10 Books Critics Are Raving About Now

Jason Mott, whose Hell of a Book won the National Book Award, returns with a novel that follows two Black writers, one traveling the country on a book tour, the other facing a school community still reeling from a shooting. "A book that begs for an immediate reread, People Like Us hits the soul hard," raved BookPage. "It is haunting, vivid literary fiction at its finest."

A millennial drifter leaves a crumbling New York for a mythic Texas town where shoemakers speak in riddles and miracles might still happen. "Dwelling is social commentary wrapped into a delightful allegory about identity, work, ritual and tradecraft," raved Los Angeles Times.

From the author of Lawrence in Arabia comes a vivid chronicle of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, one of the most momentous events in modern times. "An exceptional and important book," writes The New York Times Book Review. "Scrupulous and enterprising reporting rarely combine with such superb storytelling."

Elaine Castillo—known for her sharp cultural criticism and formally inventive fiction—returns with a satirical love story set in the virtual workplace. When a star content moderator rises into the elite world of VR surveillance, a guarded romance begins to upend her tightly managed world. “Castillo’s flinty satire of the tech industry [transforms] into a sultry romance novel,” writes The Atlantic, “as we watch Girlie’s defenses melt.”

Set against the city’s gritty tabloid heyday, this novel follows a reporter investigating the long-ago disappearance of a relative, a search that exposes buried truths and unhealed rifts. “A wild ride and an immersive Chicago novel, in which the town threatens to toddle off its axis,” writes Kirkus Reviews.

This richly immersive account explores how Baldwin’s intimate artistic partnerships shaped his life and work—from Harlem to Istanbul, Paris to the South of France. Based on newly uncovered archival material and original interviews, it is a "dynamic portrait that deepens our understanding of a complex artist," according to a starred review from Kirkus.

This selection brings together Kincaid’s essays, reportage, and criticism from The Village Voice, Ms., and The New Yorker. From her early reflections on leaving Antigua to her writing on gardens, and language, the pieces trace five decades of clear-eyed, incisive observation.

In the winter of 1952, the future Booker Prize–winning novelist, then a struggling writer and expectant mother, travels with her young son from England to a remote Mexican town in hopes of claiming a family inheritance. Over three months, she navigates a chaotic household of rivals, artists, and strangers with competing agendas. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, calls it “a masterful novel… a luminous exploration of a woman’s desperation and resilience.”

Set in the heat and haze of 1960s Laurel Canyon, this stylish novel follows two young writers whose uneasy friendship ends in a stunning betrayal—one disappears, and the other turns her life into a novel. Loosely inspired by the real lives of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, Ella Berman’s follow-up to her Reese’s Book Club pick Before We Were Innocent explores the tensions between art and intimacy, ambition and loyalty.

The former U.S. Secretary of Labor reflects on six decades of political and civic life—from civil rights activism to the Clinton administration. He examines how economic power reshaped American democracy and what remains undone in the fight for justice and inclusion. "Clear-eyed and critical, Reich's assessment of where America is headed is both sobering and, characteristically, hopeful," writes Booklist.