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| Universal Harvester by John DarnielleIn this intricate, disturbing novel, small town Iowa reveals its darker side when video store customers start complaining about creepy footage spliced into their VHS rentals (it's the late 1990s). Jeremy Heldt, working the counter while he waits for something better to come along, reluctantly starts looking into the footage, which draws him into a local, decades-old story of tragedy and loss. But plot isn't the important thing about Universal Harvester -- you'll want to read it for its strong sense of place, its compelling turns of phrase (author John Darnielle is a singer/songwriter), its menacing atmosphere, and for the way it explores the emotional consequences of loss. |
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Ill will : a novel
by Dan Chaon
A psychologist is unwittingly embroiled in two spectacular unsolved murders, three decades apart, when the foster brother convicted of killing their family years earlier is exonerated, making him question the testimony that led to the conviction.
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| All Our Wrong Todays: A Novel by Elan MastaiTom Barren lives in a world where clothes are recycled and refashioned onto your body each day, you yourself are micro-steam-cleaned as you sleep, driverless flying cars are the norm, and avocados are always perfect. It's 2016, and war is nonexistent, thanks to an unlimited power source created in 1965. But that all changes when Tom, a total underachiever, accidentally erases that picture-perfect version of reality in one very stupid, grief-fueled time-travel mishap that lands him in our less-than-ideal 2016, where he discovers an unexpected and wonderful version of his own life at the expense of the utopia he destroyed. A clever, witty take on time travel, this enjoyable debut sparkles with pop culture references and is more about love than science. |
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| The Refugees by Viet Thanh NguyenAuthor Viet Thanh Nguyen's debut novel The Sympathizer won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Carnegie Medal, among other accolades; readers hungry for more will appreciate the eight stories collected here, written before The Sympathizer was published. While the stories, mostly set in the Vietnamese community in California, represent Vietnamese refugee experiences in the U.S., the topics they explore -- relationships, grief, the desire for fulfillment -- "transcend ethnic boundaries to speak to human universals" (Kirkus Reviews). Check them out if you're interested in sympathetic characters, cultural dislocation, or the experiences of refugees. |
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| The Animators: A Novel by Kayla Rae WhitakerIn this much-anticipated debut, two women who met in a college art class (and instantly became best friends), try to make a go of it as animated cartoonists. Sharon, who narrates, has always been the calming presence, while Mel, charismatic, confident, and openly gay, is a creative whirlwind. Ten years after they graduate, the consequences of their success nearly destroy their partnership (frequently drunk or high, Mel flames out spectacularly, while Sharon suffers a debilitating stroke). With realistic characters you'll empathize with even as they make calamitous decisions, The Animators is alternately heartbreaking and heartwarming, passionate and funny as it documents how artists create art out of pain. |
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Setting free the kites
by Alex George
"For Robert Carter, life in his coastal Maine hometown is comfortably predictable. But in 1976, on his first day of eighth grade, he meets Nathan Tilly, who changes everything. Nathan is confident, fearless, impetuous--and fascinated by kites and flying. Robert and Nathan's budding friendship is forged in the crucible of two family tragedies, and as the boys struggle to come to terms with loss, they take summer jobs at the local rundown amusement park. It's there that Nathan's boundless capacity for optimism threatens to overwhelm them both, and where they learn some harsh truths about family, desire, and revenge."-- Provided by publisher.
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Swimming lessons
by Claire Fuller
Returning home to care for her aging father 12 years after her mother's disappearance, Flora discovers that before she went missing, her mother wrote letters to her father about their marriage and hid them among his thousands of books.
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The horseman
by Tim Pears
Somerset, 1911. The forces of war are building across Europe, but this pocket of England, where the rhythms of lives are dictated by the seasons and the land, remains untouched. Albert Sercombe is a farmer on Lord Prideaux's estate and his eldest son, Sid, is underkeeper to the head gamekeeper. His son, Leo, a talented rider, grows up alongside the master's spirited daughter, Charlotte--a girl who shoots and rides, much to the surprise of the locals. In beautiful, pastoral writing, The Horseman tells the story of a family, a community, and the landscape they come from.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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