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Three Strong Women
Marie NDiaye's novel follows the stories of three women who discover the power of saying no. Norah, a lawyer born in France, must travel to Senegal to save a victim of her tyrannical father; Fanta, a Dakar teacher, finds her happiness thwarted by a depressed boyfriend; and Khady, a penniless widow, is desperate to escape homelessness. Between Africa and Europe, these women discover their strength. Translated by John Fletcher.
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The Woman Upstairs
Relegated to the status of schoolteacher and friendly neighbor after abandoning her dreams of becoming an artist, Nora advocates on behalf of a charismatic Lebanese student and is drawn into the child's family until his artist mother's careless ambition leads to a shattering betrayal. NPR Bestseller
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Stoner
William Stoner, born at the end of the 19th century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family, falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar's life. As the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments, including a marriage that estranges him from his parents, a stymied career and a love that ends under threat of scandal, causing him to rediscover the stoic silence of his forebears.
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And the Mountains Echoed
The author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns presents a story inspired by human love, how people take care of one another and how choices resonate through subsequent generations.
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You Are One of Them
A first novel by a Pushcart Prize-winning writer traces the friendship between all-American girl Jenny and Sarah, the shy daughter of troubled parents, during the height of the Cold War, a bond that is nearly shattered by Jenny's unexpected fame and plane crash death that Sarah learns a decade later might have been a hoax.
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Americanah
Separated by respective ambitions after falling in love in occupied Nigeria, beautiful Ifemelu experiences triumph and defeat in America while exploring new concepts of race, while Obinze endures an undocumented status in London. When the pair is reunited in their homeland 15 years later, they face the toughest decisions of their lives.
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Pacific
In Los Angeles to reunite with the mother who abandoned him seven years ago, 14-year-old Micah Darling finds himself way out of his league. Meanwhile, back home in the Midwest, his half-sister Lyris and their father Tiny find their lives unsettled by the arrival of an ethereal young woman.
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All That Is
Returning to America after World War II, former naval officer Philip Bowman finds a position as a book editor and loses himself in a world of intimate connections and surprising triumphs, until he is betrayed by the woman he loves.NPR Bestseller
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The Burgess Boys
Catalyzed by a nephew's thoughtless prank, two brothers confront painful issues surrounding the freak accident that killed their father when they were boys, a loss linked to a heartbreaking deception that shaped their lives. NPR Bestseller
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The Interestings
Forging a powerful bond in the mid-1970s that lasts throughout subsequent decades, six individuals pursue respective challenges into their midlife years, including an aspiring actress who harbors jealousy toward friends who achieve successful creative careers. NPR Bestseller
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Tenth Of December
A collection of stories includes "Home," a wryly whimsical account of a soldier's return from war; "Victory Lap," a tale about an inventive abduction attempt; and the title story, in which a suicidal cancer patient saves the life of a young misfit.NPR Bestseller
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The Dinner
Meeting at an Amsterdam restaurant for dinner, two couples move from small talk to the wrenching shared challenge of their teenage sons' act of violence that has triggered a police investigation and revealed the extent to which each family will go to protect those it loves.NPR Bestseller
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The Orphan Master's Son
A Novel
Pak Jun Do, the son of an influential father who runs an orphan work camp, rises to prominence using instinctive talents and eventually becomes a professional kidnapper and romantic rival to Kim Jong Il.NPR Bestseller
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The Orchardist
When two skittish pregnant girls appear on his homestead, solitary orchardist Talmadge — who carefully tends the grove of fruit trees he has cultivated for nearly half a century — vows to save and protect them. The Orchardist evokes a powerful sense of place in the American West, mixing tenderness and violence as Talmadge tries to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past and faces the dramatic consequences of his actions.NPR Bestseller
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The Polish Boxer
The narrator, a Guatemalan literature professor, encounters a number of interesting characters, including a Serbian classical pianist, a young Israeli woman, and a Mayan poet, before persuing his most enigmatic subject--himself.
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Lionel Asbo
State of England
Asbo is an acronym for "anti-social behavior order," and Lionel Asbo certainly demonstrates the anti-social tendencies of his name. This satire of modern society and celebrity culture features Lionel as the uncle of young Desmond Pepperdine, a crime reporter. Desmond's seemingly simple pursuits are hampered by Lionel's near-criminal habits, which become more prominent when Lionel wins the lottery.NPR Bestseller
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The Lower River
Ellis Hock, a former Peace Corps volunteer whose wife has abruptly left him, longs to return to the village in Malawi where he volunteered decades earlier. He hopes to revisit a different, better chapter of his life. But he finds a very different place than the one he left: a region devastatingly transformed by poverty and apathy.
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Allah Is Not Obliged
After the death of his mother, ten-year-old Birahima leaves his Ivory Coast village to search for his for his aunt, Mahan, journeying across the border into Liberia, where he and his companions are captured by rebels and forced into military service, in a compelling novel of the rivalries, power structures, and customs that fuel Africa's bitter wars. Original.
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The Sense Of An Ending
Tony Webster is a retired divorced man in his mid-60s who, after receiving notice of an unexpected bequest, is pulled back into a "powerful recollection of strong emotions" from his past. This leads to a reassessment of the accuracy of his memories, a rueful realization of how much he'd gotten wrong, and a harsh re-evaluation of his passive approach to life.NPR Bestseller, Literary Award Winner
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The Hunger Angel
On an icy morning in January 1945, 17-year-old Leo Auberg is deported to a camp in the Soviet Union. He spends the next five years shoveling coal, lugging bricks, mixing mortar and battling an endless calculus of hunger: One shovel load of coal is worth 1 gram of bread. Herta Müller conjures up the distorted world of a labor camp in all its physical and moral absurdity.
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Gold
If your dreams pull you in one direction and your heart in another, which should you follow? This is the question that haunts Kate Meadows, a world champion athlete whose 8-year-old daughter, Sophie, is battling a recurrence of childhood leukemia just as Kate is about to compete for her last chance at an Olympic gold medal. For years, Kate has sacrificed everything for her family and watched her best friend and closest rival, Zoe Castle, conquer the world stage. Kate has never won gold and will have to go through Zoe — who has everything to lose — to get it.NPR Bestseller
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The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
Discovering in childhood a supernatural ability to taste the emotions of others in their cooking, Rose Edelstein grows up to regard food as a curse when it reveals everyone's secret realities. By the Pushcart-winning author of An Invisible Sign of My Own. Reprint. A best-selling book.
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The Middlesteins
Two siblings with very different personalities attempt to take control of their mother's food obsession and massive weight gain to save her life after their father walks out and leaves her reeling in the Chicago suburbs.
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Heartburn
Out of analysis and seven months pregnant, cookbook writer Rachel Samstat discovers that her husband is into analysis and an affair and suffers six weeks of intense heartburn. Reprint. 12,500 first printing.
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The Flamethrowers
Arriving in New York to pursue a creative career in the raucous 1970s art scene, Reno joins a group of dreamers and raconteurs before falling in love with the estranged son of an Italian motorcycle scion and succumbing to a radical social movement in 1977 Italy. NPR Bestseller
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The Round House
When his mother, a tribal enrollment specialist on a reservation in North Dakota, slips into an abyss of depression after being brutally attacked, 13-year-old Joe Coutts sets out with his three friends to find the person who destroyed his family.NPR Bestseller
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Flight Behavior
Tired of living on a failing farm and suffering oppressive poverty, bored housewife Dellarobia Turnbow, on the way to meet a potential lover, is detoured by a miraculous event on the Appalachian mountainside. It ignites a media and religious firestorm that changes her life forever.NPR Bestseller
