LibGuides: Booklists for Adults & Teens: Linkable Fiction Lists

india mysteries

May is National Mystery Month! Celebrate with...

Mysteries Set in India

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 Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey Bombay, 1921: Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father's law firm, becoming one of the first female lawyers in India. Armed with a law degree from Oxford, Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes her especially devoted to championing and protecting women's legal rights. Inspired in part by a real woman who made history by becoming India's first female lawyer, The Widows of Malabar Hill is a richly wrought story of multicultural 1920s Bombay as well as the debut of a sharp and promising new sleuth, Perveen Mistry.
Dark Road to Darjeeling by Deanna Raybourn Return to a world of Victorian mystery and magic in the fan-favorite Lady Julia Grey historical series from New York Times bestselling author of Killers of a Certain Age, Deanna Raybourn. Lady Julia Grey and her husband, detective Nicholas Brisbane, are ready to put their investigative talents to work again. At the urging of Julia's eccentric family, they hurry to India to aid an old friend, the newly widowed Jane Cavendish. Living on a tea plantation with the remnants of her husband's family, Jane Cavendish is consumed with the impending birth of her child--and with discovering the truth about her husband's death. Was he murdered for his estate? And if he was, could Jane and her unborn child be next? Amid the lush foothills of the Himalayas, dark deeds are buried and malicious thoughts flourish. The Brisbanes uncover secrets and scandal, illicit affairs and twisted legacies. The danger is palpable and, if they are not careful, Julia and Nicholas will not live to celebrate their first anniversary. First published in 2010. Don't miss the complete Lady Julia Grey mystery series by Deanna Raybourn! Book # 1: Silent in the Grave Book # 2: Silent in the Sanctuary Book # 3: Silent on the Moor Book # 3.5: Midsummer Night (novella) Book # 4: Dark Road to Darjeeling Book # 5: The Dark Enquiry Book # 5.5: Silent Night (novella) Book # 5.6: Twelfth Night (novella) Book # 5.7: Bonfire Night (novella)
The Strangler Vine by M. J. Carter Set in the untamed wilds of nineteenth-century colonial India, this dazzling historical thriller introduces Blake and Avery--an unforgettable investigative pair. India, 1837: William Avery is a young soldier with few prospects except rotting away in campaigns in India; Jeremiah Blake is a secret political agent gone native, a genius at languages and disguises, disenchanted with the whole ethos of British rule, but who cannot resist the challenge of an unresolved mystery. What starts as a wild goose chase for this unlikely pair--trying to track down a missing writer who lifts the lid on Calcutta society--becomes very much more sinister as Blake and Avery get sucked into the mysterious Thuggee cult and its even more ominous suppression. There are shades of Heart of Darkness, sly references to Conan Doyle, that bring brilliantly to life the India of the 1830s with its urban squalor, glamorous princely courts and bazaars, and the ambiguous presence of the British overlords--the officers of the East India Company--who have their own predatory ambitions beyond London's oversight. A FINALIST FOR THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
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.
Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup There’s a caste system--even in murder From the author of the international bestseller Slumdog Millionaire comes a richly-textured tale of murder, corruption, and opportunity. Seven years ago, Vivek “Vicky” Rai, the playboy son of the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh, murdered bartender Ruby Gill at a trendy restaurant in New Delhi, simply because she refused to serve him a drink. Now Vicky Rai has been killed at the party he was throwing to celebrate his acquittal. The police recover six guests with guns in their possession: a corrupt bureaucrat who claims to have become Mahatma Gandhi overnight; an American tourist infatuated with an Indian actress; a stone-age tribesman on a quest to recover a sacred sto≠ a Bollywood sex-symbol with a guilty secret; a mobile-phone thief who dreams big; and an ambitious politician prepared to stoop low. Swarup unravels the lives and motives of the six suspects, offering both a riveting page-turner and an insightful peek into the heart of contemporary India. Audaciously and astutely plotted, with a panoramic imaginative sweep, Six Suspects is the work of a master storyteller.
The Cosmic Clues by Manjiri Prabhu Sonia Samarth couldn't have predicted it--after only a day, her first advertisement had drawn dozens of responses. In the bustling city of Pune, India, with its winding alleys and exotic customs, Sonia is launching a brand new business: private investigation--using Hindu astrology as a crime-solving tool. In an ancient city steeped in tradition, Sonia's unique brand of investigation is raising eyebrows. But she seems to have found a niche--and, before long, a case of murder. When a cat leads Sonia to her very first investigation, she quickly unmasks a killer, using astrology as her guide. Suddenly clients begin streaming in: a persistent, handsome TV personality; a terrified bride-to-be; a missing husband with suicidal tendencies...all challenge Sonia's astrological abilities to prevent a crime. All apparently isolated experiences, but bound by an invisible thread. And while Sonia has stellar success in unraveling the truth, very soon she'll have to look closely at her own stars. Because the most notorious international criminal has just crossed Sonia's path--and he has his own plans for her future!
Out of Order by Charles Benoit "A spicy quest tale in an India at once modern and ancient."--Publishers Weekly At 27, Jason Talley of Corning, New York, leads an orderly life, processing loans for a mortgage company. Its warmest spot is his friendship with Sriram Sundaram and his lively wife Vidya. One night Sriram secretly confides he's planning a trip home to India to visit his mother and asks Jason to hold her gift, a gorgeous red silk sari. The very next evening Jason arrives home to sirens and cops--Sriram and Vidya are dead. The cops call it a murder/suicide. Grieving, Jason decides to fulfill Sriram's quest and books himself a trip to India. There's a gorgeous young train buff named Rachel on the tour, and before he knows it, Jason has cast aside all semblance of order and embarked with her on a perilous journey.
A Rising Man by Abir Mukherjee In the days of the Raj, a newly arrived Scotland Yard detective is confronted with the murder of a British official--in his mouth a note warning the British to leave India, or else . . . Calcutta, 1919. Captain Sam Wyndham, former Scotland Yard detective, is a new arrival to Calcutta. Desperately seeking a fresh start after his experiences during the Great War, Wyndham has been recruited to head up a new post in the police force. He is immediately overwhelmed by the heady vibrancy of the tropical city, but with barely a moment to acclimatize or to deal with the ghosts that still haunt him, Wyndham is caught up in a murder investigation that threatens to destabilize a city already teetering on the brink of political insurgency. The body of a senior official has been found in a filthy sewer, and a note left in his mouth warns the British to quit India, or else. Under tremendous pressure to solve the case before it erupts into increased violence on the streets, Wyndham and his two new colleagues--arrogant Inspector Digby and Sergeant Banerjee, one of the few Indians to be recruited into the new CID--embark on an investigation that will take them from the opulent mansions of wealthy British traders to the seedy opium dens of the city. Masterfully evincing the sights, sounds, and smells of colonial Calcutta, A Rising Man is the start of an enticing new historical crime series.
The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra The first in a charming, joyful crime series set in 1920s Bangalore, featuring sari-wearing detective Kaveri and her husband Ramu. Perfect for fans of Alexander McCall Smith's The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. When clever, headstrong Kaveri moves to Bangalore to marry handsome young doctor Ramu, she's resigned herself to a quiet life. But that all changes the night of the party at the Century Club, where she escapes to the garden for some peace and quiet--and instead spots an uninvited guest in the shadows. Half an hour later, the party turns into a murder scene. When a vulnerable woman is connected to the crime, Kaveri becomes determined to save her and launches a private investigation to find the killer, tracing his steps from an illustrious brothel to an Englishman's mansion. She soon finds that sleuthing in a sari isn't as hard as it seems when you have a talent for mathematics, a head for logic, and a doctor for a husband . . . And she's going to need them all as the case leads her deeper into a hotbed of danger, sedition, and intrigue in Bangalore's darkest alleyways.
Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan Bombay, New Year's Eve, 1949 As India celebrates the arrival of a momentous new decade, Inspector Persis Wadia stands vigil in the basement of Malabar House, home to the city's most unwanted unit of police officers. Six months after joining the force she remains India's first female police detective, mistrusted, sidelined and now consigned to the midnight shift. And so, when the phone rings to report the murder of prominent English diplomat Sir James Herriot, the country's most sensational case falls into her lap. As 1950 dawns and India prepares to become the world's largest republic, Persis, accompanied by Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, finds herself investigating a case that is becoming more political by the second. Navigating a country and society in turmoil, Persis, smart, stubborn and untested in the crucible of male hostility that surrounds her, must find a way to solve the murder - whatever the cost.
The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan On the day he retires, Inspector Ashwin Chopra inherits two unexpected mysteries. The first is the case of a drowned boy, whose suspicious death no one seems to want solved. And the second is a baby elephant. As his search for clues takes him across the teeming city of Mumbai, from its grand high rises to its sprawling slums and deep into its murky underworld, Chopra begins to suspect that there may be a great deal more to both his last case and his new ward than he thought. And he soon learns that when the going gets tough, a determined elephant may be exactly what an honest man needs. . .
The Return of Faraz Ali by Aamina Ahmad NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES AND NPR WINNER OF THE 2023 L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE, ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION "Stunning not only on account of the author's talent, of which there is clearly plenty, but also in its humanity." --New York Times Book Review (cover) Sent back to his birthplace--Lahore's notorious red-light district--to hush up the murder of a girl, a man finds himself in an unexpected reckoning with his past. Not since childhood has Faraz returned to the Mohalla, in Lahore's walled inner city, where women continue to pass down the art of courtesan from mother to daughter. But he still remembers the day he was abducted from the home he shared with his mother and sister there, at the direction of his powerful father, who wanted to give him a chance at a respectable life. Now Wajid, once more dictating his fate from afar, has sent Faraz back to Lahore, installing him as head of the Mohalla police station and charging him with a mission: to cover up the violent death of a young girl. It should be a simple assignment to carry out in a marginalized community, but for the first time in his career, Faraz finds himself unable to follow orders. As the city assails him with a jumble of memories, he cannot stop asking questions or winding through the walled city's labyrinthine alleyways chasing the secrets--his family's and his own--that risk shattering his precariously constructed existence. Profoundly intimate and propulsive, The Return of Faraz Ali is a spellbindingly assured first novel that poses a timeless question: Whom do we choose to protect, and at what price?
The Wrath of Shiva by Susan Oleksiw On an old estate along a quiet river in South India, a family waits for the arrival of a granddaughter they haven't seen in quite a while. When she fails to appear at the airport or at the estate, and doesn't even call, no one wants to believe she has once again changed her plans without consulting anyone. But when she fails to call and offer any explanation, the family begins to worry. Anita Ray accompanies her Auntie Meena to her grandmother's house to comfort her and try to figure out where her cousin has got to. While she is there, a maidservant falls into a trance. The maidservant reports from her trances that Devi, the Great Goddess, is angry with the family, very angry. Even worse, the maidservant has predicted that Surya, the granddaughter, will never arrive. The family astrologer advises an exorcism to cure the maidservant, and with this begins Anita's unrelenting curiosity about the astrologer, his associates, and a number of family antiques that have gone missing.
The Iciest Sin by H. R. F. Keating Ever since the debut of Inspector Ganesh Ghote is 1965's The Perfect Murder (which received the Gold Dagger Award for the British Crime Writers Association), mystery fans have been entranced by the tenacious little policeman from Bombay. Here is the latest novel in what Time called, a delightful and convincing comic series.
The Blue Bar by Damyanti Biswas On the dark streets of Mumbai, the paths of a missing dancer, a serial killer, and an inspector with a haunted past converge in an evocative thriller about lost love and murderous obsession. After years of dancing in Mumbai's bars, Tara Mondal was desperate for a new start. So when a client offered her a life-changing payout to indulge a harmless, if odd, fantasy, she accepted. The setup was simple: wear a blue-sequined saree, enter a crowded railway station, and escape from view in less than three minutes. It was the last time anyone saw Tara. Thirteen years later, Tara's lover, Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput, is still grappling with her disappearance as he faces a horrifying new crisis: on the city's outskirts, women's dismembered bodies are being unearthed from shallow graves. Very little links the murders, except a scattering of blue sequins and a decade's worth of missing persons reports that correspond with major festivals. Past and present blur as Arnav realizes he's on the trail of a serial killer and that someone wants his investigation buried at any cost. Could the key to finding Tara and solving these murders be hidden in one of his cold cases? Or will the next body they recover be hers?
The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall The first in a detective series that "immediately joins the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency as representing the best in international cozies" (Booklist, starred review). Meet Vish Puri, India's most private investigator. Portly, persistent, and unmistakably Punjabi, he cuts a determined swath through modern India's swindlers, cheats, and murderers. In hot and dusty Delhi, where call centers and malls are changing the ancient fabric of Indian life, Puri's main work comes from screening prospective marriage partners, a job once the preserve of aunties and family priests. But when an honest public litigator is accused of murdering his maidservant, it takes all of Puri's resources to investigate. With his team of undercover operatives--Tubelight, Flush, and Facecream--Puri combines modern techniques with principles of detection established in India more than two thousand years ago, and reveals modern India in all its seething complexity.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara Discover the "extraordinary" (The Washington Post) debut novel that "announces the arrival of a literary supernova" (The New York Times Book Review),"a drama of childhood that is as wild as it is intimate" (Chigozie Obioma).   WINNER OF THE EDGAR® AWARD * LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * Time * The Washington Post * NPR * The Guardian * Library Journal   In a sprawling Indian city, a boy ventures into its most dangerous corners to find his missing classmate. . . . Through market lanes crammed with too many people, dogs, and rickshaws, past stalls that smell of cardamom and sizzling oil, below a smoggy sky that doesn't let through a single blade of sunlight, and all the way at the end of the Purple metro line lies a jumble of tin-roofed homes where nine-year-old Jai lives with his family. From his doorway, he can spot the glittering lights of the city's fancy high-rises, and though his mother works as a maid in one, to him they seem a thousand miles away. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line plunges readers deep into this neighborhood to trace the unfolding of a tragedy through the eyes of a child as he has his first perilous collisions with an unjust and complicated wider world. Jai drools outside sweet shops, watches too many reality police shows, and considers himself to be smarter than his friends Pari (though she gets the best grades) and Faiz (though Faiz has an actual job). When a classmate goes missing, Jai decides to use the crime-solving skills he has picked up from TV to find him. He asks Pari and Faiz to be his assistants, and together they draw up lists of people to interview and places to visit. But what begins as a game turns sinister as other children start disappearing from their neighborhood. Jai, Pari, and Faiz have to confront terrified parents, an indifferent police force, and rumors of soul-snatching djinns. As the disappearances edge ever closer to home, the lives of Jai and his friends will never be the same again. Drawing on real incidents and a spate of disappearances in metropolitan India, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line is extraordinarily moving, flawlessly imagined, and a triumph of suspense. It captures the fierce warmth, resilience, and bravery that can emerge in times of trouble and carries the reader headlong into a community that, once encountered, is impossible to forget.
A Very Pukka Murder by Arjun Raj Gaind "Set in the tiny princely state of Rajpore, Indian comic book writer Gaind's first novel is both a satisfying locked-room mystery and a keenly observed comedy of manners." --Publishers Weekly From the borders of icy Kashmir to the shark-infested shores of the Malabar Coast, Major William Russell, the English Resident of the small, princely state of Rajpore, is renowned as a straitlaced man of rigorous habit. When his valet knocks on his bedroom door the morning after the 1909 New Year's Ball and receives no response, he and the Resident's elderly secretary eventually task the English Commandant of Cavalry with breaking it down. The Resident is dead in his bed. His Highness Farzand-i-Khas-i-Daulat-i-Inglishia Mansur-i-Zaman Maharaja Sikander Singh, Light of Heaven, Sword of Justice, Shield of the Faithful, sole ruler of Rajpore, is slow to rise after the night of revelry. But news of the murder galvanizes him. The fabulously wealthy Maharaja, who perforce has surrendered much of his authority to the British, is a man of indolent habit although he keeps himself thoroughly fit. A lover of luxury cars and beautiful women, his deepest passion is for mysteries. He cannot resist an enigma, relishing a riddle and the rush of resolving it. Like August Dupin and Sherlock Holmes, Sikander wields careful and deliberate logic to crack puzzles that leave less intelligent men confounded. Here is such an opportunity, and well timed--for the Maharaja, resigned to another year of indolence, is almost fatally bored. Abandoning the lavish comforts of his ornate palace, Sikander orders his massive manservant Charan Singh into his Silver Ghost and speeds to the insular English settlement. Despite the objections of the local Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police, he works the crime scene and deduces that Resident was poisoned by a massive dose of strychnine. As a clock starts ticking--the British authorities dispatch their own investigator from Simla--Sikander overcomes obstacles, false trails, and the growing hostility of the English Establishment, while learning that Major Russell was not as pukka, as proper, as he liked to pretend. Will the Maharaja work through a surplus of suspects and motives before the British shut him down and cover up the truth about the Major's death? Arjun Gaind's clever, fascinating debut introduces an elegant new detective in the tradition of Lord Peter Wimsey, while painting a scathing portrait of the British Raj.
Call Number: Check it out now - only available from hoopla digital!
A Will to Kill by R. V. Raman NAMED ONE OF THE "TEN BOOKS WE RECOMMEND THIS WEEK"--The New York Times NAMED ONE OF THE "BEST RECENT THRILLERS"--The Guardian NAMED ONE OF THE BEST CRIME FICTION OF 2020 BY OPEN, THE MAGAZINE NAMED ONE OF THE BEST CRIME NOVELS OF NOVEMBER BY THE TIMES UK For fans of Knives Out, a book that embodies all the things we love about Agatha Christie--a haunted manor house, estranged relatives a will, and a murder-- set in modern-day India, and the first in a series from author RV Raman.Aging and wheelchair-bound patriarch Bhaskar Fernandez has finally reclaimed his family property after a bitter legal battle, and now wants to reunite his aggrieved relatives. So, he invites them to remote Greybrooke Manor in the misty Nilgiris --a mansion that has played host to several sudden deaths; a colonial edifice that stands alone in a valley that is said to be haunted by the ghost of an Englishman. But Bhaskar has other, more practical problems to deal with.He knows that his family is waiting for him to die to regain the family fortune, and to safeguard himself against violence during the house party, he writes two conflicting wills. Which one of them comes into force depends on how he dies.Into this tinderbox, he brings Harith Athreya, a seasoned investigator. When a landslide occurs, temporarily isolating them all at the mansion, and resulting in a murder, Athreya finds that murder is not the only thing the mist conceals. A WILL TO KILL is the first Harith Athreya mystery.
Call Number: Check it out now - only available from hoopla digital!
Byomkesh Bakshi by Bandyopadhyay Saradindu Byomkesh Bakshi's appeal as the self-styled inquisitor, a detective not by profession but by passion, found him a dedicated following among generations of readers. This collection of stories, all set in Kolkata of the 1950s and 1960s, brings together four mysteries that put the sleuth's remarkable mental agility to the ultimate test. In 'the Menagerie' (adapted by master film-maker Satyajit Ray for his 1967 film Chiriakhana) Byomkesh cracks a strange case involving broken motor parts, a seemingly natural death and the peculiar inhabitants of Golap Colony who seem capable of doing just about anything to safeguard the secrets of their tainted pasts. In 'the Jewel Case' he investigates the mysterious disappearance of a priceless necklace, while in 'the Will That Vanished' he solves a baffling riddle to fulfil the last wish of a close friend. And, in 'the Quills of the Porcupine', the shrewd detective is in his element as he expertly foils the sinister plans of a ruthless opportunist. Sreejata Guha's translation captures brilliantly the thrill and ingenuity of Byomkesh's exploits just as it does Saradindu Bandyopadhyay's remarkable portrayal of a city struggling to overcome its colonial past and come into its own.
Call Number: eBook
Murder in Mumbai by K. D. Calamur From NPR editor Krishnadev Calamur comes an engrossing murder mystery set in the heart of the new India. Mumbai, India: a city of beauty and squalor, old and new, wealth and poverty, honest work and deep corruption… and inevitable target of scandal and condemnation if Inspector Vijay Gaikwad doesn’t solve the murder of American businesswoman Liz Barton, and quickly. Just as invested is newspaper reporter Jay Ganesh, looking for the one big story to repair his once-prestigious reputation. Both men soon discover, however, that the case is as difficult to navigate as Mumbai’s infamous traffic. From her cheating husband to the billionaire industrialist with whom she was “close”; from her jealous colleague to the environmentalist protesting her company, Barton was not short on potential enemies… and nor are they short on lies. But the pressure is on for Gaikwad, the family man trying to do right on an often unscrupulous force, to place the blame on someone, anyone, and Jay is determined to be the first with the scoop—no matter how deadly.
Call Number: eBook

Short Stories

New & Novel Short Story Collections

Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick by Zora Neale Hurston From "one of the greatest writers of our time" (Toni Morrison)--the author of Barracoon and Their Eyes Were Watching God--a collection of remarkable stories, including eight "lost" Harlem Renaissance tales now available to a wide audience for the first time. New York Times' Books to Watch for Buzzfeed's Most Anticipated Books Newsweek's Most Anticipated Books Forbes.com's Most Anticipated Books E!'s Top Books to Read Glamour's Best Books  Essence's Best Books by Black Authors In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston--the sole black student at the college--was living in New York, "desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world." During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston's "lost" Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston's world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer's voice and her contributions to America's literary traditions.
Sorry for Your Trouble by Richard Ford A landmark new collection of stories from Richard Ford that showcases his brilliance, sensitivity, and trademark wit and candor In Sorry for Your Trouble, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author Richard Ford enacts a stunning meditation on memory, love and loss. "Displaced" returns us to a young man's Mississippi adolescence, and to a shocking encounter with a young Irish immigrant who recklessly tries to solace the narrator's sorrow after his father's death.  "Driving Up" follows an American woman's late-in-life journey to Canada to bid good-bye to a lost love now facing the end of this life.  "The Run of Yourself," a novella, sees a New Orleans lawyer navigating the difficulties of living beyond his Irish wife's death.  And "Nothing to Declare" follows a man and a woman's chance re-meeting in the New Orleans French Quarter, after twenty years, and their discovery of what's left of love for them. Typically rich with Ford's emotional lucidity and lyrical precision, Sorry for Your Trouble is a memorable collection from one of our greatest writers.
Normal Rules Don't Apply by Kate Atkinson A dazzling collection of eleven interconnected stories from the bestselling, award-winning author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that readers love about her novels--the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop. Nothing is quite as it seems in this collection of eleven dazzling stories. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man who bets on a horse that may--or may not--have spoken to him. Everything that readers love about the novels of Kate Atkinson is here--the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.  A startling and funny feast for the imagination, these stories conjure a multiverse of subtly connected worlds while illuminating the webs of chance and connection among us all.
Instructions for a Funeral by David Means "Poetic, insightful, and deeply moving. David Means is one of my very favorite writers." --Tara Westover, author ofEducated Following the publication of his widely acclaimed, Man Booker-nominated novelHystopia, David Means here returns to his signature form: the short story. Thanks to his four previous story collections, Means has won himself an international reputation as one of the most innovative short fiction writers working today: an "established master of the form." (Laura Miller,The Guardian).Instructions for a Funeral--featuring work fromThe New Yorker,Harper's,The Paris Review, andVICE--finds Means branching out beyond the explorations of violence and trauma with which he is often identified, prominently displaying his sly humor and his inimitable way of telling tales that deliciously wind up to punch the reader in the heart. With each story Means pushes into new territory, writing with tenderness and compassion about fatherhood, marriage, a homeless brother, the nature of addiction, and the death of a friend at the hands of a serial-killer nurse. Means transmutes a fistfight in Sacramento into a tender, life-long love story; two FBI agents on a stakeout in the 1920s into a tale of predator and prey, paternal urges and loss; a man's funeral instructions into a chronicle of organized crime, real estate ventures, and the destructive force of paranoia. Means's work has earned him comparisons to Flannery O'Connor, Alice Munro, Sherwood Anderson, Denis Johnson, Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chekhov, and Raymond Carver but his place in the American literary landscape is fully and originally his own. "David Means is a master of tense, distilled, quintessentially American prose. Like any artist who has finely honed his talent to its strongest expression he is a brilliant craftsman whose achievement is to appear unstudied, even casual . . . Each story by Means which I have read is unlike the others, unexpected and an unnerving delight." --Joyce Carol Oates
That Time I Loved You by Carrianne Leung In her "compact gem of a collection" (Globe & Mail), Carrianne Leung enlivens a singular group of characters sharing a shiny new subdivision in 1970s Toronto. Marilyn greets new neighbors with fresh-baked cookies before she starts stealing from them. Stay-at-home-wife Francesca believes passion is just one yard away, only in the arms of another man. And Darren doesn't understand why his mother insists he keep his head down, even though he gets good grades like his white friends. When a series of inexplicable suicides begin to haunt their community, no one is more fascinated by the terrible phenomenon than young June. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she sits hawk-eyed at the center, bearing witness to the truth behind pulled curtains: the affairs, the racism, the hidden abuses.Leung bursts onto the American literary stage with prose remarkably attuned to the tenuous, and perhaps deceptive, idea of happiness among these picket-fenced lives.
Broken Stars by Ken Liu LOCUS AWARD FINALIST FOR BEST ANTHOLOGY Sixteen short stories from China's groundbreaking science fiction writers, edited and translated by award-winning author Ken Liu. In Hugo award-winner Liu Cixin's 'Moonlight,' a man is contacted by three future versions of himself, each trying to save their world from destruction. Hao Jingfang's 'The New Year Train' sees 1,500 passengers go missing on a train that vanishes into space. In the title story by Tang Fei, a young girl is shown how the stars can reveal the future. In addition, three essays explore the history and rise of Chinese science fiction publishing, contemporary Chinese fandom, and how the growing interest in Chinese SF has impacted writers who had long laboured in obscurity. By turns dazzling, melancholy and thought-provoking,Broken Stars celebrates the vibrancy and diversity of SFF voices emerging from China. Stories include: "Goodnight, Melancholy" by Xia Jia "The Snow of Jinyang" by Zhang Ran "Broken Stars" by Tang Fei "Submarines" by Han Song "Salinger and the Koreans" by Han Song "Under a Dangling Sky" by Cheng Jingbo "What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear" by Baoshu "The New Year Train" by Hao Jingfang "The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales" by Fei Dao "Moonlight" by Liu Cixin "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Laba Porridge" by Anna Wu "The First Emperor's Games" by Ma Boyong "Reflection" by Gu Shi "The Brain Box" by Regina Kanyu Wang "Coming of the Light" by Chen Qiufan "A History of Future Illnesses" by Chen Qiufan Essays: "A Brief Introduction to Chinese Science Fiction and Fandom," by Regina Kanyu Wang, "A New Continent for China Scholars: Chinese Science Fiction Studies" by Mingwei Song "Science Fiction: Embarrassing No More" by Fei Dao For more Chinese SF in translation, check outInvisible Planets.
Someone Birthed Them Broken by Ama Asantewa Diaka "Delightfully assertive, subversive and vibrant... an original voice." --Imbolo Mbue, author of the New York Times bestseller and PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction winner Behold the Dreamers * "A compelling delight"--Booklist A visceral and candid portrait of today's Ghanaian youth, told in interconnected short stories by acclaimed spoken-word artist and author of the poetry collection Woman, Eat Me Whole Ama Asantewa Diaka. In this startling collection of short fiction, Ama Asantewa Diaka creates a vibrant portrait of young Ghanaians' today, captured in the experiences of characters whose lives bump against one other in friendship, passion, hope, and heartache. Men like Opoku Sr., not yet forty and struggling to keep his family's cocoa business afloat after his father's unexpected passing. Opoku strains under the burden of caring for his eight younger siblings and the child whose mother ran off. When his new girlfriend tells him she's pregnant, he knows he has nothing left to give. Years later, that girlfriend's son, Opoku Jr., now faces his own troubles, including his girlfriend Boatemaa, who (correctly) suspects he is sneaking around, and Amoafoa, the woman he's seeing on the side. And there is John, who confides to his crush Baaba about a surprising encounter with a male friend over a game of FIFA; Baaba, who falls into a whirlwind romance with her professor that ends in violence; and their friend Ayeley, who is learning to accept pleasure after being raised to believe it is sinful. Diaka charts this constellation of interconnected lives in thirteen stories, exploring themes which run through the collection like a current: corruption and economic hardship, trauma and infidelity, shame, neglect, and the tribulations of the female body. In telling their stories, Diaka illuminates hope, freedom, and triumph that can be found in the everyday--the bonds between women, the joys of love and sex and art and dancing, the possibility of repair and redemption. Renowned for her spoken word artistry, Ama Asantewa Diaka demonstrates her lyrical brilliance in this emotionally rich work that unveils profound truths about her country, its inhabitants, and the universality of human experience.
Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap "Sightseeing is a debut written by a young, award-winning Thai-American writer. Set in contemporary Thailand, these stories are generous, radiant tales of family bonds, youthful romance, generational conflicts, and cultural shiftings beneath the glossy surface of a warm, Edenic setting. The stories in Sightseeing present a nation far removed from its exoticized stereotypes." "In the prizewinning opening story, "Farangs," the son of a beachside motel owner commits the cardinal sin of falling for a pretty tourist, and the confrontation that ensues between the native boy and the girl's American boyfriend culminates wondrously amid flying mangoes and Clint Eastwood - a pet pig - swimming out to sea. In "Sightseeing," the much-anticipated holiday of a young man about to leave for college and his loving and fiercely independent mother becomes a different kind of pilgrimage altogether when they are forced to confront the mother's impending blindness. The concluding novella, "Cockfighter," is "an astonishing coming-of-ager" (Kirkus Reviews), in which a young girl witnesses her proud father's valiant but foolhardy battle against a local delinquent whose family's vicious stranglehold on the villagers has passed down unchecked through generations."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2020 VILCEK PRIZE IN LITERATURE From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of Brother, I'm Dying, a collection of vividly imagined stories about community, family, and love. Rich with hard-won wisdom and humanity, set in locales from Miami and Port-au-Prince to a small unnamed country in the Caribbean and beyond, Everything Inside is at once wide in scope and intimate, as it explores the forces that pull us together, or drive us apart, sometimes in the same searing instant. In these eight powerful, emotionally absorbing stories, a romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends; a marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences; a young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival; two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives; a baby's christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new; a man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose. This is the indelible work of a keen observer of the human heart--a master at her best.
Exhalation by Ted Chiang ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE WASHINGTON POST * TIME MAGAZINE * NPR * ESQUIRE * VOX * THE A.V. CLUB * THE GUARDIAN * FINANCIAL TIMES * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS  "Exhalation by Ted Chiang is a collection of short stories that will make you think, grapple with big questions, and feel more human. The best kind of science fiction." --Barack Obama, via Facebook "THE UNIVERSE BEGAN AS AN ENORMOUS BREATH BEING HELD." In these nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories, Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity's oldest questions along with new quandaries only he could imagine. In "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In "Exhalation," an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom," the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will. Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic--revelatory.
Living on the Borderlines by Melissa Michal Both on and off the rez, interlinked characters contend with history and identity as contemporary members of the Seneca Nation. Debut writer Melissa Michal weaves together an understated and contemplative collection exploring what it means to be Native. In these stories, the longing for intergenerational memory slips into everyday life: a teenager struggles to understand her grandmother's silences, a family seeks to reconnect with a lost sibling, and a young woman searches for a cave that's called to her family for generations.
Look How Happy I'm Making You by Polly Rosenwaike "Among the thousands of books for prospective and new parents, I doubt any will make you feel more understood and less alone than this one."--ANTHONY DOERR, author of ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE "Armed with wit, tenderness and candor, [Look How Happy I'm Making You] helps obliterate any taboos that may still exist surrounding the tribulations of women's reproductive lives."--PEOPLE MAGAZINE A candid, ultimately buoyant debut story collection about the realities of the "baby years," whether you're having one or not The women in Polly Rosenwaike's Look How Happy I'm Making You want to be mothers, or aren't sure they want to be mothers, or--having recently given birth--are overwhelmed by what they've wrought. Sharp and unsettling, wry and moving in its depiction of love, friendship, and family, this collection expands the conversation about what having a baby looks like. One woman struggling with infertility deals with the news that her sister is pregnant. Another woman nervous about her biological clock "forgets" to take her birth control while dating a younger man and must confront the possibility of becoming a single parent. Four motherless women who meet in a bar every Mother's Day contend with their losses and what it would mean to have a child. Witty, empathetic, and precisely observed, Look How Happy I'm Making You offers the rare, honest portrayal of pregnancy and new motherhood in a culture obsessed with women's most intimate choices.
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin; Megan McDowell (Translator) "Superb" -- Vogue "What makes Schweblin so startling as a writer, however, what makes her rare and important, is that she is impelled not by mere talent or ambition but by vision." -- New York Times A powerful, eerily unsettling story collection from a major international literary star. The brilliant stories in Mouthful of Birds burrow their way into your psyche and don't let go. Samanta Schweblin haunts and mesmerizes in this extraordinary collection featuring women on the edge, men turned upside down, the natural world at odds with reality. We think life is one way, but often, it's not -- our expectations for how people act, love, fear can all be upended. Each character in Mouthful of Birds must contend with the unexpected, whether a family coming apart at the seams or a child transforming or a ghostly hellscape or a murder. Schweblin's stories have the feel of a sleepless night, where every shadow and bump in the dark take on huge implications, leaving your pulse racing, and the line between the real and the strange blurs.
Sing to It by Amy Hempel LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/FAULKER AWARD ONE OF TIME'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 "All the tawdry details I'm dying for are in these stories, but they're given out like old sweaters--without shame, without guile. Amy Hempel is the writer who makes me feel most affiliated with other humans; we are all living this way--hiding, alone, obsessed--and that's ok." --Miranda July From legendary writer Amy Hempel, one of the most celebrated and original voices in American short fiction: a ravishing, sometimes heartbreaking new story collection--her first in over a decade. Amy Hempel is a master of the short story. A multiple award winner, Hempel is highly regarded among writers, reviewers, and readers of contemporary fiction. This new collection, her first since her Collected Stories published more than a decade ago, is a literary event. These fifteen exquisitely honed stories reveal Hempel at her most compassionate and spirited, as she introduces characters, lonely and adrift, searching for connection. In "A Full-Service Shelter," a volunteer at a dog shelter tirelessly, devotedly cares for dogs on a list to be euthanized. In "Greed," a spurned wife examines her husband's affair with a glamorous, older married woman. And in "Cloudland," the longest story in the collection, a woman reckons with the choice she made as a teenager to give up her newborn infant. Quietly dazzling, these stories are replete with moments of revelation and transcendence and with Hempel's singular, startling, inimitable sentences.
This Is Not America by Jordi Punti From the acclaimed, prize-winning Catalonian author of the novel Lost Luggage, a collection of nine masterful short stories about adulthood, heartbreak, and outsiders in search of their place in the world. As one of Catalonia's most acclaimed literary talents, Jordi Puntí's writing is "full of invention and consistently gripping" (The Times Literary Supplement). Now, he returns to his American audience with this breathtaking short story collection. Sharing the title of the David Bowie song, it travels from Spain to America and back, showing the differences between the two places. A man recalls a past love as he strolls through the lonely streets of Barcelona. A hitchhiker on the outskirts of the city of Vic carries his secrets in a briefcase. In northern Catalonia, a villager receives letters from a long-estranged brother and grapples with how to respond. Then there's the man who wants to surprise his wife with a trip to Paris, only to swap it for a solitary cruise. Showcasing "the author's vivid imagination" (Kirkus Reviews), the stories in This Is Not America are effortless evocations of the strangeness of everyday life and the universal search for love and belonging.
I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere by Anna Gavalda; Karen L. Marker (Translator) Prize-winning Anna Gavalda caused an international sensation with this dazzling collection of short stories, selling over 700,000 copies in her native France. With arresting naturalism and a lively variety of perspectives, Gavalda writes simply - and beautifully - of human beings longing to connect. Displaying a knack for capturing both inner and outer dialogue with perfect pitch, while provoking reflection, pain and laughter, these stories are as wicked as they are insightful, as stylish as they are sparse, as fiercely unsentimental as they are emotionally wrought.
Table for Two by Amor Towles New York Times Bestseller "A knockout collection. ... Sharp-edged satire deceptively wrapped like a box of Neuhaus chocolates, Table for Two is a winner." --The New York Times From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories, including a novella featuring one of his most beloved characters   Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood. The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles's novel Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, "Eve in Hollywood" describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself--and others--in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles's canon of stylish and transporting fiction.
Night at the Fiestas by Kirstin Valdez Quade Winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction A New York Times Notable Book of 2015 Set in northern New Mexico, an astonishing, beautifully rendered debut about growing up in a land shaped by love, loss and violence. With intensity and emotional precision, Kirstin Valdez Quade's unforgettable stories plunge us into the fierce, troubled hearts of characters defined by the desire to escape the past or else to plumb its depths. The deadbeat father of a pregnant teenager tries to transform his life by playing the role of Jesus in a bloody penitential Passion. A young man discovers that his estranged father and a boa constrictor have been squatting in his grandmother's empty house. A lonely retiree new to Santa Fe becomes obsessed with her housekeeper. One girl attempts to uncover the mystery of her cousin's violent past, while another young woman finds herself at an impasse when she is asked to hear her priest's confession. Always hopeful, these stories chart the passions and obligations of family life, exploring themes of race, class, and coming-of-age, as Quade's characters protect, betray, wound, undermine, bolster, define, and, ultimately, save each other.
The Goodbye Cat by Hiro Arikawa; Philip Gabriel (Translator) In the much-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling and beloved The Travelling Cat Chronicles, seven cats weave their way through their owners' lives, climbing, comforting, nestling, and sometimes just tripping everyone up in this uplifting collection of tales by international bestselling author Hiro Arikawa. Against the backdrop of changing seasons in Japan, we meet Spin, a kitten rescued from the recycling bin, whose playful nature and simple needs teach an anxious father how to parent his own human baby; a colony of wild cats on a popular holiday island show a young boy not to stand in nature's way; a family is perplexed by their cat's undying devotion to their charismatic but uncaring father; a woman curses how her cat will not stop visiting her at night; and an elderly cat hatches a plan to pass into the next world as a spirit so that he and his owner may be in each other's lives forever. Bursting with love and warmth, The Goodbye Cat exquisitely explores the cycle of life, from birth to death--as each of the seven stories explores how, in different ways, the steadiness and devotion of a well-loved cat never lets us down. A huge bestseller in Japan, this magical book is a joyous celebration of the wondrousness of cats and why we choose to share our lives with them.
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.
Family Furnishings by Alice Munro From the winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature--and one of our most beloved writers--a new selection of her peerless short fiction, gathered from the collections of the last two decades, a companion volume to Selected Stories (1968-1994). Family Furnishings brings us twenty-four of Alice Munro's most accomplished, most powerfully affecting stories, many of them set in the territory she has so brilliantly made her own: the small towns and flatlands of southwestern Ontario. Subtly honed with her hallmark precision, grace, and compassion, these stories illuminate the quotidian yet extraordinary particularity in the lives of men and women, parents and children, friends and lovers as they discover sex, fall in love, part, quarrel, suffer defeat, set off into the unknown, or find a way to be in the world. Peopled with characters as real to us as we are to ourselves, Munro's stories encompass the fullness of human experience--from the wild exhilaration of first love, in "Passion," to the lengths a once-straying husband will go to make his wife happy as her memory fades, in "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." Other stories suggest the punishing consequences of leaving home ("Runaway") or leaving a marriage ("The Children Stay"). The part romantic love plays in one's existence is explored in "Too Much Happiness," based on the life of the noted nineteenth-century mathematician, Sophia Kovalevsky. And in stories that Munro has described as "closer to the truth than usual"--"Dear Life," "Working for a Living," and "Home" among them--we glimpse the author's own life. As the Nobel Prize presentation speech says in part: "Reading one of Alice Munro's texts is like watching a cat walk across a laid dinner table. A brief short story can often cover decades, summarizing a life, as she moves deftly between different periods. No wonder Alice Munro is often able to say more in thirty pages than an ordinary novelist is capable of in three hundred. She is a virtuoso of the elliptical and the master of the contemporary short story."
The World Doesn't Require You by Rion Amilcar Scott Established by the leaders of the country's only successful slave revolt in the mid-nineteenth century, Cross River still evokes the fierce rhythms of its founding. In lyrical prose and singular dialect, a saga beats forward that echoes the fables carried down for generations--like the screecher birds who swoop down for their periodic sacrifice, and the water women who lure men to wet deaths.Among its residents--wildly spanning decades, perspectives, and species--are David Sherman, a struggling musician who just happens to be God's last son; Tyrone, a ruthless PhD candidate, whose dissertation about a childhood game ignites mayhem in the neighboring, once-segregated town of Port Yooga; and Jim, an all-too-obedient robot who serves his Master. As the book builds to its finish with Special Topics in Loneliness Studies, a fully-realized novella, two unhinged professors grapple with hugely different ambitions, and the reader comes to appreciate the intricacy of the world Scott has created--one where fantasy and reality are eternally at war.Contemporary and essential, The World Doesn't Require You is a "leap into a blazing new level of brilliance" (Lauren Groff) that affirms Rion Amilcar Scott as a writer whose storytelling gifts the world very much requires.
Dearborn by Ghassan Zeineddine Spanning several decades, Ghassan Zeineddine's debut collection examines the diverse range and complexities of the Arab American community in Dearborn, Michigan. In ten tragicomic stories, Zeineddine explores themes of identity, generational conflicts, war trauma, migration, sexuality, queerness, home and belonging, and more. In Dearborn, a father teaches his son how to cheat the IRS and hide their cash earnings inside of frozen chickens. Tensions heighten within a close-knit group of couples when a mysterious man begins to frequent the local gym pool, dressed in Speedos printed with nostalgic images of Lebanon. And a failed stage actor attempts to drive a young Lebanese man with ambitions of becoming a Hollywood action hero to LA, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have other plans. By turns wildly funny, incisive, and deeply moving, Dearborn introduces readers to an arresting new voice in contemporary fiction and invites us all to consider what it means to be part of a place and community, and how it is that we help one another survive.
Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal Finalist for the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction A groundbreaking debut collection portraying the lived experiences of Black Muslims grappling with faith, family, and freedom in America. In Temple Folk, Black Muslims contemplate the convictions of their race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality in America. The ten stories in this collection contribute to the bounty of diverse narratives about Black life by intimately portraying the experiences of a community that resists the mainstream culture to which they are expected to accept and aspire to while functioning within the country in which they are born. In "Due North," an obedient daughter struggles to understand why she's haunted by the spirit of her recently deceased father. In "Who's Down?" a father, after a brief affair with vegetarianism, conspires with his daughter to order him a double cheeseburger. In "Candy for Hanif" a mother's routine trip to the store for her disabled son takes an unlikely turn when she reflects on a near-death experience. In "Woman in Niqab," a daughter's suspicion of her father's infidelity prompts her to wear her hair in public. In "New Mexico," a federal agent tasked with spying on a high-ranking member of the Nation of Islam grapples with his responsibilities closer to home. With an unflinching eye for the contradictions between what these characters profess to believe and what they do, Temple Folk accomplishes the rare feat of presenting moral failures with compassion, nuance, and humor to remind us that while perfection is what many of us strive for, it's the errors that make us human.
Night Side of the River by Jeanette Winterson A captivating collection of ghost stories from "one of the most gifted writers working today" (New York Times), Night Side of the River is as ingeniously provocative as it is downright spooky. In this delightfully chilling collection, the iconic Jeanette Winterson turns her fearless gaze to the realm of ghosts, interspersing her own encounters with the supernatural alongside hair-raising fictions. Lifting the veil between the living and the dead, Winterson spirits us away to a haunted estate that ensnares a nomadic young couple in its own dark past, a staged immersive ghost tour gone awry, a West Village séance that threatens the bounds between AI and reality, and a vacation home in the metaverse where a widow visits an improved version of her deceased husband. Gloriously gothic and unnervingly contemporary, Winterson examines grief, revenge, and the myriad ways in which technology can disrupt the boundary between life and death. 
From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi (Star Wars) by Olivie Blake; Saladin Ahmed; Charlie Jane Anders; Fran Wilde; Mary Kenney; Mike Chen NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Celebrate the lasting impact of Return of the Jedi with this exciting reimagining of the timeless Star Wars film featuring new perspectives from forty contributors.   On May 25, 1983, Star Wars cemented its legacy as the greatest movie franchise of all time with the release of Return of the Jedi. In honor of its fortieth anniversary, forty storytellers re-create an iconic scene from Return of the Jedi through the eyes of a supporting character, from heroes and villains to droids and creatures. From a Certain Point of View features contributions by bestselling authors and trendsetting artists:   * Olivie Blake provides a chilling glimpse into the mind of Emperor Palpatine. * Saladin Ahmed recounts the tragic history of the rancor trainer. * Charlie Jane Anders explores the life and times of the Sarlacc. * Fran Wilde reveals Mon Mothma's secret mission to save the Rebel Alliance. * Mary Kenney chronicles Wicket the Ewok's quest for one quiet day on the forest moon of Endor. * Anakin Skywalker becomes one with the Force in a gripping tale by Mike Chen.   Plus more hilarious, heartbreaking, and astonishing tales from: Tom Angleberger, K Arsenault Rivera, Kristin Baver, Akemi Dawn Bowman, Emma Mieko Candon, Olivia Chadha, Gloria Chao, Adam Christopher, Paul Crilley, Amal El-Mohtar, M. K. England, Jason Fry, Adam Lance Garcia, Lamar Giles, Max Gladstone, Thea Guanzon, Ali Hazelwood, Patricia A. Jackson, Alex Jennings, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Sarah Kuhn, Danny Lore, Sarah Glenn Marsh, Kwame Mbalia, Marieke Nijkamp, Danielle Paige, Laura Pohl, Dana Schwartz, Tara Sim, Phil Szostak, Suzanne Walker, Hannah Whitten, Sean Williams, Alyssa Wong   To celebrate the launch of this book, Penguin Random House and Disney/Lucasfilm will each make donations to First Book--a leading nonprofit that provides new books, learning materials, and other essentials to educators and organizations serving children in need. In recognition of both companies' longstanding relationships with First Book, Penguin Random House will donate at least $100,000 worth of books to First Book and Disney/Lucasfilm will donate 100,000 children's books to support First Book and their mission of providing equal access to quality education.
The Missing Morningstar by Stacie Shannon Denetsosie A 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Award winner "Propulsive and complex, this is agorgeously written debut." --KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review) In The Missing Morningstar and Other Stories, Stacie Shannon Denetsosie confronts long-reaching effects of settler-colonialism on Native lives in a series of gritty, wildly imaginative stories. A young Navajo man catches a ride home alongside a casket he's sure contains his dead grandfather. A gas station clerk witnesses the kidnapping of the newly crowned Miss Northwestern Arizona. A young couple's search for a sperm donor raises questions of blood quantum. This debut collection grapples with a complex and painful history alongside an inheritance of beauty, ceremony, and storytelling.
What We Fed to the Manticore by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri Through nine emotionally vivid stories, all narrated from animal perspectives, Talia Lakshmi Kolluri's debut collection explores themes of environmentalism, conservation, identity, belonging, loss, and family with resounding heart and deep tenderness. In Kolluri's pages, a faithful hound mourns the loss of the endangered rhino he swore to protect. Vultures seek meaning as they attend to the antelope that perished in Central Asia. A beloved donkey's loyalty to a zookeeper in Gaza is put to the ultimate test. And a wounded pigeon in Delhi finds an unlikely friend. In striking, immersive detail against the backdrop of an ever-changing international landscape, What We Fed to the Manticore speaks to the fears and joys of the creatures we share our world with, and ultimately places the reader under the rich canopy of the tree of life.
All the Names They Used for God by Anjali Sachdeva Anjali Sachdeva's debut collection spans centuries, continents, and a diverse set of characters but is united by each character's epic struggle with fate- A workman in Andrew Carnegie's steel mills is irrevocably changed by the brutal power of the furnaces; a fisherman sets sail into overfished waters and finds a secret obsession from which he can't return; an online date ends with a frightening, inexplicable dissapearance. Her story "Pleiades" was called "a masterpiece" by Dave Eggers. Sachdeva has a talent for creating moving and poignant scenes, following her highly imaginative plots to their logical ends, and depicting how one small miracle can affect everyone in its wake.
Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires Longlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction and Kirkus Prize Finalist Calling to mind the best works of Paul Beatty and Junot Díaz, this collection of moving, timely, and darkly funny stories examines the concept of black identity in this so-called post-racial era. A stunning new talent in literary fiction, Nafissa Thompson-Spires grapples with black identity and the contemporary middle class in these compelling, boundary-pushing vignettes. Each captivating story plunges headfirst into the lives of new, utterly original characters. Some are darkly humorous--from two mothers exchanging snide remarks through notes in their kids' backpacks, to the young girl contemplating how best to notify her Facebook friends of her impending suicide--while others are devastatingly poignant--a new mother and funeral singer who is driven to madness with grief for the young black boys who have fallen victim to gun violence, or the teen who struggles between her upper middle class upbringing and her desire to fully connect with black culture. Thompson-Spires fearlessly shines a light on the simmering tensions and precariousness of black citizenship. Her stories are exquisitely rendered, satirical, and captivating in turn, engaging in the ongoing conversations about race and identity politics, as well as the vulnerability of the black body. Boldly resisting categorization and easy answers, Nafissa Thompson-Spires is an original and necessary voice in contemporary fiction.

rotating

Fiction with Rotating Perspectives

Suggested by a list from LitHub

"Reading a novel that is masterfully written from the perspectives of multiple family members can feel like piecing together a puzzle that parallels the complex reality of life."~Shilpi Somaya Gowda

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 Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! "One of the most beautiful books of motherhood and what we pass on to those that come after us." --Jenna Bush Hager, Today The New York Times bestselling author of the "mesmerizing and evocative" (Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants) Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet returns with a powerful exploration of the love that binds one family across the generations. Dorothy Moy breaks her own heart for a living. As Washington's former poet laureate, that's how she describes channeling her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her art. But when her five-year-old daughter exhibits similar behavior and begins remembering things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy believes the past has truly come to haunt her. Fearing that her child is predestined to endure the same debilitating depression that has marked her own life, Dorothy seeks radical help. Through an experimental treatment designed to mitigate inherited trauma, Dorothy intimately connects with past generations of women in her family: Faye Moy, a nurse in China serving with the Flying Tigers; Zoe Moy, a student in England at a famous school with no rules; Lai King Moy, a girl quarantined in San Francisco during a plague epidemic; Greta Moy, a tech executive with a unique dating app; and Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to set foot in America. As painful recollections affect her present life, Dorothy discovers that trauma isn't the only thing she's inherited. A stranger is searching for her in each time period. A stranger who's loved her through all of her genetic memories. Dorothy endeavors to break the cycle of pain and abandonment, to finally find peace for her daughter, and gain the love that has long been waiting, knowing she may pay the ultimate price.
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: THE WASHINGTON POST, NPR, TIME, THE SEATTLE TIMES, MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE, SLATE, LIBRARY JOURNAL, KIRKUS, AND MANY MORE "Lauren Groff is a writer of rare gifts, and Fates and Furies is an unabashedly ambitious novel that delivers - with comedy, tragedy, well-deployed erudition and unmistakable glimmers of brilliance throughout." --The New York Times Book Review (cover review) From the award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Florida and Matrix, an exhilarating novel about marriage, creativity, art, and perception.  Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation.  Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years. At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng The acclaimed debut novel by the author of Little Fires Everywhere.  "A taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense." --O, the Oprah Magazine "Explosive . . . Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family." --Entertainment Weekly "Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia's body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver New York Times Bestseller * Pulitzer Prize Finalist * An Oprah's Book Club Selection "Powerful . . . [Kingsolver] has with infinitely steady hands worked the prickly threads of religion, politics, race, sin and redemption into a thing of terrible beauty." --Los Angeles Times Book Review The Poisonwood Bible, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, established Barbara Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, it is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in Africa. This special Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition features beautiful cover art on uncoated stock, French flaps, and deckle-edge pages, making it the perfect gift book. The story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it--from garden seeds to Scripture--is calamitously transformed on African soil. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters--the teenaged Rachel; adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility.
Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Read with Jenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today * From the author of Carrie Soto Is Back, Daisy Jones & The Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo . . . "Irresistible . . . High drama at the beach, starring four sexy, surfing siblings and their deadbeat, famous-crooner dad."--People ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Time, Marie Claire, PopSugar, Parade, Teen Vogue, Self, She Reads Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of twenty-four hours, the family drama that ensues will change their lives forever. Malibu: August 1983. It's the day of Nina Riva's annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over--especially as the offspring of the legendary singer Mick Riva. The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud--because it is long past time for him to confess something to the brother from whom he's been inseparable since birth. Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can't stop thinking about promised she'll be there. And Kit has a couple secrets of her own--including a guest she invited without consulting anyone. By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family's generations will all come rising to the surface. Malibu Rising is a story about one unforgettable night in the life of a family: the night they each have to choose what they will keep from the people who made them . . . and what they will leave behind.
Infinite Country by Patricia Engel A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK AND INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2021 NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD, LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL, A 2022 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST, AND A NATIONAL ENDOWMENT OF THE ARTS "BIG READS" SELECTION "A knockout of a novel...we predict [Infinite Country] will be viewed as one of 2021's best." --O, The Oprah Magazine Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 from Esquire, O, The Oprah Magazine, Elle, GMA, New York Post, Ms. Magazine, The Millions, Electric Literature, LitHub, AARP, Refinery29, BuzzFeed, Autostraddle, She Reads, Alma, and more. I often wonder if we are living the wrong life in the wrong country. Talia is being held at a correctional facility for adolescent girls in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence that may or may not have been warranted. She urgently needs to get out and get back home to Bogotá, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she might also miss her chance to finally be reunited with her family in the north. How this family came to occupy two different countries, two different worlds, comes into focus like twists of a kaleidoscope. We see Talia's parents, Mauro and Elena, fall in love in a market stall as teenagers against a backdrop of civil war and social unrest. We see them leave Bogotá with their firstborn, Karina, in pursuit of safety and opportunity in the United States on a temporary visa, and we see the births of two more children, Nando and Talia, on American soil. We witness the decisions and indecisions that lead to Mauro's deportation and the family's splintering--the costs they've all been living with ever since. Award-winning, internationally acclaimed author Patricia Engel, herself a dual citizen and the daughter of Colombian immigrants, gives voice to all five family members as they navigate the particulars of their respective circumstances. And all the while, the metronome ticks: Will Talia make it to Bogotá in time? And if she does, can she bring herself to trade the solid facts of her father and life in Colombia for the distant vision of her mother and siblings in America? Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality of the undocumented in America, Infinite Country is the story of two countries and one mixed-status family--for whom every triumph is stitched with regret, and every dream pursued bears the weight of a dream deferred.
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post * NPR * Entertainment Weekly * Real Simple * Marie Claire * New York Public Library * LibraryReads * The Skimm * Lit Hub * Lit Reactor  AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A captivating family saga."--The New York Times Book Review "This literary family saga is perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Donna Tartt."--People Magazine (Book of the Week) If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children--four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness--sneak out to hear their fortunes. The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality. A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett A GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick!  "Bennett's tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it's especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison's 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye." --Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal  "A story of absolute, universal timelessness ...For any era, it's an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it's piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be...." - Entertainment Weekly From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett "Exquisite. . .Commonwealth is impossible to put down." -- New York Times #1 New York Times Bestseller | NBCC Award Finalist | New York Times Best Book of the Year | USA Today Best Book | TIME Magazine Top 10 Selection | Oprah Favorite Book | New York Magazine Best Book of The Year The acclaimed, bestselling author--winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize--tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families. Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them. When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another. Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie "Ingenious... Builds to one of the most memorable final scenes I've read in a novel this century." --The New York Times WINNER OF THE 2018 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION FINALIST FOR THE 2019 INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE The suspenseful and heartbreaking story of an immigrant family driven to pit love against loyalty, with devastating consequences Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother's death, she's accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long deferred. But she can't stop worrying about Aneeka, her beautiful, headstrong sister back in London, or their brother, Parvaiz, who's disappeared in pursuit of his own dream, to prove himself to the dark legacy of the jihadist father he never knew. When he resurfaces half a globe away, Isma's worst fears are confirmed. Then Eamonn enters the sisters' lives. Son of a powerful political figure, he has his own birthright to live up to--or defy. Is he to be a chance at love? The means of Parvaiz's salvation? Suddenly, two families' fates are inextricably, devastatingly entwined, in this searing novel that asks: What sacrifices will we make in the name of love?
Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah Winner of the PEN America/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel * Finalist for the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize * Finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction   "A profound reflection on the intergenerational nature of cultural trauma... Hokeah's characters exist at the intersection of Kiowa, Cherokee and Mexican identity, which provides a vital exploration of indigeneity in contemporary American letters." --The New York Times Book Review A moving and deeply engaging novel about a young Native American man as he learns to find strength in his familial identity.  Oscar Hokeah's electric debut takes us into the life of Ever Geimausaddle, whose family--part Mexican, part Native American--is determined to hold onto their community despite obstacles everywhere they turn. Ever's father is injured at the hands of corrupt police on the border when he goes to visit family in Mexico, while his mother struggles both to keep her job and care for her husband. And young Ever is lost and angry at all that he doesn't understand, at this world that seems to undermine his sense of safety. Ever's relatives all have ideas about who he is and who he should be. His Cherokee grandmother, knowing the importance of proximity, urges the family to move across Oklahoma to be near her, while his grandfather, watching their traditions slip away, tries to reunite Ever with his heritage through traditional gourd dances. Through it all, every relative wants the same: to remind Ever of the rich and supportive communities that surround him, there to hold him tight, and for Ever to learn to take the strength given to him to save not only himself but also the next generation. How will this young man visualize a place for himself when the world hasn't made room for him to start with? Honest, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting, Calling for a Blanket Dance is the story of how Ever Geimausaddle finds his way home. "STUNNING." --Susan Power, author of The Grass Dancer
The Family Izquierdo by Ruben Degollado The tight-knit Izquierdo family is grappling with misfortunes none of them can explain. Their beloved patriarch has suffered from an emotional collapse and is dying; eldest son Gonzalo's marriage is falling apart; daughter Dina, beleaguered by the fear that her nightmares are real, is a shut-in. When Gonzalo digs up a strange object in the backyard of the family home, the Izquierdos take it as proof that a jealous neighbor has cursed them--could this be the reason for all their troubles? As the Izquierdos face a distressing present and an uncertain future, they are sustained by the blood that binds them, a divine presence, and an abiding love for one another. Told in a series of soulful voices brimming with warmth and humor, The Family Izquierdo is a tender narrative of a family at a turning point.
Call Number: Check it out now - only available from hoopla digital!
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.
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.
Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake New York Times Bestseller * New York Public Library Best Book of 2016 * Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2016 * Kirkus Best Book of the Year Fans of acclaimed author Kendare Blake's Anna Dressed in Blood will devour Three Dark Crowns, the first book in a dark and inventive fantasy series about three sisters who must fight to the death to become queen. In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born: three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions. But becoming the Queen Crowned isn't solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it's not just a game of win or lose...it's life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins. The last queen standing gets the crown. Don't miss Five Dark Fates, the thrilling conclusion to the series!
Call Number: YA
The Blackwoods by Brandy Colbert From Boston Globe/Horn Book Award-winning author Brandy Colbert comes the story of four generations of a Hollywood family--an unforgettable tale of ambition, fame, struggle, loss, and love in America. The Blackwoods. Everyone knows their name. Blossom Blackwood burst onto the silver screen in 1962, and in the decades that followed, she would become one of the most celebrated actors of our time--and the matriarch of the most famous Black family in Hollywood. To her great-granddaughters, Hollis and Ardith, she has always just been Bebe. And when she passes away, it changes everything. Hollis Blackwood was never interested in fame. Still, she's surrounded by it, whether at home with her family or at the prestigious Dupree Academy among Los Angeles' elite. When private photos of Hollis are leaked in the wake of Blossom's death, she is thrust into the spotlight she's long avoided--and finds that trust may be a luxury even she can't afford. Ardith Blackwood has always lived in the public eye. A television star since childhood, she was perhaps closer with Blossom than anyone--especially after Ardith's mother died in a drug overdose. Ever since, she has worked to be everything her family, her church, and the public want her to be. But as a family secret comes to light and the pressures from all sides begin to mount, she wonders what is left beneath the face she shows the world. Weaving together the narratives of Hollis, Ardith, and Blossom, award-winning author Brandy Colbert tells an unforgettable story set in an America where everything is personal, and nothing is private.  
Call Number: YA
The Family Tabor by Cherise Wolas "Wolas writes with gorgeous intensity about the strata of loving relationships that entwine families in all their messy contradictions that often stubbornly resist transparency, the truth, and resolution. Savor this." --Library Journal, starred review The Family Tabor, the new novel from Cherise Wolas, acclaimed author ofThe Resurrection of Joan Ashby Harry Tabor is about to be named Man of the Decade, a distinction that feels like the culmination of a life well lived. Gathering together in Palm Springs for the celebration are his wife, Roma, a distinguished child psychologist, and their children: Phoebe, a high-powered attorney; Camille, a brilliant social anthropologist; and Simon, a big-firm lawyer, who brings his glamorous wife and two young daughters. But immediately, cracks begin to appear in this smooth facade: Simon hasn't been sleeping through the night, Camille can't decide what to do with her life, and Phoebe is a little too cagey about her new boyfriend. Roma knows her children are hiding things. What she doesn't know, what none of them know, is that Harry is suddenly haunted by the long-buried secret that drove him, decades ago, to relocate his young family to the California desert. As the ceremony nears, the family membersare forced to confront the falsehoods upon which their lives are built. Set over the course of a single weekend, and deftly alternating between the five Tabors, this provocative, gorgeously rendered novel,reckons with the nature of the stories we tell ourselves and our family and the price we pay for second chances.

Japanese

Books in Translation

Japanese

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!

Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka; Sam Malissa (Translator) A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Pick From Kotaro Isaka, the award-winning, internationally bestselling author of Bullet Train, the high-octane thriller Three Assassins, set in Tokyo's criminal underworld, pits an ordinary man against a group of talented and very unusual assassins. Suzuki is an ordinary man . . . until his wife is murdered. To get answers and his revenge, he abandons his law-abiding lifestyle and takes a low-level job with a front company operated by the crime gang Maiden, who are responsible for his wife's death. Before long, Suzuki finds himself caught up in a network of quirky and highly effective assassins: The Cicada is a knife expert. The Pusher nudges people into oncoming traffic. The Whale whispers bleak aphorisms to his victims until they take their own lives. Intense and electrifying, Three Assassins delivers a wild ride through the criminal underworld of Tokyo, populated by contract killers who are almost superhumanly good at their jobs. "Feels like a fever dream that makes sense when you're in it, but whose strange contours linger long after you wake up." --New York Times
What You Are Looking for Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama For fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a charming, internationally bestselling Japanese novel about how the perfect book recommendation can change a readers' life. What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it. A restless retail assistant looks to gain new skills, a mother tries to overcome demotion at work after maternity leave, a conscientious accountant yearns to open an antique store, a recently retired salaryman searches for newfound purpose. In Komachi's unique book recommendations they will find just what they need to achieve their dreams. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is about the magic of libraries and the discovery of connection. This inspirational tale shows how, by listening to our hearts, seizing opportunity and reaching out, we too can fulfill our lifelong dreams. Which book will you recommend?
Call Number: Adult Fiction
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa; Eric Ozawa (Translator) The wise and charming international bestseller and hit Japanese movie--about a young woman who loses everything but finds herself--a tale of new beginnings, romantic and family relationships, and the comfort that can be found in books.  Twenty-five-year-old Takako has enjoyed a relatively easy existence--until the day her boyfriend Hideaki, the man she expected to wed, casually announces he's been cheating on her and is marrying the other woman. Suddenly, Takako's life is in freefall. She loses her job, her friends, and her acquaintances, and spirals into a deep depression. In the depths of her despair, she receives a call from her distant uncle Satoru. An unusual man who has always pursued something of an unconventional life, especially after his wife Momoko left him out of the blue five years earlier, Satoru runs a second-hand bookshop in Jimbocho, Tokyo's famous book district. Takako once looked down upon Satoru's life. Now, she reluctantly accepts his offer of the tiny room above the bookshop rent-free in exchange for helping out at the store. The move is temporary, until she can get back on her feet. But in the months that follow, Takako surprises herself when she develops a passion for Japanese literature, becomes a regular at a local coffee shop where she makes new friends, and eventually meets a young editor from a nearby publishing house who's going through his own messy breakup. But just as she begins to find joy again, Hideaki reappears, forcing Takako to rely once again on her uncle, whose own life has begun to unravel. Together, these seeming opposites work to understand each other and themselves as they continue to share the wisdom they've gained in the bookshop. Translated By Eric Ozawa
Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata; Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator) The long-awaited first short story-collection by the author of the cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, tales of weird love, heartfelt friendships, and the unsettling nature of human existence With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata is back with her first collection of short stories ever to be translated into English. In Japan, Murata is particularly admired for her short stories, which are sometimes sweet, sometimes shocking, and always imbued with an otherworldly imagination and uncanniness. In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor and horror to portray both the loners and outcasts as well as turning the norms and traditions of society on their head to better question them. Whether the stories take place in modern-day Japan, the future, or an alternate reality is left to the reader's interpretation, as the characters often seem strange in their normality in a frighteningly abnormal world. In "A First-Rate Material," Nana and Naoki are happily engaged, but Naoki can't stand the conventional use of deceased people's bodies for clothing, accessories, and furniture, and a disagreement around this threatens to derail their perfect wedding day. "Lovers on the Breeze" is told from the perspective of a curtain in a child's bedroom that jealously watches the young girl Naoko as she has her first kiss with a boy from her class and does its best to stop her. "Eating the City" explores the strange norms around food and foraging, while "Hatchling" closes the collection with an extraordinary depiction of the fractured personality of someone who tries too hard to fit in. In these strange and wonderful stories of family and friendship, sex and intimacy, belonging and individuality, Murata asks above all what it means to be a human in our world and offers answers that surprise and linger.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi *NOW AN LA TIMES BESTSELLER* *OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD* *AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER* If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet? In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee--the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn't so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold. Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi's internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time? Meet more wonderful characters in the next captivating novel in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Before We Say Goodbye! Read the rest of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series:  Tales from the Cafe Before Your Memory Fades
Moshi Moshi by Banana Yoshimoto; Asa Yoneda (Translator) "A beautiful translation...Yoshimoto deploys a magically Japanese light touch to emotionally and existentially tough subject matter: domestic disarray, loneliness, identity issues, lovesickness...[a] nimble narrative." âe*ELLE InMoshi Moshi, Yoshie's much-loved musician father has died in a suicide pact with an unknown woman. It is only when Yoshie and her mother move to Shimokitazawa, a traditional Tokyo neighborhood of narrow streets, quirky shops, and friendly residents that they can finally start to put their painful past behind them. However, despite their attempts to move forward, Yoshie is haunted by nightmares in which her father is looking for the phone he left behind on the day he died, or on which she is trying--unsuccessfully--to call him. Is her dead father trying to communicate a message to her through these dreams? With the lightness of touch and surreal detachment that are the hallmarks of her writing, Banana Yoshimoto turns a potential tragedy into a poignant coming-of-age ghost story and a life-affirming homage to the healing powers of community, food, and family.
Idol, Burning by Rin Usami; Asa Yoneda (Translator) "Akari's obsession is fatalistic and intense, and Usami's prose (translated by Asa Yoneda) renders it and the hold it has on her tenuous life ably and affectingly. . . . it will especially resonate with readers familiar with real-life superfandoms such as One Direction's at the height of its fame, down to details such as sought-after exclusive merch and hateful online comments sections. A short, engrossing novel that captures the essence of obsessive fandom." -- Kirkus (starred review) "What's impressive about this novel is the author's ability to empathize with Akari's all-consuming love for Masaki while showing just how damaging this relationship is to Akari and everyone around her. The book left me heartbroken yet hopeful, and excited for more Usami novels to come." -- NPR.org "Haunting and sincere, Idol, Burning subverts and astonishes. Rin Usami balances humor, obsession, heartbreak, and sacrifice in her debut, crafting a story that's both enveloping and expansive. Usami's writing is thrilling and deft, and her novel illuminates the shadows cloaking our digital lives, leaving us with honesty and grace in equal measures. Idol, Burning is a barnburner and a prayer and a testament to the lengths that we'll go to reach for our dreams."--Bryan Washington, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot The novel that lit the Japanese publishing world on fire: From a breathtaking up-and-coming writer, a twenty-first century Catcher in the Rye that brilliantly explores toxic fandom, social media, and alienated adolescence. Akari is a high school student obsessed with "oshi" Masaki Ueno, a member of the popular J-Pop group Maza Maza. She writes a blog devoted to him, and spends hours addictively scrolling for information about him and his life. Desperate to analyze and understand him, Akari hopes to eventually see the world through his eyes. It is a devotion that borders on the religious: Masaki is her savior, her backbone, someone she believes she cannot survive without--even though she's never actually met him. When rumors surface that her idol assaulted a female fan, social media explodes. Akari immediately begins sifting through everything she can find about the scandal, and shares every detail to her blog--including Masaki's denials and pleas to his fans--drawing numerous readers eager for her updates. But the organized, knowledgeable persona Akari presents online is totally different from the socially awkward, unfocused teenager she is in real life. As Masaki's situation spirals, his troubles threaten to tear apart her life too. Instead of finding a way to break free to save herself, Akari becomes even more fanatical about Masaki, still believing her idol is the only person who understands her. A blistering novel of fame, disconnection, obsession, and disillusion by a young writer not much older than the novel's heroine, Idol, Burning shines a white-hot spotlight on fandom and "stan" culture, the money-making schemes of the pop idol industry, the seductive power of social media, and the powerful emotional void that opens when an idol falls from grace, only to become a real--and very flawed--person. Translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda.
The Tatami Galaxy by Tomihiko Morimi; Emily Balistrieri (Translator) *SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN TRANSLATION PRIZE* An unfulfilled college student hurtles through four parallel realities to explore the what-might've-been and the what-should-never-be in this Groundhog Day meets The Midnight Library-esque novel from one of Japan's most popular authors. Our protagonist, an unnamed junior at a prestigious university in Kyoto, is on the verge of dropping out. After rebelling against the dictatorial jock president of the film club, he and his worst and only friend, the diabolical creep Ozu, are personas non grata on campus. For two years, our protagonist has made all the wrong decisions, and now he's about to make another mistake. He and Ozu are preparing for revenge--a fireworks attack at the film club's welcoming party for new members. Then, a chance encounter with a self-proclaimed god sets the confused and distraught young man on a new course. Destiny will bring him together with Akashi, the blunt but charming sophomore he has a crush on--if he's brave enough to make a move. Yet our protagonist cannot get beyond his profound disillusionment and the moment is lost. But what if there's a universe where he did join the club of his dreams, ditched Ozu for good, and was confident enough to get the girl A realm of possibility opens up for our protagonist as time rewinds, and from the four-and-a-half-mat tatami floor of his dorm room, he is plunged into a series of adventures that will take him to four parallel universes. In each universe, he is given the opportunity to start over as a freshman, in search of a rose-colored campus life. The inspiration behind the much-loved anime series, Tomihiko Morimi's contemporary classic is a fantastic journey through time and space, where a half-eaten castella cake, a photograph from Rome, and a giant cavity in a wisdom tooth hold the keys to self-discovery. A time-traveling romp that speaks to everyone who has wondered what if, The Tatami Galaxy will win readers' hearts over . . . and over . . . and over again.
All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami; Sam Bett (Translator); David Boyd (Translator) FINALIST for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction A BEST BOOK OF 2022 Oprah Daily・TIME Magazine・Washington Post・Publishers Weekly・Lit Hub Bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs Mieko Kawakami invites readers back into her immediately recognizable fictional world with this new, extraordinary novel and demonstrates yet again why she is one of today's most uncategorizable, insightful, and talented novelists.  Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyuko stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward, and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life and decides to do something about it. As the long overdue change occurs, however, painful episodes from Fuyuko's past surface and her behavior slips further and further beyond the pale. All the Lovers in the Night is acute and insightful, entertaining and engaging; it will make readers laugh, and it will make them cry, but it will also remind them, as only the best books do, that sometimes the pain is worth it. "In the skilled hands of Bett and Boyd, Kawakami's prose is instantly recognizable--immediate, incisive, and unfailingly honest."--Katie Kitamura, Entertainment Weekly (A Most Anticipated Book of 2022)
Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi; David Boyd (Translator); Lucy North (Translator) A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker · NPR · WBEZ's Nerdette · The New York Public Library · Literary Hub A New York Times Editors' Choice "One of the most passionate cases I've ever read for female interiority, for women's creative pulse and rich inner life." ―Katy Waldman, The New Yorker "Always expect the unexpected when you're not expecting." ―Sloane Crosley A woman in Tokyo avoids harassment at work by perpetuating, for nine months and beyond, the lie that she's pregnant in this prizewinning, thrillingly subversive debut novel about the mother of all deceptions, for fans of Convenience Store Woman and Breasts and Eggs When thirty-four-year-old Ms. Shibata gets a new job to escape sexual harassment at her old one, she finds that as the only woman at her new workplace--a manufacturer of cardboard tubes--she is expected to do all the menial tasks. One day she announces that she can't clear away her coworkers' dirty cups--because she's pregnant and the smell nauseates her. The only thing is . . . Ms. Shibata is not pregnant. Pregnant Ms. Shibata doesn't have to serve coffee to anyone. Pregnant Ms. Shibata isn't forced to work overtime. Pregnant Ms. Shibata watches TV, takes long baths, and even joins an aerobics class for expectant mothers. She's living a year of rest and relaxation, and is finally being treated by her colleagues as more than a hollow core. But she has a ruse to keep up. Before long, it becomes all-absorbing, and with the help of towel-stuffed shirts and a diary app that tracks every stage of her "pregnancy," the boundary between her lie and her life begins to dissolve. Surreal and absurdist, and with a winning matter-of-factness, a light touch, and a refreshing sensitivity to mental health, Diary of a Void will keep you turning the pages to see just how far Ms. Shibata will carry her deception for the sake of women, and especially working mothers, everywhere.
Weasels in the Attic by Hiroko Oyamada; David Boyd (Translator) In three interconnected scenes, Hiroko Oyamada revisits the same set of characters at different junctures in their lives. In the back room of a pet store full of rare and exotic fish, old friends discuss dried shrimp and a strange new relationship. A couple who recently moved into a rustic home in the mountains discovers an unsettling solution to their weasel infestation. And a dinner party during a blizzard leads to a night in a room filled with aquariums and unpleasant dreams. Like Oyamada's previous novels, Weasels in the Attic sets its sights on the overlooked aspects of contemporary Japanese society, and does so with a surreal sensibility that is entirely her own.
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai; Donald Keene (Translator) Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being. Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. His attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness. Still one of the ten bestselling books in Japan, No Longer Human is an important and unforgettable modern classic: "The struggle of the individual to fit into a normalizing society remains just as relevant today as it was at the time of writing." (The Japan Times)
The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo; Louise Heal Kawai (Translator) One of Japan's greatest classic murder mysteries, introducing their best loved detective, translated into English for the first time In the winter of 1937, the village of Okamura is abuzz with excitement over the forthcoming wedding of a son of the grand Ichiyanagi family. But amid the gossip over the approaching festivities, there is also a worrying rumour - it seems a sinister masked man has been asking questions around the village. Then, on the night of the wedding, the Ichiyanagi household are woken by a terrible scream, followed by the sound of eerie music. Death has come to Okamura, leaving no trace but a bloody samurai sword, thrust into the pristine snow outside the house. Soon, amateur detective Kosuke Kindaichi is on the scene to investigate what will become a legendary murder case, but can this scruffy sleuth solve a seemingly impossible crime?
Call Number: eBook
Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka; Sam Malissa (Translator) WINNER OF THE STRAND CRITICS AWARD FOR BEST DEBUT A dark, satirical thriller by the bestselling Japanese author, following the perilous train ride of five highly motivated assassins--soon to be a major film from Sony starring Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Shannon, and Benito A Martínez Ocasio, and more Satoshi--The Prince--looks like an innocent schoolboy but is really a stylish and devious assassin. Risk fuels him, as does a good philosophical debate, such as questioning: Is killing really wrong? Kimura's young son is in a coma thanks to The Prince, and Kimura has tracked him onto a bullet train heading from Tokyo to Morioka to exact his revenge. But Kimura soon discovers that they are not the only dangerous passengers on board. Nanao, also nicknamed Ladybug, the self-proclaimed "unluckiest assassin in the world," is put on the bullet train by his boss, a mysterious young woman called Maria, to steal a suitcase full of money and get off at the first stop. The lethal duo of Tangerine and Lemon are also traveling to Morioka, and the suitcase leads others to show their hands. Why are they all on the same train, and who will make it off alive? A bestseller in Japan, Bullet Train is an original and propulsive thriller that fizzes with incredible energy as its complex net of double-crosses and twists unwinds up to the last station.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura; Lucy North (Translator)
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda; Polly Barton (Translator) In this "delightfully uncanny" collection of feminist retellings of traditional Japanese folktales (The New York Times Book Review), humans live side by side with spirits who provide a variety of useful services--from truth-telling to babysitting, from protecting castles to fighting crime. A busybody aunt who disapproves of hair removal; a pair of door-to-door saleswomen hawking portable lanterns; a cheerful lover who visits every night to take a luxurious bath; a silent house-caller who babysits and cleans while a single mother is out working. Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited women--who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive "feminine" passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company. With Where the Wild Ladies Are, Aoko Matsuda takes the rich, millenia-old tradition of Japanese folktales--shapeshifting wives and foxes, magical trees and wells--and wholly reinvents them, presenting a world in which humans are consoled, guided, challenged, and transformed by the only sometimes visible forces that surround them.
Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima; Geraldine Harcourt (Translator) From one of the most significant contemporary Japanese writers, a haunting, dazzling novel of loss and rebirth "Yuko Tsushima is one of the most important Japanese writers of her generation." --Foumiko Kometani, The New York Times I was puzzled by how I had changed. But I could no longer go back . . . It is spring. A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Territory of Light follows her over the course of a year, as she struggles to bring up her two-year-old daughter alone. Her new home is filled with light streaming through the windows, so bright she has to squint, but she finds herself plummeting deeper into darkness, becoming unstable, untethered. As the months come and go and the seasons turn, she must confront what she has lost and what she will become. At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Yuko Tsushima's Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire, and transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time. It won the inaugural Noma Literary Prize.
Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada; Louise Heal Kawai (Translator) The sequel to the acclaimed Tokyo Zodiac Murders - a fiendish locked room mystery from the Japanese master of the genre
The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa; Philip Gabriel (Translator) A book that "speak[s] volumes about our need for connection--human, feline or otherwise" (The San Francisco Chronicle), The Travelling Cat Chronicles is a life-affirming anthem to kindness and self-sacrifice that shows how the smallest things can provide the greatest joy--the perfect gift for cat lovers and travellers! We take journeys to explore exotic new places and to return to the comforts of home, to visit old acquaintances and to make new friends. But the most important journey is the one that shows us how to follow our hearts... An instant international bestseller and indie bestseller, The Travelling Cat Chronicles has charmed readers around the world. With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe...  With his crooked tail--a sign of good fortune--and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love. On New York Post's Required Reading List
Once and Forever by Kenji Miyazawa; John Bester (Translator) A collection of classic, fantastical tales from Northern Japan that are equal parts whimsical and sophisticated, perfect for readers of all ages. The magic of Miyazawa's tales reaches out to people of all ages and lands. The sophisticated reader can sacor them as literature, while the younger reader can delight in them as imaginative stories that comment on and deepen his own experience. The underlying themes are universal, but the forms and treatment can be appreciated at many levels and vary subtly from piece to piece. The sheer storytelling skill is most evident in pieces the like the joyful, innocent "Wildcat and the Acorns," or in a classic cautionary tale like "The Restaurant of Many Orders." But even a superfically whimsical tale like "The Earthgod and the Fox" can in a short span construct a genuinely moving little tragedy. "The Last Deer Dance," a fanciful account of the origins of a well-known folk dance, works its gentle way to a climax of pure poetry. "Tokkobe Torako" makes folk superstitions the basis for a piece of amusing farce in a historical setting. And in "The Wild Pear," what seem to be two slight nature sketches succeed in encapsulating some of the cruelty and compensations of life itself... Almost every story has something fresh to offer. Yet all the different elements merge into are transcended by, an impression of embracing compassion for living creatures; of wry humor; and above all of a passionate love of nature - in particular, the four seasons of Miyazawa's native northern Japan. Clear-sighted yet never sadistic and rarely sentimental, the tales taken as a whole present a view of life that is fresh and acceptable to the modern reader. By bringing together the best of them, this book seeks to place Miyazawa firmly in the special niche he deserves in the history of Japanese and world literature.
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami; Allison Markin Powell (Translator) Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize,Strange Weather in Tokyo is a story of loneliness and love that defies age. Tsukiko, thirty-eight, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei," in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is thirty years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to a hesitant intimacy which tilts awkwardly and poignantly into love. As Tsukiko and Sensei grow to know and love one another, time's passing is marked by Kawakami's gentle hints at the changing seasons: from warm sake to chilled beer, from the buds on the trees to the blooming of the cherry blossoms.Strange Weather in Tokyo is a moving, funny, and immersive tale of modern Japan and old-fashioned romance.
ME: a Novel by Charles De Wolf (Translator); Tomoyuki Hoshino; Kenzaburo Oe (Afterword by) Hitoshi Nagano takes a cell phone that a young man named Daiki Hiyama accidentally put on his tray at McDonald's. Hitoshi uses the phone to call Daiki's mother, pretending he is Daiki, and convinces her to wire him 900,000 yen. Three days later, Hitoshi returns home from work to discover Daiki's mother there in his apartment, and she seems to truly believe Hitoshi is her son. Hitoshi's own parents now treat him as a stranger; they, too, have a 'me' living with them instead of Hitoshi. At a loss for what else to do, Hitoshi begins living as Daiki, and no one seems to bat an eye.
The Great Passage by Shion Miura; Juliet Winters Carpenter (Translator, Translator, Translator, Translator) An award-winning story of love, friendship, and the power of human connection. Kohei Araki believes that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years of creating dictionaries, it's time for him to retire and find his replacement. He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime--a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background in linguistics--whom he swipes from his company's sales department. Along with an energetic, if reluctant, new recruit and an elder linguistics scholar, Majime is tasked with a career-defining accomplishment: completing The Great Passage, a comprehensive 2,900-page tome of the Japanese language. On his journey, Majime discovers friendship, romance, and an incredible dedication to his work, inspired by the words that connect us all.
The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike One of the most popular writers working in Japan today, Mariko Koike is a recognized master of detective fiction and horror writing. Known in particular for her hybrid works that blend these styles with elements of romance, The Graveyard Apartment is arguably Koike's masterpiece. Originally published in Japan in 1986, Koike's novel is the suspenseful tale of a young family that believes it has found the perfect home to grow into, only to realize that the apartment's idyllic setting harbors the specter of evil and that the longer they stay, the more trapped they become.This tale of a young married couple who harbor a dark secret is packed with dread and terror, as they and their daughter move into a brand new apartment building built next to a graveyard. As strange and terrifying occurrences begin to pile up, people in the building start to move out one by one, until the young family is left alone with someone... or something... lurking in the basement. The psychological horror builds moment after moment, scene after scene, culminating with a conclusion that will make you think twice before ever going into a basement again.