30 Books

Island on Fire: The Revolt that Ended Slavery in the British Empire by Tom Zoellner (Harvard University Press) Even during the pandemic, cable-tv watchers get a steady dose of commercials

Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration by Nicole R. Fleetwood (Harvard University Press) That few people believe prisons and museums have much in common is the literal

Homie by Danez Smith (Graywolf) This third, highly anticipated collection of poetry from Smith has been praised for its “startling originality and ambition,” recognized as “deeply moving and funny,” and

Stranger Faces by Namwali Serpell (Transit Books) Namwali Serpell’s provocative collection of speculative essays, Stranger Faces, showcases her originality, clarity, nuanced language, wry wit and cultural range (from Derrida to

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark (Knopf) Before reading Heather Clark’s Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath 

Home Baked: Marijuana, My Mother and the Stoning of San Francisco by Alia Volz (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Ample, skillfully researched, and cleanly narrated, Volz’s debut is really five books in

Obit by Victoria Chang (Copper Canyon) Very few books are straightforwardly about death, but Obit, by the poet Victoria Chang, is one of them. Except that death turns out to

The Dragons, The Giant, The Women by Wayétu Moore (Graywolf) Moore opens her unconventional, deftly crafted debut memoir — it follows her 2018 fiction debut, She Would Be King —

Imperial Liquor by Amaud Jamaul Johnson (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press) Johnson’s themes—black masculinity, parenthood, shared struggle against injustice and antiblackness—now belong at the very center of 21st century American poetry.

She Come by It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who LivedHer Songs by Sarah Smarsh (Scribner) Dolly Parton might be the only person who can have it all. She