Six big, challenging reads

Jeff VanderMeer recently served as the 2016-2017 Trias Writer-in-Residence for Hobart-William Smith College. His latest novel is Borne, which Colson Whitehead called “a thorough marvel.” He is also the author of the NYT-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance), which won the Shirley Jackson Award and Nebula Award. One of VanderMeer's six favorite big, challenging reads, as shared at The Week magazine:

Big Questions by Anders Nilsen

This sprawling graphic novel starts, more or less, with a plane crash, then opens up to include the existential travails of snakes and birds drawn to the crash site. The initial disaster transitions into an unsettling yet mesmerizing examination of both nature and culture.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue