The best-written imaginative novel of the year

Read the opening pages of our pick from the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize shortlist ^ Plus our first pick from the recent releases in nonfiction

Photo by Austrian National Library

IN TODAY’S ISSUE

—‘They have each at some point been shot into the sky on a kerosene bomb, and then through the atmosphere in a burning capsule with the equivalent weight of two black bears upon them. They have each steeled their ribcages against the force until they felt the bears retreat, one after the other, and the sky become space, and gravity diminish, and their hair stand on end’: the most beautifully written novel on this year’s shortlist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for imaginative literature.

Last December we chose this novel as a best-written recent release, and last year we chose Nicola Griffith’s Spear from the Ursula K. Le Guin shortlist.

—’Love rarely gets the credit it deserves for the advancement of science. Nor, for that matter, does hatred, greed, envy or any other emotion’: our first pick from the recent releases in nonfiction.

If you’d like us to consider your own recent release or a work you’ve serialised on Substack, sign up …