Alright, who’s ready to get thoroughly creeped out and existentially questioning everything about modern society? Then buckle up, because we’re diving deep into the brilliant dystopian abyss that is George Orwell’s 1984 – quite possibly the most chilling, thought-provoking literary analysis of totalitarian control and human freedom’s fragility ever put to page. Introduction On its surface, this iconic novel operates as a gripping futuristic thriller following Winston Smith, a rookie rebel taking his first baby steps to undermine the totalitarian Party’s omnipresent surveillance state rulership ..read more

Ah, The Catcher in the Rye – the notorious little novel that has been raising middle fingers to superficial conformity for over 70 years now. Whether you read it as a angsty teen and saw yourself in Holden Caulfield’s cynical rebellion, or you’re discovering it for the first time as an adult, there’s no denying J.D. Salinger’s 1951 masterpiece casts an enduring spell. At its core, Catcher is a profound, witty and deliciously uncompromising exploration of adolescent alienation, disillusionment with society’s norms, and the painful realization that the innocence of childhood can’t last forever ..read more

Publisher: Knopf First Publication: 2022 Book Review: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin Alright, my beloved nerds, geeks, and fans of epically quirky fiction – I’ve got the perfect book to shove directly into your eye-holes and soul-vessels. Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a sweeping, decades-spanning celebration of brilliant misfits, the ruthless video game industry, and a friendship so cosmically intertwined, it’ll make you believe in soul twins separated at birth by the cruelest of isolating forces…like being born to different parents or somet ..read more

Publisher: Harper First Publication: 2022 Book Review: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Okay folks, let’s dive right into Barbara Kingsolver’s latest tour de force, Demon Copperhead. Inspired by the classic David Copperfield story, this modern tragedy-meets-black-comedy takes us on one young man’s gritty, no-holds-barred journey through the deepest depths of modern-day Appalachia. Right off the bat, let me say – this book isn’t for the faint of heart. Kingsolver holds nothing back in her unflinching portrayal of generational poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence, and a thousand oth ..read more

Publisher: Ballantine Books First Publication: 2021 Book Review: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir Listen up, folks – if you’ve been sorely missing that exhilarating shot of pure, uncut scientific ingenuity in your reading diet, Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary is about to course-correct your nourishment big time. This audacious, enormously propulsive sci-fi mind-gamer isn’t just a wildly entertaining yarn about an unlikeliest-of-heroes science genius trying to save humanity. It’s a downright immersive universe unto itself, one jam-packed with so much real-world scientific verisimilitude a ..read more

Publisher: William Morrow First Publication: 2021 Book Review: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn Kate Quinn has quickly become one of historical fiction’s most enthralling voices, seamlessly blending meticulous period research with emotionally rich, quietly subversive character studies set against the backdrop of World War II‘s most fascinating secret chapters. With The Rose Code, she’s delivered yet another compulsively readable tour de force—an intricate tale of valor, sacrifice, and the extraordinarily ordinary heroines whose codebreaking genius at Bletchley Park helped turn the tide against ..read more

Publisher: Dutton First Publication: 2021 Book Review: The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green Leave it to John Green to take a seemingly absurd creative premise—crafting a book-length collection of satirical reviews for abstract concepts and modern curiosities, all graded on a five-star scale—and spin it into an utterly transcendent meditation on the pain and peculiarities of human existence. That’s precisely what he’s achieved with The Anthropocene Reviewed, a delightfully idiosyncratic mélange of comic observations and soulful insights that somehow manages to feel both profoundly personal a ..read more

Publisher: Ballantine Books First Publication: 2022 Book Review: The Maid by Nita Prose Sometimes, you stumble across a book that feels like a cool drink of water on a sweltering summer day—refreshingly unpretentious, disarmingly quirky, and just flat-out heartwarming in its unvarnished celebration of humble human decency. Nita Prose’s debut novel The Maid is precisely that kind of palate cleanser—a delightfully idiosyncratic murder mystery that eschews the genre’s typical gritty cynicism for something far more sincere and emotionally nourishing. From the moment our charmingly neurodiverg ..read more

Publisher: Celadon Books First Publication: 2021 Book Review: The Maidens by Alex Michaelides Gather round, fellow bibliophiles, because Alex Michaelides has summoned us back into his delectably sinister fictional realm with The Maidens—a wickedly seductive fusion of psychological thriller and Greek mythological malevolence set against the hallowed halls of Cambridge academia. If you devoured the man’s impeccably crafted debut smash The Silent Patient like a juicy Euripidean tragedy, then brace yourself for a yarn that trades in that book’s claustrophobic marital funkiness for a delirious caul ..read more

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf First Publication: 2021 Book Review: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro Leave it to Kazuo Ishiguro to take a premise that could easily veer into soulless sci-fi territory—an artificial intelligence coming of age story, basically—and spin it into a breathtakingly tender, almost spiritual meditation on the quiet profundities of empathy, sacrifice, and what it fundamentally means to experience an authentic inner life. Klara and the Sun is yet another masterwork from this literary genius, trading in the subdued post-war melancholy of his earlier novels for a subtly ..read more