Jonathan Lethem

Pop culture has always played a huge role in Jonathan Lethem’s invented—and wildly inventive—world. He’s sort of the house DJ for a stable of like-minded contemporary writers, offering deft literary mash-ups of science fiction, hard-boiled detective stories, magical realism, and comic-book mythology. Lethem’s first novel since 2003’s Fortress of Solitude is a bit of a departure, at least from a geographical standpoint; set in Los Angeles rather than the author’s usual Brooklyn stomping grounds, You Don’t Love Me Yet is a comic novel steeped in the world of alternative rock, hipster drones, and the culture of complaint. While early reviews have called it slight, at least by Lethem standards, we’re betting it’s still a whole lot more readable than most of the other stuff clogging the new-arrivals section at Barnes & Noble.