
2025 tbr
Items in this hypelist
Misc. Fiction

East of Eden
John Steinbeck · 1952

Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit
Leslie Marmon Silko · 1997

Giovanni's Room
James Baldwin · 1988

The Hike: A Novel
Drew Magary · 2017
“The Hike just works. It’s like early, good Chuck Palahniuk. . . . Magary underhands a twist in at the end that hits you like a sharp jab at the bell. . . . It’s just that good.” —NPR.org<br/><br/>“A page-turner. . . . Inventive, funny. . . . Quietly profound and touching.”—BoingBoing<br/><br/>From the author of The Night the Lights Went Out and The Postmortal, a fantasy saga unlike any you’ve read before, weaving elements of folk tales and video games into a riveting, unforgettable adventure of what a man will endure to return to his family<br/><br/>When Ben, a suburban family man, takes a business trip to rural Pennsylvania, he decides to spend the afternoon before his dinner meeting on a short hike. Once he sets out into the woods behind his hotel, he quickly comes to realize that the path he has chosen cannot be given up easily. With no choice but to move forward, Ben finds himself falling deeper and deeper into a world of man-eating giants, bizarre demons, and colossal insects.<br/><br/>On a quest of epic, life-or-death proportions, Ben finds help comes in some of the most unexpected forms, including a profane crustacean and a variety of magical objects, tools, and potions. Desperate to return to his family, Ben is determined to track down the “Producer,” the creator of the world in which he is being held hostage and the only one who can free him from the path.<br/><br/>At once bitingly funny and emotionally absorbing, Magary’s novel is a remarkably unique addition to the contemporary fantasy genre, one that draws as easily from the world of classic folk tales as it does from video games. In The Hike, Magary takes readers on a daring odyssey away from our day-to-day grind and transports them into an enthralling world propelled by heart, imagination, and survival.

Small Boat
Vincent Delecroix · 2025
"An inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the Channel causing the death of 27 people on board. Despite receiving numerous calls for help, the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British waters and had to call the British authorities for help. By the time rescue vessels arrived on the scene, all but two of the migrants had died. The narrator of Delecroix's fictional account of the events is the woman who took the calls. Accused of failing in her duty, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster. Why should she be more responsible than the sea, than the war, than the crises behind these tragedies?"--Publisher.
Horror

The Long Walk
Stephen King · 2016
In this #1 national bestseller, master storyteller Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, tells the tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition where there can only be one winner—the one that survives.<br/><br/>Against the wishes of his mother, sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty is about to compete in the annual grueling match of stamina and wits known as the Long Walk. One hundred boys must keep a steady pace of four miles per hour without ever stopping...with the winner being awarded “The Prize”—anything he wants for the rest of his life. But, as part of this national tournament that sweeps through a dystopian America year after year, there are some harsh rules that Garraty and ninety-nine others must adhere to in order to beat out the rest. There is no finish line—the winner is the last man standing. Contestants cannot receive any outside aid whatsoever. Slow down under the speed limit and you’re given a warning. Three warnings and you’re out of the game—permanently...

Frankenstein in Baghdad: A Novel
Ahmed Saadawi · 2018
Mystery

The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton · 2020

Minor Detail
Adania Shibli · 2020
A searing, beautiful novel meditating on war, violence, memory, and the sufferings of the Palestinian people Finalist for the National Book Award Longlisted for the International Booker Prize Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba—the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people—and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims they capture a Palestinian teenager and they rape her, kill her, and bury her in the sand. Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah tries to uncover some of the details surrounding this particular rape and murder, and becomes fascinated to the point of obsession, not only because of the nature of the crime, but because it was committed exactly twenty-five years to the day before she was born. Adania Shibli masterfully overlays these two translucent narratives of exactly the same length to evoke a present forever haunted by the past.
Sci-fi

Jurassic Park: A Novel
Michael Crichton · 2012
<b><b>#1 <i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • <b>From the author of <i>Timeline, Sphere, </i>and<i> Congo,</i> this is the classic thriller of science run amok that took the world by storm.</b><br><br><b>Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s <i>The Great American Read</i></b><br><br>“[Michael] Crichton’s dinosaurs are genuinely frightening.”<i>—Chicago Sun-Times</i></b></b><br><br>An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true. Creatures extinct for eons roam Jurassic Park with their awesome presence and profound mystery, and all the world can visit them—for a price.<br> <br>Until something goes wrong. . . .<br> <br>In <i>Jurassic Park, </i>Michael Crichton taps all his mesmerizing talent and scientific brilliance to create his most electrifying technothriller.<br><br><b>Praise for <i>Jurassic Park</i></b><br> <br>“Wonderful . . . powerful.”<b>—<i>The Washington Post Book World<br></i></b><br>“Frighteningly real . . . compelling . . . It’ll keep you riveted.”<b><i>—The Detroit News</i></b><br><b><i> </i></b><br>“Full of suspense.”<b>—<i>The New York Times Book Review</i></b>
Non-fiction

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Robin Wall Kimmerer · 2015

Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
Norman Ohler · 2017

How to Justify Torture
Alex Adams · 2019

Drawing the Head and Hands
Andrew Loomis · 2011

People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present
Dara Horn · 2021

The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
Julia Cameron · 2002
"Without The Artist's Way, there would have been no Eat, Pray, Love.” —Elizabeth Gilbert A stunning gift edition of the powerful bestselling book on creativity. The Artist’s Way is one of the bestselling gift books of all time. Beautifully packaged with a slipcase and ribbon, this tenth anniversary gift edition is the ideal gift for loved ones engaged in creative lives.

White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa
Susan Williams · 2021
A revelatory history of how postcolonial African Independence movements were systematically undermined by one nation above all: the US.<br/><br/>In 1958 in Accra, Ghana, the Hands Off Africa conference brought together the leading figures of African independence in a public show of political strength and purpose. Led by the charismatic Kwame Nkrumah, who had just won Ghana’s independence, his determined call for Pan-Africanism was heeded by young, idealistic leaders across the continent and by African Americans seeking civil rights at home. Yet, a moment that signified a new era of African freedom simultaneously marked a new era of foreign intervention and control.<br/><br/>In White Malice, Susan Williams unearths the covert operations pursued by the CIA from Ghana to the Congo to the UN in an effort to frustrate and deny Africa’s new generation of nationalist leaders. This dramatically upends the conventional belief that the African nations failed to establish effective, democratic states on their own accord. As the old European powers moved out, the US moved in.<br/><br/>Drawing on original research, recently declassified documents, and told through an engaging narrative, Williams introduces readers to idealistic African leaders and to the secret agents, ambassadors, and even presidents who deliberately worked against them, forever altering the future of a continent.

The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science
John Dupré · 1995
The great dream of philosophers and scientists for millennia has been to give us a complete account of the order of things. A powerful articulation of such a dream in this century has been found in the idea of a unity of science. With this manifesto, John Dupré systematically attacks the ideal of scientific unity by showing how its underlying assumptions are at odds with the central conclusions of science itself. In its stead, the author gives us a metaphysics much more in keeping with what science tells us about the world. Elegantly written and compellingly argued, this provocative book will be important reading for all philosophers and scholars of science.
