Staff Picks

What's worse than being a sixteen-year-old girl? Being a sixteen-year-old girl and one of the only two people left on the planet after a nuclear holocaust! The appropriately named Ann Burden channels her post-apocalyptic angst into journal entries chronicling every shard of hope and triumph of survival--including her strange relationship with the only other apparent survivor. I read this during my spring break in 7th grade and it made me hate my life a little less.

After nearly thirty years, this novel still resonates, existing dually as a work of abstract historical nonfiction and -- unfortunately -- a modern-day socio-political fable. Set in a nameless outpost in a nameless foreign land, its nameless narrator's clashes with a nameless empire remain incredibly relevant, thanks in no small part to Coetzee's taut, searing prose.

Set (mostly) in Atlanta, this book explores the complexities and challenges of “keeping up appearances” through the narrations of five (mostly) fictionalized, (mostly) prominent local figures whose lives gradually grow ever more interconnected throughout the tome’s 700+ pages. True Atlantans will balk at Wolfe’s (mostly) flawed interpretation of local life and lingo -- his characters frequently speak of such strange places as “the Buford Highway,” “Ponce De Leon Avenue,” and “the Journal-Constitution” -- but it makes for a (mostly) intriguing look into how the city and its residents are perceived to perceive their place in the world. I (mostly) enjoyed it.