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By Ann Napolitano. 2023
The tender and perceptive debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful, about three generations of a large Catholic family jarred into crisis…
by an unexpected pregnancy &“This stunning . . . exquisite, skillfully written gem addresses serious issues–e.g., guilt vs. loyalty, the past vs. the present—[but] remains hopeful and includes ample doses of humor and wit.&”—Library Journal (starred review) No one in my mother&’s family ever talks about anything that can be categorized as unpleasant or as having to do with emotions. . . . This spellbinding novel by bestselling author Ann Napolitano is a poignant reminder of how connected we are to those we love, even when we cannot find the words to say it. The unforgettable story of three generations of an Irish American family, Within Arm&’s Reach is another rich and deeply satisfying novel from the author who captured the many dimensions of grief in Dear Edward and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood in Hello Beautiful.By Shashi Bhat. 2024
From the Governor General&’s Award-shortlisted author of The Most Precious Substance on Earth comes a breathtaking and sharply funny collection about the everyday…
trials and impossible expectations that come with being a woman.What would have happened if she&’d met him at a different time in her life, when she was older, more confident, less lonely, and less afraid? She wonders not whether they would have stayed together, but whether she would have known to stay away. A writer discovers that her ex has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love, only to have her body betray her. After her boyfriend makes an insensitive comment, a college student finds an experimental procedure that promises to turn her brown eyes blue. A Reddit post about a man&’s habit of grabbing his girlfriend&’s breasts prompts a shocking confession. An unsettling second date leads to the testing of boundaries. And when a woman begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers. With honesty, tenderness, and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with rage, longing, illness, and bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman&’s relationships with others and with herself.By Antal Szerb. 2000
An early-twentieth-century classic — the turbulent, dreamlike story of a businessman torn between middle-class respectability and sensational bohemia&“No one who…
has read it has failed to love it.&” — Nicholas LezardMihály and Erzsi are on honeymoon in Italy. Mihály has recently joined the respectable family firm in Budapest, but as his gaze passes over the mysterious back-alleys of Venice, memories of his bohemian past reawaken his old desire to wander.When bride and groom become separated at a provincial train station, Mihály embarks on a chaotic and bizarre journey that leads him finally to Rome, where he must reckon with both his past and his future. In this intoxicating and satirical masterpiece, Szerb takes us deep into the conflicting desires of marriage and shows how adulthood can reverberate endlessly with the ache of youth.By Janet Skeslien Charles. 1998
The New York Times and internationally bestselling author of the &“captivating, richly drawn&” (Woman&’s World) The Paris Library returns with…
a brilliant new novel based on the true story of Jessie Carson—the American librarian who changed the literary landscape of France.1918: As the Great War rages, Jessie Carson takes a leave of absence from the New York Public Library to work for the American Committee for Devastated France. Founded by millionaire Anne Morgan, this group of international women help rebuild devastated French communities just miles from the front. Upon arrival, Jessie strives to establish something that the French have never seen—children&’s libraries. She turns ambulances into bookmobiles and trains the first French female librarians. Then she disappears. 1987: When NYPL librarian and aspiring writer Wendy Peterson stumbles across a passing reference to Jessie Carson in the archives, she becomes consumed with learning her fate. In her obsessive research, she discovers that she and the elusive librarian have more in common than their work at New York&’s famed library, but she has no idea their paths will converge in surprising ways across time. Based on the extraordinary little-known history of the women who received the Croix de Guerre medal for courage under fire, Miss Morgan&’s Book Brigade is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit, the power of literature, and ultimately the courage it takes to make a change.By Sara Cox. 2024
*THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 2024*Here is the feel-good read you have been looking for... The big-hearted novel brimming with…
warmth, humour and heart. It's not too late to live the life you want...'Gorgeous! Warm and funny and brimming with tenderness and heart' GRAHAM NORTON'Full of Sara Cox's natural warmth and wit' PRIMA'Relatable, observant and funny' WOMAN & HOME Josie's life is fine. Absolutely, completely fine.Nice husband, brilliant best friend, a gorgeous kid at uni. The big house of her dreams on its leafy London street is a lifetime away from the Lancashire farm of her childhood. So what if her mother is tricky, and James isn't in love with Josie any more, and maybe she's not in love with him either? It's great to have time to herself now Chloe's flown the nest . . . isn't it? This is the life Josie never believed possible. The life she needed when her heart was breaking as a child, when her mum wasn't coping and Josie had to grow up too fast. So why this feeling, nibbling away at the edges of Josie's thoughts? The sense that she has lost something. That she has lost herself. If Josie is to truly live, she must now take back the reins and confront her future. And to find her way ahead, she needs to go back - way back.To the place where it all began . . ._______'A gorgeously written story of starting over, secrets, friendship... and going wild in the country' LUCY DIAMOND'A warm and moving dive into childhood secrets' JO BRAND'Excellent!' ALEX JONESBy Wenyan Lu. 2024
&“The title character&’s wry, sad, and insightful inner voice is the star here. Her meditations on grief, death, love, and…
duty are full of poetry and longing. Perfect for literary-fiction fans, especially those who enjoyed other extraordinary novels about ordinary people.&” —Library Journal, starred reviewDebut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman&’s midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China, for fans of Yiyun Li and Julie Otsuka. The Funeral Cryer long ago accepted the mundane realities of her life: avoided by fellow villagers because of the stigma attached to her job and underappreciated by her husband, whose fecklessness has pushed the couple close to the brink of breakup. But just when things couldn't be bleaker, she takes a leap of faith—and in so doing, things start to take a surprising turn for the better. Dark, moving and wry, The Funeral Cryer is both an illuminating depiction of a &“left behind&” society—and proof that it's never too late to change your life.By Zyta Rudzka. 2021
A Holocaust story as fascinating and compelling as it is terrifying and puzzling—a book about aging and war crimes, pain…
and pride.In the middle of summer, omnipresent heat radiates as a group of elderly people are remembering their youth. The story focuses on two sisters, Leokadia and Helena, who live together in a retirement home not far from Warsaw. These are not ordinary stories they are sharing because both of them were imprisoned as children in Auschwitz during World War II. At the center is Helena, who at the age of 12 was saved from extermination by the notorious doctor Josef Mengele, the real-life Nazi officer and physician who was known as the &“angel of death&” for the experiments he conducted on prisoners, including twins and siblings.This is a story both provocative and disturbing about the fear that lingers in victims. Was the sisters&’ relationship with the executioner a desperate attempt to save their lives, or perhaps they harbor a hideous pride and sense of superiority over other prisoners? Rudzka&’s extraordinary writing turns unsettling questions about memory and survival into art.By Michal Babay. 2024
Friday afternoon turns into a rambunctious adventure, filled with mitzvot and mayhem, as Leelee and Pickles help their family prepare…
for Shabbat.There's only three hours until Shabbat, and there's still a lot to be done! But Friday afternoon's plans of cleaning the house and collecting donations go sideways with Leelee and her dog, Pickles, at the helm. With so much to do - and so many distractions - will the family be ready in time for candle lighting?A rhythmic, silly, and heartwarming glimpse inside a Jewish home as they prepare for Shabbat.By Mitali Banerjee Ruths. 2024
Kindhearted Archie is back! Her Poppy Uncle is getting married in a big Indian wedding, and Archie and new friend…
Emma realize that love and fun are universal.In this cross-cultural friendship story, Archie helps Emma, who isn&’t Indian, learn everything she needs to know when Archie&’s Poppy Uncle and Emma&’s Auntie Julie get married. The girls go to the mehendi party and sangeet together. They help Julie at the wedding, steal Poppy&’s shoes, and eat ladoos at the reception. Now Archie and Emma are friends—and cousins!Archie&’s adventures celebrate Indian culture! We first met Archie in Archie Celebrates Diwali and now join her in the follow-up Archie Celebrates an Indian Wedding. Backmatter in Archie's books feature kid-friendly resources to enrich the reading experience.By Katherine Howe. 2023
From New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe comes a daring first-hand account of one young woman's unbelievable adventure as…
one of the most terrifying sea rovers of all time. In Boston, as the Golden Age of Piracy comes to a bloody close, Hannah Masury – bound out to service at a waterfront inn since childhood – is ready to take her life into her own hands. When a man is hanged for piracy in the town square and whispers of a treasure in the Caribbean spread, Hannah is forced to flee for her life, disguising herself as a cabin boy in the pitiless crew of the notorious pirate Edward "Ned" Low. To earn the freedom to choose a path for herself, Hannah must hunt down the treasure and change the tides. Meanwhile, professor Marian Beresford pieces Hannah's story together in 1930, seeing her own lack of freedom reflected back at her as she watches Hannah's transformation. At the center of Hannah Masury's account, however, lies a centuries-old mystery that Marian is determined to solve, just as Hannah may have been determined to take it to her grave. A True Account tells the unforgettable story of two women in different worlds, both shattering the rules of their own society and daring to risk everything to go out on their own accountBy Andrew F Sullivan. 2023
&“This impressively bleak vision of the near future is as grotesquely amusing as it is grim.&” ― Publishers Weekly STARRED…
REVIEW &“A gripping tour-de-force torn from tomorrow&’s headlines.&” ― David Demchuk, author of Red X and The Bone Mother &“A bold dystopian novel that captivates with its dread and depth. The Marigold is unhinged literary horror that goes right to the source of decay.&” ― Iain Reid, award-winning author of I&’m Thinking of Ending Things , Foe , and We Spread In a near-future Toronto buffeted by environmental chaos and unfettered development, an unsettling new lifeform begins to grow beneath the surface, feeding off the past The Marigold, a gleaming Toronto condo tower, sits a half-empty promise: a stack of scuffed rental suites and undelivered amenities that crumbles around its residents as a mysterious sludge spreads slowly through it. Public health inspector Cathy Jin investigates this toxic mold as it infests the city&’s infrastructure, rotting it from within, while Sam &“Soda&” Dalipagic stumbles on a dangerous cache of data while cruising the streets in his Camry, waiting for his next rideshare alert. On the outskirts of downtown, 13-year-old Henrietta Brakes chases a friend deep underground after he&’s snatched into a sinkhole by a creature from below. All the while, construction of the city&’s newest luxury tower, Marigold II, has stalled. Stanley Marigold, the struggling son of the legendary developer behind this project, decides he must tap into a hidden reserve of old power to make his dream a reality―one with a human cost. Weaving together disparate storylines and tapping into the realms of body horror, urban dystopia, and ecofiction, The Marigold explores the precarity of community and the fragile designs that bind us togetherBy Jens Liljestrand. 2021
Life goes on in the face of a climate crisis in this astonishing and unforgettable debut novel that follows four…
characters as they struggle to survive in a burning world. Even when the climate crisis escalates beyond our worst nightmares and people become refugees, the world keeps turning and life carries on as usual: teenaged love stories, marital collapses, identity crises, and revolts against hopeless parents continue to play out. Didrik is a forty-year-old media consultant whose misguided efforts to become the family hero render him a pathetic vision of masculine incompetence. Melissa is an influencer with a suitcase full of lost dreams after denying climate change for years. André is the nineteen-year-old loser son of an international sports star who uses the erupting violence around him to orchestrate his own personal vengeance on his negligent father. And Vilja is Didrik&’s teenaged daughter who steps into a leadership role in the face of adult ineptitude. &“Simultaneously nerve-wracking, astute, and consumedly entertaining&” (Sydsvenskan, Sweden) and through these four related stories, Even If Everything Ends eloquently illustrates a picture of a very near future that is at once extraordinary and entirely realistic.By Juliana Datry Most. 2024
In the whimsical Land of Ease, the royal edict is clear: the prince must find a bride by his twenty-first…
birthday, and not just any bride, but a true princess distinguished by a very delicate sneeze. Amidst a flurry of candidates, each with her unique sneezing style, the search takes comical turns. The fate of the kingdom hangs in the balance – will it become known as &‘The Land of Sneeze&’? Surprising revelations and a chaotic pillow fight full of goose feathers bring unexpected twists to this light-hearted tale of royal matchmaking.By Hanna Pylväinen. 2023
FINALIST FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDAn epic love story in the vein of Cold Mountain and The Great Circle,…
about a young reindeer herder and a minister’s daughter in the nineteenth century Arctic Circle In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse tries in vain to convert the native Sámi reindeer herders to his faith. But when one of the most respected herders has a dramatic awakening and dedicates his life to the church, his impetuous son, Ivvár, is left to guard their diminishing herd alone. By chance, he meets Mad Lasse’s daughter Willa, and their blossoming infatuation grows into something that ultimately crosses borders—of cultures, of beliefs, and of political divides—as Willa follows the herders on their arduous annual migration north to the sea.Gorgeously written and sweeping in scope, Hanna Pylväinen's The End of Drum-Time immerses readers in a world lit by the northern lights, steeped in age-old rituals, and guided by passions that transcend place and time.By Beverly Swerling. 2007
Set against the dramatic backdrop of America’s during the War of 1812, Beverly Swerling’s gripping and intricately plotted sequel to…
the much-loved City of Dreams plunges deep into the crowded streets of old New York.Poised between the Manhattan woods and the sea that is her gateway to the world, the city of 1812 is vibrant but raw, a cauldron where the French accents of Creole pirates mingle with the brogues of Irish seamen, and shipments of rare teas and silks from Canton are sold at raucous Pearl Street auctions. Allegiances are more changeable than the tides, love and lust often indistinguishable, the bonds of country weak compared to the temptation of fabulous riches from the East, and only a few farseeing patriots recognize the need not only to protect the city from the redcoats, but to preserve the fragile Constitutional union forged in 1787. Joyful Patrick Turner, dashing war hero and brilliant surgeon, loses his hand to a British shell, retreats to private life, and hopes to make his fortune in the China trade. To succeed he must run the British blockade; if he fails, he will lose not only a livelihood, but the beautiful Manon, daughter of a Huguenot jeweler who will not accept a pauper as a son-in-law. When stories of a lost treasure and a mysterious diamond draw him into a treacherous maze of deceit and double-cross, and the British set Washington ablaze, Joyful realizes that more than his personal future is at stake. His adversary, Gornt Blakeman, has a lust for power that will not be sated until he claims Joyful’s fiancée as his wife and half a nation as his personal fiefdom. Like the Turners before him, Joyful must choose: his dreams or his country. Swerling’s vividly drawn characters illuminate every aspect of the teeming metropolis: John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest man in America, brings the city’s first Chinese to staff his palatial Broadway mansion; Lucretia Carter, wife of a respectable craftsman, makes ends meet as an abortionist serving New York’s brothels; Thumbless Wu, a mysterious Cantonese stowaway, slinks about on a secret mission; and the bewitching Delight Higgins, proprietress of the town’s finest gambling club, lives in terror of the blackbirding gangs who prey on runaway slaves. They are all here, the butchers and shipwrights, the doctors and scriv-eners, the slum dwellers of Five Points and the money men of the infant stock exchange...conspiring by day and carousing by night, while the women must hide their loyalties and ambitions, their very wills, behind pretty sighs and silken skirts.By Anuradha Roy. 2010
“This is why we read fiction at all” raves the Washington Post: Family life meets historical romance in this critically…
acclaimed, “gorgeous, sweeping novel” (Ms Magazine) about two people who find each other when abandoned by everyone else, marking the signal American debut of an award-winning writer who richly deserves her international acclaim.On the outskirts of a small town in Bengal, a family lives in solitude in their vast new house. Here, lives intertwine and unravel. A widower struggles with his love for an unmarried cousin. Bakul, a motherless daughter, runs wild with Mukunda, an orphan of unknown caste adopted by the family. Confined in a room at the top of the house, a matriarch goes slowly mad; her husband searches for its cause as he shapes and reshapes his garden. As Mukunda and Bakul grow, their intense closeness matures into something else, and Mukunda is banished to Calcutta. He prospers in the turbulent years after Partition, but his thoughts stay with his home, with Bakul, with all that he has lost—and he knows that he must return.By James Lee Burke. 2015
Bestselling author James Lee Burke&’s &“stunning&” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) masterpiece is the story of a father and son separated…
by war, circumstance, and a race for the Holy Grail—a thrilling entry in the Holland family saga.After a violent encounter that leaves four Mexican soldiers dead, Texas Ranger Hackberry Holland escapes the country in possession of a stolen artifact believed to be the mythic cup of Christ, earning the ire of a bloodthirsty Austrian arms dealer who places Hack&’s son, Ishmael, squarely in the cross hairs of a plot to recapture his prize. On the journey from revolutionary Mexico in 1918 to the saloons of San Antonio during the Hole in the Wall Gang&’s reign, we meet three extraordinary women: the Danish immigrant who is Ishmael&’s mother and Hackberry&’s one true love; a brothel madam descended from the Crusader knight who brought the Shroud of Turin back from the Holy Land; and a onetime lover of the Sundance Kid, whose wiles rival those of Lady Macbeth. In her own way, each woman will aid Hack in his quest to reconcile with Ishmael, to vanquish their enemies, and to return the Grail to its rightful place. An epic tale of love, loss, betrayal, vengeance, and retribution, The House of the Rising Sun further cements Burke&’s reputation as &“one of America&’s all-time masters&” (New York Journal of Books).By Marie NDiaye. 2023
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • From the best-selling…
author of Three Strong Women comes a thrilling novel about a triple homicide that dredges up unsettling memories from a lawyer’s childhood. A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, TIME, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CrimeReads, and Words Without Borders "[NDiaye] is a master at agitating, probing and upending expectations." —Lovia Gyarkye, The New York Times Book Review "You won’t be able to put it down. " —Vogue The heroine of Marie NDiaye’s new novel is Maître Susane, a quiet middle-aged lawyer living a modest existence in Bordeaux, known to all as a consummate and unflappable professional. But when Gilles Principaux shows up at her office asking her to defend his wife, who is accused of a horrific crime, Maître Susane begins to crack. She seems to remember having been alone with him in her youth for a significant event, one her mind obsesses over but can’t quite reconstruct. Who is this Gilles Principaux? And why would he come to her, a run-of-the-mill lawyer, for such an important trial? While this mystery preoccupies Maître Susane, at home she is increasingly concerned about Sharon, her faithful but peculiar housekeeper. Sharon arrived from Mauritius with her husband and children, and she lacks legal residency in France. But while Maître Susane has generously offered Sharon her professional services, the housekeeper always finds ways to evade her, claiming the marriage certificate Maître Susane requires is being held hostage. Is Sharon being honest with Maître Susane, or is something more sinister going on? Told in a slow seethe recalling the short novels of Elena Ferrante and the psychological richness of Patricia Highsmith’s work, Vengeance Is Mine is a dreamlike portrait of a woman afflicted by failing memories and a tortured uncertainty about her own past that threatens to become her undoingBy Nicole Flattery. 2023
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, THE NEW YORKER AND TIME NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF…
2023 by HARPER'S, THE GUARDIAN, BUSTLE, AND NYLON From the author Sally Rooney called "bold, irreverent, and agonizingly funny," a wildly original coming-of-age novel about a teenage girl working at Andy Warhol's Factory in 1960s New York. New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a rundown apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother's sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. She is turned off by the petty girls at her high school, and the sleazy men she typically meets. When she drops out, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol. Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement. Going to parties together, exploring their womanhood and sexuality, this should be the most enlivening experience of Mae's life. But as she grows increasingly obsessed with the tapes and numb to her own reality, Mae must grapple with the thin line between art and voyeurism and determine how she can remain her own person as the tide of the sixties sweeps over her. For readers of Ottessa Moshfegh and Mary Gaitskill, this blistering, mordantly funny debut novel brilliantly interrogates the nature of friendship and independence and the construction of art and identity. Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story that brings to life the experience of young girls in this iconic and turbulent American momentBy Cecile Pin. 2023
This program includes a multicast narration. "Aoife Hinds, Ioanna Kimbook, and Ainsleigh Barber perform this stunning debut historical novel, which…
follows three orphaned Vietnamese refugees." - AudioFile Magazine "A deeply humane and genre-defying work of love and uncompromising hope."—Ocean Vuong A boldly imagined debut novel about three Vietnamese siblings who seek refuge in the UK, expanding into a luminous meditation on ancestry and love There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies—everything in between is speculation. After the last American troops leave Vietnam, siblings Anh, Thanh, and Minh begin a perilous journey to Hong Kong with the promise that their parents and younger siblings will soon follow. But when tragedy strikes, the three children are left orphaned, and sixteen-year-old Anh becomes the caretaker for her two younger brothers overnight. In the years that follow, Anh and her brothers resettle in the UK and confront their new identities as refugees, first in overcrowded camps and resettlement centers and then, later, in a modernizing London plagued by social inequality and raging anti-immigrant sentiment. Anh works in a clothing factory to pay their bills. Minh loiters about with fellow unemployed high school dropouts. Thanh, the youngest, plays soccer with his British friends after class. As they mature, each sibling reckons with survivor's guilt, unmoored by their parents' absence. With every choice they make, their paths diverge further, until it's unclear if love alone can keep them together. Told through lyrical narrative threads, historical research, voices from lost family, and notes by an unnamed narrator determined to chart their fate, Wandering Souls captures the lives of a family marked by war and loss yet relentless in the pursuit of a better future. With urgency and precision, it affirms that the most important stories are those we claim for ourselves, establishing Cecile Pin as a masterful new literary voice