Sex and vanity by Kevin Kwan What it is: a dishy, escapist read that brings E.M. Forster's A Room with a View to the modern era, complete with snobby Mayflower descendants, gauche new-money families, and all the lavish luxury (this time in Capri and the Hamptons) that author Kevin Kwan (of Crazy Rich Asians fame) is known for.
Want a taste? "We're going to start small at first and offer an Ayurvedic juice bar, qigong, puppy yoga, breath work meditation, and maybe some sound healing."
| | Pew by Catherine Lacey Introducing: racially ambiguous, genderless, mute, and of unknown age, Pew is named by where they were found -- sleeping in a church.
What happens: Pew's muteness encourages the townspeople to share their stories; a reluctant confidante, Pew's own thoughts are communicated to readers alone. But fear of the unknown is strong, and soon the town's generosity turns to suspicion and mistrust.
Read it: to understand the pitfalls of human society and the dangers of insularity. | |
Zed
by
Joanna Kavenna
"One corporation has made a perfect world based on a perfect algorithm . . . now what to do with all these messy people? Lionel Bigman is dead. Murdered by a robot. Guy Matthias, the philandering founder and CEO of the mega-corporation Beetle, insists it was human error. But was it? Either the predictive algorithms of Beetle's supposedly omniscient 'lifechain' don't work, or, they've been hacked. Both scenarios are impossible to imagine and signal the end of Beetle's technotopia and life as we know it. Dazzlingly original and darkly comic, Zed asks profound questions about who we are, what we owe to one another, and what makes us human. It describes our moment--the ugliness and the beauty--perfectly.
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Saving fish from drowning
by
Amy Tan
During an ill-fated trip to Myanmar, eleven American tourists are abducted by a renegade tribe that believes that Rupert, a surly teenager with the group, is the reincarnation of their god Younger White Brother, who has returned to save them from their country's militaristic government, in a novel narrated by the ghost of the murdered woman who had set up the trip. Reader's Guide included.
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Qualityland
by
Marc-Uwe Kling
Welcome to QualityLand, the best country on Earth. Here, a universal ranking system determines the social advantages and career opportunities of every member of society. An automated matchmaking service knows the best partners for everyone and helps with the break up when your ideal match (frequently) changes. And the foolproof algorithms of the biggest, most successful company in the world, TheShop, know what you want before you do and conveniently deliver to your doorstep before you even order it. In QualityCity, Peter Jobless is a machine scrapper who can't quite bring himself to destroy the imperfect machines sent his way, and has become the unwitting leader of a band of robotic misfits hidden in his home and workplace. One day, Peter receives a product from TheShop that he absolutely, positively knows he does not want, and which he decides, at great personal cost, to return. The only problem: doing so means proving the perfect algorithm of TheShop wrong, calling into question the very foundations of QualityLand itself.
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Mother Daughter Widow Wife by Robin Wasserman Who is Wendy Doe? An unidentified amnesiac at the Meadowlark Institute of Memory Research...before she recovered her memory and returned to her life as Karen Clark.
Where's Karen? She's disappeared again, and her 18-year-old daughter Alice seeks out the doctors who helped her mother 20 years before for insight into her current behaviour.
Read it for: all the twists of a psychological suspense novel plus the slower pace and themes of literary one (such as memory and identity). | |
Strangers and cousins
by
Leah Hager Cohen
The community of Rundle Junction is thrown into chaos by the over-the-top wedding plans of a sprawling family, their escalating clashes with unwanted community newcomers, a matriarch's haunting memories and an artistic bride's passion-driven agenda.
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The floating Feldmans
by
Elyssa Friedland
"Sink or swim. Or at least that's what Annette Feldman tells herself when she books a cruise for her entire family. It's been over a decade since the Feldman clan has spent more than twenty-four hours under the same roof, but Annette is determined to celebrate her seventieth birthday the right way. Just this once, they are going to behave like an actual family. Too bad her kids didn't get the memo. Between the troublesome family secrets, old sibling rivalries, and her two teenage grandkids, Annette's birthday vacation is looking more and more like the perfect storm. Adrift together on the open seas, the Feldmans will each face the truths they've been ignoring--and learn that the people they once thought most likely to sink them are actually the ones who help them stay afloat"
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The Round House by Louise Erdrich What it's about: In North Dakota, the summer in 1988, 13-year-old Joe Coutts' mother, a tribal enrollment specialist on the Ojibwe reservation, is viciously attacked. Traumatized, she retreats to her bed, unwilling to identify her attacker. Frustrated with the official investigation's glacial pace, Joe sets out to find his mother's assailant and deliver justice.
Why you might like it: Imbued not only with Ojibwe culture and beliefs but also with Christian ideas and the philosophy of Star Trek: The Next Generation (Joe and his friends are hooked on the show), this is a thoughtful, perceptive take on the aftermath of a violent crime. | | Women in sunlight by Frances Mayes What it's about: For Camille, Susan, and Julia, traditional retirement communities hold no appeal; on something of a whim the four near-strangers decide to rent a Tuscan home for a year, where they meet a younger American expat and become fast friends.
Why you might like it: An upbeat, engaging novel, Women in Sunlight features lushly described settings and meals -- and brings Tuscany's best to your living room. | | Tuesday Nights in 1980 by Molly Prentiss Starring: Argentinian painter Raul, poised to make his mark, who's escaped his country's dirty war; art critic James, whose synesthesia allows him to describe art in profoundly unusual ways; and, finally, the muse -- beautiful Lucy, an Idaho native drawn to New York and its art scene by little more than faded photographs.
What happens: Over the course of one turbulent year, loss brings all three together in the gritty city they've come to call home.
Reviewers say: Marked by bold characters and vibrant details, this debut is "both ethereal and brutally realistic" (The New York Times). | | The risen by Ron Rash Starring: two brothers, now in their sixties, have been estranged since the turbulent 1969 summer they spent with a free-spirited redhead who, it turns out, didn't leave town so much as disappear. And now her body's been discovered.
Why you might like it: Like much of Ron Rash's fiction, The Risen is a product of its setting, a small North Carolina town. However, unlike most of his oeuvre, this one offers a mystery as well. | | Sing, unburied, sing by Jesmyn Ward What it is: a powerful story of how the past affects the present, and of deeply entrenched racism.
Featuring: 13-year-old Jojo, his addicted, grieving Black mother, and his incarcerated white father.
Why you might like it: A road trip to Dad's prison kick-starts the novel, which offers deeply affecting characters, a strong sense of rural Mississippi, and a touch of magical realism in appearances by the dead. | |
Contact your librarian for more great books!
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