The Stacks
All book reviews
773 honest reviews across fiction, non-fiction, mystery, sci-fi, romance, and more.
Showing 25-48 of 773
Shuggie Bain
by Douglas Stuart
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart 2020 review. A young boy navigates childhood with his alcoholic mother in 1980s post-industrial Glasgow. Booker Prize winner.
The Choice
by Edith Eger
The Choice by Edith Eger 2017 review. A Hungarian ballerina survives Auschwitz at sixteen and becomes a California clinical psychologist. Canonical contemporary American Holocaust memoir.
Dear Edward
by Ann Napolitano
Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano 2020 review. A twelve-year-old is the sole survivor of an airline crash. Basis for the 2023 Apple TV+ limited series.
Going Infinite
by Michael Lewis
Going Infinite by Michael Lewis 2023 review. The Sam Bankman-Fried embedded account of the FTX and Alameda collapse. Lewis's most-contested book.
Moneyball
by Michael Lewis
Moneyball by Michael Lewis 2003 review. Billy Beane's data-driven 2002 Oakland A's season. The Brad Pitt film source and the canonical contemporary book on sabermetrics.
The Big Short
by Michael Lewis
The Big Short by Michael Lewis 2010 review. The four investor groups who saw the 2008 mortgage collapse coming and made fortunes shorting it. The basis for the Adam McKay film.
The Round House
by Louise Erdrich
The Round House by Louise Erdrich 2012 review. A thirteen-year-old Ojibwe boy investigates the rape of his mother in 1988 North Dakota. National Book Award winner.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
by Olga Tokarczuk
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk 2018 review. A retired engineer in a remote Polish village investigates the deaths of local hunters. Tokarczuk's structural masterwork before her Nobel.
Stella Maris
by Cormac McCarthy
Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy 2022 review. Alicia Western's seven sessions with a Wisconsin psychiatrist in 1972. McCarthy's final novel and the companion to The Passenger.
The Passenger
by Cormac McCarthy
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy 2022 review. A New Orleans salvage diver investigates a submerged private-jet wreckage. The first of McCarthy's two final novels.
The Candy House
by Jennifer Egan
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan 2022 review. A tech billionaire develops memory-externalization technology. Structural sequel to A Visit from the Goon Squad.
The Night Watchman
by Louise Erdrich
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich 2020 review. A Turtle Mountain Chippewa night watchman fights the 1953 federal termination policy. Pulitzer Prize winner.
Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie 1981 review. Saleem Sinai, born at the exact moment of Indian independence, narrates the first three decades of his life. Booker Prize winner.
Just Mercy
by Bryan Stevenson
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson 2014 review. The Equal Justice Initiative founder's memoir of his Alabama capital-case work. Carnegie Medal winner and the basis for the 2019 film.
Flights
by Olga Tokarczuk
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk 2017 review. A structurally fragmented investigation of travel, the body, and being in motion. International Booker Prize winner before Tokarczuk's Nobel.
The Vegetarian
by Han Kang
The Vegetarian by Han Kang 2015 review. A Seoul housewife stops eating meat and the rest of her family disintegrates around the choice. International Booker Prize winner.
1Q84
by Haruki Murakami
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami 2009 review. An assassin and a novelist navigate a parallel-1984 Tokyo with two moons. Murakami's structural masterwork.
The Cider House Rules
by John Irving
The Cider House Rules by John Irving 1985 review. An orphan raised at a Maine abortion-and-orphanage practice leaves to work at an apple orchard. Irving's structural masterwork before A Prayer for Owen Meany.
Let Us Descend
by Jesmyn Ward
Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward 2023 review. An enslaved teenage girl walks from a Carolina rice plantation to the New Orleans slave market. Ward's structural follow-up to Sing Unburied Sing.
The Fraud
by Zadie Smith
The Fraud by Zadie Smith 2023 review. A Scottish housekeeper becomes obsessed with the 1860s Tichborne case. Smith's structural pivot into Victorian historical fiction.
Sing, Unburied, Sing
by Jesmyn Ward
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward 2017 review. A thirteen-year-old biracial boy and his drug-addicted mother drive to Parchman Penitentiary. National Book Award winner.
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
by Anthony Marra
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra 2013 review. Five days in 2004 Chechnya - a doctor hides an eight-year-old girl whose father has just been disappeared. Marra's debut.
In the Time of the Butterflies
by Julia Alvarez
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez 1994 review. The four Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic navigate the Trujillo dictatorship. Alvarez's structural masterwork.
Norwegian Wood
by Haruki Murakami
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami 1987 review. A middle-aged Japanese businessman remembers his late-1960s Tokyo college years and the two women who defined them. Murakami's breakthrough.