Quiz: Which Book On the National Book Award Longlist Should You Read?

It sounds like you’re looking for a book that will transport you! In these beautiful, vivid stories, Newman explores the emotional lives of contemporary and historical women living in Alaska. Characters deal with harsh landscapes, complicated families, unfulfillable longings, and the ghosts of their pasts.

You should read Shutter, a gripping page-turner that’s part thriller, part haunting supernatural ghost story, and part moving coming-of-age story set on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico. It stars Rita Todacheene, a forensic crime photographer who sees the ghosts of past victims, and uses their clues to help her solve crimes.

You’re looking for something that will break your heart and put it back together, something emotionally vulnerable and bitingly real. All This Could be Different is the book for you! It follows Sneha, a queer Indian woman just out of college, trying to live and love and survive and maybe even thrive in late-stage capitalism in the Midwest.

You don’t let genre limit you, and neither does Ingrid Rojas Contreras! This beautiful memoir reads like a novel, even though it isn’t. Contreras blends Columbian history with her own family history and stories into a mesmerizing tale about the magic that runs in her family, memory loss, lineage, and more.

You’re looking for something interesting and challenging and fresh, and maybe under-the-radar, too! In Uncommon Measure, Korean American violinist and writer Natalie Hodges explores time, consciousness, music, and philosophy. She draws on her own experience as a musician, including her struggles with performance, as well as research in quantum physics and neuroscience.

This unique poetry collection is told from the POV of the author’s imagined ancestor, a woman from ancient Egypt on her journey through mummification and into the afterlife. Shenoda uses this character to interrogate modern ideas about death and dying, ancient mythology, the legacies of colonialism, and more.

You’re up for anything, and you’re not afraid of big books — and it’s a good thing, because at almost 1,000 pages, The Books of Jacob is not for the faint of heart. This sprawling opus is often considered Nobel-prize winning Polish author Olga Tokarczuk’s masterpiece, and now it’s available in English. It’s a sweeping epic about a powerful religious leader and the ripple effects his actions and beliefs have throughout 18th century Europe.

You’re looking for a fun and engrossing book — who isn’t? This heartwarming YA novel is about two queer Mexican American siblings muddling their way through Catholic school, dealing with complicated family dynamics, coming out, first love, racism, mental health, and more. It’s thoughtful, laugh-out-loud funny, and full of joy, though it doesn’t shy away from hard topics.