After finishing reading Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, I had a book hangover. Everything I picked up faltered in comparison. This novel published in 1980 has become a modern classic for god reason! We follow two young girls, entrusted in their strange aunts care after the death of their parents in grandmother. Set in a creaky old house in the fictional northwest town of Fingerbone, we watch the girls come of age and try to come to terms with their transient aunt and their suffocating small town. For fans of: being able to see your breath in the cold air, Toni Morrison, and french braids.

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton follows a guerrilla gardening group and their opponents as they navigate their way through the New Zealand countryside, trying to turn an abandoned farm into their biggest project yet. Part psychological thriller, part in depth character analysis of the worst people imaginable, Catton’s control of the narrative and its many inhabitants was endlessly impressive. The prose was immaculate and giving Franzen, tbh. Totally engrossing without the pulpy hangover of a thriller done badly. I loved it! For fans of: age gap relationships, Crossroads, and doomsday cults.

Open Throat by Henry Hoke is narrated by a lonely mountain lion and is somehow able to poignantly capture something about queerness and the failure of language. The novel is set in contemporary LA and seamlessly interweaves themes of displacement and the myth of the natural. Reckless and precise, Open Throat is a love letter to all creatures who can’t be tamed. For fans of: heatwave mirages, crawling on all fours, saliva.