All Time Faves

Maurice

E. M Forster · 2024

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde · 1981

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong · 2021

<b>A <i>New York Times </i>bestseller <b>• Nominated for the National Book Award for Fiction <b>• Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling</b></b><br><br><b><i>New York Times </i>Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century</b> <br><br><b>“A lyrical work of self-discovery that’s shockingly intimate and insistently universa</b>l…N<b>ot so much briefly gorgeous as permanently stunning.” —Ron Charles, <i>The Washington Post</i><br><br>“This is one of the best novels I’ve ever read...Ocean Vuong is a master. This book a masterpiece.”<b>—Tommy Orange, author of <i>There There </i>and <i>Wandering Stars</i></b></b><br><br></b><i>On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous</i> is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, <i>On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous</i> is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard. <br><br>With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.<br><br><b>Named a Best Book of the Year by: <br><i>GQ, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Library Journal, TIME</i>, <i>Esquire, The Washington Post</i>, Apple, <i>Good Housekeeping, The New Yorker</i>, The New York Public Library, Elle.com, <i>The Guardian</i>, The A.V. Club, NPR, Lithub, <i>Entertainment Weekly</i>, Vogue.com, <i>The San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, </i>and more! <br></b>

Beautiful Boy

David Sheff · 2008

Tuesdays with Morrie

Mitch Albom · 2007

A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara · 2016

<b><i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (<i>NPR</i>) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.<br></b><br><b><b><b><b><b><b><b>NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST <b><b><b>•</b></b></b></b> MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST <b>• <b><b><b><b><b> WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE</b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b><br><br><i>A Little Life</i> follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.

Giovanni's Room

James Baldwin · 2016