Oprah’s bookclub: Bridge of sighs by Richard Russo

Published: September 25, 2007

Genre: Fiction

pages: 528

Bridge of Sighs is classic Russo, coursing with small-town rhythms and the claims of family, yet it is brilliantly enlarged by an expatriate whose motivations and experiences—often contrary, sometimes not—prove every bit as mesmerizing as they resonate through these richly different lives. Here is a town, as well as a world, defined by magnificent and nearly devastating contradictions.

Reese’s bookclub:

Expected publication: August 5, 2025

Genre: Fiction, Romance

pages: 448

A playwright must grapple with her difficult year and writer’s block while falling for the single dad living next door in this emotional debut novel from Ashley Jordan.

Read with Jenna: My other heart by Emma Nanami Strenner

Expected publication: August 5,2025

Genre: Ficion

pages: 416

In June 1998, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport.

Seventeen years later, two best friends in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, discuss their summer plans before college. Kit, with the support of her white adoptive parents, will travel to Tokyo to explore her Japanese roots. This dizzying adventure offers her a taste of first love and a new understanding of what it means to belong.

Sabrina had hoped to take a similar trip to China, but money is tight. Her disappointment subsides, however, when she meets a bold, uncompromising new mentor who prompts Sabrina to ask questions she’s avoided all her life. Meanwhile, Mimi purchases a plane ticket to Philadelphia. She finally has a lead in her search for her daughter.

When Mimi, Kit, and Sabrina come face to face, they will confront the people they truly are, in this tremendously moving novel that is propelled to its astonishing climax in a way you will never forget.

GMA: Not quite dead yet by Holly Jackson

Expected publication: July 22

Genre: Mystery Thriller

pages: 400

Holly Jackson is well known through the good girls guide to murder ya-series but she has now written a thriller for adults about a woman trying to solve her own murder.

A wealthy young heiress is attacked on Halloween night and the doctor fears that she might suffer a deadly aneurysm within a week – until then, she’s gonna find out who did it.

Service 95 book club (Dua Lipa): This house of grief by Helen Garner

Expected publication: August 20,2014

Genre: True crime, non-fiction

pages: 300

On the evening of 4 September 2005, Father’s Day, Robert Farquharson, a separated husband, was driving his three sons home to their mother, Cindy, when his car left the road and plunged into a dam. The boys, aged ten, seven and two, drowned. Was this an act of revenge or a tragic accident? The court case became Helen Garner’s obsession. She followed it on its protracted course until the final verdict.

In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience, all gathered for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth, players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice.

TeaTime book club (Dakota Johnson): Make your way home

Expected publication: July 15

Genre: Short stories, fiction

pages: 336

In eleven stories that span Florida marshes, North Carolina mountains, and Southern metropolitan cities, Make Your Way Home follows Black men and women who grapple with the homes that have eluded them.

Fallon book club (summer read only, yearly pick): My friends by Fredrik Backman

Expected publication: May 6

Genre: Contemporary fiction

pages: 448

Most people don’t even notice the three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Moderation by Elaine Castillo

Expected publication: August 5, 2025

Genre: Fiction, romance

pages: 320

A filipina author! I loved her previous books and I’m so sat for this one, got my copy already and gonna jump on this right after the book dozen.

A bold and inventive novel about real romance in the virtual workplace—​bringing Castillo’s trademark wit and sharp cultural criticism to an irresistible story about the possible future of love.

Girlie Delmundo is the greatest content moderator in the world, and despite the setbacks of financial crises, climate catastrophe, and a global pandemic, she’s going places: she’s getting a promotion. Now thanks to her parent company Paragon’s purchase of Fairground—the world’s preeminent virtual reality content provider—she’s on the way to becoming an elite VR moderator, playing in the big leagues and, if her enthusiastic bosses are to be believed, moderating the next stage of human interaction.

Dominion by Addie E. Citchens

Expected publication: August 19, 2025

Genre: Fiction

pages: 240

The sins of a favorite son rock a small Mississippi town in this taut Southern family drama.

I got an arc of this one and my review was 5 big stars:

Original writing gives this story of male dominion a lift and makes it unputdownable! The way I binged this book in a day because I could not stop reading!

Set around the turn of the millennial a story is told by two women about the men in their lives fuled by the patriarchy.
Pricilla – mother of five boys and the reverend’s wife, has gotten four of her boys safely and successfully out of her house and into the world. But her youngest Emanuel tests her limits as he’s becoming more and more like his father. She’s overlooked daily in her role as the reverend’s wife, never getting credit for the work she does behind the scenes.

Diamond – burdened with a strippers name she vows to keep her virginity and love Emanuel aka Wonderboy forever. Two vows that are constantly tested.

The writing is so fresh and different from anything else I’ve read. It feels like I was told the story from a different time. I can only compare it somewhat to “The Help” , another book with addictive and stylistic writing, even though these are very different. The two women’s voices also came through in different ways, which I think is well done.
It’s interesting telling these men’s stories through the eyes of the women who love them. It makes me wonder what lies in the areas these women chose to ignore.

People like us by Jason Mott

Expected publication: August 5, 2025

Genre: Fiction

pages: 288

two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.

When the cranes fly south by Lisa Ridzén

Expected publication: August 5, 2025

Genre: Fiction

pages: 320

Bo is running out of time. Yet time is one of the few things he’s got left. These days, his quiet existence is broken up only by daily visits from his home care team. Fortunately, he still has his beloved elkhound Sixten to keep him company … though now his son, with whom Bo has had a rocky relationship, insists upon taking the dog away, claiming that Bo has grown too old to properly care for him. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotion, leading Bo to take stock of his life, his relationships, and the imperfect way he’s expressed his love over the years.

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Expected publication: August 26, 2025

Genre: Fantasy, Dark Acadamia

pages: 400

Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

It’s R. F. Kuang, she’s written some fantastic books and one of my favorites(yellowface), so I’m definitly going to try this one even though it sounds much more high fantasy to my taste.

The south by Tash Aw

Pages: 304

When his grandfather dies, a boy named Jay travels south with his family to the property he left them, a once flourishing farm that has fallen into disrepair.

Still, Jay’s father, Jack, sends him out to work the land, or whatever land is left. Over the course of these hot, dense days, Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan, the local son of the farm’s manager, different from him in every way except for one.

Set in Malaysia, this is the first book in a planned series of four.

Universality by Natasha Brown

Pages: 152

Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.

An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.

One Boat by Jonathan Buckley

Pages: 171

On losing her father, Teresa returns to a small town on the Greek coast – the same place she visited when grieving her mother nine years ago. She immerses herself again in the life of the town, observing the inhabitants going about their business, a quiet backdrop for her reckoning with herself. An episode from her first visit resurfaces vividly – her encounter with John, a man struggling to come to terms with the violent death of his nephew. Soon Teresa encounters some of the people she met last time Petros, an eccentric mechanic, whose life story may or may not be part of John’s; the beautiful Niko, a diving instructor; and Xanthe, a waitress in one of the cafés on the leafy town square. They talk about their longings, regrets, the passing of time, their sense of who they are.

Flashlight by Susan Choi

Pages: 464

One summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old.

Louisa is an only child of parents who have severed themselves from the past. Her father, Serk, is Korean, but was born and raised in Japan; he lost touch with his family when they bought into the promises of postwar Pyongyang and relocated to North Korea. Her American mother, Anne, is estranged from her Midwestern family after a reckless adventure in her youth. And then there is Tobias, Anne’s illegitimate son, whose reappearance in their lives will have astonishing consequences.

But now it is just Anne and Louisa, Louisa and Anne, adrift and facing the challenges of ordinary life in the wake of great loss. United, separated, and also repelled by their mutual grief, they attempt to move on. But they cannot escape the echoes of that night. What really happened to Louisa’s father?

The loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

Expected publication: September 23, 2025 (The only booker nominee not published yet)

Pages: 688 (The longest booker nominee)

In the snowy mountains of Vermont, Sonia is lonely. A college student and aspiring writer homesick for India, she turns to an older artist for inspiration and intimacy, a man who will cast a dark spell on the next many years of her life. In Brooklyn, Sunny is lonely, too. A struggling journalist originally from Delhi, he is both beguiled and perplexed by his American girlfriend and the country in which he plans to find his future. As Sonia and Sunny each becomes more and more alienated, they begin to question their understanding of happiness, human connection, and where they belong.

Back in India, Sonia and Sunny’s extended families cannot fathom how anyone could be lonely in this great, bustling world. They arrange a meeting between the two—a clumsy meddling that only drives Sonia and Sunny apart before they have a chance to fall in love. 

Audition by Katie Kitamura

Pages: 200

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, and young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In Audition, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day—partner, parent, creator, muse—and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.

The rest of our lives by Ben Markovits

Pages: 216

When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest daughter turned eighteen. Twelve years later, while taking her to Pittsburgh to start university, he remembers his pact, and keeps driving West.

The land in winter by Andrew Miller

Pages: 365

Eric and Irene and Bill and Rita. Two young couples living next to each other, the first in a beautiful cottage – suitable for a newly appointed local doctor – the second in a rundown, perennially under-heated farm. Despite their apparent differences, the two women (both pregnant) strike an easy friendship – a connection that comes as a respite from the surprising tediousness of married life, with its unfulfilled expectations, growing resentments and the ghosts of a recent past.

But as one of the coldest winters on record grips England in a never-ending frost and as the country is enveloped in a thick, soft, unmoving layer of snow, the two couples find themselves cut off from the rest of the world. And without the small distractions of everyday existence, suddenly old tensions and shocking new discoveries threaten to change the course of their lives forever.

Endling by Maria Reva

Pages: 352

Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a loner and a maverick biologist who lives out of her mobile lab. She scours the country’s forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to give up, settle down, and start a family. What they don’t know: Yeva already dates plenty of men—not for love, but to fund her work—entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile brides uninfluenced by feminism and modernity.

Nastia and her sister Solomiya are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother—a flamboyant protestor who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours. So begins a journey of a lifetime across hundreds of miles: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. But their plans come to a screeching halt as Russia invades.

Flesh by David Szalay

Pages: 368

Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and new in town, he is a stranger to the social rituals practiced by his classmates and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbor—a married woman close to his mother’s age, whom he begrudgingly helps with errands—as his only companion. But as these periodical encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that István himself can barely understand, his life soon spirals out of control, ending in a violent accident that leaves a man dead.

What follows is a rocky trajectory that sees István emigrate from Hungary to London, where he moves from job to job before finding steady work as a driver for London’s billionaire class. At each juncture, his life is affected by the goodwill or self-interest of strangers. Through it all, István is a calm, detached observer of his own life, and through his eyes we experience a tragic twist on an immigrant “success story,” brightened by moments of sensitivity, softness, and Szalay’s keen observation.

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

Pages: 176

Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach and scrape for shrimp, spending the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street, and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.

When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?

Misinterpretation by Ledi Xhoga

Pages: 304

In present-day New York City, an Albanian interpreter reluctantly agrees to work with Alfred, a Kosovar torture survivor, during his therapy sessions. Despite her husband’s cautions, she soon becomes entangled in her clients’ Alfred’s nightmares stir up her own buried memories, and an impulsive attempt to help a Kurdish poet leads to a risky encounter and a reckless plan.As ill-fated decisions stack up, jeopardizing the nameless narrator’s marriage and mental health, she takes a spontaneous trip to reunite with her mother in Albania, where her life in the United States is put into stark relief. When she returns to face the consequences of her actions, she must question what is real and what is not. Ruminative and propulsive, Ledia Xhoga’s debut novel Misinterpretation interrogates the darker legacies of family and country, and the boundary between compassion and self-preservation.

Love forms by Claire Adam

Pages: 288

For much of her life, Dawn has felt as if something had been missing. Now, at the age of fifty-eight, with a divorce behind her and her two grown-up sons busy with their own lives, she should be trying to settle into a new future for herself. But she keeps returning to the past and to the secret she’s kept all these years. At just sixteen, Dawn found herself pregnant, and—as was common in Trinidad back then—her parents sent her away to have the baby and give her up for adoption.

More than forty years later, Dawn yearns to reconnect with her lost daughter. But tracking down her child is not as easy as she had thought. It’s an emotional journey that leads Dawn to retrace her steps back home and to question not only that fateful decision she’d made as a teenager but every turn in the road of her life since.