Beyond Bestsellers - Fiction, Summer 2019

Great recent titles you may have missed, selected by our librarians.

July - September 2019 Issue

   

See also:

Acampora, Lauren.  The Paper Wasp.  
After a woman reconnects with her former best friend, now a successful actress, at their 10 year high school reunion, she moves to Los Angeles and becomes her friend’s personal assistant; meanwhile, the vivid dreams which are her obsession become increasingly hallucinatory. 

Alcott, Kathleen.  America Was Hard to Find. 
In the 1950s, a woman working at a bar in the Mojave Desert has a short affair with an astronaut, who later becomes the first man to walk on the moon; after she becomes pregnant, she leaves him, and joins a violent leftist group. 

Aramburu, Fernando.  Homeland.
An elderly widow, whose husband had been assassinated by a separatist group, returns to her Basque village after the group disbands, but the legacy of mistrust and violence continues to affect the villagers’ lives.

Awad, Mona.  Bunny.  
In this darkly comic and fanciful story, a student in a graduate writing program finds herself in a workshop with four women who call each other “Bunny” and who gradually lure her into their cultish circle.

Benz, Chanelle.  The Gone Dead. 
A young woman whose father, a poet, died when she was little, discovers his final writings and learns more about both him and herself when she inherits his Mississippi Delta home.

Blake, Sarah.  Naamah. 
A reimagining of the story of Noah’s Ark, focusing on Noah’s wife, Naamah, a practical woman who takes care of the details on-board, while at the same time questioning God’s plan.

Boyle, T.C.  Outside Looking In.  
A fictional look at LSD culture in the 1960s, focusing on Timothy Leary and the students he introduced to psychedelics.

Brodesser-Akner, Taffy.  Fleishman Is in Trouble. 
This novel with sharply drawn characters describes the marital break-up of two successful Manhattanites, a high-earning talent agent and her husband, a medical specialist.

Chapman, Ryan.  Riots I Have Known. 
A lively comic novel narrated by a writer from Sri Lanka serving time in a New York prison, who edits an in-house magazine which has set off a massive riot by the inmates.

Cheek, Chip.  Cape May. 
In this novel set in the 1950’s, an innocent young newlywed couple, honeymooning in Cape May, New Jersey, meet a group of glamorous and amoral socialites, and find themselves absorbed into their  hedonistic lifestyle.

Choi, Susan.  Trust Exercise. 
An unusual novel divided into three sections; the first tells the story of a relationship between two high school drama students who are being manipulated by their teacher; the second picks up the story years later, and retells it from a different perspective.

Chung, Catherine.  The Tenth Muse.  
A professional mathematician looks back on her long life: the highs and lows of her unusual career, and her unexpected discoveries of her family’s history.

Dalton, Trent.  Boy Swallows Universe.  
This Australian novel portrays the adolescent years of a boy whose mother is a heroin dealer and whose father is an alcoholic, but who nevertheless succeeds in making a future for himself.

Dennis-Benn, Nicole.  Patsy.  
After a Jamaican woman moves to the United States, her young daughter is raised by the girl’s father, but despite his care and attention, she still struggles with her mother’s abandonment of her. 

Fitzpatrick, Lydia.  Lights All Night Long. 
A Russian teenager moves to the United States for a year as an exchange student, while trying to solve the mystery of three murders that sent his innocent and beloved older brother to jail.

Freudenberger, Nell.  Lost and Wanted. 
After her best friend dies, a physics professor at MIT tries to make sense of the text messages she continues to receive from her friend’s cell phone.

Hammad, Isabella.  The Parisian. 
In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, the teenaged son of a Palestinian textile merchant is sent to Montpellier, France, to study medicine and avoid the draft. 

Hanif, Mohammed.  Red Birds.
After an American military plane crashes in the Middle East, the pilot is rescued by a teenaged entrepreneur, a resident of the refugee camp the pilot had been sent to bomb.

Howland, Bette.  Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. 
These autobiographical stories, originally published in the 1970s and 1980s, vividly portray life in a Jewish working class neighborhood in Chicago.

Kane, Jessica Francis.  Rules for Visiting. 
In this touching and humorous story, a middle-aged gardener, who is unexpectedly given extra vacation leave at her job, decides to travel to visit four old friends she has not seen in many years.

Kim, Angie.  Miracle Creek. 
This complex courtroom drama revolves around a Korean immigrant couple who make a living by offering oxygen therapy to treat medical conditions. After an explosion at their facility kills two people and injures others, one of their patients is charged with setting the fire deliberately to kill her son. 

Lin, Chia-Chia.  The Unpassing. 
This sensitively-written novel tells the story of a family from Taiwan who move to Alaska in the 1980s and their struggles to adapt to a beautiful, yet harsh environment, as well as the death of one of their children.

Ma, Jian.  China Dream.  
The main character in this satirical and angry book is a high-ranking Chinese government official, whose dream is to create a “China Dream Device” which will be implanted in the mind of every citizen, and replace their own thoughts with propaganda.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo​​.  Minutes of Glory, and Other Stories. 
These are fifteen short stories written mostly in the 1960s and 1970s by a Kenyan writer and scholar, who describes life in East Africa in the turbulent post-colonial era. 

Orringer, Julie.  The Flight Portfolio. 
A fictional treatment of the life of Varian Fry, an American journalist who took great personal risks to save the lives of a number of European artists and writers in occupied France during the Second World War. 

Phillips, Julia.  Disappearing Earth. 
This suspense novel, set in the Russian and indigenous communities of the northeastern Russian peninsula of Kamchatka, concerns the disappearances of several girls.

Pitoniak, Anna.  Necessary People. 
A woman from a disadvantaged background works her way up to a good job at a cable news network, but her success is threatened when a good friend from college pulls strings to get herself a job, in front of the camera, at the same network.

Porter, Max.  Lanny.  
Set in a modern English village which is watched over by an ancient spirit, this novel tells the story of an eccentric boy’s friendship with an art teacher, who becomes the first suspect when the boy suddenly vanishes.

Ramos, Joanne.  The Farm. 
At an isolated resort-type home, a group of surrogate mothers - poor women being paid to bear children for wealthy women - live under strict rules and constant surveillance.

Rooney, Sally.  Normal People.  
This novel by an Irish author follows its two protagonists, a rich girl and a poor boy, and their changing relationship, for the four years after they first meet in high school.

Russell, Karen.  Orange World and Other Stories. 
A collection of darkly funny, wildly imaginative, and grotesque short stories.

Savas, Aysegül.  Walking on the Ceiling.  
A poetic and philosophical novel following the life and memories of a young Turkish woman, who moves between London, Paris, and Istanbul.

Toews, Miriam.  Women Talking.  
After most of the women living in a Mennonite community in South America discover that they have been drugged and raped by men in the community, eight women from two families meet secretly to discuss the situation.

Vuong, Ocean.  On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
A poetic novel narrated by a young man in the form of a letter to his illiterate mother, detailing his family’s experiences in Vietnam during the war and his abusive childhood in Hartford, Connecticut.