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The Silver Book
by Olivia Laing
In September 1974, young English artist Nicholas meets famed Italian cinema designer Danilo Donati in Venice and is swept into the dazzling, illusory world of Cinecittà. Brought to Rome as Donati’s apprentice, he helps build the fantastical sets for Casanova, then follows him to the darker realm of Pasolini’s Salò.
But Nicholas carries a hidden truth, and in a world built on illusion, it goes unnoticed—until the turmoil of the Years of Lead collides with his secret and sets off a tragedy he never intended.
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I, Medusa
by Ayana Gray
Meddy has always felt like an afterthought beside her immortal sisters and minor-god parents, longing for a life beyond her family’s island. When Athena invites her to train as a priestess, she jumps at the chance, thriving in the vibrant streets of Athens and within the goddess’s temple.
But everything shatters when Poseidon’s attention turns dangerous. Punished for a crime she didn’t commit, Meddy is transformed—her locs becoming snakes—and forced to rebuild herself entirely.
Reborn as Medusa, she claims a new identity not as a victim but as a vigilante, seizing the power to shape her own legend as mortal, martyr, and myth.
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| Evensong by Stewart O'NanA close-knit group of Pittsburgh women—self-named the Humpty Dumpty Club—rally together when their tireless leader, Joan, is sidelined by a bad fall. As they juggle their own aging bodies, complicated relationships, and choir practice, they also take on the everyday tasks that keep their community afloat: baking cookies, caring for pets, driving friends to appointments, and sitting with those who need comfort.
Told through the intertwined perspectives of its four devoted members, the story highlights the quiet power of showing up for one another. Revisiting familiar characters from earlier works, it paints a warm, wry portrait of friendship, caretaking, and the chosen family that helps carry us through life’s big and small moments. |
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The Memory Gardener
by Meg Donohue
Lucy Barnes has an uncanny ability to know exactly which scent among the flowers she grows will return a person to a long-forgotten memory, a key from their past that has the potential to change their future. When she takes a position as the gardener at a somber, colorless assisted-living home, the evocatively scented flowers that she grows awaken not only the home’s gardens, but the entire community, stirring new pleasures and unearthing long-buried secrets within all who venture through the gardens’ gates.
But when a secret comes to light that threatens to shatter the newly close-knit community, the future suddenly looks uncertain. Have the memories that Lucy has unearthed awakened something wonderful … or are some memories better left buried?
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Television
by Lauren Rothery
An aging A-list movie star gives away his entire blockbuster paycheck in a public lottery, then takes up with a much younger model. His longtime friend—and sometimes lover—watches quietly, reflecting on the strange, intimate, twenty-year bond they’ve shared. Elsewhere, an aspiring filmmaker struggles over a script about friendship and longing, wishing for the financial freedom needed to pursue real art.
Told through their interwoven perspectives, this sharp, funny, and thoughtful novel examines outrageous luck, fleeting fame, and the deep inequalities shaping modern Hollywood. In a world defined by beauty, money, and constant reinvention, it asks what—beyond love—can truly tip life in your favor.
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The Award
by Matthew Pearl
David Trent is an aspiring novelist in Cambridge, Massachusetts trying to navigate his ambitions in a place that has writers around every corner. He lives in an apartment above Silas Hale, a famous author who, beneath his celebrated image, is a bombastic, vindictive monster.
Silas refuses to allow his new neighbor to even make eye contact with him—until David wins a prestigious award for his new book. Suddenly Silas is interested, if intensely spiteful. But soon the administrator of the award comes to David with alarming news that forces him into a desperate set of choices. Then fate intervenes with shocking consequences.
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House of Day, House of Night
by Olga Tokarczuk
A woman settles in a remote Polish village where she knows no one. It has few inhabitants, but it teems with the stories of the living and the dead. There's the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers that he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There's the man whose death - with one leg on the Polish side, one on the Czech - was an international incident. And there are the Germans who still haunt a region that not long ago they called their own. From the founding of the town to the lives of its saints, these shards piece together not only a history, but a cosmology.
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So Good to See You
by Francesca Hornak
2004. Serge, Rosie and Daniel are enjoying their final weeks of university. They are young, inseparable and full of optimism.
Fifteen years later, they are guests at a lavish three-day wedding in Provence - and no longer friends.
Life has not turned out quite as planned since their heady days at Oxford. Film-maker Serge is winning awards, but hiding a huge debt and fractured relationship. Behind Rosie's social ease, she is heartbroken. And with Daniel's fame has come spiralling anxiety.
Now, with four days of organized fun ahead, all three are armed with their best conversation and brightest smile. At least everyone is following the same do not bring up the past. But as the Champagne flows, appearances slip and true feelings emerge.
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Tailored Realities
by Brandon Sanderson
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson comes Tailored Realities, a new short fiction collection including the never-before-published novella Moment Zero.
Spanning the genres of fantasy and science fiction, this collection features stories from beyond the bounds of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere universe. Along with the new novella Moment Zero, Tailored Realities includes nine works of short fiction never before gathered into one volume, many available here in print for the first time: Snapshot Perfect State Defending Elysium (from the world of Skyward) Firstborn Mitosis (from the world of the Reckoners) and four other stories .
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