World Fiction

Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. A Guardian Fiction Book of the year. Sometimes discovery brings destruction. "When We Cease to Understand the World" shows us great minds striking out into dangerous, uncharted terrain. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger: these are among the luminaries into whose troubled minds we are thrust as they grapple with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, they alienate friends and lovers, they descend into isolated states of madness.

Reunited with her sister at last, Louisa settles in colonial Virginia, but an unexpected visitor throws life into turmoil once again by offering Valerie and Louisa an opportunity to return to the future. Before the sisters have a chance to make a decision, the unthinkable happens, ripping the family apart and scattering them over continents and time itself.

La veille de Noël. Tous s'affairent aux préparatifs. Mais, préférant la solitude à ces fêtes joyeuses, Ebenezer Scrooge refuse les invitations.

Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.

Haunted by vivid nightmares, 17-year-old Clara Blackwell suffers a miserable and downtrodden life in Great Britain. When a simple act of kindness leads her astray, a chance encounter casts her across the dimensional barrier between worlds. Clara is thrust into a captivating realm of vampires and magic that is desperate to tear her apart. Awaking in a mysterious castle under a cosmic sky, she quickly learns that the beauty of this new world is matched only by its immense peril. If word of her arrival spreads, the entire world could erupt into a brutal war over Clara’s fate.

They said I was a bad idea. Poor. Violent. Criminal. They said I'd amount to nothing, and I believed them, too. Until I met her. Layla Barros saved me from my worst, but to do that, she lost the best herself. Now it's my turn to bring her back to life. If only I can figure out how to do it. I'll do anything to protect the chance we finally have together. I'll follow her to the other side of the word: Brazil. Cuba. You name it. But how can I be her true north when I'm still finding my direction, too?

Sam Carlson is a projectionist in small-town Minnesota, where fantasies unspool in glorious black and white—for him and for his sweetheart, college-bound math whiz Sarah Haber. When the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Sam is sent to the Philippines and captured as a POW. Brutalized but unbroken by the Bataan Death March and POW camps, Sam is one of eighteen hundred starved and weakened prisoners herded into the cargo hold of a barbaric hell ship called the Arisan Maru, his survival doubtful.

After a devastating attack by a downed Japanese aircraft, Art Turner and the men of Bull Shark try to forget and relax in the rustic Western Australian port of Fremantle. Yet war is never far away, and the battle cry once more draws the submarine into danger. Uncle Charlie Lockwood has a special side mission for Art Turner. A British commando needs to get to Timor and reunite with the Australian guerrilla fighters he’s trained… and who he was forced to leave behind when the Japanese invaded.

The electricity has flickered out. The automobile age is over. In Union Grove, a little town in upstate New York, the future is nothing like people thought it would be. Life is hard and close to the bone. Transportation is slow and dangerous, so food is grown locally at great expense of time and energy, and the outside world is largely unknown. There may be a president, and he may be in Minneapolis now, but people aren’t sure.

The Triwizard Tournament is to be held at Hogwarts. Only wizards who are over seventeen are allowed to enter - but that doesn't stop Harry dreaming that he will win the competition. Then at Hallowe'en, when the Goblet of Fire makes its selection, Harry is amazed to find his name is one of those that the magical cup picks out. He will face death-defying tasks, dragons and Dark wizards, but with the help of his best friends, Ron and Hermione, he might just make it through - alive!

Lara, Domina of Terah, has mysteriously disappeared, and Magnus Hauk is frantic to find his beloved wife. When no trace of her can be discovered, he turns to two strong allies - Prince Kaliq of the Shadows and Ilona, the most powerful of the faerie queens. Meanwhile, Kol - the Twilight Lord - revels in his victory. The exquisite Domina is now in his possession, and her powers will soon help him to conquer first Hetar and then Terah. But Lara will not stand for his treachery, even as she is seduced by his charisma.

The Nasr family is spread across the globe - Beirut, Brooklyn, Austin, the California desert. A Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three American children: all have lived a life of migration. Still, they’ve always had their ancestral home in Beirut - a constant touchstone - and the complicated, messy family love that binds them. But following his father's recent death, Idris, the family's new patriarch, has decided to sell. The decision brings the family to Beirut, where everyone unites against Idris in a fight to save the house.

The battle at Stalingrad during World War II has been called the bloodiest campaign in the history of war. Success was measured in meters, and corpses piled high amid the charred wreckage of the Russian city. In this grisly setting, David L. Robbins stages an unforgettable contest. On the Russian side is Zaitsev, the Hare, who has been trained since childhood in hunting and tracking. As a sniper, he kills a German with each bullet. Berlin has sent its best marksman, the Headmaster, to find and kill the Hare. The Headmaster's accuracy is phenomenal, and his cunning is legendary.

Years have passed since dungeons sprung up around the world. When adventurer Amane Rin awakens to a unique skill called "Dungeon Teleporting," the rules can't touch him anymore. This is the tale of how he races to become the world's strongest (and fastest-progressing) adventurer!

It has been over two years since the System arrived on Earth, leaving survivors fighting to rebuild and save humanity. Thanks to the help of a creature thought to be a legend, Jason and his friends have a path to discovering the truth behind what has happened. The System has been stacked against them, but these quests give them a chance to level the playing field against those off-worlders trying to exploit Earth and its people. Although the team has never wanted to be in charge, they are now Earth’s best hope of remaining in control of their own destiny.

In the real world, Bugz is a shy and self-conscious Indigenous teen who faces the stresses of teenage angst and life on the Rez. But in the virtual world, her alter ego is not just confident but dominant in a massively multiplayer video game universe.

In The Wisdom of the Shire, Noble Smith sheds light on the life-changing ideas tucked away inside the classic works of J. R. R. Tolkien and his most beloved creation—the stouthearted Hobbits. Drawing on The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other tales of Middle-earth, Smith shows how a snug hobbit-hole is actually just a state of mind and how even the smallest person can have the valor of a Rider of Rohan.

At the heart of a bizarre planet lay the goal of every being that had ever lived.… Below average in height and unprepossessing in appearance, Nathan Brazil is an unassuming if cynical starship owner, carrying passengers and cargo for a living - hardly the sort of person to hold the fate of the entire universe in his hands. But when Nathan detours from his route to answer a distress call, a hidden stargate hurls him and his passengers to the Well World, the master control planet for the cosmos. Billions of years ago, a godlike race unlocked all the secrets of space and time and remade the universe according to their grand design.

In the wake of the 1929 stock market crash, Lanny Budd’s financial acumen and his marriage into great wealth enable him to continue the lifestyle he has always enjoyed. But the devastation the collapse has wrought on ordinary citizens has only strengthened Lanny’s socialist ideals. In Germany to visit relatives, Lanny encounters a disturbing atmosphere of hatred and jingoism. But Lanny’s gravest fear is the threat a national socialist government poses to the German Jewish family of Hansi, the musician husband of Lanny’s sister, Bess.

Stuey Ungar dropped out of high school to become an underground card-table sensation, eventually taking out every top gin-rummy player on the east coast. Bankrolled by the Genovese crime family, Ungar went on to win the World Series of Poker a record three times. Then his luck began to run out.