| # | Title | Subtitle | Author(s) | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Playground | Richard Powers | 2024 | Category: Water The characters of this novel are all connected through the pull of the oceans, but they ultimately end up on very different sides of a showdown. | |
| 2 | Reefs of Time | What Fossils Reveal about Coral Survival | Lisa S Gardiner | 2025 | Category: Water "Like a detective novel for the reefs, Lisa Gardiner's book offers a fast-paced and fluid account of both ancient and modern corals, exposing clues and traces that reveal our oceans' dynamic history." - Juli Berwald, author of Life on the Rocks |
| 3 | One Last Stop | Casey McQuiston | 2021 | Category: Time Travel “Dreamy, other worldly, smart, swoony, thoughtful, hilarious - all in all, exactly what you’d expect from Casey McQuiston!” - Jasmine Guillory, author of The Proposal and Party for Two | |
| 4 | The Time Machine | H G Wells | 2014 | Category: Time Travel How will humanity fare hundreds of thousands of years into the future? HG Wells - credited with popularizing the idea of time machines - explores would could become in this novella. | |
| 5 | We'll Prescribe You a Cat | Syou Ishida | 2024 | Category: Soothing Finding healing through cat companionship. So very soothing. | |
| 6 | Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop | The Heart-Warming Korean Sensation | Hwang Bo-Reum | 2025 | Category: Soothing Here's a cozy read featuring bookstores and community in Seoul. Warm fuzzies guaranteed. |
| 7 | Body Electric | The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science to Reclaim Your Well-Being | Manoush Zomorodi and Keith Diaz | 2026 | Category: Unplug “A compelling, necessary and hopeful read for our busy, burned out, overwhelming and tech-addicted times. This book will make you want to move!” ―Brigid Schulte, author of Over Work For other books on how tech impacts our lives, check out this list. |
| 8 | The Digital Delusion | How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning -- And How To Help Them Thrive Again | Jared Horvath | 2025 | Category: Unplug "If you are an educator or a parent, you’ll want to read this book to understand how technology is changing education and changing children.” - Jonathon Haidt, Author of The Anxious Generation |
| 9 | Children of Time | Adrian Tchaikovsky | 2018 | Category: Outer Space Deep space and spiders? Wait a minute. Before you say "no," it's not as creepy as it sounds, but it is fascinating! And if you like it, you can continue the series. | |
| 10 | Space Chasers | To the Moon | Leland Melvin and Joe Caramagna | 2026 | Category: Outer Space A graphic novel co-authored by an astronaut that is "... an engaging science-based adventure that also explores friendship, team-building, overcoming personal insecurities, and other emotional themes." - Kirkus Reviews |
| 11 | A Short Stay in Hell (Firsttion) | Steven L Peck | 2012 | Category: Under 150 pages And what if hell was just an endless stack of unreadable books?This quick read is reminiscent of Piranesi and Katabasis. | |
| 12 | Recitatif | A Story | Toni Morrison | 2022 | Category: Under 150 pages Toni Morrison's only published short story, which she describes as “an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races." (Tip: Skip the intro until you're done reading the story and reflect for a moment before diving into Zadie Smith's analysis.) |
| 13 | Yellowface | A Reese's Book Club Pick | R F Kuang | 2025 | Category: Hard-to-Love Protagonist You may not like her very much, but you'll likely find yourself totally caught up in her story where she keeps digging herself deeper into the hole she created. |
| 14 | Catalina | Karla Cornejo Villavicencio | 2025 | Category: Hard-to-Love Protagonist The main character of this book won't win any popularity contests, but you still may enjoy her wry insights (about herself and others) as she navigates being an undocumented student at an Ivy League school. |