Words With Friends

Named to Esquire’s Best Books of 2018 So Far, The Sadness of Beautiful Things is a powerful new collection of short stories from award-winning author Simon Van Booy. A mysterious benefactor’s generosity toward a desperate family. A downtrodden boxer’s unexpected benevolence toward a mugger. Grief and happiness and tragedy and triumph: these masterfully written tales have it all.

A powerful politician with a violent past, a young woman who turns up dead, the politician’s former lover, and a group of misfits determined to find the truth. “Those Who Knew speaks with uncommon prescience to the swirl around us,” says Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad and All the Single Ladies. “Novey writes, with acuity and depth, about questions of silence, power, and complicity. The universe she has created is imagined, and all too real.”

There’s no better time—or greater need—to keep your motivation strong, your vibe high, and your quest for transformation unstoppable. Thus, there’s no better time—or greater need—to pick up You Are a Badass Everyday, the pocket-size compendium of guidance and inspiration from bestselling author Jen Sincero that will keep your head held high.

“Being French, some of my warmest memories and most interesting conversations have taken place at apéro time, that magical moment of the day when friends unwind and connect,” says Clotilde Dusoulier, author of Tasting Paris. “Now, Rebekah’s gorgeous book gives you everything you need to create your own.” Apéritif is your definitive (and effortless!) guide to cocktail hour the French way.

“Round up the badass babes in your vicinity for a game of Nasty Woman,” says Cosmopolitan, which describes the romp as “Cards Against Humanity with a feminist twist.” Celebrate the famous feminists of our culture—Beyoncé, Gloria Steinem, Michelle Obama, Ruth Bader Ginsburg—while you outplay the not-so-famous feminists in the room. Let the nastiest woman win.

With love at first sight, missed connections, and the kind of love that can only be fueled by Christmastime, it’s no surprise The Bookseller calls this “the novelistic equivalent to Love Actually.” Two people, ten chances, and one unforgettable love story: One Day in December is an unmissable read this winter.

Cynthia Chen McTernan is a lawyer and the self-taught home cook and photographer behind Two Red Bowls, winner of the 2015 Saveur Blog Award for Most Delicious Food. Now she’s back with A Common Table, which shares more than 80 Asian-inspired recipes that marry the author’s Chinese ancestry, Southern rearing, and in-laws’ Korean cuisine.

What really happened during the Dance of the Dragons? Why was it so deadly to visit Valyria after the Doom? What was it like in Westeros when dragons ruled the skies? Find out in the definitive two-part history of the Targaryens in Westeros from George R. R. Martin, author of the Song of Ice and Fire series, the inspiration behind HBO’s Game of Thrones.

These are the confessions of Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess, the infamous bandits, fugitives, and lovers. A tale of underworld resistance and gender transformation from Jordy Rosenberg, The New York Times calls Confessions of the Fox “a mind-bending romp through a gender-fluid, 18th-century London…a joyous mash-up of literary genres shot through with queer theory and awash in sex, crime, and revolution.”

Praised by Publishers Weekly, Vogue, Slate, Elle, The Cut, Vulture, and more, Sally Rooney’s novel lives at the intersection of pleasure and danger, friendship and romance. “I love debuts where you just can’t believe that it was a debut,” writes Zadie Smith. “Conversations with Friends paints a nuanced, page-turning portrait of a whip-smart university student in the throes of an affair with an older married man.”