Fiction
The fiction category this week showcases ambitious storytelling, ranging from the virtuosic and psychological to the uncanny and experimental. Leading the charge is Yiyun Li’s Music Against the Night, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The novel has captured widespread critical acclaim, earning six rave reviews alongside two positive and two mixed notices. Reviewers have been quick to praise its unique structural brilliance and emotional depth. Writing for The Boston Globe, Cory Oldweiler described the book as "wonderful and bewitching," noting that "Li is in complete command of her complicated, probing narrative here." Oldweiler added that it is "the kind of sui generis novel that doesn’t come around that often, just like the virtuosos whose young lives it explores." Li’s ability to navigate complex psychological terrain continues to cement her status as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary fiction.
Following closely in the fiction spotlight is Peck & Peck by Bonnie Garmus, published by Scribner. Coming off the monumental, global success of her debut, Lessons in Chemistry, Garmus returns with a work that has charmed critics, securing four rave reviews and four positive notices. The novel explores the world of poets and poetry with a distinctly playful yet fierce intellectual energy. Claire Clark, writing for The Guardian, captured the infectious enthusiasm surrounding the book, noting, "It is impossible not to be beguiled by Garmus’s irrepressible humor and the freewheeling exuberance of her imagination." Clark further observed that "it is hard to imagine a novel with more laugh-out-loud jokes about typography, harder still to dismiss her fierce exhortation to all of us to make words count."
Sharing the critical spotlight in the fiction category are two remarkable novels tied at third place: Will Maclean’s Solace House (Grove) and Julie Orringer’s Luna, Phoenix, Queen (Knopf). Both works have resonated deeply with reviewers, each pulling in five rave reviews and two positive notices.
Maclean’s sprawling, 500-page narrative in Solace House has drawn intriguing comparisons to classic dark academia. Julia Kelly, reviewing the novel for The Irish Times, pointed out that "there are faint echoes of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History: a close-knit group of students become increasingly absorbed by esoteric ideas that reshape their understanding of the world." Kelly praised the novel’s sustained atmosphere, writing that "[a]lthough it runs to more than 500 pages, Solace House sustains its atmosphere with remarkable consistency. Thoughtful, unsettling and ambitious, it is less interested in delivering conventional scares than in evoking a slow, disorientating collapse of reality itself."
Meanwhile, Julie Orringer’s Luna, Phoenix, Queen has been met with immense praise for its emotional resonance and structural grace. Writing in The New York Times Book Review, renowned author Meg Wolitzer lauded the book as "astonishing," emphasizing that Luna, Phoenix, Queen "brilliantly emphasizes the agony of isolation in its various forms, and the relief that can only come in telling a story for oneself."
Rounding out the top fiction list is M. John Harrison’s The End of Everything, published by Riverhead, which has earned four rave reviews and one positive notice. Reviewer Dave Kim, writing for The New York Times Book Review, characterized it as "a fascinating, sometimes frustrating and thoroughly original new novel." Kim commended the book as "a masterly exercise in restraint, unsettling beauty and elliptical writing that can enlighten even when it obfuscates," noting that it stands as "a grim but powerful book [that] portrays the many incompatible states of existence, and the baffling collapse of time, that stem from extreme crises."
Nonfiction
The nonfiction selections for the week offer readers deep dives into personal memoir, radical political history, institutional critique, and geopolitical analysis. Leading the nonfiction ranks is Lieke Marsman’s On Another Planet They Can Save Me, published by Catapult, which has garnered four rave reviews and one positive notice. The book has been celebrated for its profound philosophical inquiries and emotional clarity. Publishers Weekly praised the work as "cathartic and often wondrous," observing that "witnessing her altered mind grapple with some of humanity’s most sweeping questions is an undeniable pleasure."
Tied in the second position within the nonfiction category are Shawn Gude’s American Socialist: The Life and Legacy of Eugene V. Debs (Simon & Schuster) and Saul Justin Newman’s Morbid: Debunking Modern Longevity Science (MIT Press). Both books have sparked vital public discussions, each securing three rave reviews and two positive notices.
Shawn Gude’s biography of Eugene V. Debs has been hailed as an essential re-examination of American leftist history. Matthew E. Stanley, writing for Jacobin, lauded the study as a "charmingly penned and prodigiously researched study [that] both refreshes familiar stories and prods readers to reconsider common assumptions." Stanley called the biography "a page-turning delight" and "an engaging and valuable tool for anyone who seeks to win a world where that kind of freedom reigns supreme."
In contrast, Saul Justin Newman’s Morbid takes aim at contemporary wellness culture and institutional science. Rachel Clark, reviewing the book for The Guardian, described it as "intriguing, eccentric," and particularly timely. Clark noted that "in an age of incessant online grifting and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy as US secretary of health, Newman’s conclusions are refreshingly simple. Longevity ‘science’ is largely built on nonsense data."
Moving further down the nonfiction list, Kim Ghattas’s The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East (Henry Holt & Company) has secured four rave reviews. Christopher de Bellaigue, writing for The New York Times Book Review, commended Ghattas’s expertise and sharp analytical lens. De Bellaigue noted that "Ghattas is well qualified to tease out the insidious relationships of ideology, convenience and betrayal that have condemned Lebanon to half a century of instability." He further observed that "if the best kind of American is one whose view of the Middle East is disinterested, benevolent and untainted by thoughts of commercial or strategic hegemony, Ghattas’s excellent book commemorates a breed that is all but extinct."
Finally, Paul Mason’s Reds: A Global History of Communism, published by Scribner, rounds out the weekly nonfiction roundup with three rave reviews and one mixed notice. Kirkus Reviews praised the volume as "a deeply researched, thought-through, essential history of a protean ideology," signaling its importance for readers seeking a comprehensive global perspective on one of the most influential political movements of the modern era.
