"Don't just read a book, live it"

We are a curated list of amazing books by the most creative minds.

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📚 The Road to Tender Hearts by: Annie Hartnett

At sixty-three years old, million-dollar lottery winner PJ Halliday would be the luckiest man in Pondville, Massachusetts, if it weren’t for the tragedies of his life: the sudden death of his eldest daughter and the way his marriage fell apart after that. Since then, PJ spends both his money and his time at the bar, and he probably doesn’t have much time left—he’s had three heart attacks already.

But when PJ reads the obituary of his old romantic rival, he realizes his high school sweetheart, Michelle Cobb, is finally single again. Filled with a new enthusiasm for life, PJ decides he’s going to drive across the country to the Tender Hearts Retirement Community in Arizona to win Michelle back.

Before PJ can hit the road, tragedy strikes Pondville, leaving PJ the sudden guardian of his estranged brother’s grandchildren. Anyone else would be deterred from the planned trip, but PJ figures the orphaned kids might benefit from getting out of town. PJ also thinks he can ask Sophie, his adult daughter who’s adrift in her twenties, to come along to babysit. And there’s one more surprise addition to the roster: Pancakes, a former nursing home therapy cat with a knack of predicting death, who recently turned up outside PJ’s home.

This could be the second chance PJ has long hoped for—a fresh shot at love and parenting—but does he have the strength to do both those things again? It’s very possible his heart can’t take it.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A darkly comic and warm-hearted novel about an old man on a cross-country mission to reunite with his high school crush—bringing together his adult daughter, two orphaned kids, and a cat who can predict death—by the beloved author of Rabbit Cake and Unlikely Animals

A miraculous novel—an actual and spiritual road trip you won’t forget —John Irving

AN NPR AND LIT HUB BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

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📚 Taiwan Travelogue by: Shuang-zi Yang

May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.

Soon a Taiwanese woman—who is younger even than she is, and who shares the characters of her name is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the “something” is.

Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 and won Taiwan’s highest literary honor, the Golden Tripod Award. Taiwan Travelogue unburies lost colonial histories and deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.

A bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history, and power

WINNER OF THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE WINNER OF THE 2026 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE

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📚 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by: Mark Haddon

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, Christopher is autistic. Everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning for him. At fifteen, Christopher&s carefully constructed world falls apart when he finds his neighbour&s dog Wellington impaled on a garden fork, and he is initially blamed for the killing.

Christopher decides that he will track down the real killer, and turns to his favourite fictional character, the impeccably logical Sherlock Holmes, for inspiration. But the investigation leads him down some unexpected paths and ultimately brings him face to face with the dissolution of his parents& marriage. As Christopher tries to deal with the crisis within his own family, the narrative draws readers into the workings of Christopher&s mind.

And herein lies the key to the brilliance of Mark Haddon and choice of narrator: The most wrenching of emotional moments are chronicled by a boy who cannot fathom emotions. The effect is dazzling, making for one of the freshest debut in years: a comedy, a tearjerker, a mystery story, a novel of exceptional literary merit that is great fun to read

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic—both poignant and funny—about a boy with autism who sets out to solve the murder of a neighbor's dog and discovers unexpected truths about himself and the world.

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📚 We Dance Upon Demons by: Vaishnavi Patel

As a reproductive health care worker in Chicago, Nisha is barely staying afloat in the ocean of abortion bans, screaming protestors, and her own all-consuming depression.

When she escapes to the Indian art exhibit at her favorite museum for a brief respite, Nisha suddenly finds herself bleeding, disoriented, and collapsed on the ground. The last thing she remembers is the statue that beckoned her to touch it. In the days that follow, Nisha feels a strange power coursing within her, one that attracts a host of dangerous and enigmatic characters who covet it for themselves.

Facing threats both otherworldly and distinctly human, Nisha must navigate uncertain alliances to piece together the centuries-old mystery of her odd and terrifying abilities. And as danger closes in on her loved ones, community, and the clinic she’s determined to protect, Nisha must make a choice about the life she wants—and fight all the demons standing in her way to get it.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Kaikeyi, a galvanizing stand-alone contemporary fantasy following a burnt-out reproductive health care worker as she fights back against escalating attacks on her clinic and the malevolent forces in hot pursuit of her newly acquired power.

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📚 Seveneves by: Neal Stephenson

A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in a hastily built space ark.

But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges threaten the intrepid pioneers, turning their mission into a desperate survival story until only a handful of survivors remain...

Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious post-apocalyptic journey into the unknown... to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth.

A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking hard science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years.

What would happen if the world were ending?

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📚 Impossible Creatures by: Katherine Rundell

The day that Christopher saved a drowning baby griffin from a hidden lake would change his life forever.

It’s the day he learned about the Archipelago—a cluster of unmapped islands where magical creatures of every kind have thrived for thousands of years, until now. And it’s the day he met Mal—a girl on the run, in desperate need of his help.

Mal and Christopher embark on a wild adventure, racing from island to island, searching for someone who can explain why the magic is fading and why magical creatures are suddenly dying. They consult sphinxes, battle kraken, and negotiate with dragons. But the closer they get to the dark truth of what’s happening, the clearer it becomes: no one else can fix this. If the Archipelago is to be saved, Mal and Christopher will have to do it themselves.

Katherine Rundell’s story crackles and roars with energy and delight. It is brought vividly to life with more than 60 illustrations, including a map and a bestiary of magical creatures.

Two kids race to save the world’s last magical place in the first book of a landmark new fantasy series, from “a writer with an utterly distinctive voice and a wild imagination.” (Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass)

"An instant classic from one of the most gifted storytellers of our time, Impossible Creatures is an astonishing miracle of a book." —Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal Winner for The One and Only Ivan

This paperback edition features beautifully designed stenciled edges depicting a creature from the book!

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📚 The Last Contract of Isako by: Fonda Lee

Isako is a legendary swordswoman, but every legend must come to an end. When her long-time client unexpectedly retires, she plans to follow—to walk out into the frozen wasteland of their planet with her head held high and her family enriched by her death. But when she's offered a final mission, she can't refuse, especially when she realizes who lies at the center of it all: Martim, her last—and worst—apprentice, who's somehow made his way to the top. As she's thrust into a world of corporate espionage and shadowy secrets, what she uncovers could forever change humanity's existence among the stars.  

The Last Contract of Isako is epic science fiction like only Fonda Lee can write it—set in a world where money trumps loyalty, the elite have the power to extend life or end it, and one woman in the twilight of her calling must decide what's ultimately worth living—or dying—for.

A battle-worn corporate samurai undertakes one last mission on a merciless planet where death is always a mere breath away, in this standalone dystopian epic from the author of the modern fantasy classic Jade City. 

LIVE BY THE CODE. DIE BY THE KNIFE.

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📚 Something Deadly on Desert Drive by: Kris Bock

Starting over at fifty might be hard, but it shouldn’t be deadly…

Still recovering from an injury that might have permanently derailed her career as an international war correspondent, Kate Tessler is living in her childhood bedroom and pondering her second act when another case lands in her lap. Kate’s father and his coffee group are worried. Their friend Larry married a younger woman who now insists he has dementia and won’t let any of his friends visit. They’re convinced that Larry’s wife and her two adult, dead-beat kids are out to steal his money. Can Kate help?

Soon Kate and her unusual gang of sidekicks are unofficially, officially investigating. But before they can dig out the truth, a murder raises the stakes. Now they need to prove Larry is both mentally competent and not a killer. They’ll have to find the real murderer—without risking their own lives in the process.

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📚 Butter by: Asako Yuzuki

There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine. Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back.

Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body. Might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?

Inspired by the real case of the convicted con woman and serial killer, 'The Konkatsu Killer', Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, gripping exploration of misogyny, obsession and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

Hooked, the latest novel from Asako Yuzuki is available now 'It isn’t entirely clear whether to read the novel or devour it’ OBSERVER ‘Readers around the world are finding themselves utterly captivated’ DAILY MAIL ‘I really enjoyed it’ MEERA SYAL, on BBC Between the Covers 'Compelling, delightfully weird' PANDORA SYKES 'Unputdownable, breathtakingly original' ERIN KELLY 'You’ll be craving rice, butter and soy sauce in no time’ STYLIST ‘Nothing short of ingenious’ iNEWS ‘Ambitious and unsettling’ GUARDIAN 'Luscious ... I devoured this' IMOGEN CRIMP 'A salty morsel with one hell of a bite’ ALICE SLATER

THE AWARD-WINNING MILLION COPY #1 BESTSELLER WINNER OF WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 WINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS DEBUT NOVEL OF THE YEAR 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA CRIME FICTION IN TRANSLATION DAGGER AWARD 2025 A BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK ‘A full-fat, Michelin-starred treat’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘A cult phenomenon’ iNEWS ‘Took the literary world by storm’ BBC ‘A killer Japanese novel’ THE TIMES 'I have been glued to Butter’ NIGEL SLATER

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story, and translated by Polly Barton.

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📚 Honey by: Imani Thompson

Yrsa is bored: bored with her PhD program, her entitled students, and the never-ending pages of racial violence and feminist theory she has to read. But most of all, she’s bored with the men in her life—especially the bad ones.

And then, one sunny afternoon, she accidentally kills one.

Suddenly a problematic professor is dead, and Yrsa, well—she’s no longer bored.

Emboldened, she starts to chase the high, and soon no misbehaving sexist man within commuting distance is safe.

Finally Yrsa’s academic research feels useful. But how long can killing in the name of feminist and racial solidarity justify her actions? And how long until her actions—and buried family secrets—come back to unravel her?

A dark, provocative, adrenaline-rush of a novel about a graduate student who murders bad men and justifies it in the name of feminism, by a bold new voice in fiction

Might be the most-anticipated debut novel of the year thanks in part to its perfect-for-Hollywood premise.—Esquire

“A darkly comic novel about the tricky politics of race, sex, violence and love . . . the entertaining (and quietly damning) read you’ll need to kick off spring.”—Elle

A Most Anticipated Book of the Year: Glamour, Debutiful, Book Riot, Esquire, SheReads, Elle, Stylist

She just wants to know what justice feels like.

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📚 When the Storm Passes by: Manel Loureiro

In the summer, the Isle of Ons is a vacation paradise. But in the winter, when nature is unpredictable and supply boats are rare, Ons is far less inviting.

Yet the off season is perfect for Roberto Lobeira, who hopes to find peace and inspiration to write his new novel. Instead, the island's few permanent residents give Roberto an unnerving and cautionary welcome. There are even warnings of chilling Galician folklore that keep him on edge--and on watch at night. Then when Roberto finds a mysterious bundle floating near the shore, the contents trigger in the residents old family feuds, scores to settle, and an unspeakable thirst for revenge.

As a palpable sense of dread grows more threatening, a violent storm portends even worse to come. With all communication to the outside world shut down, Roberto must face not only the forces of nature but forces he has yet to comprehend on an island where people will do anything to survive.

For a writer seeking sanctuary, a seductive island off the Galician Atlantic coast induces a primal fear in a prize-winning shocker by the international bestselling author of the Apocalypse Z series.

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📚 Trouble with Lichen by: John Wyndham

Francis Saxover and Diana Brackley, two scientists investigating a rare lichen, discover it has a remarkable property: it retards the aging process. Francis, realizing the implications for the world of an ever-youthful, wealthy elite, wants to keep it secret, but Diana sees an opportunity to overturn the male status quo by using the lichen to inspire a feminist revolution.

As each scientist wrestles with the implications and practicalities of exploiting the discovery, the world comes ever closer to learning the truth...

Trouble With Lichen is a scintillating story of the power wielded by science in our lives and asks how much trust should we place in those we appoint to be its guardians?

FROM THE RENOWNED CLASSIC SCI-FI WRITER AND AUTHOR OF THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS AND THE CHRYSTALIDS

'Ingenious' Evening Standard

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📚 No Fixed Address by: Susin Nielsen

Twelve-and-three-quarter-year-old Felix Knutsson has a knack for trivia. His favorite game show is Who What Where When; he even named his gerbil after the host. Felix's mom, Astrid, is loving but can't seem to hold on to a job. So when they get evicted from their latest shabby apartment, they have to move into a van. Astrid swears him to secrecy; he can't tell anyone about their living arrangement, not even Dylan and Winnie, his best friends at his new school. If he does, she warns him, he'll be taken away from her and put in foster care.

As their circumstances go from bad to worse, Felix gets a chance to audition for a junior edition of Who What Where When, and he's determined to earn a spot on the show. Winning the cash prize could make everything okay again. But things don't turn out the way he expects...

Susin Nielsen deftly combines humor, heartbreak, and hope in this moving story about people who slip through the cracks in society, and about the power of friendship and community to make all the difference.

For fans of Wendelin van Draanen and Cynthia Lord, a touching and funny middle-grade story about family, friendship, and growing up when you're one step away from homelessness.

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📚 The Cure for Drowning by: Loghan Paylor

Born Kathleen to an immigrant Irish farming family in southern Ontario, Kit McNair has been a troublesome changeling since, at ten, they fell through the river ice and drowned—only to be nursed back to life by their mother's Celtic magic. A daredevil in boy's clothes, Kit chafes at every aspect of a farmgirl's life, driving that same mother to distraction with worry about where Kit will ever fit in. When Rebekah Kromer, an elegant German-Canadian doctor's daughter, moves to town with her parents in April 1939, Rebekah has no doubt as to who 19-year-old Kit is. Soon she and Kit, and Kit's older brother, Landon, are drawn tight in a love triangle that will tear them and their families apart, and send each of them off on a separate path to war.

Landon signs up for the Navy. Kit, now known as Christopher, joins the Royal Air Force, becoming a bomber navigator relied on for his luck and courage. Rebekah serves with naval intelligence in Halifax, until one more collision with Landon changes the course of her life and draws her back to the McNair farm—a place where she'd once known love. Fallen on even harder times, the McNairs welcome all the help she is able to give, and she believes she has found peace at last. Until, with the war over, Kit and Landon return home.

Told in the vivid, unforgettable voices of Kit and Rebekah, The Cure for Drowning is a powerfully engrossing novel that imagines a history that is truer than true.

WINNER OF CANADA READS 2026 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK

Evocative, magical and luminously written, The Cure for Drowning is not only a brilliant, boundary-pushing love story but a Canadian historical novel that boldly centres queer and non-binary characters in unprecedented ways.

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📚 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by: Stieg Larsson

The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder.

He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently at the wrong end of a libel case, to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker, possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessnes assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, an astonishing corruption at the highest echelon of Swedish industrialism and a surprising connection between themselves.

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📚 Une unique lueur by: Fred Vargas

Vous avez regardé les photos, Danglard ? De la scène du crime ? Demanda Adamsberg.

Cela va de soi.

Et donc ? Cela vous dit quelque chose ? Parce qu’à moi, oui.

Tiens. Et cela vous raconte quoi ?

Mais justement, rien. C’est quelque chose que je ne sais pas alors que cela me dit quelque chose. Donc ?

Aucune idée.

Faites un effort, nom d’un chien.

Désolé commissaire, dit Danglard avec une pointe d’indifférence.

Bien. Réunion plénière dans quinze minutes. Il nous faut comprendre.

Comprendre quoi ?

Mais le quelque chose, commandant. On commence par là.

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📚 The Alchemist by: Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.

A special 25th anniversary edition of the extraordinary international bestseller, including a new Foreword by Paulo Coelho.

Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder into an inspiring tale of self-discovery, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations.

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