Beyond Bestsellers - Fiction, Fall 2019

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

October - December 2019 Issue

   

See also:

Buxton, Kira Jane.  Hollow Kingdom.  
After Seattle suffers a zombie apocalypse, a foul-mouthed domesticated crow flees his master with his dog friend and sets about rescuing other domesticated animals who are now trapped in their homes.

Caputo, Philip.  Hunter’s Moon: A Novel in Stories.
A collection of seven interconnected stories set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan during the autumn hunting season.

Coe, Jonathan.  Middle England. 
This comedy of manners continues the story, (told in previous books), of a group of English men who first met at an elite school in the 1970s; in this installment, they are now middle-aged and trying to cope with political and social changes in their country as Brexit draws near.

Cruz, Angie.  Dominicana.  
In this novel set in the early 1960s, inspired by the life of the author’s mother, a 15-year old woman from the Dominican Republic is married to an older man as part of a business transaction and moves with him to New York City. 

Danticat, Edwidge.  Everything Inside. 
The eight short stories in this collection portray the importance of love, family, and community in the lives of migrants from Haiti.

Ellmann, Lucy.  Ducks, Newburyport.  
This large stream-of consciousness novel is narrated by an older woman living in Ohio, who muses on her life as a teacher and then a baker, her health, and her family. 

ffitch, Madeline.  Stay and Fight.  
A woman who has left Seattle to live off the land in Appalachian Ohio takes in a couple who have been kicked out of a women’s farm after giving birth to a boy; they continue to live and manage their land together despite personality differences and the son’s growing interest in the outside world.

Folarin, Tope.  A Particular Kind of Black Man. 
The main character in this novel is the son of Nigerian immigrants who have settled in Utah; his hardworking father is constantly trying new careers, his mother is schizophrenic, and he doesn’t feel he belongs anywhere.

Foulds, Adam.  Dream Sequence. 
A divorced Philadelphia woman becomes obsessed with a handsome English actor she watches on television and follows on the Internet, and flies to London to join him, convinced that it’s their destiny to be together. 

Gappah, Petina.  Out of Darkness, Shining Light.
The story of British explorer David Livingstone’s long trip through Africa after his death, told through the eyes of the African members of his expedition who carried his corpse fifteen-hundred miles to the coast so that his body and papers could be sent home.

Hage, Rawi.  Beirut Hellfire Society.
In Beirut during the long Lebanese Civil War, an undertaker continues his father’s work of handling the bodies of people killed in the war and conveying them to a crematorium.

Hassib, Rajia.  A Pure Heart. 
An Egyptian woman who lives in New York with her American husband is wracked by guilt over the death of her sister, who has been killed in a terrorist bombing in Cairo.

Hassman, Tupelo.  Gods with a Little G. 
A teenaged girl lives in an ultra-conservative town in California with her religious father, but works for her aunt’s “Psychic Encounter Shoppe” and is drawn to the bad boy in her high school.

Horrocks, Caitlin.  The Vexations. 
This novel depicts the life and character of French composer Erik Satie, describing the dysfunction of his family after the death of his mother early in his childhood, and his collaborations with other modern artists of his time.

Macneal, Elizabeth.  The Doll Factory. 
This suspenseful novel is set in London in 1850, and concerns a young woman who leaves her family’s doll shop, where she has worked as a painter, to become an artist’s model.

Marías, Javier.  Berta Isla.  
In this book set in the latter half of the 20th Century, a Spanish woman marries a half-Spanish, half-British classmate, but when he returns to Madrid after completing his studies at Oxford, he has become an agent for British intelligence, a fact he keeps secret from her.

Maum, Courtney.  Costalegre. 
In this novel inspired by the lives of Peggy Guggenheim and her daughter, an American heiress and art collector brings surrealist art and artists from Europe to a Mexican resort to save them from the Nazis, while her teenaged daughter tries desperately to claim her attention.

McKinty, Adrian.  The Chain.  
In this thriller, a group of criminals develop a fiendish scheme: when a child is kidnapped, the parents are required not only to pay a ransom, but also to kidnap another family’s child before their own child will be released.

Mengiste, Maaza.  The Shadow King.  
This historical novel depicts the Italian invasion of Ethiopia during the 1930s from the Ethiopian perspective, focusing on the role that women played as soldiers.

Montag, Kassandra.  After the Flood.  
In the 22nd Century, after the ice caps have melted and most of the earth is submerged, a woman and her youngest daughter leave their flooded Nebraska home by boat to search for her older daughter, who was kidnapped years earlier.

Nieh, Daniel.  Beijing Payback. 
In this thriller, an ordinary California college student goes to China looking for answers and revenge after his father, a successful Chinese businessman, is murdered in his office.

North, Alex.  The Whisper Man. 
In this English thriller, a police detective searches for a six-year old boy who has gone missing from his village in a case that is reminiscent of the crimes of a serial killer called the Whisper Man, who has been in prison for more than a decade.

Ogawa, Yoko.  The Memory Police. 
This Japanese novel takes place on an island where things, some ordinary, some valuable, have been disappearing mysteriously for years; most of the inhabitants forget about the lost items, but those who remember them end up disappearing themselves.

Orner, Peter.  Maggie Brown & Others. 
A collection of 44 very short interconnected stories about characters who experience defining moments in their lives. 

Phillips, Helen.  The Need.  
A paleobotanist and mother of two young children begins to experience anxiety and disorientation, not knowing whether the sinister force she fears is threatening her children is real or only in her imagination.

Prescott, Lara.  The Secrets We Kept.  
This novel tells the story of how the novel Doctor Zhivago was smuggled out of the Soviet Union and became a propaganda tool for the CIA in the 1950’s; the characters include the author, Boris Pasternak, his lover Olga, and a group of American typists and spies.

Rushdie, Salman.  Quichotte. 
In this highly imaginative novel, an Indian-American pharmaceutical rep loses his job, renames himself after Don Quixote, and uses his old Chevy to go questing after the woman he loves, an Indian-American talk show host.

Savage, Lila.  Say Say Say.  
A young woman is hired to be a caretaker for a woman who has developed dementia after an accident and becomes increasingly immersed in the lives of the couple she works for.

Scibona, Salvatore.  The Volunteer.  
A young man from Iowa enlists in the Marines and serves three tours in Vietnam. Later, he returns to the United States and meets a woman and her young son, the last members of a New Mexico commune.

Scott, Rion Amilcar.  The World Doesn’t Require You. 
This collection of linked stories takes place in an imaginary all-Black town in Maryland called Cross River, whose inhabitants are descendants of the only successful slave revolt in United States history.

Steinberg, Susan.  Machine. 
A rebellious teenaged girl looks back on a wild summer spent at the seaside, including the suspicious drowning of a friend and her discovery of her successful father’s infidelity. 

Tokarczuk, Olga.  Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead. 
In this unusual murder mystery, set in a small Polish town near the Czech border, residents begin to die mysteriously, and the remaining residents, including the main character, a teacher and mystic, try to figure out what’s going on.

Truong, Monique.  The Sweetest Fruits. 
A fictional look at the lives of three women who were connected to writer Lafcadio Hearn, who wrote about Japan for western readers in the 19th Century.

Wall, Cara.  The Dearly Beloved. 
This novel that explores faith and love is centered on four people: two men who become co-pastors of a Presbyterian church in Greenwich Village in 1963 and their wives.