Books & Bites: November 2023

Featuring original illustrations by Gaiman’s longtime illustrator, Chris Riddell, Art Matters is a stirring testament to the freedom of ideas that inspires us to make art in the face of adversity, and dares us to choose to be bold.

In this moving debut novel, two estranged siblings must set aside their differences to deal with their mother's death and her hidden past--a journey of discovery that takes them from the Caribbean to London to California and ends with her famous black cake.

After surviving a plane crash, a death doula travels to Egypt to reconnect with an old flame who is an archaeologist.

This volume is the autobiography of the author, first published in 1995; it is also a tribute to his mother.

Explores the complexity of this enigmatic figure and analyzes his impact on the military and political environment of seventeenth-century England

In 1970s Harlem, a furniture store owner and his partner in crime find themselves up against shady and violent forces.

In 1969, secrets in a South Brooklyn neighborhood are uncoverd when a church deacon known as Sportcoat shoots a drug dealer in public.

What happens when a trauma therapist is traumatized by loss? A brave story of confronting life’s hardest moments with emotional honesty, End of the Hour is for anyone who has experienced the unpredictable, lasting power of grief―and wondered how they’d ever get through it.

The Exhibitionist is a "furiously funny" novel (Sunday Express, UK) about a marriage between two artists, Lucia and Ray, which begins to unravel over the course of one weekend.

It is with an electric thrill, then, that the reader realizes things are even more remarkable than they have seemed. In an emotionally complicated twist, the perspective shifts, and what began as a story about one extraordinary union becomes so much more

In 1873, a Scottish housekeeper to a once-famous novelist is captivated by a trial in which a lower-class butcher from Australia claims to be the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title.

Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is a now-classic novel about two women: Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age, and gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode, who is telling her life story.

In 1956, toward the end of Rev. John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. This is also the tale of wisdom forged during his solitary life and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.

The author of “The Big Short” and “The Premonition” chronicles the rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX.

Ray Carney, a family man who sells furniture on 125th Street, gets a new clientele made up of vicious and unsavory characters.

Secrets held by the residents of a dilapidated neighborhood come to life when a skeleton is found at the bottom of a well.

Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother.

Opportunity knocks for an Iranian immigrant in California when the county offers for sale a seized house at a bargain price. It will serve as a launching pad for his real-estate business. When the county discovers it made an error, the drug-addicted woman who owned the house demands its return, but the Iranian refuses. Unfortunately for him, the woman's lover is a policeman who takes the law into his hands.

“A sometimes tender, sometimes fraught story of interracial love in a time of trouble . . . The story flows swiftly―and without a hint of inevitability ―as Robinson explores a favorite theme, ‘guilt and grace met together.’ An elegantly written proof of the thesis that love conquers all―but not without considerable pain.” ―Kirkus (Starred review)

"The novel unfolds at a thriller’s pace, with Korelitz leaving no loose threads in her complex tapestry of generational wealth and woes across the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries."
―The New Yorker, "Best Books of 2022"

A playful, witty, and resonant novel in which a single mother and her two teen daughters engage in a wild scientific experiment and discover themselves in the process

Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation.

“Alternatingly heart-pounding and heartbreaking. This collaboration between two best-selling authors seamlessly weaves together Olivia and Lily’s journeys, creating a provocative exploration of the strength that love and acceptance require.”—The Washington Post

During Jim Crow in the American South, young black boys locked in a so-called reformatory were sadistically punished and murdered.

"In this contemporary novel, widowed orchestral violinist Isabel Delancey finally finds true serenity and love only when she loses what she thought she needed most

Looking back at a tragic event that occurred during his thirteenth year, Frank Drum explores how a complicated web of secrets, adultery, and betrayal shattered his Methodist family and their small 1961 Minnesota community.

“See mines an intriguing vein of Chinese history . . . weaving fact and fiction into a dense romantic tapestry of time and place as she meditates on the meaning of love, the necessity of self-expression and the influence of art.”—Los Angeles Times

Suspicions and accusations complicate a sheriff’s investigation of a wealthy landowner’s murder in a small Minnesota town in 1958.

A landmark coming-of-age novel. This literary milestone continues to resonate with its message about being true to yourself and, against the odds, living happily ever after.

“A dysfunctional love story—an interdependence whose every attempt to thrive is poisoned whenever a drink is poured—but here, between a boy and his mother. Stuart’s debut stands out for its immersion into working-class Glaswegian life, but what makes his book a worthy contender for the Booker is his portrayal of their bond, together with all its perpetual damage.”—Maria Crawford, Financial Times

This blood-chilling debut set in New Mexico’s Navajo Nation is equal parts gripping crime thriller, supernatural horror, and poignant portrayal of coming of age on the reservation

Filled with rich, true details—much of the story is drawn from historical events and told in McBride’s signature lyrical style, Song Yet Sung is a story of tragic triumph, violent decisions, and unexpected kindness.

Who is Tom Lowe, and who will he become? Can he find a way to reunite hands and heart, mind and spirit, to be once again a giver and not just a taker, to forge a self-acceptance deeper than pride? To one man’s painful moral journey, Dubus brings compassion with an edge of dark absurdity, forging a novel as absorbing as it is profound.

An acclaimed novelist reflects on his violent past and a lifestyle that threatened to destroy him - until he was saved by writing.

Those who want to mix their U.N. history with a little escapism and Cold War paranoia

In 1610, a servant girl flees into the wilderness surrounding the Jamestown, Va., colonial settlement, where all are starving. The narrative hurtles along as she sustains herself among a multitude of dangers.

“A historical love story penned in the lush and propulsive prose familiar to Allende’s millions of fans worldwide, it...feels excitingly new and unerringly timely for this international superstar of an author.” -San Francisco Chronicle

What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it.

“A nuanced and gorgeous heartbreaker of a novel . . . It’s a testament to Stuart’s unsparing powers as a storyteller that we can’t possibly anticipate how very badly—and baroquely—things will turn out. Young Mungo is a suspense story wrapped around a novel of acute psychological observation. It’s hard to imagine a more disquieting and powerful work of fiction will be published anytime soon about the perils of being different.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air

A security system tester must elude the police to find the person who killed her partner in marriage and in crime.