Read about these ten books, both timely and topical, as well as escapist and delightful—perfect reading for a most unusual summer!—and then fill out the form below to enter for a chance to win a complete set of them.

Everywhere You Don’t Belong by Gabriel Bump

“Bump’s meditation on belonging and not belonging, where or with whom, how love is a way home no matter where you are, is handled so beautifully that you don’t know he’s hypnotized you until he’s done.” —Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review

In this alternately witty and heartbreaking debut novel, Gabriel Bump gives us an unforgettable protagonist, Claude McKay Love. As a young black man born on the South Side of Chicago, he is raised by his civil rights–era grandmother; yet when riots consume his neighborhood, he hesitates to take sides, unwilling to let race define his life. He decides to escape Chicago for another place, but as he discovers, he cannot; there is no safe haven for a young black man in this time and place called America.

Percolating with fierceness and originality, attuned to the ironies inherent in our twenty-first-century landscape, Everywhere You Don’t Belong marks the arrival of a brilliant young talent.

The Lightest Object In the Universe by Kimi Eisele 

A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection * An Indie Next Pick * An Indies Introduce Selection *  One of Reader’s Digest’s Best Summer Books of 2019  * One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Books of 2019 * One of Real Simple’s Best Books of 2019

“[This] might be the most optimistic post-apocalyptic story ever written. It’s Sleepless in Seattle meets Station Eleven.” —The A.V. Club
 
Carson is on the East Coast when the electrical grid goes down. Desperate to find Beatrix, a woman on the West Coast who holds his heart, he sets off along a cross-country railroad line, where he encounters lost souls, clever opportunists, and those seeking salvation.

The Lightest Object in the Universe is a moving story about adaptation and the power of community, imagining a world where our best traits, born of necessity, can begin to emerge.

Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Díaz

One of the Must-Read Books of 2019 According to O: The Oprah Magazine * Time * Bustle * Electric Literature * Publishers Weekly * The Millions * The Week * Good Housekeeping

“There is more life packed on each page of Ordinary Girls than some lives hold in a lifetime.” —Julia Alvarez

In this searing memoir, Jaquira Díaz writes fiercely and eloquently of her challenging girlhood and triumphant coming of age. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico’s history of colonialism, Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be.

Jaquira Díaz’s memoir provides a vivid portrait of a life lived in (and beyond) the borders of Puerto Rico and its complicated history—and reads as electrically as a novel.

Miracle Country by Kendra Atleework

“Kendra Atleework conveys a fundamental truth: the places in which we live, live on—sometimes painfully—in us. This is a powerful, beautiful, and urgently important book.” —Julie Schumacher, author of Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement 

Kendra Atleework grew up in Swall Meadows, where annual rainfall averages five inches and in drought years measures closer to zero.

Kendra’s parents taught their children to thrive in this beautiful, if harsh, landscape. After Kendra’s mother died of a rare autoimmune disease when Kendra was just sixteen, however, her once beloved desert world came to feel empty and hostile, as climate change, drought, and wildfires intensified.

But after years of avoiding her troubled hometown, she realized that she needed to come to terms with its past and present. Miracle Country is a moving and unforgettable memoir of flight and return, emptiness and bounty, the realities of a harsh and changing climate, and the true meaning of home.

Of Bears and Ballots by Heather Lende

“This book will inspire people to work with and for their neighbors in all kinds of ways!” —Bill McKibben, author of Falter 

Heather Lende was one of the thousands of women inspired to take a more active role in politics during the past few years. But tiny, breathtakingly beautiful Haines, Alaska isn’t the sleepy town that it appears to be: from a bitter debate about the expansion of the fishing boat harbor to the recall campaign that targeted three assembly members, including Lende, we witness the nitty-gritty of passing legislation, the lofty ideals of our republic, and how the polarizing national politics of our era play out in one small town.

With an entertaining cast of offbeat but relatable characters, Of Bears and Ballots is an inspirational tale about what living in a community really means, and what we owe one another.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION

WINNER OF THE 2019 NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING LITERARY WORK—FICTION

“A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.” —Barack Obama

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined.

This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones

From the New York Times Bestselling Author of An American Marriage

“Silver Sparrow will break your heart before you even know it. Tayari Jones has written a novel filled with characters I’ll never forget. This is a book I’ll read more than once.”
—Judy Blume

Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon’s two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode. This is the third stunning novel from an author deemed “one of the most important writers of her generation” (Atlanta Journal Constitution).

Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man’s deception, a family’s complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“One of the most vital and original novelists of her generation.” —Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker

From the bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists.

Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. But although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating.

As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.

Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.

The Lives of Edie Pritchard by Larry Watson

From acclaimed novelist Larry Watson, a multigenerational story of the West told through the history of one woman trying to navigate life on her own terms.

Edie—smart, self‑assured, beautiful—always worked hard. But everywhere she turned, her looks defined her. Two brothers fought over her. Her second husband became unreasonably possessive and jealous. Her daughter resented her. And now, as a grandmother, Edie finds herself harassed by a younger man. The Lives of Edie Pritchard tells the story of one woman just trying to be herself, even as multiple men attempt to categorize and own her.

Triumphant, engaging, and perceptive, Watson’s novel examines a woman both aware of her physical power and constrained by it, and how perceptions of someone in a small town can shape her life through the decades.

We Love You, Charlie Freeman by Kaitlyn Greenidge

A Finalist for the 2016 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the 2017 Young Lions Award

“Smart, timely and powerful . . . A rich examination of America’s treatment of race, and the ways we attempt to discuss and confront it today.” —The Huffington Post

The Freeman family–Charles, Laurel, and their daughters, teenage Charlotte and nine-year-old Callie–have been invited to the Toneybee Institute to participate in a research experiment. They will live in an apartment on campus with Charlie, a young chimp abandoned by his mother. But when Charlotte discovers the truth about the institute’s history of questionable studies, the secrets of the past invade the present in devious ways.

What appears to be a story of mothers and daughters, of sisterhood put to the test, of adolescent love and grown-up misconduct, and of history’s long reach, becomes a provocative and compelling exploration of America’s failure to find a language to talk about race.

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