Inweekly Lit Picks

In the spirit of Independent Bookstore Day, we decided to share some recommendations for your shopping consideration.

These titles are all things we’re currently reading and loving, have recently finished and can’t stop talking about or are planning on picking up ourselves this weekend. And remember, if your local bookstore doesn’t have the book you’re looking for, you can order it on bookshop.org and still support the indie shop of your choice.

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
By Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
This collection of histories, poetry and creative nonfiction shows how four centuries of African American history connects directly to the moment we’re living in today. It features beautiful works by a wide range of writers who bring the history alive. It really should be required reading for all Americans.

Of Women and Salt
By Gabriela Garcia
This debut novel follows a young woman who explores her family’s Cuban legacy and learns about the difficult choices the women in her family had to make. This book is also the June pick for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club.

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
By Cathy Park Hong
This book is part memoir, part cultural criticism and 100% a must-read. In “Minor Feelings” Hong draws on her personal experiences as the daughter of Korean immigrants to expose some harsh truths and unpack them in a radically honest way.

Detransition, Baby
By Torrey Peters
This novel is a portrait of three women, trans and cis. It’s fun and funny, while also talking about gender, womanhood and family in an insightful and important way.

Yolk
By Mary H.K. Choi
Even if fiction about two struggling sisters doesn’t sound like your thing, we still think you should read this. Choi just has a way of telling stories that works. She uses tons of modern cliches—like writing entire pages of dialogue in text message format—but somehow avoids ever being cliche. We totally don’t get it, but we love it. Her other two novels, “Emergency Contact” and “Permanent Record,” are also worth checking out if you haven’t already.

Post-Mortem
By Aaron Cometbus
In this work, Cometbus examines the meaning of DIY ethics by looking at what made certain punk fall apart and who survived. Cometbus begins with record labels, moves to radical bookstores, talks to punk entrepreneurs, a wide range of artists, and ends up in anarchist and Catholic Worker squats to figure out the reasons some projects worked and others failed miserably. Cometbus is one of the most respected authors in punk, and his zine is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. There’s no better way to toast this underground classic than to read arguably his best work to date. (This title is available for purchase locally at Open Books.)

Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay
By Phoebe Robinson
This book came out in 2019, but we’re still talking about it because it’s just that good. We’re also talking about it because Robinson recently announced that Freeform is going to make a TV series out of it. That’s pretty exciting and worth a read or re-read, if you ask us. You can also pre-order Robinson’s third collection of essays, “Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes,” now in advance of its September release.

My Year Abroad
By Chang-rae Lee
In this novel, the young narrator, Tiller, is a seemingly average American college student—good-hearted, albeit aimless. He meets Pong Lou, a charismatic and occasionally genius Chinese American entrepreneur, and joins him on a bewildering, year-long trip across Asia. Lee’s dark comedy roars through shocking childhood revelations, a quick foray into the witness protection program, insatiable appetites and a crash course on Big Pharma—all while intertwining insightful cultural commentary, heartbreak and hope.

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
By Hanif Abdurraqib
If you’ve never read anything by Abdurraqib, you’re missing out. We’ve personally read and gifted his masterful “They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us” at least a dozen times and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. In his newest book, Abdurraqib focuses on the intersection of performance and the Black experience in America. In it, he uses history and sharp cultural criticism to make points that only Abdurraqib can make. It’s overwhelming and intense, in the best possible way.

The Office of Historical Corrections
By Danielle Evans
This novella was published in late 2020 and ended up on just about every must-read list published—including Oprah Magazine’s, which named it the best book of the year. And you know Oprah knows how to pick them. The stories are about race, grief, apology and American history, which we know sounds like a lot to take in, and it is. But just trust us and Oprah—it’s worth it.

Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing
By Lauren Hough
To read anything by Hough—whether an op-ed, a tweet thread or, in this case, a book—is to peer deeply into her soul and the cynical, wicked-clever prose that spills out. In this collection of essays, Hough details her dark upbringing as a member of the Children of God cult and the difficult journey of establishing, defending and redefining her identity.

Land of Big Numbers
By Te-Ping Chen
This debut collection of 10 short stories by Wall Street Journal reporter Te-Ping Chen takes place mostly in China, and offers an illuminating portrait of modern Chinese culture, immigration, injustice, societal changes and the pitfalls of the Chinese Communist Party while deploying touches of magical realism throughout the book.

Crying at the H Mart
By Michelle Zauner
In this memoir, Zauner—aka Japanese Breakfast—shares a tender, nuanced story of growing up Korean American in Oregon and losing her mother, coping with grief and grappling with creative pursuits. The book grew out of her 2018 essay of the same name, published in the New Yorker, and most early reviews are saying it’s just as hopeful, humorous and observant as her music.

The Hill We Climb
By Amanda Gorman
We all fell in love with Gorman and her poem at the 2021 inauguration. Now you can purchase a copy of that poem and get inspired all over again. Gorman also has a whole book of poems due out in September that you can pre-order now.

by admin | Apr 21, 2021 | A&E, Cover Story, featured, Issue