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By Perry Chafe. 2023
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER CBC Books “86 Works of Canadian Fiction to Read in the First Half of 2023” CBC Books…
“40 Canadian Books to Read This Summer” From the writer and producer of the hit TV shows Republic of Doyle and Son of a Critch, a poignant coming-of-age debut novel about the mysterious disappearance of a young girl and the fragility of childhood bonds, set against the backdrop of a small island community adapting to an ever-changing landscape.In 1991, on a small, isolated island off the coast of Newfoundland, twelve-year-old Pierce Jacobs struggles to come to terms with the death of his father. It’s been three years since his dad, a fisherman, disappeared in the cold, unforgiving Atlantic, his body never recovered. Pierce is determined to save enough money to fix his father’s old boat and take it out to sea. But life on the island is quiet and hard. The local fishing industry is on the brink of collapse, threatening to take an ages-old way of life with it. The community is hit even harder when a young teen named Anna Tessier goes missing. With the help of his three friends, Pierce sets out to find Anna, with whom he shared an unusual but special bond. They soon cross paths with Solomon Vickers, a mysterious, hermetic fisherman who may have something to do with the missing girl. Their search brings them into contact with unrelenting bullies, magnificent sea creatures, fierce storms, and glacial giants. But most of all, it brings them closer to the brutal reality of both the natural and the modern world. Part coming-of-age story, part literary mystery, and part suspense thriller, Closer by Sea is a page-turning, poignant, and powerful novel about family, friendship, and community set at a pivotal time in modern Newfoundland history. It is an homage to a people and a place, and above all it captures that delicate and tender moment when the wonder of childhood innocence gives way to the harsh awakening of adult experience.By Michelle Good. 2023
Un roman retraçant les destins entremêlés de jeunes survivants des pensionnats autochtones au Canada : Maisie, qui semble forte, Lucy,…
discrète mais qui s'épanouit dans la maternité, Clara, qui s'engage dans L'American Indian movement, Kenny, qui aimerait arrêter de fuir, et Howie, condamné pour avoir battu son ancien tortionnaire.By Aaron Tucker. 2023
CBC BOOKS WORKS OF CANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2023THE TORONTO STAR 'MUST READ, HANDS DOWN…
BEST BOOKS OF 2023 SO FAR'‘Cat Person’ meets Station Eleven in this apocalyptic depiction of toxic masculinity.An unnamed man is spending the evening with his ex-girlfriend. She’s obsessed with the 1956 John Wayne classic The Searchers, and she recounts the story as a way for them to talk about their histories, their families, maybe even their relationship. But as he gets more drunk and belligerent, she gets more and more uncomfortable with him being in her home.And then, two days later, a mysterious catastrophic event befalls Toronto, and our protagonist must trek across the city to find Melanie. His quest spirals into increasing violence, bloodshed, and hallucinations as he moves west through the confusion and chaos of the city.Using the tropes of both the Western and the disaster movie, Soldiers, Hunters, Not Cowboys looks at the violence of our contemporary masculinity, and its deep roots in shaping our culture. A suspenseful and thought-provoking evocation of our current moment."Ask the right questions and a conversation about the movies becomes a conversation about your life, family, past, and everything you value: Aaron Tucker’s novel, which starts chatty before turning deeply, unexpectedly inward, grasps the ceaseless, sometimes terrible relevance of violence and troubling art." – Naben Ruthnum, author of A Hero of Our Time"In Soldiers, Hunters, Not Cowboys, Aaron Tucker refuses the easy projections of masculinity from film history. Instead he gallops into the screen to sift out how drama collaborates with the bloodiest of truths. That this novel shifts from dialogical treatise into a thriller proves that Tucker is well on his way to stealing the weird fiction mantle away from Don DeLillo." – Emily Schultz, author of The Blondes and Little Threats"Sad, smart, innocent and wise. A relentless retelling of a movie and a life, full of hope, if there is any." – John Haskell, author of The Complete Ballet: A Fictional Essay in Five ActsBy Miriam Toews. 2023
Swiv a été renvoyée de l’école après s’être battue… encore une fois. Et, ce coup-ci, la petite fille de neuf…
ans n’est pas près de remettre les pieds en classe. Il faudra que les adultes de la maison s’occupent de son éducation. Ce roman survolté à l’écriture jubilatoire est une ode à trois générations de femmes qui n’ont jamais peur d’élever le ton contre les hommes et les dogmes qui veulent les faire taire.By Niall Williams. 2019
Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a 1,000 years. For one thing, the rain is…
stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now - just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity - the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed. As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world. Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community - its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs - and a coming-of-age tale like no other. Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our worldBy Roxanne Veletzos. 2018
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A sweeping family saga and love story that offers a vivid and unique portrayal of life in war-torn…
1941 Bucharest and life behind the Iron Curtain during the Soviet Union occupation—perfect for fans of Lilac Girls and Sarah's Key . On a freezing night in January 1941, a little Jewish girl is found on the steps of an apartment building in Bucharest. With Romania recently allied with the Nazis, the Jewish population is in grave danger, undergoing increasingly violent persecution. The girl is placed in an orphanage and eventually adopted by a wealthy childless couple who name her Natalia. As she assimilates into her new life, she all but forgets the parents who were forced to leave her behind. They are even further from her mind when Romania falls under Soviet occupation. Yet, as Natalia comes of age in a bleak and hopeless world, traces of her identity pierce the surface of her everyday life, leading gradually to a discovery that will change her destiny. She has a secret crush on Victor, an intense young man who as an impoverished student befriended her family long ago. Years later, when Natalia is in her early twenties and working at a warehouse packing fruit, she and Victor, now an important official in the Communist regime, cross paths again. This time they are fatefully drawn into a passionate affair despite the obstacles swirling around them and Victor's dark secrets. When Natalia is suddenly offered a one-time chance at freedom, Victor is determined to help her escape, even if it means losing her. Natalia must make an agonizing decision: remain in Bucharest with her beloved adoptive parents and the man she has come to love, or seize the chance to finally live life on her own terms, and to confront the painful enigma of her pastBy Donal Ryan. 2023
“From its opening pages, this book exerts a quiet, propulsive hold over its reader. The three generations of Aylward women…
will break your heart and then put it back together again.” – Maggie O'Farrell "This is a generous mosaic of a novel about the staying power of love and pride and history and family." –C olum McCann, author of Apeirogon and Let The Great World Spin From the multi-award-winning and internationally bestselling author Donal Ryan, a searing, jubilant story about four generations of women and fierce love The Aylward women of Nenagh, Tipperary, are mad about each other, but you wouldn’t always think it. You’d have to know them to know that—in spite of what the neighbors might say about raised voices and dramatic scenes—their house is a place of peace, filled with love, a refuge from the sadness and cruelty of the world. Their story begins at an end and ends at a beginning. It involves wives and widows, gunrunners and gougers, sinners and saints. It’s a story of terrible betrayals and fierce loyalties, of isolation and togetherness, of transgression, forgiveness, desire, and love. Of all the things family can be and all the things it sometimes isn’t. The Queen of Dirt Island is an uplifting celebration of fierce, loyal love and the powerful stories that bind generations togetherBy Chelsea Wakelyn. 2023
A heartbreaking and darkly funny portrait of a woman unravelling in the wake of tragedy. Sam is dead, which means…
that Elsie Jane has just lost the brilliant, sensitive man she planned to grow old with. The early days of grief are a fog of work and single parenting. Too restless to sleep, Elsie pores over Sam's old love letters, paces her house, and bickers with the ghosts of Sam and her dead parents night after night. As the year unfolds, she develops an obsession with a local murder mystery, attends a series of disastrous internet dates in search of a "replacement soulmate," and solicits a space-time wizard via Craigslist, convinced he will help her forge a path through the cosmos back to Sam. Examining the ceaseless labor of motherhood, the stigma of death by drug poisoning, and the allure of magical thinking in the wake of tragedy, What Remains of Elsie Jane is a heart-splitting reminder that grief is born from the depths of love. Contains mature themesBy Gustave. Flaubert, Geoffrey Wall, Michèle Roberts. 2003
The notorious and celebrated novel that established modern realism For this novel of French bourgeois life in all its inglorious…
banality, Flaubert invented a paradoxically original and wholly modern style. His heroine, Emma Bovary, a bored provincial housewife, abandons her husband to pursue the libertine Rodolphe in a desperate love affair. A succès de scandale in its day, Madame Bovary remains a powerful and scintillating novel. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes and an introduction by Geoffrey Wall. It includes a preface by Michele Roberts. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.By Brett Gelman. 2024
A daring, hilariously neurotic literary debut from the acclaimed actor and comedian Brett Gelman (Stranger Things, Fleabag).Enter the wonderfully weird,…
always uncomfortable, side-splittingly funny world of The Terrifying Realm of the Possible, where your worst fears of who you are or might become are always just around the corner. In these masterful short stories from the singular mind of the actor and comedian Brett Gelman, you’ll meet five individuals, each navigating a uniquely strange stage of life: - ABRAHAM AMSTERDAM (the child)- MENDEL FREUDENBERGER (the teenager)- JACKIE COHEN (the adult)- IRIS BELOW (the senior)- Z (the dead)Our characters face the big issues; the ones we all face. As they traverse the prickly terrain of morality, family, sex, fame, religion, and death they search for answers to life's unanswerable questions. In the futility of that search comes the absurdity, along with the comedy. The composite portrait is an existential (mis)adventure of Rothian proportions. Gelman's remarkable first book is a bold, unforgettable debut that challenges our assumptions about what it means to be human.By Adam Rapp. 2024
The Corrections meets We Need to Talk About Kevin in this harrowing multigenerational saga about a family harboring a serial…
killer in their midst in this &“masterful novel&” that &“peers into the dark heart of America&” (Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Independence Day) As late summer 1951 descends on Elmira, New York, Myra Larkin, thirteen, the oldest child of a large Catholic family, meets a young man she believes to be Mickey Mantle. He chats her up at a local diner and gives her a ride home. The matter consumes her until later that night, when a triple homicide occurs just down the street, opening a specter of violence that will haunt the Larkins for half a century. As the siblings leave home and fan across the country, each pursues a shard of the American dream. Myra serves as a prison nurse while raising her son, Ronan. Her middle sisters, Lexy and Fiona, find themselves on opposite sides of class and power. Alec, once an altar boy, is banished from the house and drifts into oblivion. As he becomes an increasingly alienated loner, his mother begins to receive postcards full of ominous portent. What they reveal, and what they require, will shatter a family and lead to devastating reckoning. Through one family&’s pursuit of the American dream, Wolf at the Table explores our consistent proximity to violence and its effects over time. Pulitzer Prize finalist Adam Rapp writes with gorgeous acuity, cutting to the heart of each character as he reveals the devastating reality beneath the veneer of good society.By Allison Pataki. 2024
A &“sweeping&” (Entertainment Weekly) novel of America&’s forgotten leading lady, the central figure of a movement that defined a nation—from…
the New York Times bestselling author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post &“Whether exploring Margaret&’s remarkable friendships or delving into her crucial legacy as a journalist, writer, and feminist, Finding Margaret Fuller promises to transform every reader it touches.&”—Marie Benedict, co-author of The Personal LibrarianYoung, brazen, beautiful, and unapologetically brilliant, Margaret Fuller accepts an invitation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the celebrated Sage of Concord, to meet his coterie of enlightened friends. There she becomes &“the radiant genius and fiery heart&” of the Transcendentalists, a role model to a young Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne&’s Hester Prynne and the scandalous Scarlet Letter, a friend to Henry David Thoreau as he ventures out to Walden Pond . . . and a muse to Emerson. But Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama, and her restless soul needs new challenges and adventures. And so she charts a singular course against a backdrop of dizzying historical drama: From Boston, where she hosts a salon for students like Elizabeth Cady Stanton; to the editorial meetings of The Dial magazine, where she hones her pen as its co-founder; to Harvard&’s library, where she is the first woman permitted entry; to the gritty New York streets where she spars with Edgar Allan Poe and reports on Frederick Douglass. Margaret defies conventions time and again as an activist for women and an advocate for humanity, earning admirers and critics alike. When the legendary editor Horace Greeley offers her an assignment in Europe, Margaret again makes history as the first female foreign news correspondent, mingling with luminaries like Frédéric Chopin, William Wordsworth, George Sand and more. But it is in Rome that she finds a world of passion, romance, and revolution, taking a Roman count as a lover—and sparking an international scandal. Evolving yet again into the roles of mother and countess, Margaret enters the fight for Italy&’s unification. With a star-studded cast and sweeping, epic historical events, this is a story of an inspiring trailblazer, a woman who loved big and lived even bigger—a fierce adventurer who transcended the rigid roles ascribed to women and changed history, all on her own terms.By Kelly E. Hill. 2024
In Victorian-era Louisville, the Home for Friendless Women is run by benevolent benefactors with one mission: to reform the fallen…
women who live there into pious mothers and wives through religious lessons and hard work. For Ruth, a college student who&’s expelled after a campus sexual assault, the Home is a purgatory to endure before she can get her life back. For Belle, a queer sex worker who exchanged her bed at a brothel for one in the Home, it&’s a safe place to rest her feet until she can track down her missing lover. And for Minnie, the daughter of the religious couple who founded the charity, the Home is her mother&’s idea of a cautionary tale. But as Minnie prepares for the Home&’s silver anniversary party, she finds herself questioning the true cost of good intentions—and grappling with a terrible secret that has the power to unravel the Home entirely.By Ela Lee. 2024
A young lawyer wakes up the morning after a work gala with no memory of how she got home the…
previous night and must figure out what, exactly, happened—and how much she's willing to put up with to make her way to the top of the corporate ladder. Jade isn&’t even my real name. Jade began as my Starbucks name, because all children of immigrants have a Starbucks name.Jade has become everything she ever wanted to be. Successful lawyer. Dutiful daughter. Beloved girlfriend. Loyal friend. Until Jade wakes up the morning after a work event, naked and alone, with no idea how she got home. Caught between her parents who can&’t understand, her boyfriend who feels betrayed, and her job that expects silence, the world Jade has constructed starts to crumble. Jade thought she was everything she ever wanted to be. But now she feels like nothing at all. For fans of Queenie and I May Destroy You, Jaded is a blistering—and sometimes darkly funny—account of consent, power, race, sexism, and identity in a broken society.By Téa Obreht . 2024
From the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger&’s Wife and Inland, a sweeping novel of mothers…
and daughters, displacement and belonging, and wondrous tales of a world both fallen and new&“A multifaceted gift of a novel that only Téa Obreht could conjure onto paper.&”—Karen Russell, author of Orange World and Other StoriesThere&’s the world you can see. And then there&’s the one you can&’t. Welcome to the Morningside.After being expelled from their ancestral home in a not-so-distant future, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in a place called Island City where Silvia&’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family&’s past, and because the once-vibrant city where she lives is now half-underwater. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she fully understand why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia&’s lonely and impoverished reality.Enchanted by Ena&’s stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building: She has her own elevator entrance and leaves only to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia&’s mission to unravel the truth about this woman&’s life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything.Startling, inventive, and profoundly moving, The Morningside is a novel about the stories we tell—and the stories we refuse to tell—to make sense of where we came from and who we hope we might become.By Georgi Gospodinov. 2022
A GUARDIAN AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR'The most exquisite kind of literature... I've put it on a special…
shelf in my library that I reserve for books that demand to be revisited every now and then. 'OLGA TOKARCZUK, author of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead'Could not be more timely... It's funny and absurd, but it's also frightening, because even as Gospodinov plays with the idea as fiction, the reader begins to recognise something rather closer to home... A writer of great warmth as well as skill'GUARDIAN'In equal measure playful and profound, Time Shelter renders the philosophical mesmerizing, and the everyday extraordinary. I loved it'CLAIRE MESSUD, author of The Woman Upstairs 'A genrebusting novel of ideas... Gospodinov's vision of tomorrow is the nightmare from which Europe knows it must awake. And accident, in combination with the book's own merits, may just have created a classic'THE TIMES 'Gospodinov is one of Europe's most fascinating and irreplaceable novelists, and this his most expansive, soulful and mind-bending book'DAVE EGGERS, author of The Circle'Touching and intelligent'NEW YORK TIMES'A powerful and brilliant novel: clear-sighted, foreboding, enigmatic'SANDRO VERONESI, author of The Hummingbird'An immensely enjoyable book which achieves depth with an affable narrative voice'IRISH TIMES In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a 'clinic for the past' that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. As Gaustine's assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a 'time shelter', hoping to escape from the horrors of our present - a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present. Intricately crafted, and eloquently translated by Angela Rodel, Time Shelter cements Georgi Gospodinov's reputation as one of the indispensable writers of our times, a major voice in international literature. Georgi Gospodinov is one of Europe's most acclaimed writers. Originally from Bulgaria, his novels have won his country's most prestigious literary prize twice and have been shortlisted for more than a dozen international prizes - including the 2015 PEN Literary Award for Translation, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori, the Premio Strega Europeo, the Bruecke Berlin Preis, and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Literaturpreis. He has won the 2016 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, the 2019 Angelus Literature Central Europe Prize and the 2021 Premio Strega Europeo, among others.By David Mitchell. 2005
'ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY' INDEPENDENTShortlisted for the Booker Prize, the James Tait…
Black Memorial Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, winner of Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year and a BBC Two Between the Covers Book Club pick'Miraculous'SUNDAY TIMES'A masterful feast'EVENING STANDARD'Shamelessly exciting'SPECTATOR'Remarkable'GUARDIAN'Stunning'DAILY MAILA novel of mind-bending imagination and scope from the author of Ghostwritten and Utopia AvenueSouls cross ages like clouds cross skies . . .Six interlocking lives - one amazing adventure. In a narrative that circles the globe and reaches from the 19th century to a post-apocalyptic future, Cloud Atlas erases the boundaries of time, genre and language to offer an enthralling vision of humanity's will to power, and where it will lead us.*Please note that the end of p. 39 and p. 40 are intentionally blank*PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL'A thrilling and gifted writer'FINANCIAL TIMES'Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good'DAILY MAIL'Mitchell is, clearly, a genius'NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'An author of extraordinary ambition and skill'INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY'A superb storyteller'THE NEW YORKERBy Maggie Thrash. 2024
“I've loved Maggie Thrash's work for years, and Rainbow Black is going to set so many new hearts aflame—murder, intrigue, queer love,…
dark humor AND satanic panic? Welcome to the Maggie Thrash Fan Club, world!”—Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time TomorrowFor readers of Donna Tartt and Ottessa Moshfegh comes a brilliant, deliriously entertaining novel from the acclaimed author of Honor Girl. Rainbow Black is part murder mystery, part gay international fugitive love story—set against the ’90s Satanic Panic and spanning 20 years in the life of a young woman pulled into its undertow.Lacey Bond is a 13-year-old girl in New Hampshire growing up in the tranquility of her hippie parents’ rural daycare center. Then the Satanic Panic hits. It’s the summer of 1990 when Lacey ’s parents are handcuffed, flung into the county jail, and faced with a torrent of jaw-dropping accusations as part of a mass hysteria sweeping the nation. When a horrific murder brings Lacey to the breaking point, she makes a ruthless choice that will haunt her for decades. As an adult, Lacey mimes a normal life as the law clerk of an illustrious judge. She has a beautiful girlfriend, a measure of security, and the world has mostly forgotten about her. But after a tiny misstep spirals into an uncontrolled legal disaster, the hysteria threatens to begin all over again. Rainbow Black is an addictive, searing, high-octane triumph, an imaginative tour de force about one woman’s tireless desire to be free.By Sierra Greer. 2024
For fans of Never Let Me Go and My Dark Vanessa, a powerful, provocative novel about the relationship between a…
female robot and her human owner, exploring questions of intimacy, power, autonomy, and control.Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she’s not the greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, but she’s trying to please him. She’s trying hard.She’s learning, too.Doug says he loves that Annie’s AI makes her seem more like a real woman, so Annie explores human traits such as curiosity, secrecy, and longing. But becoming more human also means becoming less perfect, and as Annie’s relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder: Does Doug really desire what he says he wants? And in such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?By Sabrina Reeves. 2024
A daughter examines her complicated relationship with a charismatic, narcissistic mother who now lives with alcohol-related dementia. When Cassie Wolfe…
brings her mother, Nina, to the Albuquerque Presbyterian Hospital to be detoxed, the doctors ask her to write a profile of the patient. But how can she fit Nina into a Word document? The last two years have left Cassie stunned, unable to reconcile the shell of a woman lying in the hospital bed with the force of nature that was her mother. Cassie's memories of Nina span decades and landscapes, from a farmhouse in Massachusetts to the streets of New York and the mountains of New Mexico. Nina was a charismatic iconoclast—an architect and builder who could wield a circular saw as easily as discuss politics art. But as Cassie comes to realize, Nina's brilliant constructions were only possible when she walled off whole sides of herself. Hiding is not unique to Nina—Cassie knows AA is full of just such intelligent, hilarious, powerful women. And when her critical gaze turns to her own life and how she’s raising her two daughters, she sees her mother's influence everywhere. In the end, Nina's devastating descent threatens to pull the family under, and Cassie's constant action is propelled by grief until she realizes that all that remains is to let it go.