• DOPPELGÄNGER by Naomi Klein. This book was equal parts reassuring and horrifying to my mental health. On the one hand, it affirmed my anecdotal observations that reality has lost all meaning in recent years, but on the other hand, I am extremely concerned about what is going to happen in this country come November. I'm glad, though, to have language for how diagonalism drove "reasonable" people to alt-right extremism in the wake of the pandemic (part of a much more sweeping phenomenon that I have long considered a form of betrayal). I thought a lot about the pitfalls of the Western individualized sociopolitical ethos while I was writing the Atlas series, which itself features an allegory for the harms of conservative "feminism," and Klein's conclusions here here are the same as mine: self-centered policy won't work. The institutions and systems we have that maximize profit over wellness do not serve us, and the perceptions of reality currently driving extremist views are based on mythologized narratives inaccurately centering the self as underdog or victim. But the flip side of that knowledge (the carnage, so to speak) is okay, so ... now what?

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• LOST ARK DREAMING by Suyi Davies Okungbowa. Much to think about this month! I met Suyi Davies Okungbowa last month at the Tucson Festival of Books and was, put frankly, dazzled by his intelligence, humor, and craft. I'd never met someone with a writing process so closely comparable to mine; I was also delighted to learn that where my background is the built environment via urban planning and social policy, Suyi's is the built environment via civil engineering. He is both an incredible artist and a brilliant thinker, and this novella exemplifies the best of its genre. This post-disaster imagining of climate-affected West Africa as a partially-submerged high rise is an excellent political thought exercise and a valuable centering of the real stakes—which are, again, the value of the collective human.

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• COME AND GET IT by Kiley Reid. Okay, I won't lie to you, this shit is dark; much like SUCH A FUN AGE, the storylines and clever turns of phrase are frothy and un-put-downably propulsive, but this story is much darker than it first appears. Every relationship revolves inescapably around money, the way money establishes power, and the power differentials built into race and class in extraordinarily nuanced (and uncomfortable) ways. I spent much of this book shrinking away from it and cringing (while also rapidly turning pages); much of the time spent after I finished it was deep in thought. A highly worthy read, but it will make you feel sadder than you might expect if you spend any time at all thinking about its implications. I will also be reading all the topical non-fiction mentioned in the acknowledgments.

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• THIS IS ME TRYING by Racquel Marie. Finally, something to feel rather than think about! This is a coming-of-age, resurfacing-from-grief narrative that comes across so wise and deep and grounded. I'm doing an event with Racquel Marie this month and I can't wait to sit down with her and discuss how mental health, self-compassion, and various forms of love factored into her beautiful rendering of how the next best life doesn't exist; there is only this one.