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olympics

2024 Summer Olympics/ Games of the XXXIII Olympiad

While most of these listings link by default to a print copy, many are available in other formats (eBook and eAudiobook). Don't forget to check the catalog by title or author if you prefer digital!

The Ancient Olympics by Nigel Spivey The word 'athletics' is derived from the Greek verb 'to struggle/suffer for a prize'. After reading this book, no one will see the Olympics as a graceful display of Greek beauty again, but as war by other means.Nigel Spivey paints a portrait of the Greek Olympics as they really were - fierce contests between bitter rivals, in which victors won kudos and rewards, and losers faced scorn and even assault. Victory was almost worth dying for, and a number of athletes did just that. The author explores what the events were, the rules for competitors, training and diet, the pervasiveness of cheating and bribery, the prizes on offer, the exclusion of 'barbarians', and protocols on pederasty. He also peels back the mythology surrounding the games today and investigates where our current conception of the Olympics has come from.Contested always bitterly and often bloodily, the ancient Olympics were not an idealistic celebration of unity, but a clash of military powers in an arena not far removed from the battlefield
Olympics by Christian Wacker (Editor); Andreas Amendt (Editor); Stephan Wassong (Editor) At the holy site of Olympia, the first Olympic Games were held and dedicated to Zeus. Filled with photographs, drawings, and maps, this book explores the natural environment of the sanctuary and the important political and cultural role it played. Archaeological discoveries give a fascinating picture of ancient Olympia whose legacy of peaceful competition and athletic excellence lives on. The first modern Olympic Games were held in 1896 and, since then, the number of nations competing has grown from fourteen to more than two hundred. In addition to numerous illustrations, this book includes fascinating essays that offer a global perspective on the phenomenon that the Olympic Games have become and trace its evolution from a great idea to a grand spectacle. With hundreds of photographs and illustrations it looks at aspects of the Games from the first Winter Olympic Games in 1924 to the first politically charged Olympics in Berlin in 1936; from rituals and commercialization to the inclusion of women, Jews, and blacks; from doping scandals to the triumph of the Paralympics. Interspersed with the illustrations are fascinating essays that gather the latest information, records, and research making this one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date books on the topic.
The Olympics The Olympics, in all their glory, are seen through the photographs and essays of the magazine Sports Illustrated. The book also includes all the statistics and winners from the modern games, looking at the growth and evolution of the games into the international spectacle of today.
Grace, Gold and Glory by Gabrielle Douglas; Michelle Burford The inspiring autobiography from Gabrielle Douglas--the first African-American gymnast in Olympic history to become the individual All-Around champion--revealing her journey from the time she first entered a gym to her gold-medal-winning performances. In the 2012 London Olympics, US gymnast Gabrielle Douglas stole hearts and flew high as the All-Around Gold Medal winner and the brightest star of the US gold-medal-winning women's gymnastics team. That same year, Gabrielle was also named the 2012 Sportswoman of the Year by the Women's Sports Foundation. In this personal autobiography, Grace, Gold, and Glory My Leap of Faith, Gabrielle tells her story of faith, perseverance, and determination. Walk with Gabby Douglas through her journey of faith and what her family overcame, from the time she first entered a gymnasium to her gold-medal-winning performances, demonstrating to readers ages 13 and up that they can reach their dreams when they let themselves soar. Grace, Gold, and Glory My Leap of Faith: Is the official autobiography of renowned US gymnast Gabrielle Douglas Chronicles Gabrielle's journey from her first practice to becoming a 2012 gold-winning US gymnast Celebrates Gabrielle as the first African-American gymnast in Olympic history to become the individual All-Around champion, and the first American gymnast to win gold in both the individual All-Around and team competitions at the same Olympics. Is one of the most inspiring books on the market today for reader ages 13 and up
The Complete Book of the Olympics by David Wallechinsky; Jaime Loucky David Wallechinsky brings to life again the epic Olympic contests of the past and records many tales of heroism and great achievements against the odds, as well as bizarre and often comic episodes which have enlivened over 100 years of Olympic history.
Nazi Games by David Clay Large Athletics and politics collide in a critical event for Nazi Germany and the contemporary world. The torch relay -- that staple of Olympic pageantry -- first opened the summer games in 1936 in Berlin. Proposed by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, the relay was to carry the symbolism of a new Germany across its route through southeastern and central Europe. Soon after the Wehrmacht would march in jackboots over the same terrain. The Olympic festival was a crucial part of the Nazi regime\'s mobilization of power. Nazi Games offers a superb blend of history and sport. The narrative includes a stirring account of the international effort to boycott the games, derailed finally by the American Olympic Committee and the determination of its head, Avery Brundage, to participate. Nazi Games also recounts the dazzling athletic feats of these Olympics, including Jesse Owens\'s four gold-medal performances and the marathon victory of Korean runner Kitei Son, the Rising Sun of imperial Japan on his bib. 25 b/w photographs.
Chronicle of the Olympics, 1896-1996 by Dorling Kindersley Publishing Staff "Short essays coupled with numerous photographs will make it a sure hit with browsers and casual readers". -- Library Journal
Rome 1960 by David Maraniss From the New York Times-bestselling author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered comes the blockbuster story of the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome--17 days that helped define the modern world.
The Games by David Goldblatt For millions of people around the world, the Summer and Winter Games are a joy and a treasure, but how did they develop into a global colossus? How have they been buffeted by--and, in turn, affected by--world events? Why do we care about them so much? From the reinvention of the Games in Athens in 1896 to Rio in 2016, best-selling sportswriter David Goldblatt brilliantly traces their history through national triumphs and tragedies, individual victories and failures. Here is the story of grand Olympic traditions such as winners' medals, the torch relay, and the eternal flame. Here is the story of popular Olympic events such as gymnastics, the marathon, and alpine skiing (as well as discontinued ones like tug-of-war). And here in all their glory are Olympic icons from Jesse Owens to Nadia Comaneci, Abebe Bikila to Bob Beamon, the Dream Team to Usain Bolt. Hailed in the Wall Street Journal for writing about sports "with the expansive eye of a social and cultural critic," Goldblatt goes beyond the medal counts to tell how women fought to be included in the Olympics on equal terms, how the wounded of World War II led to the Paralympics, and how the Olympics reflect changing attitudes to race and ethnicity. He explores the tensions between the Games' amateur ideals and professionalization and commercialism in sports, the pitched battles between cities for the right to host the Games, and their often disappointing economic legacy. And in covering such seminal moments as Jesse Owens and Hitler at Berlin in 1936, the Black Power salute at Mexico City in 1968, the massacre of Israeli athletes at Munich in 1972, and the Miracle on Ice at Lake Placid in 1980, Goldblatt shows how prominently the modern Olympics have highlighted profound domestic and international conflicts. Illuminated with dazzling vignettes from over a century of the Olympics, this stunningly researched and engagingly written history captures the excitement, drama, and kaleidoscopic experience of the Games.
Wonder Girl by Don Van Natta; Don Van Natta Experience the extraordinary story of a nearly forgotten American superstar athlete. Texas girl Babe Didrikson never tried a sport too tough and never met a hurdle too high. Despite attempts to keep women from competing, Babe achieved All-American status in basketball and won gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Olympics. Then Babe attempted to conquer golf. One of the founders of the LPGA, Babe won more consecutive tournaments than any golfer in history. At the height of her fame, she was diagnosed with cancer. Babe would then take her most daring step of all: go public and try to win again with the hope of inspiring the world. A rollicking saga, stretching across the first half of the 20th century, Wonder Girl is as fresh, heartfelt, and graceful as Babe herself.
The Naked Olympics by Tony Perrottet Ancient Greece was full of wonders, but none quite compared to the Olympic Games - the most dazzling event in the pagan world. Held without a break for over 1200 years, it remains one of the greatest institutions of the civilised world, yet little is known about its history, beyond the mythical. Piecing together ancient eyewitness accounts, this history is a fascinating mix of the familiar and the wildly exotic, exploring the often harsh conditions the spectators endured, the bizarre events that were held, and even Plato's changing room pick up' lines.'
Olympic Games, Mega-Events and Civil Societies by Graeme Hayes (Editor); John Karamichas (Editor) This volume explores sporting mega-events, their social, political, and cultural characters, the value systems that they inscribe and draw on, the claims they make on us and the claims the organisers make for them, the spatial and ethical relationships they create, and the responses of civil societies to them.
Triumph by Jeremy Schaap From the ESPN national correspondent and author of the New York Times bestseller Cinderella Man comes the remarkable behind-the-scenes story of a defining moment in sports and world history. In 1936, against a backdrop of swastikas flying and a storm troopers goose-stepping, an African-American son of sharecroppers won a staggering four Olympic gold medals and single-handedly crushed Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy. The story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 games is that of a high-profile athlete giving a perfomance that transcends sports. But it is also the intimate and complex tale of the courage of one remarkable man. Drawing on unprecedented access to the Owens family, previously unpublished interviews, and exhaustive archival research, Jeremy Schaap transports us to Nazi Germany to weave this dramatic tale. From the start, American participation in the 1936 games was controversial. A boycott was afoot, based on reports of Nazi hostility to Jews, but was thwarted by the president of the American Olympic Committee, who dismissed the actions of the Third Reich as irrelevant. At the games themselves the subplots and intrigue continued: Owens was befriended by a German rival, broad jumper Luz Long, who, legend has it, helped Owens win the gold medal at his own expense. Two Jewish sprinters were denied the chance to compete for the United States at the last possible moment, most likely out of misguided deference to the Nazi hosts. And a myth was born that Hitler had snubbed Owens by failing to congratulate him. With his trademark incisive reporting and rich storytelling gifts, Schaap reveals what really transpired over those tense, exhilarating few weeks some seventy years ago. In the end, Triumph is a triumph -- a page-turning narrative that illuminates what happens when sports and the geopolitics collide on a world stage.
Speed Kings by Andy Bull A story of risk, adventure, and daring as four American bobsledders race for the gold in the most dangerous competition in Olympic history. In the 1930s, as the world hurtled toward war, speed was all the rage. Bobsledding, the fastest and most thrilling way to travel on land, had become a sensation. Exotic, exciting, and brutally dangerous, it was the must-see event of the 1932 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, the first Winter Games on American soil. Bobsledding required exceptional skill and extraordinary courage--qualities the American team had in abundance. There was Jay O'Brien, the high-society playboy; Tippy Grey, a scandal-prone Hollywood has-been; Eddie Eagan, world champion heavyweight boxer and Rhodes Scholar; and the charismatic Billy Fiske, the true heart of the team, despite being barely out of his teens. In the thick of the Great Depression, the nation was gripped by the story of these four men, their battle against jealous locals, treacherous U.S. officials, and the very same German athletes they would be fighting against in the war only a few short years later. Billy, king of speed to the end, would go on to become the first American fighter pilot killed in WWII. Evoking the glamour and recklessness of the Jazz Age, Speed Kings will thrill readers to the last page.
Outofshapeworthlessloser by Gracie Gold NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER . A "piercing account" (The Wall Street Journal) of surviving as a young woman in a society that rewards appearances more than anything and demands perfection at all costs-especially ifyou're an Olympic figure skater. "A riveting memoir, which details her experience with an eating disorder, depression and her high-stakes career."-People (Best Books to Read in February 2024) When Gracie Gold stepped onto center stage (or ice, rather) as America's sweetheart at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, she instantly became the face of America's most beloved winter sport. Beautiful, blonde, Midwestern, and media-trained, she was suddenly being written up everywhere from The New Yorker to Teen Vogue to People and baking cookies with Taylor Swift. But little did the public know what Gold was facing when the cameras were off, driven by the self-destructive voice inside that she calls "outofshapeworthlessloser."In 2017, she entered treatment for what was publicly announced as an eating disorder and anxiety treatment but was, in reality, suicidal ideation. While Gold's public star was rising, her private life was falling apart- Cracks within her family were widening, her bulimia was getting worse, and she became a survivor of sexual assault. The pressure of training for years with demanding coaches and growing up in a household that accepted nothing less than gold had finally taken its toll. Now Gold reveals the exclusive and harrowing story of her struggles in and out of the pressure-packed world of elite figure skating- the battles with her family, her coaches, the powers-that-be at her federation, and her deteriorating mental health. Outofshapeworthlessloser is not only a forceful reckoning from a world-class athlete but alsoan intimate memoir, told with unflinching honesty and stirring defiance.
How to Watch the Olympics by David Goldblatt; Johnny Acton The must-have guide to the Summer Olympic Games This summer, millions of Americans will tune into the Olympic Games, the largest and most popular sporting event in the world. Yet while it's easy to be fascinated by agile gymnasts, poised equestrians, and perfectly synchronized swimmers, few of us know the real width of a balance beam, the intricate regulations of dressage, or the origin of those crowd-pleasing legs-in-the-air swimming formations. Luckily, David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton have created this utterly thorough and always fun guide to the rules, strategy, and history of each sport. Originally timed to 2012 London Games, their book is every bit as useful for Rio de Janeiro in 2016. With witty, detailed descriptions and clever illustrations, How to Watch the Olympics will help anyone grasp handball, archery, wrestling, fencing, and every other Olympic event like a true pro.
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown Now a Major Motion Picture Directed by George Clooney The #1 New York Times-bestselling story about the American Olympic rowing triumph in Nazi Germany--from the author of Facing the Mountain. For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the Depression comes an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times--the improbable, intimate account of how nine working-class boys from the American West showed the world at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin what true grit really meant. It was an unlikely quest from the start. With a team composed of the sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the University of Washington's eight-oar crew team was never expected to defeat the elite teams of the East Coast and Great Britain, yet they did, going on to shock the world by defeating the German team rowing for Adolf Hitler. The emotional heart of the tale lies with Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not only to regain his shattered self-regard but also to find a real place for himself in the world. Drawing on the boys' own journals and vivid memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, Brown has created an unforgettable portrait of an era, a celebration of a remarkable achievement, and a chronicle of one extraordinary young man's personal quest.
Ultimate Olympic Weightlifting by Dave Randolph ACHIEVE OLYMPIC STRENGTH WITH THIS HARDCORE GUIDE TO WEIGHTLIFTINGEvery four years, the world's most powerful athletes showcase their amazing abilities at the Olympics. This book takes you step by step through the same primary lifts, assistance movements, and training techniques used by these high-level athletes to help you build explosive strength, power, and speed. By following the programs, exercises, and instructions in Ultimate Olympic Weightlifting, you learn how to:- Develop Full-Body Strength- Perfect Your Barbell Lifting Form- Utilize Cross-Training Techniques- Fuel Your Body for Working Out- Avoid Overexertion and Injury
The Three-Year Swim Club by Julie Checkoway The New York Times bestselling inspirational story of impoverished children who transformed themselves into world-class swimmers. In 1937, a schoolteacher on the island of Maui challenged a group of poverty-stricken sugar plantation kids to swim upstream against the current of their circumstance. The goal? To become Olympians. They faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The children were Japanese-American and were malnourished and barefoot. They had no pool; they trained in the filthy irrigation ditches that snaked down from the mountains into the sugarcane fields. Their future was in those same fields, working alongside their parents in virtual slavery, known not by their names but by numbered tags that hung around their necks. Their teacher, Soichi Sakamoto, was an ordinary man whose swimming ability didn't extend much beyond treading water. In spite of everything, including the virulent anti-Japanese sentiment of the late 1930s, in their first year the children outraced Olympic athletes twice their size; in their second year, they were national and international champs, shattering American and world records and making headlines from L.A. to Nazi Germany. In their third year, they'd be declared the greatest swimmers in the world. But they'd also face their greatest obstacle: the dawning of a world war and the cancellation of the Games. Still, on the battlefield, they'd become the 20th century's most celebrated heroes, and in 1948, they'd have one last chance for Olympic glory. They were the Three-Year Swim Club. This is their story.
Edge of Glory by Christine Brennan They practice for years in cold, dark rinks with a single dream; they train for decades for one moment: to skate onto the ice with the whole world watching to try to win the Olympic gold medal. If they stumble, the gold is gone. If they succeed, their lives can be changed forever. In "Edge of Glory" Christine Brennan tells the riveting stories of the world's best figure skaters as they travel through the most intense year of their young lives. As she did in the bestselling "Inside Edge," Brennan goes backstage at major competitions and behind the scenes at the practice rinks to chronicle the figure skaters' quest for victory at the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan. The year opens with the 1997 U.S. national championships in Nashville, where the teenage Michelle Kwan, a favorite for the Olympic gold medal, dissolves on the ice during a wrenching four-minute performance. As Kwan bursts into tears leaving the rink, tiny Tara Lipinski arrives on the ice and steals the show. The crowd roars, and a new ice queen -- all seventy-five pounds of her -- is crowned. Tara shrieks in delight as she begins a run of historic victori
The Peerless Four by Victoria Patterson Running so hard you think you'll choke on your next breath. Lungs burning like they're drenched in battery acid. Peripheral vision blurred by the same adrenaline that drowns out the cheers coming from the full stadium. And of course, the reporters. The men scribbling furiously on their notepads so they can publish every stumble, sprain, and sniffle in these historic games. This was the world of the female athletes in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, the first games in which women were allowed to compete (and on a trial basis, at that). Nicknamed "the Peerless Four," the Canadian track team included some of the strongest and most diversely talented women on the scene. Narrated by the team's chaperone--a former runner herself--the women embark on their journey with the same golden goals as every other Olympian, male or female. But as the Olympic tension begins to rise with unexpected injuries, heartbreaking disqualifications, and the pressure of supreme athletic performance, each woman discovers new fears and new priorities, all while the weight of women's future in the Olympics rests on their performance poise. The Peerless Four is more than a sports novel, more than a record of how far women's rights have come in the past 75 years. It's a meditation on sacrifice, loyalty, commitment, perseverance, and the courage to live a true underdog tale.
Berlin 1936 by Oliver Hilmes; Jefferson Chase (Translator) Named a Best Book of the Year by The Guardian, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, and Financial Times A lively account of the 1936 Olympics told through the voices and stories of those who witnessed it, from an award-winning historian and biographer Berlin 1936 takes the reader through the sixteen days of the Olympiad, describing the events in the German capital through the eyes of a select cast of characters--Nazi leaders and foreign diplomats, sportsmen and journalists, writers and socialites, nightclub owners and jazz musicians. While the events in the Olympic stadium, such as when an American tourist breaks through the security and manages to kiss Hitler, provide the focus and much of the drama, it also considers the lives of ordinary Berliners--the woman with a dark secret who steps in front of a train, the transsexual waiting for the Gestapo's knock on the door, and the Jewish boy fearing for his future and hoping that Germany loses on the playing field. During the games the Nazi dictatorship was in many ways put on hold, and Berlin 1936 offers a last glimpse of the vibrant and diverse life in the German capital in the 1920s and 30s that the Nazis wanted to destroy.
Splash! by Howard Means Choose a stroke and get paddling through the human history of swimming! From man's first recorded dip into what's now the driest spot on earth to the splashing, sparkling pool party in your backyard, humans have been getting wet for 10,000 years. And for most of modern history, swimming has caused a ripple that touches us all--the heroes and the ordinary folk; the real and the mythic. Splash! dives into Egypt, winds through ancient Greece and Rome, flows mostly underground through the Dark and Middle Ages (at least in Europe), and then reemerges in the wake of the Renaissance before taking its final lap at today's Olympic games. Along the way, it kicks away the idea that swimming is just about moving through water, about speed or great feats of aquatic endurance, and shows you how much more it can be. Its history offers a multi-tiered tour through religion, fashion, architecture, sanitation and public health, colonialism, segregation and integration, sexism, sexiness, guts, glory, and much, much more. Unique and compelling, Splash! sweeps across the whole of humankind's swimming history--and just like jumping into a pool on a hot summer's day, it has fun along the way.
Olympians by Annie Leibovitz In her first book since Annie Liebovitz: Photographs 1970-1990, Liebovitz turns her lens to some of the world's most striking subjects: America's Olympians. She captures the intensity, the drive and extraordinary physiques of athletes at the top of their sports.
The Hard Parts by Oksana Masters; Cassidy Randall (Contribution by) A 2024 Christopher Award Winner "A gut-wrenching, wildly inspiring story about overcoming the most daunting obstacles through steely tenacity, sheer will, and a great big dose of motherly love." --Jeannette Walls, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Castle An inspirational and powerful memoir from the United States's most decorated winter Paralympic or Olympic athlete, The Hard Parts is Oksana Masters's gripping account of overcoming extraordinary Chernobyl disaster-caused physical challenges to create a life that challenges everyone to push through what is holding them back. Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine--in the shadow of Chernobyl--seemingly with the odds stacked against her. She came into the world with one kidney, a partial stomach, six toes on each foot, webbed fingers, no right bicep, and no thumbs. Her left leg was six inches shorter than her right, and she was missing both tibias. Relinquished to the orphanage system by birth parents daunted by the staggering cost of what would be their child's medical care, Oksana encountered numerous abuses, some horrifying. Salvation came at age seven when Gay Masters, an unmarried American professor who saw a photo of the little girl and became haunted by her eyes, waged a two-year war against stubborn adoption authorities to rescue Oksana from her circumstances. In America, Oksana endured years of operations that included a double leg amputation. Still, how could she hope to fit in when there were so many things making her different? As it turned out, she would do much more than fit in. Determined to prove herself and fueled by a drive to succeed that still smoldered from childhood, Oksana triumphed in not just one sport but four--winning against the world's best in elite rowing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, and road cycling competitions. Now considered one of the world's top athletes, she is the recipient of seventeen Paralympic medals, the most of any US athlete of the Winter Games, Paralympic or Olympic. Oksana's astonishing story of journeying through a series of dark tunnels is "as true a tale of grit as I've ever heard, with a message filled with triumph and beauty--that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, if we are loved" (Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author of Grit).
My Greek Drama by Gianna Angelopoulos The world had doubted Greece's ability to successfully stage the 2004 Olympic Games. In rescuing the Athens Olympics and delivering what IOC President Jacques Rogge called an "unforgettable dream games," Gianna Angelopoulos also delivered a new Greece, a modern can-do nation, a Greece worthy of its illustrious heritage. Little did she know that a few years later her country would abandon the lessons of the Olympics and become embroiled in a political and economic crisis that would devastate Greece and threaten the economic security of Europe. In My Greek Drama, Gianna Angelopoulos--known in her home country simply as ''Gianna''--has written a memoir that is as much about Greece's journey as her own. From her childhood in Crete, to law school in Thessaloniki, to Athens, where she overcame male-dominated legal and political cultures to help redefine public service in Greece, Gianna worked her way into becoming one of the most respected women in Greek public life. Balancing motherhood, business, and a place in the upper echelons of world society, Gianna never lost her passion for public service and brought the 2004 Olympic Games back from the brink of catastrophe. Her life, her Cinderella love story, and her intensity of will are equally unforgettable. From stories of handing out basil seeds on the streets of Athens to courting the world on behalf of her country, My Greek Drama captures the burning ambition of the rebellious girl from the island of Crete who ''lit'' the Olympic torch. Her story should help rekindle the spirit of the Greek people, and of every person who has ever struggled to change the world.
Showdown at Shepherd's Bush by David Davis The epic clash of an Irish-American, Italian, and Onondaga-Canadian that jump-started the first marathon mania and heralded the modern age in sports The eyes of the world watched as three runners--dirt poor Johnny Hayes, who used to run barefoot through the streets of New York City; candymaker Dorando Pietri; and the famed Tom Longboat--converged for an epic battle at the 1908 London Olympics. The incredible finish was contested the world over when Pietri, who initially ran the wrong way upon entering the stadium at Shepherd's Bush, finished first but was disqualified for receiving aid from officials after collapsing just shy of the finish line, thus giving the title to runner-up Hayes. In the midst of anti-American sentiment, Queen Alexandra awarded a special cup to Pietri, who became an international celebrity and inspired one of Irving Berlin's first songs. InShowdown at Shepherd's Bush,David Davis recalls a time when runners braved injurious roads with slips of leather for shoes and when marathon mania became a worldwide obsession. Standing next to Cait Murphy'sCrazy '08as an invaluable look at a bygone sporting era,Showdown at Shepherd's Bush is a dramatic narrative aimed at the recordsetting number of marathon participants in the United States (more than 500,000 in 2010!) and other running enthusiasts, and timed nicely for the return of the Olympics to London in 2012.
The Paralympic Games Explained by Ian Brittain The Paralympic Games is the second largest multi-sport festival on earth and an event which poses profound and challenging questions about the nature of sport, disability and society. The Paralympic Games Explained is the first complete introduction to the Paralympic phenomenon, exploring every key aspect and issue, from the history and development of the Paralympic movement to the economic and social impact of the contemporary Games. The book introduces the three most important theoretical models of disability (medical, social and bio-social), to enable the reader to fully understand the Paralympics in the context of wider discussions of disability in society. It also offers a straightforward explanation of the importance of language and terminology in shaping our understanding of disability and disability sport. Including international examples and comparative material throughout, the book offers detailed and broad-ranging discussion of key issues such as: how societal attitudes influence disability sport the governance of Paralympic and elite disability sport the relationship between the Paralympics and the Olympics drugs and technology in disability sport classification in disability sport. Containing useful features throughout, such as review questions, study activities, web links and guides to further reading, The Paralympic Games Explained is the most accessible, comprehensive and thoughtful guide to the Paralympics currently available. It is essential reading for all students with an interest in disability sport, sporting mega-events, the politics of sport, or disability in society.
Dream Team by Jack McCallum They were the Beatles of basketball, the Mercury Seven in sneakers. In Dream Team, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum delivers the untold story of the greatest team ever assembled: the 1992 U.S. Olympic Men's Basketball Team that captivated the world, kindled the hoop dreams of countless children around the planet, and remade the NBA into a global sensation. As a senior staff writer for Sports Illustrated, McCallum enjoyed a courtside seat for the most exciting basketball spectacle on earth, covering the Dream Team from its inception to the gold medal ceremony in Barcelona. For the duration of the Olympics, he lived with, golfed with, and--most important--drank with some of the greatest players of the NBA's Golden Age: Magic Johnson, the ebullient showman who shrugged off his recent diagnosis of HIV to become the team's unquestioned captain and leader; Michael Jordan, the transcendent talent at the height of his powers as a player--and a marketing juggernaut; and Charles Barkley, the outspoken iconoclast whose utterances on and off the court threatened to ignite an international incident. Presiding over the entire traveling circus was the Dream Team's beloved coach, Chuck Daly, whose laissez-faire approach proved instrumental in getting the most out of such disparate personalities and superstars such as Larry Bird, Patrick Ewing, and Scottie Pippen. Drawing on fresh interviews with the players, McCallum provides the definitive account of the Dream Team phenomenon. He offers a behind-the-scenes look at the controversial selection process. He takes us inside the team's Olympic suites for late-night card games and bull sessions where the players debate both the finer points of basketball and their respective places in the NBA pantheon. And he narrates a riveting possession-by-possession account of the legendary July 1992 intrasquad scrimmage that pitted the Dream Teamers against one another in what may have been the greatest pickup game--and the greatest exhibition of trash talk--in history. In the twenty years since the Dream Team first captivated the world's attention, its mystique has only grown--and so has its influence. The NBA is now flush with international stars, many of them inspired by the exuberant spirit of '92. Dream Team vividly re-creates the moment when a once-in-a-millennium group of athletes came together, outperformed the hype, and changed the future of sports--one perfectly executed fast break at a time. The Dream Team was . . . Michael Jordan, Guard, Chicago Bulls Magic Johnson, Guard, Los Angeles Lakers Larry Bird, Forward, Boston Celtics Charles Barkley, Forward, Phoenix Suns Chris Mullin, Forward, Golden State Warriors Scottie Pippen, Forward, Chicago Bulls John Stockton, Guard, Utah Jazz Karl Malone, Forward, Utah Jazz David Robinson, Center, San Antonio Spurs Patrick Ewing, Center, New York Knicks Christian Laettner, Forward, Duke University Clyde Drexler, Guard, Portland Trailblazers
Fire on the Track by Roseanne Montillo The inspiring and irresistible true story of the women who broke barriers and finish-line ribbons in pursuit of Olympic Gold When Betty Robinson assumed the starting position at the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, she was participating in what was only her fourth-ever organized track meet. She crossed the finish line as a gold medalist and the fastest woman in the world. This improbable athletic phenom was an ordinary high school student, discovered running for a train in rural Illinois mere months before her Olympic debut. Amsterdam made her a star. But at the top of her game, her career (and life) almost came to a tragic end when a plane she and her cousin were piloting crashed. So dire was Betty's condition that she was taken to the local morgue; only upon the undertaker's inspection was it determined she was still breathing. Betty, once a natural runner who always coasted to victory, soon found herself fighting to walk. While Betty was recovering, the other women of Track and Field were given the chance to shine in the Los Angeles Games, building on Betty's pioneering role as the first female Olympic champion in the sport. These athletes became more visible and more accepted, as stars like Babe Didrikson and Stella Walsh showed the world what women could do. And-miraculously-through grit and countless hours of training, Betty earned her way onto the 1936 Olympic team, again locking her sights on gold as she and her American teammates went up against the German favorites in Hitler's Berlin. Told in vivid detail with novelistic flair, Fire on the Track is an unforgettable portrait of these trailblazers in action.
Proud by Ibtihaj Muhammad; Lori Tharps (As told to) Growing up in New Jersey as the only African American Muslim at school, Ibtihaj Muhammad always had to find her own way. When she discovered fencing, a sport traditionally reserved for the wealthy, she had to defy expectations and make a place for herself in a sport she grew to love. From winning state championships to three-time All-America selections at Duke University, Ibtihaj was poised for success, but the fencing community wasn't ready to welcome her with open arms just yet. As the only woman of color and the only religious minority on Team USA's saber fencing squad, Ibtihaj had to chart her own path to success and Olympic glory. Proud is a moving coming-of-age story from one of the nation's most influential athletes and illustrates how she rose above it all.

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The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

As voted on by 503 novelists, non-fiction writers, poets, critics, academics, translators, booksellers, librarians, and other book lovers - with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review. Participants were asked to pick their 10 best books of the first 25 years of the 21st century, with "best" being subjective (it could just be their favorites). Any book chosen had to be published in the United States, in English, on or after January 1, 2000. After casting their ballots, respondents were given the option to answer another series of prompts, with that data being combined to the vote tallies. Participants included Stephen King, Bonnie Garmus, Claudia Rankine, James Patterson, Lucy Sante, Sarah Jessica Parker, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Nick Hornby, Elin Hilderbrand, Roxane Gay, Gary Shteyngart, Marlon James, Min Jin Lee, R. L. Stine, and Rebecca Roanhorse.

Not in the Public Library catalog: #29, The Last Samurai by Helen Dewitt

What the New York Times Missed: 71 More of the Best Books of the 21st Century [LitHub]

While most of these listings link by default to a print copy, many are available in other formats (eBook and eAudiobook). Don't forget to check the catalog by title or author if you prefer digital!

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante; Ann Goldstein (Translator) #1 BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY - NEW YORK TIMES Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times-bestselling "enduring masterpiece" about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples (The Atlantic). Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples, Elena Ferrante's four-volume story spans almost sixty years, as its main characters, the fiery and unforgettable Lila and the bookish narrator, Elena, become women, wives, mothers, and leaders, all the while maintaining a complex and at times conflicted friendship. This first novel in the series follows Lila and Elena from their fateful meeting as ten-year-olds through their school years and adolescence. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between two women. "An intoxicatingly furious portrait of enmeshed friends."--Entertainment Weekly "Spectacular."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air "Captivating."--The New Yorker
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER        From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.   With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an "unrecognized immigration" within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic. MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE WINNER HEARTLAND AWARD WINNER  DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times  * USA Today * O: The Oprah Magazine * Amazon * Publishers Weekly *  Salon * Newsday  * The Daily Beast   NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker *  The Washington Post * The Economist * Boston Globe * San Francisco Chronicle *  Chicago Tribune * Entertainment Weekly * Philadelphia Inquirer * The Guardian * The Seattle Times * St. Louis Post-Dispatch  * The Christian Science Monitor 
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII's court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king's freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph? In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.
The Known World by Edward P. Jones From National Book Award-nominated author Edward P. Jones comes a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation--as well his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart at their plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love under the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave "speculators" sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years. An ambitious, courageous, luminously written masterwork, The Known World seamlessly weaves the lives of the freed and the enslaved--and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery. The Known World not only marks the return of an extraordinarily gifted writer, it heralds the publication of a remarkable contribution to the canon of American classic literature.
Call Number: eBook
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Call Number: Large Print
2666 (Spanish Edition) by Roberto Bolaño; Roberto Bolaño Uno de los 10 libros del año del New York Times Book Review Cuatro académicos tras la pista de un enigmático escritor alemán; un periodista de Nueva York en su primer trabajo en México; un filósofo viudo; un detective de policía enamorado de una esquiva mujer --estos son algunos de los personajes arrastrados hasta la ciudad fronteriza de Santa Teresa, donde en la última década han desaparecido cientos de mujeres. Publicada póstumamente, la última novela de Roberto Bolaño no sólo es su mejor obra y una de las mejores del siglo XXI, sino uno de esos excepcionales libros que trascienden a su autor y a su época para formar parte de la literatura universal. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2008 Time Magazine's Best Book of 2008 Los Angeles Times Best Books of 2008 San Francisco Chronicle's 50 Best Fiction Books of 2008 Seattle Times Best Books of 2008 New York Magazine Top Ten Books of 2008  Three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment; a widowed philosopher; a police detective in love with an elusive older woman--these are among the searchers drawn to the border city of Santa Teresa, where over the course of a decade hundreds of women have disappeared. In the words of The Washington Post, "With 2666, Roberto Bolaño joins the ambitious overachievers of the twentieth-century novel, those like Proust, Musil, Joyce, Gaddis, Pynchon, Fuentes, and Vollmann, who push the novel far past its conventional size and scope to encompass an entire era, deploying encyclopedic knowledge and stylistic verve to offer a grand, if sometimes idiosyncratic, summation of their culture and the novelist's place in it. Bolaño has joined the immortals."
The Underground Railroad (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (National Book Award Winner) (Oprah's Book Club) by Colson Whitehead #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. * Now an original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood--where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned--Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share. Look for Colson Whitehead's new novel, Crook Manifesto, coming soon!
Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald; James Wood (Introduction by) One of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of the 21st Century This tenth anniversary edition of W. G. Sebald's celebrated masterpiece includes a new Introduction by acclaimed critic James Wood. Austerlitz is the story of a man's search for the answer to his life's central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, Jacques Austerlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, Austerlitz follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro NOBEL PRIZE WINNER * From the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Remains of the Day comes "a Gothic tour de force" (The New York Times) with an extraordinary twist--a moving, suspenseful, beautifully atmospheric modern classic. One of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of the 21st Century As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special--and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER* A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * MORE THAN 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD "Quietly powerful [and] moving." O, The Oprah Magazine (recommended reading) Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award, GILEAD is a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will soon part. In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father--an ardent pacifist--and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son. This is also the tale of another remarkable vision--not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Pulitzer Prize Winner) by Junot Díaz Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of the best books of 2007 according to: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, People, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Salon, Baltimore City Paper, The Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, New York Public Library, and many more... Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read and named one of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukú--the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim. Díaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Díaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion National Bestseller From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage--and a life, in good times and bad--that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later--the night before New Year's Eve--the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This powerful book is Didion' s attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."
The Road by Cormac McCarthy WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle). One of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food--and each other. The Roadis the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.
Outline by Rachel Cusk Literary Hub, Best Books of the Decade, A Finalist for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction One of The New York Times' Top Ten Books of the Year Named a A New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Vogue, NPR, The Guardian, The Independent, Glamour, and The Globe and Mail Chosen as one of fifteen remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write in the 21st century by the book critics of The New York Times Rachel Cusk's Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing over an oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her students in storytelling exercises. She meets other visiting writers for dinner. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her neighbor from the plane. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves: their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face a great loss.
Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist) by Min Jin Lee NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP TEN OF THE YEAR * NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 *A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017 * JULY PICK FOR THE PBS NEWSHOUR-NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB NOW READ THIS * FINALIST FOR THE 2018 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER In this gorgeous, page-turning saga, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a home they never knew. "There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones." In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history. *Includes reading group guide*
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York's Golden Age of comics "It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal--smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read."--The Washington Post Book World One of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century * One of Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best Books of the Decade * Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize A "towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book" (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon's "magnum opus" (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939.   A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink.   Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America's finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age.   Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award
The Sellout by Paul Beatty Winner of the Man Booker Prize Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature New York Times Bestseller Los Angeles Times Bestseller Named One of the 10 Best Books of the Year byTheNew York Times Book Review Named a Best Book of the Year byNewsweek,The Denver Post,BuzzFeed,Kirkus Reviews, andPublishers Weekly Named a "Must-Read" byFlavorwire andNew York Magazine's "Vulture" Blog A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty'sThe Selloutshowcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality--the black Chinese restaurant. Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens--on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles--the narrator ofThe Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral. Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident--the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins--he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE The "devastatingly moving" (People) first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented One of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century * One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years * One of Paste's Best Novels of the Decade Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post, USA Today, and Maureen Corrigan, NPR * One of Time's Ten Best Novels of the Year * A New York Times Notable Book * One of O: The Oprah Magazine's Best Books of the Year February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy's body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state--called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo--a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul. Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end? "A luminous feat of generosity and humanism."--Colson Whitehead, The New York Times Book Review "A masterpiece."--Zadie Smith
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Empire of Pain--a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions "Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book--as finely paced as a novel--Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." --New York Times Book Review Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish. Look for Patrick Radden Keefe's latest bestseller, Empire of Pain
Erasure by Percival Everett Percival Everett's blistering satire about race and publishing, now adapted for the screen as AMERICAN FICTION, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright and Tracee Ellis Ross Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been "critically acclaimed." He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Meanwhile, Monk struggles with real family tragedies--his aged mother is fast succumbing to Alzheimer's, and he still grapples with the reverberations of his father's suicide seven years before. In his rage and despair, Monk dashes off a novel meant to be an indictment of Juanita Mae Jenkins's bestseller. He doesn't intend for My Pafology to be published, let alone taken seriously, but it is--under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh--and soon it becomes the Next Big Thing. How Monk deals with the personal and professional fallout galvanizes this audacious, hysterical, and quietly devastating novel.
Evicted by Matthew Desmond NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic "has set a new standard for reporting on poverty" (Barbara Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review). In Evicted, Princeton sociologist and MacArthur "Genius" Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Hailed as "wrenching and revelatory" (The Nation), "vivid and unsettling" (New York Review of Books), Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America's most devastating problems. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible.  NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY President Barack Obama * The New York Times Book Review * The Boston Globe * The Washington Post * NPR * Entertainment Weekly * The New Yorker * Bloomberg * Esquire * BuzzFeed * Fortune * San Francisco Chronicle * Milwaukee Journal Sentinel * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Politico * The Week * Chicago Public Library * BookPage * Kirkus Reviews * Library Journal *  Publishers Weekly * Booklist * Shelf Awareness WINNER OF: The National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction * The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction * The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism * The PEN/New England Award * The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE AND THE KIRKUS PRIZE "Evicted stands among the very best of the social justice books."--Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Commonwealth  "Gripping and moving--tragic, too."--Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones "Evicted is that rare work that has something genuinely new to say about poverty."--San Francisco Chronicle
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY "Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] shows us how people in the most desperate circumstances can find the resilience to hang on to their humanity. Just as important, she makes us care."--People "A tour de force of social justice reportage and a literary masterpiece."--Judges, PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times * The Washington Post * O: The Oprah Magazine * USA Today * New York * The Miami Herald * San Francisco Chronicle * Newsday In this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi, a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport. As India starts to prosper, the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul, an enterprising teenager, sees "a fortune beyond counting" in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha, a woman of formidable ambition, has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck, her beautiful daughter, Annawadi's "most-everything girl," might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children, like the young thief Kalu, feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power, and economic envy turn brutal.  With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, based on years of uncompromising reporting, carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century's hidden worlds--and into the hearts of families impossible to forget.  WINNER OF: The PEN Nonfiction Award * The Los Angeles Times Book Prize * The American Academy of Arts and Letters Award * The New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker * People * Entertainment Weekly * The Wall Street Journal * The Boston Globe * The Economist * Financial Times * Foreign Policy * The Seattle Times * The Nation * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * The Denver Post * Minneapolis Star Tribune * The Week * Kansas City Star * Slate *  Publishers Weekly
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro come nine short stories with "the intimacy of a family photo album and the organic feel of real life" (The New York Times) "In Munro's hands, as in Chekhov's, a short story is more than big enough to hold the world--and to astonish us, again and again."--Chicago Tribune   FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD * A TIME BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY    In the nine breathtaking stories that make up this collection, Alice Munro creates narratives that loop and swerve like memory, conjuring up characters as thorny and contradictory as people we know ourselves.    The fate of a strong-minded housekeeper with a "frizz of reddish hair," just entering the dangerous country of old-maidhood, is unintentionally (and deliciously) reversed by a teenaged girl's practical joke. A college student visiting her aunt for the first time and recognizing the family furniture stumbles on a long-hidden secret and its meaning in her own life. An inveterate philanderer finds the tables turned when he puts his wife into an old-age home. A young cancer patient stunned by good news discovers a perfect bridge to her suddenly regained future. A woman recollecting an afternoon's wild lovemaking with a stranger realizes how the memory of that encounter has both changed for her and sustained her through a lifetime.   Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is Munro at her best--tirelessly observant, serenely free of illusion, deeply and gloriously humane.
Call Number: eBook
The Overstory by Richard Powers WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. These four, and five other strangers--each summoned in different ways by trees--are brought together in a last and violent stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.   In his twelfth novel, National Book Award winner Richard Powers delivers a sweeping, impassioned novel of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of--and paean to--the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, The Overstory unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond, exploring the essential conflict on this planet: the one taking place between humans and nonhumans. There is a world alongside ours--vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see that world and who are drawn up into its unfolding catastrophe. The Overstory is a book for all readers who despair of humanity's self-imposed separation from the rest of creation and who hope for the transformative, regenerating possibility of a homecoming. If the trees of this earth could speak, what would they tell us? "Listen. There's something you need to hear."
Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times * "An insider's narrative that grips from the start." --Vogue * "Unmatched in depth and power and grace. A profound, achingly beautiful work of narrative nonfiction." --Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted * This New York Times bestseller is an "astonishingly intimate" (New York magazine) and harrowing chronicle of drugs, poverty, and three generations of women in the South Bronx. In her extraordinary bestseller, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc immerses readers in the intricacies of the ghetto, revealing the true sagas lurking behind the headlines of gangsta glamour, gold-drenched drug dealers, and street-corner society. Focusing on two romances--Jessica's dizzying infatuation with a hugely successful young heroin dealer, Boy George, and Coco's first love with Jessica's little brother, Cesar--Random Family is the story of young people trying to outrun their destinies. Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between survival and death. Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy George; Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and, throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty. Charting the tumultuous cycle of the generations--as girls become mothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation--LeBlanc slips behind the cold statistics and sensationalism and comes back with a haunting true story that is a "riveting portrait of the other America" (People).
Atonement by Ian McEwan On a summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussionsAtonementfollows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A modern classic about star-crossed lovers that explores questions of race and being Black in America--and the search for what it means to call a place home. * From the award-winning author of We Should All Be Feminists and Half of a Yellow Sun * WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR "An expansive, epic love story."--O, The Oprah Magazine   One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century * One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be Black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. At once powerful and tender, Americanah is a remarkable novel that is "dazzling...funny and defiant, and simultaneously so wise." --San Francisco Chronicle
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE * By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks . . . One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in twenty-first-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending, philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profound as it is playful. In this groundbreaking novel, an influential favorite among a new generation of writers, Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity. Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . . Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history. But the story doesn't end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky. As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward *WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for FICTION *A TIME MAGAZINE BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 OF 2017 *Finalist for the Kirkus Prize *Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal *Finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize *Publishers Weekly Top 10 of 2017 *Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award A finalist for the Kirkus Prize, Andrew Carnegie Medal, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and a New York Times bestseller, this majestic, stirring, and widely praised novel from two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, the story of a family on a journey through rural Mississippi, is a "tour de force" (O, The Oprah Magazine) and a timeless work of fiction that is destined to become a classic. In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing journeys through Mississippi's past and present, examining the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power--and limitations--of family bonds. Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn't lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who won't acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager. His mother, Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sister's lives. She is an imperfect mother in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is Black and her children's father is White. She wants to be a better mother but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. Simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she's high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances. When the children's father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love. Rich with Ward's distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an unforgettable family story.
White Teeth by Zadie Smith NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The blockbuster debut novel from "a preternaturally gifted" writer (The New York Times) and author of On Beauty and Swing Time--set against London's racial and cultural tapestry, reveling in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, and embracing the comedy of daily existence. One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Zadie Smith's dazzling debut caught critics grasping for comparisons and deciding on everyone from Charles Dickens to Salman Rushdie to John Irving and Martin Amis. But the truth is that Zadie Smith's voice is remarkably, fluently, and altogether wonderfully her own. At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England's irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn't quite match her name (Jamaican for "no problem"). Samad's late-in-life arranged marriage (he had to wait for his bride to be born), produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal's every effort to direct them, and a renewed, if selective, submission to his Islamic faith.  "[White Teeth] is, like the London it portrays, a restless hybrid of voices, tones, and textures...with a raucous energy and confidence." --The New York Times Book Review
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the NBCC award. From Alan Hollinghurst, the acclaimed author of The Sparsholt Affair, The Line of Beauty is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money during four extraordinary years of change and tragedy. In the summer of 1983, twenty-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the Feddens: conservative Member of Parliament Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel, and their two children, Toby--whom Nick had idolized at Oxford--and Catherine, who is highly critical of her family's assumptions and ambitions. As the boom years of the eighties unfold, Nick, an innocent in the world of politics and money, finds his life altered by the rising fortunes of this glamorous family. His two vividly contrasting love affairs, one with a young black clerk and one with a Lebanese millionaire, dramatize the dangers and rewards of his own private pursuit of beauty, a pursuit as compelling to Nick as the desire for power and riches among his friends. Richly textured, emotionally charged, disarmingly comic, this is a major work by one of our finest writers.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward Winner of the National Book AwardThe National Book Award winning novel from the author of Let Us Descend and Men We Reaped--a gritty but tender story of family and poverty in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.As the twelve days that make up the novel's framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family--motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce--pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.
Citizen by Claudia Rankine
ISBN: 9781555976903
Publication Date: 2014-10-07
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (Illustrator) A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books. This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, it's a story exhilaratingly suited to graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescense, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST * ONE OF OPRAH'S "BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH" * NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT   Hailed by Toni Morrison as "required reading," a bold and personal literary exploration of America's racial history by "the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race" (Rolling Stone)   NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN * NAMED ONE OF PASTE'S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * O: The Oprah Magazine * The Washington Post * People * Entertainment Weekly * Vogue * Los Angeles Times * San Francisco Chronicle * Chicago Tribune * New York * Newsday * Library Journal * Publishers Weekly   In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men--bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates's attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son--and readers--the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children's lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
The Years by Annie Ernaux; Alison L. Strayer (Translator) WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize Considered by many to be the iconic French memoirist's defining work and a breakout bestseller when published in France in 2008 The Years is a personal narrative of the period 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present--even projections into the future--photos, books, songs, radio, television and decades of advertising, headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and writing notes from 6 decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the times, slogans, brands and names for the ever-proliferating objects, are given voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges. Ernaux makes the passage of time palpable. Time itself, inexorable, narrates its own course, consigning all other narrators to anonymity. A new kind of autobiography emerges, at once subjective and impersonal, private and collective. On its 2008 publication in France, The Years came as a surprise. Though Ernaux had for years been hailed as a beloved, bestselling and award-winning author, The Years was in many ways a departure: both an intimate memoir "written" by entire generations, and a story of generations telling a very personal story. Like the generation before hers, the narrator eschews the "I" for the "we" (or "they", or "one") as if collective life were inextricably intertwined with a private life that in her parents' generation ceased to exist. She writes of her parents' generation (and could be writing of her own book): "From a common fund of hunger and fear, everything was told in the "we" and impersonal pronouns." Co-winner of the 2018 French-American Foundation Translation Prize in Nonfiction Winner of the 2017 Marguerite Yourcenar Prize for her entire body of work Winner of the 2016 Strega European Prize
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño; Natasha Wimmer (Translator) National Bestseller A New York Times Best Book of the Twenty-First Century The Savage Detectives is an exuberant, raunchy, wildly inventive, and ambitious novel from one of the greatest Latin American authors of our age. New Year's Eve, 1975: Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima, founders of the visceral realist movement in poetry, leave Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala. Their quest: to track down the obscure, vanished poet Cesárea Tinajero. A violent showdown in the Sonora desert turns search to flight; twenty years later Belano and Lima are still on the run. The explosive first long work by "the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time" (Ilan Stavans, Los Angeles Times), The Savage Detectives follows Belano and Lima through the eyes of the people whose paths they cross in Central America, Europe, Israel, and West Africa. This chorus includes the muses of visceral realism, the beautiful Font sisters; their father, an architect interned in a Mexico City asylum; a sensitive young follower of Octavio Paz; a foul-mouthed American graduate student; a French girl with a taste for the Marquis de Sade; the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky; a Chilean stowaway with a mystical gift for numbers; the anorexic heiress to a Mexican underwear empire; an Argentinian photojournalist in Angola; and assorted hangers-on, detractors, critics, lovers, employers, vagabonds, real-life literary figures, and random acquaintances. A polymathic descendant of Borges and Pynchon, Roberto Bolaño traces the hidden connection between literature and violence in a world where national boundaries are fluid and death lurks in the shadow of the avant-garde. The Savage Detectives is a dazzling original, the first great Latin American novel of the twenty-first century.
Call Number: eAudiobook
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER * With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption "features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human" (The Chicago Tribune). One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century * One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs.  "Pitch perfect.... Darkly, rippingly funny.... Egan possesses a satirist's eye and a romance novelist's heart." --The New York Times Book Review
H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year One of Slate's 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years ON MORE THAN 25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR LISTS: including TIME (#1 Nonfiction Book), NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine (10 Favorite Books), Vogue (Top 10), Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle (Top 10), Miami Herald, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top 10), Library Journal (Top 10), Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Slate, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, Amazon (Top 20) The instant New York Times bestseller and award-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald's story of adopting and raising one of nature's most vicious predators has soared into the hearts of millions of readers worldwide. Fierce and feral, her goshawk Mabel's temperament mirrors Helen's own state of grief after her father's death, and together raptor and human "discover the pain and beauty of being alive" (People). H Is for Hawk is a genre-defying debut from one of our most unique and transcendent voices.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize "A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." --Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.  An international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.
A Brief History of Seven Killings (Booker Prize Winner) by Marlon James Winner of the Booker Prize One of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Books of the Decade One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years One of the Top 10 Books of 2014 - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times A "thrilling, ambitious . . . intense" (Los Angeles Times) novel that explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the late 1970s, from the author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf In A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James combines brilliant storytelling with his unrivaled skills of characterization and meticulous eye for detail to forge an enthralling novel of dazzling ambition and scope. On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions in Kingston, seven gunmen stormed the singer's house, machine guns blazing. The attack wounded Marley, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Little was officially released about the gunmen, but much has been whispered, gossiped and sung about in the streets of West Kingston. Rumors abound regarding the assassins' fates, and there are suspicions  that the attack was politically motivated. A Brief History of Seven Killings delves deep into that dangerous and unstable time in Jamaica's history and beyond. James deftly chronicles the lives of a host of unforgettable characters - gunmen, drug dealers, one-night stands, CIA agents,  even ghosts - over the course of thirty years as they roam the streets of 1970s Kingston, dominate the crack houses of 1980s New York, and ultimately reemerge into the radically altered Jamaica of the 1990s. Along the way, they learn that evil does indeed cast long shadows, that justice and retribution are inextricably linked, and that no one can truly escape his fate. Gripping and inventive, shocking and irresistible, A Brief History of Seven Killings is a mesmerizing modern classic of power, mystery, and insight.
Postwar by Tony Judt Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world's most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative. Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to read, thrilling in its scope and delightful in its small details, Postwar is a rare joy.
The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times) This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. Read the first book in the critically acclaimed, three-time Hugo award-winning trilogy by NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin.
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson An intrepid voyage out to the frontiers of the latest thinking about love, language, and family Maggie Nelson'sThe Argonautsis a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the author's relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes Nelson's account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, offers a firsthand account of the complexities and joys of (queer) family-making. Writing in the spirit of public intellectuals such as Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes, Nelson binds her personal experience to a rigorous exploration of what iconic theorists have said about sexuality, gender, and the vexed institutions of marriage and child-rearing. Nelson's insistence on radical individual freedom and the value of caretaking becomes the rallying cry of this thoughtful, unabashed, uncompromising book.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner from the author of The Secret History that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review). Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by a longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into a wealthy and insular art community. As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love -- and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention. From the streets of New York to the dark corners of the art underworld, this "soaring masterpiece" examines the devastating impact of grief and the ruthless machinations of fate (Ron Charles, Washington Post).
A Mercy by Toni Morrison NATIONAL BESTSELLER * In "one of Morrison's most haunting works" (New York Times) the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the story of a mother and a daughter--a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment. In the 1680s the slave trade in the Americas is still in its infancy. Jacob Vaark is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives.
The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi; Anjali Singh (Translator) Here, in one volume: Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up as a girl in Iran during the revolution has for twenty years been a classroom staple, a feminist manifesto, and one of the most popular and widely known graphic novels of all time.  "A stunning graphic memoir...a wholly original achievement in the form." --The New York Times Persepolis is the story of Satrapi's unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private life and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming--both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up. Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom--Persepolis is a stunning work from one of the most highly regarded, singularly talented graphic artists at work today.
The Vegetarian by Han Kang WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE * "[Han] Kang viscerally explores the limits of what a human brain and body can endure, and the strange beauty that can be found in even the most extreme forms of renunciation."--Entertainment Weekly "Ferocious."--The New York Times Book Review (Ten Best Books of the Year) "Both terrifying and terrific."--Lauren Groff "Provocative [and] shocking."--The Washington Post Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams--invasive images of blood and brutality--torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It's a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that's become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself.    Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman's struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her. One of the Best Books of the Year--BuzzFeed, Entertainment Weekly, Wall Street Journal, Time, Elle, The Economist, HuffPost, Slate, Bustle, The St. Louis Dispatch, Electric Literature, Publishers Weekly
Trust (Pulitzer Prize Winner) by Hernan Diaz WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE "Buzzy and enthralling ...A glorious novel about empires and erasures, husbands and wives, staggering fortunes and unspeakable misery...Fun as hell to read." --Oprah Daily "A genre-bending, time-skipping story about New York City's elite in the roaring '20s and Great Depression."--Vanity Fair "A riveting story of class, capitalism, and greed." --Esquire "Exhilarating." --New York Times Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth--all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.     Hernan Diaz's TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another--and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.     At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.
Life after Life by Kate Atkinson What if you could live again and again, until you got it right? On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can -- will she? Darkly comic, startlingly poignant, and utterly original: this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best.
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson ANew York Times Notable Book for 2011 One ofThe Economist's 2011 Books of the Year One of NPR's 10 Best Novels of 2011 Denis Johnson'sTrain Dreams is an epic in miniature, one of his most evocative and poignant fictions. Robert Grainer is a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century-an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime. Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West-its otherworldly flora and fauna, its rugged loggers and bridge builders-the new novella by the National Book Award-winning author ofTree of Smoke captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life.
Runaway by Alice Munro NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Eight "sparkling [and] beautifully drawn" (Entertainment Weekly) stories about love and its infinite betrayals and surprises, from Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro "Each of the stories in Runaway contains enough lived life to fill a typical novel."--The Boston Globe WINNER OF THE GILLER PRIZE * A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Atlantic Monthly, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, San Jose Mercury News, Kansas City Star The runaway of the title story is a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband. In "Passion," a country girl emerging into the larger world via a job in a resort hotel discovers a single moment of stunning insight and the limits and lies of that mysterious emotion. Three stories, the inspiration for the award-winning movie Julieta, are about a woman named Juliet--in the first, she escapes from teaching at a girls' school into a wild and irresistible love match; in the second she returns with her child to the home of her parents, whose life and marriage she finally begins to examine; and in the last, her child, caught, she mistakenly thinks, in the grip of a religious cult, vanishes into an unexplained and profound silence. In the final story, "Powers," a young woman with the ability to read the future sets off a chain of events that involves her husband-to-be and a friend in a lifelong pursuit of what such a gift really means, and who really has it.   In Munro's hands, the people she writes about--women of all ages and circumstances, and their friends, lovers, parents, and children--become as vivid as our own neighbors. It is her miraculous gift to make these stories as real and unforgettable as our own.
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Tenth of December by George Saunders NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND BUZZFEED * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People * The New York Times Magazine * NPR * Entertainment Weekly * New York * The Telegraph * BuzzFeed * Kirkus Reviews * BookPage * Shelf Awareness One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet. In the taut opener, "Victory Lap," a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In "Home," a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned. And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antiques store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill--the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders's signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation. Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human. Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in Tenth of December--through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit--not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov's dictum that art should "prepare us for tenderness." GEORGE SAUNDERS WAS NAMED ONE OF THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD BY TIME MAGAZINE
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. The Looming Tower achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by telling the story through the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI's counterterrorism chief, John O'Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal. As these lives unfold, we see revealed: the crosscurrents of modern Islam that helped to radicalize Zawahiri and bin Laden . . . the birth of al-Qaeda and its unsteady development into an organization capable of the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the attack on the USS Cole . . . O'Neill's heroic efforts to track al-Qaeda before 9/11, and his tragic death in the World Trade towers . . . Prince Turki's transformation from bin Laden's ally to his enemy . . . the failures of the FBI, CIA, and NSA to share intelligence that might have prevented the 9/11 attacks. The Looming Tower broadens and deepens our knowledge of these signal events by taking us behind the scenes. Here is Sayyid Qutb, founder of the modern Islamist movement, lonely and despairing as he meets Western culture up close in 1940s America; the privileged childhoods of bin Laden and Zawahiri; family life in the al-Qaeda compounds of Sudan and Afghanistan; O'Neill's high-wire act in balancing his all-consuming career with his equally entangling personal life--he was living with three women, each of them unaware of the others' existence--and the nitty-gritty of turf battles among U.S. intelligence agencies. Brilliantly conceived and written, The Looming Tower draws all elements of the story into a galvanizing narrative that adds immeasurably to our understanding of how we arrived at September 11, 2001. The richness of its new information, and the depth of its perceptions, can help us deal more wisely and effectively with the continuing terrorist threat.
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner Named a Best Book of 2013 by The New York Times; Vogue; O, The Oprah Magazine; Time; Bookish; New York magazine; The New Yorker; Slate; Flavorwire; Publishers Weekly; Kirkus Reviews; Salon; and Complex. Rachel Kushner's The Flamethrowers, a finalist for the National Book Award, was just named a Top Ten Book of 2013 by the New York Times Book Review and one of Time magazine's top ten fiction books. Kushner's first novel, Telex from Cuba, was also a finalist for a National Book Award and was reviewed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review. The Flamethrowers, even more ambitious and brilliant, is the riveting story of a young artist and the worlds she encounters in New York and Rome in the mid-1970s--by turns underground, elite, and dangerous. The year is 1975 and Reno--so-called because of the place of her birth--has come to New York intent on turning her fascination with motorcycles and speed into art. Her arrival coincides with an explosion of activity in the art world--artists have colonized a deserted and industrial SoHo, are staging actions in the East Village, and are blurring the line between life and art. Reno meets a group of dreamers and raconteurs who submit her to a sentimental education of sorts. Ardent, vulnerable, and bold, she begins an affair with an artist named Sandro Valera, the semi-estranged scion of an Italian tire and motorcycle empire. When they visit Sandro's family home in Italy, Reno falls in with members of the radical movement that overtook Italy in the seventies. Betrayal sends her reeling into a clandestine undertow. The Flamethrowers is an intensely engaging exploration of the mystique of the feminine, the fake, the terrorist. At its center is Kushner's brilliantly realized protagonist, a young woman on the verge. Thrilling and fearless, this is a major American novel from a writer of spectacular talent and imagination.
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich In this now classic work, Barbara Ehrenreich, our sharpest and most original social critic, goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity. Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job--any job--can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you int to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity--a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything--from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal--in quite the same way again.
Stay True by Hua Hsu PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art, by the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu "This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be thinking about it for years and years to come." --Rachel Kushner, New York Times bestselling author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room In the eyes of eighteen-year-old Hua Hsu, the problem with Ken--with his passion for Dave Matthews, Abercrombie & Fitch, and his fraternity--is that he is exactly like everyone else. Ken, whose Japanese American family has been in the United States for generations, is mainstream; for Hua, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, who makes 'zines and haunts Bay Area record shops, Ken represents all that he defines himself in opposition to. The only thing Hua and Ken have in common is that, however they engage with it, American culture doesn't seem to have a place for either of them. But despite his first impressions, Hua and Ken become friends, a friendship built on late-night conversations over cigarettes, long drives along the California coast, and the successes and humiliations of everyday college life. And then violently, senselessly, Ken is gone, killed in a carjacking, not even three years after the day they first meet. Determined to hold on to all that was left of one of his closest friends--his memories--Hua turned to writing. Stay True is the book he's been working on ever since. A coming-of-age story that details both the ordinary and extraordinary, Stay True is a bracing memoir about growing up, and about moving through the world in search of meaning and belonging.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex is the winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The Virgin Suicides--the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl. "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license...records my first name simply as Cal." So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of l967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.
Heavy by Kiese Laymon *Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, Buzzfeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal (Biography/Memoirs), The Washington Post (Nonfiction), Southern Living (Southern), Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times Critics* *WINNER of the Andrew Carnegie Medal and FINALIST for the Kirkus Prize * In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse. Kiese Laymon is a fearless writer. In his essays, personal stories combine with piercing intellect to reflect both on the state of American society and on his experiences with abuse, which conjure conflicted feelings of shame, joy, confusion and humiliation. Laymon invites us to consider the consequences of growing up in a nation wholly obsessed with progress yet wholly disinterested in the messy work of reckoning with where we've been. In Heavy, Laymon writes eloquently and honestly about growing up a hard-headed black son to a complicated and brilliant black mother in Jackson, Mississippi. From his early experiences of sexual violence, to his suspension from college, to his trek to New York as a young college professor, Laymon charts his complex relationship with his mother, grandmother, anorexia, obesity, sex, writing, and ultimately gambling. By attempting to name secrets and lies he and his mother spent a lifetime avoiding, Laymon asks himself, his mother, his nation, and us to confront the terrifying possibility that few in this nation actually know how to responsibly love, and even fewer want to live under the weight of actually becoming free. A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable, an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that begins with a confusing childhood--and continues through twenty-five years of haunting implosions and long reverberations.
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION A New York Times "Ten Best Books of the Year" * An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post Bestseller  "Demon is a voice for the ages--akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield--only even more resilient." --Beth Macy, author of Dopesick "May be the best novel of [the year]. . . . Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love." (Ron Charles, Washington Post) From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities. Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.
10:04 by Ben Lerner In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child. In a New York of increasingly frequent superstorms and social unrest, he must reckon with his own mortality and the prospect of fatherhood in a city that might soon be underwater. A writer whose work Jonathan Franzen has called "hilarious . . . cracklingly intelligent . . . and original in every sentence," Lerner captures what it's like to be alive now, during the twilight of an empire, when the difficulty of imagining a future is changing our relationship to both the present and the past.
Veronica by Mary Gaitskill The extraordinary new novel from the acclaimed author ofBad BehaviorandTwo Girls, Fat and Thin,Veronicais about flesh and spirit, vanity, mortality, and mortal affection. Set mostly in Paris and Manhattan in the desperately glittering 1980s, it has the timeless depth and moral power of a fairy tale. As a teenager on the streets of San Francisco, Alison is discovered by a photographer and swept into the world of fashion-modeling in Paris and Rome. When her career crashes and a love affair ends disastrously, she moves to New York City to build a new life. There she meets Veronica—an older wisecracking eccentric with her own ideas about style, a proofreader who comes to work with a personal “office kit” and a plaque that reads “Still Anal After All These Years.” Improbably, the two women become friends. Their friendship will survive not only Alison’s reentry into the seductive nocturnal realm of fashion, but also Veronica’s terrible descent into the then-uncharted realm of AIDS. The memory of their friendship will continue to haunt Alison years later, when she, too, is aging and ill and is questioning the meaning of what she experienced and who she became during that time. Masterfully layering time and space, thought and sensation, Mary Gaitskill dazzles the reader with psychological insight and a mystical sense of the soul’s hurtling passage through the world. A novel unlike any other,Veronicais a tour de force about the fragility and mystery of human relationships, the failure of love, and love’s abiding power. It shines on every page with depth of feeling and formal beauty.
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler "A page turner . . . An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it's like to live during times of crisis." --The New York Times Book Review   A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster. Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, The Seattle Times, Bustle, Newsday, AM New York, BookPage, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library and Chicago Public Library 
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The chilling bestselling alternate history novel of what happens to one family when America elects a charismatic, isolationist president whose government embraces a folksy anti-Semitism--from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Pastoral. "A terrific political novel.... Sinister, vivid, dreamlike...You turn the pages, astonished and frightened." --The New York Times Book Review In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial "understanding" with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism.
We the Animals by Justin Torres SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE An exquisite, blistering debut novel Three brothers tear their way through childhood-- smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn--he's Puerto Rican, she's white--and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times. Life in this family is fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of belonging completely to one another. From the intense familial unity felt by a child to the profound alienation he endures as he begins to see the world, this beautiful novel reinvents the coming-of-age story in a way that is sly and punch-in-the-stomach powerful. Written in magical language with unforgettable images, this is a stunning exploration of the viscerally charged landscape of growing up, how deeply we are formed by our earliest bonds, and how we are ultimately propelled at escape velocity toward our futures.
Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Books for a Better Life Award, and one of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2012, this masterpiece by the National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon features stories of parents who not only learn to deal with their exceptional children, but also find profound meaning in doing so--"a brave, beautiful book that will expand your humanity" (People). Solomon's startling proposition in Far from the Tree is that being exceptional is at the core of the human condition--that difference is what unites us. He writes about families coping with deafness, dwarfism, Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, or multiple severe disabilities; with children who are prodigies, who are conceived in rape, who become criminals, who are transgender. While each of these characteristics is potentially isolating, the experience of difference within families is universal, and Solomon documents triumphs of love over prejudice in every chapter. All parenting turns on a crucial question: to what extent should parents accept their children for who they are, and to what extent they should help them become their best selves. Drawing on ten years of research and interviews with more than three hundred families, Solomon mines the eloquence of ordinary people facing extreme challenges. Elegantly reported by a spectacularly original and compassionate thinker, Far from the Tree explores how people who love each other must struggle to accept each other--a theme in every family's life.
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatised by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them. Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists motivated by Michelle Alexander's unforgettable argument that 'we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.'
All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones In fourteen sweeping and sublime stories, five of which have been published in The New Yorker, the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World shows that his grasp of the human condition is firmer than ever Returning to the city that inspired his first prizewinning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens. All Aunt Hagar's Children turns an unflinching eye to the men, women, and children caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations that await them further north, people who in Jones's masterful hands, emerge as fully human and morally complex, whether they are country folk used to getting up with the chickens or people with centuries of education behind them. In the title story, in which Jones employs the first-person rhythms of a classic detective story, a Korean War veteran investigates the death of a family friend whose sorry destiny seems inextricable from his mother's own violent Southern childhood. In "In the Blink of God's Eye" and "Tapestry" newly married couples leave behind the familiarity of rural life to pursue lives of urban promise only to be challenged and disappointed. With the legacy of slavery just a stone's throw away and the future uncertain, Jones's cornucopia of characters will haunt readers for years to come.
The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen; Tiina Nunnally (Translator); Michael Favala Goldman (Translator) A New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year (2021) An NPR Best Books of the Year (2021) Called "a masterpiece" by The New York Times, the acclaimed trilogy from Tove Ditlevsen, a pioneer in the field of genre-bending confessional writing. Tove Ditlevsen is today celebrated as one of the most important and unique voices in twentieth-century Danish literature, and The Copenhagen Trilogy (1969-71) is her acknowledged masterpiece. Childhood tells the story of a misfit child's single-minded determination to become a poet; Youth describes her early experiences of sex, work, and independence. Dependency picks up the story as the narrator embarks on the first of her four marriages and goes on to describe her horrible descent into drug addiction, enabled by her sinister, gaslighting doctor-husband. Throughout, the narrator grapples with the tension between her vocation as a writer and her competing roles as daughter, wife, mother, and drug addict, and she writes about female experience and identity in a way that feels very fresh and pertinent to today's discussions around feminism. Ditlevsen's trilogy is remarkable for its intensity and its immersive depiction of a world of complex female friendships, family and growing up--in this sense, it's Copenhagen's answer to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels. She can also be seen as a spiritual forerunner of confessional writers like Karl Ove Knausgaard, Annie Ernaux, Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy. Her trilogy is drawn from her own experiences but reads like the most compelling kind of fiction. Born in a working-class neighborhood in Copenhagen in 1917, Ditlevsen became famous for her poetry while still a teenager, and went on to write novels, stories, and memoirs. Having been dismissed by the critical establishment in her lifetime as a working-class female writer, she is now being rediscovered and championed as one of Denmark's most important modern authors.
Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexiévich NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The magnum opus and latest work from Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature--a symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times * The Washington Post * The Boston Globe * The Wall Street Journal * NPR * Financial Times * Kirkus Reviews When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize, it cited her for inventing "a new kind of literary genre," describing her work as "a history of emotions--a history of the soul." Alexievich's distinctive documentary style, combining extended individual monologues with a collage of voices, records the stories of ordinary women and men who are rarely given the opportunity to speak, whose experiences are often lost in the official histories of the nation. In Secondhand Time, Alexievich chronicles the demise of communism. Everyday Russian citizens recount the past thirty years, showing us what life was like during the fall of the Soviet Union and what it's like to live in the new Russia left in its wake. Through interviews spanning 1991 to 2012, Alexievich takes us behind the propaganda and contrived media accounts, giving us a panoramic portrait of contemporary Russia and Russians who still carry memories of oppression, terror, famine, massacres--but also of pride in their country, hope for the future, and a belief that everyone was working and fighting together to bring about a utopia. Here is an account of life in the aftermath of an idea so powerful it once dominated a third of the world. A magnificent tapestry of the sorrows and triumphs of the human spirit woven by a master, Secondhand Time tells the stories that together make up the true history of a nation. "Through the voices of those who confided in her," The Nation writes, "Alexievich tells us about human nature, about our dreams, our choices, about good and evil--in a word, about ourselves." Praise for Svetlana Alexievich and Secondhand Time "The nonfiction volume that has done the most to deepen the emotional understanding of Russia during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union of late is Svetlana Alexievich's oral history Secondhand Time."--David Remnick, The New Yorker "Like the greatest works of fiction, Secondhand Time is a comprehensive and unflinching exploration of the human condition. . . . In its scope and wisdom, Secondhand Time is comparable to War and Peace."--The Wall Street Journal "Already hailed as a masterpiece across Europe, Secondhand Time is an intimate portrait of a country yearning for meaning after the sudden lurch from Communism to capitalism in the 1990s plunged it into existential crisis."--The New York Times "This is the kind of history, otherwise almost unacknowledged by today's dictatorships, that matters."--The Christian Science Monitor "In this spellbinding book, Svetlana Alexievich orchestrates a rich symphony of Russian voices telling their stories of love and death, joy and sorrow, as they try to make sense of the twentieth century."--J. M. Coetzee
The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro; Grover Gardner (Read by) WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE, THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE, THE AMERICAN HISTORY BOOK PRIZE Book Four of Robert A. Caro's monumental The Years of Lyndon Johnson displays all the narrative energy and illuminating insight that led the Times of London to acclaim it as "one of the truly great political biographies of the modern age. A masterpiece." The Passage of Powerfollows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his career--1958 to1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin's bullet to reach its mark. By 1958, as Johnson began to maneuver for the presidency, he was known as one of the most brilliant politicians of his time, the greatest Senate Leader in our history. But the 1960 nomination would go to the young senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy. Caro gives us an unparalleled account of the machinations behind both the nomination and Kennedy's decision to offer Johnson the vice presidency, revealing the extent of Robert Kennedy's efforts to force Johnson off the ticket. With the consummate skill of a master storyteller, he exposes the savage animosity between Johnson and Kennedy's younger brother, portraying one of America's great political feuds. Yet Robert Kennedy's overt contempt for Johnson was only part of the burden of humiliation and isolation he bore as Vice President. With a singular understanding of Johnson's heart and mind, Caro describes what it was like for this mighty politician to find himself altogether powerless in a world in which power is the crucial commodity. For the first time, in Caro's breathtakingly vivid narrative, we see the Kennedy assassination through Lyndon Johnson's eyes. We watch Johnson step into the presidency, inheriting a staff fiercely loyal to his slain predecessor; a Congress determined to retain its power over the executive branch; and a nation in shock and mourning. We see how within weeks--grasping the reins of the presidency with supreme mastery--he propels through Congress essential legislation that at the time of Kennedy's death seemed hopelessly logjammed and seizes on a dormant Kennedy program to create the revolutionary War on Poverty. Caro makes clear how the political genius with which Johnson had ruled the Senate now enabled him to make the presidency wholly his own. This was without doubt Johnson's finest hour, before his aspirations and accomplishments were overshadowed and eroded by the trap of Vietnam. In its exploration of this pivotal period in Johnson's life--and in the life of the nation--The Passage of Poweris not only the story of how he surmounted unprecedented obstacles in order to fulfill the highest purpose of the presidency but is, as well, a revelation of both the pragmatic potential in the presidency and what can be accomplished when the chief executive has the vision and determination to move beyond the pragmatic and initiate programs designed to transform a nation. It is an epic story told with a depth of detail possible only through the peerless research that forms the foundation of Robert Caro's work, confirming Nicholas von Hoffman's verdict that "Caro has changed the art of political biography.
Call Number: Audiobook
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * The beloved first novel featuring Olive Kitteridge, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Lucy Barton and the Oprah's Book Club pick Olive, Again "Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive Kitteridge. . . . You'll never forget her."--USA Today "Strout animates the ordinary with astonishing force."--The New Yorker A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post Book World, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, People, Entertainment Weekly, The Christian Science Monitor, The Plain Dealer, The Atlantic, Rocky Mountain News, Library Journal   At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will to live; Olive's own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage both a blessing and a curse. As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life--sometimes painfully, but always with ruthless honesty. Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition--its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.   The inspiration for the Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries starring Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, and Bill Murray
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid FINALIST FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE & WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE "It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the world, and gave us a road map to our future... At once terrifying and ... oddly hopeful." --Ayelet Waldman, The New York Times Book Review "Moving, audacious, and indelibly human." --Entertainment Weekly, "A" rating The New York Times bestselling novel: an astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands, from the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist and the forthcoming The Last White Man.   In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet--sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors--doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . . Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * Sam and Sadie--two college friends, often in love, but never lovers--become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality. It is a love story, but not one you have read before. "Delightful and absorbing." --The New York Times * "Utterly brilliant." --John Green   One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, TIME, GoodReads, Oprah Daily From the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts. Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.
An American Marriage (Oprah's Book Club) by Tayari Jones A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR  * TIME  * BUSTLE  * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE  * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS  * AMAZON.COM OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE 2019 ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE   WINNER OF THE 2019 NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING LITERARY WORK--FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION "A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple." --Barack Obama "Haunting . . . Beautifully written." --The New York Times Book Review   "Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable." --USA Today   "A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class." --People   "Compelling." --The Washington Post "Deeply moving . . . thought-provoking." --Bill Gates   "Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant." --Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy's time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy's conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.   This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward--with hope and pain--into the future.
The Other Name by Jon Fosse; Damion Searls (Translator) WINNER OF THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE New York Times Editors' Choice Longlisted for the 2020 International Booker Prize "Fosse's fusing of the commonplace and the existential, together with his dramatic forays into the past, make for a relentlessly consuming work: already Septology feels momentous."--The Guardian "Fosse's portrait of intersecting lives is that rare metaphysical novel that readers will find compulsively readable."--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review The Other Name follows the lives of two men living close to each other on the west coast of Norway. The year is coming to a close and Asle, an aging painter and widower, is reminiscing about his life. He lives alone, his only friends being his neighbor, Åsleik, a bachelor and traditional Norwegian fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in Bjørgvin, a couple hours' drive south of Dylgja, where he lives. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter. He and the narrator are doppelgangers--two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life. Written in hypnotic prose that shifts between the first and third person, The Other Name calls into question concrete notions around subjectivity and the self. What makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another? Through flashbacks, Fosse deftly explores the convergences and divergences in the lives of both Asles, slowly building towards a decisive encounter between them both. A writer at the zenith of his career, with The Other Name, the first two volumes in his Septology, Fosse presents us with an indelible and poignant exploration of the human condition that will endure as his masterpiece.
Call Number: First 2 volumes of 7
A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin; Stephen Emerson (Editor); Lydia Davis (Foreword by) One ofTheNew York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2015 One ofJezebel's Favorite Books of 2016 "I have always had faith that the best writers will rise to the top, like cream, sooner or later, and will become exactly as well-known as they should be-their work talked about, quoted, taught, performed, filmed, set to music, anthologized. Perhaps, with the present collection, Lucia Berlin will begin to gain the attention she deserves." -Lydia Davis A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the Laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers and bad Christians. Readers will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they'd ever overlooked her in the first place.
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante; Ann Goldstein (Translator) The "stunning conclusion" to the bestselling saga of the fierce lifelong bond between two women, from a gritty Naples childhood through old age (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The Story of the Lost Child concludes the dazzling saga of two women, the brilliant, bookish Elena and the fiery, uncontainable Lila, who first met amid the shambles of postwar Italy. In this book, life's great discoveries have been made; its vagaries and losses have been suffered. Through it all, the women's friendship remains the gravitational center of their lives. Both women once fought to escape the neighborhood in which they grew up. Elena married, moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books. But now, she has returned to Naples to be with the man she has always loved. Lila, on the other hand, never succeeded in freeing herself from Naples. She has become a successful entrepreneur, but her success draws her into closer proximity with the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect her neighborhood. Yet, somehow, this proximity to a world she has always rejected only brings her role as unacknowledged leader of that world into relief. "Lila is a magnificent character." --The Atlantic "Everyone should read anything with Ferrante's name on it." --The Boston Globe
Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan Named A Best Book of 2011 by the New York Times, Time Magazine, the Boston Globe and Entertainment Weekly A sharp-eyed, uniquely humane tour of America's cultural landscape--from high to low to lower than low--by the award-winning young star of the literary nonfiction world. In Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan takes us on an exhilarating tour of our popular, unpopular, and at times completely forgotten culture. Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan shows us--with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that's all his own--how we really (no, really) live now. In his native Kentucky, Sullivan introduces us to Constantine Rafinesque, a nineteenth-century polymath genius who concocted a dense, fantastical prehistory of the New World. Back in modern times, Sullivan takes us to the Ozarks for a Christian rock festival; to Florida to meet the alumni and straggling refugees of MTV's Real World, who've generated their own self-perpetuating economy of minor celebrity; and all across the South on the trail of the blues. He takes us to Indiana to investigate the formative years of Michael Jackson and Axl Rose and then to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina--and back again as its residents confront the BP oil spill. Gradually, a unifying narrative emerges, a story about this country that we've never heard told this way. It's like a fun-house hall-of-mirrors tour: Sullivan shows us who we are in ways we've never imagined to be true. Of course we don't know whether to laugh or cry when faced with this reflection--it's our inevitable sob-guffaws that attest to the power of Sullivan's work.
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor; Sophie Hughes (Translator) The Witch is dead. And the discovery of her corpse has the whole village investigating the murder. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, new acts of depravity or brutality, Melchor extracts some tiny shred of humanity from these characters--inners whom most people would write off as irredeemable--forming a lasting portrait of a damned Mexican village. Like Roberto Bolaño's 2666 or Faulkner's novels, Hurricane Season takes place in a world saturated with mythology and violence--real violence, the kind that seeps into the soil, poisoning everything around: it's a world that becomes more and more terrifying the deeper you explore it.
When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut; Adrian Nathan West (Translator) One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2021 Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining. When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction.  Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger--these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, alienate friends and lovers, descend into isolation and insanity. Some of their discoveries reshape human life for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear. At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is "an extraordinary achievement" (The New Yorker)--a magnificent, profoundly humane "biography" of cancer--from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist's precision, a historian's perspective, and a biographer's passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with--and perished from--for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer." The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.
Pastoralia by George Saunders A stunning collection including the story "Sea Oak," from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo and the story collection Tenth of December, a 2013 National Book Award Finalist for Fiction. Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "graceful, dark, authentic, and funny," George Saunders gives us, in his inventive and beloved voice, this bestselling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape.
Frederick Douglass by David W. Blight **Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History** "Extraordinary...a great American biography" (The New Yorker) of the most important African American of the 19th century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era. As a young man Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. His very existence gave the lie to slave owners: with dignity and great intelligence he bore witness to the brutality of slavery. Initially mentored by William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass spoke widely, using his own story to condemn slavery. By the Civil War, Douglass had become the most famed and widely travelled orator in the nation. In his unique and eloquent voice, written and spoken, Douglass was a fierce critic of the United States as well as a radical patriot. After the war he sometimes argued politically with younger African Americans, but he never forsook either the Republican party or the cause of black civil and political rights. In this "cinematic and deeply engaging" (The New York Times Book Review) biography, David Blight has drawn on new information held in a private collection that few other historian have consulted, as well as recently discovered issues of Douglass's newspapers. "Absorbing and even moving...a brilliant book that speaks to our own time as well as Douglass's" (The Wall Street Journal), Blight's biography tells the fascinating story of Douglass's two marriages and his complex extended family. "David Blight has written the definitive biography of Frederick Douglass...a powerful portrait of one of the most important American voices of the nineteenth century" (The Boston Globe). In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Frederick Douglass won the Bancroft, Parkman, Los Angeles Times (biography), Lincoln, Plutarch, and Christopher awards and was named one of the Best Books of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Time.
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The lives of three women--transgender and cisgender--collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires in "one of the most celebrated novels of the year" (Time) "Reading this novel is like holding a live wire in your hand."--Vulture Named one of the Best Books of the Year by more than twenty publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Time, Vogue, Esquire, Vulture, and Autostraddle PEN/Hemingway Award Winner * Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Gotham Book Prize * Longlisted for The Women's Prize * Roxane Gay's Audacious Book Club Pick * New York Times Editors' Choice Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men. Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese--and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby--and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it--Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family--and raise the baby together? This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis by Lydia Davis The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is an event in American letters. Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers. She has been called "an American virtuoso of the short story form" (Salon) and "one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, for the first time, Davis's short stories are collected in one volume, from the groundbreaking Break It Down (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee Varieties of Disturbance. "Among the true originals of contemporary American short fiction." --San Francisco Chronicle
The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner) by Hisham Matar WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * The acclaimed memoir about fathers and sons, a legacy of loss, and, ultimately, healing--one of The New York Times Book Review's ten best books of the year, winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize When Hisham Matar was a nineteen-year-old university student in England, his father went missing under mysterious circumstances. Hisham would never see him again, but he never gave up hope that his father might still be alive. Twenty-two years later, he returned to his native Libya in search of the truth behind his father's disappearance. The Return is the story of what he found there. The Pulitzer Prize citation hailed The Return as "a first-person elegy for home and father." Transforming his personal quest for answers into a brilliantly told universal tale of hope and resilience, Matar has given us an unforgettable work with a powerful human question at its core: How does one go on living in the face of unthinkable loss? NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY  Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times * The Washington Post * The Guardian * Financial Times "A tale of mighty love, loyalty and courage. It simply must be read."--The Spectator (U.K.) "Wise and agonizing and thrilling to read."--Zadie Smith "[An] eloquent memoir . . . at once a suspenseful detective story about a writer investigating his father's fate . . . and a son's efforts to come to terms with his father's ghost, who has haunted more than half his life by his absence."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "This outstanding book . . . roves back and forth in time with a freedom that conceals the intricate precision of its art."--The Wall Street Journal "Truly remarkable . . . a book with a profound faith in the consolations of storytelling . . . a testament to [Matar's] father, his family and his country."--The Daily Telegraph (U.K.) "The Return is a riveting book about love and hope, but it is also a moving meditation on grief and loss. . . . Likely to become a classic."--Colm Tóibín "Matar's evocative writing and his early traumas call to mind Vladimir Nabokov."--The Washington Post "Utterly riveting."--The Boston Globe "A moving, unflinching memoir of a family torn apart."--Kazuo Ishiguro, The Guardian "Beautiful . . . The Return, for all the questions it cannot answer, leaves a deep emotional imprint."--Newsday "A masterful memoir, a searing meditation on loss, exile, grief, guilt, belonging, and above all, family. It is, as well, a study of the shaping--and breaking--of the bonds between fathers and sons. . . . This is writing of the highest quality."--The Sunday Times (U.K.)
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2016 Edgar Award for Best First Novel Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction "[A] remarkable debut novel." --Philip Caputo, New York Times Book Review (cover review) Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize, a startling debut novel from a powerful new voice featuring one of the most remarkable narrators of recent fiction: a conflicted subversive and idealist working as a double agent in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. The winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as seven other awards, The Sympathizer is the breakthrough novel of the year. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Saul Bellow, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a "man of two minds," a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam.  The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping espionage novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.
The Human Stain by Philip Roth NATIONAL BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD * The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Pastoral delivers "a master novelist's haunting parable about our troubled modern moment" (The Wall Street Journal). It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished even his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk's secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled. And to understand also how Silk's astonishing private history is, in the words of The Wall Street Journal, "magnificently" interwoven with "the larger public history of modern America."
Call Number: eBook
The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante; Ann Goldstein (Translator) "Rarely have the foundations upon which our ideas of motherhood and womanhood rest been so candidly questioned. This compelling novel tells the story of one woman's headlong descent into what she calls an ""absence of sense"" after being abandoned by her husband."
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 2014 National Book Award Finalist A New York Times Bestseller An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.   One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.   Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because survival is insufficient." But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.   Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.
On Beauty by Zadie Smith Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness, Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome struggles to be a believer in a family of strict atheists. Faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life are over and he has no clear plans for the finale. Or the encore. Then Jerome, Howard's older son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing icon Monty Kipps, and the two families find themselves thrown together in a beautiful corner of America, enacting a cultural and personal war against the background of real wars that they barely register. An infidelity, a death, and a legacy set in motion a chain of events that sees all parties forced to examine the unarticulated assumptions which underpin their lives. How do you choose the work on which to spend your life? Why do you love the people you love? Do you really believe what you claim to? And what is the beautiful thing, and how far will you go to get it? Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Zadie Smith's third novel is a brilliant analysis of family life, the institution of marriage, intersections of the personal and political, and an honest look at people's deceptions. It is also, as you might expect, very funny indeed.
Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel Winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize Winner of the 2012 Costa Book of the Year Award The sequel to Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Wolf Hall delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? Bring Up the Bodies is one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2012, one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012 and one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2012
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments by Saidiya Hartman In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, serial partners, cohabitation outside of wedlock, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday life and challenged traditional Victorian beliefs about courtship, love, and marriage. Hartman narrates the story of this radical social transformation against the grain of the prevailing century-old argument about the crisis of the black family. In wrestling with the question of what a free life is, many young black women created forms of intimacy and kinship that were indifferent to the dictates of respectability and outside the bounds of law. They cleaved to and cast off lovers, exchanged sex to subsist, and revised the meaning of marriage. Longing and desire fueled their experiments in how to live. They refused to labor like slaves or to accept degrading conditions of work. Beautifully written and deeply researched, Wayward Lives recreates the experience of young urban black women who desired an existence qualitatively different than the one that had been scripted for them--domestic service, second-class citizenship, and respectable poverty--and whose intimate revolution was apprehended as crime and pathology. For the first time, young black women are credited with shaping a cultural movement that transformed the urban landscape. Through a melding of history and literary imagination, Wayward Lives recovers their radical aspirations and insurgent desires.
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward Named one of the Best Books of the Century by New York Magazine Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones, Sing, Unburied, Sing) contends with the deaths of five young men dear to her, and the risk of being a black man in the rural South. "We saw the lightning and that was the guns; and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped." --Harriet Tubman In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life--to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: Why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth--and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships. Jesmyn says the answer was so obvious she felt stupid for not seeing it. But it nagged at her until she knew she had to write about her community, to write their stories and her own. Jesmyn grew up in poverty in rural Mississippi. She writes powerfully about the pressures this brings, on the men who can do no right and the women who stand in for family in a society where the men are often absent. She bravely tells her story, revisiting the agonizing losses of her only brother and her friends. As the sole member of her family to leave home and pursue higher education, she writes about this parallel American universe with the objectivity distance provides and the intimacy of utter familiarity. A brutal world rendered beautifully, Jesmyn Ward's memoir will sit comfortably alongside Edwidge Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying, Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life, and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award * Winner of the Orange Prize * National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist "Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book." --Washington Post Book World Ann Patchett's spellbinding novel about love and opera, and the unifying ways people learn to communicate across cultural barriers in times of crisis.  Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening--until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers. Patchett's lyrical prose and lucid imagination make Bel Canto a captivating story of strength and frailty, love and imprisonment, and an inspiring tale of transcendent romance.
How to Be Both by Ali Smith SHORT-LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF THE 2014 GOLDSMITHS PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2014 COSTA NOVEL AWARD WINNER OF THE SALTIRE LITERARY BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD A Best Book of the Year: NPR, Financial Times Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith's novels are like nothing else. A true original, she is a one-of-a-kind literary sensation. Her novels consistently attract serious acclaim and discussion--and have won her a dedicated readership who are drawn again and again to the warmth, humanity and humor of her voice. How to be both is a novel all about art's versatility. Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it's a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real--and all life's givens get given a second chance. A NOTE TO THE READER: Who says stories reach everybody in the same order? This novel can be read in two ways and this book provides you with both. In half of all printed editions of the novel the narrative EYES comes before CAMERA. In the other half of printed editions the narrative CAMERA precedes EYES. The narratives are exactly the same in both versions, just in a different order. The books are intentionally printed in two different ways, so that readers can randomly have different experiences reading the same text. So, depending on which edition you happen to receive, the book will be: EYES, CAMERA, or CAMERA, EYES. Enjoy the adventure.
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me. This is the story of Skip Sands--spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong--and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympatheticportraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature.Tree of Smokeis Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date. Tree of Smoke is the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction.

audio 2023

Best Audiobooks 2023

Recommendations from Library Journal, February 2024.

Fiction

Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR * FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION * A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black * LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE "This book is so good. Brutal subject matter, beautiful writing. This one is from the heart." --Stephen King A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Elle, Esquire, Chicago Tribune, Lit Hub, Kirkus Reviews "Like Orwell's 1984 and Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Adjei-Brenyah's book presents a dystopian vision so...illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we're capable of doing." --The Washington Post She felt their eyes, all those executioners... Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators, and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.   In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death matches before packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, Thurwar considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games. But CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo, and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.   Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors, to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a "new and necessary American voice" (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review).
Call Number: eAudiobook
All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * USA Today Bestseller * Washington Post's The Twelve Best Thrillers of the Year * TIME's 100 Must Read Books of the Year * Goodreads Choice Award Nominee * USA Today's Best Reviewed Books of the Year * BookPage's Best Mystery of the Year * Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year * New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * Cover of the New York Times Book Review * Barack Obama's Summer Reading List * The Financial Times's Best Crime Books of the Year * ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Longlist * SIBA's 2024 Southern Book Prize Finalist * Starred Publishers Weekly * Starred Library Journal * Starred BookPage * Starred Booklist "Fresh and exhilarating. . . Cosby keeps his eye on the story and the pedal to the metal." --Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review A Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust. The new novel from New York Times bestselling and Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author S. A. Cosby, "one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction." --Washington Post. "An atmospheric pressure cooker." --People Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus's election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus's deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer's possible connections to a local church and the town's harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town's Confederate history. Charon is Titus's home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning. Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as "one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction" (The Washington Post).
Call Number: eAudiobook
The Secret Service of Tea and Treason by India Holton An International Bestseller! One of... Library Journal's Best Romances of the Year Amazon's Best Romances of April Buzzfeed's Romance Books To Look Out For In 2023 Two rival spies must brave pirates, witches, and fake matrimony to save the Queen. Known as Agent A, Alice is the top operative within the Agency of Undercover Note Takers, a secret government intelligence group that is fortunately better at espionage than at naming itself. From managing deceptive witches to bored aristocratic ladies, nothing is beyond Alice's capabilities. She has a steely composure and a plan always up her sleeve (alongside a dagger and an embroidered handkerchief). So when rumors of an assassination plot begin to circulate, she's immediately assigned to the case.  But she's not working alone. Daniel Bixby, otherwise known as Agent B and Alice's greatest rival, is given the most challenging undercover assignment of his life-- pretending to be Alice's husband. Together they will assume the identity of a married couple, infiltrate a pirate house party, and foil their unpatriotic plans.  Determined to remain consummate professionals, Alice and Daniel must ignore the growing attraction between them, especially since acting on it might prove more dangerous than their target.
Call Number: eAudiobook
Whalefall by Daniel Kraus A USA TODAY BESTSELLER Named a Best Book of 2023 by Book Riot, Shelf Awareness, and NPR The Martian meets 127 Hours in this "astoundingly great" (Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author) and scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who's been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out. Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool's errand--to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it's a long shot, but Jay feels it's the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad's death by suicide the previous year. The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid's tentacles and drawn into the whale's mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out--one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale. Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an "powerfully humane" (Owen King, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life...only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.
Call Number: eAudiobook
Yellowface by R. F. Kuang INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK "Hard to put down, harder to forget." -- Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences... Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn't write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American--in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R.F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel.  Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena's a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I. So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree. But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves. With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang's novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable. 
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Dust Child by Que Mai Phan Nguyen "Powerful and deeply empathetic. A heartbreaking tale of lost ideals, human devotion, and hard-won redemption. Dust Child establishes Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai as one of our finest observers of the devastating consequences of war, and proves, once more, her ability to captivate readers and lure them into Viet Nam's rich and poignant history."―Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer and The Committed From the bestselling author of The Mountains Sing, a richly poetic and suspenseful saga about two Vietnamese sisters, an American veteran, and an Amerasian man whose lives intersect in surprising ways, set during and after the war in Việt Nam. In 1969, sisters Trang and Quỳnh, desperate to help their parents pay off debts, leave their rural village to work at a bar in Sài Gòn. Once in the big city, the young girls are thrown headfirst into a world they were not expecting. They learn how to speak English, how to dress seductively, and how to drink and flirt (and more) with American GIs in return for money. As the war moves closer to the city, the once-innocent Trang gets swept up in an irresistible romance with a handsome and kind American helicopter pilot she meets at the bar. Decades later, an American veteran, Dan, returns to Việt Nam with his wife, Linda, in search of a way to heal from his PTSD; instead, secrets he thought he had buried surface and threaten his marriage. At the same time, Phong--the adult son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman--embarks on a mission to find both his parents and a way out of Việt Nam. Abandoned in front of an orphanage, Phong grew up being called "the dust of life," "Black American imperialist," and "child of the enemy," and he dreams of a better life in the United States for himself, his wife Bình, and his children. Past and present converge as these characters come together to confront decisions made during a time of war--decisions that reverberate throughout one another's lives and ultimately allow them to find common ground across race, generation, culture, and language. Immersive, moving, and lyrical, Dust Child tells an unforgettable story of how those who inherited tragedy can redefine their destinies with hard-won wisdom, compassion, courage, and joy.
Call Number: eBook
Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto A USA Today bestseller Edgar Award Winner for Best Original Paperback Audie Award Winner for Mystery Libby Award Winner for Best Mystery A lonely shopkeeper takes it upon herself to solve a murder in the most peculiar way in this captivating mystery by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties. Vera Wong is a lonely little old lady--ah, lady of a certain age--who lives above her forgotten tea shop in the middle of San Francisco's Chinatown. Despite living alone, Vera is not needy, oh no. She likes nothing more than sipping on a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy detective work on the Internet about what her Gen-Z son is up to. Then one morning, Vera trudges downstairs to find a curious thing--a dead man in the middle of her tea shop. In his outstretched hand, a flash drive. Vera doesn't know what comes over her, but after calling the cops like any good citizen would, she sort of . . . swipes the flash drive from the body and tucks it safely into the pocket of her apron. Why? Because Vera is sure she would do a better job than the police possibly could, because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands. Vera knows the killer will be back for the flash drive; all she has to do is watch the increasing number of customers at her shop and figure out which one among them is the killer. What Vera does not expect is to form friendships with her customers and start to care for each and every one of them. As a protective mother hen, will she end up having to give one of her newfound chicks to the police?
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The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * SUBJECT OF A SIX-PART SUPER SOUL PODCAST SERIES HOSTED BY OPRAH WINFREY From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret "One of the best books I've read in my entire life. It's epic. It's transportive . . . It was unputdownable!"--Oprah Winfrey, OprahDaily.com The Covenant of Water is the long-awaited new novel by Abraham Verghese, the author of the major word-of-mouth bestseller Cutting for Stone, which has sold over 1.5 million copies in the United States alone and remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years. Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India's Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning--and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl--and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi--will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.
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Non-Fiction

Soil by Camille T. Dungy A seminal work that expands how we talk about the natural world and the environment as National Book Critics Circle Criticism finalist Camille T. Dungy diversifies her garden to reflect her heritage. In Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden, poet and scholar Camille T. Dungy recounts the seven-year odyssey to diversify her garden in the predominately white community of Fort Collins, Colorado. When she moved there in 2013, with her husband and daughter, the community held strict restrictions about what residents could and could not plant in their gardens. In resistance to the homogenous policies that limited the possibility and wonder that grows from the earth, Dungy employs the various plants, herbs, vegetables, and flowers she grows in her garden as metaphor and treatise for how homogeneity threatens the future of our planet, and why cultivating diverse and intersectional language in our national discourse about the environment is the best means of protecting it. Definitive and singular, Soil functions at the nexus of nature writing, environmental justice, and prose to encourage you to recognize the relationship between the peoples of the African diaspora and the land on which they live, and to understand that wherever soil rests beneath their feet is home.
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King: a Life by Jonathan Eig WINNER OF THE 2024 PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY A finalist for the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Award | Named one of the ten best books of 2023 by The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Time A New York Times bestseller and notable book of 2023 | One of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2023 One of The New Yorker's essential reads of 2023 | A Christian Science Monitor best book of the year | One of Air Mail's twelve best books of 2023 A Washington Post and National Indie Bestseller | One of Publishers Weekly's best nonfiction books of 2023 | One of Smithsonian magazine's ten best books of 2023 "Supple, penetrating, heartstring-pulling and compulsively readable . . . Eig's book is worthy of its subject." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times (Editors' Choice) "[King is] infused with the narrative energy of a thriller . . . The most compelling account of King's life in a generation." --Mark Whitaker, The Washington Post "No book could be more timely than Jonathan Eig's sweeping and majestic new King . . . Eig has created 2023′s most vital tome." --Will Bunch, The Philadelphia Inquirer Hailed by The New York Times as "the new definitive biography," King mixes revelatory new research with accessible storytelling to offer an MLK for our times. Vividly written and exhaustively researched, Jonathan Eig's King: A Life is the first major biography in decades of the civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.--and the first to include recently declassified FBI files. In this revelatory new portrait of the preacher and activist who shook the world, the bestselling biographer gives us an intimate view of the courageous and often emotionally troubled human being who demanded peaceful protest for his movement but was rarely at peace with himself. He casts fresh light on the King family's origins as well as MLK's complex relationships with his wife, father, and fellow activists. King reveals a minister wrestling with his own human frailties and dark moods, a citizen hunted by his own government, and a man determined to fight for justice even if it proved to be a fight to the death. As he follows MLK from the classroom to the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis, Eig dramatically re-creates the journey of a man who recast American race relations and became our only modern-day founding father--as well as the nation's most mourned martyr. In this landmark biography, Eig gives us an MLK for our times: a deep thinker, a brilliant strategist, and a committed radical who led one of history's greatest movements, and whose demands for racial and economic justice remain as urgent today as they were in his lifetime. Includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs
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Hillbilly Queer by Jamison J. R.; J. R. Jamison "Middle-aged, openly gay, liberal highbrow J.R. Jamison spends his days in a world of trigger warnings and safe spaces, while his conservative trigger-happy dad, Dave, spends his questioning why Americans have become so sensitive. At the height of the 2016 Election, the two decide to put differences aside and take a road trip to Daves hometown in rural Missouri for his fifty-five year class reunion. But with the constant backdrop of the Trump vs. Clinton battle at every turn, the two are forced to leave their bonding behind to explore one formidable question: Will the trip push them further apart or bring them closer together? Dave has always accepted his gay son. J.R. must learn if hes brave enough to accept his conservative dad. Traveling together through the rural, sun-beaten landscapes of central Missouri, the two meet people along the way who challenge their concepts of right and wrong, and together they uncover truths about their familys past that reveals more than political differences-they discover a lesson on the human condition that lands them on the international pages of The Guardian. Hillbilly Queer is an enduring love story between a dad and son who discover that sometimes the differences between us arent really that different at all"--
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Tremors in the Blood by Amit Katwala A thrilling account of the creation of the so-called lie detector, exploring shocking murders and dramatic trials to uncover the true nature of the polygraph. This tense true crime story is perfect for fans of American Predator and The Invention of Murder. Late one evening in the summer of 1922, Henry Wilkens burst through the doors of the emergency room covered in his wife's blood. But was he a grieving husband, or a ruthless killer who conspired with bandits to have her murdered? To find out, the San Francisco police turned to technology and a new machine that had just been invented in Berkeley by a rookie detective, a visionary police chief, and a teenage magician with a showman's touch. John Larson, Gus Vollmer and Leonarde Keeler hoped the lie detector would make the justice system fairer - but the flawed device soon grew too powerful for them to control. It poisoned their lives, turned fast friends into bitter enemies, and as it conquered America and the world, it transformed our relationship with the truth in ways that are still being felt. As new forms of lie detection gain momentum in the present day, Tremors in the Blood reveals the incredible truth behind the creation of the polygraph, through gripping true crime cases featuring explosive gunfights, shocking twists and high-stakes courtroom drama. Touching on psychology, technology and the science of the truth, Tremors in the Blood is a vibrant, atmospheric thriller, and a warning from history: beware what you believe.
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It. Goes. So. Fast by Mary Louise Kelly Ever since she became a parent, Mary Louise Kelly has said "next year." Next year will be the year she makes it to one of her son James's soccer games (which are on weekdays at 4 p.m., right when she is on the air on NPR's All Things Considered, talking to millions of listeners). Drive carpool for her son Alexander next week? Not if she wants to do that story about Ukraine and interview the secretary of state. Like millions of parents who wrestle with raising children while pursuing a career, she has never been cavalier about these decisions.The bargain she has always made with herself is this: this time I'll get on the plane, but next year I'll find a way to be there for the mom stuff.Well, James and Alexander are now seventeen and fifteen, and a realization has overtaken Mary Louise: her older son will be leaving soon for college. There used to be years to make good on her promises; now, there are months, weeks, minutes. And with the devastating death of her beloved father, Mary Louise is facing act three of her life head-on.Mary Louise is coming to grips with the reality every parent faces. Childhood has a definite expiration date. You have only so many years with your kids before they leave your house to build their own lives. It's what every parent is supposed to want, what they raise their children to do. But it is bittersweet. Mary Louise is also dealing with the realities of having aging parents. This pivotal time brings with it the enormous questions of what you did right and what you did wrong.
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Leg by Greg Marshall **A 2024 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST** * Washington Post's 50 Best Nonfiction of 2023 * NPR's Books We Love 2023 * * A New and Noteworthy Memoir of 2023 Selected by * Washington Post * USA Today * Esquire * Buzzfeed * Debutiful * LitHub * and more! * A hilarious and poignant memoir grappling with family, disability, and coming of age in two closets--as a gay man and as a man living with cerebral palsy "Leg is intimate (and I mean that in all ways), insightful, and often laugh-out-loud funny." --Scott Simon, NPR's "Weekend Edition" "A riotous new memoir . . . A hilarious yet loving account, this book has charm for days." --People Magazine Greg Marshall's early years were pretty bizarre. Rewind the VHS tapes (this is the '90s) and you'll see a lopsided teenager limping across a high school stage, or in a wheelchair after leg surgeries, pondering why he's crushing on half of the Utah Jazz. Add to this home-video footage a mom clacking away at her newspaper column between chemos, a dad with ALS, and a cast of foulmouthed siblings. Fast forward the tape and you'll find Marshall happily settled into his life as a gay man only to discover he's been living in another closet his whole life: he has cerebral palsy. Here, in the hot mess of it all, lies Greg Marshall's wellspring of wit and wisdom. Extraordinarily funny and insightful, Leg is packed with outrageous stories of a singular childhood. It is also a unique examination of what it means to transform when there are parts of yourself you can't change, a moving portrait of a family in crisis, and a tale of resilience of spirit. In Marshall's deft hands, we see a story both personal and universal--of being young and wanting the world, even when the world doesn't feel like yours to want.
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So Many Steves by Steve Martin, Adam Gopnik Steve Martin is more candid than he's ever been about his creative life-in this engrossing audio-biography centered around a series of conversations recorded over many afternoons at home with his friend and neighbor, writer Adam Gopnik. Steve Martin met his good friend Adam Gopnik three decades ago, and in that time, Gopnik has always marveled at Martin's ability to flourish in a wide variety of artforms: magic, comedy, art collecting, writing, and music. In So Many Steves, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik creates a new type of profile: a year's worth of conversations with Martin where Gopnik pulls back the curtain on his friend's illustrious career. This biography places you in Martin's apartment across from Steve and Adam, listening as their conversation flows from Steve's first job in a magic shop to selling out stadiums as a standup comedian, starring in major motion pictures, writing his first novel, teaching himself to play the banjo, and starting a respected art collection. Through it all you'll hear clips from Steve Martin's iconic stand up routines and movies as well as excerpts from his writing and tv appearances, all knit together by an original banjo score created and played by Steve. Widely praised for his dada persona and portrayal of funny-yet-relatable parents, Steve shares behind the scenes anecdotes from his films―L.A. Story, The Jerk, Three Amigos, and more―giving listeners a taste of life on set. More than a history, this series of intimate conversations between old colleagues reveal Martin's thoughtful approach to both art and life. As Steve develops as an artist, challenging himself with learning new crafts, Adam sees his friend growing and evolving as a person: becoming warmer, more gregarious, and even more gracious.
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The Confession of Henry Jekyll, M.D. by David Rambo Rambo (God's Man in Texas), writer of popular productions for screen and stage, presents his fresh, fast-paced take on the harrowing tale of Henry Jekyll, staged as a self-recorded confession. Jekyll takes listeners back to where his battle with his alter ego, Robert Hyde, began. Struggling to conceal his inner demons, Jekyll sacrifices love, friendship, and eventually his humanity. Following the production, a conversation between Rambo and Leslie S. Klinger, a historian of horror fiction, delves into the fascination that has kept Robert Louis Stevenson's story alive for over a century. Lead performers Seamus Dever, as Jekyll/Hyde, and Matthew Hancock, as Nick, are a dramatic and compelling duo. They portray every emotional facet imaginable, from mournful to monstrous. Four other narrators voice minor characters, rounding out the engrossing listen. Background music, sound effects, and audience laughter and applause create an immersive theatrical experience. VERDICT This audio will appeal to listeners seeking a classic creepy tale with a contemporary spin, presented as an intense and engaging dramatic production. Recommended for fans of horror both old and new, from Stevenson to Stephen King.--Lauren Hackert
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How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair National Book Critics Circle Award Winner A New York Times Notable Book A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! A Best Book of 2023 by the New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, Vulture, Shelf Awareness, Goodreads, Esquire, The Atlantic, NPR, and Barack Obama With echoes of Educated and Born a Crime, How to Say Babylon is the stunning story of the author's struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing, ruled by her father's strict patriarchal views and repressive control of her childhood, to find her own voice as a woman and poet. Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair's father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman's highest virtue was her obedience. In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya's mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father's beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya's voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them. How to Say Babylon is Sinclair's reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.
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Congratulations, the Best Is Over! by R. Eric Thomas NATIONAL BESTSELLER * The beloved author of Here for It returns with a collection of "funny and compulsively readable" (Vogue), "hilarious and incisive" (Time) essays about what happens after happily ever after. "How is it possible that I liked this book even more than his last one? Phenomenal."--Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Broken (in the best possible way) A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Garden & Gun, Real Simple After going viral "reading" the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas finally knew who he was and where he was going. He was living his best life.   But then everything changed. In this collection of insightful and hilarious essays, Thomas moves back to his perpetually misunderstood hometown of Baltimore (a place he never wanted to return, even to be buried) and behaves completely out of character. They say you can't go home again, but what if you and home have changed beyond recognition? From attending his twenty-year high school reunion and discovering another person's face on his name badge, to splattering an urgent care room with blood à la The Shining, to being terrorized by a plague of gay frogs who've overtaken his backyard, Thomas provides the nitty, and sometimes the gritty, details of wrestling with the life he thought he'd left behind while trying to establish a new one. With wit, heart, and hope for the future, Congratulations, The Best Is Over! is the not-so-gentle reminder we all need that even when life doesn't go according to plan, we can still find our way back home.
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debut

Debut Mysteries & Thrillers

Includes adult debuts by YA authors and U.S. debuts by international authors.

While most of these listings link by default to a print copy, many are available in other formats (eBook and eAudiobook). Don't forget to check the catalog by title or author if you prefer digital!

Your Presence Is Mandatory by Sasha Vasilyuk A riveting debut novel, based on real events, about a World War II veteran with a secret that could land him in the Gulag, and his family who are forced to live in the shadow of all he has not told them. Ukraine, 2007. Yefim Shulman, husband, grandfather and war veteran, was beloved by his family and his coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow Nina finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his confession forces them to reassess the man they thought they knew and the country he had defended. In 1941, Yefim is a young artillerist on the border between the Soviet Union and Germany, eager to defend his country and his large Jewish family against Hitler's forces. But surviving the war requires sacrifices Yefim never imagined-and even when the war ends, his fight isn't over. He must conceal his choices from the KGB and from his family. Spanning seven decades between World War II and the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, Your Presence Is Mandatory traces the effect Yefim's coverup had on the lives of Nina, their two children and grandchildren. In the process, Sasha Vasilyuk shines a light on one family caught between two totalitarian regimes, and the grace they find in the course of their survival.
While We Were Burning by Sara Koffi Parasite meets Such a Fun Age in a scorching debut that is as heartbreaking as it is thrilling, examining the intersection of race, class, and female friendship, and the devastating consequences of everyday actions. After her best friend's mysterious death, Elizabeth Smith's picture-perfect life in the Memphis suburbs has spiraled out of control--so much so that she hires a personal assistant to keep her on track. Composed and elegant, Brianna is exactly who she needs and slides so neatly into Elizabeth's life, almost like she belonged there from the start. Soon, the assistant Elizabeth hired to distract her from her obsession with her friend's death is the same person working with her to uncover the truth behind it. Because Brianna has questions too. She wants to know why the police killed her young Black son. Why someone in Elizabeth's neighborhood called the cops on him that day. Who took that first step that stole her child away from her. And the only way she's ever going to be able to find out is to entwine herself deep into Elizabeth's life, where the answers to her questions lie. As the two women hurtle towards an electrifying final showdown, and the lines between employer and friend blur, it becomes clear that neither of them is what they first appear.
You Know What You Did by K. T. Nguyen In this heart-pounding debut thrillerfor fans of Lisa Jewell and Celeste Ng, a first-generation Vietnamese American artist must confront nightmares past and present. . . . Annie "Anh Le" Shaw grew up poor, but seems to have it all now- a dream career, a stunning home, and a devoted husband and daughter. When Annie's mother, a Vietnam War refugee, dies suddenly one night, Annie's carefully curated life begins to unravel. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder, which she thought she'd vanquished years ago, comes roaring back-but this time, the disturbing fixations swirling around in Annie's brain might actually be coming true. A prominent art patron disappears, and the investigation zeroes in on Annie. Spiraling with self-doubt, she distances herself from her family and friends, only to wake up in a hotel room-naked, next to a lifeless body. The police have more questions, but with her mind increasingly fractured, Annie doesn't have answers. All she knows is this- She will do anything to protect her daughter-even if it means losing herself. With dizzying twists, You Know What You Didis both a harrowing thriller and a heartfelt exploration of the refugee experience, the legacies we leave for our children, and the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.
The North Line by Matt Riordan In Matt Riordan's debut novel, a college student in need of quick money finds work on an Alaskan fishing boat in the unforgiving Bering Sea. "The North Lineis a ruggedly erudite story that combines the best of the individualism of Jack London with the introspective ruminations of Raymond Carver . . . not to be missed." -S.A. Cosby New York Timesbestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed "A frightening story of tough men pushed to the brink. The novel is captivating, occasionally funny, and startling. I couldn't put it down." -David Sedaris Even at the ragged edge of civilization, some lines should not be crossed. Everyone believes Adam to be something he's not. Sometimes that's because he's told them a story. Sometimes he's told himself one. But when Adam joins an Alaskan fishing crew that's promising quick money, the dangerous work and harsh lifestyle strip away all fabrications and force a dark-hearted exploration of who he really is. On the unforgiving Bering Sea, Adam finds the adventure and authenticity of a fisherman's life revelatory. The labor required to seize bounty from the ocean invigorates him, and the often crude comradery accompanies a welcome, hard-earned wisdom. But when a strike threatens the entire season and violence stalks the waves, Adam is thrust into a struggle for survival at the edge of the world, where evolutionary and social forces collide for outcomes beyond anyone's control. In his riveting debut novel, Matt Riordan pairs personal experiences with a master storyteller's eye in a piercing examination of the quest for identity in the face of tempests within and without.
Where You End by Abbott Kahler An Amazon Top Book of the Month A Good Morning America Buzz Pick A Mary Calvi Book Club Pick "A perfectly paced, addictive thriller with a vicious twist." --Paula Hawkins From bestselling nonfiction author Abbott Kahler comes a spellbinding fiction debut: an unusual form of amnesia upends the lives of identical twins, forcing them to face the indelible, dangerous shadow of the past. When Kat Bird wakes up from a coma, she sees her mirror image: Jude, her twin sister. Jude's face and name are the only memories Kat has from before her accident. As Kat tries to make sense of things, she believes Jude will provide all the answers to her most pressing questions: Who am I? Where am I? What actually happened? Amid this tragedy, Jude sees an irresistible opportunity: she can give her sister a brand-new past, one worlds away from the lives they actually led. She spins tales of an idyllic childhood, exotic travels, and a bright future. But if everything was so perfect, who are the mysterious people following Kat? And what explains her uncontrollable flashes of violent anger, which begin to jeopardize a sweet new romance? Duped by the one person she trusted, Kat must try to untangle fact from fiction. Yet as she pulls at the threads of Jude's elaborate tapestry, she has no idea of the catastrophe she's inviting. At stake is not just the twins' relationship, but their very survival. Intensely creepy and beautifully written, Abbott Kahler's Where You End is an unforgettable tale of intrigue, revenge, and the quest for redemption.
Nightwatching by Tracy Sierra Unputdownable · Psychological Suspense · Horror · Tense · Gripping A FALLON BOOK CLUB PICK "Pulse-pounding locked-room suspense." --Elle "Nightwatching is like nothing I've read before. I wolfed it down in two sittings; it's amazing."--Lisa Jewell A footstep on the stairs. A second to react. What happens next will determine everything. Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle of the night. She hears a noise--old houses are always making some kind of noise. But this sound is disturbingly familiar: it's the tread of footsteps, unusually heavy and slow, coming up the stairs. She sees the figure of a man appear down the hallway, shrouded in the shadows. Terrified, she quietly wakes her children and hustles them into the oldest part of the house, a tiny, secret room concealed behind a wall. There they hide as the man searches for them, trying to tempt the children out with promises and scare the mother into surrender. In the suffocating darkness, the mother struggles to remain calm, to plan. Should she search for a weapon or attempt escape? But then she catches another glimpse of him. That face. That voice. And at once she knows her situation is even more dire than she'd feared, because she knows exactly who he is--and what he wants.
Rabbit Hole by Kate Brody A page-turning debut mystery that's as addictive as a late-night Reddit binge, about a grieving woman obsessed with solving her sister's cold-case disappearance via the true crime fandom Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, My Favorite Murder, and Fleabag Ten years ago, Theodora "Teddy" Angstrom's older sister, Angie, went missing. Her case remains unsolved. Now Teddy's father, Mark, has killed himself. Unbeknownst to Mark's family, he had been active in a Reddit community fixated on Angie, and Teddy can't help but fall down the same rabbit hole. Teddy's investigation quickly gets her in hot water with her gun-nut boyfriend, her long-lost half brother, and her colleagues at the prestigious high school where she teaches English. Further complicating matters is Teddy's growing obsession with Mickey, a charming amateur sleuth who is eerily keen on helping her solve the case. Bewitched by Mickey, Teddy begins to lose her moral compass. As she struggles to reconcile new information with old memories, her erratic behavior reaches a fever pitch, but she won't stop until she finds Angie--or destroys herself in the process. Rabbit Hole is an outrageous and heart-wrenching character study of a mind twisted by grief, a biting critique of the internet's voyeurism, and an intriguing exploration of the blurry lines of female friendship.
Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera A New York Times Bestseller A Good Morning America Book Club Pick "A world-class whodunit." --Stephen King "An extremely successful high-wire act, balancing between dark comedy and darker thrills." --Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author "Laugh-out-loud funny, thrilling and twisty..." --Liane Moriarty, #1 New York Times bestselling author What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn't matter? After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy's blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all, and if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. It's been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can't remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life. But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast "Listen for the Lie," and its too-good looking host Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy's murder for the show's second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend's murder, even if she is the one that did it. The truth is out there, if we just listen.
Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack A USA Today Bestseller #1 Toronto Star Bestseller in Canadian Fiction A Globe and Mail Bestseller in Canadian Fiction A Vancouver Sun Bestseller in New Releases An Indie Next List Pick (May 2024) An Amazon Editors' Pick for Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense (May 2024) Library Journal's Mystery Pick of the Month (April 2024) Ten days, eight suspects, six cities, five authors, three bodies . . . one trip to die for. "Quick, captivating, and oh-so-much-fun! This delicious mystery is as spellbinding as Knives Out."--Elle Cosimano, New York Times bestselling author of the Finlay Donovan series All that bestselling author Eleanor Dash wants is to get through her book tour in Italy and kill off her main character, Connor Smith, in the next in her Vacation Mysteries series--is that too much to ask? Clearly, because when an attempt is made on the real Connor's life--the handsome but infuriating con man she got mixed up with ten years ago and now can't get out of her life--Eleanor's enlisted to help solve the case. Contending with literary competitors, rabid fans, a stalker--and even her ex, Oliver, who turns up unexpectedly--theories are bandied about, and rivalries, rifts, and broken hearts are revealed. But who's really trying to get away with murder? Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies is the irresistible and hilarious series debut from Catherine Mack, introducing bestselling fictional author Eleanor Dash on her Italian book tour that turns into a real-life murder mystery, as her life starts to imitate the world in her books.
The Curse of Penryth Hall by Jess Armstrong "A delightful debut." -People An atmospheric gothic mystery that beautifully brings the ancient Cornish countryside to life, Armstrong introduces heroine Ruby Vaughn in her Minotaur Books & Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut, The Curse of Penryth Hall. After the Great War, American heiress Ruby Vaughn made a life for herself running a rare bookstore alongside her octogenarian employer and house mate in Exeter. She's always avoided dwelling on the past, even before the war, but it always has a way of finding her. When Ruby is forced to deliver a box of books to a folk healer living deep in the Cornish countryside, she is brought back to the one place she swore she'd never return. A more sensible soul would have delivered the package and left without rehashing old wounds. But no one has ever accused Ruby of being sensible. Thus begins her visit to Penryth Hall. A foreboding fortress, Penryth Hall is home to Ruby's once dearest friend, Tamsyn, and her husband, Sir Edward Chenowyth. It's an unsettling place, and after a more unsettling evening, Ruby is eager to depart. But her plans change when Penryth's bells ring for the first time in thirty years. Edward is dead; he met a gruesome end in the orchard, and with his death brings whispers of a returned curse. It also brings Ruan Kivell, the person whose books brought her to Cornwall, the one the locals call a Pellar, the man they believe can break the curse. Ruby doesn't believe in curses--or Pellars--but this is Cornwall and to these villagers the curse is anything but lore, and they believe it will soon claim its next victim: Tamsyn. To protect her friend, Ruby must work alongside the Pellar to find out what really happened in the orchard that night.
West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA NEW BLOOD DAGGER AWARD LOOKING FOR AN ANYTHING-BUT-ORDINARY WHODUNIT? * Welcome to the West Heart Club. Where the drinks are neat but behind closed doors . . . things can get messy. Where upright citizens are deemed downright boring. Where the only missing piece of the puzzle is you, dear reader. A unique and irresistible murder mystery set at a remote hunting lodge where everyone is a suspect, including the erratic detective on the scene--a remarkable debut that gleefully upends the rules of the genre. "A thoroughly original suspense novel that hops across elements of the genre--a diabolical locked-room mystery interspersed with a fascinating primer on the form--while always being tremendous fun to read."--Chris Pavone, best-selling author of Two Nights in Lisbon An isolated hunt club. A raging storm. Three corpses, discovered within four days. A cast of monied, scheming, unfaithful characters. When private detective Adam McAnnis joins an old college friend for the Bicentennial weekend at the exclusive West Heart club in upstate New York, he finds himself among a set of not-entirely-friendly strangers. Then the body of one of the members is found at the lake's edge; hours later, a major storm hits. By the time power is restored on Sunday, two more people will be dead . . .
Pay Dirt Road by Samantha Jayne Allen Annie McIntyre has a love/hate relationship with Garnett, Texas. Recently graduated from college and home waitressing, lacking not in ambition but certainly in direction, Annie is lured into the family business--a private investigation firm--by her supposed-to-be-retired grandfather, Leroy, despite the rest of the clan's misgivings.When a waitress at the café goes missing, Annie and Leroy begin an investigation that leads them down rural routes and haunted byways, to noxious-smelling oil fields and to the glowing neon of local honky-tonks. As Annie works to uncover the truth she finds herself identifying with the victim in increasing, unsettling ways, and realizes she must confront her own past--failed romances, a disturbing experience she'd rather forget, and the trick mirror of nostalgia itself--if she wants to survive this homecoming.
A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari The Lost Apothecary meets Dead Dead Girls in this fast-paced, STEMinist adventure. Debut author Kate Khavari deftly entwines a pulse-pounding mystery with the struggles of a woman in a male-dominated field in 1923 London. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to blaze a new trail at the University College London, but with her colleagues' beliefs about women's academic inabilities and not so subtle hints that her deceased father's reputation paved her way into the botany department, she feels stymied at every turn.   When she attends a dinner party for the school, she expects to engage in conversations about the university's large expedition to the Amazon. What she doesn't expect is for Mrs. Henry, one of the professors' wives, to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin.  Dr. Maxwell, Saffron's mentor, is the main suspect and evidence quickly mounts. Joined by fellow researcher--and potential romantic interest--Alexander Ashton, Saffron uses her knowledge of botany as she explores steamy greenhouses, dark gardens, and deadly poisons to clear Maxwell's name.   Will she be able to uncover the truth or will her investigation land her on the murderer's list, in this entertaining examination of society's expectations.
Dirt Creek by Hayley Scrivenor A NATIONAL BESTSELLER Who's lying about what happened at Dirt Creek? "Blends a taut psychological thriller with a suspenseful police procedural...Fans of Liane Moriarty and Jane Harper won't want to miss this page-turner." --Publishers Weekly, starred review "A novel of sharp-edged tempers, accidents waiting to happen and dark inheritances." --New York Times Book Review When twelve-year-old Esther disappears on the way home from school in a small town in rural Australia, the community is thrown into a maelstrom of suspicion and grief. As Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels arrives in town during the hottest spring in decades and begins her investigation, Esther's tenacious best friend, Ronnie, is determined to find Esther and bring her home. When schoolfriend Lewis tells Ronnie that he saw Esther with a strange man at the creek the afternoon she went missing, Ronnie feels she is one step closer to finding her. But why is Lewis refusing to speak to the police? And who else is lying about how much they know about what has happened to Esther? Punctuated by a Greek chorus, which gives voice to the remaining children of the small, dying town, this novel explores the ties that bind, what we try and leave behind us, and what we can never outrun, while never losing sight of the question of what happened to Esther, and what her loss does to a whole town. In Hayley Scrivenor's Dirt Creek, a small-town debut mystery described as The Dry meets Everything I Never Told You, a girl goes missing and a community falls apart and comes together.
We Know You Remember by Tove Alsterdal "Beautifully elegiac and intricately plotted, this is Nordic noir at its best."--People Winner of the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel * Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year * Shortlisted for the Best Swedish Book of the Year Award * One of People Magazine's Best Books of Fall  A missing girl, a hidden body, a decades-long cover-up, and old sins cast in new light: the classic procedural meets Scandinavian atmosphere in this rich, character-driven mystery, awarded Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, that heralds the American debut of a supremely skilled international writer.  It's been more than twenty years since Olof Hagström left home. Returning to his family's house, he knows instantly that something is amiss. The front door key, hidden under a familiar stone, is still there. Inside, there's a panicked dog, a terrible stench, water pooling on the floor: the father Olaf has not seen or spoken to in decades is dead in the bathroom shower. For police detective Eira Sjödin, the investigation of this suspicious death resurrects long-forgotten nightmares. She was only nine when Olof Hagström, then fourteen, was found guilty of raping and murdering a local girl. The case left a mark on the town's collective memory--a wound that never quite healed--and tinged Eira's childhood with fear. Too young to be sentenced, Olof was sent to a youth home and exiled from his family. He was never seen in the town again. Until now.  An intricate crime narrative in which past and present gracefully blend, We Know You Remember is a relentlessly suspenseful and beautifully written novel about guilt and memory in which nothing is what it seems, and unexpected twists upend everything you think you know. 
Murder in Old Bombay by Nev March Nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel! In 19th century Bombay, Captain Jim Agnihotri channels his idol, Sherlock Holmes, in Nev March's Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut. In 1892, Bombay is the center of British India. Nearby, Captain Jim Agnihotri lies in Poona military hospital recovering from a skirmish on the wild northern frontier, with little to do but re-read the tales of his idol, Sherlock Holmes, and browse the daily papers. The case that catches Captain Jim's attention is being called the crime of the century: Two women fell from the busy university's clock tower in broad daylight. Moved by Adi, the widower of one of the victims -- his certainty that his wife and sister did not commit suicide -- Captain Jim approaches the Parsee family and is hired to investigate what happened that terrible afternoon. But in a land of divided loyalties, asking questions is dangerous. Captain Jim's investigation disturbs the shadows that seem to follow the Framji family and triggers an ominous chain of events. And when lively Lady Diana Framji joins the hunt for her sisters' attackers, Captain Jim's heart isn't safe, either. Based on a true story, and set against the vibrant backdrop of colonial India, Nev March's Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning lyrical debut, Murder in Old Bombay, brings this tumultuous historical age to life.
With Our Blessing by Jo Spain Detective Inspector Tom Reynolds searches for the missing links between a recent murder case and a series of decades-old crimes in this Irish closed-room mystery   In 1975, a baby just minutes old is taken from its devastated mother. In 2010, the gruesome corpse of a nun is found in a Dublin public park. Detective Inspector Tom Reynolds and his team are on the scene and he's convinced the murder is linked to historical events that took place in the infamous former Magdalene Laundries, institutions for "fallen women." As Reynolds and his team follow the trail to an isolated convent, everything seems perfectly normal and it seems perhaps they've followed the wrong lead. But it soon becomes disturbingly clear that the killer is amongst them and determined to exact further vengeance for the sins of the past. The walls in this closed-room mystery narrow in on Reynolds and his team as they race to stop another murder in With Our Blessing, bestselling author Jo Spain's U.S. debut.
A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder by Dianne Freeman Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, enjoys more freedom as a widow than she did as a wife. After an obligatory year spent mourning her philandering husband, Reggie, she puts aside her drab black gowns, leaving the countryside and her money-grubbing in-laws behind. With her young daughter in tow, Frances rents a home in Belgravia and prepares to welcome her sister, Lily, arriving from New York-for her first London season. No sooner has Frances begun her new life than the ghosts of her old one make an unwelcome appearance. The Metropolitan police receive an anonymous letter implicating Frances in her husband's death. Frances assures Inspector Delaney of her innocence, but she's also keen to keep him from learning the scandalous circumstances of Reggie's demise. As fate would have it, her dashing new neighbor, George Hazelton, is one of only two other people aware of the full story. While busy with social engagements on Lily's behalf, and worrying if Reggie really was murdered, Frances learns of mysterious burglaries plaguing London's elite. The investigation brings death to her doorstep, and Frances rallies her wits, a circle of gossips, and the ever-chivalrous Mr. Hazelton to uncover the truth. A killer is in their midst, perhaps even among her sister's suitors. And Frances must unmask the villain before Lily's season-and their lives-come to a most unseemly end . . .
The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen Winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition, Joanna Schaffhausen's accomplished debutThe Vanishing Season will grip readers from the opening page to the stunning conclusion. Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only one who lived. When three people disappear from her town in three years--all around her birthday--Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer all those years ago. Agent Reed Markham made his name and fame on the back of the Coben case, but his fortunes have since turned. His marriage is in shambles, his bosses think he's washed up, and worst of all, he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can't help but wonder: sure, he rescued her, but was she ever truly saved? His greatest triumph is Ellery's waking nightmare, and now both of them are about to be sucked into the past, back to the case that made them...with a killer who can't letgo.
Splinter in the Blood by Ashley Dyer "One of the boldest, most inventive serial-killer thrillers since The Silence of the Lambs. . . .  Perfect for fans of Jeffery Deaver and Lisa Gardner."-- A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestselling author  A propulsive debut suspense novel, filled with secrets, nerve-jangling tension, perplexing mystery, and cold-blooded murder, in which a police officer on the hunt for a macabre serial killer is brutally attacked, and only his partner knows the truth about what happened--and who did it. After months of hunting a ruthless murderer dubbed the Thorn Killer, Detective Greg Carver is shot in his own home. His trusted partner, Ruth Lake, is alone with him. Yet instead of calling for help, she rearranges the crime scene and wipes the room clean of prints. But Carver isn't dead. Awakening in the hospital, Carver has no memory of being shot, but is certain that his assailant is the Thorn Killer. Though there's no evidence to support his claim, Carver insists the attack is an attempt to scare the detective off the psychopath's scent. Trapped in a hospital bed, Carver's obsession grows. He's desperate to get back to work and finally nail the bastard, before more innocent blood is spilled. One person knows the truth and she's not talking. She's also now leading the Thorn Killer investigation while Carver recuperates. It doesn't matter that more victims' lives are at stake. Ruth is keeping a deadly secret, and she'll cross every line to keep it from surfacing.
Since She's Been Gone by Sagit Schwartz An emotionally charged, dual-timeline suspense set between LA and NYC, this debut novel is perfect for fans of The Last Thing He Told Me and Luckiest Girl Alive. A clinical psychologist is thrown into her dark past as she races to uncover the truth about her mother's death while struggling with her own mental health. Can we ever truly know the people we love? Losing her mother to a hit-and-run at age 15 threw Beatrice "Beans" Bennett's life into turmoil. Bereft, she developed a life-threatening eating disorder, and went through a challenging recovery process which paved the way for her work as a clinical psychologist decades later. When a new patient arrives at her office and insists that Beans's mother is still alive-and in danger-Beans is forced to revisit her past in order to uncover the truth. She learns the "patient" is a member of a notorious family that owns a drug company largely responsible for the national opioid epidemic, and that her mother was once tangled in their web. In a race against time-and her mother's assailants-while once again facing the disorder she thought she'd put behind her, Beans discovers that, like herself, her mother had a devastating secret. With its fast-moving, edge-of-your-seat action and intimate look at mental health,Since She's Been Gonewill keep readers in its grasp long after the last page.
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Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead by Jenny Hollander NATIONAL BESTSELLER Named Most Anticipated by: Town & Country ・ Marie Claire ・ Goodreads・ Zibby Magazine・BookBub ・ and more She has everything to live for―and everything to hide. Nine years ago, with the world's eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called Charlie a "witness" to the nightmarish events at her elite graduate school on Christmas Eve―events known to the public as "Scarlet Christmas"―though Charlie knows she was much more than that. Now, Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life: She's the editor-in-chief of a major magazine, engaged to the golden child of the publishing industry, and hell-bent on never, ever letting her guard down again. But when a buzzy film made by one of Charlie's former classmates threatens to shatter everything she's worked for, Charlie realizes how much she's changed in nine years. Now, she's not going to let anything―not even the people she once loved most―get in her way.
No One Dies Yet by Kobby Ben Ben A genre-breaking novel from a powerful new African voice  It is 2019, The Year of Return. Ghana is inviting Black diasporans to return and get to know the land of their enslaved ancestors. Elton, Vincent, and Scott arrive from America to explore Ghana's colonial past, and to experience the country's underground queer scene. Their visit and activities are narrated by two very different Ghanians: the exuberant and rebellious Kobby, who is their guide to Accra's privileged and queer circles; and Nana, the voice of tradition and religious principle. Neither is very trustworthy and the tense relationship between them sets the tone for what turns into a gripping, energetically told, and often funny tale of murder reminiscent of the novels of Patricia Highsmith, Graham Greene, Chinua Achebe, and Alain Mabanckou.
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The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft National Indie Bestseller Named a must read by People, Vanity Fair, Electric Literature, Nylon, Alta Journal, CrimeReads and Debutiful Named a most anticipated book by Elle, The Millions, Bustle, Lit Hub, Dandelion Chandelier, Zibby Mag, Bookpage, and The Rumpus From the International Booker Prize-winning translator and Women's Prize finalist, an utterly beguiling novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest. Eight translators arrive at a house in a primeval Polish forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned author Irena Rey, and they are there to translate her magnum opus, Gray Eminence. But within days of their arrival, Irena disappears without a trace. The translators, who hail from eight different countries but share the same reverence for their beloved author, begin to investigate where she may have gone while proceeding with work on her masterpiece. They explore this ancient wooded refuge with its intoxicating slime molds and lichens and study her exotic belongings and layered texts for clues. But doing so reveals secrets-and deceptions-of Irena Rey's that they are utterly unprepared for. Forced to face their differences as they grow increasingly paranoid in this fever dream of isolation and obsession, soon the translators are tangled up in a web of rivalries and desire, threatening not only their work but the fate of their beloved author herself. This hilarious, thought-provoking debut novel is a brilliant examination of art, celebrity, the natural world, and the power of language. It is an unforgettable, unputdownable adventure with a small but global cast of characters shaken by the shocks of love, destruction, and creation in one of Europe's last great wildernesses.
Northwoods by Amy Pease "Riveting." --People In this "compelling and heartbreaking debut that marks a new and important voice in the mystery genre" (William Kent Krueger), a murder with ties to America's opioid epidemic reveals the dark underbelly of an idyllic Midwestern resort town. Eli North is not okay. His drinking is getting worse by the day, his emotional wounds after a deployment to Afghanistan are as raw as ever, his marriage and career are over, and the only job he can hold down is with the local sheriff's department. And that's only because the sheriff is his mother--and she's overwhelmed with small town Shaky Lake's dwindling budget and the fallout from the opioid epidemic. The Northwoods of Wisconsin may be a vacationer's paradise, but amidst the fishing trips, campfires, and Paul Bunyan festivals, something sinister is taking shape. When the body of a teenage boy is found in the lake, it sets in motion an investigation that leads Eli to a wealthy enclave with a violent past, a pharmaceutical salesman, and a missing teenage girl. Soon, Eli and his mother, along with a young FBI agent, are on the hunt for more than just a killer in this thriller that is "not to be missed" (Mindy Mejia, USA TODAY bestselling author).
The Peacock and the Sparrow by I. S. Berry BEST FIRST NOVEL WINNER: Edgar Awards * International Thriller Writers Awards A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker * NPR * The Diplomatic Courier During the Arab Spring, an American spy's final mission goes dangerously awry in this "crackling debut thriller" (The New Yorker) from a former CIA officer that Joseph Weisberg, creator of The Americans, calls "the most realistic espionage story I've read." Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain off the coast of Saudi Arabia for his final tour, he has little use for his mission--uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency against the monarchy. Then Collins meets Almaisa, a beautiful and enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask. When his trusted informant inside the opposition becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict. His budding romance with Almaisa--and his loyalties--are upended; in an instant, he's caught in the crosswinds of a revolution. Drawing on all his skills as a spymaster, he sets out to learn the truth behind the Arab Spring, win Almaisa's love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain's secrets end and America's begin.