Iconoclast Bestsellers

“If there is a "King of Audiobooks", it has to be David Sedaris. The absolute best way to enjoy the writing of Sedaris is to hear him perform it. Not only is his voice rather odd, immediately putting you in a mood to giggle, but he is such an effortless performer it's impossible not to get caught up in his world. And what a world! In his latest, and indisputably most accomplished, work to date, he takes us on his journey through midlife: the betrayals of the body, the loss, the wear and tear on long relationships. I found myself shedding tears for his heartbreaking regrets and laughing so hard I had to pull my car over at his observances of the absurdities of everyday life.”

“After wowing readers (former President Barack Obama included) with 2015’s Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff returns with a collection of stories just as wise and meticulously constructed. Within the sun-kissed, palmetto-strewn swampland of Groff’s Florida, we encounter a pair of abandoned sisters, anxious mothers, and a woman being pushed to the edge. Looking inward and out, Groff examines the lives of her characters with a surveyor’s eye, capturing the sense of dread and desire that pervades their existence. Floridais an exploration of time and place, both sensual and terrifying, and seems to me both timely and timeless.”

“I believe in great American novels, but not the Great American Novel. This is a Great American Novel: exquisitely lush language of the natural world; startlingly vivid characters; a global understanding of social context, in a particular place; and, in this case, steel-wire narrative tension stringing through the beautiful prose like piano wire. It is the book this year that I feel every American should read, because of its greatness and also because of its deep wrestling with issues of class, complacency, climate change, culture, and especially gender.”

“With his usual virtuosity, master storyteller Michael Ondaatje delivers a mysterious, shimmering new coming-of-age novel. Warlight is the unexpected story of two teenagers abandoned by their enigmatic parents in post-war London. Casually watched over by a dodgy cast of characters - petty criminals, opera singers, and panting greyhounds - Nathaniel and Rachel try to make sense of their new world while struggling to define their parents' shadowy wartime pasts. Years later, Nathaniel embarks on a quest to discover the disturbing truth, and his own unwitting part in it. Balancing poignance with surprising comic touches, Warlight is a stellar addition to the Ondaatje canon.”

“Tangerine is one of the best debut novels I've read in a long time. Thanks to her exquisite writing, Christine Mangan manages to create a lush, vivid picture of Tangier in the 1950s and bring to life a complicated and very dark friendship between two young women. Lucy and Alice are former college roommates whose relationship has long since gone sour. When they reunite in Tangier, Mangan milks the delicious tension for all it's worth and brings their story to a shocking conclusion. This book is an absolute stunner!”

“Rachel Kushner writes some seriously smart and gorgeous prose, so when she headed to prison in The Mars Room, I went. It is dark. It is painful. At times, the level of detail in the book and its fabulously invented and drawn characters make it feel like a documentary. We are struggling with so many social justice issues across the country right now it is overwhelming, and I worried that The Mars Room would push me over the edge. Instead, I couldn't stop reading. What really happened? Who is to blame? How will things turn out? How can we make things better? Ultimately, Kushner's great success is profoundly illustrating a very simple message: It's complicated.”

“I never could have anticipated this book, and now I can't imagine a world without it, especially at this moment in American history. The Female Persuasion follows the ambitious but shy Greer Kadetsky, her boyfriend, her best friend, and the feminist icon who launches her into the world. Through these vivid, complex, and lovable characters, Wolitzer explores both the principle and reality of feminism, as well as the desire to become our fullest selves and the twists and turns that journey can take. My heart raced while reading this book, and I never wanted it to end. The Female Persuasion is powerful, generous, smart, and deeply kind; I can't wait for the world to meet it.”

“A family drama that follows the lives and deaths of four siblings, who, when meeting a fortune teller as children were told the date on which they would die, treat that knowledge very differently. This is a beautiful exploration of the role that fate, magic, identity, family, insecurity, culture and location all weave together to create very different lives. I loved the window into each sibling's life, thoughts, feelings and motivation, which then created the story of the entire family. Fascinating and absorbing. A great one to listen to on a road trip (it will make those miles fly by!) or discuss with your book club.”

“Mirza evokes with equal skill and nuance the first- and second-generation immigrant experience and the universal themes of family unity and discord. In A Place for Us, she captures the complicated dynamics of one family’s relationships with each other with astonishing insight. I found it tremendously moving in a way that only the most authentic stories and voices can be. The last 70 pages buckled my knees. How can a story about characters so outside my own life experience be so hauntingly familiar?  ”

“'This is who I am.' 'This is what happened to me.' These are the simplest of expressions, yet the ability to speak them fully is a privilege not shared by the teenaged protagonists of this novel. Nigerian immigrant and Harvard-accepted aspiring doctor Niru is not able to tell his conservative religious parents that he is gay. The daughter of D.C.'s political elite, Meredith is not able to tell the world what really happened in an alley outside a bar on a hot spring night. Speak No Evil describes how loving relationships are strained, how trust is shattered, and how bodies can be broken when the truth is silenced. This heartbreakingly beautiful story will stay with you for a long time.”

“One finishes reading Kamila Shamsie's extraordinary Home Fire completely stunned. She has written a brilliant story about two families who share geography and become linked by fate - one that has known exile, death, and family mystery, and another that has adapted to the so-called mainstream. Family, religion, the politics of media, various forms of seduction, and present-day devices all bring themselves to bear in utterly telling form. The U.S., London, Karachi, Syria, and Istanbul all figure into this book, which is of this time and age and beyond. One of the finest writers at work in English today, Kamila Shamsie has written her most heartbreaking, beautiful, necessary book yet.”

“In Paris, there is a bookstore called The Late Edition, where books are shelved geographically, and while readers can find any book by its story's setting, the store's proprietor Leah cannot locate her missing husband and searches for him throughout the city. In Paris by the Book, Paris is equal parts Madeline and The Red Balloon, the children's books that shape Leah's view of the City of Light. I'd compare Callanan's engrossing third novel to The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry and The Little Paris Bookshop, but with its confounding but ultimately loveable heroine, there's a bit of Where'd You Go, Bernadette in the story as well. This captivating novel is filled with rich characters, a twisty plot, a bit of mystery, and a heaping dollop of joie de vivre.”

“Buckle up for a gripping read that had me up until 2:00 in the morning! Aimee Molloy taps into two of the deepest fears a mother can have: The ultimate fear of losing a child, and the secretive fear of losing her identity. As a new mother, this book spoke to me on every level. The insecurity, the worries, the panic, the judgment - you name it. Add a missing child, and all those feelings were multiplied by a thousand. Don't miss this captivating novel - it won't disappoint!”

“When a healthy 60-year-old woman is found strangled in her London home the very day she had organized and paid for her own funeral, former police detective—now consultant—Daniel Hawthorne convinces author Anthony Horowitz to shadow his investigation to eventually publish this very story. Imagine sitting in a darkened English pub listening to Horowitz bemoaning his involvement as he tells the story of the unlikeable but captivating Hawthorne. Readers will quickly join in playing detective as characters, plot twists, clues, and red herrings escalate while enjoying the old-fashioned feel of Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes in a modern setting. Delicious!”

“The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun were two of the most successful titles of the last decade for Alabama Booksmith, and Love and Ruin is more proof for the pudding that Paula McLain is a member of the master class of historical fiction writers. This exciting page-turner follows Martha Gellhorn as she reports from the center of the action of the Spanish Civil War, then jeopardizes her reputation and very existence by falling in love with the greatest literary giant of the day, Ernest Hemingway. This spectacular read is fact-based and deliciously entertaining.”

“Horace Hopper, the Irish-Paiute Indian protagonist in Don't Skip Out on Me, dreams of erasing the shame of childhood abandonment by reinventing himself as a professional boxer. His boss and surrogate father, an elderly sheep rancher, wrestles with the choices of his own history, and does his best to maintain a way of life that is rapidly disappearing. Vlautin intertwines the lives and fates of these two men in a work of astonishing beauty and heartbreak, and guides the reader to an ending that is as true and real as it gets. Willy Vlautin has been literature's best-kept secret for far too long. He may well be our own Steinbeck, but with a haunting steel-guitar sensibility all his own.”

“One hundred and eight: That's how many seemingly random predictions come to Will Dando one night in a dream. When they actually begin to occur, he starts selling his critical economic predictions to international interests and makes mountains of money. In the process, though, he also makes powerful enemies- not least of which is the U.S. government. When Will realizes that the dream wasn't as random as it seemed and is forced into hiding, what was almost a lark becomes deadly as he tries to survive long enough to counter the global chaos he's caused. With enough humor to lighten the seriousness of Will's predicament, this debut novel keeps readers guessing right to the surprising end.”