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The Book of Records
By Madeleine Thien. 2025
Named a 2025 Most Anticipated Release by Toronto Star • Literary Hub • Esquire • The Washington Post • 49th…
Shelf • She Does the City The sublime, long-awaited, major new novel from the beloved author of the Governor General's Literary Award-winning, Booker Prize-shortlisted bestseller Do Not Say We Have Nothing.The Book of Records opens inside "The Sea," a mysterious shape-shifting enclave, a staging-post for waves of migrants coming and going, a building made of time where pasts and futures collide. Here, a girl named Lina cares for her ailing father.Having arrived carrying her few possessions by hand, Lina grows up with only three books to read—a trio taken from a grand 90-volume series about the lives of famous "voyagers" throughout history. As she goes about daily life in the building, finding food and necessities for herself and her father, she befriends three eccentric neighbours, each with a story to share. There's Bento, an ex-communicated Jewish scholar from seventeenth-century Amsterdam (who resembles voyager Baruch Spinoza in one of Lina's books); Blucher, a philosopher from 1930s Germany who escaped Nazi persecution (and whose life mirrors that of Hannah Arendt, from another of Lina's books); and Jupiter, a brilliant but impoverished poet of Tang Dynasty China (whose story shadows that of voyager Du Fu). As Lina grows up, she spends hours with these three, listening to their fascinating tales. But it is only when her father, his strength fading, reveals how he and Lina came to seek refuge in The Sea that she begins to understand her own story, and the acts of love and betrayal shaping her life.Exquisitely written with extraordinary subtlety of thought, The Book of Records leaps across centuries as if eras were separated by only a door. It holds a mirror to the role of fate, shows how a political moment may determine the course of an individual's life, and suggests the longings and consolations of a voyaging mind and heart. This is Madeleine Thien at her most exciting, sublime and engaging.
Other Worlds: Stories
By Andre Alexis. 2025
The award-winning author of Fifteen Dogs conjures up worlds – real, invented, uncanny – in this ingenious, electrifying collection.A Trinidadian…
Obeah man finds himself reborn, a hundred years after his death, in the body of a Canadian child. A writer takes up a seasonal job as the caretaker of a set of mysterious large sacks hanging from the rafters of the houses in a small town. A woman starts a relationship with the famous artist who painted portraits of her mother. The contents of a sealed envelope upend a woman&’s understanding about a tragic crime she committed at the age of six.In this dazzling collection of stories, André Alexis draws fresh connections between worlds: the ones we occupy, the ones we imagine, and the ones that preceded our own. He introduces us to characters during moments of profound puzzlement, and transports us from 19th century Trinidad and Tobago to small-town Ontario, from Amherst, Massachusetts to contemporary Toronto.These captivating stories reveal flashes of reckoning, defeat, despair, alienation, and understanding, all the while playfully using a multitude of literary genres, including gothic horror and isekai, and referencing works from greats like Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Yasunari Kawabata, Witold Gombrowicz, and Tomasso Landolfi.Masterfully crafted, blending poignant philosophical inquiry and wry humour tinged with the absurd, here are worlds refracted and reflected back to us with pristine clarity and stunning emotional resonance as only André Alexis can.
My Friends
By Fredrik Backman. 1229
#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, who &“captures the messy essence of being human&” (The Washington Post), returns…
with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger&’s life twenty-five years later.Most people don&’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it&’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There&’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there&’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream. Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa&’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting&’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don&’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.
Julius Julius: A Novel
By Aurora Stewart de Peña. 2025
With biting wit, Aurora Stewart de Peña satirizes the creative industry she&’s spent years in. From the people who brought…
you the invention of advertising comes Julius Julius, a rambling architectural wonder, outpost of the very first ad man of ancient Pompeii, built on the backs of generations of creative survivors who just want to lie on the floor of a conference room and cry about the lumber account without being sexually harassed.Welcome to the world&’s oldest advertising agency, where ghosts control the board room AC, an ancient executive assistant runs a cave full of thousand year old billboards, and there are bones in the walls.In a trio of voices from different time periods, we move through the mythical Agency, interrogating the process of stoking desire for a living. We meet the Senior Brand Anthropologist, who&’s being surprised by dirty bars of Irish Spring she can&’t remember buying, the Creative Director, whose ascent involved an ad campaign starring his dead best friend, and the Account Supervisor, whose only crime is not being a genius. (But the Fisherman Jack Tuna Campaign was her idea, despite what it says on the awards submissions.) Stewart de Peña&’s debut novel reveals the cracks in the veneer of the creative industries, and the crisis of consciousness underneath in a novel full of compassion, humour, and blonde sausage dogs.
The Compound: A Novel
By Aisling Rawle. 2025
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICKNothing to lose. Everything to gain. Winner takes all.&“Every bit as addictive as your favorite…
guilty pleasure binge-watch, but with all the substance of a literary classic.&”—Oprah Daily&“I dare you not to tear through The Compound at lightning speed.&”—Zakiya Dalila Harris, New York Times bestselling author of The Other Black GirlONE THE BOOKS OF THE SUMMER: The New York Times, Vulture, Time, Harper&’s Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Forbes, Betches, Publishers WeeklyLily—a bored, beautiful twenty-something—wakes up on a remote desert compound, alongside nineteen other contestants competing on a massively popular reality show. To win, she must outlast her housemates to stay in the Compound the longest, while competing in challenges for luxury rewards like champagne and lipstick, plus communal necessities to outfit their new home, like food, appliances, and a front door. Cameras are catching all her angles, good and bad, but Lily has no desire to leave: why would she, when the world outside is falling apart? As the competition intensifies, intimacy between the players deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between desire and desperation. When the unseen producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur. If Lily makes it to the end, she&’ll receive prizes beyond her wildest dreams—but what will she have to do to win?Addictive and prescient, The Compound is an explosive debut from a major new voice in fiction and will linger in your mind long after the game ends.
GRIESSEL AND CUPIDO ARE EXPECTING A QUIET LIFEDetectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido remain on duty in beautiful Stellenbosch, but…
run-of-the-mill police work in a leafy university town famed for its vineyards is a far cry from their previous life in Cape Town fighting crime at the highest level. For now, Benny has more pressing things to worry about - it's the countdown to his wedding day on 12 June.BUT THE PEACE IS ABOUT TO BE SHATTEREDWhen a student is found dead on a mountain trail, and the key suspect, a local businessman, is found murdered in what looks like a professional hit delivering a message - suffocated by fast-action filler foam sprayed down his throat - Griessel and Cupido both know this the work of professionals. Benny also knows he needs a cool head to untangle this web of deceit, and to manage the incessant pressure. He needs to stay calm, focused - and sober. And it all needs to be wrapped up by 12 June.THE CLOCK IS TICKING. AND CHAOS IS COMING...Praise for Deon Meyer:'One of the best crime writers on the planet' Mail on Sunday 'Storytelling at its best' Michael Connelly 'One of the giants of crime fiction' El Mundo 'Crime writing at its best' Tess Gerritsen'Up there with the best in the world' The Times
The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir
By Neko Case. 2025
Singer-songwriter Neko Case paints a vivid portrait of an extraordinary life—one forged through a poverty-stricken childhood, obsessive desire, bursts of…
comedy, and indispensable friendships—reflecting on the way art, music, and a deep connection to nature helped her become a beloved, Grammy-nominated artist. Neko Case has long been revered as one of music’s most influential artists, whose authenticity, lyrical storytelling, and sly wit have endeared her to a legion of critics, musicians, and lifelong fans. In THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU, Case brings her trademark candor and precision to a memoir that traces her evolution from an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater” in rural Washington state to her improbable emergence as an internationally-acclaimed talent. In luminous, sharp-edged prose, Case shows readers what it’s like to be left alone for hours and hours as a child, to take refuge in the woods around her home, and to channel the monotony and loneliness and joy that comes from music, camaraderie, and shared experience into art. THE HARDER I FIGHT THE MORE I LOVE YOU is a rebellious meditation on identity and corruption, and a manifesto on how to make space for ourselves in this world, despite the obstacles we face. New York Times Bestseller
We Do Not Part: A Novel
By Null Han Kang. 2025
THE NEW NOVEL FROM HAN KANG, WINNER OF THE 2024 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE &“[Han Kang&’s] intense poetic prose .…
. . confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.&”—The Nobel Committee for Literature, in the citation for the Nobel Prize &“Unforgettable.&”—Hernan Diaz Han Kang&’s most revelatory book since The Vegetarian, We Do Not Part tells the story of a friendship between two women while powerfully reckoning with a hidden chapter in Korean history.One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon&’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn&’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into the darkness that awaits her at her friend&’s house.Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully illuminates a forgotten chapter in Korean history, buried for decades—bringing to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable violence—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.
Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning
By Peter Beinart. 2025
A bold, urgent appeal from the acclaimed columnist and political commentator, addressing one of the most important issues of our…
time. In Peter Beinart’s view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history, and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew? Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations’ efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life. Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative argument that will expand and inform one of the defining conversations of our time. It is a book that only Peter Beinart could write: a passionate yet measured work that brings together his personal experience, his commanding grasp of history, his keen understanding of political and moral dilemmas, and a clear vision for the future. new York Times Bestseller
The Drowned: A Novel (Strafford and Quirke #4)
By John Banville. 2024
From the renowned Booker Prize winner and nationally bestselling author of Snow comes a richly atmospheric new mystery about a…
woman&’s sudden disappearance in a small coastal town in Ireland, where nothing is as it seems."John Banville is one of my favorite writers alive, and I pick up his books whenever I need a reminder how to write a good sentence.&”—R.F. Kuang&“He had seen drowned people. A sight not to be forgotten.&”1950s, rural Ireland. A loner comes across a mysteriously empty car in a field. Knowing he shouldn&’t approach but unable to hold back, he soon finds himself embroiled in a troubling missing person case, as a husband claims his wife may have thrown herself into the sea.Called in from Dublin to investigate is Detective Inspector Strafford, who soon turns to his old ally—the flawed but brilliant pathologist Quirke—a man he is linked to in increasingly complicated ways. But as the case unfolds, events from the past resurface that may have life-altering ramifications for all involved.At once a searing mystery and a profound meditation on the hidden worlds we all inhabit, The Drowned is the next great Strafford and Quirke novel from a beloved writer at the top of his game.
The Arizona Triangle: A Jo Bailen Detective Novel
By Sydney Graves. 2024
In the vein of the bestselling California noirs of Sue Grafton and Sara Gran, a whodunnit about loyalty, love, and…
the legacy of trauma featuring a hardboiled, queer private eye whose latest case takes her deep into her own complicated past.On the cusp of forty, Justine Bailen, better known as Jo, works for an all-female detective agency based in Tucson, Arizona. While staking out a cheating spouse, she learns that her long-estranged best friend from childhood, Rose, is missing, and that Rose’s mother wants to hire Jo to find her. This case is all kinds of wrong for Jo, but she has no choice but to head back to her hometown, an hour north and a world away from Tucson.Back in Delphi, she learns that her high school boyfriend, Tyler—who is probably part of the reason her friendship with Rose went south—is the cop assigned to the case. It doesn’t take long for Jo to realize that he’s all mixed up in it, too. To have any hope of learning the truth about Rose’s disappearance, Jo must finally face the demons she thought she’d escaped.
Karla's Choice: A John le Carré Novel
By Nick Harkaway. 2024
An extraordinary new novel set in the world of John le Carré's most iconic spy, George Smiley, written by the…
acclaimed novelist Nick HarkawayIt is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West&’s spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only for a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumor in Whitehall—unconfirmed and a little scandalous—that George Smiley might almost be happy.But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple task: interview Szusanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But, as Smiley well knows, even the softest step in the shadows resounds with terrible danger. Soon, he is back there, in East Berlin, and on the trail of his most devious enemy&’s hidden past.Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Nick Harkaway&’s Karla&’s Choice is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction&’s greatest writer, John le Carré.
The Lobster Trap: The Global Fight for a Seafood on the Brink
By Greg Mercer. 2025
A page-turning examination of how a multi-billion dollar industry creates enormous wealth and endless heartache, at a time when climate…
change, swings in the market, and greed are impacting fishermen&’s livelihoods in new and dramatic ways.Lobster has been a phenomenal success story, with a commercial fishery that has generated enormous wealth and fuelled appetites for one of the world&’s most recognizable luxury foods. The great lobster boom that began in the 1990s has also led to violent fights over who has the right to catch this valuable seafood, including many Indigenous people in Canada, who until recently have been excluded from this industry. Now overfishing, trade wars, and climate change are threatening the future of this fishery in deeply troubling ways.By 2050, scientists expect that warming ocean waters in the heart of North America&’s lobster fishing region will cut catches by two thirds. In some parts of America, there&’s hardly any lobster left to catch. Unlike previous collapses, there are few other large-scale wild seafood species left that fishing crews can switch to. The economic upheaval for fishermen and seafood companies alike could devastate coastal communities in both Canada and the United States.In this deeply reported, resonant, timely book, Greg Mercer takes readers on a fascinating global journey and inside this precarious moment for the lobster industry, to show the money and heartache, and the danger and violence, tied up in it. Along the way, he explores lobster&’s remarkable history, the gold-rush mentality that surrounds it, and examines the looming crisis for this most precious shellfish.
You've Changed
By Ian Williams. 2025
The eagerly awaited follow-up novel from the Giller prize-winning author of Reproduction, You&’ve Changed is a daring and clever dissection…
of a crumbling marriage between two people who are morphing in ways that confound each other.Middle-aged and about to be dumped from his construction job, Beckett is not feeling his best—especially since his wife, Princess, is already pressuring him to improve himself. She&’s a fitness instructor who spends a lot of time and energy finetuning every inch of her body. Still, they both think their marriage is basically fine, until a couple of friends show up for a visit, their mutual affection and sexual chemistry loudly on display. In one weekend, they upset the tenuous balance between Beckett and Princess, throwing them into parallel midlife crises.Princess thinks the problem is physical, and attempts to revive Beckett's interest with relentless surgical alterations and bodily enhancements that have the opposite effect on her husband. Beckett tries to woo Princess back to him by relaunching his contracting business, laying his manly accomplishments at her feet. Then, while Princess is away pursuing even more drastic beauty measures, Beckett meets Gluten, an energetic and erratic man devoted to living in the moment, whom Beckett feels drawn to in ways that surprise him. Beckett is changing, Princess is changing: what will happen to their already stressed marriage?Sharp, inventive and absurdly funny, You&’ve Changed is a wild ride exploring identity, insecurity, intimacy and desire, and who individuals become when they unite, and how they change despite promising not to.
A Truce That Is Not Peace
By Miriam Toews. 2025
In this breathtaking memoir of stunning emotional force and electrifying honesty, one of Canada's most iconic writers tells her own…
story for the first time. "Why does Miriam Toews write? A Truce That Is Not Peace answers the question in a hundred ways, all of them original, autobiographical, deeply painful, funny, oblique, confounding—just as those of us who believe her to be one of the greatest living North American writers have come to expect. A Truce That Is Not Peace is the best memoir you will read all year." —Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity&“Why do you write?&” the organizer of a literary event in Mexico City asks Miriam Toews. Each attempt at an answer from Toews—all unsatisfactory to the organizer—surfaces new layers of grief, guilt, and futility connected to her sister&’s suicide more than fifteen years ago. She has been keeping up, she realizes, an internal correspondence with her beloved sibling, attempting to fill a silence she can barely comprehend. As Toews turns to face that silence, we come to see that the question &“why I write&” is as impossible to answer as deciding whether to live life as a comedy or a tragedy. A masterwork of non-fiction, A Truce That Is Not Peace explores the uneasy pact every creative person makes with memory. Wildly original yet intimately, powerfully precise; momentous, hilarious, wrenching, and joyful—this is Miriam Toews at her dazzling best, remaking her personal world and inventing a brilliant literary form to hold it.
From the author of the acclaimed international bestseller Lawrence in Arabia, a stunningly revelatory narrative history of one of the most…
momentous events in modern times and the dawn of the age of religious nationalism.On November 16th, 1977, at a state dinner in the White House, President Jimmy Carter toasted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, Shadow of God on Earth, praising his &“enlightened leadership&” and extolling Iran as &“a stabilizing influence in that part of the world.&” Iran had the world&’s fifth largest army and was awash in billions of dollars in oil revenues. Construction cranes dotted the skyline of its booming capital, Tehran. The regime&’s feared secret police force SAVAK had crushed communist opposition, and the Shah had bought off the conservative Muslim clergy inside the country. He seemed invulnerable, and invaluable to the United States as an ally in the Cold War. Fourteen months later the Shah fled Iran into exile, forced from the throne by a volcanic religious revolution led by a fiery cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini. How could the United States (and other Western allies), which had one of the largest CIA stations in the world and thousands of military personnel in Iran, have been so blind? The spellbinding story Scott Anderson weaves is one of a dictator oblivious to the disdain of his subjects and a superpower blundering into disaster. The Shah emerges as a fascinating, Shakespearean character – a wannabe Richard III unaware of the depth of dissent to his rule, indecisive like Hamlet when action was called for, and at the end Lear-like as he raged against his fate. The Americans made terrible decisions at almost every juncture, from a secret pact designed by Kissinger and Nixon, to dismissing reports from the one diplomat who saw how hated the Shah was by the Iranian people (unlike almost all his colleagues, he spoke Farsi), to Jimmy Carter allowing the Shah to come to America for medical treatment, which set off the hostage crisis which forever damaged American influence in the world. Scott Anderson tells this astonishing tale with the narrative brio, mordant wit, and keen analysis that made his bestselling Lawrence in Arabia one of the key texts in understanding the modern Middle East. Based on voluminous research and dozens of interviews, King of Kings is driven by penetrating portraits of the people involved – the Iranian-American doctor who convinced American officials Khomeini was a moderate; the American teacher who learned of Khomeini&’s influence long before the cleric was even mentioned in official reports; the Shah&’s court minister who kept a detailed diary of all their interactions; the Shah&’s wife Farah who still mourns her lost kingdom; the hypocritical and misguided Jimmy Carter; and the implacable Khomeini who outmaneuvered his foes at every turn. The Iranian Revolution, Anderson convincingly argues, was as world-shattering an event as the French and Russian revolutions. In the Middle East, in India, in Southeast Asia, in Europe, and the United States, the hatred of economically-marginalized, religiously-fervent masses for a wealthy secular elite has led to violence and upheaval – and Iran was the template. King of Kings is a bravura work of history, and a warning.
October 7th: Searching for the Humanitarian Middle
By Marsha Lederman. 2025
In this emotional missive from the diaspora, Globe and Mail columnist Marsha Lederman gathers her columns searching for the humanitarian…
middle of the Israel-Palestine conflict.Since 2023, the best-selling and award-winning author and journalist has been reflecting, with deep empathy, on the horrific October 7th attacks on Israeli citizens, rising anti-Semitism, and the brutal violence against civilians in Gaza in her column for the Globe and Mail.As one of the leading Canadian voices on Jewish identity, Lederman&’s impassioned work in the Globe has been a lifeline for readers since October 7th, 2023. The work collected in this book captures the pain of so many: Marsha&’s prose has a way of cutting through the noise and capturing the humanity behind the headlines. She makes room for the reader to be conflicted, grieving, angry and unsure, and is with them through that process as she, like all of us, grapples with a new reality.As someone who is firmly against Netanyahu and firmly in favour of Palestinian rights, believes in a two-state solution, and is a daughter of Holocaust survivors terrified by the rise in anti-Semitism, Marsha&’s writing has captured the full complexity of the experience of reconciling an abhorrence of the violence against Israelis and Palestinians with the trauma and fear of rising prejudice around the world.These columns are a contemporaneous look at the year that followed Oct 7th, 2023, reminding us of the pain and confusion. This collection is a crucial archive capturing, in real time, a period of deep division with care, empathy, and grief.
The Trial of Katterfelto: A Novel
By Michael Redhill. 2025
"I will grant here at the outset that the Doctor was not who he seemed, but this shall turn out…
to be of little import in the tale to come. He is, as am I, but a charge in a wire. We were conductors for another force, vassals to a vessel. This vessel I cannot speak of for some pages however central it will become, but I gallop ahead of myself. . . . I believe it is important that you see how I came to meet the good Doctor, and for you to meet us for who we were. Perhaps you will marvel, as have I, at how chance encounters can be charged with the power to alter the course of one&’s life, or even history."In the late-eighteenth century, the conjurer and amateur scientist Gustavus Katterfelto has made a name for himself travelling across the English countryside with a bag of tricks. For audiences, his astonishing stunts are pure magic. For Katterfelto, each one is carefully engineered and executed with the help of his colleague, confidante and amanuensis, and our narrator, Roger Gossage.Yet one day in their travels, the two men come across a mystifying object beyond their ken: a metal horn that emits a disembodied woman&’s voice. She calls herself Siri of Toronto, and claims to speak from a place plagued by climate catastrophe and social unrest. As they begin to use the horn in their magic shows, Gossage and Katterfelto must work to understand the origin and intent of Siri&’s call—a quest that will put them up against the limits of reason and test Roger&’s allegiance to the man he calls his friend.Endlessly inventive, richly imagined, and entirely its own, The Trial of Katterfelto is a consciousness-expanding novel that writes directly into the most urgent questions we face as a species: who we are, what we have done, and what we might do from here.
Mother Mary Comes to Me
By Arundhati Roy. 2025
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize A raw and deeply moving memoir from the legendary author of The God of Small…
Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness that traces the complex relationship with her mother, Mary Roy, a fierce and formidable force who shaped Arundhati&’s life both as a woman and a writer.Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy&’s first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as &“my shelter and my storm.&” &“Heart-smashed&” by her mother Mary&’s death in September 2022 yet puzzled and &“more than a little ashamed&” by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, &“not because I didn&’t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her.&” And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author&’s journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today. With the scale, sweep, and depth of her novels, The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and the passion, political clarity, and warmth of her essays, Mother Mary Comes to Me is an ode to freedom, a tribute to thorny love and savage grace—a memoir like no other.
Strangers at the Red Door: A Novel
By Dennis Bock. 2025
A foreign ghostwriter visiting Hong Kong partners up with the disembodied spirit of the most dangerous novelist in China to…
find a local bookseller who’s been disappeared by the authorities after attempting to smuggle the novelist’s subversive masterpiece onto the mainlandAt a train station in China, three people meet, only two of whom are actually alive. The first is Faron Jones, on his way to Hong Kong to interview an Iranian film director-turned-dissident holed up in the Japanese consulate. The second is Mildred Chen, a Hong Kong bookseller detained at the border crossing for attempting to deliver copies of the most dangerous novel in China over to the mainland. The third is the deceased author of that very novel, Jiang Ming, now a wandering spirit trapped in the middle world between life and death.Soon after this encounter, and for no reason he can understand, Faron learns that he’s suddenly acquired flawless Mandarin and Cantonese, languages only a day earlier he had no knowledge of. Slowly, the impossible truth that another man’s soul has joined his own and now speaks in his voice becomes maddeningly undeniable. With this comes Jiang Ming’s extraordinary claim and his urgent request of Faron, and so the ghostwriter and the spirit of the dead novelist trapped within him set upon a search for the one person—the disappeared bookseller—who’s able to deliver the Chinese novelist’s spirit to his final resting place.Instantly propulsive, wholly original, and like a mirror for our current times, Strangers at the Red Door follows these characters and their quests for freedom, love, and reconciliation. It explores a world in which the boundaries of the physical and the spiritual blur; countries facing uncertain futures intersect; and the struggle of the artist against political oppression becomes an essential act of survival.