Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved to dip into speculative worlds as a way of gaining a new perspective on conundrums in the real world. In the real world, so many of us are plagued by concerns or frustrations having to do with connection and commitment, and those concerns transcend whatever place or moment we’re living in. So, by dropping those concerns into a surreal setting, I get another way to tussle with them.


I wrote

Hestia Strikes a Match: A Novel

By Christine Grillo,

Book cover of Hestia Strikes a Match: A Novel

What is my book about?

In this dark comedy set during the second American Civil War, Hestia Harris is forty-two, abandoned by her husband (he…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Power

Christine Grillo Why did I love this book?

I love how Naomi Alderman flips the mirror on our reality, building a world in which women possess great physical power over men.

Men are sometimes belittled and oppressed by women, but they’re always aware of the imbalance in power. Boys are told not to go out alone at night—and yet Alderman renders this dark satire with many laugh-out-loud moments that illuminate the hypocrisies and dysfunction of our current power dynamics.

For me, it was a reminder and a lesson in how even when you’re building a chillingly unpleasant (although plausible) world, you can still use humor to help readers understand it. By using subtle humor, Alderman makes the case that power—regardless of who holds it—is corrosive.

By Naomi Alderman,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked The Power as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017

'Electrifying' Margaret Atwood

'A big, page-turning, thought-provoking thriller' Guardian

----------------------------------

All over the world women are discovering they have the power.
With a flick of the fingers they can inflict terrible pain - even death.
Suddenly, every man on the planet finds they've lost control.

The Day of the Girls has arrived - but where will it end?

----------------------------------

'The Hunger Games crossed with The Handmaid's Tale' Cosmopolitan

'I loved it; it was visceral, provocative and curiously pertinent . . . The story has stayed…


Book cover of The New Wilderness

Christine Grillo Why did I love this book?

As a writer who’s interested in what comes next—after climate change, after fascism—I love how Diane Cook uses broad brush strokes to show us the future, without going into too much history or detail.

Instead of hyper-focusing on what the future holds for us, Cook directs our attention to one small, outlier community that’s doing weird things. This is a great technique: she paints a picture of a future world by painting a picture of a fringe group that’s trying desperately to be different from the main one.

A mother-daughter drama drives the plot forward, and we learn about the rules and ruminations of the fringe group as the characters sort out their power struggles.

By Diane Cook,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The New Wilderness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'THE ENVIRONMENTAL NOVEL OF OUR TIMES.' Lemn Sissay, Booker Prize judge

From an acclaimed Guardian First Book Award finalist comes a debut novel 'brutal and beautiful in equal measure' (Emily St. John Mandel)

Longlisted for the DUBLIN Literary Award 2022

A Guardian Best Science Fiction Book of the Year

A 'Best Book of the Year 2020' according to BBC Culture * An Irish Times Best Debut Fiction of 2020

Bea's daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, her lungs ravaged by the smog and pollution of the overpopulated metropolis they call home.

The only alternative is to build a life in…


Book cover of Severance

Christine Grillo Why did I love this book?

In Severance, Ma creates a creepy, disturbing world after a fungus has turned most humans into zombified, non-functioning blobs, some of whom need to be exterminated as an act of mercy.

But the drama does not revolve around the zombies; instead, it revolves around the interpersonal stress felt by a small group of non-zombies who have decided to travel together. In this world, as in the pre-zombie world, humans are petty, insecure, delusional, and narcissistic.

Ma also does an amazing job showing us the pre-zombie world at the moments that it transitions into this new reality. Reading it, I had the feeling of “It’s happening right now,” as I traveled with the protagonist, trying to outrun the fungus. 

By Ling Ma,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked Severance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Maybe it’s the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma’s offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance.

"A stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring." ―Michael Schaub, NPR.org

“A satirical spin on the end times-- kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers.” --Estelle Tang, Elle

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR * The New Yorker ("Books We Loved") * Elle * Marie Claire * Amazon Editors * The Paris Review…


Book cover of Sea of Tranquility

Christine Grillo Why did I love this book?

The speculative world that Mandel builds in Sea of Tranquility involves populations of humans who live in colonies on the moon.

But this is not really a novel about life on the moon. This is a time travel story that had to be set a couple hundred years in the future, and the moon colonies are, naturally, a part of human life in that time period.

The characters’ experience of life in a moon colony is ancillary to the time travel story; Mandel gives us just enough to make it seem real and true.

By Emily St. John Mandel,

Why should I read it?

7 authors picked Sea of Tranquility as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

“One of [Mandel’s] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet.” —The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old…


Book cover of Liberation Day: Stories

Christine Grillo Why did I love this book?

I love how George Saunders creates really weird alternate realities, but doesn’t make a big deal about it.

In Liberation Day, we learn about the inner lives of people who seem to be enslaved by being “pinioned” to a wall after they’ve been programmed to perform as storytellers for their owners. Because we’re learning about this world from the pinioned narrator, we are not subjected to any lecturing or moralizing about the situation.

Instead, we hear about his romantic yearning for his owner’s wife, and that’s the tension around which the story is built. He only gives us the details that are necessary for us to understand his yearning, giving the reader just enough information to suss out the scenario in which he finds himself captive.

By George Saunders,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Liberation Day as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Named a book of the year 2022 by the Sunday Times, The Times, Guardian, Irish Times, New Statesman, BBC and Waterstones 'One of the best science fiction short stories to be published in the 21st century so far' SFX Review 'Saunders is funny and kind as ever, and his narrative virtuosity puts him up there with the best' Anne Enright, Guardian 'A triumph of storytelling' i paper 'A joy. Effortlessly stylish, funny and smart' Daily Mail ____________ The first short story collection in ten years from the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo MacArthur…


Explore my book 😀

Hestia Strikes a Match: A Novel

By Christine Grillo,

Book cover of Hestia Strikes a Match: A Novel

What is my book about?

In this dark comedy set during the second American Civil War, Hestia Harris is forty-two, abandoned by her husband (he left to fight for the Union cause), and estranged from her parents (they’re leaving for the Confederacy). It’s Unionists against Confederates, children against parents, friends against friends. In the midst of all this, Hestia is looking for love and friendship. She’s single and adrift, save for her coworkers and Mildred, an eighty-four-year-old, thrice-happily-married resident who gleefully supports Hestia’s half-hearted but hopeful attempts to find love again in a time of chaos and disunion. She reckons with the big questions and the little ones, all while wrestling with that boiling feeling that things are decidedly not okay.

Book cover of The Power
Book cover of The New Wilderness
Book cover of Severance

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,471

readers submitted
so far, will you?

You might also like...

The Festival of Sin: and other tales of fantasy

By J.M. Unrue,

Book cover of The Festival of Sin: and other tales of fantasy

Ad
J.M. Unrue Author Of The Festival of Sin: and other tales of fantasy

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an old guy. I say this with a bit of cheek and a certain amount of incongruity. All the books on my list are old. That’s one area of continuity. Another, and I’ll probably stop at two, is that they all deal with ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances—those curveballs of life we flail at with an unfamiliar bat; the getting stuck on the Interstate behind a semi and some geezer in a golf cap hogging the passing lane in a Buick Le Sabre. No one makes it through this life unscathed. How we cope does more to define us than a thousand smiles when things are rosy. Thus endeth the lesson.

J.M.'s book list on showing that somebody has it worse than you do

What is my book about?

The Festival of Sin is a three-story light sci-fi arc about a young boy rescued in 6000 BCE and taken to the home planet of the Hudra. Parts two and three are exploratory excursions. It's a fish-out-of-water series. More than fish-out-of-water. Fish-on-another-planet.

Plus, there are two fantasy stories dealing with people who must overcome "supernatural" circumstances, things well beyond the realm of common understanding. 

The Festival of Sin: and other tales of fantasy

By J.M. Unrue,

What is this book about?

The Festival of Sin is a three-story light sci-fi arc about a young boy rescued in 6000 BCE and taken to the home planet of the Hudra. Parts two and three are exploratory excursions. It's a fish-out-of-water series. More than fish-out-of-water. Fish-on-another-planet.

Plus, there are two fantasy stories dealing with people who must overcome "supernatural" circumstances, things well beyond the realm of common understanding. 


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in survival, dystopian, and time travel?

Survival 203 books
Dystopian 626 books
Time Travel 406 books