Celebrate Middle Eastern and North African/Southwest Asian
and North African Heritage Month in April |
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Sisters of Fortune by Esther ChehebarThe Cohen sisters are at a crossroads. Nina, the eldest, is disillusioned with the tight-knight community she and her sisters were raised in. Fortune, the middle sister, is the center of attention as her wedding approaches. Lucy, the youngest, is a senior at her yeshiva high school, and recently started sneaking around with a mysterious older bachelor. As Fortune gets closer and closer to standing below the chuppah, the three sisters find themselves in a tug of war between tradition and modernity. Overshadowing all of this are Sally, their overprotective mother, and Sitto, their charismatic grandmother who fled Syria in 1992, both of whom are as concerned about what everyone is eating and how good the food tastes, as they are about marital bliss. Read-alike: The Marriage Box by Corie Adjmi.
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Cleopatra by Saara El-ArifiCleopatra tells her own story in this evocative and sensuous historical epic. Your historians call me seductress, but I was ever in love's thrall. Your playwrights speak of witchcraft, but my talents came from the gods themselves. Your poets sing of my bloodlust, but I was always protecting my children. How willfully they refuse to concede that a woman could be powerful, strategic, and divinely blessed to rule. Death will silence me no longer. This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived. Try this next: Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel.
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What Will People Think? by Sara HamdanA debut novel that follows a young woman's career aspirations to become a stand-up comedian in New York City as she balances the traditions of her Palestinian upbringing with her need to live--and to love--on her own terms, particularly as she discovers her grandmother's journals that chronicle her complicated life in Palestine circa 1947. For fans of A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum.
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The Lack of Light: A Novel of Georgia by Nino HaratischwiliNene, Dina, Ira, and Keto grow up together in Georgia, at a time when the Soviet Union is crumbling and the future of their country is in question. Each in her own way experiences love, hope, and disappointment as local mob wars, romance, and civil war threaten to swallow up their worlds. The four women's friendship seems indestructible, until an unforgivable act of betrayal and a tragic death shatter their bond. Decades later, the three survivors reunite at a retrospective of their late friend's photography. The pictures on display tell the story not only of their country but also of their friendship, and Nene, Ira, and Keto relive their staggering loss. Then, unexpectedly, something new is glimpsed, and forgiveness seems within reach. Read-alike: Hard by a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili.
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Salutation Road by Salma Ibrahim23-year-old Sirad Ali is a woman adrift. Abandoned by her father in childhood, she does her best to support her mother and younger brother in their small flat in South London. But she can’t help but wonder if this is the life she really wants. Until one morning, when she boards the bus to work in Greenwich, she finds herself transported to an alternate reality in present-day Mogadishu. There she encounters her double, Ubah – the woman she could have been had her parents never fled to London during the Somali Civil War. And what follows will change both of their lives forever... Try this next: Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad. |
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Summerhouse by Yigit KaraahmetFehmi and ðSener have been together for forty years-no small feat for any pair, but especially admirable for a gay couple in Turkey. Behind closed closet doors, their life on Bèuyèukada, an idyllic island near Istanbul, is like a powder keg that only needs one spark to make it blow. That spark soon comes in the form of Deniz, the wildly handsome and troubled teenager next door, who immediately catches Fehmi's eye. This harmless crush raises ðSener's hackles: he is horrified to see his husband made unrecognizable by his lecherous desires, and Deniz represents a sinister threat to everything ðSener holds dear. Little do Deniz and Fehmi know that ðSener will stop at nothing to protect his family, and if all three of them make it to the end of summer alive, it'll be a miracle. For fans of The Words That Remain by Stênio Gardel.
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Autocorrect: Stories by Etgar KeretFrom one of the preeminent literary voices in Israel comes a darkly funny collection of surrealist stories exploring the increasingly complex relationship between humans and technology. Set in our world, alternate realities, distant futures, and the immortal realm, the stories in Autocorrect traverse the wide range of human experience. With wit and creativity, Keret blends the absurd and the profound, juxtaposing life's smallest details with weighty existential questions. A man names an asteroid after his wife only to find that it's on a collision course with Earth in For the Woman Who Has Everything. In Squirrels, a widower's husband reincarnates as a rodent, and Eating Olives at the End of the World considers proper social etiquette in the face of destruction. Read-alike: Other Minds and Other Stories by Bennett Sims.
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Waterline by Aram MrjoianOutside Detroit on the island of Gross Ile, the Kurkjians receive news that Mari, the eldest of their youngest generation, has swum into the middle of Lake Michigan with no intent of returning to shore—the consequences of which drag out a deeply rooted pain passed down from generations before. More than a century earlier, Gregor, the great-grandfather and patriarch of the Kurkjian family, survived the Armenian Genocide after fighting for his freedom atop Musa Dagh. In the present day, his epic mythos is inherited by his family as they navigate living in its shadow, decades later and miles away. As the Kurkjians struggle with their new, devastating loss, secrets and shortcomings rise to the surface, until each relative must ask: Where does their own story fit in the narrative of their family’s fraught history? For fans of Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah. |
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| Lost Lambs by Madeline CashA suburban family is in trouble in this buzzy, funny first novel. Bud and Catherine's relationship is sputtering, while their three girls have their own issues: Abigail, 17, is dating a security guard nicknamed "War Crimes Wes," Louise, 15, has an online boyfriend who encourages her to make bombs, and super-smart Harper, 13, investigates a sketchy local billionaire, who is her dad's employer. Read-alikes: Kevin Wilson's The Family Fang; Paul Murray's The Bee Sting |
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| Family Drama by Rebecca FallonAs actress Susan Bliss finds stardom on a soap opera in the 1980s and '90s, she commutes from Massachusetts, where her college professor husband works, to filming in California. This continues even after she becomes a mother, causing tension, and then when her twins are seven, she dies. As they grow into adulthood, artist Sebastian clings to his mother's memory while Viola ignores it, until she falls for her mom's former costar. Try this next: Welcome Home, Stranger by Kate Christensen. |
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| So Old, So Young by Grant GinderOver the course of 20 years, six college friends find jobs, partners, and challenges as they move in and out of each other's lives. Organized around five get-togethers, the first on New Year's Eve in 2007 New York and the last at a funeral, this character-driven latest from Grant Ginder (The People We Hate at the Wedding) explores change, friendship, and growing older. Read-alikes: Steven Rowley's The Celebrants; Angela Flournoy's The Wilderness. |
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Darkrooms by Rebecca HanniganOn the night of the Summer Solstice in 1999, nine-year-old Roisin O'Halloran marched into the Hanging Woods, the mysterious copse that had inspired fear in decades of children in the small Irish town of Bannakilduf. She was never seen again. Twenty years later, two women are drawn together to discover the truth of what happened to the missing girl: Roisin's older sister Deedee, a rookie cop who's barely hanging on to the appearance of keeping it all together, and Roisin's childhood best friend Caitlin, a petty criminal who was the last person to see the young girl before she disappeared, now returned to her hometown after her mother's death. For fans of Into the Water by Paula Hawkins.
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I'll Make a Spectacle of You by Beatrice Winifred IkerZora Robinson is an ambitious grad student at her dream program, the Appalachian Studies department at Bricksbury University. When her thesis advisor suggests she research the local folklore about a beast roaming the woods surrounding campus, Zora finds a community uneager to talk to an outsider. As she delves into the history of the beast, she uncovers a rumored secret society called the Keepers that has ties to the beast...and Bricksbury itself. Zora soon finds herself plagued by visions of the past, and her grip on reality starts to slip as she struggles to uncover what is real and what is folklore. But when a student goes missing, Zora starts to wonder if the Keepers ever really disbanded. There's something in the woods, and it has its eyes on Zora. Try this next: Jackal by Erin E. Adams.
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| This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby PageWhen her new husband Joe dies of cancer, grief-stricken London book editor Tilly learns from their local bookseller that Joe has arranged for her to receive a book -- along with a note -- every month for a year. As the weeks pass, Tilly becomes friends with struggling bookstore owner Alfie and tries new things with Joe's literary encouragement in this charming read. For fans of: Mikki Brammer's The Collected Regrets of Clover. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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