Off The Shelf CA

Dear Readers, We’ve had an incredible time obsessing over books with you, so it’s bittersweet to let you know that Off the Shelf won’t be publishing any new lists after today, which means this is our final post. From celebrating much-anticipated releases by our favorite authors to buzzing about fresh literary voices, it’s been a blast sharing recommendations with you.

|+| Add to Your Shelf Beartown From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anxious People, a dazzling and profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true. |+| Add to Your Shelf In Five Years ​Perfect for fans of Me Before You and One Day—a striking, powerful, and moving love story following an ambitious lawyer who experiences an astonishing vision that could change her life forever. An Atria Book. Atria Books has a great book for every reader.

WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and a New York Times bestseller, this majestic, stirring, and widely praised novel from two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, the story of a family on a journey through rural Mississippi, is a “tour de force” (O, The Oprah Magazine) and a timeless work of fiction that is destined to become a classic.

Maude Horton's Glorious Revenge A young woman searches for the truth about her sister, who boarded a ship headed to the frozen Arctic and never returned. “Lizzie Pook is a master of suspense.

In the heady days before a New Year’s Eve party on the bustling sands of Brazil’s Copacabana Beach, a family reckons with a matriarch’s long-awaited return, causing old secrets to come to light in this infectiously vibrant debut that explores the heartbreak and hope of what it means to be from two homes, two peoples, and two worlds. Daniel Cunha has a lot on his mind.

Are you partaking in a specific fun reading challenge from PopSugar or StoryGraph this year? Or do you have your own personal one you’re setting for yourself?

Some books need only a few opening words to instantly call to mind their titles. “Call me Ishmael” (Moby Dick) immediately transports you to salty seas, while “It’s a truth universally acknowledged . . .” (Pride and Prejudice) conjures images of ballrooms and bonnets. Such powerful opening lines are generally associated with the classics, but there’s a myriad of current books out there with writing so compelling, you’ll be hooked from their first lines too.

|+| Add to Your Shelf The Search Party Some friendships withstand any and all obstacles and trials. Others can’t survive one bad weekend. For Max and Annie, that last line is literal. After setting up a dry run of their new “glamping” site in Cornwall with three of their friends, tensions immediately rise and bonds are broken. Unfortunately, a massive storm leaves these feuding families trapped together with some dire consequences.

|+| Add to Your Shelf The Writing Retreat Young author Alex is invited to an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Each visiting writer must finish an entire novel during the retreat, the best of which will receive a seven-figure publishing deal. Unfortunately, Alex is not the only aspiring young writer gunning for the prize. Her ex-best-friend-turned-arch-nemesis, Wren, is also in attendance.

A spellbinding, sweeping novel about a Malayan mother who becomes an unlikely spy for the invading Japanese forces during WWII—and the shocking consequences that rain upon her community and family. Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara’s family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations.