, and an ultimate turn toward medicine. 

While plagued by her family’s expectations and rules, mountains and trekking become an early source of independence. Through a series of split decisions and journeys, Zieman ends up alone in the Nepali Himalayas, hiking for weeks on end and forging relationships with fellow hikers that take her all the way to the feet of Everest.

Why you should read it:

The overall quality of the writing in this book is exceptional. The memoir’s many large and small vignettes, its minor characters and central ones all leap into focus. Whether Zieman’s haunted, psychotherapist father or a braggadocios boy that she rescues in a climbing accident, personality and life abound. 

One of the things that’s wonderful about this uncommon approach to writing the mountain climbing narrative—the very fact that Zieman is present as a doctor, not a climber, and doesn’t herself climb Everest—is that we see a different side to the climbing story…This is a tale about the experience of living on mountains, beside mountains, under mountains, and hoping that the people climbing them will survive. The depth of psychology and detail that go into Zieman’s descriptions are mesmerizing. 

In short, this memoir travels widely. It brings a large swath of territory into its purview that, while seemingly diffuse, builds to a triumphant peak. It is a beautiful, wrenching story about the trials that we endure and the rewards we reap.

–Warren Maxwell

13. Nola Face

 A memoir that explores the contradictions of language with boldness, nuance, and playfulness.

Author: Brooke Champagne

Genre: Memoir / Essays

Print Length: 192 pages

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Recommended by: Elizabeth Reiser

What it’s about:

The essays in Nola Face recount Brooke Champagne’s upbringing in an Ecuadorian family in New Orleans, her marriage and motherhood, and her path as a writer. But narrating a memory is, we soon learn, never as easy as putting facts on the page. 

Instead, the essays in the collection play cleverly with the fallibility of writing itself, never letting the reader forget the way language mediates the relationship between the author penning each essay and the author who lives as a character on the page. 

Why you should read it:

A memoir as thoughtful as it is creative, Nola Face would be an excellent choice for readers in love with the craft of writing. 

These essays let the reader behind the curtain, reflecting explicitly on the impossibility of describing an event precisely as it happened without the distorting force of language. 

Champagne is a master of the art of the opening sentence…These deft opening lines draw the reader in to each new essay, in search of elaboration, explanation, and another thrilling turn of phrase. 

It’s not only the opening lines that delight in this collection. Long, complex sentences stuffed with recollections and reconsiderations abound in Nola Face…. At their best, they read like pirouettes, swinging the reader through a remarkable range of images, ideas, and linguistic moves to land with grace. 

–Elena Bellaart

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Must-read Young Adult books of 2024 header

14. Secrets Ever Green

The exquisite, emotional adventure of a young woman pushing through grief to uncover magical secrets

Author: Sara Knightly

Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy

Print Length: 268 pages

Recommended by: Andrea Marks-Joseph

What it’s about:

Ivy Rune is not the natural Arborist talent everyone believes she is. Every year, in the town of Windermere, students are allocated a career and, in Ivy’s case, permanent accommodation, depending on their results in the final practical exam. 

If Ivy fails her final exams, she will not have a job in the industry she’s trained for, and most importantly, she won’t be able to live in her childhood home, which holds her final memories of her father and has been left empty waiting for her in the decade since his presumed death. 

A mysterious man approaches Ivy with instructions (ostensibly from her father, ten years ago, specifically for Ivy) that lead her to discover a magic underworld hiding in plain sight, unlocking the secrets to where her father spent his time before he disappeared. Suddenly, in the middle of the most crucial week of her life, where studying in the library will secure her future, Ivy is exploring the forest, following handwritten clues from her dead father. 

Why you should read it:

Author Sara Knightly has created a wondrous and charming hometown for Ivy. Windermere is filled with lore and whispered, near-forgotten myths so naturally woven into the story that it felt as though I had grown up in the community with Ivy and her best friend York, understanding their fears, ambitions, and curiosity on a cellular level. 

This natural, almost effortless sense of being surrounded by Secrets Ever Green’s world applies to its characters, too: I felt the complexity of Ivy wanting guidance and support from the adults in her life, and I felt in my veins the betrayal and shame she experienced when they treated her in a way that made it clear, through unintentional twists in their phrasing, that she was not loved unconditionally, nor was she theirs to care for indefinitely.

The way grief is written into Ivy’s story is remarkable. Often it’s just one line that hits at the heart of her pain, and then the story continues. Knightly has mastered the art of pulling back the protagonist’s layers to their most vulnerable truth and then moving the story along in light of that knowledge. Ivy has tangled herself up in grief, moving forward because it’s all she knows, but the story is weighed down by her   heartache. In fact, even in Ivy’s darkest moments, though we are barely holding back tears in sympathy, we feel the story surge forward because what could possibly happen next?! 

–Andrea Marks-Joseph (Full Review)

15. Terra Solaris (Gods & Monsters)

A formidable tale of power and creation

Author: Jaiden Baynes

Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy / Myth

Print Length: 374 pages

Publisher: BayMar Publishing

Recommended by: Audrey Davis

What it’s about:

 In a very distant past, but a universe quite similar to our own, Gods, Titans, and Monsters roam the planets amongst the humans. 

When the human Typhon’s greed and desire for power overtakes him, he aims to conquer the Kosmos and all its inhabitants, leaving a scarred, torn world in his wake. The goddess Terra, in an effort to restore stability, agrees to help her brother Jupiter rise to power to defeat Typhon and re-unite the planets. 

Unfortunately, it does not last. As Jupiter is swept into his own corruption, Terra is left to grapple with her own thoughts and feelings while finding the strength to do so and seeks to restore a balance to the universe once more. 

Why you should read it:

Jaiden Baynes’ newest young adult fantasy series Gods and Monsters gives a fresh face to creationism and ancient Greek mythos as we commonly know them. The same names remain, but their bearers and stories are very different. This story captivates as Baynes gives readers a new set of rules to play with for these characters, including new beasts and horrible foes, miraculous unseen powers, gods and new universes, and even a little bit of romance. 

If you enjoyed the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, this story would be great for you. I would happily recommend this series to fellow action/adventure and fantasy fans. Readers will appreciate the dry humor and well-paced action as they follow new and powerful characters through their trials in saving the universe from capture and ruin. 

–Audrey Davis (Full Review)

What are your must read books of 2024 so far? Let us know in the comments!

About the IBR Staff

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]]> https://independentbookreview.com/2024/05/28/the-must-read-books-from-the-first-half-of-2024/feed/ 1 78930 The Best Books We Read in 2023 https://independentbookreview.com/2023/12/12/the-best-books-we-read-in-2023/ https://independentbookreview.com/2023/12/12/the-best-books-we-read-in-2023/#comments Tue, 12 Dec 2023 16:21:33 +0000 https://independentbookreview.com/?p=54390 THE BEST BOOKS WE READ in 2023 is a collaborative book list by the reviewers at IBR in which they review the best books they read this year irrespective of their publication date. It consists solely of books by indie presses and indie authors.

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]]> The Best Books We Read in 2023

by Joe Walters & the IBR Staff

featured photo including many book covers with the words The Best Books We Read in 2023 in a gold circle

What are the best books you read in 2023?

My picks are different than yours. Different than Jaylynn’s, than Tucker’s, than Joelene’s, than Andrea’s, than the New York Times.

I love that about books. We couldn’t possibly read them all, and media outlets couldn’t either. Every list is different because reading is subjective, specific, dependent on real-life availability, experience, past interests, current interests, future goals, you name it. There is no one best book.

And yet, one book is the best book someone has ever read.

There’s so much singularity in this. And so much honesty. Only that person in that circumstance who has read those books before this one can have their specific opinion on their best one ever. And still, some books are chosen by multiple people. Both can exist at the same time.

Want to see our picks for the best books we read in 2023?

The IBR team is awesome and so uniquely them. They love books, they’re smart as hell, and when they tell me that this is the book that wrecked them, I listen. And I love to listen. They read so many books this year, both the ones that contributed to the 400+ reviews we’ve published this year and the ones they choose to read on their own time. If you’re going to listen to anybody’s recommendations this year, let it be this team.

Another plus here is that these are ALL indie books.

While a majority of most bookstores are filled with books published by the same five publishing companies, IBR reviews the digital masses: the indie press & self-published books. If you know an author or publisher in real life, there’s a pretty good chance they published indie. Those are the people we review.

So read indie!

Not only are they the little guy that feels good to support–your neighbor or friend or family member–they publish damn good books. And books that these reviewers have chosen to be among the the best books they’ve ever read.

Here are the best books we read in 2023!

1. Monstrilio

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Gerardo Sámano Córdova

Genre: Literary Fiction / Magical Realism

ISBN: 9781638930365

Print Length: 336 pages

Publisher: Zando

If the lung of your favorite person became a monster, could you love it the same?

Magos removes a piece of her son’s lung after he dies, and she keeps it in the closet. And from that point on, her grief exists in the physical world. Not only for Magos but also for Joseph, her now ex-husband.

It stays close to Magos, until it doesn’t. Until it grows. Transforms. Starts wrapping its tail around the bar in the closet and swings. It becomes hungry. Ravenous. And turning into Santiago, their dead son.

The grief is real: monstrous but real. Maybe if they love it, they’ll be able to tame it.

I couldn’t believe this book. How could something with such a heavy topic like a child’s death be so beautiful to experience? I started this thing on vacation with a toddler and finished within DAYS. And let me tell you, I miss it!

It’s so smart and easy at the same time. The analogy for this grief is so fascinating. Not only is it fun to watch new Santiago swing and develop, but we always know he has the power to destroy absolutely everything.

2. I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Marisa Crane

Genre: Science Fiction / Dystopia

ISBN: 9781646221295

Print Length: 352 pages

Publisher: Catapult

Shame is a shadow: visible, connected, following or leading you.

In you do something the state considers wrong in this sci-fi dystopia, you are given an extra shadow so you can be ridiculed, outcast, and feared in society.

Or, in Kris’s case, you are given two shadows.

Kris has recently been widowed and is now the single parent of a child she has no idea how to raise. Especially alone. But here she is doing it and in turn, following the kid’s lead.

This book is inventive and realistic and personal and global and important and even visibly appealing. But on top of it, it’s written lyrically, creatively, intimately; it’s even capable of being read quickly. Kris writes the book directly to Beau (her dead wife) and includes love letters, memories, and lists. It feels like a collection of notes to a loved one: heartbreaking, surprisingly plot-happy, and deeply affecting notes.

Any literary sci-fi reader would be thrilled to find this one. As a new parent at the time I was reading this, I got a lot from it. It’s got relatable parenting content in droves.

3. Weather and Beasts and Growing Things

Author: Charlotte Suttee

Genre: Science Fiction / Dystopia

ISBN: 9781590217580

Print Length: 210 pages

Publisher: Lethe Press

Inventive & important. Stylish and bare. An eco-fever-dream.

This dystopian sci-fi meets us in a state of climate disaster at the end of this century. Stevven and Eli are just a couple of growing things trying to take care of a garden at the top of an abandoned apartment building, but they’re not allowed to do that.

When a drone finds them, they are chased out of their home in search of another one, but they’re forced across a bare, dangerous landscape. They hear Sewanee’s got the answer, but who in the world knows for sure where is safe. Stevven doesn’t, that’s for sure.

Weather and Beasts and Growing Things is a stylish dystopia in concept and form. Words are conjoined, like “Stevvenarm,” and articles (like “the” and “a”) are hard to come by. It makes for strong, sharp, needle-like one-sentence paragraphs that give you an image but ask for you to conjure the rest yourself. It makes the violence, the world seem more abrupt, more in-time, and more disorienting.

When I read books about climate & weather, I want to encounter nature writing. And I’m fulfilled here! The nature writing is spare—those one-word, three-word descriptions—but full in specificity, knowledge, and appreciation for our world. For a book to place such importance on keeping a plant alive and to follow it up with good nature writing gave me just what I came here for.

Honorable Mentions:

1. The Tenement Nurse

Author: Kate Gemma

Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN: 9798393246679

Print Length: 280 pages

The time period, the setting, the characters, the storylines: they’re all sure to enrapture you.

This enthralling novel set in NYC during the roaring 20s follows Millie, who devotes herself to her chaotic job as a nurse in a tenement building made up mostly of immigrants. But things take a turn when one of her pregnant patients dies at the hands of her alcoholic husband. That’s when Millie creates her own idea of justice. It’s up to her to decide what a woman should and should not do.

This book is fantastic: I was constantly engaged, constantly questioning what was going to happen next. Millie finds herself in increasingly dangerous situations, and her circumstances are always changing. I was pulled along by the freshness of each succeeding chapter. She always has the option to disappear into the life of a housewife, and each avenue we take along the way ends up being as entertaining as the last. There’s not one paragraph I wanted to skip.

2. At the Edge of the Woods

At the edge of the woods by Kathryn Bromwich book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Kathryn Bromwich

Genre: Literary Fiction / Thriller

ISBN: 9781953387318

Print Length: 220 pages

Publisher: Two Dollar Radio

A spellbinding debut set in a lush natural world

Laura lives in a remote cabin in the Italian Alps. Her days consist of exploring the woods behind her home, tutoring young children from the nearby town, and translating documents for money. It’s all quite cozy, until someone from her past knocks on her door, shattering the illusion that Laura is simply a person who needed a change in life.

The reality of her situation is a bit darker, and as it catches up with her, our understanding of her present situation begins to untangle. And with it comes chaos and freedom. 

Survival in the natural world, isolation, not having children–I love so much of what Bromwich is able to do with this novel. But my infatuation all starts with her protagonist Laura, a woman after my own heart. Just when we get comfortable with her, the narrative flips our understanding on its head. I never knew what was going to happen.

Still, it’s Browmwich’s effortless nature writing that may shine brightest here. The natural world is captured in gorgeous description. It brings a sense of calm to the reading experience even when situations are tense. About as close to a walk through the real world as a book can be, these descriptions simultaneously communicate the beauty of nature while never over-glorifying the reality of her way of living.

If you read this book, you’ll feel the underlying fear for a woman alone in the woods just as you’ll admire her constant ability to overcome it. This is a book to be remembered.

Give to yourself this holiday season! Here are the BEST gifts for book lovers.

1. To Refrain from Embracing

Author: Jeffrey Luscombe

Genre: Historical Fiction / Coming of Age

ISBN: 9781590217481

Print Length: 438 pages

Publisher: Lethe Press

A smartly indelicate fiction exploring every aspect of a boy’s weird trauma 

At first, this story seems to be about Ted Moore, who’d enlisted at 17, became a UN Peacekeeper in the Congo, and recently self-injured in front of his 10-year-old son. “I don’t consider it my best hour,” he admits of his suicide attempt, “but that’s what happened and that’s that.”

As the novel leads us into the woods, the drama recenters onto Ted’s son, Josh. For him, the way to impress an older neighborhood boy is to divulge a really good secret. Fortunately (or not), Josh has a few of those.

A big achievement of this novel is how it investigates overlapping strands of identity. Josh’s mother grew up on a reservation in Minnesota, and his Aunt Doris in particular values her Indian heritage. On his father’s side, his aunts are fanatical born-again Christians. So who might Josh grow up to become?

It’s a twisted tale with touching moments that are meant to feel awkward. To Refrain From Embracing is an apt title insofar as the novel is about people who spend more time trying to control themselves and each other than to listen and connect.

Luscombe keeps piquing our curiosity into this weird kid born into an even weirder family, and he weaves an elaborately detailed world that’s ultimately left open-ended. He gives us an extended peepshow of Josh’s formative—perhaps de-formative—year. 

2. Opening to Darkness

Author: Zenju Earthlyn Manuel

Genre: Nonfiction / Spiritualism

ISBN: 9781683648611

Print Length: 240 pages

Publisher: Sounds True

An ordained Zen priest delivers a sensitive, compelling exploration of a slippery philosophical topic: the vast amount we don’t know or can’t know.

In a dark place, we may feel stuck or in pain, but we may still find support and gain insight there. It’s the most fertile ground, and we can encourage our mutual work there. Manuel says she writes especially for those whose skin, like hers, is racialized as “dark,” and she also says her message is for everyone. Darkness doesn’t destroy light; it’s an essential part of our existence, and it shows us what light is. 

3. La Syrena

Author: Banah el Ghadbanah

Genre: Poetry

ISBN: 9781950539444

Print Length: 160 pages

Publisher: Dzanc Books

An impressive debut poetry collection that will give you a new way of seeing

Spoken word poet & scholar of Syrian women’s creative work, Banah el Ghadbanah addresses war, ecological crisis, and revolution. Just as the title plays on words for “mermaid” and “Syrian,” so do the poems consistently weave layers of mythic consciousness: ancient Babylonian goddesses, modern refugees, linguistic shift, playfulness with gender, and the fluidity of all identity. La Syrena is sensual, visually inventive, and inspirational.

1. A Seat for the Rabble

A seat for the rabble by Ryan Schuette book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Ryan Schuette

Genre: Fantasy

ISBN: 9798988598602

Print Length: 468 pages

Masterful storytelling and epic worldbuilding make this a must-read for fans of political fantasy.

Ryan Schuette weaves a complex world of political intrigue, class conflict, and the pursuit of power in this enthralling epic fantasy. 

Set in the richly imagined world of the Kingdom of Loran, the story begins with the death of King Hexar, throwing the realm into a tumultuous struggle for succession. 

At the heart of the narrative is Jason Warchild, the illegitimate son of the late king. Despite his uncertain origins, Jason is driven by a noble purpose: to bring equality to the people of Loran. 

One of the many strengths of A Seat for the Rabble is the relevant themes reflecting modern day issues. The intricate political landscape, mirroring our own challenging political systems, reflects the power struggles seen in today’s world. Furthermore, the novel delves into the pressing issues of class conflict and social inequality, drawing parallels with contemporary societal challenges.

Ryan Schuette’s writing style is rich and immersive, drawing readers into the vividly detailed world of the Kingdom of Loran with its knights, magic, and powerful griffons. As the narrative unfolds, the book mixes in plenty of action and suspense too, reminding me of the Game of Thrones series. 

2. The Mystery Next Door

Author: Michael Rodney Moore

Genre: Middle Grade / Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

ISBN: 9798393679699

Print Length: 259 pages

There’s something about southern mystery that brings out a childlike wonder. 

The Mystery Next Door becomes addictive when Moore brings out old tales of piracy and long-lost treasure. It’s the type of adventure one would recognize from movies such as The Goonies (1985) and Tom & Huck (1995). Whose inner child didn’t wish they could find secret treasure in their own backyard?

Moore’s book begins with young Zoey Morganton as she moves into a small town with her mother in North Carolina. It isn’t long until she learns about the mysterious plantation not too far from her home: Oak Harbor. The house is covered with many secrets, ranging from a crazed slaveowner to a secret pirate treasure. 

As Zoey Morganton delves deeper into the history of Oak Harbor, readers are treated to an alluring journey through time. Readers become engaged with the golden age of piracy and life in the South (before and after the Civil War). Although the characters in these times are fictional, it does provoke educational interest as Moore’s research shines through the pages.

Middle school readers who are exploring the American South in other classes and those who relish in satisfying mysteries and adventure are going to love this story.

3. Ferren and the Angel

Author: Richard Harland

Genre: Fantasy

ISBN: 9781922856296

Print Length: 242 pages

A fast-paced and engaging dystopian fantasy with loads of fascinating lore

What will happen in the next thousand years? Some people believe there will be significant alterations, some that it will be eerily similar, and others think there will be no Earth at all.

Author Richard Harland has some other ideas. The future depicted in Ferren and the Angel shows angels and humans in an epic never-ending battle for dominance. 

The worldbuilding here is addictive. You won’t want to miss any developing details about what the world will look like in this future.

What will break young Ferren out of his humdrum life at the start of this book? Watching an angel fall from Heaven. Miriael, the Fourth Angel of Observance, has no way of returning to her ethereal realm. Her powers have faltered since she arrived in the material world, but she cultivates a new friendship in Ferren. Unfortunately, it has to be kept secret, and it doesn’t stay that way for long.

Honorable Mentions:

1. To the Woman in the Pink Hat

Author: LaToya Jordan

Genre: Science Fiction / Feminist

ISBN: 9781619762367

Print Length: 100 pages

A powerful exploration of racial inequality through the lens of feminist sci-fi 

In the near future, a horrifying organization has risen. Posing as a health center that conducts birth control studies, it instead steals the uteruses of young women of color who seek its services and transplants them into women who are willing to pay.

Jada Morris had been leading the SU’s, a resistance movement against the company, until she was incarcerated for a violent crime. Now she has been transferred to The Center, a rehabilitation program aimed at helping her confront her past and getting her back into society. 

Speculative fiction has long been a vehicle for exploring cultural and social issues in the world, and Jordan uses it to its full potential here. Echoes of Marge Piercy’s feminist masterpiece, Woman on the Edge of Time, flicker within these pages.

This novella packs a powerful punch for something so succinct. It doesn’t flinch from the dark places science will go if left unchecked, but there is also warm compassion and, above all, hope. To the Woman in the Pink Hat is a heavy and often confronting read with lovely sparkles of light scattered throughout, a wonderful addition to the shelf of anyone with an interest in social politics, race theory, or feminism.

2. Montecito

Author: Michael Cox

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense / Crime

ISBN: 9798987960264

Print Length: 340 pages

Dark secrets lurk beneath the glittering veneer of this slow-burn thriller.

Moving to wealthy Montecito seemed like a fantastic idea to Hollis Crawford and his wife Cricket. When an obscenely rich family moves to the area, they bring with them Hollis’s last hope in the form of a spectacular job offer. Not everything is as it seems in this luxurious, glittering world, however. 

Montecito is difficult to categorize into a particular genre. It could fit under psychological thriller or domestic mystery; it even has aspects of family drama. Whatever the genre, it is an astoundingly good read. 

How could this be a debut? The execution is too deft and confident. Nothing is over-explained or hammed up. In fact, there’s a rare degree of subtlety to the writing. Everything in this story unfolds at its own pace, revealing secrets upon secrets until the final page.

Montecito is like an exquisite little machine where all the moving parts slot impeccably together. The story couldn’t stand without the setting or characters, and Hollis’s specific flaws are the force that drives the narrative.

3. Soiled Dove Murder

Soiled dove murder by Sherilyn Decter book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Sherilyn Decter

Genre: Historical Fiction / Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

ISBN: 9781777515140

Print Length: 479 pages

Clever, nuanced, entertaining, and fun all at once.

School is out for the summer. Schoolteacher Lucie Santoro and Delores Bailey, her incongruous moonshiner companion, are using the break to help one of Lucie’s old pupils.

The once-impoverished student is now running a bordello of prostitutes in Virginia City. When one of her so-called “soiled doves” goes missing in suspicious circumstances and law enforcement doesn’t care, Ruth turns to Lucie, the one person she knows will help.

As a teacher in the 1920s, life is a delicate balancing act for Lucie. Being seen with the owner of a bordello would be enough to shatter her reputation and destroy her career. Little does Lucie know that losing her career may be the least of her worries. On this holiday, she’ll be in danger of losing her life.

As with all of the books I’ve read from Sherilyn Decter, the historical attention to detail is remarkable. From the very first bumpy, exhausting bus ride to the portrayal of Chinese immigration in 1920s USA, it’s clear how well Decter understands the world she’s writing. 

What I love about these novels is that the protagonists aren’t immune to the values of their time. They judge and misstep, but they are fully rounded empathetic characters and the more they experience, the wider their understanding becomes.

Honorable Mentions:

1. Cursebreakers

Author: Madeleine Nakamura

Genre: Fantasy

ISBN: 9781939096128

Print Length: 284 pages

Publisher: Canis Major Books

Cursebreakers is nonstop action, pierced with so much heart and heightened emotion on both ends of the scale.

The book follows Professor Adrien Desfourneaux, who finds himself entangled in the life-threatening position of preventing a magical coup linked to a rapidly increasing number of comatose victims—while he is experiencing a significant flare-up of his bipolar disorder symptoms. The book’s characters come alive off the page in a way that is rare and precious and will no doubt fuel the rise of a powerful fandom.

Cursebreakers is outrageously good—phenomenal, even. This is a novel as electric as the lightning-bolt magic its protagonist wields, filled with curses, destruction, and piercing heartache. It’s an ode to true, enduring friendship and a call to believe in our capacity for good.

2. Just Wide Enough for Two

Editors: Kacey M. Martin

Genre: Historical Fiction / LGBTQ

ISBN: 9798218116293

Print Length: 328 pages

A love story between childhood best friends Emily Dickinson and Susan Gilbert, spanning years of complicated life changes and passionate connection

Emily Dickinson is wild and offbeat, more comfortable running around outdoors and speaking out of turn than she is in any stereotypical “ladylike” capacity. 

Between vivid descriptions of the ever-changing natural landscapes, seductive descriptions when looking at each other, and the secret-coded letters slipped between breasts before sneaking off to rendezvous, open-hearted Emily and Susan always take center stage. 

Just Wide Enough for Two feels like a classic romantic comedy filled with grand gestures of love in a charming historical setting. There’s a powerful sense of longing and suspense while reading, as we cannot imagine how the women may achieve their happily ever after under these circumstances, but trust that they will.

A long-lasting romance with steady beats of delicious sapphic sexual tension, this book makes sure that even readers who are unfamiliar with the story of Emily Dickinson’s life will be pulled in by the beautiful, sincere, and poetic love depicted.

3. I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

Author: Marisa Crane

Genre: Science Fiction / Dystopia

ISBN: 9781646221295

Print Length: 352 pages

Publisher: Catapult

Like paging through a beautifully rendered therapy exercise that was designed to remain in the closed-door confines of the psychiatrist’s room.

It’s easy to imagine, when reading Crane’s gorgeous, heartbreaking prose, that Kris is sitting amongst the cluttered dishes and take-out wrappers, writing her heart out to the person she loves and misses more than it seems her body was built to hold. 

You’ll need an assortment of colored pens when reading I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself. This novel is so full of sharply observed gut-punches and painfully human truths (about love, loss, desire, bureaucracy, fear mongering in the media, loneliness, kink, queerness, and new motherhood) that you’ll be thinking about Crane’s magnificent, evocative phrases for a while.

I highlighted and underlined more in this book than I ever have before, often pausing to really let the words sink in before I continued reading. Writing about inequality with a clarity and creativity this rich is always going to feel relevant and important.

Equal parts queer, devastating, precious, and thought-provoking, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is an unforgettable experience, exploring what it means to be human and illuminating the healing significance of finding community in the depths of your despair. 

Honorable Mentions:

1. A Boring Book

Author: Seth McDonough

Genre: Humor Fiction

ISBN: 9781777092528

Print Length: 500 pages

A charming read about taking on the dull challenges of life with good will, grace, and a keen eye for inscrutable human behavior

A Boring Book presents itself as the ghostwritten autobiography of Canadian John Smith, growing up in the not-so-distance past, from childhood through young adulthood. 

Written as a first-person account, John frequently interjects comments on the “ghostwriter’s” prose as well as third-wall-breaking direct address to the reader. These devices, along with the engaging voice, are intriguing and pull the reader into this everyman’s tale. With a dry, subtle wit and spot-on characterizations of the various actors in John’s mundane life, the tale is both amusing and compelling.

I was impressed by this “boring” story’s ability to infuse the mundane situations of life with tension and conflict. The stakes matter to the protagonist, and so the reader is engaged. We identify with the protagonist, and the mundane is made interesting. I found this book a real page-turner, actually, without any car chases and fires. 

Readers who enjoy a unique take on narrative and characterization will be glad to spend some time with Mr. John Smith. There’s plenty of nostalgia here, as we relive the common, everyday experiences of growing up seen from a gently humorous perspective. 

2. A Moonserpent Tale

Author: Rosemarie Montefusco

Genre: Fantasy

ISBN: 9798766900832

Print Length: 352 pages

Danger, adventure, magic, and romance: What else could you want out of a high fantasy?

A Moonserpent Tale tracks a young witch (Araina), her guide (Sol), an elf, and a pigeon on a quest through a barren, peril-fraught land. 

Along the way, the characters grow, change, and develop through a number of challenges. They bond as a team and then must deal with the heartache of misunderstanding and betrayal. The book’s worldbuilding is thorough and thoughtful, and the description is immersive. A Moonserpent Tale’s sweet, slow-burn romance is perfect for these characters in this situation. 

Readers who enjoy character-driven fantasy fiction such as the fantasy novels of Lois McMaster Bujold will be impressed with A Moonserpent Tale. This is a tale both thoughtful and entertaining, a true pleasure to read. 

3. Making Comics

Author: Lynda Barry

ISBN: 9781770463691

Print Length: 200 pages

Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly

Much more than the curriculum for a comics class

Making Comics digs up and examines the roots of childhood creativity: that time and mental space where the line is the story, no matter if it represents an image, a letter, a numeral, or simply the joy of mark making. 

Through a series of fun, accessible exercises and assignments, Making Comics breaks down the barriers that adults tend to put up between ourselves and storytelling through visual art. 

Much of this head-and-heart work is applicable to any creative endeavor. Our authentic art must sprout from self-confidence and trust in the message rather than our technical skills. 

Honorable Mentions:

1. Half a Cup of Sand and Sky

Half a cup of sand and sky by Nadine Bjursten book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Nadine Bjursten

Genre: Literary Fiction

ISBN: 9789198861617

Print Length: 402 pages

Publisher: Alder House Books

A sweeping story of Iranian people, poetry, and politics, spanning three decades

Nadine Bjursten’s debut novel Half a Cup of Sand and Sky follows Amineh, a young Iranian woman who has moved to Tehran for university from the small village of Qamsar. An aspiring novelist, Amineh longs to tell her parents’ story as rural rose farmers, even as she is caught up in the air of revolution surrounding the death of a classmate which is sparking protests against the Shah. 

Amineh is pulled between the traditional and the revolutionary as she survives through turbulent times. She struggles between realizing her dreams of a novel, coming to terms with what it means to be a wife and partner to her husband, and mothering her children in a country fraught with war and loss, all while nurturing her independent spirit. Her emotional intelligence and strength through the various seasons of her life make Amineh a well-developed narrator that readers will root for through her highest and lowest moments. 

Half a Cup of Sand and Sky was a finalist for the PEN/Bellweather Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction in 2016, and it’s easy to see why. From beautiful images of Iran, Sweden, and the UK, to heavily researched historical events, and to characters that are deeply human in their joys, mistakes, and dreams, Nadine Bjursten has written an exceptional book. This is a necessary story of maturity and resilience told from a perspective that is often overlooked by Western readers. Half a Cup of Sand and Sky will captivate folks of all genres and ages with its craft, vitality, and wisdom.

2. Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

Meet me tonight in atlantic city by Jane wong book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Jane Wong

Genre: Nonfiction / Memoir

ISBN: 9781953534675

Print Length: 288 pages

Publisher: Tin House Books

A book of rage and nourishment, action and healing, of celebrating chosen and blood family

Jane Wong’s verdant, nonlinear memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City tells the story of a Toisanese-American girl coming of age in New Jersey. The fragments of this memoir-in-essays are held together by Wong’s abundant and tender relationship with her mother. (Excerpted from a print review at Rain Taxi).

3. Obit

Author: Victoria Chang

Genre: Poetry

ISBN: 9781556595745

Print Length: 120 pages

Publisher: Copper Canyon Press

A book shaped by grief, unforgettable in its stark lines and the way it encapsulates the death of one’s parents

It took me almost two years to get through this book, because it is meant to be digested very slowly, to be sat with. The speaker’s depth of love and pain is rendered so artfully, so precisely, so rightly. This is a handbook for loss like no other.

Honorable Mentions:

1. Gone to Ground

Author: Morgan Hatch

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

ISBN: N/A

Print Length: 321 pages

A suspense novel like an ornate mirror, reflecting what needs to be changed

Gone to Ground follows Javier Jimenez, a smart, young kid on the brink of graduating high school. Javier’s struggles are echoed in his community of Horseshoe Barrio; many are stuck in an unforgiving poverty loop. To make ends meet, Javier often works with his sister Betzaida, towing cars and trucks. During one of their jobs, Javier innocuously pockets a phone found in one of the cars. Without realizing it, Javier becomes entangled in a gentrifying bloodbath scheme to devour his community and regurgitate a tech community. He’s determined to put an end to it, but the cost could be fatal. 

The writing is bewitching from the first page. After this explosive beginning, the book switches to Javier pondering his future. One of the many things that Hatch does well is make Javier’s mind a fascinating hub of observation and emotion. 

Gone to Ground delivers in all aspects of suspense too. Jones, the antagonist, is calculating, threatening, and yet scarily familiar. He is nearly omnipresent, representing the greedy, lecherous system that prioritizes quick profit well. 

I was quite amazed by Gone to Ground. It’s a suspense book that captivates while it brings forth an important conversation about shelter, community, and commodity.

2. Word Petals

Author: Carla L. Ibanzo

Genre: Poetry

ISBN: 9791220128827

Print Length: 114 pages

A lovely collection that serves as a portal to many different worlds

From life in Japan to life back home in Jamaica to reflections on tradition, this book is expansive yet succinct, thought-provoking and surprising.

Like petals on a flower, the words beautify the narrative and color it. There are poems centered around religion while others ruminate on growing older and enjoying the present. A lot of the poetry is also meant to be inspirational and to push the reader to take risks despite hesitations. There’s a nugget of wisdom in each poem that will leave a lasting impact.

3. Please Write

Author: Lynne M. Kolze

Genre: Nonfiction / Writing

ISBN: 9781643436739

Print Length: 320 pages

Publisher: Beaver’s Pond Press

Like an intricate wax seal, concealing a wonderful surprise inside

Please Write by Lynne Kolze is an impassioned plea to get you to return to writing letters. It is evidence of just how meaningful the act can be—for writer and recipient. This book can inspire readers to become more compassionate through their own words, and there’s supplementary material, like real letters that were preserved in Kolze’s family, along with pictures and stories. Each chapter spearheads a separate but vital aspect of letter writing to make it special and accessible in this new wave of technology. 

The premise of this book excited me. I thought of writing letters as a bit dusted over, didn’t you? But as I read on, I found myself resonating deeply with Kolze’s purpose and narrative. The writing, when centered around Kolze’s personal reasons for loving letter writing, is emotionally pulling to the point where I found myself replicating those emotions. 

Please Write also includes a lot of fascinating history regarding letters. The “Dear John” letters call to me especially. Receiving a letter can be a touching event, but other times it can be heartbreaking. The wide scope of letters covered in this book make it that much more engaging; like an unopened box, whatever is inside can contain so much.

Honorable Mention:

1. The Joy of Costco

Author: David & Susan Schwartz

Genre: Nonfiction / Coffee Table Book

ISBN: 9781959505006

Print Length: 272 pages

Beautifully illustrated and just bizarre enough to adorn your coffee table

The Joy of Costco won’t just sit pretty in your living room. It will have you enraptured with fun facts and inspire you to leave right now to buy a wholesale box of cashews.

Costco enthusiasts David and Susan Schwartz, sparked by their love for the versatile superstore, spent seven years researching the history and fun facts of Costco. They did this by traveling to at least one Costco in each of the 46 states that housed a facility and multiple Costcos outside of the U.S. 

The book is in a fun A to Z format, but the alphabetization of the topics is playfully organized, ultimately giving readers the experience of the structured chaos that Costco attendees often feel when roaming the store themselves.

The Joy of Costco is engaging for Costco fans and intriguing for those who have never stepped foot in the store.

2. Landscapes

landscapes by Christine lai book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Christine Lai

Genre: Literary Fiction

ISBN: 9781953387387

Print Length: 230 pages

Publisher: Two Dollar Radio

Lai captures the intersectionality of art, feminism, and environmentalism in this moving debut novel

A major focus of this novel is destruction and what it means to create anew; destruction often is not the end but a site for rebirth. Though Penelope has devoted so much of her life to the preservation of [an art archive], in its demolition, she is able to transition into a new future… Landscapes is beautiful, provocative, and accessible. It will remind you that destruction is rarely the end and that we all must continue forward. 

3. Dreaming in Chinese

Author: William Tsung

Genre: Nonfiction / Memoir

ISBN: 9798987452707

Print Length: 248 pages

An act of resistance and self-preservation; an ode to the resilient human spirit.

One can tell a lot about a country from the way it treats its most affluent citizens; one can tell a whole lot more from the way it treats its lower class citizens. William Tsung’s memoir goes on the offensive, toe-to-toe with the Taiwanese penal system. The memoir captures the grim reality that Taiwanese prisoners experience day-to-day for multiple years and for some, even decades. Tsung took the challenge of making sympathetic characters out of criminals and felons and thoroughly succeeds in his endeavor. Dreaming in Chinese challenges the reader’s understanding of fair punishment by highlighting the corruption of a system that benefits from prisoners’ forced labor. 

Dreaming in Chinese is a condemnation of a system designed to see and even benefit from under-resourced people failing. In Tsung’s experience with Taiwan’s prisons, this book also calls into question America’s penal system. I highly recommend this book to those dedicated to social justice. 

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1. Second Best

Author: David Foenkinos

Genre: Literary Fiction / Humor

ISBN: 9781913547592

Print Length: 240 pages

Publisher: Gallic Books

What does it take for one to decide to live differently? 

Martin Hill is the 10-year-old boy who wasn’t chosen to be Harry Potter. This slim novel is the story of his life, tracing his crippling anxiety alongside the chance encounters and happenstances that shape his world. I was utterly swept up in the book’s short, poignant chapters. Each have a distinct melody and sensibility that is unexpectedly joyful to read.

2. Hate Hunters

Author: Mari Georgeson

Genre: Literary Fiction / Satire

ISBN: 9798987204900

Print Length: 364 pages

Combining biting satire with deep insight into the human condition—a timely novel of ideas about tolerance and the folly of extremism

In a not-so-distant future where the United States has been divided into the Virtuous Federation and the Patriot States, Hate Hunters follows a large cast of characters struggling to live in accordance with the Virtuous Federation’s exacting moral standards. 

Ambitious and multi-voiced, individual narratives and fictional texts are woven into an immersive tapestry-like world that is at once unsettling and extremely recognizable.

Impressive in ambition and philosophical scope, Hate Hunters stands out for its expert plotting, beautiful writing, and an intricately designed structure. This is an exceptional book that enrages, enlightens, and above all, affirms the humanity of every individual regardless of their beliefs.

3. The Moon and the Bonfires

Author: Cesare Pavese

Genre: Literary / Historical

ISBN: 9781590170212

Print Length: 176 pages

Publisher: NYRB Books

A devastating, gorgeous, pensive look at the country’s postwar politics and identity

After making a fortune in America during WWII, a man is drawn back to his impoverished childhood town in Piedmont to reflect on his brutal childhood as an orphan and search for what he has missed while being in America. A sense of loss and dislocation animates the book. Lyric and philosophical musings conjure the bucolic landscape in its harsh beauty. Intense hardly does the book justice, it dives headlong into the battered psychology of its unnamed narrator and that of the country at large. 

Honorable Mention:

1. The Mill House Murders

mill house murders by Yukito Ayatsuji book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Yukito Ayatsuji

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

ISBN: 9781782278337

Print Length: 288 pages

Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo

A chilling locked-room mystery that unfolds within the ominous walls of the remote Mill House, a setting shrouded in both secrecy and tragedy

Ayatsuji builds a compelling tale of intrigue around the eccentric Fujinuma Kiichi, the consequences of his accidental disfigurement, and his annual house party for a very select group of guests. When a killer strikes, brilliant amateur sleuth Kiyoshi Shimada sets about unravelling the complex web of secrets and lies that led to the perplexing crime. Ayatsuji is a master at combining the macabre with the mysterious, creating a tense work of crime fiction that is packed with alarming events, red herrings, and psychological insights.

2. Beasts of England

Author: Adam Biles

Genre: Literary / Satire

ISBN: 9781913111458

Print Length: 288 pages

Publisher: Galley Beggar Press

Adam Biles’s modern reimagining of Animal Farm chronicles disturbing if all too believable events at a version of the farm restyled as the country’s premiere petting zoo.

Rather than being raised and ultimately sacrificed as farm animals, the residents of this zoo are subjected to being gawped at, poked, and prodded by visitors seeking an amusing distraction from real life.

Mirroring the tumultuous landscape of contemporary politics, as if being put on display to the general public isn’t bad enough, the animals also face rigged elections, factional strife, societal chaos, and a mysterious epidemic that threatens to kill them all.

Satire at its best, Biles’s work presents by turns distressing and amusing glimpses into a world that is not different from reality, even if it can serve as a warning of things that might be to come. 

3. Mild Vertigo

Author: Mieko Kanai

Genre: Literary Fiction

ISBN: 9781646033492

Print Length: 192 pages

Publisher: New Directions

An unrestrained exploration of the human condition

Meiko Kanai’s captivating storytelling renders this an engrossing account of the unexpected depth of housewife Natsumi’s outwardly ordinary life. Kanai uses elegant prose and a rich portrayal of Natsumi’s inner world to reveal surprising conflicts with the outer world she must interact with and conform to. And this ensures that her protagonist’s musings and reflections are always rewarding and sometimes disturbing. Kanai’s ability to evoke emotions and provoke thought about even the most seemingly insignificant detail is a marvel. The book as a whole provides an introspective account that delves deep into the complexities of human emotions.

Honorable Mentions:

1. Rearranged

Author: Kathleen Watt

Genre: Nonfiction / Memoir

ISBN: 9781956474343

Print Length: 384 pages

Publisher: Heliotrope Books

 A lyrical memoir chronicling the life-altering vicissitudes of cancer

Kathleen Watt pulls back the curtain on the Metropolitan Opera, giving readers an inside look at the competition, the backstage behaviors, and the culture of the opulent and expansive productions at the famous New York City Opera House. With her pursuit of being in the Extra Chorus finally realized, Kathleen looks forward to celebrating with her partner, Evie, on their ski vacation, but a bump on her gumline brings up the concern that’s usually coupled with any new bump or pain: What is this? Am I overthinking this? Should I be worried? After trips to several dentists and then a few doctors, she learns of her shocking prognosis: cancer. 

Her journey to find not just her singing voice, but her voice in her world and the world at large is a testament to the difficulty of putting one’s life back together after a trauma like battling a chronic illness. 

Rearranged is a bel canto of a book, full of lyrical language, the crescendo and decrescendo of cancer, and the universal search for one’s voice.

2. How to Monetize Despair

Author: Lisa Mottolo

Genre: Poetry

ISBN: 9781956692785

Print Length: 102 pages

Publisher: Unsolicited Press

A reverie of memory and the existential wonderings on life and loss that make us human

In How To Monetize Despair, Lisa Motollo captures the intricate and sometimes random thoughts and feelings that arise when dealing with life’s most difficult chapters: trauma, grief, loss, and the mundane.

This collection beautifully balances the vulnerabilities and agonies of grief with the dark humor and odd realizations that come with experiencing trauma. But it also muses on the anxieties a person can feel attending a party or during everyday activities like making a sandwich. 

Life is full of many experiences that we either don’t want to discuss or even know how to discuss, but How To Monetize Despair is a beautiful example of how to start and navigate those conversations. 

Honorable Mention:

1. No God Like the Mother

Author: Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher

Genre: Literary / Short Stories

ISBN: 9781942436553

Print Length: 168 pages

Publisher: Forest Avenue Press

A raw look at those crucial moments when the realities of life are laid bare

No God Like the Mother by Kesha Ajọsẹ-Fisher is a story collection that explores pivotal moments in the lives of women and girls. Though the settings and details of the stories vary widely, from naive young girls in Nigeria to grieving mothers in Portland, each one functions as a glimpse of the defining moment of a person’s life story.

In all, No God Like the Mother is a quietly devastating and frank look at the interplay between hope and grief that is experienced by someone whose body can produce life. It is also about the way others throughout the world have historically reacted to that ability with fear, desire, shame, or a combination of those and more.

2. Invitation to a Hanging

Author: Karin Rathert

Genre: Historical Fiction / Western

ISBN: 9781639887262

Print Length: 318 pages

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

A meditation on the life and death of a lawless town in the waning days of the Wild West

When Adam’s parents moved to Mondak early in the 19th century, it was a frontier boom town and a symbol of unlimited potential. Now, with both his parents long dead, the town is nothing more than a reminder of things that had been. People are moving away or dying, and businesses are closing. All that is left are those with no place else to go and the town bosses who oversaw its fall, presiding over a place with more dead than living.

The author does a stellar job of evoking the atmosphere of the Wild West and the forces at work in the country at large at that time. There are rumors of coming war and the upheaval that comes with train tracks being laid. There are remnants of forts and graveyards of soldiers and civilians. There’s reckoning with the ongoing unimaginable treatment of the people forcibly removed from their land when settlers moved in, and that is still going on with their incarceration in “hospitals” that are worse than prisons. 

Invitation to a Hanging is an artful portrait of a young man discovering the magic of self-determination. The people it depicts strive to carve a life out of whatever circumstances they might find themselves in. It is about quiet persistence in the face of greed and evil intentions, of choosing when to fight and when to walk away.

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1. Pure Cosmos Club

pure cosmos club by matthew binder book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Matthew Binder

Genre: Literary / Absurdist

ISBN: 9781736912812

Print Length: 272 pages

Publisher: Stalking Horse Press

A hallucinogenic satire of the worlds of art, fashion, and cults.

Penned with the wisdom of a philosopher and laugh-out-loud wit, this novel follows Paul, a struggling artist and his best friend, a dog named Blanche, as they hop from parties to art and fashion shows, maneuvering through a directionless life. Paul finally finds meaning in a new age cult called The Pure Cosmos Club, but the cost of admission becomes more than he can handle. 

Binder’s prose sings all throughout Pure Cosmos Club, parrying anxiety with hilarity and the bizarre with a touch of the sober and sane. 

2. The Red-Headed Pilgrim

Author: Kevin Maloney

Genre: Literary / Humor

ISBN: 9781953387288

Print Length: 242 pages

Publisher: Two Dollar Radio

Review originally published in Cleveland Review of Books

Heartbreakingly witty, Kevin Maloney’s The Red-Headed Pilgrim captures the coming of age of an idealistic man-child as he tours the united states in search of meaning. 

 While it’s difficult to argue that a true “Western”—whether it be prefixed by “Acid” or “Anti”—can be limned outside of the setting of the Wild West, Maloney’s revisionist treatment of Western themes make The Red-Headed Pilgrim at least the offspring (dare I say red-headed step-child?) of the Acid Western genre. And I don’t believe it’s overly generous to say that The Red-Headed Pilgrim is the next iteration of the Western, one with enough music and heart to propel the genre into the twenty-first century and beyond.

3. The Nature Book

the nature book by tom committa book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Tom Comitta

Genre: Literary / Nature Writing

ISBN: 9781566896634

Print Length: 272 pages

Publisher: Coffee House Press

A bold exploratory work; a canonical collage of the natural world

In The Nature Book, Tom Comitta compiles descriptions of the natural world from 300 canonical English texts into a vibrant literary collage. In the foreword, Comitta tells the reader that the following text is “closer to a YouTube supercut than a Burroughsian collage novel.” They categorize the excerpted texts into four sections, The Four Seasons, The Deep Blue Sea, The Void, and The Endless Summer, each of which features language poached from the pages of writers from Charles Dickens to Cormac McCarthy and beyond. With surgical precision, Comitta lifts phrases from Louisa May Alcott, Zora Neal Hurston, and Stephen King, and combines them into a single sweeping tale, often ruminative, but with its share of conflict and tension.

Though no human characters disturb the natural world of The Nature Book, Comitta reminds the reader that nature isn’t tranquil. Storms rage. Lightning strikes. One such storm leaves several pheasants slaughtered. Nature fears for its life, whether it is  “the river’s babbling (which) sounded like the call of a liquid throat waiting, just waiting for the world to end,” or the beaver that seeks escape from the otter.

The language often tends toward the apocalyptic; the end of the world is mentioned at least five times in the novel. But beginnings also proliferate, such as the river which was “like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.” In short, the language reflects the scope of the novel, which is epic, spanning from the lowest depths of the ocean to the outer reaches of the universe, from darkness to darkness, creation to apocalypse.

Honorable Mentions:

1. The Cabinet

Author: Un-Su Kim

Genre: Science Fiction

ISBN: 9780857669179

Print Length: 304 pages

Publisher: Angry Robot

Definitely the strangest, most surreal, and most innovative book I’ve read in 2023

The titular filing cabinet, which is watched over by harried Seoul-based office worker Kong Deok-Geun, contains files on all the known “symptomers,” that is, all those people who exhibit peculiar powers and report experiencing preternatural phenomena. As Kong’s work brings him into contact with an eclectic cast of oddballs, he finds himself engaged in a mind-bending catalogue of events and recollections that pokes fun at the delightfully absurd occurrences that can be found hiding behind the mundane elements of modern life.

2. Golden Age Detective Stories

Editor: Otto Penzler

Genre: Mystery / Anthology

ISBN: 9781613162163

Print Length: 312 pages

Publisher: Penzler Publishers

Top-notch examples of the various non-official folks who have been called upon to solve crimes that have perplexed the police, including a magician, a publisher, a nun, and more.

Featuring stories by Golden Age greats such as Ellery Queen, Erle Stanley Gardner, Clayton Rawson, and Mary Roberts Rinehart, Golden Age Detective Stories is a very welcome addition to the sublime American Mystery Classics series. The crimes are generally not gory, although they’re certainly far from cozy, and the puzzles involved are sufficiently complex to get your little gray cells going as you attempt to identify the culprit before the relevant amateur detective does.

1. The Catch of a Lifetime

Author: Alexandra Neville

Genre: Romance

ISBN: 9798857020920

Print Length: 210 pages

Sparks fly in this endearing romance about a once in a lifetime love

 The Catch of a Lifetime offers an intoxicating blend of passionate romance, relatable characters, and heartwarming moments that will leave romance aficionados enchanted.

 When Becca Linton decides to give Colt Mason—her best friend’s twin brother—a chance, she doesn’t expect things to move as quickly or as intensely as they do. With her budding career as a yoga instructor and Colt’s commitment to hiking mountains in different continents, Becca doesn’t think of it as a serious relationship or that long distance would affect her much. 

Alexandra Neville really brings the heat in this one! Colt and Becca are such a heartwarming, relatable couple. I love how both of them, despite the other commitments or past trauma they had, try so hard to make their relationship work. Through Colt and Becca’s relationship, we get to see the amount of effort, trust, and open communication that goes into a long-lasting relationship. 

However, Colt and Becca’s love story isn’t the only awe-worthy relationship within these pages. The Mason family radiates genuine warmth and affection, effortlessly endearing themselves to readers. What makes their family remarkable is not just their closeness but their welcoming and inclusive nature, extending warmth and kindness to all—be it friends, employees, or strangers. 

2. The Violence of Reason

Author: Pete Planisek

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense / Historical

ISBN: 9780985098285

Print Length: 202 pages

Publisher: Enceladus Literary

Fate plays a cruel, twisted game in this compelling historical thriller.

A beguiling mystery with a web of secrets and shocking twists, The Violence of Reason is first a tale of freedom and survival. The novel delves into the intricate nature of trust and loyalty during a time of war. It shows that battles aren’t just fought on the frontlines but also in our neighborhoods, homes, and workplaces, where our friends suddenly become our foes and trust becomes a deadly commodity.

The Violence of Reason follows Norill Haugen, a Norwegian spy during the Nazi occupation of Norway. Norill joined the Milorg, the Norwegian resistance, as a way to help liberate and free her country. She works as a translator and courier for the resistance with other members of her resistance cell. Things were going as normal as they could be in a time of such uncertainty and turmoil.

But when Nazi soldiers show up to schedule piano lessons with Norill’s teacher—the house of Vinni Nases, which serves as their resistance cell—things take a turn. Has Norill’s cover been compromised? Are they here to arrest Norill and the other members of the resistance? Has someone betrayed them?

1. The Baron’s Ghost

the baron's ghost by kyro dean book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Kyro Dean

Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy / Thriller

ISBN: 9781957475134

Print Length: 244 pages

Pirates, spires, treason—The Baron’s Ghost is an escapade to remember.

Christina Rushing has had her fair share of adventure, and that was before she became a spy. Forced to marry a horrible baron and left with nothing upon his death, she finds herself taking on deadly missions to make ends meet.

When her latest mission provides evidence that her late husband might not be dead after all, Christie is set on a far different path—and is there really a big difference between espionage and piracy anyway?

The characterization is impeccable. I couldn’t help but fall in love with their snark and passion. The mystery is satisfying and successful too, filled with plenty of little twists and turns. And if pirates, spies, and adventures aren’t enough, the Victorian and steampunk vibes are there to help this book overflow with things to enjoy.

For all you romantics out there, Dean includes a bit of a love triangle with Christina caught in the middle. Christina’s desire for independence after a checkered past and her inherent need for a sense of security is something that resonates and adds greatly to the romantic payoff.

2. Curse of the Anito

Author: Isabelle R. Duffy

Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy

ISBN: 9780645854916

Print Length: 204 pages

A thought-provoking novel of ancient evils buried just beneath the surface

Angela has spent the summer with her family in the Philippines, learning about her culture and seeking some sort of belonging. When her grandmother says that she will help Angela learn the family’s healing practices, she is overjoyed. 

However, a dark and ancient power has a far different plan for Angela. She wakes in the night to find the Anito, an old God, at the foot of her bed, telling her she has been chosen, that she has a destiny to fulfill. 

This is the first of a number of terrifying encounters for Angela, ones she cannot escape even when she flies back home to Australia. If given the chance to learn more about where you came from, would you take it? Would you take it even if it meant accidentally awakening an ancient deity? Isabella R Duffy sends readers on a captivating adventure alongside Angela in Ancestral Shadow: Curse of the Anito.

Duffy’s novel is full of self-discovery, familial love, and the need for cultural connection. In Angela’s storyline, readers feel the push and pull of what is modern and what is tradition. 

This journey of self-discovery will have young adult readers thankful for its nuance and ever-looming danger.

1. Geographies

geographies by carmelinda blagg book cover is among the best books we read in 2023

Author: Carmelinda Blagg

Genre: Short Stories

ISBN: 9798891320253

Print Length: 212 pages

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

Through fleeting encounters and lasting impressions, these stories capture the essence of places as ephemeral homes, where the heart finds refuge in unexpected corners.

Carmelinda Blagg’s short story collection, Geographies, explores the enduring impact of places, and our feelings and relationships with the people within them. Tucked away in our hearts are the memories of everywhere that we have been before, and may never truly escape from; regardless of whether they represent a blissful sanctuary or a place crumbling with regret. 

Blagg has an exceptional ability to create characters that are more than words on a page; they truly leap from the pages as if they are living, breathing souls made from flesh and blood. Each and every character is searching for the place inside them that they recognize as home. This search, intertwined with grief and nostalgia, forms a poignant undercurrent, echoing the constant in their lives—change, inevitable and heart-wrenching. This theme of change, depicted through various lenses—a fall leading to assisted living, the transformation of a childhood monster into a frail old man—emerges from every story, wrapped in grief; an emotion that Blagg expresses in ways that others never have. 

Reading Geographies is more than a literary experience; it is an introspective journey, one that invites you to look to the hidden places within your heart. This collection of stories doesn’t just evoke ache and wonder; it is unrelenting in its bold—almost brutal—sentiment and intentions. Yet, every probing question Blagg asks finds its answer within her narrative, steadfast in its unwavering pursuit to explore the uncharted territories within her characters. What lingers is the unexplored place within you, tethered to your heart and your lungs, patiently waiting to be acknowledged and understood. 

2. Numamushi

Author: Mina Ikemoto Ghosh

Genre: Fantasy / Fairy Tale

ISBN: 9781941360774

Print Length: 112 pages

Publisher: Lanternfish Press

Step into a realm of vivid characters, haunting realities, and the legacy that words leave behind. 

Mina Ikemoto Ghosh’s fairytale, Numamushi, beckons readers into a mesmerizing realm where reality and enchantment intertwine seamlessly. Set in post-World War II Japan, Numamushi, a child marked by the scars of napalm, becomes an unlikely protagonist, raised by the guardian spirit of a river, blurring the boundaries between humanity and nature.

Numamushi stands out as a precocious and delightful main character, bridging the gap between a world of wonder and hate, one dominated by both man and beast. Many authors struggle to create a child protagonist that resonates with mature audiences while maintaining authenticity and sincerity. However, Ghosh deftly navigates this challenge, portraying Numamushi with a personality that never loses its charm. 

The story blurs the line between the world of beast and man, but it does not question or compare the nature of each and make the reader consider which is more brutal. Instead, Ghosh allows the story to breathe and intertwine around the themes of love, forgiveness, and pain: raw and unforgiving pain. And with pain comes healing, as Numamushi reflects: “If snakes had venom to fill and protect the stomachs that made them snakes, then humans had tears to protect and clean the hearts that made them humans.” 

hosh’s ability to blend enchantment with stark reality, coupled with their skillful characterization and thoughtful prose, creates a world that lingers in the reader’s mind. With its rich thematic depth and compelling storytelling, Numamushi stands as a testament to Ghosh’s literary prowess, offering readers an incredibly lovely yet bittersweet escape. 

1. Between the Mountains

Author: Jeremy Campbell

Genre: General Fiction / Animals

ISBN: 9798986645728

Print Length: 322 pages

A heartwarming tale that underscores the important bond between animals and humans while exploring themes of friendship, forgiveness, and community

Between the Mountains is a compelling read for those who adore dogs, but it also delves into the themes of second chances, healing, love, and loss.

The prose flows beautifully, maintaining a consistent and suspenseful tone throughout. Each sentence effortlessly transitions into the next, drawing readers in with unexpected perspectives, such as that of a dog. “Scars of the past and worries of the future sit out of mind, like spectators on the riverbank, while a canine’s present needs race through his head as fast as water gushes through Morgan’s Cove after a summer rain.” The result is an emotionally charged tale that keeps readers hanging on to every word, even when exploring typically mundane moments.

2. In the Name of Family

Author: Cynthia Coppola

Genre: Historical Fiction / Family

Print Length: 285 pages

An authentic exploration of love, devotion, and unconventional family dynamics during an era of conformity

In the Name of Family delves into the lives of two central characters: Ruth, a conservatively-raised Jewish woman, and Tony, an Italian Catholic. Their journey begins when Tony musters up the courage to ask Ruth out on a date one day while at work at The Hoffman Shoe Factory in the year 1950. Over the next few months, the more time spent together, the deeper their bond grows. However, their lives take an unexpected turn when Ruth becomes pregnant and they both must reveal long-held secrets from their pasts.

This narrative successfully explores the intricate tapestry of love and life. It unfolds against the backdrop of a conformist era. In the face of societal norms, Ruth and Tony defy conventions to discover love, happiness, and joy while trying to create an environment where family comes first. In the Name of Family vividly illustrates how children within the same families can lead radically different lives based on how the people around them navigate pivotal life moments and family conflicts.

In the Name of Family beautifully illustrates that even amidst the most tumultuous and challenging lives, happiness can flourish. The story stands as a testament to the enduring power of love and family bonds, offering a resounding message of hope and resilience.

3. Invisible Sun

Author: Andrew H. Housley

Genre: Literary Fiction

ISBN: 9798891320260

Print Length: 172 pages

Publisher: Atmosphere Press

An intense, raw, and quite beautiful exploration of trauma and grief

Invisible Sun opens with Ian revisiting the traumatic scene where he discovered his brother Hugo, who had taken his own life. The room is still stained with blood, and Ian is engulfed by a torrent of emotions—pain, guilt, anger, and sorrow. In addition to grappling with this emotional turmoil, Ian is burdened with the practical responsibilities of arranging for cleaners, claiming Hugo’s body at the morgue, and packing up the family home. Amid this chaos, he is haunted by the relentless question of why this tragedy occurred.

Beneath the surface, the novel delves into the intricate dynamics among three brothers, shaped by a shared history of abuse and control imposed by their tyrannical father. 

Invisible Sun unflinchingly navigates the complexities of loss, guilt, and despair, which could prove emotionally taxing for some individuals in certain situations. Nonetheless, these weighty themes provide valuable insights into the multifaceted personalities of the characters within the narrative. The novel skillfully observes the convergence of philosophy, emotions, and the human psyche when confronted with death, encapsulated in the haunting notion that, “The dead have it easy; they don’t have to live with the guilt.”

What were the best books you read this year? Let us know in the comments!

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]]> https://independentbookreview.com/2023/12/12/the-best-books-we-read-in-2023/feed/ 11 54390 Indie Books to Watch in Summer 2023 https://independentbookreview.com/2023/05/01/indie-books-to-watch-summer-2023/ https://independentbookreview.com/2023/05/01/indie-books-to-watch-summer-2023/#respond Mon, 01 May 2023 13:17:42 +0000 https://independentbookreview.com/?p=45483 "Notable Indie Books Coming Out in Summer 2023" is a list of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books that we're particularly excited about--and we think you could be too.

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]]> Indie Books to Watch in Summer 2023

by Joe Walters

Get your pre-order finger ready. Summer 2023 is a season of great indie books.

Summer is a time for heat, for adventure, for vacation, for books. No matter if you’re in love with the season like me and Ray Bradbury or not, I still give you my full permission to dive into something brilliant this season.

Explosive. Groundbreaking. Essential. The indie books on this list are gearing up for big splashes, and I just want to make sure that you see them first. Literary fiction, mystery-thrillers, fantasy romance, climatology, and beyond–this list is anything but exhaustive of the great work indie presses & authors are doing.

So many books have crossed my desk over the last few months, boasting a summer release date. And while many more of them looked great, I can’t help but shout these 23 from the rooftop. Ready to read more? Start here.

Here are 23 indie books coming out in Summer 2023 that you’re going to want to see.

(Everything on Independent Book Review has been independently selected by a very picky group of people. We may earn a commission on items you purchase through our links.)
Fiction header

1. The Lost Journals of Sacajawea

Available May 2023

Author: Debra Magpie Earling

Genre: Historical Fiction

ISBN: 9781571311450

Print Length: 264 pages

Publisher: Milkweed Editions

Sacajawea was the interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark. You’ve heard stories in schools and history books, but you’ve read nothing like Debra Magpie Earling’s The Lost Journals of Sacajawea. This lyrical novel challenges the historical narratives of this wildly impressive human.

2. The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos

Available July 2023

Author: Rodrigo Restrepo Montoya

Genre: Coming of Age

ISBN: 9781953387332

Print Length: 170 pages

Publisher: Two Dollar Radio

This Latinx American coming of age story has so much for so many, despite being so short. Identity, love, soccer, humor, the sweeping truths of American immigration–The Holy Days of Gregorio Pasos will have you antsy to crack it open every chance you get.

Take it from Dantiel W. Moniz: “Restrepo Montoya’s prose illuminates truths so clearly you can see straight through them to the world around you, and even into yourself.”

3. About the Carleton Sisters

Available June 2023

Author: Dian Greenwood

Genre: Family / Sisters

ISBN: 9781647424404

Print Length: 312 pages

Publisher: She Writes Press

I’m a sucker for a parallel storyline, especially when they converge. This literary novel from Dian Greenwood and She Writes Press is a story of the uniqueness of sisterhood and the uniqueness of sisters. Laura Stanfill, author of one of our impressive indies of 2022, called it, “Incisive, raw, and achingly beautiful.”

4. The Memory of Animals

Available June 2023

Author: Claire Fuller

Genre: Literary / Dystopian

ISBN: 9781953534873

Print Length: 288 pages

Publisher: Tin House Books

Claire Fuller has been pumping out hits since 2015. From Our Endless Numbered Days to Bitter Orange and Unsettled Ground, when Fuller releases something, you should probably pay attention. This dystopia is giving off thriller vibes with its pandemic reality, the complications of squid, and survival.

5. Kill Your Darlings

Available May 2023

Author: L.E. Harper

Genre: Fantasy

ISBN: 9781792366628

Print Length: 322 pages

How do you write a book about a writer? Tensions are high for authors, even when the room is quiet, when they are pounding away (or not) on their keyboard. You can do that, or you can throw them into the thick of their own novel.

Kill Your Darlings is a writer fantasy that’ll have you second-guessing whether or not that dangerous plot twist is worth including in your next story, and it tackles depression and the need to escape with fervor.

6. Weft

Available August 2023

Author: Kevin Allardice

Genre: Literary Fiction / Surreal

Print Length: NA

Publisher: Madrona Books

IBR’s Nick Rees Gardner had this to say about Weft in a forthcoming review, “At the intersection of realist literary fiction, surrealism, horror, and crime, Kevin Allardice’s Weft is a powerful and unexpected novel about the ties that bind us to family and the lies we weave to make ourselves feel safe.”

And did I mention it’s about a mother-son con duo who find themselves in a haunted house? Keep an eye out for this one!

7. Dark Park

Available August 2023

Author: Kathe Koja

Genre: Science Fiction

Print Length: NA

Publisher: Meerkat Press

Dark Factory landed a place on our 2022 Impressive Indies list, and with good reason. Bestselling sci-fi author Kathe Koja has gone above and beyond in building this reality-bending world, and Dark Park is coming in for an encore. If you like experimental sci-fi, this series is going to get you dancing.

8. Pure Cosmos Club

Available May 2023

Author: Matthew Binder

Genre: Literary Fiction / Humor

ISBN: 9781736912812

Print Length: 272 pages

Publisher: Stalking Horse Press

Pure Cosmos Club is an absurd tragicomedy about a painter who falls under the influence of a New Age guru. With his life already slipping out of his grasp, he joins the guru’s cult in search of a solution beyond the daily humdrum materialism of life in today’s America. If you like Vonnegut and Murakami, choosing Binder is a no-brainer.

9. The Wind Began to Howl

Available May 2023

Author: Laird Barron

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense / Supernatural

ISBN: 9798988128601

Print Length: 192 pages

Publisher: Bad Hand Books

This supernatural thriller follows private investigator Isaiah Coleridge into a chilling mix of music, movie magic, and madness. Alma Katsu, author of The Fervor, calls it “hardboiled and trippy at the same time,” while Clay McLeod Chapman calls it a “bareknuckle novella that’s equal parts Hollyweird fiction and conspiracy-laden Catskills noir.”

10. At the Edge of the Woods

Available June 2023

Author: Kathryn Bromwich

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense / Literary

ISBN: 9781953387318

Print Length: 220 pages

Publisher: Two Dollar Radio

This one might look familiar! At the Edge of the Woods received a starred review from Jaylynn Korrell back in February, and it was chosen as an Indie Book of the Month in April. It’s right up our alley with beautiful nature writing combined with real-life thrills and an excellent protagonist.

11. Launch Me to the Stars, I’m Finished Here

Available June 2023

Author: Nick Gregorio

Genre: Science Fiction

Print Length: NA

Publisher: Trident Press

I loved Gregorio’s debut, Good Grief, back in 2018, and have been seeking out his books ever since. Why? He’s been pumping out uniqueness for years: from a mixed poetry and short story collaboration to his latest, Rare Encounters with Sea Beasts and Other Divine Phenomena, which gently covers childhood grief and friendship.

Launch Me to the Stars is about a depressed young woman aiming to build a spaceship so she can get to a lightyears-away world. I’m already a huge fan of Gregorio, but give me something about escapism, and I’ll get lost in it for days.

12. The Plotinus

Available July 2023

Author: Rikki Ducornet

Genre: Literary Fiction / Dystopian

ISBN: 9781566896818

Print Length: 88 pages

Publisher: Coffee House Press

This inventive novella is about a young man who gets arrested and incarcerated by a robot called the Plotinus. With surprising optimism and vibrant hallucinations, this book celebrates the enduring power of imagination. And it’s from the brilliant Rikki Ducornet!

13. Girl Country

Available May 2023

Author: Jacqueline Vogtman

Genre: Short Story Collection

ISBN: 9781950539765

Publisher: Dzanc Books

Did you hear that Dzanc Books just won the AWP Small Press Publisher Award? And with good reason! We’ve loved a number of Dzanc Books over the years, from The Conviction of Cora Burns to Dioramas by Blair Austin.

So when Girl Country hit my desk, I knew I couldn’t look away. It’s populated by mothers and monsters, mermaids and milkmaids, nuns and bus drivers—women navigating the intersection of the mundane and the magical. 

14. Small, Burning Things

Available July 2023

Author: Cathy Ulrich

Genre: Short Story Collection

Print Length: 180 pages

Publisher: Okay Donkey Press

Cathy Ulrich’s debut, Ghosts of You, included some of the best flash fiction I’ve ever read. So you could imagine my excitement to see a second collection on its way to print.

Ulrich’s story starters are the best, you’ll see. Kim Magowan, author of How Far I’ve Come, even says, “Cathy Ulrich’s opening lines are magic wardrobes and trapdoors, plummeting readers into enticing, twisted story-worlds where girls disappear into thin air, fall from the sky, ignite in flames, crash through ice, and leave dirty, elusive footprints in their wake.” 

15. Prince Zadkiel (The Royal Matchmaking Competition)

Available June 2023

Author: Zoiy G. Galloay

Genre: YA / Fantasy / Romance

ISBN: 9781958996058

Print Length: 437 pages

I couldn’t get you out of here without a romance! Zoiy G. Galloay, author of Princess Qloey, is back with another installment in her trope-filled Royal Matchmaking Competition series.

Find out why IBR’s senior reviewer Alexandria Ducksworth says, “Readers will love Galloay’s diverse fantasy world and its people…filled with elves, dwarves, nymphs, fairies, and more with their own unique cultures.”

16. Maybe There Are Witches

Available June 2023

Author: Jude Atwood

Genre: Middle Grade / Adventure

ISBN: 9781646033645

Print Length: 216 pages

Publisher: Fitzroy Books

Give me any excuse to dive into witch activity, and I’m taking it. This one is about a middle schooler who, along with a couple weird boys from school, must get to the bottom of the witchy mystery surrounding her long-dead relative and determine if the villagers who killed her might have had a point.

Steven T. Seagle, creator of Ben 10 & Big Hero 6, says, “At a time where we all worry our kids might get lost in their phones, WITCHES poses that they might, instead, get lost in their tomes, and aside from the impending cataclysmic doom they might find within, I can’t think of a better fate for young readers like Clara, or yours.”

Nonfiction header

17. The Quickening

Available August 2023

Author: Elizabeth Rush

Genre: Science / Climate & Environment

ISBN: 9781571313966

Print Length: 424 pages

Publisher: Milkweed Editions

Elizabeth Rush’s last book, Rising, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. This brilliant writer has a way of breaking down climate truths and remaining personal, human, and vulnerable in the face of the planet’s melting reality. It’s an expedition to Antartica, and somehow, it takes you even beyond that.

Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning, says, “The Quickening is the Antarctic book I’ve been waiting for—an immersive modern day expedition tale, a reflection on science and knowledge-making, a confrontation with gendered histories, and a brilliant writer’s spellbinding meditation on human mistakes, distant goals, and courage.”

18. Talking Back

Available May 2023

Author: Alejandra Dubcovsky

Genre: American History

ISBN: 9780300266122

Print Length: 280 pages

Publisher: Yale University Press

If you’re an American history buff, you can’t miss this book. It tells stories of Native women breaking through in the colonial south, making big differences in big ways. With stories you likely won’t hear anywhere else, Talking Back is the epitome of essential historical nonfiction.

19. Is the Algorithm Plotting Against Us?

Available May 2023

Author: Kenneth Wenger

ISBN: 9781959632016

Print Length: 264 pages

Publisher: Working Fires Foundation

Artificial intelligence is near impossible to avoid in 2023, and it will only improve and expand from here. In this first book from Working Fires Foundation, AI expert Kenneth Wenger breaks down the complexity and demonstrates its potential and pitfalls.

20. Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

Available May 2023

Author: Jane Wong

Genre: Memoir / Asian American

ISBN: 9781953534675

Print Length: 288 pages

Publisher: Tin House Books

Like so many of my northeast neighbors, I know my way around the Jersey Shore. I’ve got memories of its streets, its people, its beaches, its seagulls, its nonsense. Jane Wong’s memoir is humorous and honest and lyrical, “a love song of the Asian American working class.” This story of making a life with what you have is one that will stick with you.

Poetry header

21. Little Beast

Available May 2023

Author: Sara Quinn Rivara

ISBN: 9781736138670

Print Length: 76 pages

Publisher: Riot In Your Throat

Riot In Your Throat has published some of the best books our team has read, like Somewhere, a Woman Lowers the Hem of Her Skirt, so we’re always keeping an eye on what they’re producing. Enter: Little Beast! This new collection by Sara Quinn Rivara is filled with wildlife, witchcraft, and wonder.

22. The Nameless

Available August 2023

Author: Brandi George

ISBN: 9798986523330

Print Length: 199 pages

Publisher: Kernpunkt Press

The Nameless, an autobiographical poetry collection by the author of Gog, explores the speaker’s relationship with the figure of Death as a friend, a tormentor, a savior, and a capricious and mysterious force. 

David Kirby says, “It’s not possible for me to imagine a book more challenging or more pleasurable than this one.”

23. Judas & Suicide

Available May 2023

Author: Maya Williams

ISBN: NA

Publisher: Game Over Books

This collection navigates religion and suicide by way of Black family and community. Author Allison Raskin says, “Rarely, if ever, have I read such an honest and artistic exploration of what it means to have to develop a will to live…. This book is one small, but crucial, step toward destigmatizing suicide in society and one large leap in helping those who have had their lives touched by it feel less alone.”

Which Summer 2023 books are you excited about?

About the Author

Joe Walters IBR founder

Joe Walters is the founder and editor-in-chief of Independent Book Review. When he’s not doing editorial, promoting, or reviewing work, he’s working on his novel or trusting the process. Find him @joewalters13 on Twitter.

Thank you for reading Joe Walters’s Indie Books to Watch in Summer 2023! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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]]> https://independentbookreview.com/2023/05/01/indie-books-to-watch-summer-2023/feed/ 0 45483 21 Bird Books for the Birder in All of Us https://independentbookreview.com/2023/03/08/21-bird-books-for-birders/ https://independentbookreview.com/2023/03/08/21-bird-books-for-birders/#comments Wed, 08 Mar 2023 16:09:41 +0000 https://independentbookreview.com/?p=43192 21 Bird Books for the Birder in All of Us by Joe Walters is a book list for those looking to enhance their birdwatching game with field guides, memoirs, fiction, and poetry.

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]]> 21 Bird Books for the Birder in All of Us

by Joe Walters

Listen up! These bird books are calling you.

Birds are cooler than us, and it’s not even close. They can fly, they can sing, they can remember faces, they can survive longer than any of us. (Did you know that in 2021 we learned that birds are literally dinosaurs?)

And they’re everywhere! They share the world with us from close and afar, playing the soundtrack of our lives. They live in cities, rural areas, suburban areas, the deserts, the poles, the oceans. They’re around all year long, and they plant seeds that become trees and plants which sustain us. Some travel to be by our side even if only for a few moments in the exact moments we need it.

Have you fallen in love with birds yet, or are you already deep in the throes of adoration?

There are bird books for everyone and for every mood. In this list, I’ll be walking you through great field guides and reference books, birdwatching memoirs, bird books in relation to climate change, and even some fiction & poetry bird books. And fun fact? They’re all indie books.

Get your bird on with this all-indie list of top-notch bird books.

(Everything on Independent Book Review has been independently selected by a very picky group of people. We may earn a commission on items you purchase through our links.)

1. Birds of [Your Area]

An essential field guide series

When I first started birdwatching, I didn’t know what to do or how to start. I just liked what I saw and what I heard, and I wanted to know more about them.

That’s why I turned to Stan Tekiela’s Birds of Pennsylvania from Adventure Publications. And I’m so incredibly glad I did. Now it’s all worn-out in the window in front of my bird feeder. I’ve been able to identify and learn bird habits, tendencies, sounds, and more. If it’s a bird you saw in [your area], it’s this series that can teach you about it.

2. The Beginner’s Guide to Birding

Tips & info for the no-nothing beginner

Author: Nate Swick

ISBN: 978-1624144769

Print Length: 176 pages

Publisher: Page Street Publishing

Enter confidently into the world of birds despite knowing absolutely nothing about them. Maybe you’re a hiker or a dog walker or a mail-carrier whose primary companion is birds, or maybe you’ve just been waiting for the right time. This book is an easy and fun intro that you’ll be glad you picked up.

3. The Backyard Birdwatcher’s Bible

How to bird-ify your backyard

Author: Paul Sterry, Christopher Perrins, Et al.

ISBN: 978-1419750533

Print Length: 416 pages

Publisher: Abrams Books

Sometimes you need a weighty tome to discover a big, illustrious world. The Backyard Birdwatcher’s Bible from Abrams Books is a beautiful full-color coffee table book that’s chock full of tips for understanding and attracting birds.

4. Birdpedia

Bird lore

Author: Christopher W. Leahy

ISBN: 978-0691209661

Print Length: 272 pages

Publisher: Princeton University Press

I love so many bird books, but my favorites are always the ones that provide unique information. There are so many cool things about birds that you just won’t get in other field guides and reference books.

But this book from Princeton University Press manages to unload a flurry of cool facts like, “Which birds’ nests can you eat?” and “What’s twitching?”

(Does this cover look familiar? Fungipedia was featured in our Must-Read Books About Mushrooms!)

5. The Field Guide to the Dumb Birds of North America

A funny field guide

Author: Matt Kracht

ISBN: 978-1452174037

Print Length: 176 pages

Publisher: Chronicle Books

I’m not gonna lie. The first time I saw this, I hated it.

I didn’t yell, “Birds aren’t dumb!” but I thought it pretty loud.

And then I opened the book.

And it’s great. It’s silly, fun, uniquely illustrated, and packed with good info even if it does poke some fun at some of my little flying friends. This is a funny yet useful gift for birders and anti-birders.

6. Bird Trivia

Trivia & fun facts about birds

Author: Stan Tekiela

ISBN: 978-1591938101

Print Length: 80 pages

Publisher: Adventure Publications

Stan Tekiela & Adventure Publications are on the list yet again! And how couldn’t they be with this fun-filled adventure of bird facts and anecdotes? This one is tremendously easy to flip through. With full-color photography and easy-to-read headings and subheadings of funny weirdness, this book is a great gift AND a top-notch bathroom companion.

7. Birds and Us

Bird history

Author: Tim Birkhead

ISBN: 978-0691239927

Print Length: 496 pages

Publisher: Princeton University Press

This bird history book from Tim Birkhead & Princeton University Press discusses how birds have caught our fancy for thousands of years. Ancient Greece & Rome, the Middle Ages and today, this book covers a whole lot of land and time, and it would be a fascinating read for those interested in how humans’ understanding of birds has changed over time.

8. Feed the Birds

Attracting & feeding birds

Author: Chris Earley

ISBN: 978-0228102014

Print Length: 296 pages

Publisher: Firefly Books

It’s one experience to watch & listen to birds; it’s another to feed them. Birds can come to your backyard (or hand) for nourishment on a daily basis. It’s a way of giving back to those who give so much to it.

Also, it’s genuinely fun to do. The surprises who come to your feeder will have you always peering out there, hoping to see the hawk you haven’t seen yet or the woodpecker’s shiny red head. Feed the Birds from Firefly Books covers a wide range of bird-feeding topics including foiling squirrels, involving children, and hand-feeding.

9. Birdhouses, Boxes & Feeders for the Backyard Hobbyist

Ways to shelter & feed birds

Author: Paul Meisel and Stephen Moss

ISBN: 978-1504800846

Print Length: 168 pages

Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing

Want to know which types of feeders & houses work for which birds? This book from Fox Chapel Publishing is a must-read resource. It teaches you how to build them too, so I like this for retired birdwatchers and people who like birds & to work with their hands. Want a special bond with your birds? Build them a house!

10. Conversations with Birds

Birdwatching memoir in essays

Author: Priyanka Kumar

ISBN: 978-1571313997

Print Length: 296 pages

Publisher: Milkweed Editions

This 2022 birding memoir from Priyanka Kumar and Milkweed Editions has been such a wonderful addition to my home library. I’ve got the beautiful cover displayed, so I’m always reminded of how I could soon be swept up in florid and personal nature writing. This book’s infatuation with the “cosmic serendipity” of bird arrivals speaks to what I love most about birds: the surprises.

11. An Old Man Remembering Birds

Senior birding memoir

Author: Michael Baughman

ISBN: 978-0870711541

Print Length: 152 pages

Publisher: Oregon State University Press

“As long as you remain alive and human, the closer you get to birds, and the more time you spend among them, the more you love them.“

This senior birding memoir published by Oregon State University Press explores how birds have influenced Baughman’s life over the years as well as the ways in which birdwatching has changed with the climate.

12. Woman, Watching

Biography of an aristocrat turned naturalist

Author: Merilyn Simonds

ISBN: 978-1770416598

Print Length: 416 pages

Publisher: ECW Press

After surviving the Russian Revolution, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence lived in a log cabin in the North Bay in Ontario Canada, where she studied the birds who nested in her forest. This biography from Merilyn Simonds and ECW Press tells the story of a truly fascinating and influential birder. It was the winner of the Editor’s Choice Prize in Nonfiction in the Foreword Indies, too!

13. Fledgling

Seeking the self in nature

Author: Hannah Bourne-Taylor

ISBN: 978-1452174037

Print Length: 176 pages

Publisher: Aurum

If you look closely, you’ll see birds doing mundane things, doing new things in new places, and adapting in whichever ways they need to in order to survive.

Fledgling is a personal memoir published by Aurum about Hannah Bourne-Taylor adapting to a new home with a little help from birds and nature. We liked this one so much we included it in our round-up of impressive indie books of 2022.

14. The Wise Hours

Exploring the wonder of owls

Author: Miriam Darlington

ISBN: 978-1953534835

Print Length: 336 pages

Publisher: Tin House Books

Perched in a tree hollow, hoo-hoo-ing at the stars, owls have made a home on this planet for millions of years. There’s a reason they’re billed as both mysterious and wise. Want to know why? Turn to Miriam Darlington’s The Wise Hours if you’re looking for something akin to H Is for Hawk–but for owls.

15. In the Company of Crows and Ravens

About the world’s smartest birds

Author: John M. Marshall and Tony Angell

ISBN: 978-0300122558

Print Length: 384 pages

Publisher: Yale University Press

Corvids are among the world’s most intelligent bird families, capable of using and constructing tools. To top it off, they’re connected with humans in more ways than you’d think. This book from Yale University Press has such unique information packed in it about these smarties, including plenty of cool drawings of them too.

16. The Private Lives of Public Birds

About common public birds

Author: Jack Gedney

ISBN: 978-1597145749

Print Length: 224 pages

Publisher: Heyday Books

Your neighbors are birds. This book from Heyday pays homage to the common bird–the ones who are populating your feeders everyday and the ones perching on telephone poles and city buildings. It’s also got some great info for listening to birds and investigating what they might be saying.

17. Robin

Story of a cherished songbird

Author: Helen F. Wilson

ISBN: 978-1789146264

Print Length: 224 pages

Publisher: Reaktion Books

The robin (or European robin) is a little songbird with a big natural and cultural history. In this book, Author Helen F. Wilson discusses the robin–its stature, its song, its role as a sort of national treasure in the UK, an icon of Christmas–and gives answers to common questions like “Is it just me, or does that bird sound sad?”

18. Halcyon Journey

Seeking a mythic North American bird

Author: Marina Richie

ISBN: 978-0870712036

Print Length: 264 pages

Publisher: Oregon State University Press

The kingfisher is all around the world, and there are a number of different species. But Marina Richie has her eye on–or is trying to get her eye on–the Belted Kingfisher in North America. Join Marina on her journey to find this mysterious halcyon bird through multiple adventures in this book from Oregon State University Press.

19. Flight Ways

About the extinction of several birds

Author: Matt Kracht

ISBN: 978-1452174037

Print Length: 176 pages

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Some birds are directly threatened by our changing climate. Written by a leading expert in extinction studies, Flight Ways is a game-changing resource about the specific birds at risk of extinction and the impact it’s having on the world they’re leaving behind. This book from Columbia University Press is a must-read for those seeking more info on albatrosses, penguins, and more.

Fiction & Poetry

20. I, Parrot

Humorous graphic novel filled with birds

Author: Deb Olin Unferth & Elizabeth Haidle

ISBN: 978-1936787654

Print Length: 160 pages

Publisher: Catapult

When I read fiction bird books, I want there to be a lot of birds. I want the pages to be bursting with their wings and feathers and hear (in this case) their cooing and squawking each time they grace the page. I, Parrot is a graphic novel that does just that, featuring pigeons, parrots, and humor.

21. Bright Wings

Bright wings is one of the best poetry bird books

Poems and paintings of birds

Editor: Billy Collins

ISBN: 978-0231150873

Print Length: 288 pages

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Billy Collins has gathered up more than one hundred contemporary and classic poems to pair with beautiful & ornithologically precise paintings, making this anthology from Columbia University Press something of a beautiful, celebratory field guide of birds’ incredible nature.

Which books about birds would you recommend? If you enjoyed this list, check out some of our other nature book lists like Must-Read Mushroom Books and Buzzworthy Books About Bees.

About the Author

Joe Walters IBR founder

Joe Walters is the founder and editor-in-chief of Independent Book Review. When he’s not doing editorial, promoting, or reviewing work, he’s working on his squirrel novel or looking out for a great blue heron. Find him @joewalters13 on Twitter.

Thank you for reading Joe Walters’s 21 Bird Books for the Birder in All of Us! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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]]> https://independentbookreview.com/2023/03/08/21-bird-books-for-birders/feed/ 2 43192 30 Indie Books to Look Out for in Early 2023 https://independentbookreview.com/2022/11/28/indie-books-early-2023/ https://independentbookreview.com/2022/11/28/indie-books-early-2023/#comments Mon, 28 Nov 2022 14:34:03 +0000 https://independentbookreview.com/?p=24406 30 Indie Books to Look Out for in Early 2023 is a literary listicle compiled by IBR founder Joe Walters, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from small to mid-sized publishers like Mason Jar Press, Two Dollar Radio, and more.

The post 30 Indie Books to Look Out for in Early 2023 appeared first on Independent Book Review.

]]> 30 Indie Books to Look Out for in Early 2023

Curated by Joe Walters

Which great books from indie presses and indie authors are coming out in early 2023?

2023 sounds like a year from the future. (It is, I guess, but different). Like a far-off time, an impossible arrival date. But here you are, alive and reading.

The indie publishing landscape looks a bit different than what you see out of the Big Five (or Four/Three/Two/One), especially when it comes to books for pre-order. You don’t see a lot of anticipated indie lists because not all indies make their books available early.

But hey, some do. And for the beginning of next year, they look incredible.

These presses care a ton about their authors and their books. It’s one of the main things you’ll find in common with so many of them: a love of books and a desire for them to be read widely. When I saw what kind of wonder was expected out of these smaller to mid-sized publishers in early 2023, I knew I had to share them with you.

No matter if you’re in the mood for poetic prose, informative nonfiction, or a deeper entrenchment into the earth for every second we’re still alive here, this list has something for you.

Here’s my list of indie books to look out for in early 2023.

#1. The Dream Builders

by Oindrila Mukherjee

Dream Builders is one of IBR's anticipated indie books of 2023

Releases in January 2023

Publisher: Tin House Books

Genre: Literary Fiction / World Literature – India

About the Book:

After living in the US for years, Maneka Roy returns home to India to mourn the loss of her mother and finds herself in a new world. The booming city of Hrishipur where her father now lives is nothing like the part of the country where she grew up, and the more she sees of this new, sparkling city, the more she learns that nothing―and no one―here is as it appears. Ultimately, it will take an unexpected tragic event for Maneka and those around her to finally understand just how fragile life is in this city built on aspirations.

Written from the perspectives of ten different characters, Oindrila Mukherjee’s incisive debut novel explores class divisions, gender roles, and stories of survival within a society that is constantly changing and becoming increasingly Americanized. It’s a story about India today, and people impacted by globalization everywhere: a tale of ambition, longing, and bitter loss that asks what it really costs to try and build a dream.

#2. Funeral

by Daisuke Shen & Vi Ki Nao

Funeral by Daisuke Shen and Vi Khi Nao is one of IBR's anticipated indie books of 2023

Releases January 2023

Publisher: Kernpunkt Press

Genre: Literary Fiction / Myth / LGBTQ+

About the Book:

Written using prose, images, lists, diagrams, songs, and plays, the novella Funeral follows Eddie from the 1969 film Funeral Parade of Roses in her descent to Hell.  In Hell, Eddie meets and falls in love with Madame Rose during lunch. They spend their days creating Hell’s first boba shop and cheering on Hell in the final pingpong match against Heaven, but  their relationship soon falls apart. When Xing returns home to  Shanghai via Hell’s bullet train, Eddie sets out on a journey to win  her back, accompanied by her friends Tony Leung, the god Tu’Er  Shen, the moon, Mary Poppins, and her over-talkative Uber  driver, Jimin Park. In this co-authored novella, DAISUKE SHEN & VI KHI NAO explore the depths of morality, pain, and queerness  with irreverent humor and unflinching honesty.

#3. After the Rapture

by Nancy Stohlman

After the Rapture by Nancy Stohlman is one of IBR's anticipated indie books of 2023

Releases March 2023

Publisher: Mason Jar Press

Genre: Literary Fiction / Dystopian

About the Book:

“In this world of Walmarts, Barbies, Kens, orgies/time-shares, 7-11s, clones, a red Lake Michigan, and dreams, Nancy Stohlman’s humor and talent shines. The rapture becomes more than just a rapture: it’s a world turning on its head, acceptance, and then finding a new normal. Redeeming and heart-felt, this dystopian novel-in-flashes is one not to forget. After the Rapture is a rapture!” – Kim Chinquee, three-time Pushcart Prize winner, author of seven collections and the novel, PIPETTE

“After The Rapture is a startling, rhapsodic, brilliant tome. Stohlman dares to venture into an intricate mosaic of layered, futuristic identities, individualities, and lives both wasted and yet fully explored. A dazzling oscillation of scintillating prose, on the threshold between the ephemeral and the eternal. After the Rapture is a book full of surprise and wonder, a compelling and majestic book.” – Robert Vaughan, author of Askew, Funhouse and Addicts & Basements

#4. Sweetlust

by Asja Bakic

Sweetlust by Asja Bakic and translated by Jennifer Zoble Dream Builders is one of IBR's anticipated indie books of 2023

Releases February 2023

Publisher: The Feminist Press

Genre: Short Story Collection / Science Fiction

About the Book:

The eleven stories in Sweetlust interweave feminist critique, intertextuality, and science fiction tropes in an irreverent portrait of our past, present, and future.

In a dystopian world with no men, women are “rehabilitated” at an erotic amusement park. Climate change has caused massive flooding and warming in the Balkans, where one programmer builds a time machine. And a devious reimagining of The Sorrows of Young Werther refocuses to center a sexually adventurous Charlotte.

Asja Bakić deploys the speculative and weird to playfully interrogate conversations around artificial intelligence, gender fluidity, and environmental degradation. As she did in her acclaimed debut Mars, Bakić once again upends her characters’ convictions and identities—and infuses each disorienting universe with sly humor and off-kilter eroticism. Visceral and otherworldly, Sweetlust takes apart human desire and fragility, repeatedly framing pleasure as both inviting and perilous.

#5. The Merry Dredgers

by Jeremy C. Shipp

Releases March 2023

Publisher: Meerkat Press

Genre: Dark Fantasy / Occult

About the Book:

Seraphina must infiltrate a bizarre and dangerous cult to determine why her sister is in a coma after a mysterious accident at the hands of the cult members. 

Seraphina Ramon will stop at nothing to find out the truth about why her sister Eff is in a coma after a very suspicious “accident.” Even it means infiltrating the last place Seraphina knows Eff was alive: a once-abandoned amusement park now populated by a community of cultists.

 Follow Seraphina through the mouth of the Goblin: To the left, a wolf-themed roller coaster rests on the blackened earth, curled up like a dead snake. To the right, an animatronic Humpty Dumpy falls off a concrete castle and shatters on the ground, only to reform itself moments later. Up ahead, cultists giggle as they meditate in a hall of mirrors. This is the last place in the world Seraphina wants to be, but the best way to investigate this bizarre cult is to join them.

#6. Promised Shadows

by M.K. Ahearn

Releases January 2023

Genre: Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy

About the Book:

Rae is a skilled thief, willing to complete any job for the right price, that is until one job does not go according to plan. After coming face to face with a deadly and powerful prince, Rae has made a bargain that thrusts her into the center of palace life and fighting to save a kingdom she is not even sure she has much faith in. 

Gavriel is the Royal Prince of Apricus, set to rule the kingdom one day, that is if the shadows do not rise again and tear it apart, driving them into a never-ending darkness. Alongside his twin sister, Rory, and loyal friend, River, the three work tirelessly to find a solution that will end the shadows for good. Their prayers seem to be answered when they are forced into a bargain with a criminal: Rae.

Together the group races against time to locate a long lost ancient artifact that just might be the key to saving their kingdom. The only problem is after 17 years of hiding and building their forces, the shadows are also on the hunt and they are seeking revenge. Will the group be able to beat the odds and find a crown that may only exist in legends before it is too late?

#7. The Kudzu Queen

by Mimi Herman

Releases January 2023

Publisher: Regal House Publishing

Genre: Historical Fiction / Coming of Age

About the Book:

“Funny, sad, and tender… Mimi Herman has written a novel that possesses a true and hard won understanding of the South.” —David Sedaris, author of Happy-Go-Lucky

Fifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T. Cullowee, the Kudzu King, arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina in 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu—claiming that it will improve the soil, feed cattle at almost no cost, even cure headaches—Mattie is ready. Mr. Cullowee is determined to sell the entire county on the future of kudzu, and organizes a kudzu festival, complete with a beauty pageant. Mattie is determined to be crowned Kudzu Queen and capture the attentions of the Kudzu King.

As she learns more about Cullowee, however, she discovers that he, like the kudzu he promotes, has a dark and predatory side. When she finds she is not the only one threatened, she devises a plan to bring him down. Based on historical facts, The Kudzu Queen unravels a tangle of sexuality, power, race, and kudzu through the voice of an irresistibly delightful (and mostly honest) narrator.

#8. Zephyr

by Evan Chronis

Releases January 2023

Genre: Science Fiction / Dystopia

About the Book:

1990: Bill Milo leaves home to see the world. He crosses desert and ocean, searching for purpose but never quite finding it. One day, Bill meets an old man taking his daily walk. He warns Bill that God will soon test mankind with a great flood, and that man will respond with fear and division. His words haunt him for years to come.

2015: August Milo spends her time caring for her grandparents and running her bakery. On a cold winter day, a customer named George orders a cake for his grandmother’s hundredth birthday. They find warmth in each other.

2025: Tyler Haji plots to avenge his brother’s death. Before he can realize his duty, a once-in-a-millennium flood ravages the East Coast. Many of the survivors flee west to join Bill Edenson, an alleged modern-day prophet; others stay and adhere to a resurgent Eastern regime. Tyler wallows in his past among the Eastern ranks until a greater calling beckons him west.

0017 Post-Flood: Succession is the natural order of things. Adam memorized his father’s words at a young age. Sooner than later, Adam would take on his father’s mantle, just as generations of Crombies before him had. Adam woefully accepts his fate until a mysterious herald names him heir to a greater prize: the West.

Spanning time, genre, and place, Zephyr traces the impacts of trauma, hope, and pride on ourselves and on those we hold dearest.

#9. Dioramas

by Blair Austin

Releases March 2023

Publisher: Dzanc Books

Genre: Literary Fiction / Dystopian

About the Book:

In this hybrid novel—part essay, part prose poem, part travel narrative—Blair Austin brings us nose to the glass with our own vanishing world, what we preserve and at what cost.

In a city far in the future, in a society that has come through a great upheaval, retired lecturer Wiggins moves from window to window in a museum, intricately describing each scene. Whales gliding above a shipwreck and a lost cup and saucer. An animatronic forest twenty stories tall. urban wolves in the light of an apartment building. A line of mosquitoes in uniforms and regalia, honored as heroes of the last great war.
 
Bit by bit, Wiggins unspools the secrets of his world—the conflict that brought it to the brink, and the great thinker, Michaux, who led the diorama revolution, himself now preserved under glass.
 
After a phone call in the middle of the night, Wiggins sets out to visit the Diorama of the Town: an entire, dioramic world, hundreds of miles across, where people are objects of curiosity, taxidermied and posed. All his life, Wiggins has longed to see it. But in the Town, he comes face to face with the diorama’s contradictions. Its legacy of political violence. Its manipulation by those with power and money. And its paper-thin promise of immortality.

#10. Owl in the Oak Tree

by Penny Walker Veraar

Releases February 2023

Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense / Family Life

About the Book:

She’s the key witness to a drive-by shooting. But what happens when her duty to justice threatens the most important thing in her world—her family?

Reagan Ramsey—mother and middle school teacher extraordinaire—knows how to hold it together in the face of adversity. In the aftermath of her husband’s death from cancer, Reagan is doing everything she can to help her two children process their father’s passing while trying to sort out what a new normal looks like for their family. The loss proves especially difficult for her seven-year-old daughter, Lizzie, who has a dual diagnosis of Down syndrome and autism and is nonverbal. Lizzie’s father had been her protector, a hands-on parent since the day she was born, and in his absence, her behavior becomes increasingly challenging as she struggles to express her feelings of loss and confusion.

But when a random encounter puts Reagan in the cross fire of a drive-by shooting—an event that shakes the foundation of her community—she suddenly becomes an involuntary key witness to a murder that turns her world, and her sense of safety, upside down. Trapped between protecting her family and helping to bring the killer to justice, Reagan’s sense of right and wrong is tested like never before.

As fear and shame threaten to break Reagan, she must learn to rely on her own conscience and her community for the strength to put her life on the line for those she loves. A piercing examination of how grief and gun violence reshape families and communities, Owl in the Oak Tree is at once a taut thriller and a story of love and redemption.

#11. The Red-Headed Pilgrim

by Kevin Maloney

The Red-Headed Pilgrim is one of IBR's anticipated indie books of 2023

Releases January 2023

Publisher: Two Dollar Radio

Genre: Contemporary Fiction / Humor

About the Book:

Provocative, poignant, and resoundingly hilarious, The Red-Headed Pilgrim is the tragicomic tale of an anxious red-head and his sordid pursuit of enlightenment and pleasure (not necessarily in that order).

On a sunny day in a business park near Portland, Oregon, 42-year-old web developer Kevin Maloney is in the throes of an existential crisis that finds him shoeless in a field of Queen Anne’s lace, reflecting on the tumultuous events that brought him to this moment. Growing up in the suburbs, young Kevin suffered “a psychological break that ripped me from my humdrum existence” mainlining high fructose corn syrup and episodes of The Golden Girls. Thus begins a journey of hard-earned insights and sexual awakening that takes Kevin from angst-ridden Beaverton to the beaches of San Diego, a frontier-themed roadside attraction in Helena, Montana, and a hermetic shack on an organic lettuce farm.

Everything changes when Kevin falls in love with Wendy. After a chance tarot reading lands them on the frigid coast of Maine, their lives are unsettled by the birth of their daughter, Zoë, whose sudden presence is oftentimes terrifying, frequently disturbing, and yet—miraculously—always wondrous.

The Red-Headed Pilgrim is an irresistible novel of misadventure and new beginnings, of wanderlust and bad decisions, of parenthood and divorce, and of the heartfelt truths we unearth when we least expect it.

#12. Shoot the Horses First

by Leah Angstman

Releases January 2023

Publisher: Kernpunkt Press

Genre: Short Story Collection / Historical Fiction

About the Book:

A debut collection of genre-bending short histories and novellas spanning 16th- through early 20th-century.

Through a historian’s lens and folkloric storytelling, the pieces in SHOOT THE HORSES FIRST revel in the nuances, brutality, mythology, and tiny victories of our historical past. A launderer takes us inside the linens of the richest families in early Baltimore. A child on the Orphan Train has his teeth inspected like a horse. Civil War soldiers experience PTSD. While one woman lands on an island of the Wampanoag tribe, a woman 200 years later finds Apache in a harsh frontier. Children survive yellow fever, the desert heat, and mistaken identities; men survive severed fingers, untested medicines, and wives with obsessive compulsive disorders. Frederick Douglass’ grandson plays violin at the World’s Fair on Colored American Day, a woman with disabilities is kept hidden away like she doesn’t exist, and a botanist is denied her place in a science journal because she is female. Themes of place, war, mental illness, identity, disability, feminism, and unyielding optimism throughout harrowing desperation resurface in this collection of stories that takes us back to time immemorial, yet feels so close, and all too familiar.

#13. The Raven

by Dani Lamia

Releases February 2023

Publisher: Level 4 Press

Genre: Dark Fantasy / Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

About the Book:

She saw The Raven in her dreams. Now her life’s a nightmare.

No matter how hard she tries, Rebekah just doesn’t fit in at her prestigious Ivy League prep school. The cruel, privileged students ridicule and bully her on a daily basis. And instead of standing up for herself, Rebekah retreats into a dark, unsettling world of nightmarish visions . . .

In her dreams, a cloaked figure named The Raven gives her a chance to turn the tables on her tormentors, and exact bloody revenge. At first, she secretly relishes the power, but then Rebekah discovers her dreams have terrifying consequences: The Raven’s brutal revenge is real.

Ripped straight from the pages of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven unlocks deep truths about humanity and tackles self-worth, morality, and the pain of doing what’s right at all costs.

#14. I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

by Marisa Crane

Releases January 2023

Publisher: Catapult

Genre: Science Fiction / LGBTQ+

About the Book:

Dept. of Speculation meets Black Mirror in this lyrical, speculative debut about a queer mother raising her daughter in an unjust surveillance state

In a United States not so unlike our own, the Department of Balance has adopted a radical new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crime—and a warning to those they encounter. Within the Department, corruption and prejudice run rampant, giving rise to an underclass of so-called Shadesters who are disenfranchised, publicly shamed, and deprived of civil rights protections.

Kris is a Shadester and a new mother to a baby born with a second shadow of her own. Grieving the loss of her wife and thoroughly unprepared for the reality of raising a child alone, Kris teeters on the edge of collapse, fumbling in a daze of alcohol, shame, and self-loathing. Yet as the kid grows, Kris finds her footing, raising a child whose irrepressible spark cannot be dampened by the harsh realities of the world. She can’t forget her wife, but with time, she can make a new life for herself and the kid, supported by a community of fellow misfits who defy the Department to lift one another up in solidarity and hope.

With a first-person register reminiscent of the fierce self-disclosure of Sheila Heti and the poetic precision of Ocean Vuong, I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself is a bold debut novel that examines the long shadow of grief, the hard work of parenting, and the power of queer resistance.

#15. Origami Dogs

by Noley Reid

Releases April 2023

Publisher: Autumn House Press

Genre: Short Story Collection

About the Book:

Stories of characters who face tragedies alongside their canine companions.
 
Noley Reid’s fourth book, Origami Dogs, is a testament to her mastery of the form. Here, dogs rove the grounds of their companions’ emotions. The creatures in this short story collection often act subtly, serving as witnesses without language, exacerbating tension and providing relief to the human characters. Sometimes they are central to the stories’ plots, such as in the lead story, “Origami Dogs,” which focuses on Iris Garr, a dog breeder’s teenage daughter, as she begins noticing odd birth defects in new litters and realizes she must confront her mother, whom she loves yet cannot help but resent. In some stories, teens struggle toward womanhood or wrestle with sexuality and queerness, confronting parents who are unable to provide the care or support they need. In other stories, Reid’s characters are adults striving to be better spouses, parents, or both, and are often grappling with life-changing events—like a new disability or the loss of a child. Despite the gravitas of these tragedies, with Reid’s touch, they feel alive, present, and painfully close. Reid brings us to her characters in the fierce damp aftermath of calamity and asks us to dwell with them until new possibilities arrive.

At these tipping points, the characters of Origami Dogs stand ready with their dogs (or memories of them), to take the next step. By turns tender, moving, and devastating, this story collection is a celebration of the bond of devotion possible between humans and dogs, and it presents an intimate rendering of the lives we share.

#16. The Company of Strangers

by Jennifer Michalski

Releases January 2023

Publisher: Braddock Avenue Books

Genre: Short Story Collection / LGBTQ+ / Contemporary Fiction

About the Book:

The stories in Jen Michalski’s new collection reveal an America in which ideas of genuine community ring false and the spiritual backbone of family life is damaged, perhaps beyond repair. Characters, many of them queer Gen-Xers of a certain age, find themselves looking―often desperately―for a way to understand the lives they’ve lived and a way to move forward with at least the possibility of future happiness.

In “Long Haul,” a gay man visits his estranged uncle to lay to rest the unresolved guilt they both feel over the childhood disappearance of his sister. In “Great White” a gay man who was the sperm donor to a lesbian friend’s pregnancy, is confronted with the possibility of genuine parenthood when the friend’s partner dies and she is laid-low by grief. And in the title story, a young woman affirms her sexuality by having an affair with her brother’s wife; the fallout leading her to regain her footing only when she befriends an elderly gay couple vacationing in the area.

In stories that relentlessly demonstrate the tensions of the 21st century, Michalski’s The Company of Strangers provides a sometimes comical, sometimes touching portrait of what is perhaps our most pressing question: How do we make a life?

#17. Boundless as the Sky

by Dawn Raffel

Releases January 2023

Publisher: Sagging Meniscus Press

Genre: Historical Fiction

About the Book:

Dawn Raffel’s Boundless as the Sky is a book of the invisible histories that repose beneath the cities we inhabit, and the worlds we try to build out of words. The first of its two parts, stories of real and invented cities, some ancient, some dystopian, is a feminist response to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities.

The second part comes together into one narrative, taking place in a single city—Chicago—on a single day in 1933. It is based closely on a true event, the arrival of a “roaring armada of goodwill” in the form of twenty-four seaplanes flown in a display of fascist power by Mussolini’s wingman Italo Balbo to Chicago’s “Century of Progress” World’s Fair. The 7000-mile flight from Rome to Chicago was lauded by both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Hitler, at a time when aviation made banner headlines across the US, and news of the Nazis was often in a side column.

The novella follows a few of the many thousands of Chicagoans there to witness the planes’ arrival. These two panels of Raffel’s poetic diptych call out to each other with a mysterious and disquieting harmony, and from history and fantasy to the dangers and dark realities of the current moment with startling insight and urgency.

#18. Who Gets Believed?

by Dina Nayeri

Who Gets Belieed? is one of IBR's anticipated indie books of 2023

Releases March 2023

Publisher: Catapult

Genre: Immigration / Sociology

About the Book:

From the author of The Ungrateful Refugee—finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Kirkus Prize—Who Gets Believed? is a groundbreaking book about persuasion and performance that asks unsettling questions about lies, truths, and the difference between being believed and being dismissed in situations spanning asylum interviews, emergency rooms, consulting jobs, and family life

Why are honest asylum seekers dismissed as liars?

Former refugee and award-winning author Dina Nayeri begins with this question, turning to shocking and illuminating case studies in this book, which grows into a reckoning with our culture’s views on believability. From persuading a doctor that she’d prefer a C-section to learning to “bullshit gracefully” at McKinsey to struggling, in her personal life, to believe her troubled brother-in-law, Nayeri explores an aspect of our society that is rarely held up to the light.

For readers of David Grann, Malcolm Gladwell, and Atul Gawande, Who Gets Believed? is a book as deeply personal as it is profound in its reflections on morals, language, human psychology, and the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another.

#19. The Wise Hours

by Miriam Darlington

The Wise hours is one of IBR's anticipated indie books of 2023

Releases February 2023

Publisher: Tin House Books

Genre: Science & Nature / Animals

About the Book:

One minute I was sipping my tea by the window. There was nothing but the palest edge of grey light and a wisp of steam from my cup―and then a shadow swooped out of the air. With the lightest of scratches, as if the dawn light was solidifying into life, there it was, perched like an exclamation mark on the balcony: an owl, come to my home.

Owls have existed for over sixty million years, and in the relatively short time we have shared the planet with these majestic birds they have ignited the human imagination. But even as owls continue to captivate our collective consciousness, celebrated British nature writer Miriam Darlington finds herself struck by all she doesn’t know about the true nature of these enigmatic creatures.

Darlington begins her fieldwork in the British Isles with her teenage son, Benji. As her avian fascination grows, she travels to France, Serbia, Spain, Finland, and the frosted Lapland borders of the Arctic for rare encounters with the Barn Owl, Tawny Owl, Long-eared Owl, Pygmy Owl, Snowy Owl, and more. But when her son develops a mysterious illness, her quest to understand the elusive nature of owls becomes entangled with her search for finding a cure.

In The Wise Hours, Darlington watches and listens to the natural world and to the rhythms of her home and family, inviting readers to discover the wonders of owls alongside her while rewilding our imagination with the mystery, fragility, and magnificence of all creatures.

#20. A Darker Wilderness

Edited by Erin Sharkey

Releases February 2023

Publisher: Milkweed Editions

Genre: Science & Nature / African & African American Studies

About the Book:

A vibrant collection of personal and lyric essays in conversation with archival objects of Black history and memory.

What are the politics of nature? Who owns it, where is it, what role does it play in our lives? Does it need to be tamed? Are we ourselves natural? In A Darker Wilderness, a constellation of luminary writers reflect on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States. Each of these essays engages with a single archival object, whether directly or obliquely, exploring stories spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles, traveling from roots to space and finding rich Blackness everywhere.

Erin Sharkey considers Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 almanac, as she follows the passing of seasons in an urban garden in Buffalo. Naima Penniman reflects on a statue of Haitian revolutionary François Makandal, within her own pursuit of environmental justice. Ama Codjoe meditates on rain, hair, protest, and freedom via a photo of a young woman during a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. And so on—with wide-ranging contributions from Carolyn Finney, Ronald Greer II, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sean Hill, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Glynn Pogue, Katie Robinson, and Lauret Savoy—unearthing evidence of the ways Black people’s relationship to the natural world has persevered through colonialism, slavery, state-sponsored violence, and structurally racist policies like Jim Crow and redlining.

A scrapbook, a family chest, a quilt—and an astounding work of historical engagement and literary accomplishment—A Darker Wilderness is a collection brimming with abundance and insight.

#21. Not Too Late

by Rebecca Solnit

Releases April 2023

Publisher: Haymarket Books

Genre: Climate & Ecology

About the Book:

An energizing case for hope about the climate, from Rebecca Solnit (“the voice of the resistance”—New York Times), climate activist Thelma Young Lutunatabua, and a chorus of voices calling on us to rise to the moment.

Not Too Late is the book for anyone who is despondent, anxious, or unsure about climate change and seeking answers. As the contributors to this volume make clear, the future will be decided by whether we act in the present—and we must act to counter institutional inertia, fossil fuel interests, and political obduracy.

These dispatches from the climate movement around the world feature the voices of organizers like Guam-based lawyer and writer Julian Aguon; climate scientists like Dr. Jacquelyn Gill and Dr. Edward Carr; poets like Marshall Islands activist Kathy Jetnil-Kijner; and longtime organizers like The Tyranny of Oil author Antonia Juhasz and Emergent Strategy author adrienne maree brown. Guided by Rebecca Solnit’s typical clear-eyed wisdom and enriched by illustrations, Not Too Late leads readers from discouragement to possibilities, from climate despair to climate hope.

Contributors include Julian Aguon, Jade Begay, adrienne maree brown, Edward Carr, Renato Redantor Constantino, Joelle Gergis, Jacquelyn Gill, Mary Annaise Heglar, Mary Ann Hitt, Roshi Joan Halifax, Nikayla Jefferson, Antonia Juhasz, Kathy Jetnil Kijiner, Fenton Lutunatabua & Joseph `Sikulu, Yotam Marom, Denali Nalamalapu, Leah Stokes, Farhana Sultana, and Gloria Walton.

#22. Mixed Signals

by Uri Gneezy

Releases March 2023

Publisher: Yale University Press

Genre: Decision-Making & Problem Solving / Business & Marketing

About the Book:

An informative and entertaining account of how actions send signals that shape behaviors and how to design better incentives for better results in our life, our work, and our world
 
Incentives send powerful signals that aim to influence behavior. But often there is a conflict between what we say and what we do in response to these incentives. The result: mixed signals.
 
Consider the CEO who urges teamwork but designs incentives for individual success, who invites innovation but punishes failure, who emphasizes quality but pays for quantity. Employing real-world scenarios just like this to illustrate this everyday phenomenon, behavioral economist Uri Gneezy explains why incentives often fail and demonstrates how the right incentives can change behavior by aligning with signals for better results.
 
Drawing on behavioral economics, game theory, psychology, and fieldwork, Gneezy outlines how to be incentive smart, designing rewards that are simple and effective. He highlights how the right combination of economic and psychological incentives can encourage people to drive more fuel-efficient cars, be more innovative at work, and even get to the gym. “Incentives send a signal,” Gneezy writes, “and your objective is to make sure this signal is aligned with your goals.”

#23. Fieldwork

by Iliana Regan

Fieldwork by Iliana Regan is one of IBR's anticipated indie books of 2023

Releases January 2023

Publisher: Agate Publishing

Genre: Culinary Biography & Memoir / Nature & Ecology

About the Book:

From National Book Award–nominee Iliana Regan, a new memoir of her life and heritage as a forager, spanning her ancestry in Eastern Europe, her childhood in rural Indiana, and her new life set in the remote forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Fieldwork explores how Regan’s complex gender identity informs her acclaimed work as a chef and her profound experience of the natural world.

Included in our list of Must-Read Mushroom Books!

#24. The Language of Trees

by Katie Holten

Releases April 2023

Publisher: Tin House Books

Genre: Nature & Ecology / Trees / Literature

About the Book:

“A masterpiece. Katie Holten’s tree alphabet is a gift to the printed world.”―Max Porter, author of Grief is a Thing with Feathers

Inspired by forests, trees, leaves, roots, and seeds, The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape invites readers to discover an unexpected and imaginative language to better read and write the natural world around us and reclaim our relationship with it. In this gorgeously illustrated and deeply thoughtful collection, Katie Holten gifts readers her tree alphabet and uses it to masterfully translate and illuminate beloved writing in praise of the natural world. With an introduction from Ross Gay, and featuring writings from over fifty contributors, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Ada Limón, Robert Macfarlane, Zadie Smith, Radiohead, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, James Gleick, Elizabeth Kolbert, Plato, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, Holten illustrates each selection with an abiding love and reverence for the magic of trees. She guides readers on a journey from “primeval atoms” and cave paintings to the death of a 3,500 year-old cypress tree, from Tree Clocks in Mongolia and forest fragments in the Amazon to the language of fossil poetry, unearthing a new way to see the natural beauty all around us and an urgent reminder of what could happen if we allow it to slip away.

The Language of Trees considers our relationship with literature and landscape, resulting in an astonishing fusion of storytelling and art and a deeply beautiful celebration of trees through the ages.

#25. This Wide Terraqueous World

by Laird Hunt

This Wide Terraqueous World by Laird Hunt is one of IBR's anticipated indie books of 2023

Releases March 2023

Publisher: Coffee House Press

Genre: Writing & Publishing / Memoir

About the Book:

Haunting essays from acclaimed author Laird Hunt balance intimate remembrance with an examination of the writing life.

In this new collection of nonfiction from the celebrated author of Zorrie, Laird Hunt uses fiction as an inspiration, a tool, even an obsession, employing its methods to get to the heart of experience. The “sizzling” work of Jane Bowles colors his wanderings through Palermo, while a London museum trip provokes a consideration of taxidermy’s storytelling potential, and fairytales blend with echoes of W. G. Sebald, Willa Cather, and László Krasznahorkai. From intrigue at the United Nations to a broken-down car in Nebraska, from the history of denim to the dangerous games of childhood, This Wide Terraqueous World leads readers down the winding paths of memory as Hunt examines his subjects in razor-sharp prose both eerily spare and richly evocative.

#26. My Dear Comrades

by Sunu P. Chandy

Releases March 2023

Publisher: Regal House Publishing

Genre: Poetry / Family /Women

About the Book:

In this poetry collection, Sunu P. Chandy includes stories about her experiences as a woman, civil rights attorney, parent, partner, daughter of South Asian immigrants, and member of the LGBTQ community. These poems cover themes ranging from immigration, social justice activism, friendship loss, fertility challenges, adoption, caregiving, and life during a pandemic. Sunu’s poems provide some resolve, some peace, some community, amidst the competing notions of how we are expected to be in the world, especially when facing a range of barriers.

Sunu’s poems provide company for many who may be experiencing isolation through any one of these experiences and remind us that we are not, in fact, going it alone. Whether the experience is being disregarded as a woman of color attorney, being rejected for being queer, losing a most treasured friendship, doubting one’s romantic partner or any other form of heartbreak, Sunu’s poems highlight the human requirement of continually starting anew. These poems remind us that we can, and we will, rebuild. They remind us that whether or not we know it, there are comrades who are on parallel roads too, and that as a collective, we are, undoubtedly, cheering each other on.

#27. Lupine

by Jenny Irish

Releases March 2023

Publisher: Black Lawrence Press

Genre: Poetry / Women

About the Book:

At the heart of all violence is fear: Lupine is a gathering of feminist prose poetry engaging themes of ecology, animality, and the human unknown. A series of interconnected dramatic monologues, the poems inhabit the personae of figures traditionally deemed Monstrous, giving them voice to confront and reclaim the violent mythologies that have so often been imposed upon them. As these unmuzzled monsters speak, the collection collapses the boundaries between the self and the subjugated other, ultimately upending the discourse of monstrosity itself. By exposing how women are villainized and sacrificed in response to cultural fear, Lupine offers a corrective to social narratives in which notions of the bestial and notions of the feminine are intimately entwined.

#28. Soft Apocalypse

by Leah Nieboer

Releases March 2023

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Genre: Poetry / Apocalypse

About the Book:

Soft Apocalypse pirouettes in the “anemic glow” of late capitalism, its lyrics performing in the civic pocket, in the offbeat, and by arrhythmias that offer improvisational measures for going and going on. Chrome angels, strange beloveds, and cool-eyed speakers cut speculative lines through precarious spaces of the present—deserts and nightscapes, neon-lit strips, corner stores, foreclosures, pharmacy queues, and “crumpled back alleys”—making imaginative economies, queer kinships, and alternative ways of being in the world. Nothing here is done with ease, but irreducible gifts do slip surreptitiously from palm to palm: after all, “we all need a little help sometimes / baby.” Anybody in these poems may use ordinary, embodied matters—“raw materials” and “dream residuals”—to shimmy out of dire, official measures and into “an unmarked rest,” an excess, or any “o vacancy!” where unofficial exchanges may be made.

Soft Apocalypse insistently edges these minor events and intimate apprehensions against the official orders, projections, violations, and isolations of our time. Instead of calculating toward a dystopic ending, this book bets on its softer wrecks, a futurity in an intimately rewired collective.

#29. Buffalo Girl

by Jessica Q. Stark

Releases April 2023

Publisher: BOA Editions, Ltd.

Genre: Poetry / Women

About the Book:

In these hybrid poems, Jessica Q. Stark explores her mother’s fraught immigration to the United States from Vietnam at the end of war through the lens of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

Told through personal, national, and cultural histories, Buffalo Girl is a feminist indictment of the violence used to define and control women’s bodies. Interspersed throughout this hybrid work are a series of collaged photographs, featuring Stark’s mother’s black-and-white photography from Vietnam beautifully and hauntingly layered over various natural landscapes — lush tropical plants, dense forests, pockets of wildflowers. Several illustrations from old Red Riding Hood children’s books can also be found embedded into these pieces. Juxtaposing the moral implications of Little Red Riding Hood with her mother’s photography, Stark creates an image-text conversation that attends to the wolves lurking in the forests of our everyday lives. 

Opening the whispered frames around sexuality and sex work, immersed in the unflattering symptoms of survival, Buffalo Girl burgeons with matrilineal love and corporeal rage while censuring the white gaze and the violence enacted through the English language. Here is an inversion of diasporic victimhood. Here is an unwavering attention to the burdens suffered by the women of this world. Here is a reimagination, a reclamation, a way out of the woods.

#30. Into the Good World Again

by Max Garland

Releases March 2023

Publisher: Holy Cow! Press

Genre: Poetry / Pandemic

About the Book:

In these unsettling pandemic times, former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Max Garland offers poems of grace, resilience, and healing remembrance.

These are poems of remembering, not only the anguish and isolation of the global pandemic, during which most were written, but also remembering as a creative or restorative force. Max Garland’s poems walk on a wire of remnant faith that even in the news-glutted age of social media, there’s a role for poetry, “…news that Stays news,” as one poet put it nearly a century ago. There’s an evocative range: from the surrealistic conjurings of a child’s mind at bedtime, to the fragmented memory of an aging widow, struggling to recall the details of her life, or if not the details, at least the emotional truth of that life, realizing that for her, “Memory is more like poetry than poetry.”

Which books from indie presses and indie authors are you most excited about in 2023? Let us know in the comments!

About the Curator

Joe Walters IBR founder

Joe Walters is the founder and editor-in-chief of Independent Book Review and a book marketing specialist at Sunbury Press. When he’s not doing editorial, promoting, or reviewing work, he’s working on his novel and trusting the process. Follow him @joewalters13 on Twitter.

Thank you for reading “30 Indie Books to Look for in Early 2023” curated by Joe Walters! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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