Indie Press Books to Add to Your Winter Reading List

The Booker Prize-shortlisted Austrian author of A Whole Life, delivers the story of a man opening a café in 1960s Vienna, where strangers come together and form a found family. “Beautiful,” raves Publishers Weekly. “Seethaler’s story bursts with empathy. This is a winner.”

In this gripping, fast-paced novel written by a Yellowstone River fly-fishing guide, two brothers on the edge of ruin make a desperate gamble to survive in Montana’s unforgiving wilderness. “One of the best and fiercest heist stories since A Simple Plan,” raves Junot Díaz. “Beartooth is unstoppable, the literary treasure you’ve been looking for.”

These dark, meditative short stories set on opposite sides of the country explore themes of love, marriage, motherhood, friendship, artistic ambition, restiveness, and shame with a blend of humor, insight and wisdom that prompted Publishers Weekly to declare: “Vallianatos shines in this wide-ranging collection.”

How do we memorialize what’s vanishing in the face of climate catastrophe? Part of Transit Books’s narrative nonfiction series of slim, handsome editions, this lyrical reflection blends memoir, reporting, and speculative essay to explore grief, memory, and the language of loss in the face of climate collapse. From traditional memorials like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to "ghost forests" of dead trees, Markham examines how we honor the past while envisioning a future shaped by environmental decay.