|
Fiction A to Z November 2021
|
|
|
|
|
The Wrong End of the Telescope
by Rabih Alameddine
What it is: An engaging coming-of-age story featuring culturally diverse characters and timely topics.
What it's about: An Arab American trans woman's journey among Syrian refugees on Lesbos island.
What else to try: Character-driven fiction such as The Round House by Louise Erdrich, A Tale For the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, or Swing Time by Zadie Smith.
|
|
| What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. ChancyThe setting: Haiti, in the aftermath of 2010's devastating earthquake. This vividly rendered novel of place explores survivors' lives (and those no longer among them). Unified by the story of Port-au-Prince market woman Ma Lou, the novel is also a bold critique of societal rifts created by post-colonialism, which the quake only further exposes.
Why you might like it: After years spent interviewing and speaking with Haitian survivors, the author has crafted a narrative by turns bright, nuanced, and brutally tragic.
Want a taste? "The earth had buckled [falling] upon the earth’s children, upon the blameless as well as the guilty, without discrimination." |
|
| The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny ColganThe setup: Sisters Carmen (suddenly unemployed) and Sofia (ever-perfect, now with another baby on the way) aren't crazy about moving in together, but Sofia could use an extra pair of hands.
The hook: Sofia also knows a friend who is trying to revive his ancient bookstore before the Christmas rush. Carmen tackles the task while juggling a romantic dilemma and (hopefully) healing long-standing family tensions.
Read it for: Heartwarming relationship fiction in an atmospheric Edinburgh setting. |
|
|
Cloud Cuckoo Land
by Anthony Doerr
What inside: The tales of four young dreamers and outcasts through time and space, from 1453 Constantinople to the future, as they discover resourcefulness and hope amidst peril.
Author Buzz: Anthony Doerr is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All the Light We Cannot See.
The appeal: Intricately plotted, nonlinear storylines featuring the interconnectivity between compelling characters.
|
|
| My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole JohnsonWhat it is: An own voices collection of short stories that explore race, identity, and the shadow of slavery that haunts characters' lives. The titular novella centers on a descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, who aids neighbors driven from their home by white supremacists even as she questions her own relationship with a white man.
Why you'll like it: This debut ranges memorably from heart-wrenching and thought-provoking to lyrical and witty. Try this next: The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans. |
|
| Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu KawaguchiRead it for: A refreshing take on time-travel.
What happens: Four customers at a special café can revisit their pasts so long as they return before their coffee gets cold -- and knowing that whatever they do won't change the present. So, why bother? Because sometimes it's the journey, not the destination that matters -- and their journeys will include heart-breaking loss, meaningful self-discovery, and unexpected joy.
For fans of: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. |
|
|
When We Cease to Understand the World
by Benjamín Labatut
What it is: A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining.
What's inside: The complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Labatut's book thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence.
|
|
|
The Slow March of Light
by Heather B. Moore
The setting: In the summer of 1961, a wall of barbed wire goes up quickly in the dead of night, officially dividing Berlin.
Starring: An American soldier working as a spy in Soviet-occupied East Germany and a West German woman risking her life to help her countrymen escape from behind the Berlin Wall.
For fans of: Fiction inspired by real events such as Resistance Women by Jennifer Chiaverini or Under Occupation by Alan Furst.
|
|
| An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed by Helene TurstenStarring: Eight-eight-year-old Maude, whose life unfolds in six interconnected stories that lead up to the present -- where police detectives have made the grisly discovery of a dead body in her apartment. Maude is also capable of great magnanimity, which may just get her off the hook for that corpse. Series alert: This book is a follow-up to the author's An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, and both are perfect for fans of Arsenic and Old Lace. |
|
|
The Lincoln Highway
by Amor Towles
Starring: Eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson, who in June of 1954, is released after serving fifteen months on a work farm for involuntary manslaughter,
What happens: Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car and have hatched a different plan for Emmett's future.
Who will like it: This compelling coming-of-age story will appeal to Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell or This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|
|
|
|