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David Masiel's first novel, 2182 Kilohertz, was one of the most greatly praised books of 2002. A riveting adventure of an unlikely hero's quest for personal redemption in frigid arctic waters, it earned its author comparisons to such giants of nautical fiction as Melville and Conrad. Now Masiel more than meets the promise of his debut with a harrowing odyssey of love and betrayal on the high seas–and in the shadowy corners of the human heart. At fifty-nine, Harold Snow has seen his share of death. His baptism of fire came on his twenty-first birthday, on a navy ship in the Coral Sea, when a Japanese kamikaze pilot slammed into the deck. Years later, in the aftermath of a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal, he lay awake on a ship surrounded by thousands of drowned corpses and listened to the sharks feed.Now, serving as boatswain aboard the Tarshish, a decrepit tanker whose papers are as suspect as its seaworthiness, a weary Snow feels death creeping closer than ever. It's there in the lethal cargo of volatile chemicals the ship carries in its leaky hold. It stares back from the brutal eyes of the first mate, Bracelin, with whom Snow has embarked on a desperate and highly illegal venture to steal a black-market fortune. It's in the dangerous welter of emotions he feels for Beth, the beautiful half-English, half-Liberian crewmate lusted after by every other male onboard. It clings to young George Maciel, grandson of Snow's oldest friend, a seminary dropout whose disastrous arrival earns him a reputation as a Jonah. And it's there in the memory of Van Sickle, a dead man who haunts Snow with visions of his own dark past. Snow's risky plans begin to go awry when the Tarshish is refused entry to the Bay of San Francisco. Forced to return to the open Pacific, Snow and Bracelin embark on a scattershot voyage of shoestring improvisation that will take the disintegrating hulk–sailing under forged papers and a new name–from South America to Africa. Along the way they will encounter hurricanes, crooked customs officials, and tropical ports seething with vice and revolution. This outer voyage is mirrored by a dark and twisted inner journey that will strip Snow down to his bare essence as a man. And as George and Beth flaunt their involvement, and Bracelin embraces cold-blooded murder, Snow will face a stark choice between life and death, damnation and redemption, at the western limit of the world.

A professor's life is turned upside down when he takes in his charming, wildly dangerous nephew, whose wealthy parents have just died under mysterious circumstances, in this propulsive, edge-of-your-seat debut psychological thriller.“An absolute page-turner... I read it in a single sitting.”—Miranda Cowley Heller, bestselling author of The Paper Palace The cleverest psychopaths hide in plain sight.Gil is living a quiet life as a creative writing professor in a bucolic Vermont town, when he receives some shocking news: His sister and her husband have been killed in a car accident, and their only son is coming to live with him and his family. Gil and his wife are apprehensive about taking in seventeen-year-old Matthew. Yes, he has just lost both his parents, but they haven't seen him in seven years—and the last time the families were together, Matthew lured their young daughter into a terrifying, life-threatening situation. Since that incident, Gil has been estranged from his sister and her flashy, wealthy banker husband. Now Matthew is their charge, living under their roof. The boy seems charming, smart, and urbane, if strangely unaffected by his parents'deaths. Gil hopes they can put the past behind them, though he's surprised when Matthew signs up for his creative writing class. Then Matthew begins turning in chilling stories about the imagined deaths of Gil's family and his own parents. Bewildered and panicked, Gil ultimately decides he must take matters into his own hands—before life imitates art. Told in limber, mesmerizing prose, A Flaw in the Design is a twisting novel of suspense that brilliantly explores the tensions surrounding class, family, and the drive to control one's own story.

Running from her father's brutal legacy, Joseph Stalin's daughter defects to the United States during the turbulence of the 1960s. For fans of We Were the Lucky Ones and A Gentleman in Moscow, this sweeping historical novel and unexpected love story is inspired by the remarkable life of Svetlana Alliluyeva. “The Red Daughter does exactly what good historical fiction should do: It sends you down the rabbit hole to read and learn more.”—The New York Times Book Review In one of the most momentous events of the Cold War, Svetlana Alliluyeva, the only daughter of the Soviet despot Joseph Stalin, abruptly abandoned her life in Moscow in 1967, arriving in New York to throngs of reporters and a nation hungry to hear her story. By her side is Peter Horvath, a young lawyer sent by the CIA to smuggle Svetlana into America. She is a contradictory celebrity: charismatic and headstrong, lonely and haunted, excited and alienated by her adopted country's radically different society. Persuading herself that all she yearns for is a simple American life, she attempts to settle into a suburban existence in Princeton, New Jersey. But one day an invitation from the widow of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright arrives, and Svetlana impulsively joins her cultlike community at Taliesin West. When this dream ends in disillusionment, Svetlana reaches out to Peter, the one person who understands how the chains of her past still hold her prisoner. Their relationship changes and deepens, moving from America to England to the Soviet Union and back again, unfolding under the eyes of her CIA minders, and Svetlana's and Peter's private lives are no longer their own. Novelist John Burnham Schwartz's father was in fact the young lawyer who escorted Svetlana Alliluyeva to the United States. Drawing upon private papers and years of extensive research, Schwartz imaginatively re-creates the story of an extraordinary, troubled woman's search for a new life and a place to belong, in the powerful, evocative prose that has made him an acclaimed author of literary and historical fiction.Praise for The Red Daughter “Svetlana Alliluyeva's life was endlessly fascinating, often heartbreaking, and ultimately heroic. I don't think any writer alive could have told her story more beautifully than John Burnham Schwartz.”—David Benioff, co-creator of HBO's Game of Thrones and author of City of Thieves “The Red Daughter is an intimate, intricate look at the collision of geopolitics with a private life: surprising and engaging from beginning to end.”—Jennifer Egan

By turns hilarious and bittersweet, Andy Mozina's winning debut novel introduces a charming new hero for our times: a dysfunctional, divorced family man whose passion for life comes straight from the harp. Matthew Grzbc is a talented musician who plays the concert harp. He is a divorced dad who lives in Chicago, has a sexy girlfriend, and has a major, potentially life-changing audition with an orchestra on the horizon. At least that's how he appears on paper. But take a closer look and a very different man starts to emerge: an obsessive, self-sabotaging Midwesterner, fumbling through his relationship with his curiously neurotic six-year-old daughter and headed for destruction in his romantic life by grasping at any remotely affectionate warm body, including that of his ex-wife. Instead of playing to sold-out concert halls, he spends his days plucking out “Send in the Clowns” at hotel brunches, and his weekends serenading the captive audience at the local hospice. When his father dies unexpectedly (while listening to a meditation tape), Matt's life begins to come untethered. In quick succession his ex-wife gets engaged, his girlfriend begins to pull away, and his daughter starts acting out. With his audition rapidly approaching, Matt is paralyzed by panic—why can't he hold it together and follow his dream? And what does that even mean, if you're not sure what it is you really want? Funny, poignant, and thoroughly engaging, Contrary Motion is a journey deep inside a male mind as it searches—desperately—for a way to balance life, love, and a harp. Praise for Contrary Motion “Mozina's finely detailed, painfully funny novel is a rollicking performance that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.”—Booklist (starred review) “Mozina has created a likeable, believable main character, the sort of guy alongside whom you could easily spend hours dissecting life over a couple of beers. It's the first novel for Mozina,... and it's sure to leave readers asking for more. Mozina's storytelling is easy and humorous, taking the stuff of everyday life and presenting it in a way that both entertains and draws out emotion.”—BookPage “Standing between world-class harpist Matt Grzbc and his dream, a permanent position in a top orchestra, is just about everybody in his life. This brilliant debut novel zigzags across Chicago's neighborhoods, exploring the obsession a striving artist must have for his craft, as he also makes a living and nourishes those near him, especially his eccentric and precocious six-year-old daughter. Contrary Motion is a wonderful story—beautifully written, hilarious, tortured, and filled with heavenly music.”—Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Award finalist American Salvage “Charming... The painfully self-aware Matt has a great sense of humor, but his comic insights don't help him much as he faces a confounding array of personal problems.... The pleasures of [Mozina's] writing never flag.”—Kirkus Reviews “No portrait of an artist brings alive vulnerability, hilarity, desperation, hipness, absurdity, and painful steadfastness as splendidly as Andy Mozina's Contrary Motion. A dazzling, unforgettable novel.”—Mark Wisniewski, author of Watch Me Go

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry comes an exquisite love story about Queenie Hennessy, the remarkable friend who inspired Harold's cross-country journey.“This lovely book is full of joy. Much more than the story of a woman's enduring love for an ordinary, flawed man, it's an ode to messy, imperfect, glorious, unsung humanity.”—The Washington PostA runaway international bestseller, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry followed its unassuming hero on an incredible journey as he traveled the length of England on foot—a journey spurred by a simple letter from his old friend Queenie Hennessy, writing from a hospice to say goodbye. Harold believed that as long as he kept walking, Queenie would live. What he didn't know was that his decision to walk had caused her both alarm and fear. How could she wait? What would she say? Forced to confront the past, Queenie realizes she must write again. In this poignant parallel story to Harold's saga, acclaimed author Rachel Joyce brings Queenie Hennessy's voice into sharp focus. Setting pen to paper, Queenie makes a journey of her own, a journey that is even bigger than Harold's; one word after another, she promises to confess long-buried truths—about her modest childhood, her studies at Oxford, the heartbreak that brought her to Kingsbridge and to loving Harold, her friendship with his son, the solace she has found in a garden by the sea. And, finally, the devastating secret she has kept from Harold for all these years. A wise, tender, layered novel that gathers tremendous emotional force, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy underscores the resilience of the human spirit, beautifully illuminating the small yet pivotal moments that can change a person's life.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • From the renowned author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House, a spectacular volume of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writings.Features “Family Treasures,” nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces—more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson's children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother's papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion. Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson's landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children's games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community—the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space.For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson's radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist. This volume includes a Foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin.Praise for Let Me Tell You“Stunning.”—O: The Oprah Magazine“Let us now—at last—celebrate dangerous women writers: how cheering to see justice done with [this collection of] Shirley Jackson's heretofore unpublished works—uniquely unsettling stories and ruthlessly barbed essays on domestic life.”—Vanity Fair “Feels like an uncanny dollhouse: Everything perfectly rendered, but something deliciously not quite right.”—NPR “There are... times in reading [Jackson's] accounts of desperate women in their thirties slowly going crazy that she seems an American Jean Rhys, other times when she rivals even Flannery O'Connor in her cool depictions of inhumanity and insidious cruelty, and still others when she matches Philip K. Dick at his most hallucinatory. At her best, though, she's just incomparable.”—The Washington Post “Offers insights into the vagaries of [Jackson's] mind, which was ruminant and generous, accommodating such diverse figures as Dr. Seuss and Samuel Richardson.”—The New York Times Book Review“The best pieces clutch your throat, gently at first, and then with growing strength.... The whole collection has a timelessness.”—The Boston Globe“[Jackson's] writing, both fiction and nonfiction, has such enduring power—she brings out the darkness in life, the poltergeists shut into everyone's basement, and offers them up, bringing wit and even joy to the examination.”—USA Today“The closest we can get to sitting down and having a conversation with... one of the most original voices of her generation.”—The Huffington Post

In the stunning tradition of Lisa See, Maeve Binchy, and Alice Hoffman, The Tin Horse is a rich multigenerational story about the intense, often fraught bond sisters share and the dreams and sorrows that lay at the heart of the immigrant experience. It has been more than sixty years since Elaine Greenstein's twin sister, Barbara, ran away, cutting off contact with her family forever. Elaine has made peace with that loss. But while sifting through old papers as she prepares to move to Rancho Mañana—or the “Ranch of No Tomorrow” as she refers to the retirement community—she is stunned to find a possible hint to Barbara's whereabouts all these years later. And it pushes her to confront the fierce love and bitter rivalry of their youth during the 1920s and'30s, in the Los Angeles Jewish neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Though raised together in Boyle Heights, where kosher delis and storefront signs in Yiddish lined the streets, Elaine and Barbara staked out very different personal territories. Elaine was thoughtful and studious, encouraged to dream of going to college, while Barbara was a bold rule-breaker whose hopes fastened on nearby Hollywood. In the fall of 1939, when the girls were eighteen, Barbara's recklessness took an alarming turn. Leaving only a cryptic note, she disappeared. In an unforgettable voice layered with humor and insight, Elaine delves into the past. She recalls growing up with her spirited family: her luftmensch of a grandfather, a former tinsmith with tales from the Old Country; her papa, who preaches the American Dream even as it eludes him; her mercurial mother, whose secret grief colors her moods—and of course audacious Barbara and their younger sisters, Audrey and Harriet. As Elaine looks back on the momentous events of history and on the personal dramas of the Greenstein clan, she must finally face the truth of her own childhood, and that of the twin sister she once knew. In The Tin Horse, Janice Steinberg exquisitely unfolds a rich multigenerational story about the intense, often fraught bonds between sisters, mothers, and daughters and the profound and surprising ways we are shaped by those we love. At its core, it is a book not only about the stories we tell but, more important, those we believe, especially the ones about our very selves.Praise for The Tin Horse“Steinberg, the author of five mysteries, has transcended genre to weave a rich story that will appeal to readers who appreciate multigenerational immigrant family sagas as well as those who simply enjoy psychological suspense.”—BookPage

In this midcareer collection of twenty-three short stories, John Updike tackles such problems as separation, divorce, and remarriage, parents and children, guns and prostitution, leprosy, swooning, suffocation, and guilt. His self-seeking heroes tend to be forty; his heroines are asleep, seductive, longing, or reproachful. None of these characters is innocent, and all are looking vainly for the road back to an imagined Paradise. Pain and comedy closely coexist in this mainly domestic world of the 1970s, where life is indistinguishable from a television commercial (but what is it advertising?) and every morning's paper brings news of lost Atlantises.

For fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, The Postmistress, and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, a story of love, war, loss, and the scars they leave set during the years of World War II and its aftermath. It's 1941. Babe throws like a boy, thinks for herself, and never expects to escape the poor section of her quiet Massachusetts town. Then World War II breaks out, and everything changes. Her friend Grace, married to a reporter on the local paper, fears being left alone with her infant daughter when her husband ships out; Millie, the third member of their childhood trio, now weds the boy who always refused to settle down; and Babe wonders if she should marry Claude, who even as a child could never harm a living thing. As the war rages abroad, life on the home front undergoes its own battles and victories; and when the men return, and civilian life resumes, nothing can go back to quite the way it was. From postwar traumas to women's rights, racial injustice to anti-Semitism, Babe, Grace, and Millie experience the dislocations, the acute pains, and the exhilaration of a society in flux. Along the way, they will learn what it means to be a wife, a mother, a friend, a fighter, and a survivor. Beautiful, startling, and heartbreaking, Next to Love is a love letter to the brave women who shaped a nation's destiny. “Impossible to put down.” —Stacy Schiff Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more.

“An elegant page-turner of nineteenth-century detective fiction.”–The Washington Post Book WorldOne rainy morning in 1871 in lower Manhattan, Martin Pemberton a freelance writer, sees in a passing stagecoach several elderly men, one of whom he recognizes as his supposedly dead and buried father. While trying to unravel the mystery, Pemberton disappears, sending McIlvaine, his employer, the editor of an evening paper, in pursuit of the truth behind his freelancer's fate. Layer by layer, McIlvaine reveals a modern metropolis surging with primordial urges and sins, where the Tweed Ring operates the city for its own profit and a conspicuously self-satisfied nouveau-riche ignores the poverty and squalor that surrounds them. In E. L. Doctorow's skilled hands, The Waterworks becomes, in the words of The New York Times, “a dark moral tale... an eloquently troubling evocation of our past.”“Startling and spellbinding... The waters that lave the narrative all run to the great confluence, where the deepest issues of life and death are borne along on the swift, sure vessel of [Doctorow's] poetic imagination.”–The New York Times Book Review“Hypnotic... a dazzling romp, an extraordinary read, given strength and grace by the telling, by the poetic voice and controlled cynical lyricism of its streetwise and world-weary narrator.”–The Philadelphia Inquirer“A gem of a novel, intimate as chamber music... a thriller guaranteed to leave readers with residual chills and shudders.”–Boston Sunday Herald“Enthralling... a story of debauchery and redemption that is spellbinding from first page to last.”–Chicago Sun-Times“An immense, extraordinary achievement.”–San Francisco Chronicle

BONUS: This edition contains a The Blue Notebook discussion guide and an excerpt from James A. Levine's Bingo's Run.An unforgettable, deeply affecting debut novel, The Blue Notebook tells the story of Batuk, a precocious fifteen-year-old girl from rural India who is sold into sexual slavery by her father. As she navigates the grim realities of Mumbai's Common Street, Batuk manages to put pen to paper, recording her private thoughts and writing fantastic tales that help her transcend her daily existence. Beautifully crafted, surprisingly hopeful, and filled with both tragedy and humor, The Blue Notebook shows how even in the most difficult situations, people use storytelling to make sense of and give meaning to their lives.

Clarinetist Ike Morphy, his dog Herbie Mann, and a pair of pigeons who roost on his air conditioner are about to be evicted from their apartment on West 106th Street, also known as Duke Ellington Boulevard. Ike has never had a lease, just a handshake agreement with the recently deceased landlord; and now that landlord's son stands to make a killing on apartment 2B.Centering on the fate of one apartment before, during, and after the height of New York's real estate boom, Ellington Boulevard's characters include the Tenant and His Dog; the Landlord, a recovered alcoholic and womanizer who has newly found Judaism and a wife half his age; the Broker, an out-of-work actor whose new profession finally allows him to afford theater tickets he has no time to use; the Broker's New Boyfriend, a second-rate actor who composes a musical about the sale of 2B (“Is there no one I can lien on if this boom goes bust?”). There's also the Buyer, a trusting young editor at a dying cultural magazine, who falls in love with the Tenant; the Buyer's Husband, a disaffected graduate student taken to writing bawdy faux-academic papers; and the Buyer's Husband's Girlfriend, a children's book writer with a tragic past.With the humor and poignancy that made Langer's first novel, Crossing California, a favorite book of the year among critics across the country, Ellington Boulevard is an ode to New York. It's the story of why people come to a city they can't afford, take jobs they despise, sacrifice love, find love, and eventually become the people they never thought they'd be—for better and for worse.

A Romeo and Juliet story set against the strict Muslim laws of Saudi Arabia, Sulaiman Addonia's astonishing debut novel is a sensuous and intensely wrought story of a young immigrant and a girl behind a veil who defy law and risk their lives to be together.Under a relentless summer sun, women dressed like long dark shadows and men decked out in light cotton robes roam the streets of Jeddah. While most of Naser's friends have left town to escape the heat, he must stay behind to work. An African immigrant and outsider, Naser spends his spare time frequenting a friend's café, writing letters to his mother in Eritrea, and daydreaming about the glamorous girlfriend he hopes to one day have. Naser and his younger brother were sent to Saudi Arabia to avoid the war back home, but though they live with their conservative Muslim uncle they remain under the watchful, wrathful eyes of the religious police, who monitor the community's every action, govern the near indestructible boundaries between men and women–walls in mosques, panels on buses, separate visiting quarters in houses, and, of course, the black veil, or abaya, that adorns the women–and punish any disobedience by public beating or death.But a splash of color arrives in Naser's world when unexpectedly a small piece of paper is dropped at his feet. It is a love note from a girl whose face he has never seen and whose voice he has never heard. To identify her among the sea of veiled women, she instructs him to look for a pair of pink shoes peeking out from under her draped abaya. Intrigued and encouraged, Naser rebels against Wahhabist Islamic convention and begins a clandestine correspondence with the girl. Yet even as the barriers that divide them begin to crumble under the weight of their passionate prose and devotion, the lovers'illicit affair will face the ultimate and most heartrending test.

In this heartrending and inspiring novel set against the gorgeous, vast landscape of South Africa under apartheid, award-winning playwright Pamela Gien tells the story of two families–one black, one white–separated by racism, connected by love. Even at the age of six, lively, inquisitive Elizabeth Grace senses she's a child of privilege, “a lucky fish.” Soothing her worries by raiding the sugar box, she scampers up into the sheltering arms of the lilac-blooming syringa tree growing behind the family's suburban Johannesburg home.Lizzie's closest ally and greatest love is her Xhosa nanny, Salamina. Deeper and more elemental than any traditional friendship, their fierce devotion to each other is charged and complicated by Lizzie's mother, who suffers from creeping melancholy, by the stresses of her father's medical practice, which is segregated by law, and by the violence, injustice, and intoxicating beauty of their country. In the social and racial upheavals of the 1960s, Lizzie's eyes open to the terror and inhumanity that paralyze all the nation's cultures–Xhosa, Zulu, Jew, English, Boer. Pass laws requiring blacks to carry permission papers for white areas and stringent curfews have briefly created an orderly state–but an anxious one. Yet Lizzie's home harbors its own set of rules, with hushed midnight gatherings, clandestine transactions, and the girl's special task of protecting Salamina's newborn child–a secret that, because of the new rules, must never be mentioned outside the walls of the house.As the months pass, the contagious spirit of change sends those once underground into the streets to challenge the ruling authority. And when this unrest reaches a social and personal climax, the unthinkable will happen and forever change Lizzie's view of the world. When The Syringa Tree opened off-Broadway in 2001, theater critics and audiences alike embraced the play, and it won many awards. Pamela Gien has superbly deepened the story in this new novel, giving a personal voice to the horrors and hopes of her homeland. Written with lyricism, passion, and life-affirming redemption, this compelling story shows the healing of the heart of a young woman and the soul of a sundered nation.

Meet the Laments—the affably dysfunctional globetrotting family at the center of George Hagen's exuberant debut novel.Howard is an engineer who dreams of irrigating the Sahara and lives by the motto “Laments move!” His wife Julia is a fiery spirit who must balance her husband's oddly peripatetic nature with unexpected aspirations of her own. And Will is the “waif with a paper-thin heart” who is given to Howard and Julia in return for their own child who has been lost in a bizarre maternity ward mishap. As Will makes his way from infancy to manhood in a family that careens from continent to continent, one wonders where the Laments will ever belong.In Bahrain, Howard takes a job with an oil company and young Will makes his first friend. But in short order he is wrenched off to another land, his mother's complicated friendship with the American siren Trixie Howitzer causing the family to bolt. In Northern Rhodesia, during its last days as a white colony, the twin enfants terribles Marcus and Julius are born, and Will falls for the gardener's daughter, a girl so vain that she admires her image in the lid of a biscuit tin. But soon the family's life is upturned again, thie time by their neighbor Major Buck Quinn, with his suburban tirades against black self-rule. Envisioning a more civilized life on “the sceptered isle,” the Laments board an ocean liner bound for England. Alas, poor Will is greeted by the tribal ferocity of his schoolmates and a society fixated on the Blitz. No sooner has he succumbed to British pop culture in the guise of mop-top Sally Byrd and her stacks of 45s, than the Laments uproot themselves once again, and it's off to New Jersey, where life deals crisis and opportunity in equal measure.Undeniably eccentric, the Laments are also universal. Every family moves on in life. Children grow up, things are left behind; there is always something to lament. Through the Lament's restlessness, responses to adversity, and especially their unwieldy love for one another, George Hagen gives us a portrait of every family that is funny, tragic, and improbably true.

The Ransomes had been burgled.'Robbed,'Mrs. Ransome said.'Burgled,'Mr. Ransome corrected. Premises were burgled; persons were robbed. Mr. Ransome was a solicitor by profession and thought words mattered. Though'burgled'was the wrong word too. Burglars select; they pick; they remove one item and ignore others. There is a limit to what burglars can take: they seldom take easy chairs, for example, and even more seldom settees. These burglars did. They took everything.This swift-moving comic fable will surprise you with its concealed depths. When the sedate Ransomes return from the opera to find their Notting Hill flat stripped absolutely bare—down to the toilet paper off the roll (a hard-to-find shade of forget-me-not blue)—they face a dilemma: Who are they without the things they've spent a lifetime accumulating? Suddenly the world is full of unlimited and frightening possibility. But just as they begin adjusting to this giddy freedom, a newfound interest in sex, and a lack of comfy chairs, a surreal reversal of events causes them to question their assumptions yet again. The Ransomes'bafflement is the reader's delight. Alan Bennett's gentle but scathing wit, unerring ear for dialogue, and sense of the absurd make The Clothes They Stood Up In a memorable exploration of where in life true riches lie.

The Jewish American novelist Henry Bech—procrastinating, libidinous, and tart-tongued, his reputation growing while his powers decline—made his first appearance in 1965, in John Updike's “The Bulgarian Poetess.” That story won the O. Henry First Prize, and it and the six Bech adventures that followed make up this collection. “Bech is the writer in me,” Updike once said, “creaking but lusty, battered but undiscourageable, fed on the blood of ink and the bread of white paper.” As he trots the globe, promotes himself, and lurches from one woman's bed to another's, Bech views life with a blend of wonder and cynicism that will make followers of the lit-biz smile with delight and wince in recognition.

From the internationally acclaimed winner of the Booker Prize, a piercing novel of modern England through the lens of one man's acutely observed experiences “Our Evenings is a truly astonishing novel, by turns delicate and ferocious, radical in the way it explores questions of race, class, sexuality, and origins.”—Tash Aw, author of Five Star BillionaireDid I have a grievance? Most of us, without looking far, could find something that had harmed us, and oppressed us, and unfairly held us back. I tried not to dwell on it, thought it healthier not to, though I'd lived my short life so far in a chaos of privilege and prejudice.Dave Win, the son of a a Burmese man he's never met and a British dressmaker, is thirteen years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities emerge, even as Dave is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates.Alan Hollinghurst's new novel follows Dave from the 1960s on—through the possibilities that remained open for him, and others that proved to be illusory: as a working-class brown child in a decidedly white institution; a young man discovering queer culture and experiencing his first, formative love affairs; a talented but often overlooked actor, on the road with an experimental theater company; and an older Londoner whose late-in-life marriage fills his days with an unexpected sense of happiness and security.From “one of our most gifted writers” (The Boston Globe), Our Evenings sweeps readers from our past to our present through the beauty, pain, and joy of one deeply observed life.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An exhilarating novel about one American family and the dark moment that shatters their suburban paradise, from the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is in TroubleNew York Times Book Review Editors'Choice • New York Magazine's Beach Read Book Club Pick • Belletrist Book Club Pick“Joins the pantheon of great American novels.”—Los Angeles Times“Exuberant and absorbing... a big old-fashioned social novel.”—The Atlantic“Were we gangsters? No. But did we know how to start a fire?”In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.But now, nearly forty years later, it's clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband's emotional health. Their three grown children aren't doing much better: Nathan's chronic fear won't allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she's not a product of her family's pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives'successes and failures.Long Island Compromise spans the entirety of one family's history, winding through decades and generations, all the way to the outrageous present, and confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, fear of the future, old wives'tales, evil eyes, ambition, achievement, boredom, dybbuks, inheritance, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta-blockers, psychics, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “mouthwatering” (The New York Times) adventure through the food, art, and fashion scenes of 1980s Paris—from the bestselling author of Save Me the Plums and Delicious!“An enchanting and irresistible feast... As with a perfect meal in the world's most magical city, I never wanted this sublime novel to end.”—Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of Good CompanyStella reached for an oyster, tipped her head, and tossed it back. It was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean. Oysters, she thought. Where have they been all my life?When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual inheritance: a one-way plane ticket and a note reading “Go to Paris.” Stella is hardly cut out for adventure; a traumatic childhood has kept her confined to the strict routines of her comfort zone. But when her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honoring her mother's last wishes.Alone in a foreign city, Stella falls into old habits, living cautiously and frugally. Then she stumbles across a vintage store, where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. The shopkeeper insists that this dress was meant for Stella and for the first time in her life Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress—and embarks on an adventure.Her first stop: the iconic brasserie Les Deux Magots, where Stella tastes her first oysters and then meets an octogenarian art collector who decides to take her under his wing. As Jules introduces Stella to a veritable who's who of the Paris literary, art, and culinary worlds, she begins to understand what it might mean to live a larger life.As weeks—and many decadent meals—go by, Stella ends up living as a “tumbleweed” at famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company, uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery in a Manet painting, and discovers a passion for food that may be connected to her past. A feast for the senses, this novel is a testament to living deliciously, taking chances, and finding your true home.

A young Southern woman sets out on a journey of self-discovery as the infamous 1925 Scopes Trial tests her faith and her marriage in this moving novel from the author of Time After Time and The Irresistible Henry House. “Lisa Grunwald is a national treasure.... An essential American story from a master craftsman.”—Adriana Trigiani, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Left UndoneI had never questioned a miracle, witnessed a gunfight, or seen a dead body.... I had thought I knew exactly what I wanted and what I didn't. Before the summer was over, all that and much more would change. Annabel Hayes—born, baptized, and orphaned in the sleepy conservative town of Dayton, Tennessee—is thrilled to find herself falling quickly and deeply in love with George Craig, a sophisticated attorney newly arrived from Knoxville. But before the end of their first year of marriage, their lives are beset by losses. The strain on their relationship is only intensified when John T. Scopes is arrested for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution at the local high school.Foreshadowing today's culture wars, the trial against Scopes is a spectacle unlike any the country has seen. William Jennings Bryan—a revered Southern politician—joins the prosecution, pitting himself and his faith against the renowned defense attorney Clarence Darrow. Journalists descend in a frenzy, thrusting the town and its citizens into the national spotlight. And when George joins the team defending Scopes, Annabel begins to question both her beliefs and her vows.As the ongoing trial divides neighbor against neighbor, it also divides the Craigs in unexpected ways. But in the midst of these conflicts—one waged in an open courtroom, the other behind closed doors—Annabel will discover that the path to her own evolution begins with the courage to think for herself.

A woman is pulled into a love affair with a radical activist, unknowingly echoing her family's dangerous past and risking the foundations of her future in this electrifying novel.“An exhilarating novel of star-crossed romances and radical politics, with writing so evocative I swear I could smell the tear gas.”—Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Nix and WellnessMinnow has always tried to lead the life her single father modeled—private, quiet, hardworking, apolitical. So she is rocked when an instinctive decision to help a student makes her the notorious public face of a scandal in the small town where she teaches. As tensions rise, death threats follow, and an overwhelmed Minnow flees to a teaching position in Paris. There, she falls into an exhilarating and all-consuming relationship with Charles, a young Frenchman whose activism has placed him at odds with his powerful family. As Minnow is pulled in to the daring protest Charles and his friends are planning, she unknowingly almost repeats a secret tragedy from her family's past. Her father wasn't always the restrained, conservative man he appears today. There are things he has taken great pains to conceal from his family and from the world.In 1968, Keen is avoiding the Vietnam draft by pursuing a PhD at Harvard. He lives his life in the basement chemistry lab, studiously ignoring the news. But when he unexpectedly falls in love with Olya, a fiery community organizer, he is consumed by her world and loses sight of his own. Learning that his deferment has ended and he's been drafted, Keen agrees to participate in the latest action that Olya is leading—one with more dangerous and far-reaching consequences than he could have imagined.Minnow's and Keen's intertwining stories take us through the turmoil of the late sixties student movements and into the chaos of the modern world. Exploding with suspense, heart, and intelligence, There's Going to Be Trouble is a story about revolution, legacy, passionate love, and how we live with the consequences of our darkest secrets.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Part of Quindlen's gift is that you don't just read about these characters, you inhabit them.... Luminous with life, hope and the power of love.”—People (A Book of the Week Pick) “[A] quietly revelatory and gently gleaming gem of a book.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors'Choice) Anna Quindlen's trademark wisdom on family, friendship, and the ties that bind us are at the center of this novel about the power of love to transcend loss and triumph over adversity, by the author of Still Life with Bread Crumbs and One True Thing.When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie's children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life.Over the course of the next year what saves them all is Annie, ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody's fool, a voice in their heads that is funny and sharp and remarkably clear. The power she has given to those who loved her is the power to go on without her. The lesson they learn is that no one beloved is ever truly gone.Written in Quindlen's emotionally resonant voice and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is about hope, and about the unexpected power of adversity to change us in profound and indelible ways.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK • From Pulitzer Prize–winning author Elizabeth Strout comes a “stunner” (People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world. “Tell Me Everything hits like a bucolic fable.... A novel of moods, how they govern our personal lives and public spaces, reflected in Strout's shimmering technique.”—The Washington PostWith her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone's life mean?”It's autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive's apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,” Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”

“A touching, inventive novel about belonging and loss” (People) from the critically beloved, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife and Inland“I marveled at the subtle beauty and precision of Obreht's prose... Read in the context of today's conflicts and injustices, climate emergencies, and political and racial divisions—together more dystopian than any dystopian novel—the book surprised me most with its undercurrent of hope.”—Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers, in The New York Times (Editors'Choice)There'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.

A tender and provocative debut novel about a mixed-race British woman who makes the shocking discovery in the days leading up to her wedding that her fiancé's family may have enslaved her ancestors“Simultaneously sweet and sobering, this is one you will not want to miss.”—Onyi Nwabineli, author of Someday, MaybeDominoes opens in London, twenty-nine days before a young couple's wedding. Layla is a mixed-race woman—with a Black, Jamaican mother, and a white father she's never met—and Andy is a white man of Scottish descent. When they first meet at a party, they can't believe how instant their chemistry is, and how quickly their relationship unfolds. Funnily enough, they even share a last name: McKinnon.Layla's best friend, Sera, isn't so sure about Andy, or the fact that her best friend is engaged a white man. As the wedding approaches, Sera prompts her friend to research her heritage more, leading Layla to make a shocking discovery: It's extremely likely that Andy's ancestors enslaved Layla's in Jamaica, and that the money from that enslavement helped build his family's wealth.What seemed like a fairy-tale romance is suddenly derailed as Layla begins to uncover parts of her history and identity that she never imagined—or had simply learned to ignore. The process takes her to Jamaica for the first time, where she uncovers truths about her family's history that will change the way she thinks about herself and her future. As the clock ticks down to her wedding, Layla must make a decision: commit to the man she loves or expose a shameful history that has gone unspoken for far too long.

A young Yemeni Israeli woman learns of her mother's secret romance in a dramatic journey through lost family stories, revealing the unbreakable bond between a mother and a daughter—the debut novel of an award-winning literary voice.“A gorgeous, gripping novel filled with unforgettable characters.”—Elizabeth Graver, author of Kantika1950. Thousands of Yemeni Jews have immigrated to the newly founded Israel in search of a better life. In an overcrowded immigrant camp in Rosh Ha'ayin, Yaqub, a shy young man, happens upon Saida, a beautiful girl singing by the river. In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, they fall in love. But they weren't supposed to; Saida is married and has a child, and a married woman has no place befriending another man.1995. Thirty-something Zohara, Saida's daughter, has been living in New York City—a city that feels much less complicated than Israel, where she grew up wishing that her skin was lighter, that her illiterate mother's Yemeni music was quieter, and that the father who always favored her was alive. She hasn't looked back since leaving home, rarely in touch with her mother or sister, Lizzie, and missing out on her nephew Yoni's childhood. But when Lizzie calls to tell her their mother has died, she gets on a plane to Israel with no return ticket.Soon Zohara finds herself on an unexpected path that leads to shocking truths about her family—including dangers that lurk for impressionable young men and secrets that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, her heritage, and her own future.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An epic novel of star-crossed lovers set in a doomsday cult on the Texas prairie that asks: What would you sacrifice for the person you love?“Symphonic and suspenseful... In an epic act of empathy, Bret Anthony Johnston inhabits every point of view, from doomed devotees to perplexed law enforcement.”—Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of MarchA New York Times Book Review Editors'ChoiceWaco, Texas, 1993. People from all walks of life have arrived to follow the Lamb's gospel—signing over savings and pensions, selling their homes and shedding marriages. They've come here to worship at the feet of a former landscaper turned prophet who is preparing for the End Times with a staggering cache of weapons. Jaye's mother is one of his newest and most devout followers, though Jaye herself has suspicions about the Lamb's methods—and his motives. Roy is the youngest son of the local sheriff, a fourteen-year-old boy with a heart of gold and a nose for trouble who falls for Jaye without knowing of her mother's attachment to the man who is currently making his father's life hell. The two teenagers are drawn to each other immediately and completely, but their love may have dire consequences for their families. The Lamb has plans for them all—especially Jaye—and as his preaching and scheming move them closer and closer to unthinkable violence, Roy risks everything to save Jaye. Based on the true events that unfolded thirty years ago during the siege of the Branch Davidian compound, Bret Anthony Johnston's We Burn Daylight is an unforgettable love story, a heart-pounding literary page turner, and a profound exploration of faith, family, and what it means to truly be saved.

A “vividly, chillingly current” (The Washington Post) novel by the author of The New Me, one of the boldest voices in American fiction “So searingly precise in [its] ability to capture a certain moment or experience that you have to stop every few pages to send another perfect quote to your group chat.”—The New York Times“So funny, so smart, utterly vicious—just brilliant.”—Zadie Smith“Butler has crafted a novel in which every character proves to be completely, uniquely crazy. Her perverse sense of humor should be studied and celebrated.”—David SedarisMargaret Anne “Moddie” Yance had just returned to her native land in the Midwestern town of X, to mingle with the friends of her youth, to get back in touch with her roots, and to recover from a stressful decade of living in the city in a small apartment with a man she now believed to be a megalomaniac or perhaps a covert narcissist.So begins Halle Butler's sadistically precise and hilarious Banal Nightmare, which follows Moddie as she abruptly ends her long-term relationship and moves back to her hometown, throwing herself at the mercy of her old friends as they, all suddenly tipping toward middle age, go to parties, size each other up, obsess over past slights, dream of wild triumphs, and indulge in elaborate revenge fantasies. When her friend Pam invites a mysterious East Coast artist to take up a winter residency at the local university, Moddie has no choice but to confront the demons of her past and grapple with the reality of what her life has become. As the day of reckoning approaches, friends will become enemies, enemies will become mortal enemies, and old loyalties will be tested to their extreme.Banal Nightmare is filled with complicated characters who will dazzle you in their rendering just as often as they will infuriate you with their decisions. Halle Butler singularly captures the volatile, angry, aggrieved, surreal, and entirely disorienting atmosphere of the modern era.

A dazzling, richly imagined novel about Peggy Guggenheim—a story of art, family, love, and becoming oneself—by the award-winning author of Under the Bridge, now a Hulu limited series starring Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone“Godfrey brilliantly resurrects the avant-garde adventurer Peggy Guggenheim as a feminist icon for our times.”—Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation“Magnificent... Readers will be won over by Godfrey's incandescent portrait of a singular woman.”—Publishers Weekly, starred reviewVenice, 1958. Peggy Guggenheim, heiress and now legendary art collector, sits in the sun at her white marble palazzo on the Grand Canal. She's in a reflective mood, thinking back on her thrilling, tragic, nearly impossible journey from her sheltered, old-fashioned family in New York to here: iconoclast and independent woman.Rebecca Godfrey's Peggy is a blazingly fresh interpretation of a woman who defies every expectation to become an original. The daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy finds her cloistered life turned upside down at fourteen, when her beloved father perishes on the Titanic. His death prompts Peggy to seek a life of passion and personal freedom and, above all, to believe in the transformative power of art. We follow Peggy as she makes her way through the glamorous but sexist and anti-Semitic art worlds of New York and Europe and meet the numerous men who love her (and her money) while underestimating her intellect, talent, and vision. Along the way, Peggy must balance her loyalty to her family with her need to break free from their narrow, snobbish ways and the unexpected restrictions that come with vast fortune.Rebecca Godfrey's final book—completed by her friend, the acclaimed writer Leslie Jamison, following Godfrey's death in 2022—brings to life the woman who helped make the Guggenheim name synonymous with art and genius.

Three generations of women learn to own their mistakes and rebuild their bonds as they prepare to compete in the South Florida Senior Synchronized Swimming Competition.“A witty, touching story of resilience, forgiveness, complicated family dynamics, and second chances.”—Deepa Varadarajan, author of Late BloomersWest Palm Beach, 1999. A phone call summons fifty-eight-year-old Cherie Anderson from a frozen Minnesota to help her two mothers: Dale, the mother who left her when she was five and is facing eviction from her budget-apartment complex, Soleil City, and Marlys, the mother who raised her from that moment on—and who's now dying, but won't admit it to her daughter. Cherie seeks a reason to stay in town long enough to give Dale the help she's finally asked for and Marlys the help she clearly needs. And she must find a project to distract her pregnant daughter, Laura, whose marriage has fallen apart just weeks before her due date.The South Florida Senior Synchronized Swimming Competition seems to be the answer. The publicity from winning the contest, along with the ten-thousand-dollar prize money, could help save Soleil City. With Laura, who used to captain a dance team, as their coach, they've got a fighting chance. And with everyone else preoccupied by the competition, Cherie can focus on saving Marlys before it's too late.Over the course of a month in an apartment complex filled with feisty, funny, strong-willed women in their seventies, four women who make up an uneasy family will realize that in life, and motherhood, there isn't good and bad. There's only trying to get it right.

A single momentous day transforms the lives of students and professors at a school for stand-up comedy in a novel that “[brims] with insecure characters, clever repartee, dark jokes and funny riffs” (The Wall Street Journal) “Insightful, compassionate, biting and honest.”—The Washington Post“Brilliance is on display here.”—Percival Everett, author of James and The TreesLonglisted for the New American Voices AwardCan comedy be taught? Someone, at some point, seemed to think so. The Chicago Stand-Up MFA program has enrolled young comedians for nearly a decade.Its teachers and students all know how bits work—in theory, at least. They know that there's a line between sharp and cruel, that sad becomes funny at the right angle, that the worst is the best, the truth is the worst, and any moment of your life that isn't a punch line will either get you to a punch line or force you to be one.They're all afraid to be one.Artie may be too handsome for standup, Olivia too reluctant to examine her own life, and Phil too afraid to cause harm. Kruger may be too vanilla to command his students'respect, Ashbee too detached. And then we have Dorothy—the only woman on the program's faculty—who though preparing to launch a comeback tour can't tell if she's too abiding, too ambitious, or too ambivalent.Whether a visiting professor—the high-profile, controversy-steeped comedian Manny Reinhardt—will do more to help or harm their cause remains to be seen. But he's on his way. He'll be arriving sooner than anyone thinks.Riffing keenly across a diverse array of precision-cut perspectives, The Material examines life through the eyes of a reluctantly assembled ensemble, a band of outsiders bound together by the need to laugh and the longing to make others laugh even harder.

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE AND THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A “masterly” (The New York Times, Editors'Choice), “riveting” (The Atlantic) novel of friendship, family, and the unthinkable realities of exile, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Return“A profound celebration of the sustaining power of friendship, of the ways we mold ourselves against the indentations of those few people whom fate presses against us.”—The Washington PostWINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTIONOne evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, and has the sense that his life has been changed forever. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.There, thrust into an open society that is miles away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode into tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, unable to leave Britain, much less return to the country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would expose them to danger.When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face-to-face with Hosam Zowa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him.A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests—and frays—those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautiful work of literature by an author working at the peak of his powers.

A story of first love that will break your heart, this bittersweet debut novel follows two teenagers whose all-consuming relationship is tested by the forces of class, prejudice, and addiction.“Reading this book is like holding a heartbeat in your hands.”—Amy Jo Burns, author of MercuryThere were parts that were bliss, there were parts that were full and faultless and laden with joy. The way everything Danny and I did, everything we felt, we did, we felt together. The way we loved and loved and loved each other.From the beginning, it has always been Neef and her mother, Chrissy—troubled, beautiful, at the mercy of addiction and a revolving door of bad relationships. When Neef turns twelve, they move from inner-city Leeds to a small Yorkshire town to follow Chrissy's much-older boyfriend, who runs the local pub. But for Neef, perhaps it's also a chance to start over. On her first day in her new home, it becomes Neef and Danny, the boy who captures her attention planting flowers in the pub garden—and then, it is somehow always Danny.Danny is seen as an outsider by those around him; half Jamaican, he and his father are the only people of color in their community. Immediately drawn to each other, Neef and Danny form a friendship that gives way to the slow burn of romance as they grow up. Desperate to escape the confines of their world, Neef and Danny cling to each other throughout their adolescence, even as their relationship strains against the same forces that hold their families hostage: substance abuse, poverty, racism. For a while, though, it seems like it could be Neef and Danny forever.But then, finally, it is just Neef: sober, living in London, trying to tell herself she never knew a boy called Danny, never loved him, never had him wrenched away. That is, until someone from those days comes seeking redemption, and she cannot pretend any longer.Braiding together past and present, Wild Ground introduces us to a young woman both coming of age and coming to terms with herself. This tender and moving debut, at once heartbreaking and hopeful, is an aching love story that you will find impossible to forget.

A desperate young publicist tries to save her career by turning the charismatic leader of a grungy retreat center into the hot new self-care brand in this “wryly funny [and] fabulous debut novel” (The New York Times Book Review).“A satire both cutting and careful in its approach, The Glow is a triumph.”—ElleA GLAMOUR AND LIT HUB BEST BOOK OF THE YEARJane Dorner has two modes: PR Jane, twenty-five, chummy, and eager to sell you a feminist vibrator or a self-care/bereavement subscription box; and Actual Jane, twenty-nine, drifting through mediocre workdays and lackluster dates while paralyzed by her crushing mountain of overdue medical bills. When her job performance is called into question, Jane's last-ditch effort to preserve her livelihood and pay off her debt is to land a white whale of a client.Enter the impossibly gorgeous Cass—whom Jane discovers scrolling through Instagram—and her unassuming husband, Tom, proprietors of a “wellness retreat” based out of a ramshackle country house that may or may not be giving off cult vibes. Suddenly Jane realizes she might have found the one ladder she can climb—if she can convince them that transforming Cass herself into a high-end wellness brand is the key to all three of their futures. Magnetic yet mysterious, Cass is primed to be an influencer: She speaks in a mix of inspirational quotes and Zen koans, eats only zucchini (the most spiritually nourishing vegetable), and has baby-perfect skin. Despite Tom's reticence about selling out, Jane sets out to mold Cass into the kind of guru who can offer inner peace and make your skin glow—all at a hefty price, of course. As Jane reckons with her own long-dormant ambitions, she wonders: Can a person really “do good” for others while profiting off them? And what parts of our selves do we lose when we trade power, influence, and beauty?Sparklingly plotted, deliciously deadpan, and irresistibly entertaining, The Glow is a razor-sharp sendup of an industry built on the peculiar intersection of money and wellness, where health is a commodity and self-care a luxury.

LA NOVELA MÁS EMBLEMÁTICA DE VICENÇ PAGÈS JORDÀ: BIENVENIDOS A LA PARTIDA «Los jugadores de whist es una novela diáfana, divertida y espumosa como un buen shandy. Una novela que no debería pasar desapercibida». Màrius Serra Jordi Recasens es un fotógrafo oriundo de Figueres en plena crisis de madurez. Su matrimonio está acabado, malvive en el garaje de su casa adosada y su esposa se comporta como una adolescente. Cuando Marta, su hija de veinte años, se casa con Bad Boy, un pelao orgulloso de conducir una minirretroexcavadora, Jordi decide revisitar los últimos treinta años de su vida sin revanchismo ni nostalgia, movido únicamente por el afán de comprender. Resurge así un pasado que incluye un castillo, un juego, una muerte, un Ampurdán que no es de postal y la decepción de crecer y descubrir un abismo entre lo que uno quería ser y lo que ha acabado siendo. Los jugadores de whist, la novela más emblemática de Vicenç Pagès Jordà –autor clave de la literatura catalana contemporánea– es una obra fragmentaria que empieza como Stand by me, prosigue como El padre de la novia y culmina en una mezcla de American Beauty y Mystic River. Bienvenidos a la partida La crítica ha dicho: «Pagès Jordà ha sido uno de los prosistas más brillantes de la cultura catalana de la democracia». Jordi Amat, El País «Una de las novelas más interesantes de 2010». Agustín Fernández Mallo, El Cultural «Un libro total». Víctor Amela, La Vanguardia «Estamos ante un hito en la narrativa posmoderna de nuestro país, y ante algo todavía más escaso: una de esas obras no solo importantes para los amantes de la literatura, sino para toda la comunidad a la que aluden». Miguel Espigado, Quimera «Es imposible escribir una novela mejor que Los jugadores de whist». Melcior Comes, Núvol «El mejor libro de Vicenç Pagès Jordà». Julià Guillamon, Cultura/s, La Vanguardia «Magistral». Lluís Muntada, El País

Mezcla de novela, memoria y ensayo, Comí es el relato de una caída y es, sobre todo, una reflexión brutal sobre la comida, los cuerpos y la medicina. Un personaje que por alguna razón se llama Caparrós visita al médico y se entera de que le van a vaciar los intestinos. Esto lo lleva a pensar sobre su vida como una sucesión de ingestas: más de 58.000 comidas, sus formas, sus sentidos. Esa rara autoconciencia estructura este libro, que indaga también en la vida de su narrador y tantas otras cosas: desde las semejanzas entre alimentarse y tener sexo o la eficiencia rústica del asado hasta ese fatídico instante sin nombre en que un ser querido ha muerto, pero todavía no lo sabemos. Entre la novela y el ensayo sociológico, clásico pero inclasificable, Comí cumple el difícil cometido de ser un libro difícil de digerir y, al mismo tiempo, exquisito. Críticas: «Comí es un libro íntimo, pesimista, triste y escatológico, como si Caparrós hubiera compartido últimamente demasiadas cervezas con Michel Houellebecq». Maximiliano Tomas, La Nación «Un perturbador sistemático, un sembrador de dudas». Francesca Lazzarato, Il Manifesto «Convence tanto como seduce». Edmundo Paz Soldán, La Tercera «Es una obra rica y ambiciosa, una empresa arriesgada que debe ser conocida». Juan Goytisolo

This beautiful novel by the beloved author of Open House and Talk Before Sleep tells the story of two young people growing up in Mason, Missouri, and how Arthur Moses, a shy young man, becomes the wise and compassionate person readers loved in The Story of Arthur Truluv.“A poignant tale of love, grief, and the resiliency of the human spirit.”—Kirkus ReviewsA CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR BEST BOOK OF THE YEARNola McCollum is the most desirable girl in Arthur Moses's class, and he is thrilled when they become friends. But Arthur wants far more than friendship. Unfortunately, Nola has a crush on the wrong Moses—Arthur's older brother, Frank, who is busy pursuing his own love interest and avoiding the boys'father, a war veteran with a drinking problem and a penchant for starting fights. When a sudden tragedy rocks the family's world, Arthur struggles to come to terms with his grief. In the end, it is nature that helps him to understand how to go beyond loss and create a life of forgiveness and empathy. But what can he do about Nola, who seems confused about what she wants in life and only half aware of the one who loves her most?Full of unforgettable characters and written with Elizabeth Berg's characteristic warmth, humor, and insight into people, Earth's the Right Place for Love is about the power of kindness, character, and family, and how love can grow when you least expect it.

Un recorrido por pueblos fantasma de la Patagonia. Dos décadas después de haber dejado el pueblo donde nació, la narradora vuelve a la Patagonia siguiendo un recorrido intuitivo e íntimo de horas infinitas. Se detiene en parajes olvidados, se disputa las calles polvorientas con perros semisalvajes, se sienta a conversar con personas que han perdido una cantidad de cosas entre las cuales destaca la cordura. Aun así, encuentra destellos de felicidad absoluta, como la que la asalta cuando la risa de una ronda de niñas la protege de los teros que venían amenazándola desde las alturas durante una de sus tantas caminatas en solitario. En las antípodas de las postales estetizantes, Falsa calma es una narrativa de regreso que puede leerse como una sucesión de retratos y es también una lúcida indagación en las causas políticas de lo fantasmagórico. La crítica dijo: «Cristoff no hace ningún esfuerzo por guiar o mimar al lector, pintar un retrato romántico de una tierra remota o decirnos cómo debemos reaccionar ante las vidas solitarias, aterradoras y ocasionalmente heroicas que expone. Cristoff pinta un cuadro de singularidad devastadora. El suyo es un libro audaz y hermoso». Andrew McCarthy, The New York Times «Falsa calma tiene poca relación con la mayoría de los diarios de viaje [...]. No es exploración; es retrato». NPR «Una crónica maravillosa». Publishers Weekly «Cautivador, inteligente, un libro en el que la fuerza silenciosa va más allá de su objeto real». Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung «Retratos rápidos y precisos que alcanzan, en más de una ocasión, una vibración epifánica». Pedro B. Rey, La Nación «Los perfiles exactos de Cristoff crean una sensación similar a las viñetas por las que Joan Didion se hizo famosa en sus primeros reportajes». Harvard Review «Lo que consigue Cristoff es un milagro que, no por repetido, dejará de asombrarnos: en los libros'de verdad'no solo se construye un mundo sino que, además, la verdad de ese mundo nos alcanza y nos toca, nos modifica para siempre». Daniel Link «Libro de no ficción inclasificable». Christopher Merrill, The Paris Review

NATIONAL BESTELLER • An “exquisite” (The Boston Globe) exploration of love and loss, the struggles and limitations of family life—and how we all must learn to live together and apart—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours “The only problem with Michael Cunningham's prose is that it ruins you for mere mortals'work. He is the most elegant writer in America.”—The Washington PostNEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS'CHOICE • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Harper's Bazaar, Chicago Public Library, Lit Hub, Paste, Kirkus ReviewsApril 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are a little bit in love with Isabel's younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart. And then there is Nathan, age ten, taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while his sister, Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents.April 5, 2020: As the world goes into lockdown, the cozy brownstone is starting to feel more like a prison. Violet is terrified of leaving the windows open, obsessed with keeping her family safe. Isabel and Dan communicate mostly in veiled sleights and frustrated sighs. And dear Robbie is stranded in Iceland, alone in a mountain cabin with nothing but his thoughts—and his secret Instagram life—for company.April 5, 2021: Emerging from the worst of the crisis, the family reckons with a new, very different reality—and with what they've learned, what they've lost, and how they might go on. “[Cunningham] is one of love's greatest witnesses.”—Los Angeles Times “An absolutely stunning portrait of humanity... a masterpiece.”—Literary Hub

An “extraordinary, ambitious” (The Times UK) novel that masterfully explores what constitutes a meaningful life in a violent world—from the award-winning author of Open CityNew York Times Book Review Editors'Choice • “Cole's mind is so agile that it's easy to follow him anywhere.”—The New YorkerWINNER OF THE ANISFIELD-WOLF BOOK AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Vulture, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, Library JournalLife is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while we could and, later, to have danced again in the telling.A weekend spent antiquing is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speaks out from a pulsing metropolis.We're invited to experience these events and others through the eyes and ears of Tunde, a West African man working as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, a traveler, drawn to many different kinds of stories: stories from history and epic; stories of friends, family, and strangers; stories found in books and films. Together these stories make up his days. In aggregate these days comprise a life.Tremor is a startling work of realism and invention that engages brilliantly with literature, music, race, and history as it examines the passage of time and how we mark it. It is a reckoning with human survival amidst “history's own brutality, which refuses symmetries and seldom consoles,” but it is also a testament to the possibility of joy. As he did in his magnificent debut Open City, Teju Cole once again offers narration with all its senses alert, a surprising and deeply essential work from a beacon of contemporary literature.

This provocative, fiercely imaginative debut follows a woman trying to slip the shackles of society by controlling her body and mind in extreme ways, by one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.“Chrysalis is a thrilling look at how we spin silk around ourselves by watching the world on our screens.”—The New York Times Book ReviewIt was hard to be in the present, she said, but if her body were heavier and more in control, then her thoughts would clear and her mind would recover its power.What happens when a woman dares to take up space? An enigmatic young woman drastically transforms her body, working to become bigger, stronger, and stiller in the wake of a trauma. We see her through the eyes of three people, each differently mesmerized by her, as they reckon with the consequences of her bizarre metamorphosis. Each of them leaves us with a puzzle piece of who she was before she became someone else.Elliot, a recluse who notices her at the gym, witnesses her physical evolution and becomes her first acolyte. Bella, her mother, worries about the intense effect her daughter's new way of life is beginning to have on others, and she reflects on their relationship, a close cocoon from which her daughter has broken free. Susie, her ex-colleague and best friend, offers her sanctuary and support as she makes the transition to self-created online phenomenon, posting viral meditation videos that encourage her followers to join her in achieving self-sufficiency by isolating themselves from everyone else in their lives.Uncanny, alluring, and intimate, Chrysalis raises vital questions about selfhood and solitude. This daring novel asks if it is possible for a woman to have agency over her body while remaining part of society, and then offers its own explosive answer.

Two Black sisters growing up in small-town New England fight to protect their home, their bodies, and their dreams as the Civil Rights Movement sweeps the nation in Promise, a “magical, magnificent novel” (Marlon James) from “a startlingly fresh voice” (Jacqueline Woodson).A KIRKUS REVIEWS AND CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY BEST BOOK OF THE YEARThe people of Salt Point could indeed be fearful about the world beyond themselves; most of them would be born and die without ever having gone more than twenty or thirty miles from houses that were crammed with generations of their families.... But something was shifting at the end of summer 1957.The Kindred sisters—Ezra and Cinthy—have grown up with an abundance of love. Love from their parents, who let them believe that the stories they tell on stars can come true. Love from their neighbors, the Junketts, the only other Black family in town, whose home is filled with spice-rubbed ribs and ground-shaking hugs. And love for their adopted hometown of Salt Point, a beautiful Maine village perched high up on coastal bluffs.But as the girls hit adolescence, their white neighbors, including Ezra's best friend, Ruby, start to see their maturing bodies and minds in a different way. And as the news from distant parts of the country fills with calls for freedom, equality, and justice for Black Americans, the white villagers of Salt Point begin to view the Kindreds and the Junketts as threats to their way of life. Amid escalating violence, prejudice, and fear, bold Ezra and watchful Cinthy must reach deep inside the wells of love they've built to commit great acts of heroism and grace on the path to survival.In luminous, richly descriptive writing, Promise celebrates one family's story of resistance. It's a book that will break your heart—and then rebuild it with courage, hope, and love.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK • A comedy writer thinks she's sworn off love, until a dreamy pop star flips the script on all her assumptions—a “smart, sophisticated, and fun” (Oprah Daily) novel from the author of Eligible, Rodham, and Prep. “Full of dazzling banter and sizzling chemistry.”—People “If you ever wanted a backstage pass to Saturday Night Live, this is the book for you.”—Zibby Owens, Good Morning AmericaA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, USA Today, BuzzFeed, PopSugar, Harper's Bazaar, Real Simple, She Reads, New York PostSally Milz is a sketch writer for The Night Owls, a late-night live comedy show that airs every Saturday. With a couple of heartbreaks under her belt, she's long abandoned the search for love, settling instead for the occasional hook-up, career success, and a close relationship with her stepfather to round out a satisfying life.But when Sally's friend and fellow writer Danny Horst begins dating Annabel, a glamorous actress who guest-hosted the show, he joins the not-so-exclusive group of talented but average-looking and even dorky men at the show—and in society at large—who've gotten romantically involved with incredibly beautiful and accomplished women. Sally channels her annoyance into a sketch called The Danny Horst Rule, poking fun at this phenomenon while underscoring how unlikely it is that the reverse would ever happen for a woman.Enter Noah Brewster, a pop music sensation with a reputation for dating models, who signed on as both host and musical guest for this week's show. Dazzled by his charms, Sally hits it off with Noah instantly, and as they collaborate on one sketch after another, she begins to wonder if there might actually be sparks flying. But this isn't a romantic comedy—it's real life. And in real life, someone like him would never date someone like her... right?With her keen observations and trademark ability to bring complex women to life on the page, Curtis Sittenfeld explores the neurosis-inducing and heart-fluttering wonder of love, while slyly dissecting the social rituals of romance and gender relations in the modern age.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS'CHOICE • “The Brothers Grimm meet Black Mirror meets Alice in Wonderland.... In seven remixed fairy tales, Link delivers wit and dreamlike intrigue.”—Time FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD, THE MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD, WORLD FANTASY AWARD, CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE, AND KIRKUS PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD • “Thought-provoking and wonderfully told... so seamlessly entwines the real with the surreal that the stories threaten to slip into reality, resonating long after reading.”—BuzzFeed A new collection from one of today's finest short story writers, MacArthur “Genius Grant” fellow Kelly Link, bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Get in Trouble—featuring illustrations by award-winning artist Shaun Tan A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Public Library, Shondaland, Slate, The Globe and Mail, Electric Lit, Tordotcom, Polygon, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus ReviewsFinding seeds of inspiration in the stories of the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers—characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.In “The White Cat's Divorce,” an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which child will become his heir. In “The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear,” a professor with a delicate health condition becomes stranded for days in an airport hotel after a conference, desperate to get home to her wife and young daughter, and in acute danger of being late for an appointment that cannot be missed. In “Skinder's Veil,” a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting gig for a friend. But what should be a chance to focus on his long-avoided dissertation instead becomes a wildly unexpected journey, as the house seems to be a portal for otherworldly travelers—or perhaps a door into his own mysterious psyche.Twisting and turning in astonishing ways, expertly blending realism and the speculative, witty, empathetic, and never predictable—these stories remind us once again of why Kelly Link is incomparable in the realm of short fiction.

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS'CHOICE • An immersive debut set across the temples, slums, and gated estates of late-twentieth century Bangkok, telling the story of three families striving to control their destinies in a merciless, sometimes brutally violent, metropolis.“Mai Nardone is a writer with an atlas straight to the heart. I did not want to put this book down and neither will you.”—C Pam Zhang, bestselling author of How Much of These Hills Is GoldLONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZEWe came with the drought. From the window of the train, the rich brown of the Chao Phraya River marked the turn from the northeast into the central plains. We came for Bangkok on the delta. The thin tributaries that laced the provinces found full current at the capital. And in the city, we'd heard, the wealth was wide and deep.In 1980, young lovers Pea and Nam arrive in Bangkok in search of a life, and a world, beyond Thailand's rural outskirts. Thirty days, they promise each other. Thirty days for Pea to find work, for him to put aside his violent and unstable past and take root in this strange new land. But Bangkok does not want for male laborers, especially teenage boys with thick provincial accents, and when time finally runs out on their promise, it's Nam who ultimately adapts to the capital's ruthless logic and survives.Spanning decades and perspectives, seamlessly shifting between the absurd and the tenderhearted, the interwoven stories of Welcome Me to the Kingdom introduce three families—Nam, her American husband, Rick, and their daughter, Lara; Vitat, a Thai Elvis impersonator, and his only daughter, Pinky; and Tintin and Benz, orphans who have adopted each other as brothers—who employ various schemes to lie, betray, and seduce their way to the “good life.”These disparate citizens of Bangkok orbit each other over the next three decades—sometimes violently, passionately colliding. Through skin-whitening routines, cult conversion, gambling, and sex work, the collection's characters look for reinvention in a city buckling under the weight of its own modernity.Wildly imaginative and ambitious, Mai Nardone's stories reveal the growing discrepancy between Bangkok's smiling self-image and its ugly underbelly, and, in the process, offer a striking portrait of a city unmade by the whims of global capitalism, in a kingdom caught between this world and the next.

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A wild, sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present—loaded with assassins and mad poets, RPGs and slasher films, pop bands and the perils of social media“Your view of twentieth-century history will be enlarged and altered.... A Gravity's Rainbow for another war, an unfinished war.” —Jonathan Lethem, author of The Fortress of SolitudeWINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE • ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS'CHOICEA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Public Library, Polygon, Kirkus Reviews In 1919, far-flung patriots establish the Korean Provisional Government to protest the Japanese occupation of their country. This government-in-exile proves mostly symbolic, though, and after Japan's defeat in World War II, the KPG dissolves and civil war erupts, resulting in the tragic North-South split that remains today.But what if the KPG still existed—now working toward a unified Korea, secretly pulling levers to further its aims? Same Bed Different Dreams weaves together three distinct narrative voices with an archive of mysterious images, and twists reality like a kaleidoscope. Korean history, American pop culture, and our tech-fraught lives come together in this extraordinary and unforgettable novel.Soon Sheen, a former writer now employed by the tech behemoth GLOAT, comes into possession of an unfinished book seemingly authored by the KPG. The manuscript is a riveting revisionist history, connecting famous names and obscure bit players to the KPG's grand project—everyone from Syngman Rhee and architect-poet Yi Sang to Jack London and Marilyn Monroe. M•A•S•H is in here, too, as are the Moonies and a history of violence extending from the assassination of President McKinley to the Reagan-era downing of a passenger plane that puts the world on the brink of war.From the acclaimed author of Personal Days, Same Bed Different Dreams is a raucously funny feat of imagination and a thrilling meld of history and fiction that pulls readers into another dimension—one in which utopia is possible.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic tale of a woman who breathes a fantastical empire into existence, only to be consumed by it over the centuries—from the transcendent imagination of Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author Salman RushdieSalman Rushdie is one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of the Year • “Victory City is a triumph—not because it exists, but because it is utterly enchanting.”—The AtlanticA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Chicago Public Library, Polygon, The Globe and Mail, BookreporterIn the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who begins to speak out of the girl's mouth. Granting her powers beyond Pampa Kampana's comprehension, the goddess tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga—“victory city”—the wonder of the world.Over the next 250 years, Pampa Kampana's life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga's, from its literal sowing from a bag of magic seeds to its tragic ruination in the most human of ways: the hubris of those in power. Whispering Bisnaga and its citizens into existence, Pampa Kampana attempts to make good on the task that the goddess set for her: to give women equal agency in a patriarchal world. But all stories have a way of getting away from their creator, and Bisnaga is no exception. As years pass, rulers come and go, battles are won and lost, and allegiances shift, the very fabric of Bisnaga becomes an ever more complex tapestry—with Pampa Kampana at its center.Brilliantly styled as a translation of an ancient epic, Victory City is a saga of love, adventure, and myth that is in itself a testament to the power of storytelling.

“A powerful and provocative debut collection” (The New York Times Book Review) by “a startling talent who can seemingly do anything” (Anthony Marra) that explores the lives of ordinary people in Turkey to reveal how even individual acts of resistance have extraordinary repercussions.“I Am My Country employs many different literary styles and voices to dazzling effect.”—The AtlanticFINALIST FOR THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE • LONGLISTED FOR THE STORY PRIZE • AN ELECTRIC LIT AND LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Spanning decades and landscapes, from the forests along the Black Sea to the streets of Istanbul, Kenan Orhan's ​playful stories ​conjure dreamlike worlds—of talking animals, flying houses, and omniscient prayer-callers—to ​examine humanity's unfaltering pursuit of hope in even the darkest circumstances.A determined florist trains a neighborhood stray dog to blow up a corrupt president. A garbage collector finds banned instruments—and later, musicians—in the trash and takes them home to form a clandestine orchestra in her attic. A smuggler risks his life to bring a young woman claiming to be pregnant via immaculate conception across the border with Syria. A poor cage-maker tries to use his ability to talk to birds to woo his childhood love just before the 1955 Istanbul pogrom. These characters are united by a desperate yearning to break free from the volatile realities they face: rising authoritarianism, cultural and political turmoil, and staggering violence.Ranging from the absurd to the tenderhearted, the stories in I Am My Country illuminate the constant force amid one country's history of rampant oppression and revolutionary progress: the impulse to survive.

New York Times Book Review Editors'Choice • A courageous young Sri Lankan woman tries to protect her dream of becoming a doctor in this “heartbreaking exploration of a family fractured by civil war” (Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half).“This book, a careful, vivid exploration of what's lost within a community when life and thought collapse toward binary conflict, rang softly for me as a novel for our own country in this odd time.”—Nathan Heller, The New Yorker AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • WINNER OF THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION • WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION • FINALIST FOR THE MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASIAN PRIZE FOR FICTION Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence. Desperate to act, Sashi accepts K's invitation to work as a medic at a field hospital for the militant Tamil Tigers, who, following years of state discrimination and violence, are fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority. But after the Tigers murder one of her teachers and Indian peacekeepers arrive only to commit further atrocities, Sashi begins to question where she stands. When one of her medical school professors, a Tamil feminist and dissident, invites her to join a secret project documenting human rights violations, she embarks on a dangerous path that will change her forever.Set during the early years of Sri Lanka's three-decade civil war, Brotherless Night is a heartrending portrait of one woman's moral journey and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home.