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On Witness and Respair: Essays

Jesmyn Ward

The collected creative nonfiction of a singular American writer, Jesmyn Ward, including widely shared classics, three never-before-published speeches, and an introductory essay.Respair (noun, obsolete), fresh hope after despair. From the two-time National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Jesmyn Ward, this collection of essays documents more than a decade of work in the life of a singular writer often lauded as “the heir apparent to Toni Morrison” (LitHub). Beginning with her upbringing in a multigenerational household in rural Mississippi, the cradle of both her youth and her gift for storytelling, Ward brings her keen wisdom and hauntingly lyrical prose to a range of topics, following in her grandmother Dorothy’s footsteps when she promises always to “Tell it straight. Tell it all.” True to her word, in these pages Ward contemplates the writers and novels of her youth and adulthood—the transformative power of discovering Octavia Butler as a twenty-something, the mirror that Richard Wright’s novels held up to her own childhood, and of course, her lifelong love for Toni Morrison. Ward ruminates on her approach to both fiction and life, reflecting on the power of the novel, how to raise a Black son in an era of rising divisiveness and cruelty, as well as her own personal tragedies—including the titular essay of the collection, which tells the story of her partner’s sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Every bit as piercing and moving as her fiction, On Witness and Respair is a testament to Ward’s powers as “one of America’s finest living writers” (San Francisco Chronicle) and is a monument to hope, beauty, and personal and collective resilience.

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Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency

Olivia Laing

“One of the finest writers of the new non-fiction” (Harper’s Bazaar) explores the role of art in the tumultuous twenty-first century. In the age of Trump and Brexit, every crisis is instantly overridden by the next. The turbulent political weather of the twenty-first century generates anxiety and makes it difficult to know how to react. Olivia Laing makes a brilliant, inspiring case for why art matters more than ever, as a force of both resistance and repair. Art, she argues, changes how we see the world. It gives us X-ray vision. It reveals inequalities and offers fertile new ways of living. Funny Weather brings together a career’s worth of Laing’s writing about art and culture, and their role in our political and emotional lives. She profiles Jean-Michel Basquiat and Georgia O’Keeffe, interviews Hilary Mantel and Ali Smith, writes love letters to David Bowie and Wolfgang Tillmans, and explores loneliness and technology, women and alcohol, sex and the body. With characteristic originality and compassion, Funny Weather celebrates art as an antidote to a terrifying political moment.

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NuhaReads

Jul 15, 2026

Under-Earth

3.5

Enjoyment: 3.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.5

🔨

👊

💰

I honestly don't know how i'm supposed to sleep now. Chris Gooch's Under-Earth is an explosion of violence. In a near-distant future, incarcerated people are shipped off to live in a depraved Under-Earth. Unlikely protagonists, lots and lots of violence, and an unexpected house plant all collide in this jaunt. As a whole the book has a plot line, but it raises more questions than it answers.

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Under-Earth

Chris Gooch

The inmates of an extensive underground prison struggle to build meaningful lives in a broken system, in the most ambitious graphic novel to date from rising indie star Chris Gooch (Bottled and Deep Breaths). Under-Earth takes place in a subterranean landfill, hollowed out to serve as a massive improvised prison. Sunken into the trash and debris of the past—GameBoys, iPhones, coffee cups, old cars—we follow two parallel stories. In the first, a new arrival struggles to adapt to the everyday violence, physical labour, and poverty of the prison city. Overwhelmed and alone, he finds a connection with a fellow inmate through an old, beat-up novel. While these two silent and uncommunicative men grow closer thanks to their book, the stress of their environment will test their new bond. Meanwhile, a pair of thieves pull off a risky job in exchange for the prisons' schematics and the promise of escape—only to be betrayed by their employer. On the run with their hope for escape now gone, the two women set their minds to revenge. Yet as they lay their plans, their focus shifts from an obsession with the outside world to the life they have with each other. Equal parts sincerity and violence, Under-Earth explores humanity's inextinguishable drive to find meaning, connection, and even family—and how fragile such constructions can be.

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On Sundays, She Picked Flowers

Yah-Yah Scholfield

When Judith Rice killed her mother, she thought she put an end to the woman's hold on her. Seventeen years later, secluded deep in the woods of northern Georgia, Jude knows that the past isn't all that easy to discard. Alone with her strange house and even stranger woods, Jude must grapple with ghosts, haints, beasts, and an enigmatic woman who threatens to undo the tentative peace Jude's built for herself by fanning the violence that lives just underneath her skin.

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NuhaReads

Jul 15, 2026

I'll Tell You When I'm Home: A Memoir

4.0

Enjoyment: 3.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 3.5Plot: 3.0

🇵🇸

👼

🤶

Over the course of 9 chapters, Alyan traces her family's history of forced exile from Palestine, from Kuwait, from Lebanon. Ultimately, Alyan makes the argument that displacement, too, is a type of surrogacy. The prose here is delightful, thoughtful and precise as a surgeon's blade. Alyan has a tendency to pull at threads and sometimes there's a lack of satisfying cohesion (but then again, this is life, not fiction).

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I'll Tell You When I'm Home: A Memoir

Hala Alyan

The rich and deeply personal debut memoir by an award-winning Palestinian American writer, whose experience of motherhood via surrogacy forces her to reckon with her own past, and the legacy of her family’s exile and displacement, shaping the stories that will build her future.After a decade of yearning for a child, years marked by miscarriage after miscarriage, Hala Alyan makes the decision to use a surrogate. As her baby grows in the body of another woman, in another country, Hala finds her own life unraveling—her husband wants to leave; her mental health grows brittle; the city of her youth, Beirut, is collapsing. She turns to the stories of her family, of her grandmothers long gone, and maps their jagged paths from Palestine, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, summoning memories and tales of invading armies, midnight escapes across deserts, places of refuge that proved temporary. She recalls the contradictions of a Midwestern childhood and years spent throughout the Arab world; the identities she tried on like outfits; the stories of men who walked away and those of women who disappeared in less obvious ways; the decisions they’d all have to make again and again—what to take and what to leave behind. Meanwhile, as the baby grows from the size of a poppyseed to that of a grain of rice, then a lime, and on and on, Hala gathers these stories that are her legacy, setting down the ones that no longer serve her, holding close those that will set her free. It is emotionally charged, painstaking work, but now the stakes are much larger, extending beyond her own existence. How does one impart love for people who are no longer here, for places that one cannot touch? How to become someone else’s home, someone else’s safe place, when home and safety have eluded you? A stunningly lyrical, raw, and powerful quest for motherhood, selfhood, and peoplehood, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home is an indelible story of unraveling and becoming, of destruction and redemption, and of homelands lost and recreated.

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5d

Honey

Imani Thompson

The killer debut novel of 2026.'Phenomenal. The voice is utterly singular, the writing is stunning' LOUISE O'NEILL 'A hugely talented writer … A marvel of a novel, a story that breathes beyond its pages' ORE AGBAJE-WILLIAMS The first time, Yrsa doesn’t intend to kill. But the Cambridge professor sitting opposite has manipulated her friend, stolen her research. When she flicks the bee into his Sanpellegrino, she thinks he’ll get a nasty sting. Then he’s dead. And Yrsa, who – let’s face it – has been bored for a while, is alive. It’s a sweet feeling, finally having some control. Comic, sexy, addictive, unpredictable, Honey launches an exciting new voice in fiction. The essential next read for fans of Butter, My Sister the Serial Killer, Such a Fun Age, Luster or Boy Parts.

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I'll Tell You When I'm Home: A Memoir

Hala Alyan

The rich and deeply personal debut memoir by an award-winning Palestinian American writer, whose experience of motherhood via surrogacy forces her to reckon with her own past, and the legacy of her family’s exile and displacement, shaping the stories that will build her future.After a decade of yearning for a child, years marked by miscarriage after miscarriage, Hala Alyan makes the decision to use a surrogate. As her baby grows in the body of another woman, in another country, Hala finds her own life unraveling—her husband wants to leave; her mental health grows brittle; the city of her youth, Beirut, is collapsing. She turns to the stories of her family, of her grandmothers long gone, and maps their jagged paths from Palestine, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, summoning memories and tales of invading armies, midnight escapes across deserts, places of refuge that proved temporary. She recalls the contradictions of a Midwestern childhood and years spent throughout the Arab world; the identities she tried on like outfits; the stories of men who walked away and those of women who disappeared in less obvious ways; the decisions they’d all have to make again and again—what to take and what to leave behind. Meanwhile, as the baby grows from the size of a poppyseed to that of a grain of rice, then a lime, and on and on, Hala gathers these stories that are her legacy, setting down the ones that no longer serve her, holding close those that will set her free. It is emotionally charged, painstaking work, but now the stakes are much larger, extending beyond her own existence. How does one impart love for people who are no longer here, for places that one cannot touch? How to become someone else’s home, someone else’s safe place, when home and safety have eluded you? A stunningly lyrical, raw, and powerful quest for motherhood, selfhood, and peoplehood, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home is an indelible story of unraveling and becoming, of destruction and redemption, and of homelands lost and recreated.

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NuhaReads

Jul 11, 2026

Big Girl

3.0

Enjoyment: 4.5Quality: 4.0Characters: 3.5Plot: 2.0

🏙️

🍟

🖤

Thank you W. W. Norton and Netgalley for the Reader's Copy!

Now available.

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan's BIG GIRL is a love letter to Black girlhood, Harlem, and the 90s. And in this reality, things turn out OK. Malaya Clondon, the daughter of a seemingly happy and successful Black family, is overweight. And Sullivan captures the excruciating scrutiny fat people face from family, friends, and strangers. The misshappen love that only feels like barbs, the constant surveillance around food consumption and physical activity, the deep isolation are all relayed in perfect detail.

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Big Girl

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

“Alive with delicious prose and the cacophony of ’90s Harlem, Big Girl gifts us a heroine carrying the weight of worn-out ideas, who dares to defy the compulsion to shrink, and in turn teaches us to pursue our fullest, most desirous selves without shame.” —Janet Mock Malaya Clondon hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings in the church’s stuffy basement community center. A quietly inquisitive eight-year-old struggling to suppress her insatiable longing, she would much rather paint alone in her bedroom, or sneak out with her father for a sampling of Harlem’s forbidden street foods. For Malaya, the pressures of going to a predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are compounded by the high expectations passed down over generations from her sharp-tongued grandmother and her mother, Nyela, a painfully proper professor struggling to earn tenure at a prestigious university. But their relentless prescriptions—fad diets of cottage-cheese and sugar-free Jell-O, high-cardio African dance classes, endless doctors’ appointments—don’t work on Malaya. As Malaya comes of age in a rapidly gentrifying 1990s Harlem, she strains to understand “ladyness” and fit neatly within the suffocating confines of a so-called “femininity” that holds no room for her body. She finds solace in the lyrical riffs of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, and in the support of her sensitive father, Percy; still, tensions at home mount as rapidly as Malaya’s weight. Nothing seems to help—until a family tragedy forces her to finally face the source of her hunger on her own terms. Exquisitely compassionate and clever, Big Girl is “filled with everyday people who, in Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s gifted hands, show us the love and struggle of what it means to be inside bodies that don’t always fit with the outside world” (Jacqueline Woodson). In tracing the perils and pleasures of the inheritance that comes with being born, Sullivan pushes boundaries and creates an unforgettable portrait of Black womanhood in America.

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NuhaReads

Jul 05, 2026

Coyoteland: A Novel

4.5

Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 4.0Characters: 5.0Plot: 3.0

🐔

🏡

🤳

Set in seemingly idyllic Southern California suburb of El Nido, Vanessa Hua's Coyoteland is an anthropological exploration of many dynamics that make up our society today. Hua's ensemble of memorable characters spans across races, gender, ages, and even species! Even the name Wiley Coyote felt like a fun throwback to the 90s sitcom. In many ways, this book feels like a Mashup of the 90s and the hyper realism of today. Hua meanders through time, sometimes giving us glimpses into the character's futures and then rapidly pulling us back to the present moment. At times, some characters felt like they only existed to be a mouthpiece to a certain ideology. Nonetheless, there's moments of dry humor and irony that would appeal to any reader and the drama keeps you engaged til the end.

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Coyoteland: A Novel

Vanessa Hua

"Coyoteland promises to be as dynamic and explosive a suburban drama as LITTLE FIRES EVERYWHERE." —LitHub (MOST ANTICIPATED) "Written with WITH, EMPATHY, and HEART." —Electric Lit (MOST ANTICIPATED) "Totally PROPULSIVE." —Ingrid Rojas Contreras • "A TOUR DE FORCE." —Kirstin Chen • "A tremendous, MESMERIZING gift." —R. O. Kwon • "UNFORGETTABLE." —Jean Kwok • "RIVETING."—Angie Kim From the BESTSELLING author of A River of Stars comes a FUNNY, HEARTFELT novel set in an affluent Bay Area suburb where a Chinese American family moves in and sets off a series of scandals Living in El Nido, a privileged community in the hills east of Berkeley, is supposed to mean you’ve made it. So when Jin Chang moves there with his wife and daughters after years of scraping by, he hopes it will finally be the end of his bad luck. What his family doesn’t know is that he’s bending the rules for one final scheme: to make it big in real estate. Next door, Blair Belle prides herself on her progressive politics. After all, she treats their new nanny, Ana Rodriguez, and her daughter like family—even if she doesn’t know them all that well. But she can’t help but feel skeptical of the new neighbors, especially when she begins to suspect that Jin’s plans might interfere with the Belle’s own luxury development. Jin’s teenage daughter Jane can tell her dad is keeping a secret, but she’s also struggling to navigate El Nido’s cliques. Tasha Washington has always felt isolated, too, as one of the only Black girls at the school. In the wake of a coyote attack, Jane and Tasha bond. Together, they hatch a plot to expose the town’s hypocrisies. The shockwaves will rock their own families. As fire season escalates, and the roaming coyote continues to unleash chaos, the characters become embroiled in a series of scandals that will change El Nido—and their own fates—forever. Urgent, riveting, and deeply heartfelt, full of sharp wit and keen empathy, Coyoteland is at once a delicious suburban drama and an unflinching exploration of our current moment.

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Under-Earth

Chris Gooch

The inmates of an extensive underground prison struggle to build meaningful lives in a broken system, in the most ambitious graphic novel to date from rising indie star Chris Gooch (Bottled and Deep Breaths). Under-Earth takes place in a subterranean landfill, hollowed out to serve as a massive improvised prison. Sunken into the trash and debris of the past—GameBoys, iPhones, coffee cups, old cars—we follow two parallel stories. In the first, a new arrival struggles to adapt to the everyday violence, physical labour, and poverty of the prison city. Overwhelmed and alone, he finds a connection with a fellow inmate through an old, beat-up novel. While these two silent and uncommunicative men grow closer thanks to their book, the stress of their environment will test their new bond. Meanwhile, a pair of thieves pull off a risky job in exchange for the prisons' schematics and the promise of escape—only to be betrayed by their employer. On the run with their hope for escape now gone, the two women set their minds to revenge. Yet as they lay their plans, their focus shifts from an obsession with the outside world to the life they have with each other. Equal parts sincerity and violence, Under-Earth explores humanity's inextinguishable drive to find meaning, connection, and even family—and how fragile such constructions can be.

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