Because Every Nightstand Book Stack Should Be a Skyscraper

Books make us more empathetic. And happier. And they make your bedside table look marvelous.

5 June 2026

Dear Friends Who Read and Readers Who are Friends,

This week new novels arrived from Maggie O’Farrell (LAND), Ann Patchett (WHISTLER), and Courtney Baum (ALAN OPTS OUT).

I’m going to read all three, and I am especially excited about ALAN OPTS OUT, because as a person who spent a decade in advertising, I’m all-in for any novel about a “mad man” who walks away from the madness.

Now, below are new or almost new or soon-to-be-new books I devoured — and can recommend for your beach bags and nightstands. After all, every nightstand TBR book pile should be a skyscraper

All the best,

Chris

www.chrisbohjalian.com

* * *

THE SHAMPOO EFFECT by Jenny Jackson (on sale June 30). THE SHAMPOO EFFECT is one of the smartest, funniest, and most astute novels I’ve ever read about that liminal period when we’re supposed to be responsible parents of small children, but still close enough to our own adolescence that we pine for the teenage freedoms we’d once taken for granted. An aspiring novelist, the single Caroline Lash, is savoring a fellowship to write her first book on a coastal village north of Boston, and there becomes part of a posse of thirty-something parents (and soon-to-be parents), a group that has been bonded together since they were teens. But as everyone walks that tightrope between being grownups -- raising Pokemon-obsessed children and paying the mortgage and trying to be present for their partners -- and the leisurely hedonism they’d all once enjoyed, this new interloper inadvertently upsets the status quo that has kept the peace. Unexpected pregnancies, marital revelations, sibling rivalries, emotional (and actual) infidelities. . .and all of it presented by Jenny Jackson with a combination of great humor and profound wistfulness. I loved this novel. You will, too.

BRAWLER, by Lauren Groff (on sale now). I first fell in love with Lauren Groff's fiction with her magnificent novel, FATES AND FURIES. I've been hooked ever since. Nevertheless, despite having read all her novels and all her short story collections, I was unprepared for how much the tales in BRAWLER would surprise me, move me, or, best of all, haunt me. The nine tales in it are unpredictable. Some will leave you nodding at a child or teen's capacity for cruelty ("Such Small Islands" or "Birdie"), other's at the wonder inside any human heart ("To Sunland" or "What's the Time, Mr. Wolf?"). It's a poignant, beautiful, always unsettling collection, up there with the very best of Lorrie Moore, Flannery O'Connor, and Karen Russell.

CALLER UNKNOWN, by Gillian McAllister (on sale now). I devoured CALLER UNKNOWN, which will surprise no one given that I have loved all of Gillian McAllister's novels I've read. CALLER UNKNOWN is particularly gripping because it's a tale of a kidnapped teenage girl, and how her mother goes nearly full-on "Breaking Bad" to try and rescue her. It moves between Texas and Mexico, and there are drug mule moments that make "Euphoria" look tame. But its beating heart is not merely dread -- which I love. It's also a deeply moving mother/daughter love story (which I love, too), and the lengths to which a parent will go for a child. You'll be hooked.

THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY, by Elizabeth Strout (on sale now). THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY is a devastating book: devastatingly beautiful, devastatingly smart, and devastatingly kind. Meet Artie Dam, revered high school history teacher in a Boston suburb in 2024, who is just starting to lose his grip. His grown son's marriage is unraveling, his relationship with his own wife has gotten strangely prickly, and some of his students in this post-Covid world have become brittle. Moreover, if he is not clinically depressed, he is beginning to find suicide an increasingly attractive siren. He and his wife and their son are all harboring secrets, things they never say. This novel precisely, beautifully, and with unexpected power captures the fragility within all of us. And that last act? Moving (even gutting), harrowing, and spot-on. As always, Elizabeth Strout really sticks the landing. (Also? I want all of us to start wearing T shirts that say things like, “I stand with Artie Dam,” or “Danny Marino ain’t just a jock,” or “Let’s get to work!” Or, perhaps, a ball cap that says, “I keep my F-U’s here.”)

VILLA COCO, by Andrew Sean Greer (on sale June 9). Tuscany — Disney World for grownups — has never been more delightfully, wildly, sometimes hilariously eccentric. A young man, our hero, is sent to the Tuscan estate of an ageless Baronessa (she’s ninety-two, but has the carriage of a much younger woman) to “catalog” her art and items that she insists are art. And amidst the wine, the clothes, the “machina,” the wildlife, her friends, his new friends. . .well, hijinks ensue. It’s a treasure.

COUNTRY PEOPLE, by Daniel Mason (on sale July 7). I’ve been a tremendous fan of Daniel Mason’s work since I devoured THE WINTER SOLDIER. His latest, COUNTRY PEOPLE, has all the elements of his fiction, especially the masterpiece, NORTH WOODS, that I have come to love: a sly sense of whimsy, astute insights into the human soul, remarkable animals, wonder at the natural (and unnatural) world, and sentences that are rhythmically perfect. In COUNTRY PEOPLE, two professors and their children (and their dog), move from California to my beloved Vermont, and there they meet …well… country people. Chaos ensues. Craziness abounds. And it is not merely a delightful romp, it’s one of those life-affirming stories that will leave you ebullient and joyful when you finish.

YESTERYEAR, by Caro Claire Burke (on sale now). Meet Natalie Heller Mills, trad wife and Instagram influencer, star of her renowned Yesteryear Ranch, where women are women, men are men, the children are always adorable, and the values are "traditional." Conservative beyond MAGA, if that's possible, and everyone seems to live as if it's the 1880s, except the kitchen appliances are modern and (yes) spectacular. And then, much to Natalie Heller Mills's horror, she is seemingly catapulted back to the 1880s -- so, no magnificent kitchen appliances. Or indoor plumbing. Or electricity. Or nannies and content producers. Or bazillions of Instagram followers. And we're off on a novel that is increasingly dark (but still, often, very funny), as one of the most wondrously unhinged narrators you will meet in 2026 tries to navigate a genuinely traditional world without losing her mind. Unless, of course, she already has. . .

POLLOCK’S LAST LOVER, by Stephen P. Kiernan (on sale now). It was the Canadian writer Guy Vanderhaeghe who first said, “History tells us what people do; historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt.” There's a lot of truth to that, and it explains why we love to read historical fiction -- and why I devoured Stephen Kiernan's, POLLOCK'S LAST LOVER. We all know a little about Jackson Pollock and we all know a bit about the insane prices that some paintings go for in auction (including Pollock's). The wonder and beauty of a novel like this is the remarkable ways you feel (REALLY feel) what the painters, their spouses, the art house detectives, and (yes) their lovers might have experienced -- first in the 1950s, when the work is being created, and then sixty years later, when one painting may (or may not) come to auction. Is it a real Pollock or a clever forgery? Is the woman attempting to sell it who claims to be Pollock's last lover an elderly grifter or, indeed, the one witness to the painting's creation? It's riveting, all of it: the madness of a painter losing his grip, his inamorata who may never have had a grip to begin with, and the increasing desperation of one art house investigator who realizes she may have on her hands a painting worth $50 million -- or a forgery that may cost her a career. This book is an absolute gem. I loved it.

SINGLE GIRLS, by John Searles (on sale July 7). Devoured this funny, moving, and seriously inspiring novel in two nights. John Searles, who spent years as an editor at Cosmopolitan, has brought back to life Helen Gurley Brown, the editor (and, yes, visionary) who resurrected the magazine from the dead in the 1960s and revolutionized what a magazine could be for young women. But it's not merely a reimagining of Brown's remarkable life: it's a time machine back to the 1960s when -- perhaps for the first time -- "single girls" could walk with pride and be themselves, instead of merely "someone's wife" or "someone's mom." Bonus? Toward the end of this lovely novel are four pages of Cosmo "pitch" ideas to see if the magazine is for you. It's one of those Easter eggs that will leave you nodding and smiling.

KIN, by Tayari Jones (on sale now). I listened to this poignant, powerful, inspiring novel about two sisters and the fierce aunt who raises them on audio, often while walking my dog, and was either offering my pup the sounds of quite the ugly cry alone in the woods, or I would simply have to stop and absorb the remarkable rhythm of Jones’s magnificent sentences. This is among the most emotionally resonant novels that will be published this year. A gem.

FIVE, by Ilona Bannister (on sale now). Ilona Bannister has written a riveting, ticking time bomb of a novel. Five is brilliant: a gripping tour de force about destiny and choice—and, yes, an oncoming train. I devoured it. You will, too.

GO GENTLE, by Maria Semple (on sale now). The Stoics aren't obvious fodder for comedy, but Maria Semple isn't your average comic novelist. Her novels have moments of laugh-out-loud brilliance, not surprising given her time spent on the magnificent TV series, "Arrested Development," but there is also an undercurrent of wistfulness and inchoate unease in her work. Such is the case with her welcome new novel, "Go Gentle," the title a reference to the Dylan Thomas poem in which he urges us not to go quietly, but to rage "against the dying of the light." The novel revolves around Adora Hazard, a bestselling philosopher who helps people try and live a serene life by following the wisdom of the Greek stoics. She has a teen daughter, female friends in her West Side apartment complex -- her self-proclaimed coven -- and two young kids she tutors who come from a family with more money than small nations. Life is calm, a little dull, until. . .she may have come across a dangerous arms deal and a peculiar Greek statue. And the screwball pyrotechnics commence. It's a delight -- but Semple is so smart that she never lets us forget the human stakes, and the real reason (which is devastating) behind our philosopher's tattoo.

LAKE EFFECT, by Cynthia Sweeney (on sale now). Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney is a rarity: a novelist who has both a profound understanding of the hopes and fears that power the human heart AND spectacular comedic timing. I loved this novel: it was, in countless ways, the perfect novel for me. Two close families are dramatically changed in 1978 when the husband of one and the wife of the other realize how deeply and madly in love they are, leading to -- super shock in Rochester, NY in 1978 -- two divorces in one tony neighborhood. The four adults, their four children, are both complex and -- again, super shock, given how usually my jam is dread -- likable. I adored them all, and savored watching how these two divorces would change everything (including the high school production of "Godspell"). Also, wow, did D'Aprix Sweeeney stick the landing. I went from laughing at a daughter changing the size tags of a dress in a department store to accommodate her mother's self-delusion, to weeping at the ways even the most imperfect families can sometimes figure it all out. Just a banger of a book.

RUBY FALLS, by Gin Phillips (on sale now). I have been a tremendous fan of Gin Phillips since being riveted by her brilliant 2017 novel, "Fierce Kingdom" -- a magnificent, terrifying novel about a mother and child trapped in a zoo WITH ACTIVE SHOOTERS after dark. Well, I loved "Ruby Falls," her brand new novel, even more. It's Depression-era Tennessee and a psychic is going to find a hairpin hidden somewhere deep in a cave as a publicity stunt to draw attention to the struggling tourist attraction and natural wonder, Ruby Falls: a waterfall 150 underground and its nearby aboveground restaurant. Over the course of a day (and then into the night and the small hours of the morning), six people will traverse those caves, claustrophobic passageways, and slender tunnels, always in the dark, often lost. And watching over them from a distance are two experienced cavers. And since we know from the bats and spiders and millipedes and ants we meet on the first page that at least one of this group is dead -- his corpse is their "banquet" -- the tension is exquisite.

THE GATEPOST, by Tim Weed (on sale now). Yes, another cave — or a portal. Shamanism, psilocybin mushrooms, Vermont and a father who has disappeared. Is his daughter, Esme Weatherhead mad for, almost literally, going down this rabbit hole? Addictive in all the best ways.

Okay, remember I began this note by telling you that I worked for a decade in advertising? I would be derelict if I did not mention one more book.

Mine.

(Forgive me, forgive me!)

THE AMATEUR arrives in less than two months now (August 4) and you can preorder it wherever you buy your books — and, trust me, preorders matter to a book’s success. Rather than me telling you about THE AMATEUR, I’ll let others. (You can also watch the “book trailer” at the very end of this newsletter.)

Chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of “The Novels Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2026.”

Chosen by Oprah’s Book Club as one of “Six Stories That’ll Set the Tone for the Summer.”

Chosen by the Boston Globe as one of the 75 Books of the Summer.

“Styled as an unflinchingly candid memoir written by Mira decades after the fact, Bohjalian’s latest dazzles as it devastates. Plentiful foreshadowing ramps up tension and keeps the momentum high while Mira turns over weighty subjects—sexual abuse, post-traumatic stress, familial dysfunction—with grace and wry humor. It’s a masterpiece.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“Irresistible… a marvelous 11th-hour twist and a satisfying denouement lie ahead. It’s hard to think of any reason not to call this a perfect novel: a hole in one.”
—Kirkus (Starred Review)

“Intrepid . . . Timely and empathic.”
—Booklist (Starred Review)

“Bohjalian delivers again with this suspenseful novel. . . . Provocative. . . . An engrossing read that will offer much discussion for book clubs.”
—Library Journal

“An irresistible, insightful retelling of Lolita.”
—Marion Winik, Oprah Daily

“The Amateur is a joyous novel with an unforgettable narrator who will break your heart. It is sharply funny, beautifully told and so moving on the way life can upend itself in a single moment. I adored it.”
—Clare Leslie Hall, New York Times bestselling author of Broken Country

“Unputdownable.”
—The Boston Globe

“Chris Bohjalian’s latest is, quite simply, a masterpiece. I cannot praise this novel enough. It’s delicate, haunting, complex, and startling; a wide-ranging condemnation of polite society disguised as a character study and comedy of manners. And in addition to all The Amateur‘s literary feats, the novel also happens to make golf seem…kinda interesting? Which is obviously the novel’s most difficult achievement. In case you want to know what the book’s actually about: The Amateur begins with a shocking death, as a budding golf pro hits a ball through a hole in a net and hits a caddy in the head, instantly killing him. What follows is an odyssey of self-recrimination and terrible truths, a prescient reminder that those who feel most inclined towards guilt are often the least deserving of blame. The Amateur is a standout stunner of a story, and the perfect gateway into Bohjalian’s substantial literary oeuvre.”
—Molly Odintz, CrimeReads