Jay Gesin
Ishmael
by Daniel Quinn
Winner of the first Turner Tomorrow Fellowship (awarded to a work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems), Quinn's story is about a gorilla teaching a man how to save the world. Beginning with a timeline of our culture that explores the origins of pollution, overpopulation, and famine, Ishmael builds its main theme off a simple premise: to change the world we must envision the world as we would like it to be and create that world. This is the book I give to friends interested in environmental, ecological, and social issues. The discussions I've had with people after reading Ishmael have changed my life.

John Son
Edisto
by Padgett Powell
A coming-of-age story devoid of the usual gut-wrenching sentimentality, Edisto put Powell on the literary map back in 1984. In the intervening years Powell has continued writing highly original, stylistically innovative novels and short-story collections that capture the modern South better than anyone (save perhaps Barry Hannah) has since it became the modern South, whenever that was. That said, Edisto is ostensibly the fruits of a writing exercise assigned to a young Simon Manigault by his alcoholic Lit. professor mother. What follows is some of the funniest, most original description I have ever read about being a boy, Black/White relations in the South, and life in general. Everyone I've recommended this book to has loved it. May the pattern continue.

Jen Lombardo
The Low-Carb Cookbook: The Complete Guide to the Healthy Low-Carbohydrate Lifestyle with over 250 Delicious Recipes
by Fran McCullough
When I found out I had to go on a low-carb diet, I was afraid I wouldn't have much to eat. My thoughts have changed since getting this book! Authored by a writing teacher at the famed Culinary Institute of America, this fabulous cookbook takes all the fear out of cooking in the low-carb way. Some delicious recipes include Three-Grain Pancakes with Raspberry-Orange Sauce, Nut-Crusted Swordfish with Romesco Sauce, and Crème Fraîche Ice Cream. This book is the perfect choice if you want to rise from a food-boredom rut, or simply want entertain healthily for friends -- without letting on that you're counting the carbs.

Kristen Gilligan
The Eight
by Katherine Neville
About to embark on a business trip to Algeria, Catherine Velis meets a mysterious man who offers her an enormous sum of money. All she has to do is locate the pieces of an old chess service reputed to be in Algeria. Moving between the past and the present, this adventurous tale gracefully weaves us through an interesting and gripping fabric of twists and turns. Great suspense!

Patti Neske
Banana Rose
by Natalie Goldberg
This wonderful novel is about being authentic and true to yourself when the gravity of what's safe and secure threatens to pull you out of orbit. It's also about art and expression -- the need passionate people have to create and render something palpable out of the intangibles of life: painting, music, writing; these are the themes one would expect from the author of Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind -- books about the creative spirit. This a sympathetic, resonant novel about how the very life we choose to make is our greatest creative act.

Gavin J. Grant
Brown Girl in the Ring
by Nalo Hopkinson
Inner-city Toronto has been abandoned by the Canadian government. The standard of living has fallen very quickly to pre-industrial standards. Ti-Jeanne lives with her grandmother in what was once a model farm in a city park. She is surrounded by secrets: secrets held from her ex-boyfriend; held from her by his boss; and most importantly, secrets held from her by her grandmother, a Voudoun priestess. If this is not our future (and I hope it isn't!) then it is the future of science fiction. The language takes you quickly into the characters lives, the plot pulls you along, and the Voudoun? Well, that'll scare you.

• Interview