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?