Shorter Books to Read With Your Book Club

With Bite by Bite, the author of World of Wonders is gifting us a collection of essays about how food is inherently tied to our memories and emotions. From shaved ice to rambutan to lumpia, what we eat and drink can summon feelings of joy, grief, and nostalgia, just as it carves out ethnic boundaries. Nezhukumatathil also looks at what it means for the environment for us to consume food, and the ethics involved with gathering it.

Here, Cornejo Villavicencio, author of The Undocumented Americans, shares another tale illuminating the life of undocumented people living in the United States, this time in fiction form. The eponymous Catalina—she herself undocumented—goes to live with her undocumented grandparents following a tragedy. As she prepares to graduate from Harvard—after having gotten into certain bougie subcultures there—she’s faced with helping her grandparents, and the uncertainty of finding work after graduation as an undocumented person.

One day, 13-year-old Ruthy Ramirez disappears after track practice on Staten Island, and her Puerto Rican family is left forever changed. Then, 12 years later, something odd happens. The oldest sister of the Ramirez children, Jessica, notices a woman on one of those raggedy reality TV shows called Catfight. She has dyed red hair, but the under-eye beauty mark is unmistakable: it’s Ruthy.

If you’re in the market for mythology-inspired fantasy, this novella by Ogundiran follows the acolyte Ashâke, who seems to be the only follower of the orisha who they won’t speak to. After watching her peers become full priests, she tries to summon an orisha in desperation, but instead summons a centuries-old cosmic war, with herself placed right at the center.

In 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlan (what is now Mexico City) with his cadre of captains, troops, and enslaved people and is ceremonially welcomed by Atotoxli, emperor Moctezuma’s sister. The Spaniards have conquering on their minds, but they can’t help but feel intimidated by the grandeur of the city and its people. Here, that fateful meeting—and the fate of Tenochtitlan— is reimagined, breathing fresh life into the splendor of the city at the height of the Aztec empire.