Cancer Season Reads
Happy Cancer season AND summer solstice to all who celebrate ♋☀️ Our list of novels and nonfiction includes books that explore Cancerian themes of loyalty, creativity, and openness— and all are excellent for summer reading.
Inseparable when they were girls but now estranged, cousins Akorfa and Selasi have to repair the silences between them or lose each other forever in this moving novel set in Ghana and America from the author of Reese’s Book Club pick His Only Wife: “Stunning” (Destiny O. Birdsong, author of Nobody’s Magic)
When Selasi and Akorfa were young girls in Ghana, they were more than just cousins; they were inseparable. Selasi was exuberant and funny, Akorfa quiet and studious. They would do anything for each other, imploring their parents to let them be together, sharing their secrets and desires and private jokes.
Then Selasi begins to change, becoming hostile and quiet; her grades suffer and she builds a space around herself, shutting Akorfa out. Meanwhile, Akorfa is accepted to an American university with the goal of becoming a doctor. Although hopeful that she can create a fuller life as a woman in America, she discovers the insidious ways that racism places obstacles in her path once she leaves Ghana. It takes a crisis to bring the friends back together, with Selasi’s secret revealed and Akorfa forced to reckon with her role in their estrangement.
A riveting depiction of class and family in Ghana, a compelling exploration of memory, and an eye-opening story of life as an African-born woman in the United States, Nightbloom is above all a gripping and beautifully written novel attesting to the strength of female bonds in the face of societies that would prefer to silence women.
In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prizewinning poet and author Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life’s inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we can expand it.
In “We Kin,” Gay thinks about the garden (especially around August, when the zucchini and tomatoes come in) as a laboratory of mutual aid; in “Share Your Bucket,” he explores skateboarding’s reclamation of public spaces; he considers the costs of masculinity in “Grief Suite”; and in “Through My Tears I Saw,” he recognizes what was healed in caring for his father as he was dying.
In an era when divisive voices take up so much airspace, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love?
Taking a clear-eyed look at injustice, political polarization, and the destruction of the natural world, Gay shows us how we might resist, how the study of joy might lead us to a wild, unpredictable, transgressive, and unboundaried solidarity. In fact, it just might help us survive.
“A gift that’s meant to be shared . . . [This book] inspires us to look beyond the miseries of our era to envision a more welcoming future.”―The Washington Post
One of The Boston Globe's Best Books of 2023 * "Powerful and unforgettable" —Qian Julie Wang, author of the New York Times bestseller, Beautiful Country
We are told that love conquers all, but what happens when you don’t have the right passport? With deep empathy, rigorous reporting, and the irresistible perspective of a true romantic, journalist Anna Lekas Miller tells the stories of couples around the world who must confront Kafkaesque immigration systems to be together—as she did to be with her partner.
Written with suspenseful storytelling worthy of the greatest love stories, Love Across Borders takes readers across contentious frontiers around the world, from Turkey to Iraq, Syria to Greece, Mexico to the United States, to reveal the widespread prejudicial laws intent on dividing people. Lekas Miller tells her own story of meeting and falling deeply in love with Salem Rizk, in Istanbul, where they were both reporting on the Syrian War. But when Turkey started cracking down on refugees, Salem, who is Syrian, wasn’t allowed to stay in the country, nor could he safely return to Syria. He was a man without a country. So Lekas Miller had to decide her next move: she has an American passport, but deep personal ties to the Middle East, and knew it was unfair that Salem couldn’t travel freely the way she could. More important, she loved him.
Over the next few years, as they navigated Salem’s asylum claims, the United States’ Muslim ban, and labyrinthine regulations in several different countries, Lekas Miller learned about—and bonded with—other people whose spouses had been deported, who found love in refugee camps, whose differing immigration statuses caused complicated power dynamics and financial hardship or threatened the wellbeing of their children. Here, offering a uniquely diverse, international, and intimate look at the global immigration crisis, she interweaves these rich, complicated love stories with a fascinating look at the history of passports (a surprisingly recent institution), the legacy of colonialism, and the discriminatory laws shaping how people move through the world every day.
Ultimately, she builds a powerful, moving case for a borderless society—one where a border patrol agent can’t keep anyone’s love story from its happy ending
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING LUCY HALE & KUNNAL NAYAR
“A fun, page-turning delight.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“Funny, tender, and moving, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry reminds us all exactly why we read and why we love.” —Library Journal (starred review)
A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over—and see everything anew.
“This novel has humor, romance, a touch of suspense, but most of all love–love of books and bookish people and, really, all of humanity in its imperfect glory.” —Eowyn Ivey, author of The Snow Child
“Marvelously optimistic about the future of books and bookstores and the people who love both.”—The Washington Post
“You won’t want it to end.” —Family Circle
“A natural for book groups.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch
“A reader’s paradise of the first order.” —The Buffalo News
“Captures the joy of connecting people and books . . . Irresistible.” —Booklist
“A wonderful, moving, endearing story of redemption and transformation that will sing in your heart for a very, very long time.” —Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain
“Readers who delighted in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and Letters from Skye will be equally captivated by this novel.” —Library Journal, starred review
Don't miss Fiona Mozley's new novel, Hot Stew, which is available now!
The family thought the little house they had made themselves in Elmet, a corner of Yorkshire, was theirs, that their peaceful, self-sufficient life was safe. Cathy and Daniel roamed the woods freely, occasionally visiting a local woman for some schooling, living outside all conventions. Their father built things and hunted, working with his hands; sometimes he would disappear, forced to do secret, brutal work for money, but to them he was a gentle protector.
Narrated by Daniel after a catastrophic event has occurred, Elmet mesmerizes even as it becomes clear the family’s solitary idyll will not last. When a local landowner shows up on their doorstep, their precarious existence is threatened, their innocence lost. Daddy and Cathy, both of them fierce, strong, and unyielding, set out to protect themselves and their neighbors, putting into motion a chain of events that can only end in violence.
As rich, wild, dark, and beautiful as its Yorkshire setting, Elmet is a gripping debut about life on the margins and the power—and limits—of family loyalty.