Looking for your next great book? We’ve got you covered. This week’s list of top-reviewed books features incredible new works from authors like Jason Mott, Åsne Seierstad, and Elaine Castillo. These recommendations come from Book Marks, Lit Hub’s dedicated home for book reviews.
Fiction
1. Moderation by Elaine Castillo
What people are saying: This book is sharply tuned into the real costs of work—financially, emotionally, and psychologically. According to a review in The New York Times Book Review, Castillo’s clever use of third-person narration and her knack for capturing social dynamics make the novel “baroquely funny, full of barbed observations that detonate like precision-guided bombs.” The reviewer adds that Castillo’s writing style, with its long, winding sentences, successfully “renders visible the often invisible dirty work of the digital era.”
2. People Like Us by Jason Mott
What people are saying: This is a riveting and hugely ambitious book. A review from The Star Tribune notes that it “takes big swings at topics many people like us are struggling to understand.” The reviewer admits that the book doesn’t always hit its mark, but emphasizes that this “barely matters in a work that insists we must keep trying to put together words that help each other make sense of the world.”
3. God and Sex by Jon Raymond
What people are saying: This slim novel is ostensibly about a writer having an affair, but according to a review in The New York Times Book Review, it’s animated by “profound, ancient questions” that justify its grand title. The reviewer concludes, “These questions, which grow more urgent with every season of fire and floods, have haunted me since I finished reading it.”
Nonfiction
1. King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson
What people are saying: This is an exceptional and important book. Mark Bowden in The New York Times Book Review praises the author’s work, saying that it’s rare to see such “scrupulous and enterprising reporting” combined with “superb storytelling.” He also notes that Anderson enriches his “sweeping and complex chronicle with rich character portraits.”
2. The Afghans: Three Lives Through War, Love, and Revolt by Åsne Seierstad
What people are saying: This is a remarkable book. Booklist notes that Seierstad “chronicles years of war and the rise and resurgence of the Taliban through the intimate, affecting portraits of three lives lived in history’s shadow.”
3. Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama by Alexis Okeowo
What people are saying: This book is insightful and goes beyond the typical portrayals of Alabama. According to a review in Shelf Awareness, Okeowo “goes beyond the broad strokes that often represent Alabama to the rest of the U.S. … to tell a more intriguing and much more complex story.” The reviewer concludes that with her “keen eye for detail and a thoughtful big-picture perspective, Okeowo paints a layered portrait of a state.”
I’ve organized the books into their respective categories and used a consistent format for each entry, highlighting key quotes and making the overall tone more accessible.