Check Me Out - LKLD January 2026

A GUARDIAN AND A THIEF

By Megha Majumdar

One family secures climate-refugee visas to escape the devastation of a drought-ridden Kolkata. When their documents are stolen, the stories of the family and the thief heartrendingly unfold. This urgent story asks the impossible question: How much collateral damage is acceptable to protect someone you love?

THE LONELINESS OF SONIA AND SUNNY

By Kiran Desai

A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years. An epic story of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity, by the Booker Prize– winning author of “The Inheritance of Loss.”

THE DREAM HOTEL

By Laila Lalami

A museum archivist is abducted by federal agents and taken to a detention center for observation after an algorithm predicts she will murder her husband in the near future. During her month long stay in the facility, her dreams are monitored for evidence of homicidal intent. It feels like Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report,” written in Lalami’s silky prose.

THE WAYFINDER

By Adam Johnson

An epic, sweeping novel set in the Polynesian islands of the South Pacific during the height of the Tu’i Tonga Empire. At its heart is Korero, a young girl chosen to save her people from the brink of starvation. Her quest takes her from her remote island home on a daring seafaring journey across a vast ocean empire built on power, consumption, and bloodshed.

FLESH

By David Szalay

A collection of intimate moments over the course of decades. A man at odds with himself; estranged from and by the circumstances and demands of a life not entirely under his control and the roles that he is asked to play. The tension between Istvan and all that alienates him hurtles forward until sudden tragedy again throws life as he knows it in jeopardy.

ANGEL DOWN

By Daniel Kraus

During World War I, an American soldier embarks on a deadly expedition through No Man’s Land, where he discovers a wounded angel, both beautiful and terrifying, who may possess otherworldly powers that could end the war. It’s an absolutely fascinating encounter with the unknown that feels like an instant classic.

THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER

By Stephen Graham Jones

Horror master Stephen Graham Jones tackles the vampire mythos from a unique point of view: the lost 1912 diary of a Montana priest that records the life of a Blackfoot man named Good Stab. It’s a creepy thriller that’s destined for a prestige TV adaptation.

HEARTWOOD

By Amity Gaige

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-yearold Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.