SlipSTREAM

Last time the ballet flat reigned, it was paired with black skinny jeans. Might we suggest a good book instead?

Keziah Weir

Vanities/ Books & Flats

1. BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU

Sally Rooney

Doubling down on relationship excavation, Rooney's newest depicts a year in the life of two friends—an editor and a reluctantly famous author (ahem!)—and the men they love. (FSG)

2.MATRIX

Lauren Groff

In this bildungsroman about the real-life 12th-century poet Marie de France, a teenage Marie is exiled to a blighted Benedictine nunnery, where she finds strength and power as a prioress. (Riverhead)

3.IN THE COUNTRY OF OTHERS

Leila Slimani

After World War I married couple Amine (who is Moroccan) and Mathilde (French) settle in Amine's home country, where they navigate the oppressive French colonial regime. (Penguin)

4. THE ARCHER

Shruti Swamy

In Bombay, motherless Vidya discovers Kathak; the lyrical dance form brings meaning to her life as she wrestles with expectations that she become a certain kind of wife and mother herself. (Algonquin)

5. HARLEM SHUFFLE

Colson Whitehead

Manhattan furniture dealer Ray Carney, dreaming of a classic six for his growing family, falls into a hotel heist gone wrong. The gloriously pulpy plot unfurls against activist-awakened 1960s Harlem. (Doubleday)

6. POET WARRIOR

Joy Harjo

In her second memoir, completed during the pandemic, the United States's first Native American poet laureate threads personal stories of music and poetry with references to the power of breath. (Norton)