Read Right Now: Great Books to Hunker Down With in 2018
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What are you reading in the new year? We asked The Washington Post's Ron Charles to recommend some great books to read right now and in the coming week. Here are a few of his picks to get us through the winter.
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“The Power” by Naomi Alderman | Out now | Fiction
Ron says: The Power is one of those essential feminist works that terrifies and illuminates, enrages and encourages. Alderman’s premise is simple; her execution endlessly inventive: Teenage girls everywhere suddenly discover that their bodies can produce a deadly electrical charge.
"Sing, Unburied, Sing” by Jesmyn Ward | Out now | Fiction
Ron says: A powerful, complex novel about drug-addiction and the modern-day legacy of slavery. Recently won the National Book Award in 2017. Ward employs several strangely tethered narrators and allows herself to reach back in time while keeping this family chained to the rusty stake of American racism.
“Red Clocks" by Leni Zumas | Out soon | Fiction
Ron says: Another explosive feminist book like “The Power.” A feminist dystopia that imagines the U.S. a few years from now when abortion is completely illegal, and there's a “Pink Wall” keeping pregnant women from fleeing to Canada. It’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” updated and extended.
"The Music Shop" by Rachel Joyce | Out now | Fiction
Ron says: A really sweet romantic comedy about a music shop owner who thinks he’ll never fall in love again. Because we need something light in these dark times! An unabashedly sentimental tribute to the healing power of great songs. Her novel’s catalogue stretches from Bach to the Beach Boys, from Vivaldi to the Sex Pistols. Crank up the turntable and let these pages sing.
“The Gifted Generation” by David Goldfield | Out now | Nonfiction
Ron says: This book recounts a phenomenon that many Americans have never experienced and don’t believe is possible — a government that works.
BOOKS TO WATCH
"Fire and Fury" by Michael Wolff | Out soon | Nonfiction
Though he's not yet reviewed it, Ron is looking forward to reading the controversial new book about the Trump campaign and the president's first year in the White House. It's already provoked strong criticism from the President Trump and a lawsuit.
“The Monk of Mokha” by Dave Eggers | Out soon | Fiction
Ron plans to pick up this work of nonfiction about a Muslim American who grew up in San Francisco and goes to Yemen to learn about his heritage and coffee cultivation. But once there, he gets trapped in the civil war.
This segment is hosted by Todd Zwillich
