Michelle Huneven’s homage to church life
A novel posing as a memoir that is really a sympathetic comedy
fiction
A 21st-century Polish epic
Based on historical events, Olga Tokarczuk’s massive novel is simultaneously heartbreaking and comic.
Tara Stringfellow’s fictional family brings a real city to life
Like Memphis, Memphis is gritty—filled with danger, tragedy, and humor.
When nature is its own protagonist
Amitav Ghosh’s book sings the ancestral story of nutmeg.
Joel Agee’s novel of childhood wonder and terror
Fantastical things surround six-year-olds everywhere.
A robot learns to be a child
The central character of Kazuo Ishiguro’s virtuosic 2021 novel is an “Artificial Friend” with a young girl’s body.
At Tara Isabella Burton’s fictional boarding school, the hunger for transcendence gets dark
A tale of beauty, religion, and how easy it is to exploit them
Lauren Groff builds a proto-feminist medieval world
But the enchantment of Matrix is ultimately broken by her language.
A novel about purity culture and its harm
At its core, God Spare the Girls is about a family history doomed to repeat itself.
15 London children died in a World War II attack
Francis Spufford’s novel imagines the lives they might otherwise have led.
Jonathan Franzen writes a family that feels familiar
In Crossroads, a troubled associate pastor faces his deepest desires and doubts.
Sister Agatha roller-skates away from the church
The heroine of Claire Luchette’s novel realizes she became a nun to avoid being herself.
Miriam Toews explores religious trauma through the voice of a nine-year-old
Swiv isn’t an unreliable narrator, but she’s living in a world that feels unreliable.
A novel about baseball, wealth, and human frailty
Christopher Beha’s characters find themselves in pits, and the way out is not remotely clear.
I want more for Deesha Philyaw’s church ladies
I want a sequel where they don’t have to hide their sexuality.