Bookshop Santa Cruz staff recommendation:

This is my favorite flavor of Ondaatje. Atmospherically reminiscent of The English Patient, Warlight stands on its own as a uniquely great coming-of-age story wrapped in a riveting spy mystery. Immerse yourself in London’s criminal underworld and the shadowy figures of postwar espionage. Taking you from the depths of the Thames to the heights of London’s rooftops, Warlight takes you on a delicious journey.  —Clara

In this faced paced novel, Contreras draws upon her life to create a novel that reads like a thriller and coming of age story set in her native Columbia. Chula is drawn to her live-in maid, Petrona who comes from a guerrilla-occupied slum. As the relationship between Petroana and Chula grows, so does the danger they find themselves in. I felt I was reading a diary of both Chula and Petrona's everyday lives. This only added to the depth of the story for me. The last half of the book I was rushing to devour every word. I was left heartbroken with the taste of reality both faced.

Ted Chiang is one of the best modern speculative fiction writers, and his writing encompasses the breadth of the human experience. The stories in this collection are subtle, introspective, and incredibly smart, and Chiang masterfully explores themes of science, theology, fate, heartbreak, and love. I can’t recommend this highly enough for fans of literary science fiction. - Stuart

Aslan is one of the smartest religious scholars out there. This book reads as both a study of Islam and a commentary forces impacting religion in the modern world (he is especially adroit about extremism and orthodoxy). His perspective will make you fall in love with the beauty of the world’s second-largest religion and think deeply about how we navigate faith in the 21^st century. - Clara