Literary Realism

Four troubled twentysomethings board a ship in search of a mysterious squid only to discover their captain has gone missing. As they take turns steering the vessel, these newfound companions begin to reveal their natures and unearth the events that have inextricably bound them together.

Training to become a therapist, Marissa discovers an unforeseen talent for helping others, and for a while at least, puts her own needs and concerns to one side. An unexpected windfall prompts a spontaneous trip to Peru, and an encounter while she is there triggers an astonishing series of events.

Acclaimed author of 2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas Marie-Helene Bertino's Parakeet is a darkly funny and warm-hearted novel about a young woman whose dead grandmother (in the form of a parakeet) warns her not to marry and sends her out to find an estranged loved one. The week of her wedding, The...

"Read this now, because everyone you know will be talking about it by early 2019." —Washington Post From the award-winning author of Ways to Disappear, a taut, timely story about what a powerful politician thinks he can get away with and the group of misfits who finally bring him down. On an...

An astonishing fiction debut from a UC Irvine MFA graduate and recent contributor to The New Yorker. Bewitching and playful, with its feet only slightly tethered to the world we know, The Sea Beast Takes a Lover explores hope, love, and loss across a series of surreal landscapes and wild...

From debut author Ronlyn Domingue comes a stunning, imaginative novel that beautifully captures the nature of love and how it transcends all barriers -- even death. In 1920s New Orleans, smart and fearless Raziela Nolan is in the throes of a magnificent love affair when she suddenly dies in a...

The lost literary origin story of #1 bestseller Lev Grossman - including a new foreword about how and why he wrote his first novel: "It is the intense, concentrated, boiled-down essence of the unhappiest years of my life." Twenty-something Hollis Kessler languishes in a hopelessly...

In this disarming debut, Brian Strause has written a vastly entertaining novel about an American family transfixed by a series of mysterious events. From a comfortable suburb of Columbus, Ohio, emerges a story of rebellion, faith and hope, bridging the cultural gap between those who believe in...

"[Jean Ann] Douglass’ narration, intimate and bemused and every so often curling up with wryness at the end of a sentence, is a perfect match for Shun-lien Bynum’s delicate delights." -- Slate A Buzz Book of Fall at Publishers Lunch * A WIRED Ultimate Summer Reading pick National Book Award...

The short fiction of Colum McCann documents a dizzying cast of characters in exile, loss, love, and displacement. There is the worn boxing champion who steals clothes from a New Orleans laundromat, the rumored survivor of Hiroshima who emigrates to the tranquil coast of Western Ireland, the...

Living the unexamined life may not be the most successful way to proceed through this world. It certainly hasn't worked for 30-year-old Arthur Loveday, who has failed to impress both his employers and the woman he's fallen in love with. An industrial psychologist attempting to assess him for future employment says he can never succeed at anything until he works out who he really is. From that point on, Arthur finds himself persistently chivvied by fate into a spiritual quest to find his true self.

Ils sont quatre, nés au Gour Noir, cette vallée coupée du monde, perdue au milieu des montagnes. Ils sont quatre, frères et sœur, soudés par un indéfectible lien. Marc d'abord, qui ne cesse de lire en cachette. Matthieu, qui entend penser les arbres. Puis Mabel, à la beauté sauvage. Et Luc, l'enfant tragique, qui sait parler aux grenouilles, aux cerfs et aux oiseaux, et caresse le rêve d'être un jour l'un des leurs.

What’s in a name? For Judas Thomas, named after the infamous betrayer, a great many things. For centuries, Judas Iscariot has been the most despised figure in Western civilization. Betrayer or scapegoat? For a young boy born in 1970, his greatest obstacle in life is not his conception by a violent rape or his difficult and strict upbringing in a Catholic orphanage nor his mixed race. For this young orphan, his greatest challenge is his name: Judas, named for the infamous betrayer-disciple.

On an unnamed archipelago off the east coast of Britain, the impossible has come to pass. Women control the civic institutions. Decide how the islands’ money is spent. Run the businesses. Tend to their families. Teach the children hope for a better world. They say that this gynotopia is Eva Levi’s life’s work, and that now she has disappeared, it will be destroyed. But they don’t know about Cwen. Cwen has been here longer than the civilisation she has returned to haunt. The clouds are her children, and the waves.

A spellbinding story collection from Booker Prize finalist Ruth Ozeki, about the lives we almost lived, the people we can’t quite forget, and the stories that shape us long after the last page is turned In this spirited and emotionally resonant collection, award-winning novelist Ruth Ozeki...

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to live out your life in someone else's shoes? To experience what they feel, see and believe as if you were them? Strange events take hold of Sophia and she discovers herself transported to another world in which she finds herself caught up in supernatural events which can be shattering and horrifying, yet often emotional and moving too.

Dopo il successo ottenuto come spettacolo teatrale sul tema dei desaparecidos, "L'ultima madre" diventa un romanzo, sospeso fra indagine storica, realismo magico e studio sociologico. Ambientato nella Buenos Aires degli anni Settanta, al culmine di quella "guerra sporca" che sarebbe costata la vita a innumerevoli attivisti politici, esso mette a confronto le vicende di due personaggi apparentemente contrapposti: da un lato María, madre di due gemelli rapiti dai soldati e scomparsi nel nulla, dall'altro Mercedes, figlia e moglie di militari, a sua volta madre dei due gemelli Nacho e Mari.

A writer in a purgatory bar, an art-collecting housewife who time travels, a movie production assistant with stigmata, a codependent AA sponsor, a sex addict, a movie star with issues, a two-time liver transplant recipient, and an abusive TV costumer who gets what’s coming to her: All connected to one another but completely and utterly alone.

A year after his dad's death, 12-year-old Lincoln wonders whether his strait-laced but clearly struggling mom will ever tell him what really happened the night of the car accident. How did she walk away, and his dad didn't? When would life return to normal? As it turns out, never again.

Since her encounter with Ori years ago, Jessica has continued her mission to print the truth that the world needs to hear. This pursuit has led her to meet with a source, Zach Carver, a leading mind at Singularity Group. The meeting goes awry, and Jessica awakens to find that she has a gap in time and memory and that Zach is now missing. To her surprise, Ori reappears to help her. His solution involves a promising young recruit, Malik, whose research could be the key to recovering Zach. Yet the forces they are up against have proven they will go to great lengths to remove any obstacle.