Books from United States

What does it mean to belong to a homeland you may never fully know? In this moving collection of essays, Palestinian-American writer Zaina Arafat explores the complexities of diaspora, inherited memory, and the longing for home. Moving between Nablus, Amman, the Appalachian Mountains, and Manhattan, she weaves together her family’s history, her experiences of identity and motherhood, and the pain of watching Palestine from afar. With tenderness, anger, and sharp insight, Arafat examines what it means to preserve a culture across generations while confronting displacement, erasure, and the shifting meaning of belonging. Our Arab is both an intimate family portrait and a powerful meditation on what it means to be Palestinian today.

Three years after a car accident kills his pregnant wife, Wolo is slowly learning to live with his grief. Then a letter arrives from Victoria, the woman responsible for her death, asking to meet him. Against the wishes of his family, Wolo agrees, opening the door to an encounter that challenges everything he believes about guilt, forgiveness, and healing. A moving novel about the complicated ways love survives loss—and whether compassion can exist alongside unbearable pain.

When sharp-tongued literary critic Selina Chan delivers a devastating review of novelist Parker Navarro’s work for the second time, their private animosity erupts into a viral public feud. But behind the headlines and cutting remarks, an unexpected connection begins to grow. A witty, slow-burn romance set in the world of books and publishing, Bad Words explores ambition, vulnerability, and the complicated relationship between art, criticism, and the people who create it.

In this powerful memoir, Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil recounts his detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in March 2025 and the fight against his threatened deportation. A Columbia University graduate student and legal permanent resident, Khalil became a prominent voice in student protests against the war in Gaza. His arrest separated him from his pregnant wife and home in New York, transporting him to a detention facility in Louisiana, where he faced uncertainty about his future and the possibility of being forcibly removed from the country. Drawing on the diary he kept during his imprisonment, Khalil describes the psychological toll of detention, the precarious lives of fellow detainees, and the unexpected solidarity that develops among people deprived of their freedom. He also traces his family’s history of displacement—from Palestine to a refugee camp in Syria—and his own journey through Lebanon to the United States. Combining personal testimony with political reflection, this memoir examines exile, belonging, and the consequences of speaking out against injustice. It asks what freedom and security truly mean when a person’s right to remain at home can be challenged for exercising their right to protest.

The Radiance is a literary novel that explores spiritual awakening, personal identity, and the search for meaning in a fractured contemporary world. The story follows a writer whose life is transformed by a near-fatal hit-and-run accident on a country road. As he struggles to understand what happened, he experiences an unsettling spiritual awakening that blurs the boundary between revelation and madness. Drawn toward a brilliant colleague at a university, the narrator becomes entangled in an intense relationship and a scandal that threatens to destroy them both. As the investigation into his accident unfolds, buried family secrets emerge, forcing him to confront questions about memory, faith, desire, and his own understanding of reality. Moving between rural America and Europe, and exploring the intersections of Islam and Christianity, Akhtar examines the tensions between personal belief and public life. Blending psychological suspense with philosophical reflection, the novel asks whether moments of profound disruption can reveal something meaningful about existence, even when the truth remains uncertain.

In this darkly humorous and deeply personal memoir, Katya Suvorova recounts her childhood as an undocumented Russian immigrant in Houston, Texas, after her mother brought her to the United States in search of a better life. Arriving at just three years old, Katya grows up amid instability, poverty, and a succession of her mother’s husbands. Instead of experiencing a carefree childhood, she learns to navigate a world of uncertainty while taking on responsibilities far beyond her age, including caring for her younger sister. At seventeen, Katya discovers her mother’s advertisement in a mail-order bride catalogue from the 1990s, prompting her to reconsider her family’s history and the sacrifices behind their immigration. As she grows older, she confronts painful questions about motherhood, obligation, and whether a child’s future must be repayment for a parent’s sacrifices. Combining sharp humour with an unflinching account of family trauma, Suvorova explores immigration, generational conflict, and the complicated relationship between gratitude and personal freedom.

Until the Last Gun Is Silent examines the role of Black Americans in the Vietnam War and the movement to bring the conflict to an end. Historian Matthew F. Delmont traces the experiences of Black servicemen, veterans, activists, and peace protesters who confronted both the violence of war abroad and racial injustice at home. Their stories reveal the contradictions of fighting for democracy overseas while experiencing discrimination within the United States. The book also explores how Black communities challenged official narratives about military service, patriotism, and the purpose of the war. By connecting battlefield experiences with political activism and the struggle for civil rights, Delmont presents a broader account of the forces that helped end American involvement in Vietnam and reshape debates about citizenship, equality, and national responsibility.

Raised in a Palestinian Christian family in San Francisco, Elena Dudum grows up surrounded by her father’s stories of a homeland her grandparents were forced to leave. For years, she resists this inheritance, trying to fit into American life and escape the weight of a history she struggles to claim. But a visit to Palestine brings the realities of occupation, displacement, and her family’s past into sharp focus. Weaving together family memories, archival discoveries, and political reflection, this intimate memoir traces one woman’s journey from estrangement to belonging—and her determination to reclaim a heritage that cannot be erased.

Summer 1986, at Kelsey College. Professors Sam and Vera Ward have been married for decades, but their relationship follows an unusual arrangement: each academic year, Sam may take one student as a lover, provided the affair ends within twelve months. Their carefully controlled tradition begins to unravel when they choose Jade, a mysterious and fiercely intelligent young woman who has plans of her own. As desire turns into obsession and manipulation, the boundaries between predator and prey begin to collapse. Secrets become weapons, loyalties shift, and the power dynamics that once held the Wards’ marriage together threaten to destroy them all. Seductive, unsettling, and sharply observed, Jaded explores sexual politics, complicity, ambition, and the dangerous games people play to maintain control.

In the isolated community of the Veil, Bodie grows up surrounded by his many mothers and devoted to a female God. His world seems peaceful, governed by ancient traditions and strict expectations. But as Bodie develops romantic feelings for his closest friend, Aster, he begins to question the rules that shape their lives. When he approaches a mysterious ritual marking the transition to adulthood, unsettling truths emerge about the society he has always trusted. To protect himself and the people he loves, Bodie must confront the one thing his community forbids: escape. Haunting and thought-provoking, this speculative novel explores faith, desire, survival, and the dangers of unquestioned traditions.

Anastasia Ān Xiá Huang is in her twenties, living in Oakland’s Chinatown, and wondering whether the city she loves is also the place holding her back. Working at a modern art museum while her own artistic ambitions gather dust, she sees an unexpected inheritance—a rundown Victorian house left by her beloved uncle—as her chance to start over. But the house holds more than renovation projects: unsettling memories of her childhood begin resurfacing, forcing her to confront an absent father, a distant mother, and the family secrets that have shaped her. As Anastasia untangles the mysteries of her home and her past, she must decide what it means to belong somewhere and whether moving forward requires leaving something behind. A vivid, intimate novel about family, cultural identity, grief, and the complicated ties between people and places.

March 1970. With postal workers on strike, seventeen-year-old Sibby escapes a conversion camp and hits the road with a letter for the woman she loves. Along the way, she meets Lee, a woman transporting two swans to Ohio, and the pair begin delivering messages across the Midwest. As they invent stories about the people behind the letters, an unexpected love story begins to unfold between them. Funny, tender, and unconventional, Swans explores queer love, self-invention, and the freedom to imagine a different life.