What to Read Next: The New York Times Edition

A fever dream of a coming-of-middle-age novel by the celebrated artist and author, Miranda July. This is a reminder of everything we love about her, starting with the questions she asks about how we live and what we value. When an unnamed artist embarks on a cross-country road trip, she pulls off the road 30 minutes in, and her life is forever changed. What follows is an electric tale of passion, art, marriage and family.

Miranda July joined Jenna Seery on Poured Over to talk about aging as a woman, societal pressures on identity and motherhood, her writing process and more.

Andy’s heart is broken, and he doesn’t know how to move on with his life. He and Jen were perfect, (weren’t they?) and he can’t wrap his head around why their relationship came to such an unceremonious end. Witty, clever and biting, Good Material is an exploration of friendship, love and the many forms a relationship can take. No one writes about love quite like Dolly Alderton, and her male protagonist gives us a fresh perspective on modern relationships and all too relatable moments from the throes of heartache. With a voice reminiscent of Nora Ephron and Nick Hornby, readers will find so much to love in Good Material.

Dolly Alderton joined Jenna Seery on Poured Over to chat about writing from the male perspective, the things we all do when our hearts get broken, and the unspoken grief when relationships don’t work out.

James has been top of mind in the literary world, and for good reason. After being named the National Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and the B&N Book of the Year, we’re so pleased to celebrate its inclusion on the NYT 10 Best Books of the Year list. You may think you know Huck Finn, but how well do you know Jim? Flip the script on an American classic as Huck Finn steps to the side and Jim takes center stage in a powerful, and often very funny, story of family, home and freedom.

Bestselling author James Everett and Academy Award-winning director of American Fiction Cord Jefferson sat down live to discuss adapting novels for film, finding humanity in serious stories, the power of art and storytelling on Poured Over hosted by Miwa Messer.  

Shortlisted by the National Book Awards for Fiction and lauded for his exceptional voice in contemporary fiction, Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is teeming with all the life you’ll find in his poems, fleshed out over an entire novel. Centered on a young man in search of purpose, readers will embark on a quest to uncover life’s mysteries in faith, religion, history, home and art through these pages.

Kaveh Akbar joined Miwa Messer on Poured Over to talk about writing both poetry and prose, collaboration with other novelists, and creating compassion through writing.

Álvaro Enrigue is no stranger to taking us back in time through his work, and this is his best yet. Enrigue sets the stage in 16^th-century Tenochtitlan, now known as Mexico City. When Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrives in Tenochtitlan, the glory and grandeur that greet him make him suspect that all is not what it seems. Like a fever dream brought to life, this is the epic story of an ancient empire, political intrigue and destiny. Through a haze of hallucinogens and murderous schemes, this surreal novel is unlike any other.

Prolific Hungarian-language journalist and poet József Debreczeni’s harrowing account of surviving the Holocaust gives readers an unvarnished look into his experience at Auschwitz in 1944. Sparing no detail, this is a day-to-day account of life in a concentration camp, told with empathy, ferocity and heart. First published in Hungarian almost 75 years ago, Debreczeni’s memoir has been translated into 15 languages for the very first time, reaching readers all over the world.

Jonathan Blitzer’s examination of the humanitarian crisis at the United States border is a sweeping epic centered on the lives of those seeking asylum, and the history of how we got here. Digging into the border crisis like never before and connecting it to timely issues of inequality, climate change and rightwing radicalism, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is an emotionally moving journalistic powerhouse. Blitzer’s latest will appeal to readers of The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio and Separated by Jacob Soboroff.

With a Grammy Award, Whiting Writers Award, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and more to her name, Lucy Sante is a force to be reckoned with in the literary world. In this deeply personal, immensely human memoir chronicling Sante’s journey to find herself, Sante recounts her transition, her gender-identity realization and her sense of home and belonging in an unforgiving world. From childhood to immigrating to the U.S. from Belgium to her gender transition at 66 years old, this is a biting, empathetic and hilarious memoir from an iconic author.

Historian, foreign policy analyst and author Max Boot turns his journalistic lens onto one of our country’s most polarizing figures: former President Ronald Reagan. Boot pulls no punches in his deep dive into just who Reagan was and what he stood for, from his stances on the AIDS epidemic to trickle-down economics to the Cold War and more. Detailing Reagan’s childhood, Hollywood career, presidency and long-lasting impacts on American culture, this is a gripping, meticulously researched biography for any reader.  

If you read The Wager and have a hankering for another seafaring adventure, look no further. The Wide Wide Sea details the life and voyages of Captain James Cook, homing in on the final voyage that cemented his complex and controversial legacy. With a history of deep interest in Indigenous peoples and the shocking act of violence against them that led to his death, this is the mystery of Cook’s final days, laid bare in riveting narrative fashion. Check out Hampton Sides’ exclusive B&N Reads guest post on why he wanted to write about Captain Hook and how the story came together, here.