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The confusion of languages
by Siobhan Fallon
Dutifully following their soldier husbands to the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, Cassie and Margaret forge an unlikely friendship before a suspicious accident leaves Margaret's toddler son in Cassie's care, a situation further complicated by the discovery of unsettling secrets in Margaret's journal.
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| The windfall by Diksha BasuMr. and Mrs. Jha have come into a sum of money that will allow them to move to a wealthy community, leaving behind the long-time friends of their humble Delhi apartment complex. But keeping up with the Chopras proves more difficult than expected: while Mr. Jha is eager to fit in (making extravagant purchases at every turn), Mrs. Jha is less enthusiastic. This debut, an engaging comedy of manners, gently skewers India's upwardly mobile middle classes while emphasizing the importance of family bonds. |
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| What we lose by Zinzi ClemmonsRaised in the U.S., Thandi is the daughter of a mixed-race mother from South Africa and an African-American father. The privilege that her father's career as a professor affords their nuclear family stands in stark contrast to those family members still living in post-apartheid Johannesburg, but it is the death of Thandi's mother that forms the centre of the novel. In a life shaped by not-belonging, the loss of her mother threatens to overwhelm Thandi, especially as she deals with an unplanned pregnancy. Written in short chapters punctuated by photographs and other ephemera, this collage-like debut has been garnering praise from sources from The New York Times to Vogue. |
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| Less by Andrew Sean GreerLess than a year after their breakup, midlist novelist Arthur Less is invited to his ex-boyfriend's wedding. Not wanting to go but lacking (so far) a compelling reason to RSVP his regrets, he accepts every other invitation that comes his way, travelling to New York, Mexico, Morocco, and other far-flung destinations. In his efforts to run away from facing the fact that he has irrevocably lost the love of his life, however, he finds other reasons to live -- though of course he's got to endure some comically wrong turns first. With a surprising narrator (you'll find out at the end who) and flawed but sympathetic characters, Less is a poignant meditation on the universal search for love and happiness. |
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| Hum if you don't know the words by Bianca MaraisThis heart-wrenching debut is set in Johannesburg in the 1970s, a time of great upheaval and violence. It features a young white girl, Robin, whose parents have been killed, and a visiting Xhosa woman, Beauty, searching for her own daughter, who has disappeared in the Soweto uprisings. When Beauty is hired as a caretaker for Robin, they build a tentative bond despite the restrictions of apartheid. Both Robin and Beauty share narrative duties, often relaying their perspectives of the same events, and bearing a moving message of equality. |
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| The Devil and Webster by Jean Hanff KorelitzNaomi Roth is the first woman president of an elite progressive college; her first major challenge had been a transitioning transgender student living in a women-only dorm, so this year's protest against a denial of tenure seems easy enough to handle at first. But that's before a charming student activist steps up to take the lead in pushing things ever further. The students believe the denial is racially motivated (it's not, but Roth can't share the real reasons), and the debate soon captures media attention. Dramatic and centred on very real issues, this novel could be torn from the headlines; for another academia-centered novel from the same author, try Admission. |
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Here and gone: A novel
by Haylen Beck
Wrongly arrested after fleeing her abusive husband's home, a mother desperately fights corrupt authorities to recover her stolen children; while a man across the country hears the story on the news and identifies links to similar events in his own past.
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Living the dream: A novel
by Lauren Berry
A promising marketing employee who doubts the relevance of her work and a talented screenwriter who has not been able to land an agent commiserate about the contrast between the lives they want and a reality marked by insufferable friends, aging parents, terrible bosses and regrettable one-night stands.
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What my body remembers
by Agnete Friis
Unable to recall the fateful night her father murdered her mother, Ella begins suffering crippling panic attacks that land her in a psych ward and separate her from her son, a situation that compels her to kidnap her son from his foster family and flee to the Denmark town of her youth, where she confronts painful demons and negotiates for custody.
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McGlue
by Ottessa Moshfegh
Accused of murdering his friend, Johnson, McGlue struggles to remember what happened on that drunken night
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