literaryfiction

295d

📚 The Paris Express by: Emma Donoghue

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Ru...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-paris-express

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #historical #generalfiction #literaryfiction #worldliterature

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

From an author whose 'writing is superb alchemy' (Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author), The Paris Express is an evocative masterpiece that effortlessly captures the politics, glamour, chaos, and speed that marked the end of the 19th century.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

From the bestselling and 'soul-stirring' (Oprah Daily) author of Room, a sweeping historical 'nail-biter' (People) of a novel about the infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

291d

📚 Stranger in a Strange Land by: Robert A. Heinlein

Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teache...

https://bookblabla.com/book/stranger-in-a-strange-land

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #sciencefiction #literaryfiction #classics

Raised by Martians on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith is a human who has never seen another member of his species. Sent to Earth, he is a stranger who must learn what it is to be a man. But his own beliefs and his powers far exceed the limits of humankind, and as he teaches them about grokking and water-sharing, he also inspires a transformation that will alter Earth’s inhabitants forever...

Robert Heinlein's Hugo Award-winning all-time masterpiece, the brilliant novel that grew from a cult favorite to a bestseller to a science fiction classic.

1 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

293d

📚 The Dream Hotel: A Read with Jenna Pick by: Laila Lalami

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determin...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-dream-hotel-a-read-with-jenna-pick

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #dystopianfiction #political

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER, READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY, From Laila Lalami, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a maestra of literary fiction (NPR) comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman's fight

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

290d

📚 The Merge by: Grace Walker

Earth and its resources have been pushed to breaking point, giving rise to a revolutionary and highly controversial procedure in which two people’s consciousness can be combined to exist in one body.

How far would you go to never say goodbye?

Laurie is sixty-five and living with Alz...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-merge

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #sciencefiction #generalfiction #politicalfiction

Earth and its resources have been pushed to breaking point, giving rise to a revolutionary and highly controversial procedure in which two people’s consciousness can be combined to exist in one body.

How far would you go to never say goodbye?

Laurie is sixty-five and living with Alzheimer’s. Her daughter Amelia, a once fiery and strong-willed activist, can’t bear to see her mother’s mind fade. Faced with the reality of losing her forever, Amelia signs them up to take part in the world’s first experimental merging process for Alzheimer’s patients, in which Laurie’s ailing mind will be transferred into Amelia’s healthy body and their consciousness will be blended as one.

Soon Amelia and Laurie join the opaque and mysterious group of other merge participants: teenage Lucas, who plans to merge with his terminally ill brother Noah; Ben, who will merge with his pregnant fiancée Annie; and Jay, whose merging partner is his addict daughter Lara. As they prepare to move to The Village, a luxurious rehabilitation center for those who have merged, they quickly begin to question whether everything is really as it seems.

An exhilarating, immersive debut from an astonishing new voice, The Merge is a personal story of love, family, and sacrifice, as well as a thought-provoking examination of the limits of control, resistance, and freedom in our modern world.

1 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

246d

📚 Three Mothers by: Hannah Beckerman

A heartbroken mother

When seventeen-year-old Isla Richardson is killed in a hit-and-run incident, a community's lives are thrown into disarray. For Isla's mum, Abby, it is her second devastating bereavement, having lost her husband five years ago. As Abby begins to uncover secrets...

https://bookblabla.com/book/three-mothers

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #psychologicalfiction #thrillers #domestic

A heartbroken mother

When seventeen-year-old Isla Richardson is killed in a hit-and-run incident, a community's lives are thrown into disarray. For Isla's mum, Abby, it is her second devastating bereavement, having lost her husband five years ago. As Abby begins to uncover secrets about Isla's life, she's forced to rethink everything she thought she knew about her family.

A supportive best friend
For Abby's best friend, Nicole, the tragic death sets in motion a chain of events that will have irreparable consequences for her husband and her two teenage sons.

A determined mum

For Jenna, Isla's death threatens to expose secrets about her son's past that she has done everything in her power to hide, to secure him a better future.
A tragedy unites them--but it could also tear their families apart
Tackling friendship, family, social prejudice and the pressures facing young women, Three Mothers asks: How well do we really know our children? And how far would any of us go to protect the people we love?

Ideal for fans of Louise Candlish, Lisa Jewell and Liane Moriarty, Three Mothers is a tense, page-turning domestic suspense story with a final twist that will make you gasp.

From the bestselling author of The Forgetting: a tense, character-driven suspense with a final twist that will make you gasp.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

289d

📚 The Persians by: Sanam Mahloudji

The women of the Valiat family are in crisis. Elizabeth, the regal matriarch, remained in Tehran despite the revolution and only has Niaz, her Islamic law–breaking granddaughter for company. In America, Elizabeth’s daughters, the flamboyantly high-flying Shirin and frustrated h...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-persians

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #familylife #generalfiction #culturalheritage

(no description)

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

287d

📚 Earthlings by: Sayaka Murata

As a child, Natsuki doesn't fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin...

https://bookblabla.com/book/earthlings

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #magicalrealism

As a child, Natsuki doesn't fit in with her family. Her parents favor her sister, and her best friend is a plush toy hedgehog named Piyyut, who talks to her. He tells her that he has come from the planet Popinpobopia on a special quest to help her save the Earth. One summer, on vacation with her family and her cousin Yuu in her grandparents' ramshackle wooden house in the mountains of Nagano, Natsuki decides that she must be an alien, which would explain why she can't seem to fit in like everyone else. Later, as a grown woman, living a quiet life with her asexual husband, Natsuki is still pursued by dark shadows from her childhood, and decides to flee the "baby factory" of society for good, searching for answers about the vast and frightening mysteries of the universe--answers only Natsuki has the power to uncover.

Dreamlike, sometimes shocking, and always strange and wonderful, Earthlings asks what it means to be happy in a stifling world, and cements Sayaka Murata's status as a master chronicler of the outsider experience and our own uncanny universe.

From the beloved author of cult sensation Convenience Store Woman, which has now sold more than one million copies worldwide and has been translated into thirty-three languages, comes a spellbinding and otherworldly novel about a woman who believes she is an alien

Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman was one of the most unusual and refreshing bestsellers of recent years, depicting the life of a thirty-six-year-old

1 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

285d

📚 Helm by: Sarah Hall

Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind — a subject of folklore and awe, part-elemental god, part-aerial demon blasting through the sublime landscape of Northern England since the dawn of time.

Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over Helm, an extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic t...

https://bookblabla.com/book/helm

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #historical #generalfiction #worldliterature

Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind — a subject of folklore and awe, part-elemental god, part-aerial demon blasting through the sublime landscape of Northern England since the dawn of time.

Through the stories of those who’ve obsessed over Helm, an extraordinary history is formed: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate Helm, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish Helm, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture Helm — and the farmer’s daughter who fiercely loved Helm. But now Dr. Selima Sutar, surrounded by infinite clouds and measuring instruments in her observation hut, fears human pollution is killing Helm.
Rich, wild, and vital, Helm is the story of a singular life force, and of the relationship between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other.

Sarah Hall's writing has conquered the body and the soul and now it conquers the wind itself. She gets better with every word she writes. Daisy Johnson, author of Sisters and The Hotel

From the twice-Booker-nominated writer of Burntcoat, a bold and astonishing literary masterpiece that explores faith, connection, and our relationship to the natural world.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

284d

📚 The Bright Years by: Sarah Damoff

One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they’re unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this family saga perfect for readers of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo.

Ry...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-bright-years

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #generalfiction #literaryfiction #familylife #marriagedivorce

One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they’re unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this family saga perfect for readers of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo.

Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall.

When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them—or herself—while there’s still time.

Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life debut that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.

A National Bestseller

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

282d

📚 My Friends by: Fredrik Backman

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to fi...

https://bookblabla.com/book/my-friends

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #humorous #generalfiction #literaryfiction #friendship

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Goodreads.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

281d

📚 Broken Country (Reese's Book Club) by: Clare Leslie Hall

The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a d...

https://bookblabla.com/book/broken-country-reeses-book-club

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #romance #generalfiction #suspensefiction

The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.

Over 1 Million Copies Sold

A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK | A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is an unforgettable story of love, loss, and the choices that shape our lives…but it’s also a masterfully crafted mystery that will keep you guessing until the very last page. Seriously, that ending?! I did not see it

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

103d

📚 Taiwan Travelogue by: Shuang-zi Yang

May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs...

https://bookblabla.com/book/taiwan-travelogue

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #historical #generalfiction #lgbtq

May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.

Soon a Taiwanese woman—who is younger even than she is, and who shares the characters of her name is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the “something” is.

Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel was a sensation on its first publication in Mandarin Chinese in 2020 and won Taiwan’s highest literary honor, the Golden Tripod Award. Taiwan Travelogue unburies lost colonial histories and deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.

A bittersweet story of love between two women, nested in an artful exploration of language, history, and power

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

280d

📚 Honey and Spice by: Bolu Babalola

Sweet like plantain, hot like pepper. They taste the best when together...
Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. As an expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, she's made it her mission...

https://bookblabla.com/book/honey-and-spice

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #romance #contemporaryfiction #womenfiction

Sweet like plantain, hot like pepper. They taste the best when together...
Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. As an expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show Brown Sugar, she's made it her mission to make sure the women of the African-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of "situationships", players, and heartbreak. But when the Queen of the Unbothered kisses Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced as "The Wastemen of Whitewell," in front of every Blackwellian on campus, she finds her show on the brink.

They're soon embroiled in a fake relationship to try and salvage their reputations and save their futures. Kiki has never surrendered her heart before, and a player like Malakai won't be the one to change that, no matter how charming he is or how electric their connection feels. But surprisingly entertaining study sessions and intimate, late-night talks at old-fashioned diners force Kiki to look beyond her own presumptions. Is she ready to open herself up to something deeper?

A gloriously funny and sparkling debut novel, Honey and Spice is full of delicious tension and romantic intrigue that will make you weak at the knees.
A smart, sexy summer read, which hits your brain and your romance buttons in one shot. Los Angeles Times

The ultimate summer romance... It's got all the juiciest, most satisfying romance tropes, but in Babalola's capable

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

267d

📚 Norwegian Wood by: Haruki Murakami

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces ther...

https://bookblabla.com/book/norwegian-wood

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #mediatiein

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

Stunning and elegiac, Norwegian Wood first propelled Haruki Murakami into the forefront of the literary scene.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

262d

📚 We Could Be Rats by: Emily Austin

Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her...

https://bookblabla.com/book/we-could-be-rats

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #lgbtq #generalfiction #humorous #literaryfiction

Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid’s inability to conform to the expectations of polite society.

But Sigrid's detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity. She's haunted by the pains of her past from pretending her parents were swamp monsters when they shook the floorboards with their violent arguments to grappling with losing Greta's friendship to the opioid epidemic ravaging their town. As Margit sets out to understand Sigrid and the secrets she has hidden, both sisters, in their own time and way, discover that reigniting their shared childhood imagination is the only way forward.

A must read (Haley Jakobson, New York Times Editor's Choice author), We Could Be Rats is an unforgettable story of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a celebration of that transcendent, unshakable bond.

A one-sitting-read (Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author) about two very different sisters, and a love letter to childhood, growing up, and the power of imagination from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead and Interesting Facts About Space.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

252d

📚 The Midnight Train by: Matt Haig

When your life flashes before your eyes, where would you stop?

No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there.

The chance to re-live the moments that meant most.

To see what kind of person you really were.

For Wilbur his best days were with Maggie, the lov...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-midnight-train

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #generalfiction #literaryfiction #visionarymetaphysical

When your life flashes before your eyes, where would you stop?

No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there.

The chance to re-live the moments that meant most.

To see what kind of person you really were.

For Wilbur his best days were with Maggie, the love of his life. On his honeymoon in Venice.

Before he gave it all away.

He wishes he could go back and live differently. But to do so risks everything...

A magical, time-travelling love story, from the world of The Midnight Library.

When your life flashes before your eyes, where would you stop?

-- Book Release Expected: May 26, 2026 --

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

253d

📚 Flux by: Jinwoo Chong

Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family.

So begins Jinwoo Chon...

https://bookblabla.com/book/flux

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #lgbtq #gay

Four days before Christmas, 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, 28-year-old Brandon loses his job after a hostile takeover of his big-media employer, and 48-year-old Blue, a key witness in a criminal trial against an infamous now-defunct tech startup, struggles to reconnect with his family.

So begins Jinwoo Chong’s dazzling, time-bending debut that blends elements of neo-noir and speculative fiction as the lives of Bo, Brandon, and Blue begin to intersect, uncovering a vast network of secrets and an experimental technology that threatens to upend life itself. Intertwined with them is the saga of an iconic ’80s detective show, Raider, whose star actor has imploded spectacularly after revelations of long-term, concealed abuse.

Flux is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.

A New York Times Editor’s Choice
- Best Book of 2023 by Esquire, Apple Books, HuffPost, GQ, Cosmopolitan, and Goodreads.
- Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
- VCU Cabell First Novelist Award

Brazen, exhilarating, fun, and surprising! I couldn't predict where this novel was going, but I was definitely along for the ride. Ling Ma, author of Severance

A blazingly original and stylish debut novel about a young man whose reality unravels when he suspects his mysterious employers have inadvert

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

241d

📚 The Underground Railroad by: Colson Whitehead

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-underground-railroad-pulitzer-prize-winner-national-book-award-winner-oprahs-book-club

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #historical #generalfiction #general

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him.

In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop.

As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, PULITZER PRIZE WINNER, NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER, "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.

One of The New York Times’s 10 Best Books of the 21st Century. A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century. A Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Book of the Last 30 Years

The basis for the acclaimed original Prime Video series di

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

241d

📚 The High Mountains of Portugal by: Yann Martel

In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that--if he can find it--would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe's earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this stran...

https://bookblabla.com/book/the-high-mountains-of-portugal

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #historical #generalfiction #literaryfiction #places

In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the existence of an extraordinary artifact that--if he can find it--would redefine history. Traveling in one of Europe's earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this strange treasure.

Thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist devoted to the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie finds himself at the center of a mystery of his own and drawn into the consequences of Tomás's quest.

Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he arrives with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee. And there the century-old quest will come to an unexpected conclusion.

The High Mountains of Portugal--part quest, part ghost story, part contemporary fable--offers a haunting exploration of great love and great loss. Filled with tenderness, humor, and endless surprise, it takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century--and through the human soul.

Praise for The High Mountains of Portugal

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Fifteen years after The Life of Pi, Yann Martel is taking us on another long journey. Fans of his Man Booker Prize-winning novel will recognize familiar themes from that seafaring phenomenon, but the itinerary in this imaginative new book is entirely fresh. Martel's writing has never been more charming."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"Just as ambitious, just as clev

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

240d

📚 Good Girl by: Aria Aber

In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteen-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adol...

https://bookblabla.com/book/good-girl

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #women

In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteen-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist.

Then in the haze of Berlin’s legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowe’s controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germany—and Nila’s family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be?

A story of love and family, raves and Kafka, staying up all night and surviving the mistakes of youth, Good Girl is the virtuosic debut novel by a celebrated young poet and, now, a major new voice in fiction.

An exhilarating debut novel (R.O. Kwon, The New York Times Book Review) about the daughter of Afghan refugees and her year of self-discovery—a portrait of the artist as a young woman set in a Berlin that can’t escape its history

A girl can get in almost anywhere, even if she can’t get out.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION. LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER F

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

238d

📚 Nightcrawling by: Leila Mottley

Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison

But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has ...

https://bookblabla.com/book/nightcrawling

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #familylife #siblings

$Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed. One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department. Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before. NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK • A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system. This debut of a blazingly original voice “bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole” (Tommy Orange, author of There There). A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, TIME, GOODREADS$

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

234d

📚 Death of the Author by: Nnedi Okorafor

Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s...

https://bookblabla.com/book/death-of-the-author

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #womenfiction #sciencefiction #literaryfiction #sagasfiction

Disabled, disinclined to marry, and more interested in writing than a lucrative career in medicine or law, Zelu has always felt like the outcast of her large Nigerian family. Then her life is upended when, in the middle of her sister’s lavish Caribbean wedding, she’s unceremoniously fired from her university job and, to add insult to injury, her novel is rejected by yet another publisher. With her career and dreams crushed in one fell swoop, she decides to write something just for herself. What comes out is nothing like the quiet, literary novels that have so far peppered her unremarkable career. It’s a far-future epic where androids and AI wage war in the grown-over ruins of human civilization. She calls it Rusted Robots.

When Zelu finds the courage to share her strange novel, she does not realize she is about to embark on a life-altering journey—one that will catapult her into literary stardom, but also perhaps obliterate everything her book was meant to be. From Chicago to Lagos to the far reaches of space, Zelu’s novel will change the future not only for humanity, but for the robots who come next.

A book-within-a-book that blends the line between writing and being written, Death of the Author is a masterpiece of metafiction that manages to combine the razor-sharp commentary of Yellowface with the heartfelt humanity of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Surprisingly funny, deeply poignant, and endlessly discussable, this is at once the tale of a woman on t

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

231d

📚 Piranesi by: Susanna Clarke

Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls lined with thousands upon thousands of statues. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; and waves thunder up staircases, while rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he...

https://bookblabla.com/book/piranesi

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #fantasy #generalfiction #general

Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls lined with thousands upon thousands of statues. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; and waves thunder up staircases, while rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house-a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

Spellbinding, strange, and unforgettably original (Esquire), Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty.

The award-winning, New York Times bestselling fantasy sensation that Madeline Miller called, “a miraculous and luminous feat of storytelling,” Piranesi is an intoxicating, hypnotic novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality from the author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

230d

📚 Anxious People by: Fredrik Backman

Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers begin slowly opening up to one another and reveal long-hid...

https://bookblabla.com/book/anxious-people

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #sportsfiction

Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers begin slowly opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.

First is Zara, a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else until tragedy changed her life. Now, she’s obsessed with visiting open houses to see how ordinary people live—and, perhaps, to set an old wrong to right. Then there’s Roger and Anna-Lena, an Ikea-addicted retired couple who are on a never-ending hunt for fixer-uppers to hide the fact that they don’t know how to fix their own failing marriage. Julia and Ro are a young lesbian couple and soon-to-be parents who are nervous about their chances for a successful life together since they can’t agree on anything. And there’s Estelle, an eighty-year-old woman who has lived long enough to be unimpressed by a masked bank robber waving a gun in her face. And despite the story she tells them all, Estelle hasn’t really come to the apartment to view it for her daughter, and her husband really isn’t outside parking the car.

As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the more terrifying prospect: going out to face

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

227d

📚 Seascraper by: Benjamin Wood

Twenty-year-old Thomas Flett lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, Northern England, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the drizzly shore to scrape for shrimp, and spends the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash...

https://bookblabla.com/book/seascraper

#books #reading #libraries #fiction #literaryfiction #historical #generalfiction #familylife

Twenty-year-old Thomas Flett lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, Northern England, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the drizzly shore to scrape for shrimp, and spends the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and sea-scum, pining for his neighbor, Joan Wyeth, and playing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but this remains a private dream.

Then a mysterious American arrives in town, and enlists Thomas's help in finding a perfect location for his next movie. Though skeptical at first, soon Thomas starts to trust the stranger, Edgar, and, shaken from the drudgery of his days by the promise of Hollywood glamour, begins to see a different future for himself. But how much of what Edgar claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?

Haunting and timeless, from one of the finest British novelists of his generation (The Times) Seascraper tells the story of a quiet existence upturned over the span of one day, and a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.

Longlisted for the Booker Prize, this cinematically plotted, radiant (The New York Times) novel follows shanker Thomas Flett as his quiet life in a small English coastal town is forever changed over the course of one fateful day.

0 0 1 View Post & Replies See Original

Previous Page Next Page