NPR's Books We Love 2021

"Gorgeously evocative, Red Island House follows two decades in the life of Shay, an African-American professor whose husband Senna, a brash and wealthy Italian businessman, builds her a dream house in Madagascar"--

"Nick, a young illustrator, can't connect with people. Whether it's the barista down the street, his own family, or Wren, an oncologist whose life becomes painfully tangled with his, Nick can't shake the feeling that there is some hidden realm of human interaction beyond his reach. He staggers through meaningless conversations and haunts lookalike vacuous coffee shops in the hope that he will find it there. But it isn't until Nick learns to stop performing...

"More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another over-filled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives in their homelands. And only one has made the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who has the good fortune to fall into the hands not of the officials but of Vänna: a teenage...

"Ven was once a holy man, a keeper of ancient archives. It was his duty to interpret archaic texts, sorting useful knowledge from the heretical ideas of the Burning Age--a time of excess and climate disaster. For in Ven's world, such material must be closely guarded so that the ills that led to that cataclysmic era can never be repeated. But when the revolutionary Brotherhood approaches Ven, pressuring him to translate stolen writings that threaten...

Presents three tales of an endearing and enduring character, Tola, who lives in an apartment in the busy city of Lagos, Nigeria, with her sister, brother and grandmommy.

"A new collection of poetry by Hoa Nguyen"--

"In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders guides the reader through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for twenty years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program. Paired with stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, these essays are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. Saunders approaches...

"The surprising, often fiercely feminist, always fascinating, yet barely known, history of home economics. The term "home economics" may conjure traumatic memories of lopsided hand-sewn pillows or sunken cakes. But obscured by common conception is the story of the revolutionary science of better living. The field exploded opportunities for women in the twentieth century by reducing domestic work and providing jobs as professors, engineers, chemists,...

"Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease. At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily...

"A guide for how to be a thoughtful, informed ally to disabled people, with actionable steps for what to say and do (and what not to do) and how you can help make the world a more accessible place"--