ReadingEast

Head down to the Fair by 9 a.m. to get free entry, a free cup of Joe and the best seats possible to see Naomi and Tracy! As an invitation toward meaning and connection, National Book Award finalist and former Young People’s Poet Laureate Naomi Shihab Nye and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith will discuss how celebrations of joy, family, and poetry in their new books are fundamental to our capacities to love,…

A love letter to the people who create and evolve American cuisine every day, author and Emmy nominee Padma Lakshmi’s latest book is a road map to the foods that give America its vibrant palate. From Indian coconut rice and Peruvian tamales with chicken to Afghani dumplings with leeks and scallions – and a strawberry, cardamom, and cream cake that will be your new favorite celebration treat – Padma’s All American presents a joyful, kaleidoscopic view of the vast range of incredible dishes she’s delighted in tasting on her travels,…

Each fall, Miami Book Fair invites the authors and translators of 50 National Book Award longlisted titles to gather in Miami following the National Book Awards Ceremony in New York. Join the honorees in fiction – Angela Flournoy, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Megha Majumdar, Kevin Moffett, Karen Russell, and Ethan Rutherford – as they read from and discuss their books and answer your questions about writing,…

In Deeper than the Ocean: A Novel, Mirta Ojito tells a multigenerational tale that spins out of a chance finding. While on the Canary Islands, Mara Denis learns that her grandmother is among the dead in the shipwreck of the Valbanera, the “poor man’s Titanic.” But that was years before Mara’s mother was born – and suddenly everything Mara thought she knew about her family and herself is now in question. In Shobha Rao‘s Indian Country: A Novel,…

Aria Aber’s Good Girl: A Novel is a story of art, family, love, and survival. In Berlin’s underground of raves, art, and drugs, teenage Nila – born to Afghan parents and raised in graffiti-stained public housing – searches for her voice. Drawn into the orbit of Marlowe, a fading American writer, she tastes freedom but risks losing herself. As racial tensions rise, Nila must decide who she wants to be. In Darrow Farr’s The Bombshell: A Novel,…

Each fall, Miami Book Fair invites the authors and translators of 50 National Book Award longlisted titles to gather in Miami following the National Book Awards Ceremony in New York. Join the honorees in nonfiction – Caleb Gayle, Julia Ioffe, Lana Lin, Ben Ratliff, Claudia Rowe, Nilo Tabrizy, Jordan Thomas, and Helen Whybrow – as they read from and discuss their books and answer your questions about writing,…

In The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains, neurologist Pria Anand reveals all that the medical establishment has dismissed, as often seen in the stories of women and Black, brown, displaced, and disempowered people. This collection of medical stories reflects the compelling paradox that even the most peculiar symptoms can show us something universal about ourselves. In Nightmare Obscura: A Dream Engineer’s Guide Through the Sleeping Mind, sleep expert Michelle Carr explores the science of dreaming,…

In Ivonne Lamazares’ The Tilting House: A Novel, identity, family loyalty, and the scars of political upheaval wreak havoc when teenager Yuri, living in a Havana suburb with her strict and religious aunt, meets Mariela, a glamorous artist from the United States who claims to be her sister – and reveals shocking truths that upend life as she knows it. Set in a near-future Kolkata, India, ravaged by climate change and food scarcity, Megha Majumdar’s A Guardian and a Thief: A Novel tells two intertwined stories: Ma’s desperate search for the thief who has stolen long-awaited visas for America for her and her family;…

Susan Choi’s Flashlight: A Novel traces the disappearance of Louisa’s father across time, nations, and memory, after a tragic summer night on the breakwater. Spanning decades and through shifting perspectives, Louisa and her mother navigate grief, estrangement, and family secrets – and the invisible currents that shape our lives. In Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny: A Novel, two young people first glimpse each other on an overnight train, bound by their grandparents’ failed matchmaking.…

Tehila Hakimi’s Hunting in America: A Novel tells the story of an Israeli woman who relocates to the United States on assignment from her tech company. Wanting to leave her past behind and adapt to American culture, she joins her colleagues on a deer hunt. As she takes up hunting, she is drawn into a world of predator, prey, and dark attraction. Lena, the central character in Ivy Pochoda’s Ecstasy: A Novel, wants her life back.…

Careful what you wish for in Vanessa Montalban’s These Vengeful Wishes, in which a teen girl’s rage is ignited by a vengeful female spirit with a thirst for justice. The Summer I Ate The Rich by Maika Moulite & Maritza Moulite is a biting modern-day fable inspired by Haitian zombie lore that explores what happens when a Haitian American girl uses her previously hidden abilities to exact revenge on the wealthy elites who have caused her family pain.…

In King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation, Scott Anderson traces the rise of religious nationalism, offering essential insights into today’s global unrest. With a spellbinding account of dictatorship, blind superpower, and world-shattering revolution, he delivers a bravura work of history and a warning for our time. Nilo Tabrizy and Fatemeh Jamalpour’s For the Sun After Long Nights: The Story of Iran’s Women-Led Uprising documents the Woman, Life, Freedom movement,…

On the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, three authors discuss the challenges of telling the stories of their parents and lovers, examining love, loss, and identity across genres and generations. Becoming Ghost documents Cathy Linh Che’s parents’ experiences as refugees who escaped the Vietnam War and then were cast as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, placing them at the margins of their own story. The 14 pieces in Andrew Lam’s Stories from the Edge of the Sea explore love and loss,…

One summer. Forty-six mountain peaks. A second chance to make things right. In The Trouble with Heroes, Kate Messner takes readers on a heart-filling journey as a seventh grade boy finds his path to healing. The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story by Daniel Nayeri is the harrowing true story of two orphans on a treacherous journey across mountains to bring education to isolated children with a chalkboard and a satchel full of textbooks.…

In Indian Genius: The Meteoric Rise of Indians in America, Meenakshi Ahamed shares fascinating portraits of the Indian Americans at the forefront of the wave of Indian success stories. Based on a series of interviews and featuring portraits of well-known figures and fresh, surprising stories, Indian Genius reveals the private strengths behind these individual’s public achievements. Joining Ahamed in conversation are author-panelists George Packer and Todd S. Purdum.   Buy Indian Genius: The Meteoric Rise of Indians in America – Ahamed Buy The Emergency: A Novel – Packer Buy Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television – Purdum…

Chloe Caldwell’s Trying: A Memoir is one woman’s story told through selective journaling: her struggle with infertility, the dissolution of her marriage – and an eventual reawakening to her long-buried desires and queer identity. Throughout, Caldwell kept writing, making sense of her new reality in real time. She captures the continuous process of becoming and the mysterious ways that writing informs that process. As a child, Atash Yaghmaian endured terrors at home and outside, as Iran was on fire.…

Manboobs: A Memoir of Musicals, Visas, Hope, and Cake is KOMAIL AIJAZUDDIN’s story of courage, love, and bravery. Growing up in Pakistan, ashamed of his body and knowing he was different, he believed his only chance at happiness existed in a gay-friendly America. But after arriving in a post-9/11 world, he was forced to navigate prejudice and self-doubt in his quest for a meaningful life. In his part memoir-in-essays, part cultural critique Mean Boys: A Personal History, queer Chinese American writer GEOFFREY MAK speaks of boys wielding cruelty to claim their place in the pecking order.…

With an insider perspective on the insanity of high finance and venture investing, The Money Trap: Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble follows ALOK SAMA’s journey as chief dealmaker at the most influential technology investor in the world, SoftBank, alongside its iconic founder, Masayoshi Son. Ultimately a morality tale, The Money Trap reminds us that in life – and technology investing – more money isn’t always the answer.  The sole assistant to the billionaire founder of one of the most prestigious hedge funds in the world,…

Believing in yourself is hard enough without saving the whole world on top of it all! Find out how much Amari is willing to sacrifice to stop a war between the Magicians and the Bureau in the action-packed third installment of B. B. ALSTON’s bestselling Supernatural Investigations series, Amari and the Despicable Wonders. RYAN GRAUDIN’s The Girl Who Kept the Castle introduces Faye, a maid for the late Wizard West, who must help him find a successor,…

In ELYSHA CHANG’s A Quitter’s Paradise, a young woman does everything she can to ignore her mother’s death, even as memories surface of her cold, strict upbringing with immigrant parents. How do you love a person who refused to make herself known? In CRYSTAL HANA KIM’s The Stone Home: A Novel, Eunju and her mother are living on the street in South Korea when they’re captured and sent to a state-sanctioned facility – a reformatory hiding a violent reality.…

I Will Do Better: A Father’s Memoir of Heartbreak, Parenting, and Love is CHARLES BOCK’s frank, tender memoir of parenting his young daughter while dealing with immense grief in the wake of his wife’s untimely death. In Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones: A Memoir, PRIYANKA MATTOO chronicles her search for home across 40 years and 32 addresses. From leaving her beloved Kashmir as a child amid mounting violence and finding – and losing – friendships in a Saudi Arabian compound to finally settling in Los Angeles,…

In CRIS ASCUNCE’s My Best Plan: A Novel, Gene has it all – a wonderful daughter, a flourishing career, and the love of her life, Isa. After same-sex marriage is legalized in Spain, Gene has an idea: move there, marry, and finally secure parental rights for her daughter. But Isa refuses, and Gene must make a decision that puts their love to the test. A.J. BERMUDEZ’s Stories No One Hopes Are About Them explores convergences of power,…

But What Will People Say?: Navigating Mental Health, Identity, Love, and Family Between Cultures rethinks traditional therapy and self-care. SAHAJ KAUR KOHLI, MA.ED, LGPC, weaves personal narrative, anecdotal analysis, and comprehensive research, offering tools to navigate generational trauma, guilt, and boundaries, and breaking down stigmas around therapy as she celebrates cultural duality. RAQUEL REICHARD’s Self-Care for Latinas: 100+ Ways to Prioritize & Rejuvenate Your Mind, Body, & Spirit offers more than 100 exercises for wellness,…

In POROCHISTA KHAKPOUR’s Tehrangeles: A Novel, the Iranian American Milani family has it all – an L.A. mansion, a snack empire, and four spirited daughters: aspiring model Violet, chaotic influencer Roxanna, online overachiever Mina, and impressionable health fanatic Haylee. But on the verge of landing a reality TV show, the family realizes they all have something to hide. In My First Book, a collection of stories by HONOR LEVY, characters grapple with formative political, existential,…

CRISTINA HENRIQUEZ’s The Great Divide: A Novel is the story of one of the most impressive feats in engineering history: the construction of the Panama Canal. It explores the intersecting lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers – those who did the grueling work and have yet rarely been acknowledged by history. In RUTHVIKA RAO’s The Fertile Earth: A Novel, Vijaya, daughter of ancestral aristocrats whose power over their villagers is absolute,…

The Lucky Ones: A Memoir is a moving personal story from ZARA CHOWDHARY, a survivor of anti-Muslim violence in contemporary India. Tracing a multigenerational Muslim family back to India’s brave but bloody origins, it offers a glimpse into the precious, everyday lives of contemporary Muslims who are under siege but still offer grace as the world outside – and their place in it – falls apart. Joining her in conversation is author and journalist MEENA AHAMED.…

Grappling with violence and grief after the loss of his parents, Cyrus is an addict and a poet whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past in KAVEH AKBAR’s Martyr! A Novel. VINSON CUNNINGHAM’s Great Expectations: A Novel spans 18 months in the life of David, working on a senator’s campaign to become the first Black U.S. president and coming to terms with his identity as a young Black man and father.…

Set at a Victorian London circus, AMIEE GIBBS‘ The Carnivale of Curiosities: A Novel is a tale of Faustian bargains, jealousy, and murder, where for the right price, any wish may be granted. In DEENA MOHAMED’s Shubeik Lubeik, three wishes sold at an unassuming Cairo kiosk link three people, changing their perspectives as well as their lives. Buy The Carnivale of Curiosities: A Novel. – Gibbs Buy Shubeik Lubeik. – Mohamed…

In Starstruck: A Memoir of Astrophysics and Finding Light in the Dark, Egyptian American astrophysicist SARAFINA EL-BADRY NANCE shares how she carved out a place in her field, grounding herself in a lifelong love of the stars to face life’s inevitable challenges and embrace the unknown. In ELIO MORILLO’s The Boy Who Reached the Stars: A Memoir, he chronicles an itinerant childhood and unique journey from the farthest expanse of human endeavor – space – to AI and robotics.…

JON CLINCH’s historical The General and Julia: A Novel explores how Ulysses S. Grant’s views on race and Reconstruction changed over time. In AANCHAL MALHOTRA’s The Book of Everlasting Things: A Novel, a perfumer’s apprentice and a calligrapher’s apprentice make a series of fateful decisions that will change the course of their lives forever. In KIRTHANA RAMISETTI’s Advika and the Hollywood Wives, a shocking stipulation in an ex-wife’s will compels a man’s current wife to investigate her new husband.…

In First Gen: A Memoir, ALEJANDRA CAMPOVERDI retraces her trajectory as a Mexican American woman raised by an immigrant single mother in Los Angeles with candor and heart. In AVA CHIN’s Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming, she traces her decadeslong quest to understand her family’s story, from the Pearl River Delta to a Mott Street building in New York’s Chinatown. In A Living Remedy: A Memoir,…

On Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education, Indian American human rights activist MALAINA KAPOOR and Afghani mathematician SOLA MAHFOUZ share the story of Mahfouz’s extraordinary escape from her Taliban-ordained future. In SAFIYA SINCLAIR’s How to Say Babylon: A Memoir, she shares her struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing and find her own voice as a woman and poet, which stemmed from an inevitable collision course between her and her strict patriarchal father.…

In Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome, comedian APARNA NANCHERLA delivers a collection of essays marked by her signature humor, sharing hilarious and incredibly insightful meditations on body image, productivity culture, the ultra-meme-ability of mental health language, and who, exactly, gets to make art “about nothing.” In her memoir Living My Best Life, Hun: Following Your Dreams is No Joke, LONDON HUGHES recounts disastrous experiences in friendships, relationships, and career choices, but reminds readers that however bad things get,…

In The Wishing Pool and Other Stories, TANANARIVE DUE’s second collection of short fiction, there are classic tales of horror, several stories set in a Florida town, and two sections of post-apocalyptic futures. From the mysterious, magical town of Gracetown to the aftermath of a pandemic (chillingly, written before 2020), Due masterfully evokes a sense of dread and fear, balanced with heart and hope. Buy The Wishing Pool and Other Stories. – Due   Sponsored by…

The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America is SAKET SONI’s gripping account of migrant workers trapped in squalid Gulf Coast “man camps” in 2006, who against all odds remained steadfast in their heroic journey for justice. In RACHEL L. SWARNS’ The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church, she offers a groundbreaking story of nearly two centuries of indentured servitude and enslavement to uncover the harrowing origin story of the Catholic Church in the United States.…

In DUNYA MIKHAIL’s The Bird Tattoo: A Novel, a young Yazidi woman’s life is changed forever when her husband, a journalist, goes missing, and her search for him results in her captivity. In JAMILA MINNICKS’ Moonrise Over New Jessup: A Novel, a young woman who flees to a 1950s all-Black town in Alabama falls in love with a man who challenges the town’s long-standing status, actions that could lead to the couple’s expulsion – or worse.…

ALLEGRA GOODMAN’s Sam: A Novel is the story of a 7-year-old with a nearly absent father and a mother struggling to make ends meet. But all Sam wants to do is climb, hang from the highest limbs of the tallest trees, and scale the side of a building. In JESS ROW’s The New Earth: A Novel, a family reckons with the harms of the past and confronts an uncertain future. And in THRITY UMRIGAR’s The Museum of Failures: A Novel,…

In NIGAR ALAM‘s Under the Tamarind Tree: A Novel, it is 1964 in Karachi, Pakistan, and Rozeena is about to lose her home as the lives of her childhood best friends seem to be unraveling. Fifty-five years later, she receives a call – and a voice she never thought she’d hear again unearths long-buried secrets. In ETAF RUM’s Evil Eye: A Novel – a striking exploration of the expectations of Palestinian American women – when Yara is placed on probation at work for fighting with a racist coworker,…

Fire Index: Poems by BETHANY BREITLAND measures the interior life of a survivor against the world she creates through her own fractured marriage, motherhood, and religion, reckoning with her complicit, and often dishonest life to demand her full attention, forgiveness, and responsibility. Drawing its title from the 1863 federal act that banished the Dakota people from their homelands, Removal Acts: Poems by ERIN MARIE LYNCH reckons with the present-day repercussions of historical violence, assembling an intimate record of recovery from bulimia and insisting that self-erasure cannot be separated from the erasures of genocide.…

The collection comprising JAMEL BRINKLEY‘s Witness: Stories are set in New York City and feature a range of characters – from children to grandmothers­ – living the responsibility of perceiving and the moral challenge of speaking up or taking action. RU FREEMAN addresses subjects as diverse as Bowie and Dylan, personal and cultural identity, and #MeToo in Bon Courage: Essays on Inheritance, Citizenship, and a Creative Life, and explores crossing borders, both real and imagined, in Sleeping Alone: Stories.…