Fiction A to Z
November 2023
Recent Releases
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library
by Michiko Aoyama

In this heartwarming novel, a Tokyo librarian provides just the right books for an unemployed artist, a bored 21-year-old sales assistant, a woman who's demoted after maternity leave, an accountant who wants to run an antique store, and a restless new retiree. Read-alike: Toshikazu Kawaguchi's Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. 
A House For Alice
by Diana Evans

After her estranged husband dies, elderly Alice Pitt ponders a return to Nigeria after five decades in London, but her three daughters have their own opinions about her move. Though this reflective book includes characters from the author's 2018 novel Ordinary People, newcomers can enjoy it, too. Read-alike: Mike Gayle's All the Lonely People.
America Fantastica
by Tim O'Brien

While perpetual liar Boyd Halverson would love to get revenge on his billionaire ex-father-in-law, he also needs to stay ahead of a hitman, embezzling bank owners, and more, after he robs a bank and takes an evangelical teller hostage. This rollicking satire set in 2019 is the acclaimed author's first novel in decades. Read-alike: Mark Haskell Smith's Blown; Jane Stanton Hitchcock's Bluff.
The Caretaker
by Ron Rash

In 1950s Blowing Rock, North Carolina, Blackburn Gant, an outcast cemetery caretaker who survived childhood polio, misses his only friend, Jacob, who's been drafted and sent to Korea. As a promise to his friend, Blackburn helps Jacob's pregnant teenaged wife, because Jacob's wealthy, manipulative parents certainly won't. Read-alike: William Kent Krueger's Ordinary Grace. 
The Museum of Failures
by Thrity Umrigar

Remy Wadia returns to India to visit his widowed mother and meet the pregnant teen whose baby Remy and his American wife plan to adopt. But the teen decides to keep the baby, his mother is deathly ill, and he finds a life-altering photograph in this poignant examination of love and family. Read-alike: Kyung-Sook Shin's I Went to See my Father.
Let Us Descend
by Jesmyn Ward

In pre-Civil War North Carolina, an enslaved woman secretly teaches her daughter, Annis, survival skills. Those lessons plus old spirits help teenage Annis as she is marched to New Orleans and endures life on a sugarcane plantation in this vivid, haunting tale. Read-alike: The Known World by Edward P. Jones; The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Family Meal
by Bryan Washington

Told by multiple narrators, this reflective story details what happens when Cam returns home to Houston after the devastating death of his boyfriend. Struggling with grief and addiction, he reconnects with his former best friend, TJ, who has his own problems. Read-alike: Steven Rowley's The Celebrants; Neel Patel's Tell Me How To Be.
Land of Milk and Honey
by C Pam Zhang

In this lyrical, near-future novel, smog covers the earth. At a mysterious facility near Italy, our unnamed narrator is the new chef, and she cooks with fresh food for the first time in years. But what are her wealthy boss and his intriguing daughter up to? Read-alikes: Chang-rae Lee's On Such a Full Sea; Lydia Kiesling's Mobility.
Contact your librarian for more great books!
Philmont Public Library
101 Main Street
PO Box 816
Philmont, New York 12565
5186725010
philmontlibrary.com