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Fiction A to Z February 2017
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| Selection Day by Aravind AdigaRadha and Manjunath Kumar have been raised by their controlling father to become cricket stars -- the only thing that will get them out of their Mumbai slum. And in fact they are very good, good enough to have journalists and scouts following their every move. But their father's strict rules have both brothers rebelling in their own, sometimes unexpected ways. Though set in a world (and a sport) unfamiliar to many, this complex novel from Booker Prize-winning Aravind Adiga is truly about common themes -- sibling relationships, family dynamics, and loyalty. |
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| Number 11 by Jonathan CoeIn 1995, author Jonathan Coe published a biting novel of class warfare in The Winshaw Legacy. Some of those characters reappear in Number 11, a sequel of sorts that follows two girls into adulthood while pulling together multiple disparate stories. Playing with genre conventions and reflecting a very pointed view of modern Britain, this social satire will make for entertaining reading for those looking for literary gamesmanship -- the number 11 (this is Coe's 11th novel) also crops up from time to time. |
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| History of Wolves: A Novel by Emily FridlundFourteen-year-old Linda lives with her parents in the beautiful, austere woods of northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as a last vestige of a lost counter-culture world. Isolated at home and an outlander at school, Linda is drawn to the enigmatic, attractive Lily and new history teacher Mr. Grierson. When Mr. Grierson is charged with possessing child pornography, the implications of his arrest deeply affect Linda as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires and craving to belong. And then the young Gardner family moves in across the lake and Linda finds herself welcomed into their home as a babysitter for their little boy, Paul. It seems that her life finally has purpose but with this new sense of belonging she is also drawn into secrets she doesn't understand. Over the course of a few days, Linda makes a set of choices that reverberate throughout her life. As she struggles to find a way out of the sequestered world into which she was born, Linda confronts the life-and-death consequences of the things people do--and fail to do--for the people they love. Winner of the McGinnis-Ritchie award for its first chapter, Emily Fridlund's propulsive and gorgeously written History of Wolves introduces a new writer of enormous range and talent. |
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Pachinko
by Min Jin Lee
Profoundly moving and gracefully told, Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them. Betrayed by her wealthy lover, Sunja finds unexpected salvation when a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan to start a new life. So begins a sweeping saga of exceptional people in exile from a homeland they never knew and caught in the indifferent arc of history. In Japan, Sunja's family members endure harsh discrimination, catastrophes, and poverty, yet they also encounter great joy as they pursue their passions and rise to meet the challenges this new home presents. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, they are bound together by deep roots as their family faces enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.
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Leopard at the door
by Jennifer McVeigh
Set in Kenya in the 1950s against the fading backdrop of the British Empire, a story of self-discovery, betrayal, and an impossible love. After six years in England, Rachel has returned to Kenya and the farm where she spent her childhood, but the beloved home she'd longed for is much changed. Her father's new companion--a strange, intolerant woman--has taken over the household. The political climate in the country grows more unsettled by the day and is approaching the boiling point. And looming over them all is the threat of the Mau Mau, a secret society intent on uniting the native Kenyans and overthrowing the whites. As Rachel struggles to find her place in her home and her country, she initiates a covert relationship, one that will demand from her a gross act of betrayal. One man knows her secret, and he has made it clear how she can buy his silence. But she knows something of her own, something she has never told anyone. And her knowledge brings her power.
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The girl in green
by Derek Miller
From the author of Norwegian by Night, a novel about two men on a misbegotten quest to save the girl they failed to save decades before 1991. Near Checkpoint Zulu, one hundred miles from the Kuwaiti border, Thomas Benton meets Arwood Hobbes. Benton is a British journalist who reports from war zones in part to avoid his lackluster marriage and a daughter he loves but cannot connect with; Arwood is a midwestern American private who might be an insufferable ignoramus, or might be a genuine lunatic with a death wish--it's hard to tell. Desert Storm is over, peace has been declared, but as they argue about whether it makessense to cross the nearest border in search of an ice cream, they become embroiled in a horrific attack in which a young local girl in a green dress is killed as they are trying to protect her. The two men walk away into their respective lives. But something has cracked for them both. Twenty-two years later, in another place, in another war, they meet again and are offered an unlikely opportunity to redeem themselves when that same girl in green is found alive and in need of salvation. Or is she?
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| The Bookshop on the Corner: A Novel by Jenny ColganNina Redmond loves nothing more than matching readers with the perfect book. So when the shy librarian is made redundant from her job in Birmingham, England, she decides to open up her own bookshop -- and it's one on wheels! Relocating to a converted barn in a small Scottish village, she starts getting to know her neighbors through the books she sells them on market day. And there's even some romantic possibilities, including with a train engineer who leaves her love letters at a railway crossing. Like Katarina Bivald's The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommends (which likewise features a shy reader opening a book shop), this charming novel is made for book lovers. |
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| A Strangeness in My Mind: A Novel by Orhan PamukAs much about Istanbul's rapid transformation over the second half of the 20th century as it is the tale of a street peddler, A Strangeness in My Mind offers both a strong sense of the city and a sweeping story told by multiple narrators. It follows Mevlut Karatas as he arrives in the city as a boy, follows his father's trade selling yogurt door to door, and spends three years writing love letters to a young woman he spotted only briefly. As he forms a deep understanding of his city, marries, and raises a family, Melvut's working life provides a way to understand Istanbul's changing landscape. "Rich, complex, and pulsing with urban life," says Kirkus Reviews. |
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