Emily Books

ICYMI: "Chances are you've never read a workplace novel like Hilary Leichter's. The author takes numbing routines to dreamy (or perhaps nightmarish) extremes, delivering subversive entertainment in the process."

Happy March! Here are this month's 20 must-reads March 2020 brings new book releases from James McBride, Louise Erdrich, Hilary Mantel, N.K. Jemisin, and more.

ICYMI, TEMPORARY was recommended in the New York TImes!

11 New Books We Recommend This Week Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.

"When I started writing this novel, it was a short story. I was knee-deep in a paycheck-to-paycheck existence, working several jobs at once and finishing my thesis for graduate school. All of the writers around me were in similar boats. We were waving to each other from our boats. I worked as a temp at a property management company. I was also teaching undergraduates, working as an assistant, and tutoring three young boys. There were certain days when I’d forget where I was supposed to be, and when. I don’t think there’s anything unique about this scenario. It feels typical. One of the best parts of writing this book has been hearing about people’s work, the varied assortment of tasks—some mundane, some extraordinary—that constitute a paycheck. And so, I wanted to write about how impermanent work impacts the soul, how a sense of belonging, as it pertains to work, had eluded me and so many of my peers. And how this sort of displacement might speak to a greater sort of displacement, a question about the necessity of people, of our existence. These questions allowed me to create a version of this world slightly shifted on its axis, where employment is the fulcrum on which a life soars or dips."

Invisible Work: A Q&A with Hilary Leichter The author of the debut novel Temporary discusses how impermanent work affects the soul.