Booker Prize Long List

How Much of These Hills Is Gold

“Lucy and Sam are alone in a land that challenges their very existence. The night took their Ma then their Ba 3 years later. Left to bury their Ba and survive in the barren hills spotted with gold rushers and coal mines, Lucy and Sam must face their legacy and futures in the west. Zhang’s storytelling is reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s. Her character work is bewitching. Heck, she makes the landscape itself a character to be loved and feared. If you are looking for an immersive, literary marvel, then pick this book up.”

Izzy, Off the Beaten Path

Redhead by the Side of the Road

“Anne Tyler's gift for making the mundane details of a somewhat boring life into a delightful story is seemingly endless. Micah the Tech Hermit is my hero!”

Becky, Rediscovered Books

A FINALIST for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the VCU/Cabell First Novelist Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the NYPL Young Lions Award, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award 
 
“A blistering coming of age story” —O: The Oprah Magazine

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington... Read more »

Shuggie Bain

“Shuggie Bain is sad, but there’s so much more to it than that. Hugh “Shuggie” Bain is different—he’s gentle and polite and lonely, a poor boy growing up in 1980’s Glasgow. His glamorous mother, Agnes, is an alcoholic, but she embodies her dignity when she needs it most. In one notably humorous scene, she drunkenly collects her son from his good-for-nothing father, upon checking herself out of the psych ward, and breaks the windows of his house while neighborhood boys whoop and holler at her boldness. Shuggie runs to his savior and clings to her with unconditional love. Eventually, he and his mother pledge to be “brand new” upon moving back into the city—she’ll stop drinking and Shuggie will be “normal.” But no matter how many football statistics he memorizes, Shuggie will never be like other boys, and his mother will never stop drinking. Their relationship is beautiful and overflowing with love, deeply humanizing those who struggle with substance abuse. I’ll never forget Shuggie Bain.”

Mary, Raven Book Store

Such a Fun Age

“When I attempted to write a review for Such a Fun Age, I was at a loss for words. How could I encapsulate how Kiley Reid’s startling debut perfectly captured what it means to be a woman? The societal pressure, the self-doubt, the perseverance, the constant comparison — all of it was perfectly represented through Reid’s two wonderfully flawed and captivating leads. Follow Emira and Alix, two women on seemingly incongruous paths who find themselves searching for purpose and an authentic sense of self. Such a Fun Age tackles complex issues — race, gender, economic status, and the intersection of them all — yet remains accessible. You will not want to put this book down; when you do, you’ll be itching to pick it back up again.”

Gennifer Eccles, Flyleaf Books

"A brilliant novel, lyrically lifting history towards myth. It's also compulsively readable. I devoured it in two days." ? Salman Rushdie In 1935, orphaned servant Hirut struggles to adapt to her new household as Ethiopia faces Mussolini's looming invasion. As the battles begin in earnest, Hirut and other women must care for the wounded. But... Read more »

Apeirogon: A Novel

“This is a towering, breathtaking, sweeping work of poetic and technical brilliance. Although much of Apeirogon resides in the current and past state of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the novel demonstrates how each person, each story, in this ultimately small section of the world represents but one point of an infinitely sided shape — how between all of us, even those locked in seemingly irreconcilable conflict, there pulses a vital connectivity, a path to understanding, forgiveness, and compassion.”

Ben Newgard, Flyleaf Books

"The many listeners enthralled by the earlier two volumes in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy will find all their expectations met in this final installment... Here is a narrative achievement of the highest order." — AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

This program is read by Ben Miles, who played Thomas Cromwell in the Royal Shakespeare...

Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow's boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for... Read more »

A Washington Post, NPR, and Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year • Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

“More than timely, the novel feels timeless, solid, like a forgotten classic recently resurfaced — a brutal, beguiling fairy tale about humanity. But at its core, The New Wilderness is really about motherhood, and about the world we make (or unmake) for...