James by Percival Everett
National Book Award winner in 2024 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, this retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is brilliantly and graciously crafted. Told from the perspective of Jim, this is an enlightening, fascinating and humorous read—especially for those who appreciate a reimagined American classic.
Trust by Hernan Diaz
Pulitzer Prize winner in 2023 and long listed for the Booker Prize in 2022, Diaz explores wealth, social standing, family, manipulation of fact and power in four unique narratives—a novel-within-a-novel, an unfinished autobiography, a memoir and a diary. Beginning in New York City during the 1920s and spanning a century, I’ve never read a book with this structure, and it is not only genius, but absolutely fascinating to put together the puzzle that Diaz created for the reader.
Casie Leigh Lukes is a Minnesota-based writer, editor and owner of Cocoa & Champagne—creator of custom library curations. Find her on Instagram @cocoaandchampagne.
