TBR🏹🧦☕️🫐🥥🐚🍸🌫️🚬

If It Makes You Happy

Julie Olivia · 2025

Grab your favorite fall candle, cuddle into a comfy blanket, and travel back in time to 1997 autumn in Vermont in this cozy, slow-burn romance.<br/><br/>My new next-door neighbor seems to have everything figured out. Small town golden boy? Check. Single dad extraordinaire? Check. Hot baker forearms? I didn’t notice them, I swear.<br/><br/>I, on the other hand, don’t–at all–have anything figured out. Trust me, I didn’t think taking over my mom’s dream bed and breakfast in Copper Run Vermont was going to be easy. It should be a good place to heal after my divorce. But apparently my scones belong in the garbage with my small talk skills. As pointed out by none other than Cliff.<br/><br/>Cliff is inescapable. He knows exactly what people need–always. His charm, the way he wears flannel, and even his pastries, make not wanting to be friends with Cliff and his daughters pretty hard.<br/><br/>Friends? I can make friends. That’s safe. Except I’m leaving in three months to pass the inn off to my little sister and get the promotion in Seattle I’ve been working towards. So ask me why I’m thinking about kissing my hot neighbor.

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro · 2006

<b>NOBEL PRIZE WINNER <b>•</b> From the acclaimed, bestselling author of <i>The Remains of the Day</i> comes “a Gothic tour de force" (<i>The New York Times</i>) with an extraordinary twist—a moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic.<br><br>One of <i>The New York Times</i>’s 10 Best Books of the 21st Century • A <i>Kirkus Reviews </i>Best Fiction Book of the Century • A <i>Los Angeles Times</i> Best Fiction Book of the Last 30 Years</b><br><br>As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. <br><br>Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

R. F. Kuang · 2022

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of The Poppy War   “Absolutely phenomenal. One of the most brilliant, razor-sharp books I've had the pleasure of reading that isn't just an alternative fantastical history, but an interrogative one; one that grabs colonial history and the Industrial Revolution, turns it over, and shakes it out.” -- Shannon Chakraborty, bestselling author of The City of Brass From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide… Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

The Thursday Murder Club: A Novel (A Thursday Murder Club Mystery)

Richard Osman · 2021

<b>Now a Netflix Film</b><br><br><b> The first installment in the beloved and <i>New York Times</i> bestselling series from Richard Osman, also author of <i>We Solve Murders </i></b><br><b> <br>Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves</b><br><b> A female cop with her first big case</b><br><b> A brutal murder</b><br><b> Welcome to...</b><br><b> THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB</b><br><br>In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. <br><br>When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. <br><br>As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late?<br><br><b>“Witty, endearing and greatly entertaining.” <i>—Wall Street Journal</i></b>

Intermezzo: A Novel

Sally Rooney · 2024

Normal People: A Novel

Sally Rooney · 2019

NOW AN EMMY-NOMINATED HULU ORIGINAL SERIES • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • “A stunning novel about the transformative power of relationships” (People) from the author of Conversations with Friends, “a master of the literary page-turner” (J. Courtney Sullivan).   “[A] novel that demands to be read compulsively, in one sitting.”—The Washington Post ONE OF ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’S TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: People, Slate, The New York Public Library, Harvard Crimson Connell and Marianne grew up in the same small town, but the similarities end there. At school, Connell is popular and well liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation—awkward but electrifying—something life changing begins. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Normal People is the story of mutual fascination, friendship, and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t.   WINNER: The British Book Award, The Costa Book Award, The An Post Irish Novel of the Year, Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, Oprah Daily, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Vogue, Esquire, Glamour, Elle, Marie Claire, Vox, The Paris Review, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country