Eight books to dog-ear by your nightstands

Beginning the listicle with Hika Harada’s whimsical Dinner at the Night Library, we meet Otaha Higuchi, a young woman worn down by the long hours and meagre pay of her chain-bookstore job. Just as she’s ready to give up, a mysterious message from Seven Rainbows invites her to work at the Night Library. But it’s no ordinary library, its shelves hold rare treasures, which were once owned by celebrated authors from the books they wrote, to the ones they cherished and drew inspiration from. Surrounded by literary eccentrics and a chef whose nightly feasts are legendary, Higuchi finally feels at home—until the library’s sudden closure threatens to take it all away. 

Shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep takes shape in the still-quiet Dutch countryside in the summer of 1961. Isabel, a solitary woman living in her late mother’s home, clings to a life of order and discipline—until her brother arrives with his new girlfriend, Eva, and leaves her there for the season. Eva is everything Isabel is not: Careless, noisy, irreverent. When small objects begin to vanish, suspicion hardens into obsession, then into a dangerous kind of desire. What follows is a taut blend of psychological drama and post-war reckoning—tense, sensual, and impossible to shake off. 

In Moy Moy’s Circle, Suchitra Shenoy tells the true story of Jo Chopra McGowan, an American living in India who adopts Moy Moy, a baby born with multiple disabilities and little chance of survival. What begins as an intimate portrait of a mother and child becomes the story of the Latika Roy Foundation, a pioneering organisation that has transformed the lives of thousands of children with developmental disabilities, their families, and their caregivers. Shenoy shows how love, dignity, and knowledge can ripple outward, proving that hope is never wasted. 

Long Distance by Aysegül Savas is a sharp, yet tender, collection about the emotional distances we keep—and try to close—in an age of constant connection. Her characters are often people living abroad, displaced more by choice than circumstance, grappling with the dissonance between the lives they’ve built and the ones they left behind. A researcher in Rome awaits her long-distance lover, only to find he is not the man she remembers. An expat on a layover meets a childhood friend whose unexpected contentment unsettles her. A newly pregnant woman breaks the “too soon” rule to repair a fragile friendship. With precision and intensity, Savas captures the quiet ache of displacement and the longing to bridge the gaps we carry within us.

With Never Flinch, Stephen King delivers a thriller that unfolds across two pulse-quickening storylines destined to intersect. In Buckeye City, Detective Izzy Jaynes receives a letter from someone vowing to kill 13 innocents and one guilty in revenge for a wrongful death. As the threat grows, she turns to her friend Holly Gibney. Meanwhile, feminist activist Kate McKay is targeted by a stalker during her lecture tour, prompting Holly to take on the role of bodyguard. With a cast of unforgettable characters—from a worldfamous gospel singer to a chillingly self-righteous killer—King delivers a taut and unnerving thriller. 

In The Dark Hours of the Night, Salma tells the coming-of-age story of Rabia, a teenager in a strict Tamil Nadu household where rules for girls are set in stone. She sneaks to the cinema with friends, plays outside until dusk, and confides in her best friend Mathina—but stays silent about her aunt Firdaus Chitti’s broken marriage. Before that wound can heal, a wedding is arranged for her cousin Wahida Akka, a match Rabia disapproves of but dares not challenge. When rumours link her to a boy named Ahmad, Rabia begins to fear that marriage could cut short her studies and her freedom. Then, a long-buried family secret surfaces, threatening to break their fragile ties. First published in Tamil in 2004 as Irandaam Jaamangalin Kathai and translated by GJV Prasad, it’s a sharp and tender portrait of women navigating tradition, silence, and the quiet rebellions that keep hope alive.

Leila Mottley in The Girls Who Grew Big turns her unflinching gaze toward a fierce sisterhood of teenage mothers in a sleepy Florida panhandle town. At 16, Adela Woods is sent away from her comfortable Indiana home to live with her grandmother in Padua Beach, where she meets Emory—still in high school and carrying her newborn everywhere she goes—and Simone, a mother of twins now facing another unexpected pregnancy. Alongside the rest of the girls, they raise their children from the back of a red truck, trading childcare, secrets, and small joys in defiance of a town quick to write them off. What follows is a vivid portrait of girlhood and motherhood entwined—messy, resilient, and luminous—where love and betrayal exist side by side, and where growing up means growing strong.

Finally, in Algospeak, linguist Adam Aleksic examines how algorithms are reshaping the way we communicate, tracing a linguistic revolution from “brainrot” memes and incel slang to the rise of “-core” aesthetics. Drawing on surveys, data, and internet archives, Aleksic shows how emojis, shifting grammar, and viral slang reflect deeper cultural changes. It’s a portrait of a new era of language—shaped by technology, driven by algorithms, and evolving faster than ever.

Lead image: Simon Schuster India for Dinner at the Night Library and Google.co.in for The Girls Who Grew Big

Inside images: Simon Schuster India for Dinner at the Night Library and Long Distance; Hachette India for Moy Moy’s Circle, and Google.co.in for The Safekeep; Amazon.in for Algospeak and Never Flinch; Google.co.in for The Girls Who Grew Big; Simon Schuster India for The Dark Hours of the Night

This article first appeared in the August-September 2025 issue of Harper's Bazaar India

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