Visionary Fiction

Among the most celebrated and beloved novels of 2021, Anthony Doerr’s gorgeous third novel is a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring story about children on the cusp of adulthood in worlds in peril, who find resilience, hope—and a book. In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Doerr has created a magnificent tapestry of times and places that reflects our vast interconnectedness—with other species, with each other, with those who lived before us, and with those who will be here after we’re gone.

It has been two years since the events in Shantaram, and since Lin lost two people he had come to love: his father figure, Khaderbhai, and his soul mate, Karla, married to a handsome Indian media tycoon. Lin returns from a smuggling trip to a city that seems to have changed too much, too soon. Many of his old friends are long gone, the new mafia leadership has become entangled in increasingly violent and dangerous intrigues, and a fabled holy man challenges everything that Lin thought he'd learned about love and life.

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power. The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners - a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life - has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life.

When the beautiful and precocious sisters Sally and Gillian Owens are orphaned at a young age, they are taken to a small Massachusetts town to be raised by their eccentric aunts, who happen to dwell in the darkest, eeriest house in town. As they become more aware of their aunts' mysterious and sometimes frightening powers - and as their own powers begin to surface - the sisters grow determined to escape their strange upbringing by blending into "normal" society.

Lexi Sobado, code name Lynx, is the young, puzzling prodigy with a psychic gift working for Iniquus. Her job is to support American security and safety as she hunts through intelligence pieces in order to stop our enemies. This time, solving the puzzle means saving her own life. Rival group Omega has been contracted to bring her in dead or alive. Alive would mean rendition and interrogation.

A community of quirky, mismatched, and endearing women struggle to find meaning and purpose on a ramshackle monastery in upstate New York. Having spent their lives in service to a church that seems to no longer serve them, they are confused about their own futures and the future of the entire monastery.

Evan Michaels struggles with being different, with having the complete memories of two other people who lived sequentially before him. He fights loneliness and believes he is unique until he meets Poppy. She recognizes his struggle because she is like him, except that she is much older, remembering seven consecutive lives. But there is something else she must share with Evan - she is a member of the secretive Cognomina. They are, in effect, immortals - compiling experiences and skills over lifetimes into near superhuman abilities that they have used to drive history over centuries.

Set in Rome in 2012, the story follows Sarah Adamson, a beautiful young Catholic graduate student from Boston studying at the Vatican Library for her thesis on the first Christian heretic, Marcion of Pontus. She is being courted by two utterly different men: Simon Appel, a descendent of the kabbalist Isaac Luria who covers Vatican affairs for the New York Times, and Armando Pierleoni, the scion of an ancient Italian aristocratic family with strong ties to the Vatican.

Harry August is on his deathbed. Again. No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes. Until now. As Harry nears the end of his 11th life, a little girl appears at his bedside. "I nearly missed you, Doctor August", she says. "I need to send a message". This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

Evan Michaels is back in a new life as a Syrian refugee. When strange memories of his former lives lead him back to Zurich, headquarters of his old family of fellow reincarnationists, the Cognomina, he must reacquire their trust to rejoin their ranks. On the last leg of this journey, he is intercepted by an excommunicated member of the Cognomina who holds some serious grudges. She’s on a mission to wipe out large portions of the world’s population to save the planet from destruction. She proposes a union of the Cognomina and her own group of reincarnationists.

It is three in the morning when Bobby Western plunges from the Coast Guard tender into darkness. His dive light illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the site are the pilot’s bag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger. A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit—by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.

One man—visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D.—has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock brings together a disparate group of characters from different cultures and continents who grapple with the real-life repercussions of global warming.

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors.

Meet Jim Carrey. Sure, he's an insanely successful and beloved movie star drowning in wealth and privilege — but he's also lonely. Maybe past his prime. Maybe even...getting fat? He's tried diets, gurus, and cuddling with his military-grade Israeli guard dogs, but nothing seems to lift the cloud of emptiness and ennui. Even the sage advice of his best friend, actor, and dinosaur skull collector Nicolas Cage isn't enough to pull Carrey out of his slump.

This compelling spiritual quest by Hermann Hesse, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, is considered one of the most important works of 20th century fiction. Siddhartha's search for enlightenment leads him to the river of life itself. On his journey he learns from many teachers: the ascetic Samanas, the all-knowing Gotama the Buddha, Kamala the lovely courtesan, and Vasudeva the simple ferryman.

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart - he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone - but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods.

FLAWED is a faerie tale mystery for adults, a lush journey through real and spectral worlds. Drawing on Tibetan, First Nation, and Classical mythology, it tells the story of two families: four generations, torn apart by a terrible secret. FLAWED touches on the use of LSD in treating alcoholism, the often fine line between artistic temperament and insanity, and the ongoing debate between allopathic and naturopathic medicine.

In a ravaged world, a former Army Ranger and his loyal golden retriever lead a desperate mission against an alien overlord, testing the bond between humanity… and their best friends.

In this exhilarating tale by New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Nnedi Okorafor, a disabled Nigerian American woman pens a wildly successful Sci-Fi novel, but as her fame rises, she loses control of the narrative—a surprisingly cutting, yet heartfelt drama about art and love, identity and connection, and, ultimately, what makes us human. This is a story unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Now, for the first time ever, a new complete edition audiobook original of the timeless classic by Richard Bach. This is the story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules, people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they'll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than they ever dreamed. Read by Marcus Lovett. Music composed by Ken Miller.