10 Books Critics Are Raving About Now

Art lovers and historical fiction fans won’t want to miss Peggy, a buzzed-about new novel that follows the legendary art collector and heiress Peggy Guggenheim’s “whirlwind life through the art worlds of America and Europe, and the interesting, high-brow, and often sexist circles she traveled in,” according to W magazine.

The WSJ hailed this “impressive novel” about a young playwright who turns her father’s decline into a revealing play as "an intense, onrushing, highly pressurized book, best experienced in a single sitting, like a play. Only after you’ve turned the last page will you have the time and wherewithal to think back and attempt some moral accounting."

The Guardian was enthralled by this “rich, sweeping tale spanning centuries, continents and cultures” from Ancient Mesopotamia to modern day London, which interweaves the lives of “an extraordinary child born at the edge of the dirt-black Thames in Victorian London, a Yazidi girl journeying across war-torn lands in 2014 Turkey, and a broken-hearted hydrologist in 2018 London.”

LitHub said that this collection of sci-fi and surreal short stories, all exploring the people and landscape of El Salvador, "range from amusing to downright chilling, but all command your attention."

Written by an award-winning poet and the first researcher to delve into Lorde’s complete manuscript archives, this book offers a profound look at her enduring impact. "Gumbs, one of our great poets, has delivered not only a masterful biography of Audre Lorde but a revolution in what a biography can be. Whether you only know Lorde through her most famous quotes or if you've read everything she wrote a thousand times, there is something new and exciting here for you. Structurally playful, deeply researched, vibrantly felt, it's a masterwork all around," raved LitHub.

Named a top summer pick by The Boston Globe, the latest critically-acclaimed novel from the National Book Award and International Booker Prize finalist depicts a Japanese girl’s 1970s adolescence in a “hypnotic book [that] shimmers with eccentric enigmas.”

This "prescient novel" is set in the near-distant future when climate change and AI have ravaged society, but Esquire found that "it's the tender portrait of love and care in an uncertain world that leaves a lasting mark."

This literary thriller about the search for a Brooklyn woman who goes missing in Upstate New York during the first nerve-wracking months of lockdown in 2020 is "cinematic, preternaturally humane, and absolutely unputdownable," declared author Claire Lombardo to People Magazine: "I just loved it."

A who’s who of cultural luminaries from Neil deGrasse Tyson to Bob Weir and Paul McCartney praised this thought-provoking exploration of how music heals, backed by numerous scientific studies demonstrating how music can contribute to the treatment of a host of ailments, from neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, to cognitive injury, depression, and pain.

This rollicking debut captures the 24 desperate hours in the life of a young man as he tries to track down an errant and highly embarrassing package before he takes off for college. Along the way, we meet a series of entertaining characters in this big-hearted small town caper that’s guaranteed to elicit plenty of laughs.