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If you’re looking for an audiobook that feels like both a story and a retreat, The River Has Roots (2025) by Amal El-Mohtar is a beautifully woven tale you won’t want to miss. The soothing background noises transport you into the world of the narrative—like drifting along a riverbank, every sound adding depth and warmth.

The Great Gatsby, written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, is an American classic that follows the story of Nick Carraway, and his revolutionary encounter with Jay Gatsby. In the novel, Nick moves into a new neighborhood, where he encounters his peculiar neighbor named Gatsby. Following his introduction, Nick is pulled into Gatsby's world, and he seeks to unveil Gatsby's mysterious past and motives.

In this romantic dramedy, Naveen and Jay meet, date, fall in love, and plan to marry. But Naveen has never brought anyone home to meet his South Asian family, and especially not a white man. Full of laugh-out-loud and tender moments, misunderstandings and redeeming actions, A Nice Indian Boy (2024) will tug on your heartstrings while calling back to classic Bollywood tropes.

Katherine Arden's most recent novel, The Warm Hands of Ghosts (2024), expanded my understanding of what a novel dealing with an actual historical event can do.

Atmosphere (2025) is set during the 1980s NASA space program, when women were first accepted into the astronaut training program. The main character, a brilliant astrophysics professor, was fascinated by space from a very young age. She is determined to be among the rare women accepted into this NASA astronaut program.

Effy and Arlo are just two of the students at their boarding school who are chosen to enter a prestigious writing program during their January term at an isolated estate. The program is led by Meredith Graffam, a legendary writer, actress, and director with an eccentric teaching style who everyone admires. At the end of the program, one writer will have their dreams come true-- but not everything at the estate is as it seems, and the competition is fierce. It might even be deadly.

You’ll want to put on a cozy Icelandic sweater and have a cup of tea next to you while reading Death on the Island (2025), an atmospheric mystery. A group of international figures, including a Canadian diplomat and his entourage, a politician, the owner of a high-profile fishing company, and an artist, all gather for dinner in a tiny village on an island off the coast of Iceland.

A sweet quirky cozy mystery with hints of romance, How to Have a Killer Time in D. C. (2025) is a fun escape. Oliver Popp is a 24-year-old gay autistic travel writer on his first feature assignment. His orderly plans are upended by Ricky, the impulsive freelance photographer he’s paired with, who wants to show him the less touristy parts of Washington, D.C.

Another (2025) by Paul Tremblay is his very first middle-grade horror after several fabulous adult novels with equally dark themes.

In 2023 Dublin, after Saoirse has an argument with her boyfriend about whether or not to have children, she meets an older woman, Maura, on a train platform, who turns out to have been instrumental in the founding of the 1970s Irish Women’s Liberation Movement.

If you were riveted by The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), read Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum (2024).

When I first read the 'schtick' for Titan of the Stars, I was completely hooked: Alien meets Titanic. That could either be completely terrible, or excitingly great.