Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America by John Waters

John Waters, writer of cult-classic films such as Hairspray, hitchhikes across America with farmers, bands, and everyone in between.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Count Alexander Rostov is deemed to be an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal and is thus sentenced to house arrest in a hotel across from the Kremlin, where he lives through some of Russia’s most tumultuous decades.

House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

House of the Scorpion follows Matteo Alacran, a clone of the most powerful drug lord in the fictional country of Opium, El Patron, as he discovers his identity and eventually begins to overthrow the regime of El Patron.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

A novel alternating between Satan visiting the Soviet Union and Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, it is a reflection on the Soviet Union’s atheist stand featuring freemasonry imagery.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

In a satirical female retelling of Lord of the Flies, the fifty contestants of the Miss Teen Dream Pageant are stranded on a deserted island when their plane crashes and must learn to fend for themselves on the island.