447 Best Books in Fiction
Winesburg, Ohio (with an Introduction by Ernest Boyd)
Sherwood Anderson
The very best books I’ve read so far this year: Winesburg, Ohio; Vertical Motion; Harvey; Wicked. Which is really saying something because I’ve read some extraordinary books this year! https://t.co/w74NfBIUAt
Vertical Motion
Canxue
Two young girls sneak into the grounds of a hospital where they find a disturbing moment of silence in a rose garden. A couple grows a plant that blooms underground, invisibly, to their neighbour's consternation. A cat worries about its sleepwalking owner, who recieves a mysterious visitor while he is aleep. After a ten year absence a young man visits his uncle on the 24th floor of a high rise floating in the air. Can Xue is a master of the dreamscape, crafting stories that inhabit the space where fantasy and reality meet.The very best books I’ve read so far this year: Winesburg, Ohio; Vertical Motion; Harvey; Wicked. Which is really saying something because I’ve read some extraordinary books this year! https://t.co/w74NfBIUAt
Wicked
Gregory Maguire
When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil? Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.The very best books I’ve read so far this year: Winesburg, Ohio; Vertical Motion; Harvey; Wicked. Which is really saying something because I’ve read some extraordinary books this year! https://t.co/w74NfBIUAt
The Luminaries
Eleanor Catton
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2013 It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky. The Luminaries is an extraordinary piece of fiction. It is full of narrative, linguistic and psychological pleasures, and has a fiendishly clever and original structuring device. Written in pitch-perfect historical register, richly evoking a mid-19th century world of shipping and banking and goldrush boom and bust, it is also a ghost story, and a gripping mystery. It is a thrilling achievement and will confirm for critics and readers that Catton is one of the brightest stars in the international writing firmament.@FreeRangeKids Read “The Luminaries” over the break! It’s so fun
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro
An English butler reflects--sometimes bitterly, sometimes humorously--on his service to a lord between the two world wars and discovers doubts about his master's character and about the ultimate value of his own service to humanityNo #BetweenTheCovers on @BBCTwo tonight cos of #ENGWAL footie (here I am having a kick about in studio) so plenty of time to get stuck into next week’s book picks - The Night Ship by @JessKiddHerself and The Remains of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (past eps on @BBCiPlayer too) https://t.co/Uge08egvEy
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin
Let the games begin! From the New York Times best-selling author of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry--a glorious and immersive novel about two childhood friends, once estranged, who reunite as adults to create video games, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives. On a bitter cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: A legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. They borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo: a game where players can escape the confines of a body and the betrayals of a heart, and where death means nothing more than a chance to restart and play again. This is the story of the perfect worlds Sam and Sadie build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy. Spanning over thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, games as artform, technology and the human experience, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.@zoelle @alex @abracarioca OMG YES * tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow https://t.co/I95baWqTVx * lessons in chemistry https://t.co/TaPmZlR2EF * an immense world https://t.co/jWJWWIAUwu
Children of Time
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Adrian Tchaikovksy's award-winning novel Children of Time, is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?span@alex Children of Time, Children of Ruin, and a forthcoming book in that same series. Incredible stories and really great audiobooks.
The Cabinet
Un-su Kim
Book 24 Lesson: We’d be astounded to know all the boobytraps of misfortune lain near our paths in life. https://t.co/WwVxS9wTqx
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
Becky Chambers
@jessamyn I loved this book. But, really, I love everything from Becky Chambers. My one complaint is that the books aren’t long _enough_. I always want more.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin
Let the games begin! From the New York Times best-selling author of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry--a glorious and immersive novel about two childhood friends, once estranged, who reunite as adults to create video games, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives. On a bitter cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: A legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. They borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo: a game where players can escape the confines of a body and the betrayals of a heart, and where death means nothing more than a chance to restart and play again. This is the story of the perfect worlds Sam and Sadie build, the imperfect world they live in, and of everything that comes after success: Money. Fame. Duplicity. Tragedy. Spanning over thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, games as artform, technology and the human experience, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.best book i’ve read in a while https://t.co/Hyodtm2tYW
Shogun
James Clavell
After John Blackthorne shipwrecks in Japan, he makes himself useful to a feudal lord in a power struggle with another and becomes a samurai.@Parth500d @apurvahendi Superb book
The Night She Disappeared
Lisa Jewell
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes “her best thriller yet” (Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author) about a young couple’s disappearance on a gorgeous summer night, and the mother who will never give up trying to find them. On a beautiful summer night in a charming English suburb, a young woman and her boyfriend disappear after partying at the massive country estate of a new college friend. One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate. Known locally as the Dark Place, the dense forest is the writer’s favorite place for long walks and it’s on one such walk that she stumbles upon a mysterious note that simply reads, “DIG HERE.” Could this be a clue towards what has happened to the missing young couple? And what exactly is buried in this haunted ground? “Utterly gripping with richly drawn, hugely compelling characters, this is a first-class thriller with heart” (Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author) that will keep you on the edge of your seat.@datingdecisions The Night She Disappeared: twisty, couldn't put it down. Overall a great book. https://t.co/HRm7wJDkmR
The Long Ships (New York Review Books Classics)
Frans G. Bengtsson
A beloved Viking saga and masterpiece of historical fiction, The Long Ships is a high spirited adventure that stretches from Scandinavia to Spain, England, Ireland, and beyond. Frans Gunnar Bengtsson’s The Long Ships resurrects the fantastic world of the tenth century AD when the Vikings roamed and rampaged from the northern fastnesses of Scandinavia down to the Mediterranean. Bengtsson’s hero, Red Orm—canny, courageous, and above all lucky—is only a boy when he is abducted from his Danish home by the Vikings and made to take his place at the oars of their dragon-prowed ships. Orm is then captured by the Moors in Spain, where he is initiated into the pleasures of the senses and fights for the Caliph of Cordova. Escaping from captivity, Orm washes up in Ireland, where he marvels at those epicene creatures, the Christian monks, and from which he then moves on to play an ever more important part in the intrigues of the various Scandinavian kings and clans and dependencies. Eventually, Orm contributes to the Viking defeat of the army of the king of England and returns home an off-the-cuff Christian and a very rich man, though back on his native turf new trials and tribulations will test his cunning and determination. Packed with pitched battles and blood feuds and told throughout with wit and high spirits, Bengtsson’s book is a splendid adventure that features one of the most unexpectedly winning heroes in modern fiction.Book 16 Lesson: A man needs silver before he can go in search of gold. https://t.co/gHHGZDCiNy
The Heart's Invisible Furies
John Boyne
Named Book of the Month Club's Book of the Year, 2017 Selected one of New York Times Readers’ Favorite Books of 2017 Winner of the 2018 Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award From the beloved New York Times bestselling author of The Boy In the Striped Pajamas, a sweeping, heartfelt saga about the course of one man's life, beginning and ending in post-war Ireland Cyril Avery is not a real Avery -- or at least, that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from - and over his many years, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country, and much more. In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.Permutation City
Greg Egan
What happens when your digital self overpowers your physical self? A life in Permutation City is unlike any life to which you’re accustomed. You have Eternal Life, the power to live forever. Immortality is a real thing, just not the thing you’d expect. Life is just electronic code. You have been digitized, scanned, and downloaded into a virtual reality program. A Copy of a Copy. For Paul Durham, he keeps making Copies of himself, but the issue is that his Copies keep changing their minds and shutting themselves down. You also have Maria Deluca, who is nothing but an Autoverse addict. She spends every waking minute with the cellular automaton known as the Autoverse, a world that lives by the mathematical “laws of physics.” Paul makes Maria an offer to design and drop a seed into the Autoverse that will allow her to indulge in her obsession. There is, however, one catch: you can no longer terminate, bail out, and remove yourself. You will never be your normal flesh-and-blood life again. The question then becomes: Is this what she really wants? Is this what we really want? From the brilliant mind of Greg Egan, Permutation City, first published in 1994, comes a world of wonder that makes you ask if you are you, or is the Copy of you the real you? Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.Book 15 Lesson: Our explanations for how the world works affect us as much as or more than the actual forces of reality. https://t.co/sEDSR3ri1n
Diaspora
Greg Egan
Book 13 Lesson: We’re nowhere near the limits of problem solving power to be gained from new explanatory knowledge. https://t.co/XXs8fR2jp3
I, Robot
Isaac Asimov
The classic collection of Robot Stories from the master of the genre. Earth is ruled by master-machines but the Three Laws of Robotics have been designed to ensure humans maintain the upper hand: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or allow a human being to come to harm. 2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict withe the First or Second Law. But what happens when a robot's idea of what is good for society contravenes the Three Laws?Childhood sci fi books that most influenced me - 2001 - Jurassic Park - Sphere - Rendezvous with Rama ( and several Clarke short stories) - Snowcrash - I, Robot
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson
The “brilliantly realized” (The New York Times Book Review) modern classic that coined the term “metaverse”—one of Time’s 100 best English-language novels and “a foundational text of the cyberpunk movement” (Wired) In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that’s striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse. Snow Crash is a mind-altering romp through a future America so bizarre, so outrageous . . . you’ll recognize it immediately.Childhood sci fi books that most influenced me - 2001 - Jurassic Park - Sphere - Rendezvous with Rama ( and several Clarke short stories) - Snowcrash - I, Robot
Ishmael
Daniel Quinn
An award-winning, compelling novel of spiritual adventure about a gorilla named Ishmael, who possesses immense wisdom, and the man who becomes his pupil, offers answers to the world's most pressing moral dilemmas. Reprint.@TylerAlterman The Jungle by Sinclair probably counts (food regulation movement) Siddhartha by Hesse seems to have maybe kicked off western Buddhism to me? Ishmael by Quinn is the foundation book for a lot of modern leftist/anarchists
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept
Elizabeth Smart
A classic work of poetic prose recounts the author's love affair with the poet George BarkerThis book is so disturbing (and beautiful) - By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept https://t.co/Ab1EvXWNLh
The Neapolitan Novels Boxed Set
Elena Ferrante
In one volume, the New York Times-bestselling epic about hardship and female friendship in postwar Naples that has sold over five million copies. Beginning with My Brilliant Friend, the four Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante follow Elena and Lila, from their rough-edged upbringing in Naples, Italy, not long after WWII, through the many stages of their lives--and along paths that diverge wildly. Sometimes they are separated by jealousy or hostility or physical distance, but the bond between them is unbreakable, for better or for worse. This volume includes all four novels: My Brilliant Friend; The Story of a New Name; Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay; and The Story of the Lost Child. "Imagine if Jane Austen got angry and you'll have some idea of how explosive these works are." --The Australian "Nothing you read about Elena Ferrante's work prepares you for the ferocity of it." --The New York Times "An enduring masterpiece." --The AtlanticMy least controversial opinion is that I loved The Neapolitan Quartet and spent the reading of the last 1.5 books loudly sobbing in the middle of my living room. https://t.co/vtIG0DOibh
The Revelations
Erik Hoel
An edgy and ambitious debut by a powerful new voice in contemporary literary fiction Monday, Kierk wakes up. Once a rising star in neuroscience, Kierk Suren is now homeless, broken by his all-consuming quest to find a scientific theory of consciousness. But when he's offered a spot in a prestigious postdoctoral program, he decides to rejoin society and vows not to self-destruct again. Instead of focusing on his work, however, Kierk becomes obsessed with another project--investigating the sudden and suspicious death of a colleague. As his search for truth brings him closer to Carmen Green, another postdoc, their list of suspects grows, along with the sense that something sinister may be happening all around them. The Revelations, not unlike its main character, is ambitious and abrasive, challenging and disarming. Bursting with ideas, ranging from Greek mythology to the dark realities of animal testing, to some of the biggest unanswered questions facing scientists today, The Revelations is written in muscular, hypnotic prose, and its cyclically dreamlike structure pushes the boundaries of literary fiction. Erik Hoel has crafted a stunning debut of rare power--an intense look at cutting-edge science, consciousness, and human connection.This book - an incredible journey into the human mind through crime mystery and all that in what feels like a road movie structure featuring brain scientists!! Warmly recommending it: https://t.co/rTC7mfAviu
The Name of the Wind
Patrick Rothfuss
A hero named Kvothe, now living under an assumed name as the humble proprietor of an inn, recounts his transformation from a magically gifted young man into the most notorious wizard, musician, thief, and assassin in his world. Reprint.@patrick_oshag The Name of the Wind, though the final book hasn't come out yet
Termination Shock
Neal Stephenson
New York Times Bestseller From Neal Stephenson—who coined the term “metaverse” in his 1992 novel Snow Crash—comes a sweeping, prescient new thriller that transports readers to a near-future world in which the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics. “Stephenson is one of speculative fiction’s most meticulous architects. . . . Termination Shock manages to pull off a rare trick, at once wildly imaginative and grounded.” — New York Times Book Review One man—visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D.—has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied? Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock brings together a disparate group of characters from different cultures and continents who grapple with the real-life repercussions of global warming. Ultimately, it asks the question: Might the cure be worse than the disease? Epic in scope while heartbreakingly human in perspective, Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.Simultaneously reading Termination Shock and Ministry for the Future because why terrify myself with only one book at a time?
The Poppy War
R. F. Kuang
A Library Journal Best Books of 2018 pick! Washington Post "5 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel of 2018" pick! A Bustle "30 Best Fiction Books of 2018" pick! “I have no doubt this will end up being the best fantasy debut of the year [...] I have absolutely no doubt that [Kuang’s] name will be up there with the likes of Robin Hobb and N.K. Jemisin.” -- Booknest A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic, in the tradition of Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings and N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy. When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising. But surprises aren’t always good. Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school. For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . . Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.Alternating between reading Poppy Wars and Jasmine Wars. So much fun this way.
Lessons in Chemistry
Bonnie Garmus
Meet 2022's most incomparable protagonist! This blockbuster debut set in 1960s California features the singular voice of Elizabeth Zott, a scientist whose career takes a detour when she becomes the star of a beloved TV cooking show. "It's the world versus Elizabeth Zott, an extraordinary woman determined to live on her own terms, and I had no trouble choosing a side...A page-turning and highly satisfying tale: zippy, zesty, and Zotty." --Maggie Shipstead, best-selling author of Great Circle Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with--of all things--her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking ("combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride") proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the status quo. Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.This is the single most joyfully brilliant novel I’ve read in a while. I’d happily binge on an entire series of books featuring Elizabeth and Madeline Zott https://t.co/Q56qbncrPf
The Way of Kings
Brandon Sanderson
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, Book One of the Stormlight Archive begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion. Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter. It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them. One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable. Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity. Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war. The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making. Speak again the ancient oaths: Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before Destination. and return to men the Shards they once bore. The Knights Radiant must stand again. Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson The Cosmere The Stormlight Archive The Way of Kings Words of Radiance Edgedancer (Novella) Oathbringer The Mistborn trilogy Mistborn: The Final Empire The Well of Ascension The Hero of Ages Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne series Alloy of Law Shadows of Self Bands of Mourning Collection Arcanum Unbounded Other Cosmere novels Elantris Warbreaker The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians The Scrivener's Bones The Knights of Crystallia The Shattered Lens The Dark Talent The Rithmatist series The Rithmatist Other books by Brandon Sanderson The Reckoners Steelheart Firefight Calamity@tommycollison https://t.co/SLParG1ovL
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Haruki Murakami
A clerk in a Tokyo of the near future works in an organization that controls the flow of information to society--employing electronic brainwashing and other insidious techniques--a job that contributes to his increasing sense of dehumanizationNew pickup https://t.co/vJZ4Uhurio
The Immortalists
Chloe Benjamin
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, Marie Claire, New York Public Library, LibraryReads, The Skimm, Lit Hub, Lit Reactor AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A captivating family saga."--The New York Times Book Review "This literary family saga is perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Donna Tartt."--People Magazine (Book of the Week) If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children--four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness--sneak out to hear their fortunes. The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel struggles to maintain security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality. Both a dazzling family love story and a sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.last two books both page turners the immortalists: gorgeous family saga with searching questions about fate and prophecy red notice: true story about finance & holy shit russian corruption (yes reading by the pool was considerably more luxurious than on redeye in economy…) https://t.co/WSP5tIDGZz
The Evening Hero
Marie Myung-Ok Lee
A sweeping, lyrical novel following a Korean immigrant pursuing the American dream who must confront the secrets of the past or risk watching the world he’s worked so hard to build come crumbling down. Dr. Yungman Kwak is in the twilight of his life. Every day for the last fifty years, he has brushed his teeth, slipped on his shoes, and headed to Horse Breath’s General Hospital, where, as an obstetrician, he treats the women and babies of the small rural Minnesota town he chose to call home. This was the life he longed for. The so-called American dream. He immigrated from Korea after the Korean War, forced to leave his family, ancestors, village, and all that he knew behind. But his life is built on a lie. And one day, a letter arrives that threatens to expose it. Yungman’s life is thrown into chaos—the hospital abruptly closes, his wife refuses to spend time with him, and his son is busy investing in a struggling health start-up. Yungman faces a choice—he must choose to hide his secret from his family and friends or confess and potentially lose all he’s built. He begins to question the very assumptions on which his life is built—the so-called American dream, with the abject failure of its healthcare system, patient and neighbors who perpetuate racism, a town flawed with infrastructure, and a history that doesn’t see him in it. Toggling between the past and the present, Korea and America, Evening Hero is a sweeping, moving, darkly comic novel about a man looking back at his life and asking big questions about what is lost and what is gained when immigrants leave home for new shores.Some stunning book mail today from @mariemyungoklee and @erikalsanchez!! I’ll be in public convo with both authors about their books… Stay tuned! https://t.co/TF7lF86Iiu
LORDS OF THE DECCAN
Anirudh Kanisetti
This is one of the most unputdownable history books you will ever read. Amaklamatic storytelling by @AKanisetti https://t.co/w0DV8cPrlP
Thus Spake Bellavista
Luciano De Crescenzo
In his hillside villa overlooking the Bay of Naples, Professor Bellavista reflects on everyday life in Naples, love, liberty and the state of the world with a group of unemployed student philosophers@jack I remember reading Ishmael in highschool...thought provoking and fun book. If you like Ishamael, I recommend Thus Spake Bellavista. Really fun.
Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos)
Dan Simmons
A pilgrimage to the realm of the Shrike, a part-god/part-killing machine, provides the travellers the forum to tell their incredible storiesTHIS BOOK https://t.co/lp7NR5OQMs
If Beale Street Could Talk
James Baldwin
When a pregnant Tish's boyfriend Fonny, a sculptor, is wrongfully jailed for the rape of a Puerto Rican woman, their families unite to prove the charge false. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.Keya Das's Second Act
Sopan Deb
A poignant, heartwarming, and charmingly funny debut novel about how a discovered box in the attic leads one Bengali American family down a path toward understanding the importance of family, even when splintered. Shantanu Das is living in the shadows of his past. In his fifties, he finds himself isolated from his traditional Bengali community after a devastating divorce from his wife, Chaitali; he hasn’t spoken to his eldest daughter Mitali in months; and most painfully, he lives each day with the regret that he didn’t accept his teenaged daughter Keya after she came out as gay. As the anniversary of Keya’s death approaches, Shantanu wakes up one morning utterly alone in his suburban New Jersey home and realizes it’s finally time to move on. This is when Shantanu discovers a tucked-away box in the attic that could change everything. He calls Mitali and pleads with her to come home. She does so out of pity, not realizing that her life is about to shift. Inside the box is an unfinished manuscript that Keya and her girlfriend were writing. It’s a surprising discovery that brings Keya to life briefly. But Neesh Desai, a new love interest for Mitali with regrets of his own, comes up with a wild idea, one that would give Keya more permanence: what if they are to stage the play? It could be an homage to Keya’s memory, and a way to make amends. But first, the Dases need to convince Pamela Moore, Keya’s girlfriend, to give her blessing. And they have to overcome ghosts from the past they haven’t met yet. A story of redemption and righting the wrongs of the past, Keya Das’s Second Act is a warmly drawn homage to family, creativity, and second chances. Set in the vibrant world of Bengalis in the New Jersey suburbs, this debut novel is both poignant and, at times, a surprising hilarious testament to the unexpected ways we build family and find love, old and new.“Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro was one of my favorite books of last year and you can pre order the paperback here: https://t.co/LqtYEcmdZi
Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro
"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Klara and the Sun, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?"--“Klara and the Sun” by Kazuo Ishiguro was one of my favorite books of last year and you can pre order the paperback here: https://t.co/LqtYEcmdZi
This Time Tomorrow
Emma Straub
The New York Times–bestselling author of The Vacationers and All Adults Here combines her trademark charm and wit with a moving father-daughter story and a playful twist on the idea of time travel What if you could take a vacation to your past? On the eve of her fortieth birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, and her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But something is missing. Her father, the single parent who raised her, is ailing and out of reach. How did they get here so fast? Did she take too much for granted along the way? When Alice wakes up the next morning somehow back in 1996, it isn’t her sixteen-year-old body that is the biggest shock, or the possibility of romance with her adolescent crush. It’s her dad: the vital, charming, forty-nine-year-old version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, is there anything that she should do differently this time around? What would she change, given the chance? With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, Emma Straub cleverly turns all the traditional time travel tropes on their head and delivers a different kind of love story—about the lifelong, reverberating relationship between a parent and child.“This Time Tomorrow” by @emmastraub is one of my favorite time travel books and it surprised me and made me smile at every twist and turn: https://t.co/HXGt1eUXL5
Lost Children Archive
Valeria Luiselli
"A novel about a family of four, on the cusp of fracture, who take a trip across America--a story told through varying points of view, and including archival documents and photographs"--@Jay_Pitter @tchu88 this reminds me of the characters in lost children archive whose job it is to document sounds in nyc, including all the different languages spoken https://t.co/5lHynqTbp8
The Great Believers
Rebecca Makkai
For another instance! BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN by @Ginafrangello, the book absolutely everyone has been talking about, so you need to read it to have an opinion. My opinion (that this book is brilliant) is right there on the cover. 5/ https://t.co/8yyeAhIMpX
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
Huxley's classic prophetic novel describes the socialized horrors of a futuristic utopia devoid of individual freedom.Sources and book recommendations: ∙ "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman ∙ "Brave New World, Revisited" by Aldous Huxley ∙ "McLuhan Misunderstood" by Robert Logan ∙ "Human as Media" by Andrey Miroshnichenko https://t.co/2eckjND2qF
The Game of Kings
Dorothy Dunnett
@emdashry @Ada_Palmer I do wish somebody would create a companion to @Ada_Palmer like the Dorothy Dunnett companion. The books are so erudite, with such deep backlinks that you could spend weeks researching to understand them more deeply. Speaking of @DunnettCentral, start with The Game of Kings!
Too Like the Lightning
Ada Palmer
Mycroft Canner is a convict. For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer--a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away. The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labelling all public writing and speech. What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations. And most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competion is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell. To them, it seems like normal life. And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destablize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life...@emdashry The science fiction that stretched my head the most in the past couple of years is @Ada_Palmer's four book Terra Ignota series starting with Too Like the Lightning. Her historical essays collected on her Ex Urbe blog are also amazing and will give an on ramp to how she thinks
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being.” A major achievement from one of the world’s truly great writers, Milan Kundera’s magnificent novel of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.@xaelophone @itunpredictable The only way to describe it - not necessarily the best book, but the perfect book
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Philip K. Dick
Palmer Eldritch returns from the edge of the universe with a drug called Chew-D for the colonists of Mars who are under threat of god-like or satanic psychics that threaten to wage war against the human soul.@tjradcliffe Great books. The Three Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, or really anything by Dick.
Harlem Shuffle
Whitehead Colson
'Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...'To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture, making a life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home.Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his fa ade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger and bigger all the time.See, cash is tight, especially with all those instalment plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace at the furniture store, Ray doesn't see the need to ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweller downtown who also doesn't ask questions. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa - the 'Waldorf of Harlem' - and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do, after all. Now Ray has to cater to a new clientele, one made up of shady cops on the take, vicious minions of the local crime lord, and numerous other Harlem lowlifes.Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he starts to see the truth about who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?HARLEM SHUFFLE is driven by an ingeniously intricate plot that plays out in a beautifully recreated Harlem of the early 1960s. It's a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.@thauburger The new Colson Whitehead book, Harlem Shuffle, was great. Also enjoyed Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun. A few passages from that still makes me smile when I think about any of my devices desperately needing a charge.
This Time Tomorrow
Emma Straub
The New York Times–bestselling author of The Vacationers and All Adults Here combines her trademark charm and wit with a moving father-daughter story and a playful twist on the idea of time travel What if you could take a vacation to your past? On the eve of her fortieth birthday, Alice’s life isn’t terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn’t exactly the one she expected. She’s happy with her apartment, her romantic status, and her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But something is missing. Her father, the single parent who raised her, is ailing and out of reach. How did they get here so fast? Did she take too much for granted along the way? When Alice wakes up the next morning somehow back in 1996, it isn’t her sixteen-year-old body that is the biggest shock, or the possibility of romance with her adolescent crush. It’s her dad: the vital, charming, forty-nine-year-old version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, is there anything that she should do differently this time around? What would she change, given the chance? With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, Emma Straub cleverly turns all the traditional time travel tropes on their head and delivers a different kind of love story—about the lifelong, reverberating relationship between a parent and child.This book is absolutely wonderful: https://t.co/NL08HkiZKz
The Keep
Jennifer Egan
Two decades after taking part in a childhood prank with devastating consequences, two cousins are reunited at a remote medieval castle in Eastern Europe, where they are cut off from the outside world and doomed to reenact the horrific event from their past.@santisugi @temim It's a masterpiece, and (IMO) by far her best book!
Anxious People
Fredrik Backman
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller A People Book of the Week, Book of the Month Club selection, and Best of Fall in Good Housekeeping, PopSugar, The Washington Post, New York Post, Shondaland, CNN, and more! “[A] quirky, big-hearted novel…Wry, wise, and often laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a wholly original story that delivers pure pleasure.” —People From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove comes a charming, poignant novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined. Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world. Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next. Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious times.Gonna read this because of the wonderful @MarielRosic 😊✨ https://t.co/iUFlkUS9FA
Children of Dune
Frank Herbert
Book Three in the Magnificent Dune Chronicles--the Bestselling Science Fiction Adventure of All Time The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, disappeared in the desert wastelands of Arrakis nine years ago. Like their father, the twins possess supernormal abilities--making them valuable to their manipulative aunt Alia, who rules the Empire in the name of House Atreides. Facing treason and rebellion on two fronts, Alia's rule is not absolute. The displaced House Corrino is plotting to regain the throne while the fanatical Fremen are being provoked into open revolt by the enigmatic figure known only as The Preacher. Alia believes that by obtaining the secrets of the twins' prophetic visions, she can maintain control over her dynasty. But Leto and Ghanima have their own plans for their visions--and their destinies....Book 28 Lesson: It is only in times of great change that we see that the living can escape the tracks their ancestors created for them, that all is permitted, all is possible. https://t.co/Nbun09YbPZ
The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov
Presents a satirical drama about Satan's visit to Moscow, where he learns that the citizens no longer believe in God. He decides to teach them a lesson by perpetrating a series of horrific tricks. Combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem.@onuryuruten Fun books. I know I recommended it elsewhere, but The Master and Margarita. Alternatively…The Stand, by Stephen King.
Shogun
James Clavell
After John Blackthorne shipwrecks in Japan, he makes himself useful to a feudal lord in a power struggle with another and becomes a samurai.@tarkanlar All excellent, but very broad...I'm just going to go with one of my favorite books. I recommend Shogun. Totally different from everything you listed but I think you'll enjoy it.
The Last of the Wine
Mary Renault
Two young Athenians, Alexias and Lysis compete in the palaestra, take part in the Olympic games, fight in the wars against Sparta, and grow to manhood influenced by the friendship of Alkibiades and the wise guidance of Socrates. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.Reading this next, based on recommendation by the great @bsgallagher: https://t.co/qEZRw5TJgZ
Swan’s Way
Marcel Proust
Begun in 1909, finished just before Proust's death in 1922, many of the novel's ideas, motifs, and scenes appear in adumbrated form in Proust's unfinished novel, Jean Santeuil, and in his unfinished hybrid of philosophical essay and story, Contre Sainte-Beuve. His novel has had a pervasive influence on twentieth-century literature, Proust explores the themes of time, space, and memory, but the novel is above all a condensation of innumerable literary, structural, stylistic, and thematic possibilities.Speaking of illustrated books, this edition of Swann’s Way is pure magic: https://t.co/C1wFdntZKT
Shogun
James Clavell
"Here is the world-famous novel of Japan that is the earliest book in James Clavell’s masterly Asian saga. Set in the year 1600, it tells the story of a bold English pilot whose ship was blown ashore in Japan, where he encountered two people who were to change his life: a warlord with his own quest for power, and a beautiful interpreter torn between two ways of life and two ways of love"--Amazon.com.@michaelcurzi Other books you may enjoy that give some of the same strategic maneuvering fun: Shogun by Clavell, the Vorkosigan Saga by Bujold, The Collapsing Empire by Scalzi, The Darkness That Comes Before by Bakker (warning: DARK), Belisarius series by Flint, Furies of Calderon by Butcher.
The Days of Afrekete
Asali Solomon
Inspired by Mrs. Dalloway and Sula, The Days of Afrekete is a tender, surprising novel of two women at midlife who rediscover themselves—and perhaps each other. Liselle Belmont is having a dinner party. It seems a strange occasion—her husband, Winn, has lost his bid for the state legislature and they're having the key supporters over to thank them for their work. Liselle was never sure about Winn becoming a politician, never sure about the limelight, about the life of fundraising and stump speeches. Now that it's over she is facing new questions: Who are they to each other, after all this? How much of herself has she lost on the way—and was it worth it? Just before the night begins, she hears from an FBI agent, who claims that Winn is corrupt. Is it possible? How will she make it through this dinner party? Across town, Selena is making her way through the same day, the same way she always does—one foot in front of the other, keeping quiet and focused, trying not to see the terrors all around her. Homelessness, starving children, the very living horrors of history that made America possible: these and other thoughts have made it difficult for her to live a normal life. The only time she was ever really happy was with Liselle back in college. But they've lost touch, so much so that when they run into each other at a drugstore just after Obama is elected president, they barely speak. But as the day wears on, Selena's memories of Liselle begin to shift her path. Asali Solomon's The Days of Afrekete is a deft, expertly layered, naturally funny, and deeply human examination of two women coming back to themselves at midlife. It is a celebration of our choices and where they take us, the people who change us, and how we can reimagine ourselves even when our lives seem set.This is in an hour! Asali Solomon's new book is brilliant and compulsively readable. Join us to get a preview (no spoilers) or, if you've already raced through it, to think more on the brilliance you've just read. https://t.co/eMj5eA0bie
Aurora
Kim Stanley Robinson
From one of science fiction's most powerful voices, Aurora tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer at the height of his powers. Our voyage from Earth began generations ago. Now, we approach our new home. AURORA. For more from Kim Stanley Robinson, check out: 2312ShamanNew York 2140@ku1deep @baboonzero Hahaha was going to say "and people living for years in closed loop ecosystems too" and then dropped it. This book blew my mind.
Schild's Ladder
Greg Egan
When the laws of physics are suddenly called into question, a whole new potential for life and death is brought to the entire universe. For twenty thousand years, every phenomenon that has ever been observed in the universe has been explainable through the means of the Sarumpaet Rules. These rules are the essential laws of quantum graphs that explain the makeup of the geometric structure of space-time. Cass, a humanoid physicist from Earth, discovers that the Sarumpaet Rules may not be the only applicable set of the laws of physics in the universe. Cass travels to a remote experimental facility in hopes to test her theory—that the “novo-vacuum” will begin to decay the moment it is created. Cass’s theory proves greater than she’d anticipated, and the “novo-vacuum” begins to expand out from the research facility at half the speed of light. More than six hundred years pass, and at least two thousand inhabited systems have been consumed by the “novo-vacuum.” Those fascinated by the phenomenon choose to study it under two differing categories: Preservationists and Yielders. Preservationists are forever hypothesizing on how to destroy the vacuum; Yielders believe it holds a purpose in reinvigorating civilization. Tchicaya is a Yielder and Mariama is a Preservationist. These childhood friends will put their beliefs and their history to the test when violence breaks out among the two groups. Tchicaya must form an alliance with Mariama so that she can help them both escape the violence and confront the fate of the universe before it is too late. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.@ZaalimManjha I haven't read all of Egan, but Schild's Ladder is the most cheerful of those I've read. Permutation City and Quarantine were great also but... depressing.
Malibu Rising
Taylor Jenkins Reid
"Set against the backdrop of the Malibu surf culture of the 1980s [this book] follows the daughter of a famous singer who, once she finds fame, must grapple with the fact that her father abandoned her and her siblings when they were young"--in the last three weeks, i have read three taylor jenkins reid books: malibu rising, daisy jones and the six, the seven husbands of evelyn hugo… just making my way backwards through her greatest hits. excellent beach read books even if you aren’t beaching 🏖
Daisy Jones & the Six
Taylor Jenkins Reid
in the last three weeks, i have read three taylor jenkins reid books: malibu rising, daisy jones and the six, the seven husbands of evelyn hugo… just making my way backwards through her greatest hits. excellent beach read books even if you aren’t beaching 🏖
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid
“Riveting, heart-wrenching, and full of Old Hollywood glamour, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is one of the most captivating reads of 2017.” —BuzzFeed “The epic adventures Evelyn creates over the course of a lifetime will leave every reader mesmerized. This wildly addictive journey of a reclusive Hollywood starlet and her tumultuous Tinseltown journey comes with unexpected twists and the most satisfying of drama.” —PopSugar From the author of Daisy Jones & The Six—an entrancing novel “that speaks to the Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor in us all” (Kirkus Reviews), in which a legendary film actress reflects on her relentless rise to the top and the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine. Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now? Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career. Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways. “Heartbreaking, yet beautiful” (Jamie Blynn, Us Weekly), The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is “Tinseltown drama at its finest” (Redbook): a mesmerizing journey through the splendor of old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means—and what it costs—to face the truth.in the last three weeks, i have read three taylor jenkins reid books: malibu rising, daisy jones and the six, the seven husbands of evelyn hugo… just making my way backwards through her greatest hits. excellent beach read books even if you aren’t beaching 🏖
Blood of Elves (The Witcher, 1)
Andrzej Sapkowski
Soon to be a major Netflix original series! The Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, becomes the guardian of Ciri, surviving heiress of a bloody revolution and prophesied savior of the world, in the first novel of the New York Times bestselling series that inspired the Netflix series and the blockbuster video games. For over a century, humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves have lived together in relative peace. But times have changed, the uneasy peace is over, and now the races are fighting once again. The only good elf, it seems, is a dead elf. Geralt of Rivia, the cunning assassin known as the Witcher, has been waiting for the birth of a prophesied child. This child has the power to change the world -- for good, or for evil. As the threat of war hangs over the land and the child is hunted for her extraordinary powers, it will become Geralt's responsibility to protect them all. And the Witcher never accepts defeat. Witcher novelsBlood of ElvesThe Time of ContemptBaptism of FireThe Tower of SwallowsLady of the LakeSeason of Storms Witcher collectionsThe Last WishSword of Destiny The Malady and Other Stories: An Andrzej Sapkowski Sampler (e-only) Translated from original Polish by Danusia Stok.Book 24 Lesson: Those whose goal is war have never been held back by experience or analogy https://t.co/EoxNITy9vd
People We Meet on Vacation
Emily Henry
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read, a sparkling new novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations. Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She's a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart--she's in New York City, and he's in their small hometown--but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together. Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven't spoken since. Poppy has everything she should want, but she's stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together--lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees. Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?"--@myfriendjanine Torn between People We Meet on Vacation and Malibu Rising for my favorite book so far this year! Both perfect for summer.
Malibu Rising
Taylor Jenkins Reid
"Set against the backdrop of the Malibu surf culture of the 1980s [this book] follows the daughter of a famous singer who, once she finds fame, must grapple with the fact that her father abandoned her and her siblings when they were young"--@myfriendjanine Torn between People We Meet on Vacation and Malibu Rising for my favorite book so far this year! Both perfect for summer.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being.” A major achievement from one of the world’s truly great writers, Milan Kundera’s magnificent novel of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.@alex A Little Life (phenomenal book you’ll never want to read again), Dune, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (the book I describe to everyone as the •perfect• book)
A Fraction of the Whole
Steve Toltz
After his father's death, Jasper reflects on Martin Dean, the man who had raised him in intellectual captivity and spent his entire life analyzing absolutely everything, and describes his unusual boyhood, colorful family members, father's failed battle to make a lasting impression on the world, and their many adventures together. A first novel. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.A friend asked me today for a fiction book suggestion. This was the first that came to mind. https://t.co/XjTScf1MfY
Piranesi
Susanna Clarke
From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. For readers of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.A uniquely strange book. I couldn’t put it down. Good fast read if you want a novel. https://t.co/bEu2Nvk5jF
Dune Messiah
Frank Herbert
Book Two in the Magnificent Dune Chronicles--the Bestselling Science Fiction Adventure of All Time Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known--and feared--as the man christened Muad'Dib. As Emperor of the known universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremen, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne--and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence. And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty...Book 21 Lesson: “Power deludes those who use it. One tends to believe power can overcome any barrier, including one’s own ignorance.” https://t.co/nDjFCQ2x6D
Great Circle
Maggie Shipstead
"Relentlessly exciting . . . My top recommendation for this summer." --Ron Charles, The Washington Post INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK - The unforgettable story of a daredevil female aviator determined to chart her own course in life, at any cost--Great Circle "soars and dips with dizzying flair ... an expansive story that covers more than a century and seems to encapsulate the whole wide world" (Boston Globe). "A masterpiece . . . One of the best books I've ever read." --J. Courtney Sullivan After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There--after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes--Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles. A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian's disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian's own story, as the two women's fates--and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times--collide. Epic and emotional, meticulously researched and gloriously told, Great Circle is a monumental work of art, and a tremendous leap forward for the prodigiously gifted Maggie Shipstead.@lscantron Wow! Have you read Maggie Shipstead's new book?
Neuromancer
William Gibson
Case, a burned out computer whiz, is asked to steal a security code that is locked in the most heavily guarded databank in the solar systemOne off my bucket list. Happy to join the #foundation and #isaacasimov cult. What a romp. #sciencefiction @sfwa @kyliu99 @TheHugoAwards @marthawells1 #scifi https://t.co/8BbR9fFgG1
The Lincoln Lawyer (A Lincoln Lawyer Novel, 1)
Michael Connelly
This #1 bestselling legal thriller from Michael Connelly is a stunning display of novelistic mastery - as human, as gripping, and as whiplash-surprising as any novel yet from the writer Publishers Weekly has called "today's Dostoevsky of crime literature." Mickey Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers - they're all on Mickey Haller's client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence, it's about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it's even about justice. A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney's dream, what they call a franchise case. And as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career. Then someone close to him is murdered and Haller discovers that his search for innocence has brought him face-to-face with evil as pure as a flame. To escape without being burned, he must deploy every tactic, feint, and instinct in his arsenal - this time to save his own life.Recent book notes: - I’d forgotten how excellent Frankenstein is. - Devoured the six Lincoln Lawyer detective series in four days last week. - God Spare the Girls, by @mckinneykelsey, is fantastic
Unquiet
Linn Ullmann
A heartbreaking and darkly funny portrait of the intricacies of family life, Unquiet is an elegy of memory and loss, identity and art, growing up and growing old.Good to remember that ‘Unquiet’ is one of the best books written in the past decade—unique, shattering and somehow the Hungarian translation is even better. Completely ruined my 2018 summer holiday in the best possible way. If you’re thinking about parents today, recommending it! https://t.co/TzVpQvpzSQ
2034
Elliot Ackerman
From two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic, geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034--and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration. On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris "Wedge" Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt's destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America's faith in its military's strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand. So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically out maneuvering America's most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and literary, human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters--Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians--as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power. Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors' years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.I started with this Wired excerpt and couldn’t put down the book. Great read of a future that seems far too possible and one that we certainly don’t want. https://t.co/9coMNvuhxK
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The only authorized edition of the twentieth-century classic, featuring F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted “gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession,” it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro
*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available to preorder* From the Nobel Prize-winning author of Never Let Me Go Winner of the Booker Prize ONE OF THE BBC'S '100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD' A contemporary classic, The Remains of the Day is Kazuo Ishiguro's beautiful and haunting evocation of life between the wars in a Great English House. In the summer of 1956, Stevens, the ageing butler of Darlington Hall, embarks on a leisurely holiday that will take him deep into the English countryside and into his past.@tommycollison Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day" is a book & movie I absolutely love. I've seen the movie of NLYG, but haven't read it.
Of Love and Other Demons (Vintage International)
Gabriel García Márquez
Sierva Maria, the neglected child of a rich plantation family, is locked in a convent because she is believed to be possessed by demons, and there she falls in love with the priest sent to exorcise her. Reprint.The foreword makes the book even more interesting. The journey of how a real life incident, an excavation, can churn within an authors’s mind and turn into a wonderful novel. Of Love And Other Demons is a true masterpiece #bookstoread #marquez https://t.co/w0DDYcDXEi
Children of Time
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Adrian Tchaikovksy's award-winning novel Children of Time, is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet. Who will inherit this new Earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?span@alex Plus 10. Loved these books
Midnights Borders
Suchitra Vijayan
This is a superb read, @suchitrav! https://t.co/RzqW3yX4vo
Recursion: A Novel
Blake Crouch
Investigating a suicide, New York City police officer Barry Sutton finds a connection to the outbreak of a memory-altering disease and a controversial neuroscientist working to preserve precious memories.@patrick_oshag I don’t read much fiction these days, but I enjoyed reading Recursion a couple of years ago https://t.co/aDmO3vm0mq
The Plot
Jean Hanff Korelitz
**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!** "Insanely readable." —Stephen King Hailed as "breathtakingly suspenseful," Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Plot is a propulsive read about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it. Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written—let alone published—anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot. Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that—a story that absolutely needs to be told. In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says. As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his “sure thing” of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?This book is a TOTAL page turner, and @jeanhanffkoreli is the best… Join us tonight!!! https://t.co/9AkPeXh4Tl
The Overstory
Richard Powers
A novel of activism and natural-world power presents interlocking fables about nine remarkable strangers who are summoned in different ways by trees for an ultimate, brutal stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.If you’re looking for a good book to read this summer, these are some of my favorites. https://t.co/e19FKzFFL1
Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant)
William Gibson
Hired to investigate a mysterious video collection that has been appearing on the Internet, market research consultant Cayce Pollard realizes that there is more to the assignment when her computer is hacked. Reprint.Let's not forget how good this book is! https://t.co/kLGnE6kRRZ
Waterland
Graham Swift
When his school decides to phase out history from the curriculum, a history teacher abandons his formal lessons to tell his students stories about his native Fen country of East Anglia and its inhabitantsBooks on tonight’s Between The Covers : Waterland by Graham Swift, Home Body by @rupikaur_ How To Be A Medieval Woman by Margery Kempe A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara & OUR PICKS: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell & The Last House on Needless Street by @Catrionaward #BetweenTheCovers https://t.co/RHQHoGzDPv
A Little Life
Hanya Yanagihara
Moving to New York to pursue creative ambitions, four former classmates share decades marked by love, loss, addiction and haunting elements from a brutal childhood. By the author of The People in the Trees.Books on tonight’s Between The Covers : Waterland by Graham Swift, Home Body by @rupikaur_ How To Be A Medieval Woman by Margery Kempe A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara & OUR PICKS: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell & The Last House on Needless Street by @Catrionaward #BetweenTheCovers https://t.co/RHQHoGzDPv
Hamnet
Maggie O'Farrell
WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED AN POST BOOK AWARDS IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times 'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART. On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week. Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker's son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.Books on tonight’s Between The Covers : Waterland by Graham Swift, Home Body by @rupikaur_ How To Be A Medieval Woman by Margery Kempe A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara & OUR PICKS: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell & The Last House on Needless Street by @Catrionaward #BetweenTheCovers https://t.co/RHQHoGzDPv
The Days of Abandonment
Elena Ferrante
When her husband Mario leaves her, Olga, left to care for two young children, enters a long period of self-doubt and pity, until she acknowledges the truth about her marriage.Oh wow this thing is perfect https://t.co/v3rLFzZ1MS
Day Zero
C. Robert Cargill
Very few books I pre-order. @Massawyrm's DAY ZERO is one of them https://t.co/UvcW6iclNA https://t.co/83iOFV8rET
Breasts and Eggs
Mieko Kawakami
The story of three women by a writer hailed by Haruki Murakami as Japan's most important contemporary novelist, WINNER OF THE AKUTAGAWA PRIZE. On a sweltering summer day, Makiko travels from Osaka to Tokyo, where her sister Natsu lives. She is in the company of her daughter, Midoriko, who has lately grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with adolescence. The story of these three women reunited in a working-class neighborhood of Tokyo is told through the gaze of Natsu--thirty years old, an aspiring writer, haunted by hardships endured in her youth. Over the course of their few days together in the capital, Midoriko's silence will prove a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and family secrets. On yet another blistering summer's day eight years later, Natsu, during a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless. One of Japan's most important and best-selling writers, Mieko Kawakami mixes stylistic inventiveness, wry humor, and riveting emotional depth to tell a story of contemporary womanhood in Japan. Breasts and Eggs recounts the intimate journeys of three women on the path to finding peace and futures they can call their own. "Original and deeply moving...This book is a gift."--Laura van den Berg A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR Vogue・Thrillist・The Millions・ Literary Hub・Now Toronto@karanortman i loved so many of those also!! great believers, writers and lovers, vanishing half, such a fun age. some of my recent favorites: breasts and eggs, rebecca, klara and the sun, silver sparrow, all systems red, if i had your face, piranesi, transcendent kingdom
Rebecca
Daphne Du Maurier
A classic novel of romantic suspense finds the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter entering the home of her mysterious and enigmatic new husband and learning the story of the house's first mistress, to whom the sinister housekeeper is unnaturally devoted. Reprint.@karanortman i loved so many of those also!! great believers, writers and lovers, vanishing half, such a fun age. some of my recent favorites: breasts and eggs, rebecca, klara and the sun, silver sparrow, all systems red, if i had your face, piranesi, transcendent kingdom
Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro
"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Klara and the Sun, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?"--@karanortman i loved so many of those also!! great believers, writers and lovers, vanishing half, such a fun age. some of my recent favorites: breasts and eggs, rebecca, klara and the sun, silver sparrow, all systems red, if i had your face, piranesi, transcendent kingdom
Silver Sparrow
Tayari Jones
From the New York Times Bestselling Author of An American Marriage “A love story . . . Full of perverse wisdom and proud joy . . . Jones’s skill for wry understatement never wavers.” —O: The Oprah Magazine “Silver Sparrow will break your heart before you even know it. Tayari Jones has written a novel filled with characters I’ll never forget. This is a book I’ll read more than once.” —Judy Blume With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist," author Tayari Jones unveils a breathtaking story about a man's deception, a family's complicity, and the two teenage girls caught in the middle. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon's two families—the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode. This is the third stunning novel from an author deemed "one of the most important writers of her generation" (the Atlanta Journal Constitution).@karanortman i loved so many of those also!! great believers, writers and lovers, vanishing half, such a fun age. some of my recent favorites: breasts and eggs, rebecca, klara and the sun, silver sparrow, all systems red, if i had your face, piranesi, transcendent kingdom
All Systems Red
Martha Wells
Now available in hardcover, All Systems Red is the first entry in Martha Wells' New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Alex and Nebula Award-winning science fiction series, The Murderbot Diaries. "As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure." In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid—a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth. The Murderbot Diaries #1 All Systems Red #2 Artificial Condition #3 Rogue Protocol #4 Exit Strategy@karanortman i loved so many of those also!! great believers, writers and lovers, vanishing half, such a fun age. some of my recent favorites: breasts and eggs, rebecca, klara and the sun, silver sparrow, all systems red, if i had your face, piranesi, transcendent kingdom
Piranesi
Susanna Clarke
From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. For readers of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.@karanortman i loved so many of those also!! great believers, writers and lovers, vanishing half, such a fun age. some of my recent favorites: breasts and eggs, rebecca, klara and the sun, silver sparrow, all systems red, if i had your face, piranesi, transcendent kingdom
Transcendent Kingdom
Yaa Gyasi
"A novel about faith, science, religion, and family that tells the deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief, narrated by a fifth year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford school of medicine studying the neural circuits of reward seeking behavior in mice"--@karanortman i loved so many of those also!! great believers, writers and lovers, vanishing half, such a fun age. some of my recent favorites: breasts and eggs, rebecca, klara and the sun, silver sparrow, all systems red, if i had your face, piranesi, transcendent kingdom
The Great Believers
Rebecca Makkai
@karanortman i loved so many of those also!! great believers, writers and lovers, vanishing half, such a fun age. some of my recent favorites: breasts and eggs, rebecca, klara and the sun, silver sparrow, all systems red, if i had your face, piranesi, transcendent kingdom
The Vanishing Half
Brit Bennett
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES * THE WASHINGTON POST * NPR * PEOPLE * TIME MAGAZINE* VANITY FAIR * GLAMOUR "Bennett's tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it's especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison's 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye." --Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal "A story of absolute, universal timelessness ...For any era, it's an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it's piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be...." - Entertainment Weekly From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect? Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins. As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.@karanortman i loved so many of those also!! great believers, writers and lovers, vanishing half, such a fun age. some of my recent favorites: breasts and eggs, rebecca, klara and the sun, silver sparrow, all systems red, if i had your face, piranesi, transcendent kingdom
Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro
"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Klara and the Sun, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?"--This book! ❤️ https://t.co/Orf4zo2jNC
City of Thieves
David Benioff
@_JeremyGoldberg @morganhousel @BullandBaird @jposhaughnessy Only audio book I ever did was City of Thieves, it was excellent.
Annihilation
Jeff VanderMeer
Describes the 12th expedition to “Area X,” a region cut off from the continent for decades, by a group of intrepid women scientists who try to ignore the high mortality rates of those on the previous 11 missions. Original. 75,000 first printing.Book 9 Lesson: Pretending often leads to becoming a reasonable facsimile of what you mimic, ever if only from a distance. https://t.co/a8Sf4BNRFd
Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries, 6)
Martha Wells
The New York Times bestselling security droid with a heart (though it wouldn't admit it!) is back! Having captured the hearts of readers across the globe (Annalee Newitz says it's "one of the most humane portraits of a nonhuman I've ever read") Murderbot has also established Martha Wells as one of the great SF writers of today. No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall. When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?) Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans! Again! A new standalone adventure in the New York Times-bestselling, Hugo and Nebula Award winning series!A new Murderbot book is out? Today?! https://t.co/fCFieIktbJ https://t.co/D8W1TOvwzW
A Place for Us
Fatima Farheen Mirza
?A Place for Us catches an Indian-Muslim family as they prepare for their eldest daughter's wedding. But as Hadia's marriage — one chosen of love, not tradition — gathers the family back together, there is only one thing on their minds : can Amar, the estranged younger brother of the bride, be trusted to behave himself after three years away ? A Place for Us tells the story of one family, but all family life is here. Rafiq and Layla must come to terms with the choices their children have made, while Hadia, Huda and Amar must reconcile their present culture with their parents' world, treading a path between old and new. And they must all learn how the smallest decisions can lead to the deepest betrayals. This is a novel for our times : a deeply moving examination of love, identity and belonging that turns our preconceptions over one by one. It announces Fatima Farheen Mirza as a major new literary talent.The Arabian Nights
Muhsin Mahdi
A translation based on a reconstruction of the earliest extant manuscript version of the famous tales offers the stories told by the Princess Shahrazad under the threat of death if she ceases to amuse.This is the most based and redpill book I’ve ever read in my life It’s amazing Highly recommend https://t.co/pdNMH6zAZy
The Collected Schizophrenias
Esmé Weijun Wang
Hat tip to @sia_steel for picking the book and recommending it to me (a after reading it multiple times). I highly recommend the book to develop intuition about what it is like to struggle with mental disorders.
A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, 1)
Arkady Martine
I've been saving a sci-fi book as a guilty pleasure in case I got COVID. A week after my second Pfizer shot I'm going to crack it open. Feels good. https://t.co/Nhp6RILLyH
Parliamental
Meghnad S
Raghav Marathe, cynical millennial turned reluctant policy analyst, arrives in Delhi with his boss, Prabhu Srikar of the RJM party, and a first-time MP with a tendency to throw up. As they navigate their way around Parliament, handling backroom deals, nepotistic party heads, and laws that seem to be tailor-made to benefit the ruling party, they learn that politics and idealism don't always go together. While Srikar tries to adapt to his new avatar and lie low, Raghav uses his Twitter alter ego, @Arnavinator, to vent his frustration and spread chaos. But when a new bill that threatens freedom of expression is bulldozed through with impunity, Srikar and Raghav must make a choice - to compromise on their values or to stand up for what is right. But at what cost? And can they and their unlikely allies - a jaded lawyer, an ambitious journalist and a rising YouTube star - really make a difference? A heady mix of politics, satire and current events, Parliamental is a roller-coaster ride through the corridors of power.@Memeghnad @themallubong Read Masala lab, cook some food, eat heartily and then sit in a lounge chair and read Meghnad’s excellent book.
Home Before Dark
Riley Sager
"In the latest thriller from New York Times bestseller Riley Sager, a woman returns to the house made famous by her father's bestselling horror memoir. Is the place really haunted by evil forces, as her father claimed? Or are there more earthbound-and dangerous-secrets hidden within its walls?"--@vboykis Home before Dark-Riley Sager My Husbands Wife-Jane Corry The Hunting Party- Lucy Foley The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle-Stuart Turton The Heart Goes Last-Margaret Atwood The Girl in the Mirror-Rose Carlyle (Sorry this are mostly thrillers, I’m obsessed rn😅)
My Husband's Wife
Jane Corry
@vboykis Home before Dark-Riley Sager My Husbands Wife-Jane Corry The Hunting Party- Lucy Foley The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle-Stuart Turton The Heart Goes Last-Margaret Atwood The Girl in the Mirror-Rose Carlyle (Sorry this are mostly thrillers, I’m obsessed rn😅)
The Hunting Party
Lucy Foley
"My favorite kind of whodunit, kept me guessing all the way through, and reminiscent of Agatha Christie at her best -- with an extra dose of acid." -- Alex Michaelides, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Silent Patient Everyone's invited...everyone's a suspect... For fans of Ruth Ware and Tana French, a shivery, atmospheric, page-turning novel of psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie, in which a group of old college friends are snowed in at a hunting lodge . . . and murder and mayhem ensue. All of them are friends. One of them is a killer. During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they've chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands--the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves. They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Two days later, on New Year's Day, one of them is dead. The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group's tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year's Eve, the cord holding them together snaps. Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it. Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?@vboykis Home before Dark-Riley Sager My Husbands Wife-Jane Corry The Hunting Party- Lucy Foley The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle-Stuart Turton The Heart Goes Last-Margaret Atwood The Girl in the Mirror-Rose Carlyle (Sorry this are mostly thrillers, I’m obsessed rn😅)
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Stuart Turton
"Agatha Christie meets Groundhog Day...quite unlike anything I've ever read, and altogether triumphant." -- A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Woman in the Window Shortlisted for the Costa Award One of Stylist Magazine's 20 Must-Read Books of 2018 One of Harper's Bazaar's 10 Must-Read Books of 2018 One of Guardian's Best Books of 2018 The Rules of Blackheath Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m. There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit. We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer. Understood? Then let's begin... *** Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others... The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave readers guessing until the very last page.@vboykis Home before Dark-Riley Sager My Husbands Wife-Jane Corry The Hunting Party- Lucy Foley The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle-Stuart Turton The Heart Goes Last-Margaret Atwood The Girl in the Mirror-Rose Carlyle (Sorry this are mostly thrillers, I’m obsessed rn😅)
The Girl in the Mirror
Rose Carlyle
"In the vein of The Wife Between Us and Something in the Water, a debut thriller about beautiful identical twin sisters sailing a luxury yacht and racing toward a one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance"--@vboykis Home before Dark-Riley Sager My Husbands Wife-Jane Corry The Hunting Party- Lucy Foley The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle-Stuart Turton The Heart Goes Last-Margaret Atwood The Girl in the Mirror-Rose Carlyle (Sorry this are mostly thrillers, I’m obsessed rn😅)
Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro
"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Klara and the Sun, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?"--This is quite wonderful.... https://t.co/4OSwuSy2JG
The Dutch House
Ann Patchett
New York Times Bestseller | A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick | A New York Times Book Review Notable Book | TIME Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2019 Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the Washington Post; O: The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Vogue, Refinery29, and Buzzfeed Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth, delivers her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are. At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril's son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures. Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they're together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they've lost with humor and rage. But when at last they're forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.Also, this book is nothing like I thought it would be. Why did I wait so long? https://t.co/v7VCLVECEo
Klara and the Sun
Kazuo Ishiguro
"From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Klara and the Sun, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?"--Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry
Chronicles a cattle drive in the nineteenth century from Texas to Montana, and follows the lives of Gus and Call, the cowboys heading the drive, Gus's woman, Lorena, and Blue Duck, a sinister Indian renegade.I’ve read thousands of books in my lifetime. Only a handful of them have ever moved me to tears. LONESOME DOVE is one of them. If you’ve never read it, do yourself a favor. RIP Larry McMurtry
Manifold
Stephen Baxter
“Reading Manifold: Time is like sending your mind to the gym for a brisk workout. If you don’t feel both exhausted and exhilirated when you’re done, you haven’t been working hard enough.”—The New York Times Book Review The year is 2010. More than a century of ecological damage, industrial and technological expansion, and unchecked population growth has left the Earth on the brink of devastation. As the world’s governments turn inward, one man dares to envision a bolder, brighter future. That man, Reid Malenfant, has a very different solution to the problems plaguing the planet: the exploration and colonization of space. Now Malenfant gambles the very existence of time on a single desperate throw of the dice. Battling national sabotage and international outcry, as apocalyptic riots sweep the globe, he builds a spacecraft and launches it into deep space. The odds are a trillion to one against him. Or are they? “A staggering novel! If you ever thought you understood time, you’ll be quickly disillusioned when you read Manifold: Time.”—Sir Arthur C. Clarke@atroyn dude - those baxter books are amazing. I loved the Manifold series - genuinely blew my mind. Also feels a bit like Baxter anticipated the existence of Elon Musk and wrote characters similar to him before he started
Pattern Recognition (Blue Ant)
William Gibson
Hired to investigate a mysterious video collection that has been appearing on the Internet, market research consultant Cayce Pollard realizes that there is more to the assignment when her computer is hacked. Reprint.@dlook1 @GreatDismal LOVE that book
Once a Runner
John L. Parker
Originally self-published in 1978, Once a Runner captures the essence of competitive running—and of athletic competition in general—and has become one of the most beloved sports novels ever published.. Inspired by the author’s experience as a collegiate champion, the story focuses on Quenton Cassidy, a competitive runner at fictional Southeastern University whose lifelong dream is to run a four-minute mile. He is less than a second away when the turmoil of the Vietnam War era intrudes into the staid recesses of his school’s athletic department. After he becomes involved in an athletes’ protest, Cassidy is suspended from his track team. Under the tutelage of his friend and mentor, Bruce Denton, a graduate student and former Olympic gold medalist, Cassidy gives up his scholarship, his girlfriend, and possibly his future to withdraw to a monastic retreat in the countryside and begin training for the race of his life against the greatest miler in history. . A rare insider’s account of the incredibly intense lives of elite distance runners, Once a Runner is an inspiring, funny, and spot-on tale of one man’s quest to become a champion..My Daily Book Recommendation Title: Once A Runner Topic: Running Fiction Life is about the Trial of Miles! This is a MUST read for every runner as shows why faith, courage, and commitment are so key to finding your way and realizing your dreams. Link: https://t.co/PfYR1UQVzv
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
Jack Kerouac's process for "On the Road" is one of my favorite FAST Writing examples. First, he spent seven years collecting experiences. Then, he turned all those experiences into a book in just 21 days — all on a 120-foot typewriter scroll. (h/t @BostonGlobe) https://t.co/6dJTrSakok
2034
Elliot Ackerman
From two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic, geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034--and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration. On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris "Wedge" Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt's destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America's faith in its military's strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand. So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically out maneuvering America's most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and literary, human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters--Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians--as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power. Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors' years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.The Road
Cormac McCarthy
The post-apocalyptic modern classic with an introduction by novelist John Banville. In a burned-out America, a father and his young son walk under a darkened sky, heading slowly for the coast. They have no idea what, if anything, awaits them there. The landscape is destroyed, nothing moves save the ash on the wind and cruel, lawless men stalk the roadside, lying in wait. Attempting to survive in this brave new world, the young boy and his protector have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves. They must keep walking. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Road is an incandescent novel, the story of a remarkable and profoundly moving journey. In this unflinching study of the best and worst of humankind, Cormac McCarthy boldly divines a future without hope, but one in which, miraculously, this young family finds tenderness. An exemplar of post-apocalyptic writing, The Road is a true modern classic, a masterful, moving and increasingly prescient novel.In honor of World Book Day, here are some of the best books I've read: - "Fictions" (Borges) - "Star Maker" (Stapledon) - "Battle Cry of Freedom" (McPherson) - "Godel, Escher, Bach" (Hofstadter) - "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (Diamond) - "The Road" (McCarthy) - "Aztec" (Jennings)
Aztec
Gary Jennings
The epic tale of an Aztec survivor of the Spanish conquest and his times as a warrior, scribe, travelling merchant, confidant of Motecuhzoma II, and envoy to the invading Spaniards.In honor of World Book Day, here are some of the best books I've read: - "Fictions" (Borges) - "Star Maker" (Stapledon) - "Battle Cry of Freedom" (McPherson) - "Godel, Escher, Bach" (Hofstadter) - "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (Diamond) - "The Road" (McCarthy) - "Aztec" (Jennings)
Let's Get Back to the Party
Zak Salih
A Most-Anticipated Book of 2021: BuzzFeed * The Millions * Electric Literature * LGTBQ Reads * Paperback Paris One of Advocate's “22 LGBTQ+ Books You Absolutely Need to Read This Year” “An intimate saga that brims with necessary conversations about cultural identity.” —O, The Oprah Magazine, “32 LGBTQ Books That Will Change the Literary Landscape in 2021” It is 2015, weeks after the Supreme Court marriage equality ruling, and all Sebastian Mote wants is to settle down. A high school art history teacher, newly single and desperately lonely, he envies his queer students their freedom to live openly the youth he lost to fear and shame. When he runs into his childhood friend Oscar Burnham at a wedding in Washington, D.C., he can’t help but see it as a second chance. Now thirty-five, the men haven’t seen each other in more than a decade. But Oscar has no interest in their shared history, nor in the sense of belonging Sebastian craves. Instead, he’s outraged by what he sees as the death of gay culture: bars overrun with bachelorette parties, friends coupling off and having babies. For Oscar, conformity isn’t peace, it’s surrender. While Oscar and Sebastian struggle to find their place in a rapidly changing world, each is drawn into a cross-generational friendship that treads the line between envy and obsession: Sebastian with one of his students, Oscar with an older icon of the AIDS era. And as they collide again and again, both men must reckon not just with one another but with themselves. Provocative, moving, and rich with sharply drawn characters, Let’s Get Back to the Party introduces an exciting and contemporary new talent.Just finished reading @ZMSalih1982's debut novel. It's a) brilliant and b) both sad and hilarious and c) has a hell of an ending and d) gets into art history. All my favorite things. Fortunately for me, I'm in convo with him tomorrow night at @UnabridgedBooks... https://t.co/7y6uCr5eYf
Accelerando
Charles Stross
Trying to cope with the unchecked technological innovations that have rendered humankind nearly obsolete, the members of the Macx family are confronted by an unknown enemy that is systematically attempting to annihilate all biological lifeforms.@minney_cat Charles Stress’s book Accelerando explored some ideas in this vein. So did Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Both are pretty good, if you haven’t read them, and like that kind of thing
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Cory Doctorow
@minney_cat Charles Stress’s book Accelerando explored some ideas in this vein. So did Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Both are pretty good, if you haven’t read them, and like that kind of thing
Lovecraft Country
Matt Ruff
Soon to be a New HBO® Series from J.J. Abrams (Executive Producer of Westworld), Misha Green (Creator of Underground) and Jordan Peele (Director of Get Out) The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours. At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction. A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.@bendhalpern what types of stuff do you like? here's are my three fav fiction books of past years Lovecraft Country https://t.co/qjM6bLuPXO Exhalation https://t.co/xPnGwkYogU Friday Black https://t.co/T5wjqynhTY
Friday Black
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
A piercingly raw debut story collection from a young writer with an explosive voice; a treacherously surreal, and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it's like to be young and black in America.@bendhalpern what types of stuff do you like? here's are my three fav fiction books of past years Lovecraft Country https://t.co/qjM6bLuPXO Exhalation https://t.co/xPnGwkYogU Friday Black https://t.co/T5wjqynhTY
Dune
Frank Herbert
Follows the adventures of Paul Atreides, the son of a betrayed duke given up for dead on a treacherous desert planet and adopted by its fierce, nomadic people, who help him unravel his most unexpected destiny.@rhodri45954577 @GavinSBaker @GavinSBaker recommended Dune, which ended up being one of the best science fiction books I have read, so I’ll follow all of his recs going forward!
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple award winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.@0xLEDev @anthilemoon @liu_cixin Wondrous book 🥰
Lovecraft Country
Matt Ruff
Soon to be a New HBO® Series from J.J. Abrams (Executive Producer of Westworld), Misha Green (Creator of Underground) and Jordan Peele (Director of Get Out) The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours. At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction. A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.@bharat Read the book (lovecraft) which was amazing. Maybe one of my fav fiction in past 10 years.
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr
A cloth bag containing 20 paperback copies of the title that may also include a folder with sign out sheets.@rpfoote Loved that book
City of Thieves
David Benioff
Documenting his grandparents' experiences during the siege of Leningrad, a young writer learns his grandfather's story about how a military deserter and he tried to secure pardons by gathering hard-to-find ingredients for a powerful colonel's daughter's wedding cake.I just finished “City of Thieves.” Such a great story. I’d like to read more fiction in 2021. What should I read next?
Dune
Frank Herbert
Follows the adventures of Paul Atreides, the son of a betrayed duke given up for dead on a treacherous desert planet and adopted by its fierce, nomadic people, who help him unravel his most unexpected destiny.@edwardczech Favorite sci fi? That’s tough. Dune is probably the most memorable book. Asimov probably the author I’ve read most. Ursula Guin probably the most interesting variety.
Gates of Fire
Steven Pressfield
Chronicles the battle of three hundred Spartan warriors against a huge force of Persian soldiers in 480 B.C. against the background of life in ancient Sparta and its extraordinary culture.@Hormetik This one, also Gates of Fire was magnificent https://t.co/FImC37FT9O
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being.” A major achievement from one of the world’s truly great writers, Milan Kundera’s magnificent novel of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.@mariodgabriele The best book I've ever read (I don't say this lightly) is the Unbearable Lightness of Being. I swear by Kundera.
Fleishman Is in Trouble
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST * "A feminist jeremiad nested inside a brilliant comic novel--a book that makes you laugh so hard you don't notice till later that your eyebrows have been singed off."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * Time * The Washington Post * Vanity Fair * Vogue * NPR * Chicago Tribune * GQ * Vox * Refinery29 * Elle * The Guardian * Real Simple * Parade * Good Housekeeping * Marie Claire * Town & Country * Evening Standard * Kirkus Reviews * BookPage * BookRiot * Shelf Awareness A finely observed, timely exploration of marriage, divorce, and the bewildering dynamics of ambition from one of the most exciting writers working today Toby Fleishman thought he knew what to expect when he and his wife of almost fifteen years separated: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, the occasional moment of tension in their co-parenting negotiations. He could not have predicted that one day, in the middle of his summer of sexual emancipation, Rachel would just drop their two children off at his place and simply not return. He had been working so hard to find equilibrium in his single life. The winds of his optimism, long dormant, had finally begun to pick up. Now this. As Toby tries to figure out where Rachel went, all while juggling his patients at the hospital, his never-ending parental duties, and his new app-assisted sexual popularity, his tidy narrative of the spurned husband with the too-ambitious wife is his sole consolation. But if Toby ever wants to truly understand what happened to Rachel and what happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen things all that clearly in the first place. A searing, utterly unvarnished debut, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an insightful, unsettling, often hilarious exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines of an institution that has proven to be worthy of our great wariness and our great hope. Alma's Best Jewish Novel of the Year "Blisteringly funny, feverishly smart, heartbreaking, and true, Fleishman Is in Trouble is an essential read for anyone who's wondered how to navigate loving (and hating) the people we choose."--Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest "From its opening pages, Fleishman Is in Trouble is shrewdly observed, brimming with wisdom, and utterly of this moment. Not until its explosive final pages are you fully aware of its cunning ferocity. Taffy Brodesser-Akner's debut is that rare and delicious treat: a page-turner with heft."--Maria SempleI think about this book ALL THE TIME. Highly recommended. https://t.co/sWI3t5UTL8
Kindred
Octavia E. Butler
Dana, a black woman, finds herself repeatedly transported to the antebellum South, where she must make sure that Rufus, the plantation owner's son, survives to father Dana's ancestor.Finally read Octavia Butler’s Kindred. You should too, if you haven’t. Got the ebook from sfpl. Now I’ll read the graphic novel which I accidentally checked out first. https://t.co/yQU8JttzYd
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Hank Green
If you came across an absolutely remarkable thing at 3 a.m. in New York City, would you walk away . . . or do the one thing that would change your life forever? The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship - like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armour - April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world, and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the centre of an intense international media spotlight. Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships, her identity and her safety that this new position brings, all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us. Compulsively entertaining and powerfully relevant, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing grapples with big themes, including how the social internet is changing fame, how our culture deals with fear, and how vilification and adoration follows a life in the public eye.How much can I recommend the two book series An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by @hankgreen? Incredible sci fi stories of an intelligence that supersedes humanity and yet I felt like it could be happening right now. Still thinking hard about it
The Beauty of Your Face
Sahar Mustafah
A Palestinian American woman wrestles with faith, loss, and identity before coming face-to-face with a school shooter in this searing debut.Oh look, it's just MY BRILLIANT FORMER STUDENT on the NYT Notable Books list! That's super normal and chill... I am SO EFFING PROUD of @SaharMustafah and our @StoryStudio community!!! https://t.co/alFwIWw7lu
Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson
In twenty-first-century America, a teenaged computer hacker finds himself fighting a computer virus that battles virtual reality technology and a deadly drug that turns humans into zombies.Edit: Snow Crash is now one of my favorite books of all-time https://t.co/HFJXKggAra
Simmer Down
Sarah Smith
In this finger-licking good rom-com, two is the perfect number of cooks in the kitchen. Nikki DiMarco knew life wouldn't be all sunshine and coconuts when she quit her dream job to help her mom serve up mouthwatering Filipino dishes to hungry beach goers, but she didn't expect the Maui food truck scene to be so eat-or-be-eaten--or the competition to be so smoking hot. But Tiva's Filipina Kusina has faced bigger road bumps than the arrival of Callum James. Nikki doesn't care how delectable the British food truck owner is--he rudely set up shop next to her coveted beach parking spot. He's stealing her customers and fanning the flames of a public feud that makes her see sparks. The solution? Let the upcoming Maui Food Festival decide their fate. Winner keeps the spot. Loser pounds sand. But the longer their rivalry simmers, the more Nikki starts to see a different side of Callum...a sweet, protective side. Is she brave enough to call a truce? Or will trusting Callum with her heart mean jumping from the frying pan into the fire?In between volunteer shifts and bugging your friends to vote (or to keep you occupied from 1-3am when sleep is out of the question), I have some book recommendations! https://t.co/NloM0UWcUX
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
V. E. Schwab
In the vein of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Life After Life, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is New York Times bestselling author V. E. Schwab’s genre-defying tour de force. A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever—and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.In between volunteer shifts and bugging your friends to vote (or to keep you occupied from 1-3am when sleep is out of the question), I have some book recommendations! https://t.co/NloM0UWcUX
Song of Solomon
Toni Morrison
Macon Dead, Jr., called "Milkman," the son of the wealthiest African American in town, moves from childhood into early manhood, searching, among the disparate, mysterious members of his family, for his life and reality. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.I know it’s hard to focus on anything right now because we’re so distracted by the roar of the news & the steady hum of our own anxiety. So for the next six weeks over at @oprahsbookclub, I’ll be spotlighting a curated list of seven books that comfort, inspire, and enlighten me. https://t.co/TBY8WFsl6i
This Is How You Lose the Time War
Amal El-Mohtar
“[An] exquisitely crafted tale...Part epistolary romance, part mind-blowing science fiction adventure, this dazzling story unfolds bit by bit, revealing layers of meaning as it plays with cause and effect, wildly imaginative technologies, and increasingly intricate wordplay...This short novel warrants multiple readings to fully unlock its complexities.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review). From award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone comes an enthralling, romantic novel spanning time and space about two time-traveling rivals who fall in love and must change the past to ensure their future. Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win. That’s how war works, right? Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.This Is How You Lose the Time War is a precious and beautiful book that everyone should read. Endlessly surprising and unafraid to be playful and weird and fantastical. Each page is threaded with so much love. https://t.co/XE9K5VAJiv
Passage
Connie Willis
Joanna Lander, a clinical psychologist obsessed with near-death experiences, joins forces with Dr. Richard Wright, a neurologist who has discovered a way to manufacture NDEs with the help of a mind-altering drug.Ugh this book is perfect how am I gonna read anything else after this https://t.co/P4aFBzk8tv
The Roommate
Rosie Danan
Clara Wheaton is suffering the plight of the average millennial woman. She's overeducated, underemployed, and single. When her childhood crush invites her to move into his spare bedroom, the offer sounds irresistible but unfortunately, it's too good to be true. After a bait-and-switch, Clara finds herself sharing a lease with charming, handsome stranger Josh. He seems to perfect for her liking, until she googles him, and the internet reveals his profession. Will living with him turn into a scandal? Or will pooling their resources help them - and others - get lucky for a change.Book recs for the weekend: Two books I could actually finish this week, given how fried my attention span is. https://t.co/3vIEKMFZo1
Piranesi
Susanna Clarke
From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. For readers of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller's Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.@BBolander It is my favorite thing I’ve read all year
Death in Her Hands
Ottessa Moshfegh
"From one of our most ceaselessly provocative literary talents, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense about an elderly widow whose life is upturned when she finds a cryptic note on a walk in the woods that ultimately makes her question everything about her new home. While on her normal daily walk with her dog in the nearby forest woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with a frame of stones. Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to this area, having moved here from her longtime home after the death of her husband, and she knows very few people. And she's a little shaky even on her best days. Her brooding about this note quickly grows into a full-blown obsession, and she begins to devote herself to exploring the possibilities of her conjectures about who this woman was and how she met her fate. Her suppositions begin to find echoes in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to form into a concrete and menacing shape. But as we follow her in her investigation, strange dissonances start to accrue, and our faith in her grip on reality weakens, until finally, just as she seems to be facing some of the darkness in her own past with her late husband, we are forced to face the prospect that there is either a more innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one--one that strikes closer to home. A triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Death in Her Hands asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both guide us closer to the truth and keep us at bay from it. Once again, we are in the hands of a narrator whose unreliability is well earned, only this time the stakes have never been higher"--My third book by Ottessa Moshfegh.I loved https://t.co/U0cyUXPou5 Year Of Rest and Relaxation did not stay in my head for as long as it should have and this one, a dark mystery, has an explosive start and the writing is clever and distinctive as always. #BookRecommendations https://t.co/JAaxQ5uAGo
Crooked Hallelujah
Kelli Jo Ford
The remarkable debut from Plimpton Prize Winner Kelli Jo Ford, Crooked Hallelujah follows four generations of Cherokee women across four decadesIf you need reading recs for the long weekend, a few suggestions for books about America. https://t.co/KfC0zZTyuk https://t.co/GcM5BNcmI0
Trekonomics
Manu Saadia
"Trekonomics" explores the economics of the Star Trek universe as if it were real, and discusses how our own world can work towards that model.@ruchowdh @zeynep @trekonomics Love that book!
A Pail of Air
Fritz Leiber
The dark star passed, bringing with it eternal night and turning history into incredible myth in a single generation! In this story of desperation and courage a family believing themselves to be the last humans alive on Earth must fight daily against a cold uncaring universe. Fritz Leiber won multiple Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards. This story shows him at the height of his prowess.@EmilyFlake I had at least one if not several library discard Golden Age of Sci Fi anthologies - phone book sized compilations bought my parents for me as a kid. That was in there. A Pail of Air. The Ugly Little Boy. I read those stories over and over again. It was decades til I saw TZ vers.
The Glass Hotel
Emily St. John Mandel
From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, a captivating novel of money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts, and moral compromise in which a woman disappears from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania and a massive Ponzi scheme implodes in New York, dragging countless fortunes with it. Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star glass and cedar palace on an island in British Columbia. Jonathan Alkaitis works in finance and owns the hotel. When he passes Vincent his card with a tip, it's the beginning of their life together. That same day, Vincent's half-brother, Paul, scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: "Why don't you swallow broken glass." Leon Prevant, a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis, sees the note from the hotel bar and is shaken to his core. Thirteen years later Vincent mysteriously disappears from the deck of a Neptune-Avramidis ship. Weaving together the lives of these characters, The Glass Hotel moves between the ship, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, and the wilderness of northern Vancouver Island, painting a breathtaking picture of greed and guilt, fantasy and delusion, art and the ghosts of our pasts.Finished // next up https://t.co/dMvIah3jNv https://t.co/pW9gFbk5NH
The Queen of Hearts
Kimmery Martin
One of Real Simple's "Best Books of 2018" Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2018 by Southern Living, Elite Daily, and Writer's Digest A powerful debut novel, praised by The New York Times, Bustle, and Hypable, that pulses with humor and empathy as it explores the heart's capacity for forgiveness... Zadie Anson and Emma Colley have been best friends since their early twenties, when they first began navigating serious romantic relationships amid the intensity of medical school. Now they're happily married wives and mothers with successful careers--Zadie as a pediatric cardiologist and Emma as a trauma surgeon. Their lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, are chaotic but fulfilling, until the return of a former colleague unearths a secret one of them has been harboring for years. As chief resident, Nick Xenokostas was the center of Zadie's life--both professionally and personally--throughout a tragic chain of events during her third year of medical school that she has long since put behind her. Nick's unexpected reappearance at a time of new professional crisis shocks both women into a deeper look at the difficult choices they made at the beginning of their careers. As it becomes evident that Emma must have known more than she revealed about circumstances that nearly derailed both their lives, Zadie starts to question everything she thought she knew about her closest friend.Finished // next up https://t.co/dMvIah3jNv https://t.co/pW9gFbk5NH
Homegoing
Yaa Gyasi
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Selected for Granta's Best of Young American Novelists 2017 Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Best First Book Shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader's wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of Mississippi; from the missionary schools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three continents and seven generations, Yaa Gyasi has written a miraculous novel - the intimate, gripping story of a brilliantly vivid cast of characters and through their lives the very story of America itself. Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portraits, Homegoing is a searing and profound debut from a masterly new writer.for those of you who don’t know where to start, here are some of my favorite fiction books i read in the last 6 months: * Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi * Pachinko by Min Jin Lee * American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins * The Farm by Joanne Ramos * The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Pachinko
Min Jin Lee
* Shortlisted for the National Book Award * * One of the New York Times's 10 Best Books of 2017. * Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza, the family face ruin. But then Isak, a Christian minister, offers her a chance of salvation: a new life in Japan as his wife. Following a man she barely knows to a hostile country in which she has no friends, no home, and whose language she cannot speak, Sunja's salvation is just the beginning of her story. Through eight decades and four generations, Pachinko is an epic tale of family, identity, love, death and survival.for those of you who don’t know where to start, here are some of my favorite fiction books i read in the last 6 months: * Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi * Pachinko by Min Jin Lee * American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins * The Farm by Joanne Ramos * The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club)
Jeanine Cummins
for those of you who don’t know where to start, here are some of my favorite fiction books i read in the last 6 months: * Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi * Pachinko by Min Jin Lee * American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins * The Farm by Joanne Ramos * The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2014 Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.for those of you who don’t know where to start, here are some of my favorite fiction books i read in the last 6 months: * Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi * Pachinko by Min Jin Lee * American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins * The Farm by Joanne Ramos * The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Dune
Frank Herbert
Follows the adventures of Paul Atreides, the son of a betrayed duke given up for dead on a treacherous desert planet and adopted by its fierce, nomadic people, who help him unravel his most unexpected destiny.@NatureInTheory @curiouswavefn Enjoy Stephenson - the best bits, in particular, are amazing! I enjoyed "Dune", though not the later books; I also found "Dune" quite difficult to get into, but once I did it was great! Also loved Carolyn Cherryh's "Cyteen" https://t.co/HgYHkSFFw5
The Dragon Reborn
Robert Jordan
The Wheel of Time ® is a PBS Great American Read Selection! Now in development for TV! Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Winter has stopped the war—almost—yet men are dying, calling out for the Dragon. But where is he? In the Heart of the Stone lies the next great test of the Dragon reborn. TV series update: "Sony will produce along with Red Eagle Entertainment and Radar Pictures. Rafe Judkins is attached to write and executive produce. Judkins previously worked on shows such as ABC’s Agents of SHIELD, the Netflix series Hemlock Grove, and the NBC series Chuck. Red Eagle partners Rick Selvage and Larry Mondragon will executive produce along with Radar’s Ted Field and Mike Weber. Darren Lemke will also executive produce, with Jordan’s widow Harriet McDougal serving as consulting producer." —Variety The Wheel of Time® New Spring: The Novel #1 The Eye of the World #2 The Great Hunt #3 The Dragon Reborn #4 The Shadow Rising #5 The Fires of Heaven #6 Lord of Chaos #7 A Crown of Swords #8 The Path of Daggers #9 Winter's Heart #10 Crossroads of Twilight #11 Knife of Dreams By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson #12 The Gathering Storm #13 Towers of Midnight #14 A Memory of Light By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons The Wheel of Time Companion By Robert Jordan and Amy Romanczuk Patterns of the Wheel: Coloring Art Based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time@_swanand I have since re-read other series more, but books 3, 6 & 7 of WoT I must have read 6-7 times each.
Lord of Chaos
Robert Jordan
Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. On the slopes of Shayol Ghul, the Myrddraal swords are forged, and the sky is not the sky of this world; In Salidar the White Tower in exile prepares an embassy to Caemlyn, where Rand Al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, holds the throne--and where an unexpected visitor may change the world.... In Emond's Field, Perrin Goldeneyes, Lord of the Two Rivers, feels the pull of ta'veren to ta'veren and prepares to march... Morgase of Caemlyn finds a most unexpected, and quite unwelcome, ally....And south lies Illian, where Sammael holds sway... The Wheel of Time® New Spring: The Novel #1 The Eye of the World #2 The Great Hunt #3 The Dragon Reborn #4 The Shadow Rising #5 The Fires of Heaven #6 Lord of Chaos #7 A Crown of Swords #8 The Path of Daggers #9 Winter's Heart #10 Crossroads of Twilight #11 Knife of Dreams By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson #12 The Gathering Storm #13 Towers of Midnight #14 A Memory of Light By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons The Wheel of Time Companion@_swanand I have since re-read other series more, but books 3, 6 & 7 of WoT I must have read 6-7 times each.
- Elayne, Aviendha, and Mat work to restore the world's natural weather, while Egwene gathers a group of female channelers and Rand confronts the dread Forsaken Sammael
@_swanand I have since re-read other series more, but books 3, 6 & 7 of WoT I must have read 6-7 times each.
The Fifth Season
N. K. Jemisin
"Intricate and extraordinary." - New York Times on The Fifth Season (A New York Times Notable Book of 2015) WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL 2016 This is the way the world ends...for the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. For more from N. K. Jemisin, check out: The Inheritance Trilogy The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms The Broken Kingdoms The Kingdom of Gods The Inheritance Trilogy (omnibus edition) Shades in Shadow: An Inheritance Triptych (e-only short fiction) The Awakened Kingdom (e-only novella) Dreamblood Duology The Killing Moon The Shadowed Sun The Broken EarthThe Fifth SeasonThe Obelisk GateBook 23 Lesson: History is always relevant. https://t.co/8NjvK0VbXf
The Fifth Season
N. K. Jemisin
"Intricate and extraordinary." - New York Times on The Fifth Season (A New York Times Notable Book of 2015) WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL 2016 This is the way the world ends...for the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. For more from N. K. Jemisin, check out: The Inheritance Trilogy The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms The Broken Kingdoms The Kingdom of Gods The Inheritance Trilogy (omnibus edition) Shades in Shadow: An Inheritance Triptych (e-only short fiction) The Awakened Kingdom (e-only novella) Dreamblood Duology The Killing Moon The Shadowed Sun The Broken EarthThe Fifth SeasonThe Obelisk Gate@julien I’ve been recommended books by Brandon Sanderson, haven’t gotten to them Have you read The Fifth Season?
The Recognitions (American Literature (Dalkey Archive))
William Gaddis
Obsessed with seventeenth-century Flemish masterpieces, Wyatt Gwyon forges original artwork amazingly faithful to the spirit and techniques of the time.Up next: https://t.co/rdMXtACmj6
Ninth House (Alex Stern)
Leigh Bardugo
The mesmerizing adult debut from Leigh Bardugo, a tale of power, privilege, dark magic, and murder set among the Ivy League elite Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless “tombs” are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.The Count of Monte Cristo (Wordsworth Classics)
Alexandre Dumas
Set against the tumultuous years of the Post-Napoleonic era, Dumas's grand historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantes, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal.@BooksChatterBot This is a cool idea! Please add all the books found at the following link. These are the best of the best - the top 5% of what is now over 600 books read and summarized https://t.co/SP0CSgfSzT
Siddhartha
Hermann Hesse
The title of this novel is a combination of two Sanskrit words, "siddha," which is defined as "achieved," and "artha" which is defined as "meaning" or "wealth." The word serves as the name for the principal character, a man on a spiritual journey of self-discovery during the time of the first Buddha. Siddhartha is the son of a wealthy Brahmin family who decides to leave his home in the hopes of gaining spiritual illumination. Siddhartha is joined by his best friend Govinda. The two renounce their earthly possessions, engage in ritual fasting and intense meditation and ultimately seek out and speak with Gautama, the original Buddha. Here the two go their separate ways, Govinda joining the order of the Buddha, Siddhartha traveling on in search of spiritual enlightenment. In order to complete this novel Hesse immersed himself in the sacred teachings of both Hindu and Buddhist scriptures and lived a semi-reclusive life in order to achieve his own spiritual enlightenment. Considered one of Hesse's most important works, "Siddhartha" remains to this day as one of his most popular. It is a work that deals with the quest that we all undertake in some way or another, to define our lives in an environment of conflicting dualities and ultimately find spiritual awareness. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.@BooksChatterBot This is a cool idea! Please add all the books found at the following link. These are the best of the best - the top 5% of what is now over 600 books read and summarized https://t.co/SP0CSgfSzT
Truth Machine
James Halperin
The creator of a Truth Machine that promises to revolutionize the criminal justice system in the America of the year 2004 must conceal his own shocking act of treachery from his own creation or face his execution. Reprint.6 books (current list - though 2 are re-reads and the one on top is brand new) 6 tags @scottbelsky @eliotpeper @liveink @jarroddicker @lpolovets @brezina https://t.co/x3tFwOegUP https://t.co/bfVOA5vcXL
Severance
Ling Ma
Maybe it’s the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma’s offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance. "A stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring." —Michael Schaub, NPR.org “A satirical spin on the end times-- kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers.” --Estelle Tang, Elle NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR * The New Yorker ("Books We Loved") * Elle * Marie Claire * Amazon Editors * The Paris Review (Staff Favorites) * Refinery29 * Bustle * Buzzfeed * BookPage * Bookish * Mental Floss * Chicago Review of Books * HuffPost * Electric Literature * A.V. Club * Jezebel * Vulture * Literary Hub * Flavorwire Winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award * Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction * Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award * Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel * A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 * An Indie Next Selection Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost. Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers? A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.6 books (current list not fav) 6 tags @ataussig @jeremysliew @_kcwatkins @joshelman @EricaJoy @nabeel I know @TheAtlantic is a magazine. Sixth book is Severance by Ling Ma. https://t.co/UFy6uiACYL https://t.co/YLScPV68CC
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple award winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.@Austen Three Body Problem, and don’t give up after the first book
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas pere
Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss@cassanov5 The last 70 pages are so intense you will not be able to drop the book.
- This multi-generational novel ranges over the history of the Hudson River Valley from the late seventeenth cenutry to the late 1960s with low humor, high seriousness, and magical, almost hallucinatory prose. It follows the interwoven destinies of families of Indians, lordy Dutch patrons, and yoemen.
Oh ps: my two new books! https://t.co/HlzXCaWOP9
Five Little Pigs
Agatha Christie
Beautiful Caroline Crale was convicted of poisoning her husband, but just like the nursery rhyme, there were five other “little pigs” who could have done it: Philip Blake (the stockbroker), who went to market; Meredith Blake (the amateur herbalist), who stayed at home; Elsa Greer (the three-time divorcÉe), who had her roast beef; Cecilia Williams (the devoted governess), who had none; and Angela Warren (the disfigured sister), who cried all the way home. Sixteen years later, Caroline’s daughter is determined to prove her mother’s innocence, and Poirot just can’t get that nursery rhyme out of his mind.@five_books @agathachristie Five Little Pigs is a masterpiece!!!
Burn-In
P. W. Singer
"An FBI agent teams up with the first police robot to hunt a shadowy terrorist in this gripping technothriller-and fact-based tour of tomorrow-from the authors of Ghost Fleet"--A fun and insightful read. Sometimes you just want to read a book to enjoy, and other times you want to book to make you think. Every once in while you get to do both! https://t.co/eyP4JIVnTT
Name of the Rose
Umberto Eco
In 1327, Brother William of Baskerville is sent to investigate charges of heresy against Franciscan monks at a wealthy Italian abbey but finds his mission overshadowed by seven bizarre murders.@fuehrerking @tylercowen Oh la la I couldn't sleep for a month that book is so scary!! And YES please @SethMacFarlane <> @tylercowen 💙
Battle Royale
Koushun Takami
A group of ninth-grade students are confined to a small isolated island where they must fight each other for three days until only one survivor remains, as part of the ultimate in reality television.@sonyasupposedly No joke, this novel that inspired the Japanese film that inspired a thousand YA franchises might be one of the most influential works of culture in the past century https://t.co/aTxqMEqzbG
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
C Pam Zhang
Set against the twilight of the American Gold Rush, an electric debut novel of two siblings, on the run in an unforgiving landscape -- trying not just to survive but to find a home. Ba dies in the night, Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their Western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape; as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future. Both epic and intimate, blending Chinese symbolism and re-imagined history with fiercely original language and storytelling, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a haunting adventure story, an unforgettable sibling story, and the announcement of a stunning new voice in literature. On a broad level, it explores race in an expanding country and the question of where immigrants are allowed to belong. But page by page, it's about the memories that bind and divide families, and the yearning for home.just finished how much of these hills is gold, by @cpamzhang. i picked it off the list of signed books from waterstones bc i was intrigued by title and asian author. turned out to be one of those beautiful, surprising, stunning reads you can’t put down. & happy aapi history month
The Keep
Jennifer Egan
Two decades after taking part in a childhood prank with devastating consequences, two cousins are reunited at a remote medieval castle in Eastern Europe, where they are cut off from the outside world and doomed to reenact the horrific event from their past.@rachsyme The Keep, by Jennifer Egan. It's not the same, but it's amazing and has a dark vibe and honestly it's better and also it's Egan's best book.
Hamnet
Maggie O'Farrell
WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED AN POST BOOK AWARDS IRISH NOVEL OF THE YEAR 'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times 'A thing of shimmering wonder' David Mitchell TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART. On a summer's day in 1596, a young girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that one of the children will not survive the week. Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright. It is a story of the bond between twins, and of a marriage pushed to the brink by grief. It is also the story of a kestrel and its mistress; flea that boards a ship in Alexandria; and a glovemaker's son who flouts convention in pursuit of the woman he loves. Above all, it is a tender and unforgettable reimagining of a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written.new delivery of books arrived! excited https://t.co/Uhf48XpwoI
How Much of These Hills Is Gold
C Pam Zhang
Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future.new delivery of books arrived! excited https://t.co/Uhf48XpwoI
Network Effect
Martha Wells
@JanelleCShane Love those books so much!
Red Mars
Kim Stanley Robinson
John Boone, Maya Toitovna, Frank Chalmers, and Arkady Bogdanov lead a mission whose ultimate goal is the terraforming of Mars in order to release moisture onto their desolate landscape.Today in books https://t.co/KPpM0bennJ
Severance
Ling Ma
Maybe it’s the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma’s offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance. "A stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring." —Michael Schaub, NPR.org “A satirical spin on the end times-- kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers.” --Estelle Tang, Elle NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR * The New Yorker ("Books We Loved") * Elle * Marie Claire * Amazon Editors * The Paris Review (Staff Favorites) * Refinery29 * Bustle * Buzzfeed * BookPage * Bookish * Mental Floss * Chicago Review of Books * HuffPost * Electric Literature * A.V. Club * Jezebel * Vulture * Literary Hub * Flavorwire Winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award * Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction * Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award * Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel * A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 * An Indie Next Selection Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she’s had her fill of uncertainty. She’s content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost. Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers? A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it’s a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.@jeffdebruyn Book! It’s amazing!
Infinite Detail
Maughan
I love this book and you should definitely stop in. https://t.co/jMOARBCICD
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel
Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome and many of his people, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price. By the Hawthornden Prize-winning author of Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. 40,000 first printing.Great books to read during quarantine: • The Devil in the White City • Wolf Hall • The Hot Zone (if you want to freak yourself out) What else?
Gnomes Deluxe Collector's Edition
Wil Huygen
Explains everything one might want to know about gnomes, including how long they live, what their houses are made of, how long pregnancy lasts, what they do for a living, and where they go on their honeymoon.@SirKneeland It's from that 'Gnomes' book, I think. A classic! https://t.co/LNZ2MzKPFI
Invisible Cities
Italo Calvino
“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” — from Invisible Cities In a garden sit the aged Kublai Khan and the young Marco Polo — Mongol emperor and Venetian traveler. Kublai Khan has sensed the end of his empire coming soon. Marco Polo diverts his host with stories of the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. As Marco Polo unspools his tales, the emperor detects these fantastic places are more than they appear. “Invisible Cities changed the way we read and what is possible in the balance between poetry and prose . . . The book I would choose as pillow and plate, alone on a desert island.” — Jeanette WintersonHaven’t been on Twitter as much this week. I spent time with family and consumed myself in books I’ve put off for too long. Some recommendations of stories that hum with beautiful strangeness: The Emissary, Yoko Tawada Bluets, Maggie Nelson Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
New Waves
Kevin Nguyen
"Lucas and Margo are fed up. Margo is a brilliant programmer tired of being talked over as the company's sole black employee, and while Lucas is one of many Asians at the firm, he's nearly invisible as a low-paid customer service rep. Together, they decide to steal their tech start-up's user database in an attempt at revenge. The heist takes a sudden turn when Margo dies in a car accident, and Lucas is left reeling, wondering what to do with their secret--and wondering whether her death really was an accident. When Lucas hacks into Margo's computer looking for answers, he is drawn into her secret online life and realizes just how little he knew about his best friend. With a fresh voice, biting humor, and piercing observations about human nature, Kevin Nguyen brings an insider's knowledge of the tech industry to this imaginative novel. A pitch-perfect exploration of race and start-up culture, secrecy and surveillance, social media and friendship, New Waves asks: How well do we really know each other? And how do we form true intimacy and connection in a tech-obsessed world?"--@MattZeitlin @runforsomething Book questions also permitted. A few good ones you might like... - New Waves - @knguyen - Writers & Lovers - @lilykingbooks (the end is 100% worth it, v cathartic) - Followers - @meganangelo
Writers & Lovers
Lily King
An extraordinary new novel of art, love, and ambition from Lily King, the New York Times bestselling author of Euphoria Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman. Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink. Writers & Lovers follows Casey--a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist--in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.@MattZeitlin @runforsomething Book questions also permitted. A few good ones you might like... - New Waves - @knguyen - Writers & Lovers - @lilykingbooks (the end is 100% worth it, v cathartic) - Followers - @meganangelo
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Susanna Clarke
All is going well for rich, reclusive Mr Norell, who has regained some of the power of England's magicians from the past, until a rival magician, Jonathan Strange, appears and becomes Mr Norrell's pupil, in a witty fantasy set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century England. Reprint.Finished this absolutely perfect book and now am fighting the urge to start reading it all over again. If you haven’t read it yet, don’t wait another moment. https://t.co/XvayGU9Ohl
The Rook
Daniel O'Malley
@lunchbag I just finished The Rook by Daniel O'Malley and loved it! About to start on the sequel 😁
The Broken Earth Trilogy
N. K. Jemisin
This special boxed set includes the New York Times bestselling author N. K. Jemisin's complete, two-time Hugo award-winning Broken Earth Trilogy. This is the way the world ends. For the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. The Broken Earth trilogyThe Fifth SeasonThe Obelisk GateThe Stone Sky@skamille NK Jemesin's Broken Earth trilogy; Octavia Butler's Earthseed duology; Rivers Solomon' Unkindness of Ghosts
An Unkindness of Ghosts
Rivers Solomon
A breathtaking science fiction debut from a worthy successor to Octavia Butler.@skamille NK Jemesin's Broken Earth trilogy; Octavia Butler's Earthseed duology; Rivers Solomon' Unkindness of Ghosts
Lost Children Archive
Valeria Luiselli
"A novel about a family of four, on the cusp of fracture, who take a trip across America--a story told through varying points of view, and including archival documents and photographs"--Feels like a great day to support @LeftBankBooks, one of my favoritest of indies. You can order books via their website, or you could download an audiobook from them via @librofm. I recommend Into the Beautiful North by @Urrealism, or Lost Children Archive by @ValeriaLuiselli.
On the Road
Jack Kerouac
Follows the counterculture escapades of members of the Beat generation as they seek pleasure and meaning while traveling coast to coast@oliveremberton Here's a fun twist on the idea. @ellenrhymes calls this Finding Your Bible — the one book that influences everything you do. Three examples: 1) Steve Jobs: Autobiography of a Yogi 2) Bob Dylan: On the Road 3) Shakespeare: Ovid's Metamorphoses https://t.co/RdHE0twII9
Agency
William Gibson
In William Gibson's first novel since 2014's bestselling "The Peripheral," a gifted "app-whisperer," hired to beta test a mysterious new product, finds her life endangered by her relationship with her surprisingly street-smart and combat-savvy digital assistant. Residence: Vancouver, B.C. Print run 150,000.I have not yet read @GreatDismal 's new novel, Agency, but I'm urged to do it sooner by this great review: https://t.co/WJvNdNKB3C
American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club)
Jeanine Cummins
Hello, fellow book lovers! My next @oprahsbookclub selection is “American Dirt” by @jeaninecummins. From the first sentence, I was IN. https://t.co/uonqIa3QRK
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Ocean Vuong
"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity"--@girlziplocked on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong
Where Reasons End
Yiyun Li
"'I had but one delusion, which I held onto with all my willpower: we once gave Nikolai a life of flesh and blood; and I'm doing it over again, this time by words.' In a world created outside of time, Li and the son who died talk about their lives. Deeply intimate and moving, this story cycle of grief captures the love and humor in a relationship which goes on now in a mother's heart, between a mother and child, even as it captures the pain of Li's sadness and loss. Written in the months following her son's death, this powerful book takes readers intimately and unforgettably into Li's grief, even as she transforms the pain into imaginary conversations of great beauty, humor, sadness and love"--@PENamerica The finalists are: @ilya_poet for Deaf Republic Anne Boyer for The Undying Yiyun Li for Where Reasons End @ReeAmilcarScott for The World Does Not Require You Chris Ware for Rusty Brown
The World Doesn't Require You
Rion Amilcar Scott
Established by the leaders of the country's only successful slave revolt in the mid-nineteenth century, Cross River still evokes the fierce rhythms of its founding. In lyrical prose and singular dialect, a saga beats forward that echoes the fables carried down for generations--like the screecher birds who swoop down for their periodic sacrifice, and the water women who lure men to wet deaths.Among its residents--wildly spanning decades, perspectives, and species--are David Sherman, a struggling musician who just happens to be God's last son; Tyrone, a ruthless PhD candidate, whose dissertation about a childhood game ignites mayhem in the neighboring, once-segregated town of Port Yooga; and Jim, an all-too-obedient robot who serves his Master. As the book builds to its finish with Special Topics in Loneliness Studies, a fully-realized novella, two unhinged professors grapple with hugely different ambitions, and the reader comes to appreciate the intricacy of the world Scott has created--one where fantasy and reality are eternally at war.Contemporary and essential, The World Doesn't Require You is a "leap into a blazing new level of brilliance" (Lauren Groff) that affirms Rion Amilcar Scott as a writer whose storytelling gifts the world very much requires.@PENamerica The finalists are: @ilya_poet for Deaf Republic Anne Boyer for The Undying Yiyun Li for Where Reasons End @ReeAmilcarScott for The World Does Not Require You Chris Ware for Rusty Brown
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being.” A major achievement from one of the world’s truly great writers, Milan Kundera’s magnificent novel of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.@lolawajs You have my two favorite books! Unbearable Lightness of Being and God of Small Things.
The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy
The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, a skyblue Plymouth with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amid a Marxist workers' demonstration. Inside the car sit two-egg twins Rahel and Esthappen, and so begins their tale.... Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family - their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts). When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "graygreen. With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it."@lolawajs You have my two favorite books! Unbearable Lightness of Being and God of Small Things.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet
David Mitchell
Dispatched to the influential Japanese port of Dejima in 1799, ambitious clerk Jacob de Zoet resolves to earn enough money to deserve his wealthy fiancâee, an effort that is challenged by his relationship with the midwife daughter of a samurai.Outstanding book. Talk about immersive. Few other epic fiction books that left me wowed: -thousand autumn’s of Jacob de Zoet by Mitchell -cloud atlas by Mitchell -a fraction of the whole by Toltz https://t.co/JuAZOvVYgr
Cloud Atlas
David Stephen Mitchell
Outstanding book. Talk about immersive. Few other epic fiction books that left me wowed: -thousand autumn’s of Jacob de Zoet by Mitchell -cloud atlas by Mitchell -a fraction of the whole by Toltz https://t.co/JuAZOvVYgr
A Fraction of the Whole
Steve Toltz
After his father's death, Jasper reflects on Martin Dean, the man who had raised him in intellectual captivity and spent his entire life analyzing absolutely everything, and describes his unusual boyhood, colorful family members, father's failed battle to make a lasting impression on the world, and their many adventures together. A first novel. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.Outstanding book. Talk about immersive. Few other epic fiction books that left me wowed: -thousand autumn’s of Jacob de Zoet by Mitchell -cloud atlas by Mitchell -a fraction of the whole by Toltz https://t.co/JuAZOvVYgr
Recursion: A Novel
Blake Crouch
Investigating a suicide, New York City police officer Barry Sutton finds a connection to the outbreak of a memory-altering disease and a controversial neuroscientist working to preserve precious memories.@andreasklinger Recursion by Blake Crouch was quite good.
Lady of Mazes
Karl Schroeder
When the human civilization of Teven Coronal is threatened by powerful invaders, brilliant but troubled Livia Kodaly attempts to safeguard the ringworld's fragile ecologies and human diversity. By the author of Ventus and Permanence. 12,500 first printing.The City & the City
China Miéville
Inspector Tyador Borlâu must travel to Ul Qoma to search for answers in the murder of a woman found in the city of Besâzel.Five books I read this year that I recommend: Silver by @LindaNagata (& rest of series) The City & The City by Mieville Money: The Unauthorized Biography by Martin Order Without Design by Bertraud Legal Systems Very Different From Our Ours by Friedman, @DavidSkarbek, and Leeson
Friday Black
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
A piercingly raw debut story collection from a young writer with an explosive voice; a treacherously surreal, and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it's like to be young and black in America.@tconrad right? so goooood. Friday Black is the other amazing short story collection i read this year - https://t.co/K7LollCiiw
Chess
Stefan Zweig
@tylerwillis Quickest read: Chess by Zweig stands out for excellent and short. Best read is harder: The Master and Margarita? Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel? 100 Years of Solitude?
The Master and Margarita
Mikhail Bulgakov
Presents a satirical drama about Satan's visit to Moscow, where he learns that the citizens no longer believe in God. He decides to teach them a lesson by perpetrating a series of horrific tricks. Combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem.@tylerwillis Quickest read: Chess by Zweig stands out for excellent and short. Best read is harder: The Master and Margarita? Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel? 100 Years of Solitude?
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Susanna Clarke
All is going well for rich, reclusive Mr Norell, who has regained some of the power of England's magicians from the past, until a rival magician, Jonathan Strange, appears and becomes Mr Norrell's pupil, in a witty fantasy set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century England. Reprint.@tylerwillis Quickest read: Chess by Zweig stands out for excellent and short. Best read is harder: The Master and Margarita? Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel? 100 Years of Solitude?
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez
The evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town is mirrored in the family history of the Buendias.@tylerwillis Quickest read: Chess by Zweig stands out for excellent and short. Best read is harder: The Master and Margarita? Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel? 100 Years of Solitude?
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas pere
Translated with an Introduction by Robin Buss“I found out that with 150 well-chosen books a man possesses a complete analysis of all human knowledge, or at least all that is either useful or desirable to be acquainted with.” —Abbé Faria, “The Count of Monte Cristo.” What books should make that shortlist?
Space Cadet
Robert A. Heinlein
A young man reports for the final tests for appointment as a cadet in the Interplanetary Patrol, survives the tests, studies in the school ship, and goes on a regular Patrol vessel and encounters danger on Venus.@amcafee @jiatolentino @RobThomas @StephenKing @mgurri @TayariJones @davidkushner @Billbrowder @billbrysonn @TaNehisiCoats Space Cadet @kidkoala House of Leaves @markdanielewski The Third Apple @gassee Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up @mariekondo The Man Who Solved the Market @gzuckerman ...and more! 48 books we read this winter: https://t.co/ZfuvHnDHdS
Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski
A family relocates to a small house on Ash Tree Lane and discovers that the inside of their new home seems to be without boundaries. A first novel. Original.@amcafee @jiatolentino @RobThomas @StephenKing @mgurri @TayariJones @davidkushner @Billbrowder @billbrysonn @TaNehisiCoats Space Cadet @kidkoala House of Leaves @markdanielewski The Third Apple @gassee Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up @mariekondo The Man Who Solved the Market @gzuckerman ...and more! 48 books we read this winter: https://t.co/ZfuvHnDHdS
Veronica Mars
Rob Thomas
This first book in an all-new mystery series finds 28-year-old Veronica Mars investigating one of Neptune's darkest cases with the help of her old friends Logan Echolls, Mac Mackenzie, Wallace Fennel and Dick Casablancas. Original.An American Marriage (Oprah's Book Club)
Tayari Jones
A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR * TIME * BUSTLE * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS * AMAZON.COM OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION “A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.” —Barack Obama “Haunting . . . Beautifully written.” —The New York Times Book Review “Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable.” —USA Today “A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class.” —People “Compelling.” —The Washington Post “Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant.” —Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Ocean Vuong
"Brilliant, heartbreaking, tender, and highly original - poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a sweeping and shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born--a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam--and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity"--@zachperret Enlightenment Now On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Story of your life
Stories of Your Life and Others
Ted Chiang
Presents a first collection of seven science fiction short stories, and includes an original tale, "Liking What You See: A Documentary" for this anthology.@zachperret Enlightenment Now On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous Story of your life
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Maria Semple
4. Where’d You Go Bernadette by @_MariaSemple: wickedly, painfully, heartachingly funny; filled my heart with joy. 5. Harvey by Mary Chase: I have read this play so many times and it gets better with every read. 6. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis: a perfect story perfectly told.
Doomsday Book
Connie Willis
4. Where’d You Go Bernadette by @_MariaSemple: wickedly, painfully, heartachingly funny; filled my heart with joy. 5. Harvey by Mary Chase: I have read this play so many times and it gets better with every read. 6. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis: a perfect story perfectly told.
The Elementary Particles
Michel Houellebecq
A new novel by the author of Whatever follows the lives and fortunes of Bruno and Marcel, born to a bohemian mother during the 1960s, who are brought up separately and pursue their own individual paths--as Bruno battles madness and sexual obsession and Michel, a molecular biologist, comes up with a unique way to express his disgust with the violence of humankind. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.Recently someone asked me to give them a book so 'they'd get to know me', and my thought is to give them Houellebecq's 'Elementary Particles', but I fear I'll never hear from them again.
An American Marriage (Oprah's Book Club)
Tayari Jones
A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR * TIME * BUSTLE * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS * AMAZON.COM OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION “A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.” —Barack Obama “Haunting . . . Beautifully written.” —The New York Times Book Review “Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable.” —USA Today “A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class.” —People “Compelling.” —The Washington Post “Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant.” —Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.I was deeply moved by Tayari Jones’s story of a married couple whose lives get torn apart by an incident of injustice. The book is so well-written that you’ll find yourself sucked into it despite the heavy subject matter. https://t.co/JAhJOFwdOm
Dominicana
Angie Cruz
“I have been eagerly waiting for a new book from Angie Cruz. So glad the time has come.” —Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother I’m Dying and Breath, Eyes, Memory “Gorgeous writing, gorgeous story.” —Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street “An essential read for our times.” —Cristina Garcia, author of Dreaming in Cuban Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay. As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.@annapitoniak @SueBurkeSpain @LBardugo And finally, more great fiction. @tjenkinsreid @jkbphillips @acruzwriter & Susan Choi. All such stars. https://t.co/8MI4ydm7UI
Trust Exercise
Susan Choi
WINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Electrifying” (People) • “Masterly” (The Guardian) • “Dramatic and memorable” (The New Yorker) • “Magic” (TIME) • “Ingenious” (The Financial Times) • "A gonzo literary performance” (Entertainment Weekly) • “Rare and splendid” (The Boston Globe) • “Remarkable” (USA Today) • “Delicious” (The New York Times) • “Book groups, meet your next selection" (NPR) In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley. The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence. As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Susan Choi's Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.@annapitoniak @SueBurkeSpain @LBardugo And finally, more great fiction. @tjenkinsreid @jkbphillips @acruzwriter & Susan Choi. All such stars. https://t.co/8MI4ydm7UI
Ninth House (Alex Stern)
Leigh Bardugo
The mesmerizing adult debut from Leigh Bardugo, a tale of power, privilege, dark magic, and murder set among the Ivy League elite Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless “tombs” are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.@annapitoniak Three sci-fi/fantasy books that I loved. @SueBurkeSpain @LBardugo & Blake Choi https://t.co/6TIGRs3hX8
Recursion
Blake Crouch
'Recursion takes mind-twisting premises and embeds them in a deeply emotional story about time and loss and grief and most of all, the glory of the human heart' - Gregg Hurwitz, international bestselling author of Orphan X A breathtaking exploration of memory and what it means to be human, Recursion is the follow-up novel to the smash-hit thriller, Dark Matter, by Blake Crouch. At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shockwave, unleashed by a stunning discovery – and what’s in jeopardy is not just our minds. In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth – and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery . . . and the tools for fighting back. Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy – before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos. 'A fantastic read' Andy Weir, Number one New York Times bestselling author of The Martian@annapitoniak Three sci-fi/fantasy books that I loved. @SueBurkeSpain @LBardugo & Blake Choi https://t.co/6TIGRs3hX8
God Emperor of Dune
Frank Herbert
Book Four in the Magnificent Dune Chronicles--the Bestselling Science Fiction Adventure of All Time Millennia have passed on Arrakis, and the once-desert planet is green with life. Leto Atreides, the son of the world's savior, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, is still alive but far from human. To preserve humanity's future, he sacrificed his own by merging with a sandworm, granting him near immortality as God Emperor of Dune for the past thirty-five hundred years. Leto's rule is not a benevolent one. His transformation has made not only his appearance but his morality inhuman. A rebellion, led by Siona, a member of the Atreides family, has risen to oppose the despot's rule. But Siona is unaware that Leto's vision of a Golden Path for humanity requires her to fulfill a destiny she never wanted--or could possibly conceive....@xhckr Reading: God Emporer of Dune Why are we Yelling by @buster The Book of Dust, Volume 2 Fav: Foundation Saga Golden Compass Ishmael How to Win Friends Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman But I have opinions on “favorite” books....
Ishmael
Daniel Quinn
An award-winning, compelling novel of spiritual adventure about a gorilla named Ishmael, who possesses immense wisdom, and the man who becomes his pupil, offers answers to the world's most pressing moral dilemmas. Reprint.@xhckr Reading: God Emporer of Dune Why are we Yelling by @buster The Book of Dust, Volume 2 Fav: Foundation Saga Golden Compass Ishmael How to Win Friends Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman But I have opinions on “favorite” books....
A Dance with Dragons
George R. R. Martin
A latest installment of the popular series follows a showdown set in the north of the Seven Kingdoms and reveals the circumstances that shaped southern-region events. By the best-selling author of A Feast for Crows. Reprint. 400,000 first printing.A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (2011) https://t.co/hdfPQ4hUf0
The Windup Girl
Paolo Bacigalupi
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel, the break-out science fiction debut featuring additional stories and a Q&A with the author. Anderson Lake is AgriGen’s Calorie Man, sent to work undercover as a factory manager in Thailand while combing Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories. Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. Emiko is not human; she is an engineered being, grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in this chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits and forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly-acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century. In this brand-new edition celebrating the book’s reception into the canon of celebrated modern science fiction, accompanying the text are two novelettes exploring the dystopian world of The Windup Girl, the Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning “The Calorie Man” and “Yellow Card Man.” Also included is an exclusive Q&A with the author describing his writing process, the political climate into which his debut novel was published, and the future of science fiction. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (2014) https://t.co/YS7MfTb5d9
My Struggle:
Karl Ove Knausgaard
An autobiographical novel focuses on a young man trying to make sense of his place in the disjointed world that surrounds him.My Struggle: Book 1, Karl Ove Knausgaard (2012) https://t.co/wmAG4PF00t
The Quantum Thief
Hannu Rajaniemi
Broken free from a nightmarish distant-future prison by a mysterious woman who offers him his life back if he will complete the ultimate heist he left unfinished, con man Jean le Flambeur is pursued by an Oubliette investigator in a multi-planetary cat-and-mouse chase in worlds where people communicate through shared memories. Reprint.The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi (2011) https://t.co/aY8s0KEMcj
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet
David Mitchell
Dispatched to the influential Japanese port of Dejima in 1799, ambitious clerk Jacob de Zoet resolves to earn enough money to deserve his wealthy fiancâee, an effort that is challenged by his relationship with the midwife daughter of a samurai.The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel, David Mitchell (2010) https://t.co/PG2JJkJebv
The Orphan Master's Son
Adam Johnson
The son of an influential father who runs an orphan work camp, Pak Jun Do rises to prominence using instinctive talents and eventually becomes a professional kidnapper and romantic rival to Kim Jong Il.The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson (2012) https://t.co/mN45yGTBB8
The Son
Philipp Meyer
The Son, Philipp Meyer (2013) https://t.co/2WCzFwxoOX
Bring Up the Bodies
Hilary Mantel
WINNER OF THE 2012 MAN BOOKER PRIZE The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? Bring Up the Bodies is one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2012, one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012 and one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2012MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE DECADE 2010-2019 Bring Up The Bodies, Hilary Mantel (2013) https://t.co/L2Tew9sx22
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel
Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome and many of his people, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price. By the Hawthornden Prize-winning author of Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. 40,000 first printing.MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE DECADE 2010-2019 Bring Up The Bodies, Hilary Mantel (2013) https://t.co/L2Tew9sx22
Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
"The classic of modern science fiction"--Front cover.“Why read fiction? Because we’re hungry for another kind of truth. The mythic truth about human nature, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story” Orson Scott Card, Intro to Ender’s Game
The Stand
Stephen King
A monumentally devastating plague leaves only a few survivors who, while experiencing dreams of a battle between good and evil, move toward an actual confrontation as they migrate to Boulder, Colorado.@DanielRogoff The Stand! I recall reading that cinder block of a book in high school over the course of a few days. Stephen King is unduly snubbed by the elite literary set.
Trust Exercise
Susan Choi
WINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Electrifying” (People) • “Masterly” (The Guardian) • “Dramatic and memorable” (The New Yorker) • “Magic” (TIME) • “Ingenious” (The Financial Times) • "A gonzo literary performance” (Entertainment Weekly) • “Rare and splendid” (The Boston Globe) • “Remarkable” (USA Today) • “Delicious” (The New York Times) • “Book groups, meet your next selection" (NPR) In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley. The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down. What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence. As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Susan Choi's Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults.@diazmarg More: Patsy - Nicole Dennis-Benn Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams Trust Exercise - Susan Choi The Other Americans - Laila Lalami Disappearing Earth - Julia Phillips Honestly, there are so many good things by women — you never *need* to read a man.
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller
A breathtakingly original rendering of the Trojan War, shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012.The Song of Achilles by @MillerMadeline was so good I feel like someone ripped my heart out and stomped on and then put it back together slowly piece by piece. I have wished so many times I could read The Iliad for the first time again and this did that for me.
A Fire Upon The Deep
Vernor Vinge
After a spaceship crashes in unknown and unfriendly territory, two young children, the only survivors, are left to fend for themselves, but with time being of the essence, a rescue plan must be put into place quickly before the clock runs out on their lives. Reissue.@Davidromogr Sadly there aren't too many. I'm not a huge fan of much recent non-fiction in the space. For fiction at least: - The first chapter of "A Fire Upon the Deep" - Ted Chiang's "Lifecycle of Software Objects" - My own "Cognitive Discontinuity" :p
The Lifecycle of Software Objects
Ted Chiang
@Davidromogr Sadly there aren't too many. I'm not a huge fan of much recent non-fiction in the space. For fiction at least: - The first chapter of "A Fire Upon the Deep" - Ted Chiang's "Lifecycle of Software Objects" - My own "Cognitive Discontinuity" :p
The Night of Christmas Eve
Nikolai Gogol
This early work by Nikolai Gogol was originally published in 1832 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Night of Christmas Eve' is a short story about a young man trying to win the affections of a beautiful girl by promising to fetch her the slippers of the Tsaritsa. Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was born in Sorochintsi, Ukraine in 1809. In 1831, Gogol brought out the first volume of his Ukrainian stories, 'Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka'. It met with immediate success, and he followed it a year later with a second volume. 'The Nose' is regarded as a masterwork of comic short fiction, and 'The Overcoat' is now seen as one of the greatest short stories ever written; some years later, Dostoyevsky famously stated "We all come out from Gogol's 'Overcoat'." He is seen by many contemporary critics as one of the greatest short story writers who has ever lived, and theFather of Russia's Golden Age of Realism."What are your favorite Christmas/Hanukkah/New Years/Holiday/etc. books? I already reached my annual 52-book reading goal, so I think I might do themed reading in December. Gogol’s Christmas Eve. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. A Christmas Carol. What else?
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his futureWhat are your favorite Christmas/Hanukkah/New Years/Holiday/etc. books? I already reached my annual 52-book reading goal, so I think I might do themed reading in December. Gogol’s Christmas Eve. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. A Christmas Carol. What else?
Little Women (150th Anniversary Edition)
Louisa M Alcott
@seldo Did no one else read Little Women growing up?
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (Penguin Classics)
Heinrich Böll
Nobel Prize winner Heinrich Böll's powerful novel about a woman terrorized by the media In an era in which journalists will stop at nothing to break a story, Henrich Böll's The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum has taken on heightened relevance. A young woman's association with a hunted man makes her the target of a journalist determined to grab headlines by portraying her as an evil woman. As the attacks on her escalate and she becomes the victim of anonymous threats, Katharina sees only one way out of her nightmare. Turning the mystery genre on its head, the novel begins with the confession of a crime, drawing the reader into a web of sensationalism, character assassination, and the unavoidable eruption of violence.People of Twitter, you should read this book 👇 https://t.co/ojngVvsBnr
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline
Immersing himself in a mid-21st-century technological virtual utopia to escape an ugly real world of famine, poverty and disease, Wade Watts joins an increasingly violent effort to solve a series of puzzles by the virtual world's super-wealthy creator, who has promised that the winner will be his heir. (This book was previously listed in Forecast.)@collision @USMC Ready Player One and Starship Troopers?!
Starship Troopers
Robert Anson Heinlein
@collision @USMC Ready Player One and Starship Troopers?!
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead
Originally published: New York: Doubledday, 2016.Currently reading “The Underground Railroad” by @colsonwhitehead https://t.co/V5FSdnzf7Q
Agent Running in the Field
John Le Carre
A new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author John le Carré Set in London in 2018, Agent Running in the Field follows a twenty-six year old solitary figure who, in a desperate attempt to resist the political turbulence swirling around him, makes connections that will take him down a dangerous path. In his plot and characterization le Carré is as thrilling as ever and in the way he writes about our times he proves himself, once again, to be the greatest chronicler of our age.@gasca If you like the blog you’ll like it. I have something better. Agent running in the field by Le Carré. Just amazing
A Princess in Theory
Alyssa Cole
Prince Thabiso is the sole heir to the throne of Thesolo, shouldering the hopes of his parents and his people. At the top of their list? His marriage. Ever dutiful, he tracks down his missing betrothed. When Naledi mistakes the prince for a pauper, Thabiso can't resist the chance to experience life--and love--without the burden of his crown.The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Moments before I stepped on stage to have my first @oprahsbookclub discussion for The Water Dancer with 234 book club members! I always wanted to share the excitement a good book can bring you. & we’re finally doing it. Stream it tomorrow 11/1 on @AppleTVPlus #ReadWithUs https://t.co/PTAvZJcfdH
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis
Richards Heuer
First commissioned by the CIA, this book offers a fascinating look at the never-ending quest for better intelligence analysis. At the fundamental core of this work are the cognitive challenges that any analyst faces, and how critical thinking can significantly improve our understanding and outcomes for complex issues. This book explains how the mind is poorly wired to deal with information that is vague, convoluted, or that has been deliberately distorted. Our mental processes can lead us to jump to conclusions or employ other simplifying strategies that create faulty judgments, known as cognitive biases. However, critical thinking can substantially improve analysis when dealing with these types of complex issues. Techniques for better understanding include structuring information, challenging assumptions and exploring different interpretations. The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis features articles consolidated by CIA veteran Richards J. Heuer. These timelessly relevant articles focus on how people process information and make judgments on incomplete and ambiguous material. Translating the technical reports into accessible language, Heuer equates the relevance of these findings to the problems all analysts must overcome.@RyanHoliday This book was written by the CIA. It's called "The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis." I recommend chapter 5. It's called "Do you really need more information?" https://t.co/UZ7QYceYw6
All This Could Be Yours
Jami Attenberg
From critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling author Jami Attenberg comes a novel of family secrets: think the drama of Big Little Lies set in the heat of a New Orleans summer. "If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am," says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father, Victor, is on his deathbed, Alex--a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister--feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tight-lipped mother, Barbra. As Barbra fends off Alex's unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex's brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary's wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drugstores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As family members grapple with Victor's history, they must figure out a way to move forward--with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children. All This Could Be Yours is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can entangle a family for generations, and what it takes to--maybe, hopefully--break free. With her signature "sparkling prose" (Marie Claire) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age.Good morning, here are some of the (many) books I’ve liked lately! https://t.co/lel3vPOWMm
Ninth House (Alex Stern)
Leigh Bardugo
The mesmerizing adult debut from Leigh Bardugo, a tale of power, privilege, dark magic, and murder set among the Ivy League elite Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her? Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless “tombs” are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.Good morning, here are some of the (many) books I’ve liked lately! https://t.co/lel3vPOWMm
Dominicana
Angie Cruz
“I have been eagerly waiting for a new book from Angie Cruz. So glad the time has come.” —Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother I’m Dying and Breath, Eyes, Memory “Gorgeous writing, gorgeous story.” —Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street “An essential read for our times.” —Cristina Garcia, author of Dreaming in Cuban Fifteen-year-old Ana Cancion never dreamed of moving to America, the way the girls she grew up with in the Dominican countryside did. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she has to say yes. It doesn’t matter that he is twice her age, that there is no love between them. Their marriage is an opportunity for her entire close-knit family to eventually immigrate. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold six-floor walk-up in Washington Heights. Lonely and miserable, Ana hatches a reckless plan to escape. But at the bus terminal, she is stopped by Cesar, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, who convinces her to stay. As the Dominican Republic slides into political turmoil, Juan returns to protect his family’s assets, leaving Cesar to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons at a local church, lie on the beach at Coney Island, see a movie at Radio City Music Hall, go dancing with Cesar, and imagine the possibility of a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.Good morning, here are some of the (many) books I’ve liked lately! https://t.co/lel3vPOWMm
The Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides
The instant #1 New York Times bestseller "An unforgettable—and Hollywood-bound—new thriller... A mix of Hitchcockian suspense, Agatha Christie plotting, and Greek tragedy." —Entertainment Weekly The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive. Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....@Una Have you read The Silent Patient? REALLY good.
Magic for Liars
Sarah Gailey
Sharp, mainstream fantasy meets compelling thrills of investigative noir in Magic for Liars, a fantasy debut by rising star Sarah Gailey. Ivy Gamble was born without magic and never wanted it. Ivy Gamble is perfectly happy with her life – or at least, she’s perfectly fine. She doesn't in any way wish she was like Tabitha, her estranged, gifted twin sister. Ivy Gamble is a liar. When a gruesome murder is discovered at The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged twin sister teaches Theoretical Magic, reluctant detective Ivy Gamble is pulled into the world of untold power and dangerous secrets. She will have to find a murderer and reclaim her sister—without losing herself. “An unmissable debut.”—Adrienne Celt, author of Invitation to a BonfireIf Beale Street Could Talk
James Baldwin
When a pregnant Tish's boyfriend Fonny, a sculptor, is wrongfully jailed for the rape of a Puerto Rican woman, their families unite to prove the charge false. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.An American Marriage (Oprah's Book Club)
Tayari Jones
A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR * TIME * BUSTLE * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS * AMAZON.COM OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION “A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.” —Barack Obama “Haunting . . . Beautifully written.” —The New York Times Book Review “Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable.” —USA Today “A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class.” —People “Compelling.” —The Washington Post “Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant.” —Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace
A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are. Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human - and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.@ftrain Did you read Infinite Jest y/n?
Newcomer
Keigo Higashino
They say you must never judge a book by its cover but this chewed up copy just goes to prove that Alex loved Newcomer by Keigo Higashino as much as I did. An immersive read, one that I picked up again despite its… https://t.co/og6WciXH4x
Tropic of Kansas
Christopher Brown
“Futurist as provocateur! The world is sheer batshit genius . . . a truly hallucinatorily envisioned environment.”—William Gibson, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author “Timely, dark, and ultimately hopeful: it might not ‘make America great again,’ but then again, it just might.”—Cory Doctorow, New York Times bestselling and award winning author of Homeland Acclaimed short story writer and editor of the World Fantasy Award-nominee Three Messages and a Warning eerily envisions an American society unraveling and our borders closed off—from the other side—in this haunting and provocative novel that combines Max Barry’s Jennifer Government, Philip K. Dick’s classic Man in the High Castle, and China Mieville’s The City & the City The United States of America is no more. Broken into warring territories, its center has become a wasteland DMZ known as “the Tropic of Kansas.” Though this gaping geographic hole has no clear boundaries, everyone knows it's out there—that once-bountiful part of the heartland, broken by greed and exploitation, where neglect now breeds unrest. Two travelers appear in this arid American wilderness: Sig, the fugitive orphan of political dissidents, and his foster sister Tania, a government investigator whose search for Sig leads her into her own past—and towards an unexpected future. Sig promised those he loves that he would make it to the revolutionary redoubt of occupied New Orleans. But first he must survive the wild edgelands of a barren mid-America policed by citizen militias and autonomous drones, where one wrong move can mean capture . . . or death. One step behind, undercover in the underground, is Tania. Her infiltration of clandestine networks made of old technology and new politics soon transforms her into the hunted one, and gives her a shot at being the agent of real change—if she is willing to give up the explosive government secrets she has sworn to protect. As brother and sister traverse these vast and dangerous badlands, their paths will eventually intersect on the front lines of a revolution whose fuse they are about to light.Tropic of Kansas
Christopher Brown
“Futurist as provocateur! The world is sheer batshit genius . . . a truly hallucinatorily envisioned environment.”—William Gibson, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author “Timely, dark, and ultimately hopeful: it might not ‘make America great again,’ but then again, it just might.”—Cory Doctorow, New York Times bestselling and award winning author of Homeland Acclaimed short story writer and editor of the World Fantasy Award-nominee Three Messages and a Warning eerily envisions an American society unraveling and our borders closed off—from the other side—in this haunting and provocative novel that combines Max Barry’s Jennifer Government, Philip K. Dick’s classic Man in the High Castle, and China Mieville’s The City & the City The United States of America is no more. Broken into warring territories, its center has become a wasteland DMZ known as “the Tropic of Kansas.” Though this gaping geographic hole has no clear boundaries, everyone knows it's out there—that once-bountiful part of the heartland, broken by greed and exploitation, where neglect now breeds unrest. Two travelers appear in this arid American wilderness: Sig, the fugitive orphan of political dissidents, and his foster sister Tania, a government investigator whose search for Sig leads her into her own past—and towards an unexpected future. Sig promised those he loves that he would make it to the revolutionary redoubt of occupied New Orleans. But first he must survive the wild edgelands of a barren mid-America policed by citizen militias and autonomous drones, where one wrong move can mean capture . . . or death. One step behind, undercover in the underground, is Tania. Her infiltration of clandestine networks made of old technology and new politics soon transforms her into the hunted one, and gives her a shot at being the agent of real change—if she is willing to give up the explosive government secrets she has sworn to protect. As brother and sister traverse these vast and dangerous badlands, their paths will eventually intersect on the front lines of a revolution whose fuse they are about to light.The Future of Another Timeline
Annalee Newitz
“A revolution is happening in speculative fiction, and Annalee Newitz is leading the vanguard."--Wil Wheaton From Annalee Newitz, founding editor of io9, comes a story of time travel, murder, and the lengths we'll go to protect the ones we love. 1992: After a confrontation at a riot grrl concert, seventeen-year-old Beth finds herself in a car with her friend's abusive boyfriend dead in the backseat, agreeing to help her friends hide the body. This murder sets Beth and her friends on a path of escalating violence and vengeance as they realize many other young women in the world need protecting too. 2022: Determined to use time travel to create a safer future, Tess has dedicated her life to visiting key moments in history and fighting for change. But rewriting the timeline isn’t as simple as editing one person or event. And just when Tess believes she's found a way to make an edit that actually sticks, she encounters a group of dangerous travelers bent on stopping her at any cost. Tess and Beth’s lives intertwine as war breaks out across the timeline--a war that threatens to destroy time travel and leave only a small group of elites with the power to shape the past, present, and future. Against the vast and intricate forces of history and humanity, is it possible for a single person’s actions to echo throughout the timeline? Praise for The Future of Another Timeline: "An intelligent, gut-wrenching glimpse of how tiny actions, both courageous and venal, can have large consequences. Smart and profound on every level.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) "You close the book reeling with questions about your own life and your part in changing the future."—Amy Acker, actress (Angel and Person of Interest)So after reading @Annaleen's "The Future of Another Timeline" (which all of you should) I started musing on weird edits to the timeline which might be correlated with more significant changes in society. Specifically, I started thinking about pants…
Ball Lightning
Cixin Liu
"Wildly imaginative." —Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy A new science fiction adventure from the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Three-Body Trilogy. When Chen’s parents are incinerated before his eyes by a blast of ball lightning, he devotes his life to cracking the secret of this mysterious natural phenomenon. His search takes him to stormy mountaintops, an experimental military weapons lab, and an old Soviet science station. The more he learns, the more he comes to realize that ball lightning is just the tip of an entirely new frontier. While Chen’s quest for answers gives purpose to his lonely life, it also pits him against soldiers and scientists with motives of their own: a beautiful army major with an obsession with dangerous weaponry, and a physicist who has no place for ethical considerations in his single-minded pursuit of knowledge. Ball Lightning, by award-winning Chinese science fiction author Cixin Liu, is a fast-paced story of what happens when the beauty of scientific inquiry runs up against the drive to harness new discoveries with no consideration of their possible consequences. Tor books by Cixin Liu The Remembrance of Earth's Past The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End@stormtroper1721 @Miles_Brundage Ah, have read that (as have a bunch of @OpenAI colleagues). This is Ball Lightning (https://t.co/LpRVut36cv)
The Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides
The instant #1 New York Times bestseller "An unforgettable—and Hollywood-bound—new thriller... A mix of Hitchcockian suspense, Agatha Christie plotting, and Greek tragedy." —Entertainment Weekly The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive. Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him....@gabcimato I'm a BIG fan of everything by Michael Lewis. Liar's Poker is a good one. I just finished reading The Silent Patient if you like psychological thrillers.
You Know You Want This
Kristen Roupenian
“What’s special about ‘Cat Person,’ and the rest of the stories in You Know You Want This, is the author’s expert control of language, character, story—her ability to write stories that feel told, and yet so unpretentious and accessible that we think they must be true.” —The New York Times Book Review “Kristen Roupenian isn’t just an uncannily great writer, she also knows things about the human psyche—things that I always supposed I would learn at some point, but never did. Some of these things are about men’s minds in particular and I’m pretty sure she’s right. The world has made a lot more sense since reading this book.” —Miranda July, New York Times bestselling author of The First Bad Man “If you think you know what this collection will be like, you’re wrong. These stories are sharp and perverse, dark and bizarre, unrelenting and utterly bananas. I love them so, so much.” —Carmen Maria Machado, National Book Award Finalist and author of Her Body and Other Parties A compulsively readable collection of short stories that explore the complex—and often darkly funny—connections between gender, sex, and power across genres. You Know You Want This brilliantly explores the ways in which women are horrifying as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them. Among its pages are a couple who becomes obsessed with their friend hearing them have sex, then seeing them have sex…until they can’t have sex without him; a ten-year-old whose birthday party takes a sinister turn when she wishes for “something mean”; a woman who finds a book of spells half hidden at the library and summons her heart’s desire: a nameless, naked man; and a self-proclaimed “biter” who dreams of sneaking up behind and sinking her teeth into a green-eyed, long-haired, pink-cheeked coworker. Spanning a range of genres and topics—from the mundane to the murderous and supernatural—these are stories about sex and punishment, guilt and anger, the pleasure and terror of inflicting and experiencing pain. These stories fascinate and repel, revolt and arouse, scare and delight in equal measure. And, as a collection, they point a finger at you, daring you to feel uncomfortable—or worse, understood—as if to say, “You want this, right? You know you want this.”@MindaHarts Kristen Roupenian wrote the story "Cat Person" in The New Yorker that went viral; I'm reading her collection of short stories that includes that one "You Know You Want This" - it's GOOD, Cat Person is not even the best story in the book. I should finish it tonight.
State of Fear
Michael Crichton
@asteroid_saku Recommended reading Michael Crichton - Stare of Fear
Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Maria Semple
The two best books I've read so far this year (it's a tie between these for first place): 1a. Where'd You Go Bernadette 1b. Doomsday Book https://t.co/2rcHxxQjjn
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
@metaphoricmusic @argyris @Micaheadowcroft @PatrickDeneen I've only read The Road. I should probably read more.
The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Water Dancer is #1! Can’t wait to start discussing it with y’all. Swipe for the full schedule and I’ll be looking out for your comments on chapters 1-4 over at @oprahsbookclub this Monday 9/30 at 10 AM EST. Happy reading 📚 https://t.co/az8bMHrgkH
Watership Down
Richard Adams
WINNER of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program Now a Netflix animated miniseries starring James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, and Oscar and Grammy award-winner Sir Ben Kingsley. A worldwide bestseller for more than forty years, Watership Down is the compelling tale of a band of wild rabbits struggling to hold onto their place in the world—“a classic yarn of discovery and struggle” (The New York Times). Richard Adams’s Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in the Hampshire Downs in Southern England, an idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of “suspense, hot pursuit, and derring-do” (Chicago Tribune) follows a band of rabbits in flight from the incursion of man and the destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they travel forth from their native Sandleford warren through harrowing trials to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society. “A marvelous story of rebellion, exile, and survival” (Sunday Telegraph) this is an unforgettable literary classic for all ages.Just ordered Brand's "How Buildings Learn", Illich's "Deschooling Society", Ostrom's "Governing the Commons", Adams's "Watership Down", Lakatos's "Proofs and Refutations", Gleick's "Genius". Six books I love, and hope someone else will enjoy too.
The Water Dancer
Ta-Nehisi Coates
The only thing more thrilling than being captivated by a book is being able to share it with others. Which is why I’m excited to bring @oprahsbookclub to @apple starting TODAY! My first pick, The Water Dancer by the brilliant Ta-Nehisi Coates. It will enthrall you. #ReadwithUs https://t.co/DG99kTKrWu
Daisy Jones & the Six
Taylor Jenkins Reid
Lazy Sunday mornings spent reading in bed are the best. Slowly making my way through all of @EmmaWedekind's and @ASpittel's book recommendations. Just finished Daisy Jones & The Six and started The Silent Patient.
The Silent Patient
Alex Michaelides
Lazy Sunday mornings spent reading in bed are the best. Slowly making my way through all of @EmmaWedekind's and @ASpittel's book recommendations. Just finished Daisy Jones & The Six and started The Silent Patient.
Doomsday Book
Connie Willis
@mcwm Doomsday Book https://t.co/cD004zH2HZ
Palimpsest
Catherynne M. Valente
"Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse -- a voyage permitted only to those who've always believed there's another wor@primary_alt Highly recommend Ted Chiang if you haven't read already. Otherwise I really enjoyed reading the novella Palimpsest recently (a remix of Asimov's End of Eternity, which is also great)
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress
Robert A. Heinlein
A one-armed computer technician, a radical blonde bombshell, an aging academic, and a sentient all-knowing computer lead the lunar population in a revolution against Earth's colonial rule@michael_nielsen @rivatez I've been thinking about this, and it was probably The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, which made me want to work on AI, which led to Lisp.
The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.@paulg @rivatez Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. The best rebellion story.
Dear Committee Members
Julie Schumacher
Enduring budget cuts and the favoritism of other departments at a small liberal arts college, literature professor Jason Fitger despairs of his writing ambitions and imposed role in a star pupil's would-be opus while writing wryly comic, passive-aggressive letters to students and colleagues.@rachsyme Dear Committee Members!!
Fleishman Is in Trouble
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
"Dr. Toby Fleishman wakes up each morning surrounded by women. Women who are self-actualized and independent and know what they want--and, against all odds, what they want is Toby. Who knew what kind of life awaited him once he finally extracted himself from his nightmare of a marriage? Who knew that there were women out there who would actually look at him with softness and desire? But just as the winds of his optimism are beginning to pick up, they're quickly dampened, and then extinguished, when his ex-wife, Rachel, suddenly disappears. Toby thought he knew what to expect when he moved out: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, tense co-parenting negotiations. He never thought that one day Rachel would just drop their children off at his place and never come back. As Toby tries to figure out what happened and what it means, all while juggling his patients at the hospital, his never-ending parental duties, and his new, app-assisted sexual popularity, his tidy narrative of a spurned husband is his sole consolation. But if Toby ever wants to really understand where Rachel went and what really happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen it all that clearly in the first place. A searing, funny, and electric debut from one of the most exciting writers working today, Fleishman Is In Trouble is an exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines of an institution that has proven to be worthy of both our great wariness and our great optimism"--On vacation I read three absolutely brilliant books: - Fleishman is in Trouble by @taffyakner - Where’d You Go Bernadette by @_MariaSemple - Annihilation by @jeffvandermeer (The last night of the trip I had a truly terrifying dream that combined all three books 😱)
Annihilation
Jeff VanderMeer
Describes the 12th expedition to “Area X,” a region cut off from the continent for decades, by a group of intrepid women scientists who try to ignore the high mortality rates of those on the previous 11 missions. Original. 75,000 first printing.On vacation I read three absolutely brilliant books: - Fleishman is in Trouble by @taffyakner - Where’d You Go Bernadette by @_MariaSemple - Annihilation by @jeffvandermeer (The last night of the trip I had a truly terrifying dream that combined all three books 😱)
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen
Winner of the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man-or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.@taffyakner To be clear, I think Franzen deserves much of the praise heaped on him. 'The Corrections' was a monumental work whose passages still ring in memory. I thought 'Freedom' was solid, but its detour into bird-saving harangues by the end left me indifferent to news of 'Purity'.
The Overstory
Richard Powers
A novel of activism and natural-world power presents interlocking fables about nine remarkable strangers who are summoned in different ways by trees for an ultimate, brutal stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.@DaveHogue @wordstern +1 your mom - "The Overstory" is really impressive. If we're recommending other stuff then "Good Talk" by Mira Jacobs.
Dune
Frank Herbert
Follows the adventures of Paul Atreides, the son of a betrayed duke given up for dead on a treacherous desert planet and adopted by its fierce, nomadic people, who help him unravel his most unexpected destiny.Reading Dune, and this epigraph moved me: “The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in.. he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions.. even occasional greatness will destroy a man.” https://t.co/Hl35uBOUkq
Savaged by Systemd
Michael Warren Lucas
Not your normal Friday night in the computer room.Not a normal night anywhere.Terry is the archetypal old-school Unix admin, nurturing servers with care and precision while avoiding the latest trendy garbage. KDE and Gnome on a server? Nope, if you need a GUI use FVWM.The latest trend Terry refuses? One adopted almost everywhere? Systemd, the replacement init.So Systemd comes for Terry.Wearing skin-tight leather pants.No, not a normal night in the computer room at all¿I'm just leaving this here: https://t.co/s3DSBsWWGG https://t.co/NdWYhAzmzB
The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula K. Le Guin
@lukereeves @amythibodeau Yes, and The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic.
The Lathe Of Heaven
Ursula K. Le Guin
George Orr discovers that his dreams possess the remarkable ability to change the world, and when he falls into the hands of a power-mad psychiatrist, he counters by dreaming up a perfect world that can overcome his nightmares, in a new edition of the classic science fiction novel. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.Just finished reading Lathe of Heaven and finally starting The Calculating Stars 📚
The Calculating Stars
Mary Robinette Kowal
"A Tom Doherty Associates book"--Title page.Just finished reading Lathe of Heaven and finally starting The Calculating Stars 📚
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami
Superimposes the collapse of a marriage over the investigation into recovered war memories and a man's search for his own identityA Gentleman in Moscow
Amor Towles
The mega-bestseller with more than 1.5 million readers that is soon to be a major television series "The novel buzzes with the energy of numerous adventures, love affairs, [and] twists of fate." --The Wall Street Journal He can't leave his hotel. You won't want to. From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility--a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count's endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.@Austen - A Gentleman in Moscow Runners-up: - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - My Name Is Asher Lev - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Enlightenment Now - A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - To Kill a Mockingbird - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Daz
Living with an old-world mother and rebellious sister, an urban New Jersey misfit dreams of becoming the next J. R. R. Tolkien and believes that a long-standing family curse is thwarting his efforts to find love and happiness. A first novel by the author of the collection, Drown. Reprint.@Austen - A Gentleman in Moscow Runners-up: - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - My Name Is Asher Lev - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Enlightenment Now - A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - To Kill a Mockingbird - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
My Name Is Asher Lev
Chaim Potok
The novelist records the anguish and triumphs of a young painter as he emerges into the great world of art and rejects all else.@Austen - A Gentleman in Moscow Runners-up: - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - My Name Is Asher Lev - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Enlightenment Now - A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - To Kill a Mockingbird - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Michael Chabon
In 1939 New York City, Joe Kavalier, a refugee from Hitler's Prague, joins forces with his Brooklyn-born cousin, Sammy Clay, to create comic-book superheroes inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams.@Austen - A Gentleman in Moscow Runners-up: - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - My Name Is Asher Lev - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Enlightenment Now - A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - To Kill a Mockingbird - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel—a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice—but the weight of history will only tolerate so much. One of the best-loved classics of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has earned many dis-tinctions since its original publication in 1960. It has won the Pulitzer Prize, been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, and been made into an enormously popular movie. It was also named the best novel of the twentieth century by librarians across the country (Library Journal).@Austen - A Gentleman in Moscow Runners-up: - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - My Name Is Asher Lev - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Enlightenment Now - A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - To Kill a Mockingbird - The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Crashing the A-List
Summer Heacock
She’s doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons. After four months of unemployment, former book editor Clara Montgomery is officially stuck—stuck sleeping on her little brother’s ugly couch in Queens, stuck scrolling through job listings in search of a new editorial position…and just desperate enough to take on a temporary gig clearing out abandoned storage units. If nothing else, she’s determined to keep her rapidly dwindling savings account intact. Unfortunately, she is in no way prepared for stumbling upon dead snakes or dealing with glass jars that she’s convinced are full of pickled eyeballs. And why does everything seem to smell like beets? Then Clara comes across a unit that was once owned by an escort service and finds the brothel “résumé” of a younger Caspian Tiddleswich, an astonishingly famous British actor. She has no intention of cashing in on her discovery, but her awkward attempts to reassure Caspian that his secret is safe go awry. Now Caspian is convinced that Clara is a blackmailer, the tabloids have her pegged as Caspian’s newest girlfriend…and Clara begins to find the A-lister’s charms more irresistible than she expected.Matter
Iain Banks
My favourite kind of science fiction is the one where, after reading 100 pages, I go “there is no way this can be made into a high budget TV series, it’s the kind of writing that can evoke in the readers mind a universe of astonishing sophistication” https://t.co/ctidyxsSPX
The Bride Test
Helen Hoang
From the critically acclaimed author of The Kiss Quotient comes a romantic novel about love that crosses international borders and all boundaries of the heart... Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he's defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride. As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can't turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn't go as planned. Esme's lessons in love seem to be working...but only on herself. She's hopelessly smitten with a man who's convinced he can never return her affection. With Esme's time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he's been wrong all along. And there's more than one way to love.Dark Matter
Blake Crouch
A mindbending, relentlessly surprising thriller from the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy. “Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible. Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.@joshelman bought it, thanks. did you read Crouch's Dark Matter? it's good.
Parable of the Sower
Octavia E. Butler
This first Earthseed novel by ground-breaking writer Octavia E. Butler feel like a prophetic nod to our current world. If you were glued to The Handmaid's Tale, you'll love this beautiful new edition of a seminal American classic. 'If there is one thing scarier than a dystopian novel about the future, it's one written in the past that has already begun to come true. This is what makes Parable of the Sower even more impressive than it was when first published' Gloria Steinem We are coming apart. We're a rope, breaking, a single strand at a time. America is a place of chaos, where violence rules and only the rich and powerful are safe. Lauren Olamina, a young woman with the extraordinary power to feel the pain of others as her own, records everything she sees of this broken world in her journal. Then, one terrible night, everything alters beyond recognition, and Lauren must make her voice heard for the sake of those she loves. Soon, her vision becomes reality and her dreams of a better way to live gain the power to change humanity forever. All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. What readers are saying about Octavia Butler: 'Kindred was written in 1979 but could have been written last year. Incredible. I couldn't put it down' 'Emotionally and viscerally alive and challenging. I don't know how I missed it before now' 'A masterpiece by a matchless artist. Butler is simply sublime' 'Reading these books will change your life' 'A finely crafted work, rife with emotional power, horrifying in its believability, with a message that cannot be ignored'@cyborgyndroid I'm betting you've read them already, but Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents are incredible and relevant. Lovecraft Country is also very good, more creepy.
A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole
An obese New Orleans misanthrope who constantly rebukes society, Ignatius Reilly gets a job at his mother's urging but ends up leading a workers' revolt, in a twentieth anniversary edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Reprint.Your Saturday book rec: A Confederacy of Dunces. (I’m so late to this party. cc @dervalah.)
The Wedding Date
Jasmine Guillory
From the author of The Proposal, a Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick! One of Cosmopolitan's 33 Books to Get Excited About in 2018! A feel-good romance to warm your heart, for fans of Jo Watson, Sarah Morgan and Holly Martin. A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in this 'charming, warm, sexy gem of a novel' (Roxane Gay). On the eve of his ex's wedding festivities, Drew Nichols is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend... Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is not something Alexa Monroe would normally do. But Drew's proposal proves hard to resist. After their wedding date turns into a whole weekend of fun in San Francisco, Drew and Alexa return to their all-consuming careers - his in LA and hers in Berkeley. Too bad they can't stop thinking about each other... It could be the long-distance dating disaster of the century - or Drew and Alexa could be just a flight away from what each of them truly wants.The Kiss Quotient
Helen Hoang
One of Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Fiction in 2018 One of Amazon’s Top 100 Books of 2018 "This is such a fun read and it's also quite original and sexy and sensitive."--Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author "Hoang's writing bursts from the page."--Buzzfeed A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick. Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan--from foreplay to more-than-missionary position... Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic...Good Omens
Neil Gaiman
____________________ COMING TO AMAZON PRIME ON 31ST MAY - STARRING DAVID TENNANT, MICHAEL SHEEN AND BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH 'Marvellously benign, ridiculously inventive and gloriously funny' Guardian ____________________ 'Armageddon only happens once, you know. They don't let you go around again until you get it right' According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, Judgement Day is almost upon us and the world's going to end in a week . . . Now people have been predicting the end of the world almost from its very beginning, so it's only natural to be sceptical when a new date is set for Judgement Day. But what if, for once, the predictions are right, and the apocalypse really is due to arrive next Saturday, just after tea? You could spend the time left drowning your sorrows, giving away all your possessions in preparation for the rapture, or laughing it off as (hopefully) just another hoax. Or you could just try to do something about it. It's a predicament that Aziraphale, a somewhat fussy angel, and Crowley, a fast-living demon now finds themselves in. They've been living amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and, truth be told, have grown rather fond of the lifestyle and, in all honesty, are not actually looking forward to the coming Apocalypse. And then there's the small matter that someone appears to have misplaced the Antichrist . . .The Great Believers
Rebecca Makkai
WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS WINNER OF THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD - BARBARA GITTINGS LITERATURE AWARD FINALIST FOR THE LA TIMES FICTION AWARD 'Stirring, spellbinding and full of life' Téa Obreht, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup: bringing an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDs epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, he finds his partner is infected, and that he might even have the virus himself. The only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago epidemic, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways the AIDS crisis affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. Yale and Fiona's stories unfold in incredibly moving and sometimes surprising ways, as both struggle to find goodness in the face of disaster.HEY, @bookpage thinks your book club should read The Great Believers. I think so too, and I'm trying to figure out a package to put together for book clubs, sthg other than a reading guide that I can send them in thanks. (But that's, like, free.) Ideas? https://t.co/s6Icl0wAoT
Star Fleet Technical Manual
Franz Joseph
Gathers diagrams of spaceships, transporters, control stations, equipment, medical instruments, weapons, shuttlecraft, uniforms, insignia and fleet headquarters, and includes Federation maps and treaties@JaimePrimak Heart of Darkness or Star Fleet Technical Manual
Anna Karenina
graf Leo Tolstoy
Presents the nineteenth-century Russian novelist's classic in which a young woman is destroyed when she attempts to live outside the moral law of her society(Didn’t include Anna Karenina because I feel like that goes without saying. That and The Power and the Glory.)
Big Little Lies
Liane Moriarty
A cloth bag containing ten copies of the title.I’m not gonna share the title of the badly written book but instead will share the name of an unexpectedly well-written book: Big Little Lies. I couldn’t put it down. (The kids actually act like children in the book btw unlike the show.)
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
The decisions of a few industrial leaders shake the roots of capitalism and reawaken one man's awareness of himself as an heroic being. Reissue.@npueu Yep. Planning to get her Atlas Shrugged next
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple award winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.@samin Currently reading Three Body Problem so is of interest!
Mort
Terry Pratchett
@tanvibhakta_ Both. WoT hasn't aged well though, and imo peaks at Book 6 (Dumai's Wells ftw - "Kneel or you shall be knelt"). Pratchett has. Imo Discworld really hits it's stride only with "Mort" (Book 5), so give it some space. I'm also a HUGE fan of the Tiffany Aching series.
Fleishman Is in Trouble
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE/JOHN LEONARD AWARD FOR BEST FIRST BOOK THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'This is the novel of the summer . . . There is no one that this book isn't for. I can't believe it's a first novel. Pure brilliance' INDIA KNIGHT, THE SUNDAY TIMES 'Could be one of the books of my entire lifetime. I've never felt so seen' GRACE DENT, GUARDIAN 'Sharp and wicked, insightful and funny, and then suddenly so touching' DAVID NICHOLLS 'This book is a work of utter perfection' ELIZABETH GILBERT Finally free from his nightmare marriage, Toby Fleishman is ready for a life of online dating and weekend-only parental duties. But as he optimistically looks to a future that is wildly different from the one he imagined, his life turns upside-down as his ex-wife, Rachel, suddenly disappears. While Toby tries to find out what happened - juggling work, kids and his new, app-assisted sexual popularity - his tidy narrative of a spurned husband is his sole consolation. But if he ever wants to really understand where Rachel went and what really happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen it all that clearly in the first place . . . A BLISTERING SATIRICAL NOVEL ABOUT MARRIAGE, DIVORCE AND MODERN RELATIONSHIPS, BY ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING NEW VOICES IN AMERICAN FICTION 'So sharp' GUARDIAN 'The most astonishingly brilliant Trojan horse of a novel' DOLLY ALDERTON 'Wonderful. Utterly blistering . . . A wildly entertaining, moving story' MARIAN KEYES 'Brimming with wisdom and utterly of this moment . . . Taffy Brodesser-Akner's debut is that rare and delicious treat: a page turner with heft' MARIA SEMPLE 'It is a Great Novel . . . It has depth, wit, nuance and life. Heartbreaking and funny' NIGELLA LAWSONHey SF Wing members and friends! @taffyakner is speaking at the SF Wing today at 6:30pm in case you are also reading her wonderful book ‘Fleishman Is In Trouble’ and want to be around her genius.
Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte
The text of the novel is based on the first edition of 1847.Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel
Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome and many of his people, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price. By the Hawthornden Prize-winning author of Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. 40,000 first printing.@HelenMcClory Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel are two of the best books I’ve ever read. It reimagines a story we thought we knew and the language is just brilliant.
Bring Up the Bodies
Hilary Mantel
WINNER OF THE 2012 MAN BOOKER PRIZE The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? Bring Up the Bodies is one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2012, one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012 and one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2012@HelenMcClory Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel are two of the best books I’ve ever read. It reimagines a story we thought we knew and the language is just brilliant.
The Once and Future King
Terence Hanbury White
Describes King Arthur's life from his childhood to the coronation, creation of the Round Table, and search for the Holy Grail@DelReyBooks Don't forget The Once and Future King!
The Broken Earth Trilogy
N. K. Jemisin
This special boxed set includes the New York Times bestselling author N. K. Jemisin's complete, two-time Hugo award-winning Broken Earth Trilogy. This is the way the world ends. For the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. The Broken Earth trilogyThe Fifth SeasonThe Obelisk GateThe Stone Sky@KCurkowicz Big fan of the Stone Sky trilogy. Don’t know The Power. Whose the author?
Seven Blades in Black
Sam Sykes
Acclaimed author Sam Sykes returns with a brilliant new epic fantasy that introduces an unforgettable outcast magician caught between two warring empires. Her magic was stolen. She was left for dead. Betrayed by those she trusts most and her magic ripped from her, all Sal the Cacophony has left is her name, her story, and the weapon she used to carve both. But she has a will stronger than magic, and knows exactly where to go. The Scar, a land torn between powerful empires, where rogue mages go to disappear, disgraced soldiers go to die and Sal went with a blade, a gun, and a list of seven names. Revenge will be its own reward. For more from Sam Sykes, check out: The Affinity for Steel TrilogyTome of the UndergatesBlack HaloThe Skybound Sea Bring Down HeavenThe City Stained RedThe Mortal TallyGod's Last Breath@peterme The Grand Dark Seven Blades in Black The Ends of the World Sea of Rust Washington Black
Washington Black
Esi Edugyan
- TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, Entertainment Weekly, Slate - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Boston Globe, NPR, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Economist, Bustle - WINNER OF THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE - FINALIST FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE, THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE, THE ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE "Enthralling" --Boston Globe "Extraordinary" --Seattle Times "A rip-roaring tale" --Washington Post A dazzling adventure story about a boy who rises from the ashes of slavery to become a free man of the world. George Washington Black, or "Wash," an eleven-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master's brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning--and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Christopher and Wash must abandon everything. What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic. What brings Christopher and Wash together will tear them apart, propelling Wash even further across the globe in search of his true self. From the blistering cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, from the earliest aquariums of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black tells a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again, and asks the question, What is true freedom?@peterme The Grand Dark Seven Blades in Black The Ends of the World Sea of Rust Washington Black
Bring Up the Bodies
Hilary Mantel
WINNER OF THE 2012 MAN BOOKER PRIZE The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? Bring Up the Bodies is one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2012, one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012 and one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2012@anne_theriault There are no endings. If you think so you are deceived as to their nature. They are all beginnings. Here is one. —Hilary Mantel, Bring Up The Bodies
The Geneva Option
Adam LeBor
A gripping thriller of international espionage, The Geneva Option by Adam LeBor pits a sexy, young UN staffer against a brutal conspiracy to control Africa’s natural resources. Yael Azoulay does the United Nations’ dirty work. Sent by the UN’s Secretary General to eastern Congo to negotiate with Jean-Pierre Hakizimani, a Hutu warlord wanted for genocide, she offers a deal: surrender to the UN tribunal, in exchange for a short sentence and a return to politics. The plan is to bring stability to the region so the West can exploit the region’s mineral wealth. But Yael soon realizes that the UN is prepared to turn a blind eye to mass murder. Yael finds herself on the run, hunted by the world’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies—and haunted by her past—ultimately learning that salvation means not just saving other’s lives but confronting her own inner demons. Written by Adam LeBor, a high-profile foreign correspondent and critically acclaimed investigative journalist, The Geneva Option takes readers on a nonstop journey through the secret corridors of international power.@adamlebor @FT Absolutely loved The Geneva Option.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid
@taylorotwell I'll give you 5+! The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo The Fifth Season The Foundation Saga Ishmael Brave New World
The Fifth Season
N. K. Jemisin
"Intricate and extraordinary." - New York Times on The Fifth Season (A New York Times Notable Book of 2015) WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL 2016 This is the way the world ends...for the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy. For more from N. K. Jemisin, check out: The Inheritance Trilogy The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms The Broken Kingdoms The Kingdom of Gods The Inheritance Trilogy (omnibus edition) Shades in Shadow: An Inheritance Triptych (e-only short fiction) The Awakened Kingdom (e-only novella) Dreamblood Duology The Killing Moon The Shadowed Sun The Broken EarthThe Fifth SeasonThe Obelisk Gate@taylorotwell I'll give you 5+! The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo The Fifth Season The Foundation Saga Ishmael Brave New World
Ishmael
Daniel Quinn
An award-winning, compelling novel of spiritual adventure about a gorilla named Ishmael, who possesses immense wisdom, and the man who becomes his pupil, offers answers to the world's most pressing moral dilemmas. Reprint.@taylorotwell I'll give you 5+! The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo The Fifth Season The Foundation Saga Ishmael Brave New World
Brave New World
Aldous Huxley
Huxley's classic prophetic novel describes the socialized horrors of a futuristic utopia devoid of individual freedom.@taylorotwell I'll give you 5+! The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo The Fifth Season The Foundation Saga Ishmael Brave New World
Foundation
Isaac Asimov
A band of psychologists, under the leadership of psychohistorian Hari Seldon, plant a colony to encourage art, science, and technology in the declining Galactic Empire and to preserve the accumulated knowledge of humankind. Reader's Guide available. Reissue.@taylorotwell I'll give you 5+! The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo The Fifth Season The Foundation Saga Ishmael Brave New World
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid
@alexbdebrie best book i've read recently is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
High-Rise: A Novel
J. G. Ballard
"Harsh and ingenious! High Rise is an intense and vivid bestiary, which lingers unsettlingly in the mind." —Martin Amis, New Statesman When a class war erupts inside a luxurious apartment block, modern elevators become violent battlegrounds and cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on “enemy” floors. In this visionary tale, human society slips into violent reverse as once-peaceful residents, driven by primal urges, re-create a world ruled by the laws of the jungle.Sharp Objects
Gillian Flynn
AN HBO® LIMITED SERIES STARRING AMY ADAMS FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GONE GIRL Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.@davidcstevens_ I'll look it up! Definitely read Sharp Objects if you haven't yet!
Sharp Objects
Gillian Flynn
AN HBO® LIMITED SERIES STARRING AMY ADAMS FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF GONE GIRL Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.I've been reading a lot of thrillers lately... - Sharp Objects (Gillian Flynn) - Dark Places (Gillian Flynn) - The Woman in the Window ( AJ Finn) - We Were Liars (E. Lockhart) Have any other suggestions? 📚
Dark Places
Gillian Flynn
Your brother murdered your family. Your evidence put him away . . . the gripping second novel from the author of GONE GIRL and SHARP OBJECTS Libby Day was just seven years old when her older brother massacred her family while she hid in a cupboard. Her evidence helped put him away. Ever since then she has been drifting, surviving for over 20 years on the proceeds of the 'Libby Day fund'. But now the money is running out and Libby is desperate. When she is offered $500 to do a guest appearance, she feels she has to accept. But this is no ordinary gathering. The Kill Club is a group of true-crime obsessives who share information on notorious murders, and they think her brother Ben is innocent. Ben was a social misfit, ground down by the small-town farming community in which he lived. But he did have a girlfriend - a brooding heavy metal fan called Diondra. Through her, Ben became involved with drugs and the dark arts. When the town suddenly turned against him, his thoughts turned black. But was he capable of murder? Libby must delve into her family's past to uncover the truth - no matter how painful...I've been reading a lot of thrillers lately... - Sharp Objects (Gillian Flynn) - Dark Places (Gillian Flynn) - The Woman in the Window ( AJ Finn) - We Were Liars (E. Lockhart) Have any other suggestions? 📚
The Woman in the Window
A. J. Finn
#1 New York Times Bestseller – Soon to be a Major Motion Picture starring Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, and Gary Oldman “Astounding. Thrilling. Amazing.” —Gillian Flynn “Unputdownable.” —Stephen King “A dark, twisty confection.” —Ruth Ware “Absolutely gripping.” —Louise Penny For readers of Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house. It isn’t paranoia if it’s really happening . . . Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare. What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems. Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock.I've been reading a lot of thrillers lately... - Sharp Objects (Gillian Flynn) - Dark Places (Gillian Flynn) - The Woman in the Window ( AJ Finn) - We Were Liars (E. Lockhart) Have any other suggestions? 📚
We Were Liars
E. Lockhart
A Zoella Bookclub title 2016 1. Read this book. 2. On reaching the final page, you may experience an urgent need to read it all over again. 3. Check your friends have read it. 4. NOW YOU ARE FREE TO TALK TO THEM ABOUT IT ENDLESSLY Winner of Goodreads Best Young Adult Fiction Book 2014 'E. Lockhart is one of our most important novelists, and she has given us her best book yet. Thrilling, beautiful, and blisteringly smart, We Were Liars is utterly unforgettable.' - John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars 'Irresistible' - New York Times Book Review 'Haunting, sophisticated' - Wall Street Journal 'Bowl-you-over' - Cosmopolitan 'So freaking good' - Sarah Dessen 'Such beautiful writing' - Libba Bray 'Beautiful and disturbing' - Justine Larbalestier 'Better than the hype' - Lauren Oliver We are the Liars. We are beautiful, privileged and live a life of carefree luxury. We are cracked and broken. A story of love and romance. A tale of tragedy. Which are lies? Which is truth?I've been reading a lot of thrillers lately... - Sharp Objects (Gillian Flynn) - Dark Places (Gillian Flynn) - The Woman in the Window ( AJ Finn) - We Were Liars (E. Lockhart) Have any other suggestions? 📚
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro
An English butler reflects--sometimes bitterly, sometimes humorously--on his service to a lord between the two world wars and discovers doubts about his master's character and about the ultimate value of his own service to humanity@mmcgrana Awesome book
The Alienist
Caleb Carr
Paperback edition with new afterword originally published by Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006.@andybudd +1 for The Alienist. Also E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS and Peter Quinn's BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE and HEYDAY by Kurt Andersen.
The waterworks
E. L. Doctorow
In post-Civil War New York City, a young pedestrian recognizes his supposedly dead father riding in a passing horse-drawn omnibus. By the author of Ragtime. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo. Tour.@andybudd +1 for The Alienist. Also E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS and Peter Quinn's BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE and HEYDAY by Kurt Andersen.
Banished Children of Eve
Peter Quinn
A likable Irish-American hustler, a Yankee stockbroker, a beautiful mulatto musical comedy star, and her white minstrel lover experience life in New York City during the Civil War Draft Riots@andybudd +1 for The Alienist. Also E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS and Peter Quinn's BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE and HEYDAY by Kurt Andersen.
Heyday
Kurt Andersen
Englishman Benjamin Knowles heads for America to build a new life and joins up with three young Americans--journalist Timothy Skaggs, war veteran Duff Lucking, and Duff's actress sister, Polly--to seek their fortunes in the gold fields of California.@andybudd +1 for The Alienist. Also E.L. Doctorow's THE WATERWORKS and Peter Quinn's BANISHED CHILDREN OF EVE and HEYDAY by Kurt Andersen.
Breach
Eliot Peper
A hacker is drawn out of hiding and into an epic geopolitical showdown in the frighteningly plausible conclusion to Eliot Peper's critically acclaimed Analog Series. When you've betrayed your revolutionary cadre, an off-grid fight club on a remote tropical island is a good place to hide--or die. For notorious ex-hacker Emily Kim, the outcome of each fight makes little difference. Black-market blood sport is the perfect self-imposed penance. But when she stumbles on a plot to overthrow the corporate empire that provides the ubiquitous global feed, Emily discovers her old friends have been targeted. Warning them will force her out into the open, back on-grid, and directly into danger. Emily can't escape the past. But can she seize the future? Emily's quest for redemption spirals into an all-out shadow war. What constitutes justice in a world run by algorithms? The feed--and Emily--must be reinvented. Or destroyed.TAKING TURNS
Ja Huss
I've never been afraid of the dark...but that doesn't mean I wanted to live in it. And maybe everyone wants what they can't have, but I should've thought it over before I accepted the key and unlocked the door to their forbidden world. Number One is mostly silent. He watches me with them very carefully. His gaze never wanders. His interest never wanes. Number Two is mostly gentle. But it's the other side of him I like best. The wild side. Number Three is mostly reserved. He refuses to cross the line. Even when I beg. It was carnal, it was sensual, and it was erotic. That's it. That's all it was supposed to be. A trip into the dark. A peek into the forbidden. I just didn't expect to like them.@LoreneK025 @heelsonthefield @ComicNurse That was supposed to say “Taking Turns.”
The Water Knife
Paolo Bacigalupi
Decimated by drought, Nevada and Arizona skirmish over dwindling shares of the Colorado River, while California watches, waiting. Into the fray steps Las Vegas water knife Angel Velasquez, who "cuts" water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority and its boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert and that anyone who challenges her is left in the gutted-suburban dust. He becomes a pawn in a game far bigger, more corrupt, and dirtier than he could have imagined.All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren
Willie Stark's obsession with political power leads to the ultimate corruption of his gubernatorial administration.From perhaps the best American political novel ever written, Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men". https://t.co/nTHi29JfC4
The Jungle
Upton Sinclair
The author's famous tale of a Lithuanian family who emigrates to America and is destroyed by exploitation, crushing poverty, and economic despair.As I talk to people about regulation of tech, I keep thinking about Upton Sinclair’s book ‘The Jungle’.
My Brilliant Friend
Elena Ferrante
"Mi briljante venninne" er ei historie fortalt av Elena, som har oppdaga at den beste venninna hennar gjennom eit langt liv er sporlaust forsvunnen. Lila har tatt med seg alt ho eig og klipt vekk ansiktet sitt frå samtlege familiefotografi. Historia om dei to begynner i eit fattig, men pulserande nabolag i utkanten av Napoli. Dei to kløktige jentene lærer å stole på kvarandre - og ingen andre - i dei røffe gatene som er kontrollert av mafiaen. Romanen er eit portrett av to sterke kvinner, men òg historia om eit nabolag, ein by og eit land som gjennomgår store endringar frå 50-åra og fram til vår tid.Cloud Atlas
David Stephen Mitchell
@collabfund Cloud Atlas, Skin in the Game
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by French author Alexandre Dumas. Completed in 1844, it is one of the author's most popular works. The story takes place in France, Italy, islands in the Mediterranean, and in the Levant during the historical events of 1815-1838. It begins from just before the Hundred Days period (when Napoleon returned to power after his exile) and spans through to the reign of Louis-Philippe of France. The historical setting is a fundamental element of the book. An adventure story primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy and forgiveness, it focuses on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires a fortune and sets about getting revenge on those responsible for his imprisonment. However, his plans have devastating consequences for the innocent as well as the guilty.@susanthesquark The Count of Monte Cristo
The Overstory
Richard Powers
A novel of activism and natural-world power presents interlocking fables about nine remarkable strangers who are summoned in different ways by trees for an ultimate, brutal stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.@gretared @dburka The Three Body Problem series. And I’m SUPER digging The Overstory by Richard Powers.
The Road
Cormac McCarthy
The post-apocalyptic modern classic with an introduction by novelist John Banville. In a burned-out America, a father and his young son walk under a darkened sky, heading slowly for the coast. They have no idea what, if anything, awaits them there. The landscape is destroyed, nothing moves save the ash on the wind and cruel, lawless men stalk the roadside, lying in wait. Attempting to survive in this brave new world, the young boy and his protector have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves. They must keep walking. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Road is an incandescent novel, the story of a remarkable and profoundly moving journey. In this unflinching study of the best and worst of humankind, Cormac McCarthy boldly divines a future without hope, but one in which, miraculously, this young family finds tenderness. An exemplar of post-apocalyptic writing, The Road is a true modern classic, a masterful, moving and increasingly prescient novel.@bgurley @samhinkie Way ahead of you ;) Blood Meridien helped get me into reading fiction, the Road is an all timer for me, as is All the Pretty Horses. So cool.
All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, Book 1)
Cormac McCarthy
With an introduction by novelist Rachel Kushner In the vanishing world of the Old West, two cowboys begin an epic adventure, and their own coming-of-age stories. In All the Pretty Horses, John Grady Cole’s search for a future takes him across the Mexican border to a job as a ranch hand and an ill-fated romance. The Crossing is the story of sixteen-year-old Billy Parham, who sets off on a perilous journey across the mountains of Mexico, accompanied only by a lone wolf. Eventually the two come together in Cities of the Plain, in a stunning tale of loyalty and love. A true classic of American literature, The Border Trilogy is Cormac McCarthy’s award-winning requiem for the American frontier. Beautiful and brutal, filled equally with sorrow and humour, it is a powerful story of two friends growing up in a world where blood and violence are conditions of life.@bgurley @samhinkie Way ahead of you ;) Blood Meridien helped get me into reading fiction, the Road is an all timer for me, as is All the Pretty Horses. So cool.
Anathem
Neal Stephenson
The latest magnificent creation from the award-winning author of Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle trilogy. Erasmas, 'Raz', is a young avout living in the Concent, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers. Three times during history's darkest epochs, violence has invaded and devastated the cloistered community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe. But they now prepare to open the Concent's gates to the outside world, in celebration of a once-a-decade rite. Suddenly, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world - as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet...and beyond.@mdlevinson Hmm. First third amazing. After that YMMV. Just read till page 300 or so. I loved Snow Crash, liked Anathem, liked Reamde, found Seveneves to be too many things in one book.
Washington Black
Esi Edugyan
- TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, Entertainment Weekly, Slate - ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Boston Globe, NPR, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Economist, Bustle - WINNER OF THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE - FINALIST FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE, THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE, THE ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE "Enthralling" --Boston Globe "Extraordinary" --Seattle Times "A rip-roaring tale" --Washington Post A dazzling adventure story about a boy who rises from the ashes of slavery to become a free man of the world. George Washington Black, or "Wash," an eleven-year-old field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is terrified to be chosen by his master's brother as his manservant. To his surprise, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky, where even a boy born in chains may embrace a life of dignity and meaning--and where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Christopher and Wash must abandon everything. What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic. What brings Christopher and Wash together will tear them apart, propelling Wash even further across the globe in search of his true self. From the blistering cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, from the earliest aquariums of London to the eerie deserts of Morocco, Washington Black tells a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again, and asks the question, What is true freedom?Currently reading: Washington Black Shoutout to @tdevane for the recommendation. https://t.co/Rtmqiw4U4E https://t.co/1pG2j4SAWI
The Best of Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Twelve stories by the modern master of science fiction represent the evolution of his writing over a period of thirty-three years@Jakewk Love Asimov. Read most of his well-known stuff 15-20 yrs ago.
Ladies' Delight
Émile Zola
Au Bonheur des Dames is the glittering Paris department store run by Octave Mouret. He has used charm and drive to become director of this mighty emporium, unscrupulously exploiting his young female staff and seducing his lady customers with luxurious displays of shimmering silks, satins, velvets and lace. Then Denise Baudu, a naïve provincial girl, becomes an assistant at the store, and Mouret discovers that he in turn can be charmed. With its vivid portrayal of greedy customers and gossiping staff, its lavish descriptions and sense of theatre, Au Bonheur des Dames is a rich and exciting novel. The eleventh in Zola's great cycle Les Rougon-Macquart, it is a timeless commentary on modern consumer society.Zola explains loss-leaders in retailing, 1883. https://t.co/ALDMranNQi
Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)
Min Jin Lee
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP TEN OF THE YEAR * NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 *A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017 Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER In this gorgeous, page-turning saga, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a home they never knew. "There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones." In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.Ever year I set a goal to read 50 books 📚. Here's what I've read so far as I near the halfway mark (with a thumbs up if I'd recommend the book to a friend)! I've queued up Walter Benjamin, LeGuin, Frank Herbert, Michael Lewis, Celeste Ng, Dostoevsky. What else should I read? https://t.co/WENcdh8T55
Freshwater
Akwaeke Emezi
An extraordinary debut novel exploring the metaphysics of identity and mental health, centering on a young Nigerian woman as she struggles to reconcile the proliferation of multiple selves within herEver year I set a goal to read 50 books 📚. Here's what I've read so far as I near the halfway mark (with a thumbs up if I'd recommend the book to a friend)! I've queued up Walter Benjamin, LeGuin, Frank Herbert, Michael Lewis, Celeste Ng, Dostoevsky. What else should I read? https://t.co/WENcdh8T55
Dark Matter
Blake Crouch
"Extra Libris: Essays, Reader's Guides, and More"--Page [345].@SteveBissen Recently finished: Dark Matter by Crouch (first fiction in awhile) The Fish That Ate the Whale by Cohen The Outsiders by Thorndike Currently: Range by @DavidEpstein (comes out this month) Favs: https://t.co/kEcPoKYUiC
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple award winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.@nickdawson (looking over my goodreads…) THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM series was probably my favorite read over the last few years. Dense, heady, hard sci-fi. The WAYFARER series by Becky Chambers is fun and funky sci-fi.
A Prefect's Uncle
P. G. Wodehouse
Long before British humor master P.G. Wodehouse created the popular novel series based on the much-beloved character Jeeves, he sent up his native country's private school culture in A Prefect's Uncle. When the mischievous prankster Farnie arrives on campus of tony Beckford College and his shocking true identity is revealed, much hilarity ensues.@hschhaya The MCC match in A Prefect's Uncle.
The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoevsky
The violent lives of three sons are exposed when their father is murdered and each one attempts to come to terms with his guilt.100% committed to this strategy right now. Reading multiple books: - The Timeless Way of Building - Wisdom of Crowds - The Brothers Karamazov - The Reason for God Group reading. Much more fun.
Lethal White
Robert Galbraith
'Hugely absorbing. . . the best Strike novel yet' SUNDAY MIRROR 'Highly inventive storytelling' GUARDIAN 'Outrageously entertaining' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Come for the twists and turns and stay for the beautifully drawn central relationship' INDEPENDENT 'Blistering piece of crime writing' SUNDAY TIMES 'Fans will love it' HEAT ----- When Billy, a troubled young man, comes to private eye Cormoran Strike's office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child, Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed, and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic. Trying to get to the bottom of Billy's story, Strike and Robin Ellacott - once his assistant, now a partner in the agency - set off on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London, into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament, and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside. And during this labyrinthine investigation, Strike's own life is far from straightforward: his newfound fame as a private eye means he can no longer operate behind the scenes as he once did. Plus, his relationship with his former assistant is more fraught than it ever has been - Robin is now invaluable to Strike in the business, but their personal relationship is much, much more tricky than that . . . The most epic Robert Galbraith novel yet, LETHAL WHITE is both a gripping mystery and a page-turning next instalment in the ongoing story of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott. ----- PRAISE FOR THE STRIKE SERIES: 'One of the most unique and compelling detectives I've come across in years' MARK BILLINGHAM 'The work of a master storyteller' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Unputdownable. . . Irresistible' SUNDAY TIMES 'Will keep you up all night' OBSERVER 'A thoroughly enjoyable classic' PETER JAMES, SUNDAY EXPRESS"Lethal White" - the newest J.K.Rowling Cormoran Strike books. It's no secret I'm a huge JKR fan and her Strike books are better than HP in some ways. She writes freely and you see how talented she is. This is not the best in the series but still towers above everyone else.
The Woman in the Window
A. J. Finn
#1 New York Times Bestseller – Soon to be a Major Motion Picture starring Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, and Gary Oldman “Astounding. Thrilling. Amazing.” —Gillian Flynn “Unputdownable.” —Stephen King “A dark, twisty confection.” —Ruth Ware “Absolutely gripping.” —Louise Penny For readers of Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house. It isn’t paranoia if it’s really happening . . . Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare. What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems. Twisty and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of Hitchcock."The Woman In the Window" by A.J.Finn. I confess I only read this due to the recent controversy around the author. It feels derivative of the "Gone Girl" unreliable narrator genre but will sustain your interest for an afternoon.
Death Notice
Zhou Haohui
“Fiendishly inventive.” —The Wall Street Journal Chengdu, China: The vibrant capital of Sichuan Province is suddenly held hostage when a shocking manifesto is released by an anonymous vigilante known as Eumenides. It is a bold declaration of war against a corrupt legal system, with Eumenides acting as judge and executioner. The public starts nominating potential targets, and before long hundreds of names are added to his kill list. Eumenides's cunning game has only just begun. First, he publishes a “death notice,” announcing his next target, the crimes for which the victim will be punished, and the date of the execution. The note is a deeply personal taunt to the police. Everyone knows who is going to die and when it's going to happen, but the police fail to stop the attack. The 4/18 Task Force, an elite group of detectives and specialists, is assembled to catch Eumenides before he strikes again. In the process, they discover alarming connections to an eighteen-year-old cold case, and they find out that some members of the team have much to hide."Death Notice" by Zhou Haohui. I got @aarthir a Daunt Book subscription for Christmas but I've been reading her books first 😄. A massive Chinese hit translated into English. It feels very non-American but also familiar. Indian and Chinese culture have a lot of overlap apparently
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
Government leaders seeking control over all business become increasingly frantic as major industrial companies are being thrown into chaos following the sudden disappearance of their leaders.@sarthakgh @jGage718 @rivatez Atlas Shrugged on 2x is still 8 hours. Meanwhile, watching both Fyre Festival docos is only 3 hours...
- Presents the author's selection of his best short stories, as well as a new piece, in a collection that includes "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary," "Mono No Aware" and "The Waves."
I can’t recommend this book enough. I hope everyone reads it because it's THAT GOOD, and also so we can talk about it. 🙂 https://t.co/EeBUvH9BY4
- Presents the author's selection of his best short stories, as well as a new piece, in a collection that includes "The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary," "Mono No Aware" and "The Waves."
It’s called “The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories” by Ken Liu, who was the translator of the English edition of “The Three Body Problem,” but who is also a brilliant science fiction and fantasy writer (and a daytime lawyer and programmer.) THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD, people.
The Name of the Wind
Patrick Rothfuss
A hero named Kvothe, now living under an assumed name as the humble proprietor of an inn, recounts his transformation from a magically gifted young man into the most notorious wizard, musician, thief, and assassin in his world. Reprint.@susanthesquark Fiction: the name of the wind, Lexicon, Autonomous, All the light we cannot see. Nonfiction: Bad Blood, Pandora’s lab
Lexicon
Max Barry
Recruited into an exclusive government school where students are taught the science of coercion to support a secretive organization, orphaned street hustler Emily Ruff becomes the school's most talented prodigy before catastrophically falling in love.@susanthesquark Fiction: the name of the wind, Lexicon, Autonomous, All the light we cannot see. Nonfiction: Bad Blood, Pandora’s lab
Autonomous
Annalee Newitz
"Autonomous is to biotech and AI what Neuromancer was to the Internet."—Neal Stephenson "Something genuinely and thrillingly new in the naturalistic, subjective, paradoxically humanistic but non-anthropomorphic depiction of bot-POV—and all in the service of vivid, solid storytelling."—William Gibson When anything can be owned, how can we be free Earth, 2144. Jack is an anti-patent scientist turned drug pirate, traversing the world in a submarine as a pharmaceutical Robin Hood, fabricating cheap scrips for poor people who can’t otherwise afford them. But her latest drug hack has left a trail of lethal overdoses as people become addicted to their work, doing repetitive tasks until they become unsafe or insane. Hot on her trail, an unlikely pair: Eliasz, a brooding military agent, and his robotic partner, Paladin. As they race to stop information about the sinister origins of Jack’s drug from getting out, they begin to form an uncommonly close bond that neither of them fully understand. And underlying it all is one fundamental question: Is freedom possible in a culture where everything, even people, can be owned?@susanthesquark Fiction: the name of the wind, Lexicon, Autonomous, All the light we cannot see. Nonfiction: Bad Blood, Pandora’s lab
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr
A cloth bag containing 20 paperback copies of the title that may also include a folder with sign out sheets.@susanthesquark Fiction: the name of the wind, Lexicon, Autonomous, All the light we cannot see. Nonfiction: Bad Blood, Pandora’s lab
The Game of Kings
Dorothy Dunnett
@devonzuegel The Game of Kings, by Dorothy Dunnett. Though it was Niccolo Rising that led me to the Game of Kings, so maybe that gets the credit.
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini
Traces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son, in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of the present day.@AshleyBrasier Some fic and non-fic: Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera; LBJ Series - Robert Caro; The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy; Kite Runner - Khalid Hosseini
TALES FROM FIROZSHA BAAG
RohintonM Mistry
Marie Kondo can re-do my cupboard but as far as my bookshelf is concerned she is a Kappa. I re-read many of my books numerous times as we both crease ever so slightly, year after year together. #talesfromfirozshabaag #oldfavourite https://t.co/Iu6bPRlHu0
Sophie's World
Jostein Gaarder
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning--but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.@zackkanter Non-troll reply: Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy https://t.co/jNUYwPtG5Z
The Friend
Sigrid Nunez
WINNER OF THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD "A beautiful book ... a world of insight into death, grief, art, and love." --Wall Street Journal "A penetrating, moving meditation on loss, comfort, memory...Nunez has a wry, withering wit." --NPR "Dry, allusive and charming...the comedy here writes itself." The New York Times A moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog. When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building. While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them. Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.How to survive the death of a friend: "The Friend: A Novel" by Sigrid Nunez https://t.co/jQkmbhdoJV
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera
A young woman is in love with a successful surgeon, a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing. His mistress, a free-spirited artist, lives her life as a series of betrayals—while her other lover, earnest, faithful, and good, stands to lose everything because of his noble qualities. In a world where lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and fortuitous events, and everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence we feel “the unbearable lightness of being.” A major achievement from one of the world’s truly great writers, Milan Kundera’s magnificent novel of passion and politics, infidelity and ideas, encompasses the extremes of comedy and tragedy, illuminating all aspects of human existence.@jGage718 @gooderdle I’ve heard that from a lot of people. Have you read The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera? That’s one of my favorite books about love and human condition. I’d encourage that 📖 next!
In the First Circle
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
The thrilling cold war masterwork by the Nobel Prize winner, published in full for the first time Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949.The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state—or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps . . . and almost certain death. First written between 1955 and 1958, In the First Circle is Solzhenitsyn's fiction masterpiece. In order to pass through Soviet censors, many essential scenes—including nine full chapters—were cut or altered before it was published in a hastily translated English edition in 1968. Now with the help of the author's most trusted translator, Harry T. Willetts, here for the first time is the complete, definitive English edition of Solzhenitsyn's powerful and magnificent classic.@dsimposters Hard to pick. Today I'm going to say This is Marketing, Amusing Ourselves to Death, and In the First Circle.
Neuromancer
William Gibson
Case, a burned out computer whiz, is asked to steal a security code that is locked in the most heavily guarded databank in the solar system45. The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives - @eisengerj 46. Neuromancer ☢ - William Gibson 47. A Visit from the Goon Squad 🎶🎸- Jennifer Egan 48. The Refugees - Viet Thanh Nguyen 49. Lord of the Flies 🐷- William Gibson
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Jennifer Egan
Working side-by-side for a record label, former punk rocker Bennie Salazar and the passionate Sasha hide illicit secrets from one another while interacting with a motley assortment of equally troubled people from 1970s San Francisco to the post-war future.45. The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives - @eisengerj 46. Neuromancer ☢ - William Gibson 47. A Visit from the Goon Squad 🎶🎸- Jennifer Egan 48. The Refugees - Viet Thanh Nguyen 49. Lord of the Flies 🐷- William Gibson
Lord of the Flies
William Golding
William Golding's Lord of the Flies is a dystopian classic: 'exciting, relevant and thought-provoking' (Stephen King). When a group of schoolboys are stranded on a desert island, what could go wrong? 'One of my favorite books - I read it every couple of years.' (Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games) A plane crashes on a desert island. The only survivors are a group of schoolboys. By day, they discover fantastic wildlife and dazzling beaches, learning to survive; at night, they are haunted by nightmares of a primitive beast. Orphaned by society, it isn't long before their innocent childhood games devolve into a savage, murderous hunt ... 'Stands out mightily in my memory ... Such a strong statement about the human heart.' (Patricia Cornwell) 'Terrifying and haunting.' (Kingsley Amis) 'Beautifully written, tragic and provocative.' (E. M. Forster) ONE OF THE BBC'S ICONIC 'NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD' What readers are saying: 'Every real human being should read this ... This is what we are.' 'It's brilliant, it's captivating, it's thought provoking and brutal and for some, its truly terrifying.' 'It can be read and re-read many times, and every time something new will appear.' 'There is a reason why this is studied at school ... Excellent read.' 'This is one of the few books I've read that I keep on my Kindle to read again.' 'I revisit this every few years and it's always fresh and impressive ... One of the best books I've ever read.'45. The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives - @eisengerj 46. Neuromancer ☢ - William Gibson 47. A Visit from the Goon Squad 🎶🎸- Jennifer Egan 48. The Refugees - Viet Thanh Nguyen 49. Lord of the Flies 🐷- William Gibson
The Elephant Vanishes
Haruki Murakami
Fifteen tales encompass the story of a man obsessed with the disappearance of an elephant from a local zoo and that of a young mother whose sleeplessness provides her with a foretaste of death41. The Elephant Vanishes and other Stories - Haruki Murakami 42. Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work 🔨 - Nick Srnicek 43. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power - Robert Caro (💯💯) 44. Of Mice and Men 🐁 - John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck
The tragic story of the friendship between two migrant workers, George and mentally retarded Lenny, and their dream of owning a farm41. The Elephant Vanishes and other Stories - Haruki Murakami 42. Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work 🔨 - Nick Srnicek 43. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power - Robert Caro (💯💯) 44. Of Mice and Men 🐁 - John Steinbeck
The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy
The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, a skyblue Plymouth with chrome tailfins is stranded on the highway amid a Marxist workers' demonstration. Inside the car sit two-egg twins Rahel and Esthappen, and so begins their tale.... Armed only with the invincible innocence of children, they fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family - their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt), and the ghost of an imperial entomologist's moth (with unusually dense dorsal tufts). When their English cousin, Sophie Mol, and her mother, Margaret Kochamma, arrive on a Christmas visit, Esthappen and Rahel learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river "graygreen. With fish in it. With the sky and trees in it. And at night, the broken yellow moon in it."34. The God of Small Things - Arundhuti Roy (@SHeavenrich bears witness to me crying at the ending in a kid’s playground) 35. Human Acts 👐🏾- Han Kang 36. Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi 37. History of the Paradox ⁉️Philosophy and Labyrinths of the Mind - Roy Sorensen
Human Acts
Han Kang
From the internationally bestselling author of THE VEGETARIAN, a "rare and astonishing" (The Observer) portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho's best friend who meets his own fateful end; to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, each suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother; and through their collective heartbreak and acts of hope is the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice. An award-winning, controversial bestseller, HUMAN ACTS is a timeless, pointillist portrait of an historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.34. The God of Small Things - Arundhuti Roy (@SHeavenrich bears witness to me crying at the ending in a kid’s playground) 35. Human Acts 👐🏾- Han Kang 36. Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi 37. History of the Paradox ⁉️Philosophy and Labyrinths of the Mind - Roy Sorensen
Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel García Márquez
Set on the Caribbean coast of South America, this love story brings together Fermina Daza, her distinguished husband, and a man who has secretly loved her for more than fifty years.31. ❤️ Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 32. Another Birth and Other Poems - Forough Farrokhzad 33. Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor 📲- Virginia Eubanks @poptechworks
The Refugees
Viet Thanh Nguyen
A collection of stories written over a twenty-year period that examines the Vietnamese experience in America as well as questions of home, family, and identity.@ellenchisa The Refugees - Viet Thanh Nguyen. Collection of short stories (romantic, tragic, funny, angry) about relationships and the post-Vietnam War diaspora.
An Unfinished Life
Mark Spragg
Seeking to escape her brutal boyfriend and hoping to introduce her daughter, Griff, to the grandfather she has never met, widow Jean Gilkyson seeks refuge in her late husband's Wyoming hometown with her estranged father-in-law, who blames her for his son's death. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 60,000 first printing."An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy" - none of the JFK books are complete/good by themselves but this comes close. https://t.co/OaaLiejgAN
A Gentleman in Moscow
Amor Towles
The mega-bestseller with more than 1.5 million readers that is soon to be a major television series "The novel buzzes with the energy of numerous adventures, love affairs, [and] twists of fate." --The Wall Street Journal He can't leave his hotel. You won't want to. From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility--a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count's endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.Okay, since @calebhicks asked — the four best books I read in 2018: Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke, The Science of Success, Charles Koch, A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles, Conspiracy: Ryan Holiday, Bonus round: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Hank Green.
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Hank Green
Okay, since @calebhicks asked — the four best books I read in 2018: Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke, The Science of Success, Charles Koch, A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles, Conspiracy: Ryan Holiday, Bonus round: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, Hank Green.
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
"Wildly imaginative, really interesting." —President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision. The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.@adviceforbernie Snow Crash, Ted Chiang, Greg Egan, Three Body Problem...
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
Hank Green
Just finished @hankgreen’s An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. Charming, original, and A Book For Our Times.
Hotel Du Lac
Anita Brookner
Into the rarefied atmosphere of the Hotel du Lac timidly walks Edith Hope, romantic novelist and holder of modest dreams. Edith has been exiled from home after embarrassing herself and her friends. She has refused to sacrifice her ideals and remains stubbornly single. But among the pampered women and minor nobility Edith finds Mr Neville, and her chance to escape from a life of humiliating spinsterhood is renewed ... Winner of the Booker Prize in 1984, �Hotel du Lac� was described by The Times as �A smashing love story. It is very romantic. It is also humorous, witty, touching and formidably clever�.My new read this week -an old novella, Hotel du Lac #bookwormforever https://t.co/VxHWQ2zVg5
Less (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize)
Andrew Sean Greer
A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of "arresting lyricism and beauty" (New York Times Book Review). WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE National Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book of 2017 A Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2017 A San Francisco Chronicle Top Ten Book of 2017 Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Lambda Award and the California Book Award "I could not love LESS more."--Ron Charles, Washington Post "Andrew Sean Greer's Less is excellent company. It's no less than bedazzling, bewitching and be-wonderful."--Christopher Buckley, New York Times Book Review Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes--it would be too awkward--and you can't say no--it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town? ANSWER: You accept them all. What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last. Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story. A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.@vivekisms It is filled with hope and optimism and made me laugh as well in so many places. A truly wonderful book
The Overstory
Richard Powers
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2019 SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2018 A wondrous, exhilarating novel about nine strangers brought together by an unfolding natural catastrophe ‘The best novel ever written about trees, and really, just one of the best novels, period’ Ann Patchett An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another. An Air Force crewmember in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. This is the story of these and five other strangers, each summoned in different ways by the natural world, who are brought together in a last stand to save it from catastrophe. ‘Breathtaking’ Barbara Kingsolver, New York Times ‘It’s a masterpiece’ Tim Winton ‘It’s not possible for Powers to write an uninteresting book’ Margaret Atwood ‘An astonishing performance’ Benjamin Markovits, GuardianI put my hope for the future in this: “Man achieves civilization...as a response to a challenge in a situation of special difficulty which rouses him to make a hitherto unprecedented effort." -Toynbee, quoted in Richard Powers' book The Overstory https://t.co/9Lbp7rMCux
The Killer Collective
Barry Eisler
When a joint FBI-Seattle Police investigation into an international child pornography ring gets too close to powerful enemies, sex-crimes detective Livia Lone becomes the target of a hit that barely goes awry, and suspects that the FBI itself was behind it.Pyjamas are Forgiving [Paperback] TWINKLE KHANNA
Twinkle Khanna
Out in early September and I am going to be crossing my fingers and toes for the next few months :) Pre-order Pyjamas Are Forgiving at Amazon: https://t.co/YbCffMadWy | Flipkart: https://t.co/WrpyYwfB4u @juggernautbooks https://t.co/LwMrqzREqg
Crazy Rich Asians
Kevin Kwan
A hilarious and heartwarming New York Times bestselling novel—now a major motion picture! “This 48-karat beach read is crazy fun.” —Entertainment Weekly When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor. On Nick’s arm, Rachel may as well have a target on her back the second she steps off the plane, and soon, her relaxed vacation turns into an obstacle course of old money, new money, nosy relatives, and scheming social climbers.I devoured the book “Crazy Rich Asians” and I *LOVED* this movie, which is coming out in two weeks and which I had the opportunity to see a few weeks ago. It means so much that this movie is a story... https://t.co/QZuXMofZri
The Poppy War
R. F. Kuang
A Library Journal Best Books of 2018 pick! Washington Post "5 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel of 2018" pick! A Bustle "30 Best Fiction Books of 2018" pick! “I have no doubt this will end up being the best fantasy debut of the year [...] I have absolutely no doubt that [Kuang’s] name will be up there with the likes of Robin Hobb and N.K. Jemisin.” -- Booknest A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic, in the tradition of Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings and N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy. When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising. But surprises aren’t always good. Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school. For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . . Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.The Punch Escrow
Tal M. Klein
When he’s accidentally duplicated while teleporting, Joel Byram must outrun the most powerful corporation on the planet and find a way back to his wife in a world that now has two of him. Dubbed the “next Ready, Player One,” by former Warner Brothers President Greg Silverman, and now in film development at Lionsgate.Accelerando
Charles Stross
Trying to cope with the unchecked technological innovations that have rendered humankind nearly obsolete, the members of the Macx family are confronted by an unknown enemy that is systematically attempting to annihilate all biological lifeforms.Among Others
Jo Walton
Winner of the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Novel Winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel Startling, unusual, and yet irresistably readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment. Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled--and her twin sister dead. Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England-a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off... Combining elements of autobiography with flights of imagination in the manner of novels like Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude, this is potentially a breakout book for an author whose genius has already been hailed by peers like Kelly Link, Sarah Weinman, and Ursula K. Le Guin. One of School Library Journal's Best Adult Books 4 Teens titles of 2011 One of io9's best Science Fiction & Fantasy books of the year 2011Old Man's War
John Scalzi
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce—and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity’s resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You’ll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you’ll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine—and what he will become is far stranger. "Solid . . . [Scalzi] sidesteps most of the clichés of military science fiction, delivers fast-paced scenes of combat and pays attention to the science underpinning his premise." —San Francisco Chronicle "Scalzi's imagined interstellar arena is coherently and compellingly delineated . . . His speculative elements are top-notch. His combat scenes are blood-roiling. His dialogue is suitably snappy and profane. And the moral and philosophical issues he raises . . . insert useful ethical burrs under the military saddle of the story." —Paul Di Filippo, The Washington Post "Thought-provoking!" —Entertainment Weekly "Smartly conceived and thoroughly entertaining, Old Man’s War is a splendid novel." –Cleveland Plain Dealer "When humanity reaches the stars, it discovers that it must defend its claim to new planets against alien races with similar expansionist tendencies. To ensure the expertise of its soldiers, Earth creates the Colonial Defense Force, an army of men and women otherwise classified as senior citizens, who give up their lives on Earth for an uncertain and perilous future among the stars. Scalzi's first novel presents a new approach to military sf, boasting an unusual cast of senior citizens as heroes. A good choice for most libraries." —Library Journal "Though a lot of SF writers are more or less efficiently continuing the tradition of Robert A. Heinlein, Scalzi’s astonishingly proficient first novel reads like an original work by the late grand master . . . This virtuoso debut pays tribute to SF’s past while showing that well-worn tropes still can have real zip when they’re approached with ingenuity." —Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Gripping and surpassingly original. It's Starship Troopers without the lectures. It's The Forever War with better sex. It's funny, it's sad, and it's true." —Cory Doctorow "John Scalzi is a fresh and appealing new voice, and Old Man's War is classic SF seen from a modern perspective—a fast-paced tour of a daunting, hostile universe." —Robert Charles Wilson "I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already." —Ken MacLeodCity of Stairs
Robert Jackson Bennett
Sent to a backwater colony that was once a god-supported conquering power, spymaster Shara Divani investigates the brutal murder of a historian and uncovers evidence that the city's divine protectors may still be alive. Original. 25,000 first printing.The Windup Girl
Paolo Bacigalupi
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel, the break-out science fiction debut featuring additional stories and a Q&A with the author. Anderson Lake is AgriGen’s Calorie Man, sent to work undercover as a factory manager in Thailand while combing Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories. Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. Emiko is not human; she is an engineered being, grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok. Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in this chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. What happens when calories become currency? What happens when bio-terrorism becomes a tool for corporate profits and forces mankind to the cusp of post-human evolution? Bacigalupi delivers one of the most highly-acclaimed science fiction novels of the twenty-first century. In this brand-new edition celebrating the book’s reception into the canon of celebrated modern science fiction, accompanying the text are two novelettes exploring the dystopian world of The Windup Girl, the Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning “The Calorie Man” and “Yellow Card Man.” Also included is an exclusive Q&A with the author describing his writing process, the political climate into which his debut novel was published, and the future of science fiction. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.Binti
Nnedi Okorafor
Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the university itself - but first she has to make it there, alive.Lexicon
Max Barry
Recruited into an exclusive government school where students are taught the science of coercion to support a secretive organization, orphaned street hustler Emily Ruff becomes the school's most talented prodigy before catastrophically falling in love.Stories of Your Life and Others
Ted Chiang
Presents a first collection of seven science fiction short stories, and includes an original tale, "Liking What You See: A Documentary" for this anthology.Ancillary Justice
Ann Leckie
Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, British Science Fiction, Locus and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance. In the Ancillary world: 1. Ancillary Justice2. Ancillary Sword3. Ancillary MercyLady of Mazes
Karl Schroeder
When the human civilization of Teven Coronal is threatened by powerful invaders, brilliant but troubled Livia Kodaly attempts to safeguard the ringworld's fragile ecologies and human diversity. By the author of Ventus and Permanence. 12,500 first printing.The Water Knife
Paolo Bacigalupi
Working as an enforcer for a corrupt developer, Angel Velasquez teams up with a hardened journalist and a street-smart Texan to investigate rumors of California's imminent monopoly on limited water supplies. By the National Book Award-finalist author of The Windup Girl.Ninefox Gambit
Yoon Ha Lee
To win an impossible war Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general. Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris's career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next. Cheris's best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own. As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao--because she might be his next victim.The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple award winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.I just finished "The Three Body Problem". The ideas were immensely clever to be sure, it was just a bit dry. Kind of how I felt reading Sophie's World
Trigger Warning
Neil Gaiman
Multiple award winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction following Smoke and Mirrors and Fragile Things—which includes a never-before published American Gods story, “Black Dog,” written exclusively for this volume. In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction—stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013—as well “Black Dog,” a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection. Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion. In Adventure Story—a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane—Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience A Calendar of Tales are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year—stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother’s Day card that portends disturbances in the universe. Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale The Case of Death and Honey. And Click-Clack the Rattlebag explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we’re all alone in the darkness. A sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Full of wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul from one of the most unique and popular literary artists of our day.@evanfuture @neilhimself Yes those were awesome. I read all @neilhimself as soon as it comes out.
The Library of Babel
Jorge Luis Borges
@WahWhoWah @mmay3r If you liked that, read more Borges. “The God’s Script,” “Library of Babel,” etc. He’s unmatched.
Islandia
Austin Tappan Wright
Austin Tappan Wright left the world a wholly unsuspected legacy. After he died in a tragic accident, among this distinguished legal scholar's papers were found thousands of pages devoted to a staggering feat of literary creation-a detailed history of an imagined country complete with geography, genealogy, literature, language and culture. As detailed as J.R.R. Tolkien's middle-earth novels, Islandia has similarly become a classic touchstone for those concerned with the creation of imaginary world.@librarythingtim Books that are in that category for me were Islandia, by Austin Tappan Wright, Dunnet's Lymond Chronicles, Pargeter's Heaven Tree trilogy. In nonfiction, Tao Te Ching, translated by Witter Bynner, Wallace Stevens The Palm at the End of the Mind, and Powys The Meaning of Culture
Stories of Your Life and Others
Ted Chiang
Includes 'Story of Your Life' the basis for the major motion picture Arrival, starring Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker, Jeremy Renner, and directed by Denis Villeneuve. With Stories of Your Life and Others, his masterful first collection, multiple-award-winning author Ted Chiang deftly blends human emotion and scientific rationalism in eight remarkably diverse stories, all told in his trademark precise and evocative prose. From a soaring Babylonian tower that connects a flat Earth with the firmament above, to a world where angelic visitations are a wondrous and terrifying part of everyday life; from a neural modification that eliminates the appeal of physical beauty, to an alien language that challenges our very perception of time and reality. . . Chiang's rigorously imagined fantasia invites us to question our understanding of the universe and our place in it.@Wan_Chainz “Understand” by Ted Chiang. It’s in his collection “The Story of Your Life” and others.
The Rise of Gideon
Stan Matthews
It is the early 1960s when journalism student Art James first meets Professor Gideon Pratt at a Midwestern university. When Art secures a reporter job after graduation, Gideon summons him, reveals that the university is harboring a Communist cell, and asks Art to write a story about it. Art, driven by his desire to earn accolades, writes the article. But when Gideons name is slashed from the story, Art angrily resigns. Years later, Art lands a job with the New York Dispatch, with help from Gideon who is busy defending an educational foundation from attacks by a little known organization, the Cotterites. After Art reconnects with Gideon and his beautiful colleague/ love interest, Jo Davis, he discovers that feared anti-Communist Harry Cotter once wrote a thesis in praise of Communisma fact that his former professor Silenus Stoddard eventually verifies. Many stories later that include an interview with Cotter himself, Art learns that Cotter is planning a rally in Madison Square Garden. While Art falls for Jo, an infuriated Gideon who blames Silenus for an embarrassing failure prepares to reveal his true self. The Rise of Gideon shares the tale of a public relations guru and an ambitious New York reporter as they work together to expose a vicious society of extremists.The Most Ignorant Man in America: Love this story about one of my best friends from home who has blockaded all political news since the election. He won’t even read the piece since it lists all the stuff he doesn’t know. (He got a redacted version.) https://t.co/yQBtyAzRYO
Crooked
Austin Grossman
@sknthla Crooked by Austin Grossman. It’s political history meets HP Lovecraft — a bit uneven but very fun. His brother Lev wrote The Magicians, which was super influential on me in high school
The Origin of Species
Charles Darwin
States the evidence for a theory of evolution, explains how evolution takes place, and discusses instinct, hybridism, fossils, distribution and classification.Here's a hack: Choose books that are already over 100 years old. Meditations by Aurelius, Essays by Montaigne, On the Origin of Species by Darwin, etc. Old ideas have passed a lot of tests. The longer a book has been around, the more likely it will be to continue to stay around.
An American Marriage (Oprah's Book Club)
Tayari Jones
A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR * TIME * BUSTLE * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS * AMAZON.COM OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION “A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.” —Barack Obama “Haunting . . . Beautifully written.” —The New York Times Book Review “Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable.” —USA Today “A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class.” —People “Compelling.” —The Washington Post “Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant.” —Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.It’s book club time! Newest pick: An American Marriage by @Tayari Jones. Perfect book to read along with a friend. So juicy, you’re going to want to talk to someone about it! https://t.co/9YYdpjWyhN https://t.co/dCiBSnk6p7
The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula K. Le Guin
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Stieg Larsson
An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel. Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.@patrickc In no particular order: The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, The View from the Cheap Seats, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, & The Upside of Stress.
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro
An English butler reflects--sometimes bitterly, sometimes humorously--on his service to a lord between the two world wars and discovers doubts about his master's character and about the ultimate value of his own service to humanityA sublime book filled with subtle humour within a moving tale of culture,dignity and https://t.co/djyTYnaxlD I want to see the movie! https://t.co/QrAjTwbtF1
WHEN I HIT YOU
Meena Kandasamy
I ended up reading this book over the weekend and I couldn't put it down.A lyrical,compelling read #WhenIHitYou #MustRead @juggernautbooks https://t.co/vWUPtwBBbP
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
T. E. Lawrence
Written between 1919 and 1926, this text tells of the campaign aganist the Turks in the Middle East, encompassing gross acts of cruelty and revenge, ending in a welter of stink and corpses in a Damascus hospital.@abarrabarr @naval Some good ones: https://t.co/ss9d5nHyiI https://t.co/QnsK9xNRiq https://t.co/G16Vtks4AJ https://t.co/OjCLHtRPUo https://t.co/e5JrpLULVN
My Brilliant Friend
Elena Ferrante
"Mi briljante venninne" er ei historie fortalt av Elena, som har oppdaga at den beste venninna hennar gjennom eit langt liv er sporlaust forsvunnen. Lila har tatt med seg alt ho eig og klipt vekk ansiktet sitt frå samtlege familiefotografi. Historia om dei to begynner i eit fattig, men pulserande nabolag i utkanten av Napoli. Dei to kløktige jentene lærer å stole på kvarandre - og ingen andre - i dei røffe gatene som er kontrollert av mafiaen. Romanen er eit portrett av to sterke kvinner, men òg historia om eit nabolag, ein by og eit land som gjennomgår store endringar frå 50-åra og fram til vår tid.No zigzags of conventional storytelling but is an arrow flying parallel to the ground that hits at the heart of all human emotion #mustread https://t.co/WxM0SnJS4R
Accelerando
Charles Stross
Trying to cope with the unchecked technological innovations that have rendered humankind nearly obsolete, the members of the Macx family are confronted by an unknown enemy that is systematically attempting to annihilate all biological lifeforms.@tkadlec @stephanierieger Have either of you read Accellerando By Clifford stoll? Heady, weird, but very thought provoking
Rules for a Knight
Ethan Hawke
‘Never announce you are a Knight, simply behave as one. You are better than no one, and no one is better than you.’ When Sir Thomas Lemuel Hawke was a boy, his grandfather taught him how to be a knight. Now, on the eve of a battle from which he fears he may not return, Sir Thomas writes a letter to his children so that he may pass on all his hard-won lessons, deepest aspirations and most instructive failures. Full of adventure and wit, the letter provides a guide for living a good and noble life – a reminder that without a little agony none of us would bother to learn a thing; that we must work together as brothers or perish together as fools; that a friend loves you because you are true to yourself, not because you agree with him. And, most importantly, it shows that there is no obstacle that enough love cannot move.WEEKLY BOOK SUMMARY: Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke Read all of my notes on the book here: https://t.co/pO99Qxut4i https://t.co/QvVxGNgTg4
Dead Souls
Nikolai Gogol
Chichikov, an amusing and often confused schemer, buys deceased serfs' names from landholders' poll tax lists hoping to mortgage them for profitAlso: https://t.co/SCQ2LjpixV https://t.co/IR4CQd1PyZ https://t.co/8EOZqR9Cii
The Goblin Reservation
Clifford D. Simak
Having just returned to Earth from an intergalactic research mission, Professor Peter Maxwell, specialist in Supernatural Phenomena, finds himself in desperate straits. Earth, as he is aware, is well advanced in many areas; perfected time travel, for instance, enables all creatures (goblins, dinosaurs, and Shakespeare!) to coexist. But Maxwell has accidentally discovered a mysterious crystal planet containing a storehouse of secret information not yet known to Earth. Knowing the value of the planet for the future of Earth, he attempts to convince those in power that they must, at any cost, get control of it. But his efforts are thwarted by a startling fact: Maxwell was ingeniously duplicated on his return trip. The 'other' him came back before he did, and was soon after 'accidentally' killed. Now no one will believe the original Maxwell exists.Re-read The Goblin Reservation by Simak (which I first read in Russian in '86) -- proof how best science fiction can be truly timeless.
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead
Originally published: New York: Doubledday, 2016.Grab a copy of @colsonwhitehead's book "The Underground Railroad" here: https://t.co/Z3G38AnDXa #OprahsBookClub
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead
Originally published: New York: Doubledday, 2016.This book to my breath away. @ColsonWhitehead's "The Underground Railroad" is my newest #OprahsBookClub selection https://t.co/es6zXvXBe9
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu
"Wildly imaginative, really interesting." —President Barack Obama on The Three-Body Problem trilogy The Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience the Hugo Award-winning phenomenon from China's most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin. Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision. The Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy The Three-Body Problem The Dark Forest Death's End Other Books Ball Lightning (forthcoming) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.Three Body Problem also very good! Sequel is worth reading too. https://t.co/C8dCgldukO
The Mind-Body Problem
Rebecca Goldstein
From the flight-home-reading-material-dept., https://t.co/Ono4nmwx7Y and https://t.co/3EouXs9T1Y were 💯.
Aztec
Gary Jennings
The epic tale of an Aztec survivor of the Spanish conquest and his times as a warrior, scribe, travelling merchant, confidant of Motecuhzoma II, and envoy to the invading Spaniards.Best summer read of all time: 'Aztec,' by Gary Jennings. http://t.co/Z0segROMp3
Death and Friends, A Discworld Journal
Terry Pratchett
There's nothing like a journal to get you thinking about life, the universe, and a Disc suspended by four elephants stood atop a giant turtle. And who better to help than Death, Sir Terry Pratchett's most enduring anthropomorphic personification? With space aplenty to keep note of your daily musings, express your wildest dreams, or write your life story, you'll be aided and abetted by Death's wisdom, witticisms and observations along the way. Fill the pages how you like, there's no wrong way to live a life. Or write a book. So COWER, BRIEF MORTAL, and always look on the bright side of Death.RIP Terry Pratchett: Some of my fondest memories are of reading his books with my son. What could be better than Death and The Luggage?
Ruby
Cynthia Bond
Loving the beautiful but damaged Ruby all of his life, Ephram is torn between his sister and a chance for a life with Ruby when the latter returns to their small hometown and confronts the forces that traumatized her early years.The book RUBY is #5 on @BNBuzz and rising on @amazonbooks . Come on Book Lovers! Can't wait for you to read.
The Paris Architect
Charles Belfoure
The New York Times Bestseller! "A beautiful and elegant account of an ordinary man's unexpected and reluctant descent into heroism during the second world war." —Malcolm Gladwell An extraordinary novel about a gifted architect who reluctantly begins a secret life devising ingenious hiding places for Jews in World War II Paris, from an author who's been called "an up and coming Ken Follett." (Booklist) In 1942 Paris, gifted architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him a great deal of money and maybe get him killed. But if he's clever enough, he'll avoid any trouble. All he has to do is design a secret hiding place for a wealthy Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined German officer won't find it. He sorely needs the money, and outwitting the Nazis who have occupied his beloved city is a challenge he can't resist. But when one of his hiding spaces fails horribly, and the problem of where to hide a Jew becomes terribly personal, Lucien can no longer ignore what's at stake. The Paris Architect asks us to consider what we owe each other, and just how far we'll go to make things right. Written by an architect whose knowledge imbues every page, this story becomes more gripping with every soul hidden and every life saved.Out today: the paperback of one of my favorite books of the last year. Charles Belfoure's "The Paris Architect."
S.
J. J. Abrams
One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace, and desire. A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown. The book: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V.M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a monstrous crew and launched onto a disorienting and perilous journey. The writer: Straka, the incendiary and secretive subject of one of the world's greatest mysteries, a revolutionary about whom the world knows nothing apart from the words he wrote and the rumors that swirl around him. The readers: Jennifer and Eric, a college senior and a disgraced grad student, both facing crucial decisions about who they are, who they might become, and how much they're willing to trust another person with their passions, hurts, and fears. S., conceived by filmmaker J. J. Abrams and written by award-winning novelist Doug Dorst, is the chronicle of two readers finding each other in the margins of a book and enmeshing themselves in a deadly struggle between forces they don't understand, and it is also Abrams and Dorst's love letter to the written word.A Thousand Pardons
Jonathan Dee
Ben and Helen Armstead have reached breaking point. Once a privileged and loving couple, widely envied and respected, it takes just one afternoon - and a single act of recklessness - for Ben to deal the final blow to their marriage, spectacularly demolishing everything they built together. Separated from her husband, Helen and her teenage daughter Sara leave their family home for Manhattan, where Helen must build a new life for them both. Thrust back into the working world, Helen takes a job in PR - her first in many years - and discovers she has a rare gift: she can convince arrogant men to admit their mistakes, spinning crises into second chances. Faced with the fallout from her own marriage, and her daughter's increasingly distant behaviour, Helen finds that the capacity for forgiveness she nurtures so successfully in her professional life is far harder to apply to her personal one. A Thousand Pardons is an elegant, audacious, gripping and sharply observed novel about a marriage in ruins and a family in crisis; about the limits of self-invention and the seduction of self-destruction. Praise for Jonathan Dee: 'A deliciously sophisticated engine of literary darkness.' Jonathan Franzen. 'Dee is graceful; articulate and perceptive, and often hilariously funny... full of elegance, vitality and complexity.' New York Times. 'The Privileges is verbally brilliant, intellectually astute and intricately knowing. It is also very funny and a great, great pleasure to read. Jonathan Dee is a wonderful writer.' Richard Ford. 'The Privileges is a pitch-perfect evocation of a particular stratum of New York society as well as a moving meditation on family and romantic love. The tour de force first chapter alone is worth the price of admission.' Jay McInerney.My favorite book of the summer so far: Jonathan Dee. "A Thousand Pardons."
Reamde
Neal Stephenson
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2012 BEST THRILLER OF THE YEAR- CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2012 WARWICK PRIZE FOR WRITING Across the globe, millions of computer screens flicker with the artfully coded world of T'Rain - an addictive internet role-playing game of fantasy and adventure. But backstreet hackers in China have just unleashed a contagious virus called Reamde, and as it rampages through the gaming world spreading from player to player - holding hard drives hostage in the process - the computer of one powerful and dangerous man is infected, causing the carefully mediated violence of the on-line world to spill over into reality. A fast-talking, internet-addicted mafia accountant is brutally silenced by his Russian employers, and Zula - a talented young T'Rain computer programmer - is abducted and bundled on to a private jet. As she is flown across the skies in the company of the terrified boyfriend she broke up with hours before, and a brilliant Hungarian hacker who may be her only hope, she finds herself sucked into a whirl of Chinese Secret Service agents and gun-toting American Survivalists; the Russian criminal underground and an al-Qaeda cell led by a charismatic Welshman; each a strand of a connected world that devastatingly converges in T'Rain. An inimitable and compelling thriller that careers from British Columbia to South-West China via Russia and the fantasy world of T'Rain, Reamde is an irresistible epic from the unique imagination of one of today's most individual writers.I don't read fiction nearly as much as I'd like, but when I do I go long: just finished Stephenson's 1000-page Reamde. Great geeky fun!!
Makers
Cory Doctorow
From the New York Times bestselling author of Little Brother, a major novel of the booms, busts, and further booms in store for America Perry and Lester invent things—seashell robots that make toast, Boogie Woogie Elmo dolls that drive cars. They also invent entirely new economic systems, like the “New Work,” a New Deal for the technological era. Barefoot bankers cross the nation, microinvesting in high-tech communal mini-startups like Perry and Lester’s. Together, they transform the country, and Andrea Fleeks, a journo-turned-blogger, is there to document it. Then it slides into collapse. The New Work bust puts the dot.combomb to shame. Perry and Lester build a network of interactive rides in abandoned Wal-Marts across the land. As their rides, which commemorate the New Work’s glory days, gain in popularity, a rogue Disney executive grows jealous, and convinces the police that Perry and Lester’s 3D printers are being used to run off AK-47s. Hordes of goths descend on the shantytown built by the New Workers, joining the cult. Lawsuits multiply as venture capitalists take on a new investment strategy: backing litigation against companies like Disney. Lester and Perry’s friendship falls to pieces when Lester gets the ‘fatkins’ treatment, turning him into a sybaritic gigolo. Then things get really interesting.The Book of Lies
Brad Meltzer
Going to Barnes & Noble in Union Sq. at 7pm to hear Brad Meltzer read from his new book, The Book of Lies. Brad lives his Why, he inspires.