Anxious People by Fredrik Backman: Inside an apartment open house, a failed bank robber has taken a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple, a wealthy bank director, a young couple, an eighty-seven-year-old woman, a real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue.
One More Thing by B.J. Novak: Finding inspiration in questions from the nature of perfection to the icing on carrot cake, One More Thing has at its heart the most human of phenomena: love, fear, hope, ambition, and the inner stirring for the one elusive element just that might make a person complete. Across a dazzling range of subjects, themes, tones, and narrative voices, the many pieces in this collection are like nothing else, but they have one thing in common: they share the playful humor.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon: Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. Yet, despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor’s dog and uncovers a secret about his mother.
We are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby: Whether Samantha Irby is talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making “adult” budgets; explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette; detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father’s ashes; or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies; she’s as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing emotional truths.
Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q Sutanto: When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her mother calls for her aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at. It’s the biggest job yet for the family wedding business and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie’s perfect buttercream flowers.
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day narrates David Sedaris’ move to Paris from New York with hysterical stories about his struggle to learn French, along with ridiculous passages about his crazy family members like his brother, who speaks in constant hip-hop slang to his clueless father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails.
Let’s Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson: When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in her life, and we are all better for it. For every intellectual misfit who through they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a look at all the dark, yet wonderful moments of our lives.
Rock the Boat by Beck Dorey-Stein: When Kate Campbell’s life in Manhattan suddenly implodes, she is forced to return to Sea Point, where she grew up. Meanwhile, Miles Hoffman has also returned home to prove to his mother that he’s capable of taking over the family business. Kate and Miles converge in Sea Point as the town faces an identity crisis. Full of heart and humor-and laced with biting wit, Rock the Boat proves that even when you know all the back roads, there aren’t any shortcuts to growing up.
Sorry I missed you by Suzy Krause: When Mackenzie, Sunna, and Maude move into a rental house, they are strangers with only one thing in common–important people in their lives have “ghosted” them. Mackenzie’s sister, Sunna’s best friend, and Maude’s fiancé–all gone with no explanation. But the more they learn about each other, the more questions they begin to have. And creepy sounds and strange happenings on the property suggest that the ghosts from their pasts might not be all that’s haunting them.