There is no book more urgent than El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, and the gravity, intensity, and horror of the atrocities being hurled against Palestinians deserve an entire book written by someone with his breadth of journalistic and personal experience. This is the first text to articulate what it means to witness the mass slaughtering of innocents in Gaza and to feel complicit and powerless as it happens in a way that resonated with me and so many people. “One day, everyone will have always been against this” is an ominous phrase I’ve encountered again and again since El Akkad tweeted it and then published a book deepening that thought. It’s a phrase that, I fear, will echo across time. —S. Zainab Williams

Ben is a queer thirtysomething divorcée who’s come back home to Salt Lake City to run his family’s board game shop. Once a married English professor in Seattle, he now spends his days caring for his ailing father and a Chihuahua named Beans while trying to make ends meet as his father’s medical bills pile up. Then a local toy and game collector approaches Ben with a rare opportunity: to buy a turn-of-the-century edition of the game that inspired Monopoly at a fraction of what it’s worth. Ben turns the offer down because there’s no way the deal is legit; but when the collector is found dead at Ben’s front door with a backpack full of $100 bills, Ben is the #1 suspect. This cute quozy mystery is by Book Riot contributor Andy Minshew, writing as CJ Connor! —Vanessa Diaz