New Literary Fiction

When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. Cloning, feel-good drugs, anti-aging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media: has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 A.F. (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity.

From the master of tragicomedy and award-winning author of Skippy Dies: a tour de force new novel about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is (maybe) ending. Irresistibly funny, wise and thought-provoking, a state-of-the-nation novel about one unhappy family in the midst of meltdown.

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike. In his transcendent fourth novel, Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason delivers a magisterial and highly inventive tale brimming with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we're connected to our environment, to history and to each other.

A monument to sloth, rant and contempt, a behemoth of fat, flatulence and furious suspicion of anything modern—this is Ignatius J. Reilly of New Orleans, noble crusader against a world of dunces. The ordinary folk of New Orleans seem to think he is unhinged. Ignatius ignores them, heaving his vast bulk through the city's fleshpots in a noble crusade against vice, modernity and ignorance. But his momma has a nasty surprise in store for him: Ignatius must get a job. Undaunted, he uses his new-found employment to further his mission.

In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flower beds and false reports fly. Conspiracies abound in a community that normalizes paranoia and suspicion. Some try to flee - whether to a mysterious gambling bordello or to ancestral homes that can be reached only underground through muddy caves, sewers, and tunnels. Others seek out the refuge of Nest County, where traditional Chinese herbal medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self. Each life is circumscribed by secrets and transcendent delusions.

So far, it had been a typical New Year's Eve house party. But Mr. Satterthwaite, a keen observer of human nature, sensed that the real drama of the evening was yet to unfold. So it proved when a mysterious stranger arrived after midnight. Who was this Mr. Quin? And why did his presence have such a pronounced effect on Eleanor Portal, the woman with the dyed-black hair?

Based on Cartarescu's own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist's life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you rush into the burning building, will you save the newborn or the artwork? On a broad scale, the novel's investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art.

The Story of a New Name is an extraordinary novel about two young women, Lila and Elena, growing up in Naples in the early 1960s. At 16 Lila marries the shopkeeper Stefano. She is filled with pleasure at her new wealth and horror at the life she has chosen. Elena’s own attempts at romance seem to be sabotaged by Lila’s turbulent affairs. As she tries to plot her way out of poverty via academic and literary success, her constant anxiety is that she is just a shadow of the brilliant Lila.

Born in 1799, Cashel Greville Ross experiences myriad lives: joyous and devastating, years of luck and unexpected loss. Moving from County Cork to London, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, Cashel seeks his fortune across continents in war and in peace. He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days.

Arriving at his fourth school in six years, diplomat's son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day - so he's lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can't stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the Black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players - teachers and pupils alike - will never be the same again.

With narration and original taonga puoro music by Ruby Solly, this powerful and mesmerising book tracks the complicated relationships between three outcasts: Kerewin, an artist estranged from her family and art; a mute boy called Simon, who tries to steal from her; and his tender but brutal foster father Joe.

The inspiring journey of The Celestine Prophecy and The Tenth Insight continues, carrying us to a new adventure and new spiritual truths that are now emerging in human awareness. Also available abridged.

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.

Before Stinkville, Alice didn't think albinism - or the blindness that goes with it - was a big deal. Sure, she uses a magnifier to read books. And a cane keeps her from bruising her hips on tables. Putting on sunscreen and always wearing a hat are just part of life. But life has always been like this for Alice. Until Stinkville.

'I am with you always, even unto the end of the world . . .' Peter Leigh is a missionary called to go on the journey of a lifetime. Leaving behind his beloved wife, Bea, he boards a flight for a remote and unfamiliar land, a place where the locals are hungry for the teachings of the Bible - his 'book of strange new things'. It is a quest that will challenge Peter's beliefs, his understanding of the limits of the human body and, most of all, his love for Bea.

The summer season on Cape Cod is over - now it's time for the real fun to begin. Dominick is always just passing through. He is a professional houseguest who follows the sun and the leisure class from resort to resort. But this winter he lingers on a quaint New England island and, in spite of his best intentions, becomes involved in the travails of his eccentric geriatric hosts. An environmental protest against a proposed liquid natural gas terminal turns ugly, and by accident and happenstance Dominick becomes a mistaken suspect in terrorist bombings.

Bea's five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away. The smog and pollution of the overdeveloped, overpopulated metropolis they call home is ravaging her lungs. Bea knows she cannot stay in the City, but there is only one alternative: the Wilderness State. Mankind has never been allowed to venture into this vast expanse of untamed land. Until now. Bea and Agnes join 18 other volunteers who agree to take part in a radical experiment.

The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector's consummate final novel, may well be her masterpiece. Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo S. M., this brief, strange, and haunting tale is the story of Macabéa, one of life's unfortunates. Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a poor living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Colas, and her rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed, sickly, and unloved.

A Brilliant new translation of the great writer's least Kafkaesque novel, based on a German-language text that was produced by a team of international scholars and that is more faithful to Kafka's original manuscript than anything we have had before. With the same expert balance of precision and nuance that marked his translation of Kafka's The Castle, the award-winning translator Mark Harman now restores the humor and particularity of language to Amerika.

Once a land of Pueblo dwellers, the town of San Geronimo Peak, New Mexico, is prime ski country. PI Howard Moon Deer and ex-cop Jack Wilder are headed there to meet their first client - a former US senator and the ski slope's owner. Instead, they find his body - and a murder case to solve.