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Universal Harvester
by John Darnielle
In 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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| 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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Close enough to touch
by Colleen Oakley
A young woman with a rare and debilitating allergy to other humans is forced to venture out into the world after the death of her abandoning mother before forging an unusual bond with a struggling single dad. Book-club materials available online. By the award-winning author of Before I Go.
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Autumn
by Ali Smith
A debut installment in a series about aging, time, love and the nature of stories examines the dynamics of pop culture, meditation and harvests in a world growing more bordered and exclusive. By the Booker Prize-nominated author of How to Be Both.
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Recent Short Story Collections
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| The Pier Falls: And Other Stories by Mark HaddonAnd now for something completely different. (Or at least that may be what you'll be saying to yourself as you move between stories set in the Victorian era, a Martian settlement, and a remote island, among other locales.) Stranded princesses, beachside disasters, junk-food addictions, mysterious strangers -- no matter the vehicle, author Mark Haddon depicts violence, horror, or despair with distinctly dark British humor. If you don't mind a few unhappy endings, or elements of science fiction, fantasy, or horror, this collection is undeniably entertaining. |
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The ancient minstrel : novellas
by Jim Harrison
A collection of novellas by the New York Times best-selling author of Legends of the Fall includes the title story, in which an aging writer struggles with his ex and a litter of piglets; Eggs, in which a woman tries to have a baby after reflecting on her London country youth; and a story featuring Detective Sunderson.
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Homesick for another world : stories
by Ottessa Moshfegh
A highly anticipated first collection by the award-winning author of Eileen features protagonists who stumble on their own base impulses in their unsettling and laugh-out-loud pursuits of fulfillment.
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Paris for one and other stories
by Jojo Moyes
An anthology by the #1 New York Times best-selling author of Me Before You and After You includes the title story, in which a girl abandoned during a romantic mini-vacation gathers the courage to embark on an independent tour of Paris.
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| What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours: Stories by Helen OyeyemiIn this "beguiling" (Booklist) collection, the stories seem as if they could be modern fairy tales or folklore, so magical are some of their settings: there are echoes of Pinocchio in "Is Your Blood as Red as This?"; "Dornicka and the St. Martin's Day Goose" is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. Along with striking imagery and surreal occurrences, the collection has a shared theme of locks and keys that winds throughout the loosely connected stories, which offer a diverse array of characters, each seeking something they may never be able to find. |
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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