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OPEN WATER

One of our recommended books is Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

In a crowded London pub, two young people meet. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists—he a photographer, she a dancer—and both are trying to make their mark in a world that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence, and over the course of a year they find their relationship tested by forces beyond their control.

Narrated with deep intimacy, Open Water is at once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity that asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body;

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HER HERE

One of our recommended books is Her Here by Amanda Dennis

An atmospheric story about one lost young woman’s search for another

Elena, struggling with memory loss due to a trauma that has unmoored her sense of self, deserts graduate school and a long-term relationship to accept a bizarre proposition from an estranged family friend in Paris: she will search for a young woman, Ella, who went missing six years earlier in Thailand, by rewriting her journals. As she delves deeper into Ella’s story, Elena begins to lose sight of her own identity and drift dangerously toward self-annihilation.

Her Here is an existential detective story with a shocking denouement that plumbs the creative and destructive powers of narrative itself.

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A QUESTION MARK IS HALF A HEART

One of our recommended books is A Question Mark Is Half a Heart by Sofia Lundberg

How deeply can you love when your heart is full of secrets? A sweeping, propulsive family story about a woman learning to love, from the bustle of New York’s fashion scene to a remote, windswept Swedish island, by the acclaimed author of The Red Address Book—“a love letter to the human heart” (Alyson Richman).

By age fifty, Elin Boals has created a perfect life for herself: her wildly successful business as Manhattan’s preeminent fashion photographer is flourishing. Her handsome, patient husband is devoted to her; her teenaged daughter, Alice, has been accepted to the ballet academy of her dreams.

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COME FLY THE WORLD

One of our recommended books is Come Fly the World by Julia Cooke

Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men–era of commercial flight, Pan Am World Airways attracted the kind of young woman who wanted out, and wanted up.

Required to have a college education, speak two languages, and possess the political savvy of a Foreign Service officer, a jet-age stewardess serving on iconic Pan Am between 1966 and 1975 also had to be between 5′3″ and 5′9″, between 105 and 140 pounds, and under 26 years of age at the time of hire.

Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters,

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THE POSTSCRIPT MURDERS

One of our recommended books is The Postscript Murders by Elly Griffiths

Murder leaps off the page when crime novelists begin to turn up dead in this intricate new novel by internationally best-selling author Elly Griffiths, a literary mystery perfect for fans of Anthony Horowitz and Agatha Christie.

The death of a ninety-year-old woman with a heart condition should not be suspicious. Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur certainly sees nothing out of the ordinary when Peggy’s caretaker, Natalka, begins to recount Peggy Smith’s passing.

But Natalka had a reason to be at the police station: while clearing out Peggy’s flat, she noticed an unusual number of crime novels, all dedicated to Peggy.

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THE ARSONISTS’ CITY

One of our recommended books is The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan

A rich family story, a personal look at the legacy of war in the Middle East, and an indelible rendering of how we hold on to the people and places we call home

The Nasr family is spread across the globe—Beirut, Brooklyn, Austin, the California desert. A Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three American children: all have lived a life of migration. Still, they’ve always had their ancestral home in Beirut—a constant touchstone—and the complicated, messy family love that binds them. But following his father’s recent death, Idris, the family’s new patriarch, has decided to sell.

The decision brings the family to Beirut,

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