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Desperate Characters
by Paula Fox
First published in 1970 to great acclaim, this novel stands as one of the most dazzling and rigorous examples of the storyteller's craft in postwar American literature--a novel that, according to Irving Howe, ranks with "Billy Budd" and "The Great Gatsby".
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The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
by Kate Summerscale
It is a summer's night in 1860. In an elegant detached Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight a dog barks. The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken place in their home. The household reverberates with shock, not least because the guilty party... (more)
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The Death of the Adversary
by Hans Keilson
Written while Hans Keilson was in hiding during World War II, The Death of the Adversary is the self-portrait of a young man helplessly fascinated by an unnamed adversary” whom he watches rise to power in 1930s Germany. It is a tale of horror, not only in its evocation of Hitler’s gathering menace but also in its hero’s desperate attempt to discover logic where none exists. A psychological fable as wry and... (more)
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The Secret Scripture
by Sebastian Barry
As a young woman, Roseanne McNulty was one of the most beautiful and beguiling girls in County Sligo, Ireland. Now, as her hundredth year draws near, she is a patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital, and she decides to record the events of her life. As Roseanne revisits her past, hiding the manuscript beneath the floorboards in her bedroom, she learns that Roscommon Hospital will be closed in a few months... (more)
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The Impostor
by Damon Galgut
"The Impostor" is simply the finest work of fiction he has ever written: a gripping, claustrophobic novel of guilty secrets, obsession and self-reinvention on the African Savannah.When Adam moves into an abandoned house on the dusty edge of town, he is hoping to recover from the loss of his job and his home in the city. But when he meets Canning - a shadowy figure from his childhood - and Canning's enigmatic and... (more)
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The Family Man
by Elinor Lipman
An hysterical phone call from his ex-wife and a familiar face in a photograph upend Henry Archer’s well-ordered life. Bringing him back into contact with the child he adored, a stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage long ago. Henry is a lawyer, an old-fashioned man, gay, successful, lonely. Thalia is now twenty-nine, an aspiring actress, estranged from her newly widowed crackpot mother— Denise, Henry’s ex.... (more)
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The Little Stranger
by Sarah Waters
A chilling and vividly rendered ghost story set in postwar Britain, by the bestselling and award-winning author of The Night Watch and Fingersmith. With The Little Stranger, Waters revisits the fertile setting of Britain in the 1940s -- and gives us a sinister tale of a haunted house, brimming with the rich atmosphere and psychological complexity that have become hallmarks of Waters’s work. The Little... (more)
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I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti
by Giulia Melucci
From failure to fusilli, this deliciously hilarious read tells the story of Giulia Melucci's fizzled romances and the mouth-watering recipes she used to seduce her men, smooth over the lumps, and console herself when the relationships flamed out. From an affectionate alcoholic, to the classic New York City commitment-phobe, to a hipster aged past his sell date, and not one, but two novelists with Peter Pan... (more)
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Family Album
by Penelope Lively
A novel of family intrigue from "one of the most accomplished writers of fiction of our day" ( The Washington Post ) All Alison ever wanted was a blissful childhood for her six children, with summers at the beach and birthday parties on the lawn at their family home. Together with Ingrid, the family au pair, she has worked hard to create a real "old-fashioned family life." But beneath its postcard sheen, the... (more)
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Swamplandia!
by Karen Russell
A triumphant debut novel and follow-up to Karen Russell’s universally acclaimed short story collection "St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves." The Bigtree alligator wrestling dynasty is in decline — think Buddenbrooks set in the Florida Everglades — and Swamplandia!, their island home and gator-wrestling theme park, is swiftly being encroached upon by a sophisticated competitor known as the World of... (more)
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Turn of Mind
by Alice LaPlante
A stunning first novel, both literary and thriller, about a retired orthopedic surgeon with dementia, Turn of Mind has already received worldwide attention. With unmatched patience and a pulsating intensity, Alice LaPlante brings us deep into a brilliant woman’s deteriorating mind, where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse. As the book opens, Dr. Jennifer White’s best... (more)
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Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace
The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady
by Kate Summerscale
"I think people marry far too much; it is such a lottery, and for a poor woman—bodily and morally the husband’s slave—a very doubtful happiness." —Queen Victoria to her recently married daughter Vicky. Headstrong, high-spirited, and already widowed, Isabella Walker became Mrs. Henry Robinson at age 31 in 1844. Her first husband had died suddenly, leaving his estate to a son from a previous marriage, so she... (more)
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Seating Arrangements
by Maggie Shipstead
A deliciously absorbing social comedy, set on an exclusive island off Cape Cod, that tracks a catastrophic three-day wedding weekend with an irresistible mix of wit and tenderness--a pitch-perfect debut (and a wicked pleasure!) from a hugely talented young writer. Winn Van Meter has a Harvard education, membership in all the right clubs, a pedigreed wife, and a tastefully understated summer home on a pristine New... (more)
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Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
From David Mitchell, the Booker Prize nominee, award-winning writer and one of the featured authors in Granta ’s “Best of Young British Novelists 2003” issue, comes his highly anticipated third novel, a work of mind-bending imagination and scope. A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in... (more)