Notable and Award-Winning Books of 2021

From: Penguin Random House - Thursday Dec 30,2021 01:33 am

Pick up the books that have been vetted by the best! From Pulitzer Prize finalists to National Book Award winners, these stories are guaranteed to be exceptional.

All That She Carried
By Tiya Miles

National Book Award Winner | Kirkus Prize Finalist

All That She Carried is a poignant story of resilience and of love passed down through generations of women against steep odds. It honors the creativity and fierce resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties even when official systems refused to do so—a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today.
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Last Night at the Telegraph Club
By Malinda Lo

National Book Award Winner

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the feeling took root—that desire to look, to move closer, to touch. Whenever it started growing, it definitely bloomed the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. Suddenly everything seemed possible.

But America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.
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Hell of a Book
By Jason Mott

National Book Award Winner

An astounding work of fiction from New York Times bestselling author Jason Mott—always deeply honest, at times electrically funny—that goes to the heart of racism, police violence, and the hidden costs exacted upon Black Americans and America as a whole.
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What Strange Paradise
By Omar El Akkad

New York Times Notable Book of the Year

From the widely acclaimed, bestselling author of American War—a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic, and profoundly moving novel that looks at the global refugee crisis through the eyes of a child.

In alternating chapters, we learn about Amir’s life and how he came to be on the boat, and we follow him and the girl as they make their way toward safety. What Strange Paradise is the story of two children finding their way through a hostile world. But it is also a story of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair—and about the way each of those things can blind us to reality.
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The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels
By India Holton

New York Times Notable Book of the Year

A prim and proper lady thief must save her aunt from a crazed pirate and his dangerously charming henchman in this fantastical historical romance.
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Velvet Was the Night
By Silvia Moreno-Garcia

New York Times Notable Book of the Year

From the bestselling author of Mexican Gothic comes a riveting noir about a daydreaming secretary, a lonesome enforcer, and the mystery of a missing woman they’re both desperate to find.
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A Shot to Save the World
By Gregory Zuckerman

Longlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award

A #1 New York Times bestselling author and award-winning Wall Street Journal investigative journalist lauded for his “bravura storytelling” (Gary Shteyngart) and “first-rate” reporting (The New York Times), Zuckerman takes us inside the top-secret laboratories, corporate clashes, and high-stakes government negotiations that led to effective shots. Deeply reported and endlessly gripping, this is a dazzling, blow-by-blow chronicle of the most consequential scientific breakthrough of our time. It’s a story of courage, genius, and heroism. It’s also a tale of heated rivalries, unbridled ambitions, crippling insecurities, and unexpected drama. A Shot to Save the World is the story of how science saved the world.
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A Little Devil in America
By Hanif Abdurraqib

National Book Award Finalist

Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain, infused with the lyricism and rhythm of the musicians he loves. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space—from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio.
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