Books that may contain dark themes and real-life issues, but do so while focusing on kinder human connections with a decent splashing of hope.

Uplifting

Recommended books found: 159

Page 1 of 9

Tell Me Everything

A Novel

by Elizabeth Strout

Hardcover: Sep 2024 | Paperback: Aug 2025

Critics' Consensus:

From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout comes a hopeful, healing novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

A Novel

by James McBride

Hardcover: Aug 2023 | Paperback: Jul 2025

Critics' Consensus:

From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah's Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them.

These Heathens

A Novel

by Mia McKenzie

Hardcover: Jun 2025

Critics' Consensus:

In this vibrant, gratifying novel, a pious, small-town teenager travels to Atlanta to get an abortion and finds herself smack in the middle of the civil rights movement and the secret lives of queer Black people.

The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl

by Bart Yates

Hardcover: Jul 2024 | Paperback: Jun 2025

Critics' Consensus:

Both sweeping and exquisitely intimate, award-winning author Bart Yates blends historical fact and fiction in a surprising, thought-provoking saga spanning 12 significant days across nearly 100 years in the life of a single man, beginning in 1920s ...

Great Big Beautiful Life

by Emily Henry

Hardcover: Apr 2025

Critics' Consensus:

Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping novel from Emily Henry.

Becoming Madam Secretary

by Stephanie Dray

Hardcover: Mar 2024 | Paperback: Mar 2025

Critics' Consensus:

New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray returns with a captivating and dramatic new novel about an American heroine Frances Perkins.

Remarkably Bright Creatures

A Novel

by Shelby Van Pelt

Hardcover: May 2022 | Paperback: Mar 2025

Critics' Consensus:

Winner of the 2022 BookBrowse Debut Award

For fans of A Man Called Ove, a charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

Mornings Without Mii

by Mayumi Inaba

Paperback: Feb 2025

Critics' Consensus:

A beloved Japanese modern classic: a meditation on solitude, independence, writing, and life alongside a cat.

Land of Milk and Honey

A Novel

by C Pam Zhang

Hardcover: Sep 2023 | Paperback: Sep 2024

Critics' Consensus:

The award-winning author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold returns with a rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world

The Collected Regrets of Clover

A Novel

by Mikki Brammer

Hardcover: May 2023 | Paperback: May 2024

Critics' Consensus:

Mikki Brammer's The Collected Regrets of Clover is a big-hearted and life-affirming debut about a death doula who, in caring for others at the end of their life, has forgotten how to live her own, for readers of The Midnight Library.

Somehow

Thoughts on Love

by Anne Lamott

Hardcover: Apr 2024

Critics' Consensus:

From the bestselling author of Dusk, Night, Dawn and Help, Thanks, Wow, a joyful celebration of love

We All Want Impossible Things

A Novel

by Catherine Newman

Hardcover: Nov 2022 | Paperback: Nov 2023

Critics' Consensus:

For lovers of Meg Wolitzer, Maria Semple, and Jenny Offill comes this raucous, poignant celebration of life, love, and friendship at its imperfect and radiant best.

The reviewer of each book decides which categories it belongs in - but we're only human, mistakes happen. If you see a book that you think is in the wrong place, tell us!

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The Tapestry of Time
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BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.