WHAT WE’RE READING THIS MONTH:
August Book Pick
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
Artie Dam has spent thirty years teaching history to teenagers in a small coastal Massachusetts town, beloved by his students, married to Evie, known for his good humor and his white socks. But underneath the jovial exterior is a man quietly drowning in loneliness, carrying a secret habit he can't explain even to himself. Then a long-buried truth about his son surfaces, and everything Artie thought he knew about his marriage, his family, and his own life begins to crack open.
Set against the noise and fracture of a country arguing with itself, this is Strout at her most devastating: a novel about the vast unknowable universe inside every ordinary person, and what it costs us to keep things unsaid.
Praise for The Things We Never Say
"A profound, resplendent novel that stares our present moment in the face." — Financial Times
"One of Strout's most profound novels yet." — Kirkus Reviews
"Energized prose and gimlet-eyed insights." — Time
"Strout's masterful novel poses searching questions, yet ultimately gives readers hope." — Shelf Awareness
"Brilliantly understated and all the more powerful for that." — 2026 Booker Prize judges
PREVIOUS PICKS
July 26’ Pick
On the day a bestselling author books a table at Aunt Orsa's, twenty-two rib eye steaks vanish from the walk-in and the online reviews turn vicious.
As the story passes from baker to chef to hostess to line cook over one frantic day, a small theft opens onto something bigger: the loves and labors behind one beautiful meal.
June 26’ Pick
A dystopian fantasy about two women on opposite sides of a war, bound together by a prophecy and a man they're both fated to find.
Sweeping, romantic, and impossible to put down.
May 26’ Pick
Funny, heartfelt, and refreshingly honest, this book explores love, heartbreak, rescue dogs, and the winding path back to yourself. It’s about messy chapters, unexpected healing, and the animals who somehow know exactly how to carry us through.
April 26’ Pick
My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney is a twisty psychological thriller about a woman who comes home from a morning run to find a stranger living her life. Her key doesn't fit. A woman who looks just like her answers the door. And her husband says the stranger is his wife.
March 26’ Pick
The Hitch by Sara Levine is a darkly comic novel about control slowly curdling into obsession. It asks what happens when the chaos we try hardest to avoid is the chaos we invite in ourselves.
February 26’ Pick
Heart the Lover lingers on a love triangle whose consequences stretch far beyond youth. It asks how the lives we don’t choose continue to shape the ones we do.
January 26’ Pick
A myth retold with teeth. I, Medusa flips the script on a familiar legend and asks who gets labeled the villain when the story is written by someone else.
December 25’ Pick
A quietly curious novel about lost poems, half-remembered histories, and the very human urge to find meaning where certainty no longer exists.
November 25’ Pick
An elegant cautionary tale about fear, conformity, and the trouble with letting gossip run the town.