Fiction
American Dervish
Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything changes.
American Dervish is a brilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the interplay of religion and modern life.
American Gospel
Radically personal and quintessentially American, an intimate drama at the heart of an apocalyptic vision
On a small farm beside a lake in Minnesota's north woods an old man is waiting for the Rapture, which God has told him will happen in two weeks, on August 19, 1974. When word gets out, Last Days Ranch becomes ground zero for The End, drawing zealots, curiosity seekers, and reporters--among them the prophet's son, a skeptical New York writer suddenly caught between his overbearing father and the news story of a lifetime. Into the mix comes Melanie Magnus, a glamorous actress who has old allegiances to both father and son. Meanwhile, Nixon's resignation has transfixed the nation.
Writing with clear compassion and gentle wit, Lin Enger draws us into these disparate yet inextricably linked lives, each enacting a part in a drama forever being replayed and together moving toward a conclusion that will take all of them--and us--by surprise. Set during a time that resonates with our own tension-filled moment, American Gospel cuts close to the battles occurring within ourselves and for the soul of the nation, and in doing so radiates light on a dark strain in America's psyche, when the false security of dogma competes with the risky tumult of freedom.
Americanah
The bestselling novel from the award-winning author of We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele. The story of two Nigerians making their way in the U.S. and the UK, raising universal questions of race and belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for identity and a home.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion--for each other and for their homeland.- Please log in to review this product
Amnesty: A Novel
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Another Life
How long does a high school crush last? One year? Ten? Twenty? Forty? Small-college basketball coach Matt Cooper is about to find out as he is faced with an unexpected reunion with Kim Gustafson, the cutest girl from high school.
With warm humor and a light touch, Another Life probes the weighty matters of love, loss, and the passage of time, raising poignant questions about how well we know ourselves or the people we live with, and what we'd do if offered a lost opportunity, all these years later. This is a sweet, soulful story that will leave you thinking about your own what-ifs. Misty Urban, author of A Lesson in Manners
Another Life is a nuanced and poignant exploration of family, loyalty, and the possibility of second chances. Tom McKay writes about the intricacies of the human heart, and life's unexpected challenges and opportunities, with deft assurance. A story that is highly recommended. Kathleen Ernst, author of the Chloe Ellefson Mysteries
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Anthill: A Novel
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Anxious People: A Novel
Apartment
A New York Times Editors Choice
Longlisted for the 2020 Simpson / Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize
One of Vogue.com's "Best Books of 2020 So Far"
One of Elle's "Best Books of 2020 So Far"
The Millions, Inside Hook, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn In 1996, the unnamed narrator of Teddy Wayne's Apartment is attending the MFA writing program at Columbia on his father's dime and living in an illegal sublet of a rent-stabilized apartment. Feeling guilty about his good fortune, he offers his spare bedroom--rent-free--to Billy, a talented, charismatic classmate from the Midwest eking out a hand-to-mouth existence in Manhattan. The narrator's rapport with Billy develops into the friendship he's never had due to a lifetime of holding people at arm's length, hovering at the periphery, feeling "fundamentally defective." But their living arrangement, not to mention their radically different upbringings, breeds tensions neither man could predict. Interrogating the origins of our contemporary political divide and its ties to masculinity and class, Apartment is a gutting portrait of one of New York's many lost, disconnected souls by a writer with an uncommon aptitude for embodying them.
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Archer
Aria: A Novel
Arsonist
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Art of Falling: A Novel
Nessa McCormack's marriage is coming back together again after her husband's affair. She is excited to be in charge of a retrospective art exhibition for a beloved artist, the renowned late sculptor Robert Locke. But the arrival of two enigmatic outsiders imperils both her personal and professional worlds: A chance encounter with an old friend threatens to expose a betrayal Nessa thought she had long put behind her; and at work, an odd woman comes forward with a mysterious connection to Robert Locke's life and his most famous work, the Chalk Sculpture. As Nessa finds the past intruding on the present, she realizes she must decide what is the truth, whether she can continue to live with a lie, and what the consequences might be were she to fully unravel the mysteries in both the life of Robert Locke and her own. In this gripping and wonderfully written debut, Danielle McLaughlin reveals profound truths about love, power, and the secrets that define us.
Art of Racing in the Rain
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM FOX 2000 STARRING MILO VENTIMIGLIA, AMANDA SEYFRIED, AND KEVIN COSTNER
MEET THE DOG
WHO WILL SHOW THE WORLD
HOW TO BE HUMAN
The New York Times bestselling novel from Garth Stein--a heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope--a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it.
"Splendid." --People
"The perfect book for anyone who knows that compassion isn't only for humans, and that the relationship between two souls who are meant for each other never really comes to an end. Every now and then I'm lucky enough to read a novel I can't stop thinking about: this is one of them." --Jodi Picoult
"It's impossible not to love Enzo." --Minneapolis Star Tribune
"This old soul of a dog has much to teach us about being human. I loved this book." --Sara Gruen
Art of Racing in the Rain Tie-in: A Novel
Meet Enzo, the unforgettable narrator of this bittersweet and transformative story of family, love, loyalty, and hope.
On the eve of his death, the wise canine takes stock of his life, recalling the sacrifices, the unexpected losses, the battles fought by his master, Denny Swift, to keep custody of his daughter Zoë. In the end, despite what he sees as his own limitations, Enzo comes through to heroically preserve the Swift family, holding in his heart the dream that Denny will become a race-car driving champion with Zoë at his side.
A heart-wrenching love story and a moving tale of redemption, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life...as only a dog could tell it.
Freshman Common Read: Medaille College
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Artist of the Floating World
In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into World War II. Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the aftermath of that war, his memories of his youth and of the floating world--the nocturnal world of pleasure, entertainment, and drink--offer him both escape and redemption, even as they punish him for betraying his early promise. Indicted by society for its defeat and reviled for his past aesthetics, he relives the passage through his personal history that makes him both a hero and a coward but, above all, a human being.
Arturo's Island: A Novel
Elsa Morante's novels were once considered the greatest of Italy's postwar generation. Here, Ann Goldstein's "deft translation" (Madeline Schwartz, New York Review of Books) of Arturo's Island heralds a "second life" for the beloved author, finally garnering Morante "the new readers she deserves" (Lily Tuck, Wall Street Journal). Imbued with a spectral grace, the novel follows the adolescent Arturo through his days on the isolated Neapolitan island of Procida, where--his mother long deceased, his father often absent, and a dog as his sole companion--he roams the countryside or reads in his family's lonely, dilapidated mansion. This quiet, meandering boyhood existence is existentially upended when his father brings home a beautiful sixteen- year- old bride, Nunziatella. A novel of thwarted desires, written with "the power of malediction" (Dwight Garner, New York Times), Arturo's Island reemerges to take its rightful place in the world literary canon.
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As Good as Gone: A Novel
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Ask Again, Yes: A Novel
Astonishing Life of August March: A Novel
In this enchanting first novel, an irrepressibly optimistic oddball orphan is thrust into the wilds of postwar New York City after an extraordinary childhood in a theater--Candide by way of John Irving, with a hint of Charles Dickens.
Abandoned as an infant by his actress mother in her theater dressing room, August March was raised by an ancient laundress. Highly intelligent, a tad feral, August is a true child of the theater -able to recite Shakespeare before he knew the alphabet.
But like all productions, August's wondrous time inside the theater comes to a close, and he finds himself in the wilds of postwar New York City, where he quickly rises from pickpocket street urchin to star student at the stuffiest boarding school in the nation.
To survive, August must rely upon the kindness of strangers, only some of whom have his best interests at heart. As he grows up, his heart begins to yearn for love--which he may or may not finally find in Penny, a clever and gifted con artist.
Aaron Jackson has crafted a brilliant, enchanting story at once profound and delightfully entertaining. Like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The World According to Garp, and Be Frank with Me, this razor-sharp debut--a classic tale of a young innocent who finally finds his way, reminds us that everyone can find love. Even August March.
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Astrid and Veronika
At Night All Blood Is Black
Astonishingly good. --Lily Meyer, NPR
So incantatory and visceral I don't think I'll ever forget it. --Ali Smith, The Guardian Best Books of 2020
One of the Wall Street Journal's 11 best books of the fall One of The A.V. Club's fifteen best books of 2020 A Sunday Times best book of the year
Selected by students across France to win the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, David Diop's English-language, historical fiction debut At Night All Blood is Black is a "powerful, hypnotic, and dark novel" (Livres Hebdo) of terror and transformation in the trenches of the First World War. Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called "Chocolat" soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man's Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa's mind as he comes to see this refusal as a cruel moment of cowardice. Anxious to avenge the death of his friend and find forgiveness for himself, he begins a macabre ritual: every night he sneaks across enemy lines to find and murder a blue-eyed German soldier, and every night he returns to base, unharmed, with the German's severed hand. At first his comrades look at Alfa's deeds with admiration, but soon rumors begin to circulate that this super soldier isn't a hero, but a sorcerer, a soul-eater. Plans are hatched to get Alfa away from the front, and to separate him from his growing collection of hands, but how does one reason with a demon, and how far will Alfa go to make amends to his dead friend? Peppered with bullets and black magic, this remarkable novel fills in a forgotten chapter in the history of World War I. Blending oral storytelling traditions with the gritty, day-to-day, journalistic horror of life in the trenches, David Diop's At Night All Blood is Black is a dazzling tale of a man's descent into madness.
At the Edge of the Night
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Atomic Love
Aura: Bilingual Edition
Felipe Montero is employed in the house of an aged widow to edit her deceased husband's memoirs. There Felipe meets her beautiful green-eyed niece, Aura. His passion for Aura and his gradual discovery of the true relationship between the young woman and her aunt propel the story to its extraordinary conclusion.
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Authenticity Project: A Novel
--People The story of a solitary green notebook that brings together six strangers and leads to unexpected friendship, and even love Julian Jessop, an eccentric, lonely artist and septuagenarian believes that most people aren't really honest with one another. But what if they were? And so he writes--in a plain, green journal--the truth about his own life and leaves it in his local café. It's run by the incredibly tidy and efficient Monica, who furtively adds her own entry and leaves the book in the wine bar across the street. Before long, the others who find the green notebook add the truths about their own deepest selves--and soon find each other In Real Life at Monica's Café. The Authenticity Project's cast of characters--including Hazard, the charming addict who makes a vow to get sober; Alice, the fabulous mommy Instagrammer whose real life is a lot less perfect than it looks online; and their other new friends--is by turns quirky and funny, heartbreakingly sad and painfully true-to-life. It's a story about being brave and putting your real self forward--and finding out that it's not as scary as it seems. In fact, it looks a lot like happiness. The Authenticity Project is just the tonic for our times that readers are clamoring for--and one they will take to their hearts and read with unabashed pleasure.