The Best Books of 2018

What are your secrets? What are you ashamed of? That’s the stuff of riveting fiction. Cambridge professor and acclaimed novelist Erich Ackerman, the protagonist of this taught and gripping novel, knows this much is true. In fact, they’re the very things that fuel his work. When Ackerman becomes enamored by a young aspiring writer Maurice Swift in Berlin, the city of his childhood, he should know better than to reveal the darkest parts of his personal history—a secret past in Hitler’s Germany. Shouldn’t a writer know that “everything is copy” as Nora Ephron famously once said? This novel is as craftily written as Swift himself, whose cunning only intensifies as his life ascends as the expense of his mentor’s.

War correspondent Marie Colvin worked for The Sunday Times from 1985 until she died covering the siege of Homs in Syria in 2012. She became recognizable by a patch over her left eye, having lost the sight in it to a grenade fired by a government soldier in Sri Lanka in 2001; it became her trademark badge of bravery. When she wasn’t chasing a story in a war zone, she could be found back in London, mixing vodka martinis for a house full of actors, poets, and politicians as well as journalists. Now her friend and colleague of fourteen years, fellow reporter Lindsey Hilsum, examines the life of her revered friend who gave her life in service of recording what really happens in wars. Colvin was driven to extremes in both her personal and professional life. But was it bravery or recklessness? The biopic about Colvin’s life, A Private War with Rosamund Pike playing Colvin and Jamie Dornan, is out this month, so read the book first to grasp the full scope of her incredible life.

In my childhood, I was known as the boy whose mother had run off with an Englishman. The man was in fact German, but in small‑town India in those days, all white foreigners were largely thought of as British. So begins the fourth novel from the renowned Indian writer Anurandha Roy, whose most recent novel, Sleeping on Jupiter, was longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker prize. This is the story of Myshkin and his mother, Gayatri, a rebellious artist who abandons motherhood and marriage to follow her desire for freedom during the Second World War and Indian Independence. Cut to present day. Elderly Myshkin receives a bulky envelope in the mail that prompts the journey he’s been waiting for his whole life: to find out who his mother really was.

Though no one can get their hands on an early copy of Michelle Obama’s memoir, we are sure it’s going to be full of hard-earned life lessons and insights from the former First Lady, lawyer and University administrator, who is apparently open about being frustrated at having to put aside her own career ambition for her husband. If there was ever a time to be reminded that of Obama’s wise words, “when they go low, we go high,” it’s now. You may not be able to make it to her sold-out Beyoncé-like stadium tour organized by Live Nation, who usually manage concerts for the likes of Rihanna and U2. (With some tickets being resold for as much as $3,500, who can?) However, we’ll all be able to get our paws on her book come November 14. Let’s hope this is the beginning of Michelle Obama reclaiming her time and ambitions.

From the award-winning translator, poet, and author of Ways to Disappear comes one of the season’s most talked about novels about power imbalances and the risks of speaking up in a profoundly divided country. In this case, in an unnamed island country ten years after the collapse of a U.S.-supported regime. When a young woman, who has been assisting a powerful senator on the campaign trail is found dead, Lena recalls her own fraught history with the senator and the violent incident that ended their relationship. Why didn’t Lena speak up then, and will her family’s support of the former political regime still impact her credibility? What if her instinct about this young woman’s death is wrong? This all too timely novel is a gripping and unnerving reflection of our times.

As the U.S.—and much of the world—has been gripped by the sexual assault accusations against potential Supreme Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the response from women has been explosive. Rebecca Traister’s Good and Bad is an excellent guide to unpacking and illuminating historical context for this outpouring of anger; it’s the handbook for understanding the #MeToo movement, too. Through exhaustive and compelling research, Traister examines women’s anger as a powerful political tool, one that’s long been ignored as a potent catalyst for social change. Furthermore, it examines what patriarchy means and reveals the extent to which certain groups of men have sought to curb and marginalize women’s voices. To all the men out there who want to be allies should read this book and get up to speed.

The myth of a successful journey often appears linear, if not a little bumpy. It’s usually far more complicated than that. Over five years, Scott Belsky—entrepreneur, author, and Chief Product Officer at Adobe—spoke to the leaders, founders, and artists he admires most about how they navigate the hard parts of their creative projects and ventures. Belsky’s discoveries are distilled into 130+ insights to help readers do three things: endure the human-tendency-defying woes of the middle; optimize the hell out of everything that works; and not screw up “the final mile” of a successful project. Belsky also draws on his own experiences from working with companies like Airbnb, Pinterest, Uber, and sweetgreen, urging us to embrace the messy middle and all the insights that are hidden there.

Most of the tales in this engrossing collection of short stories are based on true stories told to Van Booy over the course of his travels. Some have a hint of science-fiction about them, like one about a husband and wife who’ve become afraid of their daughter after a mysterious accident involving a pair of VR glasses. In contrast, the opening story about a bedraggled family saved from ruin by a mysterious benefactor reads like a fable overheard in an Irish pub on a rainy day, full of loves lost and sideways unraveling. As a whole, the collection is both moody and poignant and calls to be read sitting by a fire with a whiskey close at hand.

Colm Tóibín, the award-winning author of The Masterand Brooklyn, turns his attention towards the complex relationships between fathers and sons—specifically the tensions between the literary giants Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, W.B. Yeats, and their fathers. Wilde loathed his dad, though acknowledged that they were very much alike. Joyce’s gregarious father drove his son from Ireland because of his volatile temper and drinking. While Yeats’s father, a painter, was apparently a wonderful conversationalist whose chatter was far more polished than the paintings he produced. These famous men and the fathers who helped shape them come alive in Tóibín's retelling, as do Dublin’s colorful inhabitants.

The author of You Can’t Touch My Hair and star of the podcast and HBO series 2 Dope Queens, Phoebe Robinson is back with a new, hilarious, and timely collection of essays on race, gender, the De-Peening of 2017 (a.k.a. #MeToo), and interracial dating (drawing from her own experiences with her #BritishBakeOff boyfriend). There are plenty of '90s references like Doogie Houser and Dangerous Minds, along with passages that will make you chuckle in recognition and want to share with your pals right away.

Ever wondered what a hedge fund manager actually does to take home a cool $30 million even when his fund goes belly up? Enter the world of Barry Cohen, with $2.4 billion under management, whose wife has just clawed his face as if she were a feral cat. He also happens to be bleeding from where the nanny gouged him above the left brow. Now he’s staggering toward the Port Authority in Manhattan, thinking that a humble Greyhound bus ride might reconnect him to some lost part of himself. Watch the book trailer with Ben Stiller to get sense of how much this satirical novel skewers the world of finance, then read the book for a window into the ridiculous and nonetheless poignant lives of a family—and perhaps a country—on the brink of collapse.

For decades, if you’d walked down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, you might have been lucky enough to spot Bill Cunningham, the beloved fashion photographer for The New York Times, dressed in his usual blue jacket snapping a picture of an exquisitely or outrageously dressed fashionista going about her business. That weekend you’d glimpse his mosaic of photos in the Sunday Styles that would reveal a trend, or at the very least plenty of playful ingenuity. This posthumously published memoir, with a touching forward by New Yorker staff writer Hilton Als, gives insight into the very private man behind the lens. If nothing else, this captivating read will reinvigorate the way you see the world, and hopefully inspire some radical dressing, too.

Beloved British cultural critic and writer Olivia Laing was known most recently for The Lonely City, an investigation into loneliness by way of several iconic artists including Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper, and David Wojnarowicz. Her new book is a real-time novel about the summer of 2017, Trump and Brexit, love and anxiety. She draws from her own life—what it was like to be an artist adjusting to married life while Trump was Tweeting about nuclear war—and from the life of punk poet, writer, and counterculture experimentalist Kathy Acker. Combining forces, she creates one of the most compelling commitment-phobic protagonists to come along in years.

Controversial is a gentle way to describe Anand Giridharadas’s book that’s bound to cause a stir across the political spectrum. In it, he directly challenges the seemingly altruistic way global elite's and “thought leaders” try to "change the world" via philanthropy and other means, all while, in his words, dodging taxes, eroding public institutions, and the democratic process—the very things they claim to hold dear. His insider’s perspective coupled with interviews with the very people he criticizes—some of whom wrestle with very the contradictions he sites—makes this his most ambitious and timely book to date.

In this timely collection of essays, Emmy-winning actress and political activist America Ferrera mines her own cross-cultural Honduran and American upbringing and gathers thirty-one influential friends and change-maker—such as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Roxane Gay, Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani, and Uzo Aduba—to talk about what it’s like to be an immigrant, a child or grandchild of immigrants, an indigenous person, or someone with deep connections to more than one culture. Even though this anthology speaks to the American experience, the themes of belonging and identity will hit home for anyone who’s ever felt torn between two cultures or two places equally dear to them.

Nico Walker wrote this edgy novel on a typewriter from inside a Kentucky federal prison where he’s currently serving an 11-year sentence for bank robbery. The young protagonist in Cherry is an Army Medic (just like Walker was) who returns from Iraq’s war zones with severe PTSD. To cope, he turns to drugs—just as the opioid crisis is ravaging the Midwest. When the money runs out, he turns to robbing banks. Walker’s raw confessional novel, aptly compared to Jesus’ Son and Reservoir Dogs, is a devastating example of art imitating life.

Would you respond to a cryptic Facebook message from an unrecognized user? Forty-two-year-old novelist-turned-screenwriter Jay does. He’s ambivalent about the messages at first, but their familiar tone piques his interest and reminds him of someone important from his past. Thus, begins this sexy and electric novel that flips between modern-day Los Angeles and Paris in 1992—back when Jay was 21 and burning with the desire to make art that was going to change the world. Frey, perhaps best known for his controversial book A Million Little Pieces, has penned a compulsive novel that speaks directly to the scandal that blew up his own life.

Rumor has it that Francis Price discovered her husband dead and then went skiing in Vail for the weekend without bothering to call the authorities. The picture of her in the tabloids the following week captured her as glamorous and happier than ever. When Frances and her odd and ineffectual adult son Malcolm get news that their fortune has dried up, they wait it out in the Four Seasons—until they’re forced to flee for Paris, where this bizarre comedy of manners continues.

If our faith in governments and its institutions are eroding, who is poised to take over? Big Tech—that’s Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook—have done a very good job at making us believe they’re friendly egalitarian democratizers, so should they fill the gap, take the reins and assume responsibility? After all, they’re pro-LGBT, pro-sustainability, pro-social good. Not so fast, warns world-renown futurist Lucie Greene. Via candid interviews with corporate leaders, influential venture capitalists, scholars, journalists, activists, she explores exactly what’s at stake if we continue to let the largely unregulated Big Tech determine our futures.

Maeve Higgins’s insightful and wacky essays will not only make you laugh; you'll also nod in recognition and sigh in solidarity. Whether you think open relationships are like pyramid schemes or you’ve had the urge to explore the comedy scene in Mosul, Iraq, Higgins will draw you into her witty web of stories like no other comedian can. Born and raised in Ireland, she now calls New York City home, and it’s her outsider’s perspective that makes her commentary of current day America so unique and critical at a time when migrants and immigrants are fighting to have their voices heard.