The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society
Letters unfurl the story of a small community in the Channel Islands during World War II in this modern classic of epistolary fiction. The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows has a whimsical, poignant charm that will resonate with fans of The Correspondent.
The Reading List
In The Reading List, Sara Nisha Adams shows how books can connect and even heal a community through the story of the patrons and staff of a West London library. This deceptively gentle novel packs a big punch.
This Is How You Lose the Time War
An agent racing through time to secure victory for her empire receives a strange message from her enemy, sparking a close, complicated relationship. Told through their letters, This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is a high-stakes sci-fi adventure and heart-wrenching romance.
The Ferryman and His Wife
Frode Grytten’s The Ferryman and His Wife is a beautiful, gentle reckoning with aging, loss and mortality. Nils Vik has spent his life ferrying friends and strangers around the fjord he calls home, and on his last day alive, the spirits of past companions come aboard for a final trip together.
A Tale for the Time Being
In A Tale for the Time Being, Canadian writer Ruth finds and reads the diary of 16-year-old Nao. Thinking the diary may be debris from Japan’s catastrophic 2011 tsunami, Ruth fears for what may have become of Nao. The feeling of Ruth Ozeki’s powerful metafictional novel—shortlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize—won’t soon leave you.
Fonseca
This one’s for literature buffs: Jessica Francis Kane fictionalizes a 1952 trip to Mexico taken by novelist Penelope Fitzgerald. The delightful narrative of Fonseca, centering on an inheritance the financially struggling Penelope wants to claim for her 6-year-old son, includes real correspondence between Kane and Fitzgerald’s adult children.