sruchti's Notes
2026
The Queen of Swords
By Jazmina BarreraWinner of the 2025 Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation
When Tomorrow Burns
By Tae KellerHow much can I possibly love this book? Tae Keller brings to life three characters with storylines so complex and real that each could carry a novel of their own. When Tomorrow Burns is wonderfully Seattle-centric, in a way that serves and loves the city not as a placeholder, but as a story that could only take place in the upper echelons of the Pacific Northwest. Tae's skill, intensity, and empathy about how we communicate with kids about the climate crisis is both remarkable and discerning, taking into consideration the many difficulties of being a young person that are, too, world-shattering, and sometimes more immediate than an uncontrolled forest fire. This is a book that I guarantee will be taught in nearly every age-appropriate classroom in the Northwest, and elsewhere. What a wonderful, remarkable story—with cameos from the Seattle Public Library and Seattle's famous underground tour!
Enshittification
Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do about It
By Cory Doctorow
Extinction
By Thomas Bernhard
Down Time
By Andrew MartinAndrew Martin's latest novel is nothing less than stunning, with some of the best writing about being in your 30s and surrounded by writers. Exceedingly clever, with a menagerie of semi-despicable, horny, complex characters, DOWN TIME is the rebuttal to the misconception that a decent COVID-novel does not exist. Once I picked up this book and started reading, I could hardly leave it; when I did, Andrew Martin's voice remained in my head. If his books get any better, I may have to abandon reading altogether.
Before the Flood
A Gaza Family Memoir Across Three Generations of Colonial Invasion, Occupation, and War in Palestine
By Ramzy BaroudRamzy Baroud frames his history of Palestine through three generations of his own family—from village life in Beit Daras before the Nakba, to May 2025, at which point Israel's latest war on Palestinians had killed at least 52,000 people and wounded 118,000, nearly all of Gaza in rubble. It has been said that all art aspires to be music. Baroud's symphony of voices—joyful, proud, brave, unyielding voices—shows a history of Zionism within its violent, colonial context, and how even after repeated periods of genocide, the Palestinian people have endured over and over again. The stories Baroud brings to light through incredible sacrifice from family members who, even today, live and have died in Gaza while being chased by Israeli armaments, are nothing short of astonishing. As Ramzy writes: "The Palestinian people will eventually win their freedom because they have invested in a long-term trajectory of ideas, memories, and communal aspirations. . . if the oppressed, the Indigenous of the land, are not fully vanquished, they will rise, resist, fight, and win back their freedom."