What We’re Reading Now
Looking for your next literary escape? With Book Clubs on our mind — BLR‘s first one just wrapped! — here are some of our editors’ picks for their favorite books right now.
Danielle Ofri
Editor-in-Chief
Danielle’s Pick: Fire Exit by Morgan Talty (plus BLR submissions!)
Because I LOVE book clubs, I’m reading Fire Exit by Morgan Talty. It’s so fantastic that I raced ahead to finish it! Also reading lots of submissions to BLR – it’s like opening a treasure chest because
you never know what you’ll find. I’m constantly amazed and impressed at the breadth of creativity and experience. It makes me wish we published a 500-page journal 6 times a year…
Doris W. Cheng
Fiction Editor
Doris’s Pick: Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves; Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
Roger Reeves’ poetry collection Best Barbarian has dazzling, powerful language, with so many lines that meet the historical moment. “The body in flames will not be the body / in flames but just a house fire ignored.”
I also really enjoyed Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico (translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes). It defies so much conventional wisdom about narrative (e.g., that one should emphasize the personal over the collective, or emotional experience over the political/sociological). Here there’s no real protagonist, no plot, no dramatic arc. It feels daring and anthropological and unerringly precise about an entire generation, millennial expats living in Berlin during the early days of the Internet.
Lauralee Leonard
Associate Fiction Editor
Lauralee’s Pick: The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovitz
I just finished The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovitz. My other book club is dedicated to reading the current year’s Booker List. This novel was on the Booker long list and is our selection for May.
The book’s narrator is a middle-aged married man who is navigating a number of life crises all at once, and his way of figuring things out sets us up for the story. The writing is skilled and kept me reading or was it listening—the tone of the book felt more like listening to a friend rather than reading a book. This bothered me at moments. I found myself feeling annoyed by a droning quality to the telling, but maybe it was actually the character of the teller that was getting on my nerves?
By the end of the story, I felt compassion for the narrator and the other characters in the story and experienced the world Markovitz created as familiar and a known territory. Likely I will recommend The Rest of Our Lives to my book-reading friends, with the caveat: You might like it.
Scott Oglesby
Assistant Nonfiction Editor
Scott’s Pick: Daughter of a Song: A Memoir by Sarah Curtis Graziano
I’m reading Daughter of a Song, a memoir by Sarah Curtis Graziano. I picked it up at AWP conference in Baltimore. It called out to me because she’s Southern and I’m publishing my own Southern memoir in Aug, Sept? — Telling Dixie Goodbye (stay tuned). I found her experiences very similar to mine and her voice is so homey. It’s an unusual mix of music and narrative. Highly recommend!
Daughter of a Song is a 2025 book about Graziano’s father, rock and roll pioneer Sonny Curtis (of The Crickets), exploring his life, fame, and the impact of his music on her own identity, blending personal narrative with cultural history from West Texas to Hollywood and beyond.
Kate Falvey
Associate Editor
Kate’s Pick: The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong; The Secrets of the First School by T.L. Huchu
As the NYTimes asks in “By the Book”: What’s on my nightstand now?
Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness, T.L. Huchu’s The Secrets of the First School (the fifth in his Edinburgh Nights series) and, as ever, re-reading assorted favorite mystery authors (Stephen Spotswood, Sue Grafton, Martha Grimes, Sara Paretsky, Robert B. Parker). I always have several books going so I can honor my moods. Vuong’s story: beautifully sad—a strange, poetic delight; Huchu: I’m in love with his character, Ropa Moyo. This is apocalyptic fantasy with a young ghost-talking heroine who learns how familial complications do and don’t define her. The mysteries are just pure escapism—but the best of them are witty and psychologically/socially astute. Spotswood’s sixth book is delayed since his publisher (Doubleday) dropped him—which is bizarre. His Pentecost and Parker series is riveting.
Stacy Bodziak
Managing Editor
Stacy’s Pick: Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
I’ve been reading Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout. It’s a beautiful collection of connected stories about the people in a small Midwestern town. Each story has gut-punch moments of emotion and surprise — these lives feel full and real, and connecting the dots between the stories adds an extra layer for the reader. Lovely.
Ronna Wineberg
Contributing Fiction Editor
Ronna’s Pick: Monuments and Other Stories by David Milofsky
I recently finished reading Monuments and Other Stories by David Milofsky. It’s a moving, beautifully written collection. I chose to read it because we published his work in the BLR. He skillfully brings the reader into the lives and emotions of his characters. I enjoyed the strong, insightful prose and concise dialogue, the characters and their unique, poignant challenges. Many stories in the collection take place in a suburban Colorado neighborhood. He writes about love, loss, and loneliness, marriages thriving or failing, about tragedies, prejudice, and a community’s resistance to change. One story in the book, “Eruv,” a favorite of mine, first appeared in the BLR and received special mention in the Pushcart Prize in 2011. Very highly recommended.
Monuments and Other Stories was published by Serving House Books in 2026. The book is a collection of ten short stories.