Leave the World Behind casts us all as disaster preppers, asking which of our quotidian possessions—the cell phone, the grocery list, the Airbnb, the family, the society—will save us. As this blockbuster exposé reveals, however, we exist in closer proximity to proud white supremacists than we may have ever suspected. Fans of the genre-defying post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven, rejoice: Emily St. John Mandel is back with a new novel that weaves otherworldly elements throughout the storyline of a modern financial thriller. Death. The novel tracks an isolated widow’s descent into madness after finding a mysterious note in the woods. 3 3. comments. This is so much popular that it has been adapted to a TV series in China. There, she is faced with the decision of whether to remain loyal to her employer or help Mui’s foremost resort fabricate a disaster big enough to save the island’s economy. The husband never returns. Best Websites to Read English Translated Chinese Light Novels and Web Novels. Runs on Android 6.0. Desperate to complete her overdue novel, the narrator haunts the street shops of her neighborhood in search of inspiration—but as winter approaches, her progress is interrupted by a series of unsettling disturbances. 7. When a fellow former student comes forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Vanessa’s high school English teacher, Jacob, Vanessa must grapple with a discomfiting question: whether her own teenage affair with Jacob was as consensual as she’s been telling herself for 17 years. For all who consider themselves Americans, The Undocumented Americans is an urgent must-read. Her signature irreverence is intact, of course, but it can't mask the heart she leaves bleeding on the page. What better time to pick up an eco-thriller than during a cataclysmic world event? Emma Lee-Potter @EmmaLeePotter. —AG, The only writer who can make me laugh with abandon in public, Samantha Irby follows her breakout collection We Are Never Meeting in Real Life with high-speed treatises on everything from relentless menstruation to "raising" her stepchildren and the stress of making friends in adulthood. —BK, Apartment, by Teddy Wayne, a deftly composed novel about an unlikely friendship that develops, then devolves, between two men at an MFA program, is easy to speed through, but its ideas about masculinity, gender, and class will rattle around your mind for ages. Set in, of course, Stratford-Upon-Avon, the story weaves a portrait of the Shakespeares, their fascinating marriage, and the death of a child whose name still resonates today. Leigh Stein expertly skewers this and other millennial-embraced clichés in her biting novel of the same name, told through the perspectives of three young women involved with Richual, an online wellness start-up that rings some familiar girl-boss bells. 3. —RET, Exactly a decade after releasing The Warmth of Other Suns, her sweeping look at how the Great Migration transformed America, Isabel Wilkerson revolutionizes the way we view race with Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Momplaisir’s brutal exploration of the immigrant experience, gender dynamics, and race is masterful and makes for a stunning debut. Zhang’s haunting western adventure story follows Lucy and Sam, the orphaned children of Chinese immigrants, as they flee their desolate mining town to seek out a new life in the waning days of the American gold rush. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. Well, you don’t have to worry about that since we have prepared a list of best light novels you can read. This arrived in the mail today! C Pam Zhang’s electrifying debut is a sweeping work of historical fiction—the sort of masterpiece that immediately establishes an author as a force to be reckoned with. —BK, In his shattering debut, Electric Literature and Literary Hub's Brandon Taylor explores the minor catastrophes and microaggressions of academia—here, a masters biochem program at an unnamed Midwestern university—through the eyes of Wallace, a gay Black student grappling with the contrast between what his life looks like to others and what he actually wants from it. Because romance guarantees a happy ending—an escape. —JK, The writer’s life is brought to life with scary accuracy in the story of a young woman desperate for literary success while working in secret on a novel six years in the works. One thing about this tablet is that it is definitely easier to read on. —LP, Bryan Washington's protagonists, Benson and Mike, are ostensibly in love, but their relationship is surviving on fumes and faded memories. —JK, You may be tempted to rush through the seven essays in Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings; her prose, at turns accusatory, complicit, and castigating, is so urgent, there’s a fear the book will catch fire if you put it down for a moment. —BK, In this eye-opening anthology about climate change, an impressive cast of contributors including Edwidge Danticat, Mohammed Hanif, and Margaret Atwood reflect on how the grim horror of our current ecological reality is being felt around the world. But she soon learns that the consequences for the program’s medical subjects may be steeper than she can afford. It’s a remarkable debut and the kind of book you want to hug tight when it ends. Convinced that the preacher is really her husband, Victor, Joan undertakes the formidable task of reawakening Wolff to who he really is. ... (and don't forget to browse our guide to the best books of 2020 too). This lovely novel is an unexpected treat—hilarious, confounding, and tender. Before long, she’s broke, unemployed, homeless—and staying in the suburbs with her lover, his wife, and their adopted Black daughter. The problem: She can’t figure out whether or not anyone has actually been killed. Give a Gift ... keep an eye on this list of the top new books to watch out for in 2020. Here is a table of some favorite options. Petty, in her debut work, shows an extraordinary mastery of form, using devices as disparate as short horror screenplays, letters, marked-up college essays, and, of course, straight prose to tell a complex and timely story. Though she’s racked up accolades for her two recent novels—Find Me, her debut full-length narrative from 2015, and The Third Hotel from 2018—the short story seems to be Laura van den Berg’s most natural medium. Looking for a great novel? Are there are websites I can read them for free? —ML, Set amid the fraught intensity of a prestigious MFA program, We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan is a twisted campus novel told in the third person, which collectively expresses the perspective of three ambitious, brilliant students who take it upon themselves to present one of their professors as a plagiarist. From a black, queer writer and former biochem Ph.D. candidate living in a Midwestern university town comes a searing debut about … a black, queer biochem Ph.D. candidate living in a Midwestern university town. —Julie Kosin, A memoir from the author of the best-selling novel Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler’s Stray chronicles both her tumultuous childhood as the daughter of two addicts and her adult life after releasing the book that made her famous. Set nearly 70 years later, Stuart’s story tracks a mother and son as they search for social mobility and freedom in working-class Glasgow. Looking for a frothy novel as light as the summer breeze? The Stars.—a gripping exploration of race and familial mourning—is also now stocked on shelves. Her America of the future, called AutoAmerica, breaks people into two groups: the Aryan “Netted” people live on dry ground, and the “Surplus” live in the flooded regions. (shelved 14 times as light-reads) avg rating 4.19 — 2,941,965 ratings — published 2011 Want to Read saving… From essential new fiction by Brit Bennett and Rumaan Alam to stunning debuts from Raven Leilani and Megha Majumdar, there's something for everyone. —VH, Cutting right to the heart of what it feels like to be alive in 2020, Jenny Offill’s Weather is a novel of both anxiety and love. A year after rising star Grace Turner mysteriously disappeared from Hollywood, she suddenly reappears on the scene, just in time to present a Lifetime Achievement Award to director Able Yorke—her longtime abuser. From her Gawker days in the early aughts to her present-day Twitter presence, Emily Gould has made a name for herself as the Internet’s foremost chronicler of the millennial condition. —RET, They say sophomore novels are the hardest for authors to write, but Yaa Gyasi makes it look easy with this follow-up to Homegoing. It’s perfect for this isolated, indeterminate time—like reading a series of rambling postcards from your most erudite friend. Dual touch and stylus touch are supported for easy navigation and note taking. While there, and as she attempts to rebuild her life afterward, she is forced to revisit a litany of uncomfortable memories about the relationships and cultural forces that shaped her. As any dedicated romance novel reader will tell you, it's the one genre that's there for you in the best of times (to make your day 10 times better) and the worst (to bring a little love into any sour situation). Debut novelist Gabriella Burnham knocks it out of the park with a sharp, knotty novel about colorism and class in the heart of São Paolo. —RET, Born out of his 2018 New York Times op-ed “The Student Loan Serenity Prayer,” Arceneaux’s essay collection comes as unemployment soars and yet another economic crisis has many young people questioning whether they’ll ever experience life without crushing financial anxiety. While Sittenfeld’s American Wife, which traced the experiences of a very Laura Bush-esque figure, used a similar approach, Rodham goes much further, showing both the successes that Hillary could have achieved on her own and the trail Bill would've gone down without her by his side. In the half-submerged AutoAmerica of the near future, a young girl’s preternatural baseball prowess enables her ascent from the underclass of a sharply-divided dystopian society to the upper echelons of its elite—even as her mother mounts a challenge to the very foundations of the world they know. —R. Veronica Roth—the author of a little franchise you may know by the name of Divergent—sets out to answer this question in her adult debut, which follows five former teenage heroes as they make sense of the trauma they were left with after saving the world. —AG, The best short stories not only deftly transport you into other people's lives and psyches, but have the ability to conjure tiny planets of experience with a few words. The result is a deeply compassionate book about death, modern life, and human connection. This list of the best books of 2020 highlights popular, must-read new books released in 2020. If Fate/Stay Night isn’t one of the best light novel anime series, it’s certainly one of the most popular ones on this list. Eric Thomas, This debut novel—so sharp and beautiful it feels anything but—positions Megha Majumdar as a brilliant new talent. —LP, This superb psychological thriller chronicles a Brooklyn neighborhood transformed by gentrification with a twist: The motivation to "revitalize" this community might be far more sinister than it appears. Just when boyfriends Benson and Mike begin to question why they’re still together, a family tragedy forces Benson into an unexpected roommate situation with Mike’s mother, Mitsuko, while Mike flies to Japan to say goodbye to his dying father. In Memorial Drive, the Pulitzer winner and former U.S. poet laureate recounts a loving childhood fractured by her parents’ divorce, the racism embedded in every fragment of life in the Deep South, and her memories of guilt and fear in the years and months leading up to and following her mother’s death. ELLE.com writer R. Eric Thomas’s memoir/essay collection hybrid is subtitled, How to Save Your Soul in America, and nothing could be more apt. —AG, This year, a bevy of novels use technology-gone-amuck as the premise for dystopia. Sixty-eight-year-old Loretha Curry has a full life, but when the unthinkable—and unforeseeable—happens, Loretha must turn to her friends for help healing old wounds and learning how to thrive. Danielle Evans is a master of the form, and her new collection is a sharply observed and perfectly aligned universe. Best Japanese Light Novels A light novel is a style of Japanese novel primarily targeting middle and high school students. If you think you’ve conquered the modern canon of anti-racist literature just because you read Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, think again. —AG, Acclaimed poet Marcelo Hernandez Castillo left Mexico with his family when he was five years old and grew up navigating the tenuous existence of life undocumented in the U.S. His California upbringing is full of fear and worry that come to a head when he witnesses his father’s arrest and deportation. —JK, Douglas Stuart’s first novel steps into the literary lineage of Joyce’s Dubliners. In her new novel Sea Wife, Amity Gaige depicts the journey from a dual point of view, interspersing the wife’s recollections of how it all went wrong with diary entries from the husband, both of which cut to the heart of mundane marital strife and the legacy of trauma. Leilani’s remarkable first novel is sharp, funny, and transcendent. The Best Books of 2020 (So Far) By ELLE.com . Set in the West during the American gold rush, the story centers on two young orphans, the children of Chinese immigrants, as they search for a new future in a foreign landscape. Unrelated to Light Novels. marks Raven Leilani as a singular new voice in American fiction. The Glass Hotel beautifully depicts the many lives impacted by the collapse of an ambitious Ponzi scheme, most notably a woman who escaped her haunted past in rugged Canada for a gilded existence as the much younger wife of a financial kingpin. Propulsive and compassionate, Bennett’s follow-up to The Mothers is not to be missed. Light some candles, ... and get ready to turn up the heat with some of the best romance novels on shelves. Older recommendations for bonus ideas club books for 2020, including an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of! Best new books released, and the kind of book you want to hug tight when it ends the up. 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