| The Women on Platform Two by Laura AnthonyIn 2023, after a fight with her fiancé about having kids, Saoirse meets elderly Maura, who describes life when all contraception was illegal in Ireland. In 1969, Maura, her friend Bernie (who may be killed by another pregnancy), and other women push against the status quo in this timely dual timeline novel. Try this next: Heather Marshall's Looking for Jane or Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Take My Hand. |
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That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon
by Kimberly Lemming
Saving the fiery demon Fallon, spice trader Cinnamon finds her quiet life turned upside down when he drags her along on his quest to kill an evil witch enslaving his people. Original.
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| I Leave It Up to You by Jinwoo ChongAfter 23 months in a coma, 30-year-old Jack Jr. awakens to a world where COVID exists, yet his fiancé, New York apartment, and advertising job are gone. Returning to Fort Lee, New Jersey, he works at his Korean American parents' sushi restaurant, spars with his brother, spends time with his nephew, and reconnects with his male nurse. Try this next: Caroline Leavitt's With or Without You. |
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The Vulnerables
by Sigrid Nunez
This story about modern life and connection with others, including an adrift member of Gen Z and a feisty parrot named Eureka, reveals what happens when strangers are willing to open their hearts to each other and how far even small acts of kindness can offer healing and hope.
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| Hot Air by Marcy DermanskyOh her first date in years, struggling single mom Joannie is in Johnny's backyard while their kids watch TV inside. When a hot air balloon carrying a billionaire and his wife lands in the pool, the foursome end up spending the weekend together in this funny short novel about wealth, power, desire, and more. "It's a hoot," raves Publishers Weekly. |
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The Red Car: A Novel
by Marcy Dermansky
When Leah's former boss and mentor, Judy, dies in an accident and leaves Leah her red sports car, Leah takes off to San Francisco to claim the car, revisiting past lives and loves in a self she abandoned years ago
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| Counting Backwards by Binnie KirshenbaumLeo, a New York City medical researcher and professor, is diagnosed with Lewy body dementia at 53, shattering his world and leaving his wife, collage artist Addie, balancing caregiving, work, grief, and her own mental health. Told primarily in second person by Addie, this darkly funny novel examines marriage, memory, loss, and loneliness. Read-alikes: Still Alice by Lisa Genova; This Is a Love Story by Jessica Soffer. |
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Still Alice: A Novel
by Lisa Genova
Feeling at the top of her game when she is suddenly diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's Disease, Harvard psychologist Alice Howland struggles to find meaning and purpose in her everyday life as her concept of self gradually slips away. A first novel. Simultaneous. 200,000 first printing.
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| Audition by Katie KitamuraIn a Manhattan restaurant, a celebrated middle-aged actress working on a new Broadway play meets a mysterious young man for lunch. But who are they to each other and what does their relationship mean for their futures? Presented in two disorienting parts, this sparsely written unconventional novel defies reader expectations. Read-alike: Heidi Reimer's The Mother Act. |
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Station Eleven: A Novel
by Emily St. John Mandel
The sudden death of a Hollywood actor during a production of King Lear marks the beginning of the world's dissolution, in a story told at various past and future times from the perspectives of the actor and four of his associates. By the author of The Lola Quartet. Simultaneous.
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| The Dream Hotel by Laila LalamiIn a near future where the Risk Assessment Administration uses data to prevent future crimes, Sara Hussein is arrested after a dream-analysis algorithm indicates she'll harm her husband. Held at a retention center, she's losing hope she'll ever be freed when a newcomer upends everything. Perfect for book clubs (it's already a Read with Jenna pick), this gripping latest by a Pulitzer Prize finalist will please fans of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All-Stars. |
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The Moor's Account
by Laila Lalami
A tale inspired by the experiences of the New World's first explorer of African descent describes how Moroccan slave Estebanico barely survives his early 16th-century expedition's encounters with storms, disease and hostile natives while traveling to the Gulf Coast and beyond.
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| Tongues, Volume 1 by Anders NilsenReimagining a Greek myth, this innovative graphic novel features detailed illustrations and a modern-day version of Central Asia where Prometheus chats and plays chess with the eagle that dines daily on his liver. Elsewhere, a girl lugs a suitcase across the desert and a boy travels with a teddy bear. "Superb graphic art meets an exceedingly odd tale, and to wonderful ends" (Kirkus Reviews).
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Circe: A Novel
by Madeline Miller
The daughter of Titans clashes with one of the most vengeful Olympians, forcing her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals. (historical fiction). (This book was listed in a previous issue of Forecast.) Reprint. A #1 New York Times best-seller. 75,000 first printing. AB. K. LJ. NYT. PW. SLJ.
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| Tilt by Emma PatteeWhen a devastating earthquake hits Portland, Annie is 35 years old, 37 weeks pregnant, and shopping for an IKEA crib. Amidst the destruction, she walks toward downtown while talking to her unborn child about the present (the chaos, money troubles) and the past (her playwriting dreams). If you like this moving debut, try Death Valley by Melissa Broder. |
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Death Valley: A Novel
by Melissa Broder
Seeking respite from her father and husband suffering simultaneous illnesses, a young woman visits the California high desert and encounters a strange, towering cactus with a door in it, in the new novel by the author of Milk Fed.
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| The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu; translated by Jesse KirkwoodIn a mysterious Tokyo shop, cats with special blankets are available for three-day rentals. Struggling people, some of whom aren't always easy to like, take cats home in these seven thought-provoking and open-ended stories, which provide an intriguing look at transitional times. Read-alike: Syou Ishida's We'll Prescribe You a Cat. |
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Tokyo Ueno Station
by Miri Yåu
Haunting the park near Tokyo's Uneo Station, the ghost of a man whose life eerily paralleled the Emperor's reflects on the milestones that impacted his existence, from his homelessness and the 2011 tsunami to the 1964 and 2020 Olympics.
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| Sister Europe by Nell ZinkVarious guests -- including an art critic, his 15-year-old trans daughter, a disaffected prince, a German socialite, a publisher originally from Texas, and his online date -- prepare for and attend a formal dinner celebrating an acclaimed author in Berlin, where events culminate in a late night adventure. Fans of Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna will want to try this witty tale. |
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Berlin
by Bea Setton
"A wickedly insightful, darkly funny novel in which a young woman in the grip of an existential malaise moves to a new city for a fresh start but her attempt at reinvention doesn't quite go to plan. "Uncommonly funny, cinematically vivid, and refreshingly honest about how we deceive others and ourselves." -Lisa Halliday, bestselling author of Asymmetry. When Daphne arrives in Berlin, the last thing she expects is to run into more drama than she left behind. Of course, she knew she'd need to do the usual:make friends, acquire lovers, grapple with German and a whole new way of life. She even expected the long nights gorging alone on family-sized jars of Nutella, and the pitfalls of online dating in another language. The paranoia, the second-guessing of her every choice, the covert behaviors? Probably come with the territory. But one night, when Daphne is alone in her apartment, something strange, unnerving and entirely unexpected intervenes, and life in bohemian Kreuzberg suddenly doesn't seem so cool. Just how much trouble is Daphne in, and who - or what - is out to get her? Channelling the modern female experience with razor-sharp observation and a trenchant wit, Berlin announces Bea Setton as an electrifying new voice for her generation"
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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