Awarding-winning and New York Times bestselling author of H Is for Hawk Helen Macdonald and debut novelist Sin Blaché deliver a tantalizing fusion of sci-fi, noir, action, and romance set in a universe just one perilous step from our own. Meet Adam, a seemingly unflappable American Intelligence officer and Rao, an ex-Mi6 agent, addict, and rudderless pleasure hound with the uncanny ability to discern the truth of things. When a mysterious new substance called Prophet is found to be the cause of a mysterious death and the materialization of increasingly bizarre objects, Adam and Rao are called to investigate.
Archives
The Covenant of Water
From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial new epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, and following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret. With astonishing scenes of medical ingenuity, fantastic moments of humor, a surprising and deeply moving story, and characters imbued with the essence of life, this is a hymn to human understanding and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today.
Slenderman
On May 31, 2014, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, two twelve-year-old girls attempted to stab their classmate to death. Their violence was extreme but what seemed even more frightening was that they committed their crime under the influence of a figure born by the internet: the so-called “Slenderman.” Yet the even more urgent aspect of the story, that the children involved suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses, often went overlooked in coverage of the case. This is the full story told for the first time in deeply researched detail, using court transcripts, police reports, and exclusive interviews. Both a page-turning true crime story and search for justice, Slenderman examines the failures of the American judicial system, the trials of adolescence, and the power of the internet.
Cat Brushing
A rousing and original debut story collection that probes the erotic, emotional, and intellectual lives of elder women, Cat Brushing will be published in the author’s 80th year. Written in spikey, incisive prose, this alluring cast of characters overcomes the notion that elder women’s behavior must be in some way monitored and controlled. The timeless wisdom and dark wit of debut writer Jane Campbell inspires and challenges, shocks and comforts as she examines the inner lives of women who fight to lead the rest of their lives on their own terms.
Brother Alive
An astonishing debut novel following three adopted brothers who live above a mosque in Staten Island with their imam father. With stylistic brilliance and intellectual acuity, Zain Khalid brings characters to vivid life with a bold energy that matches the great themes of his novel—family, capital, power, sexuality, and the possibility of reunion for those who are broken.
Small Things Like These
Destined to be a modern classic from “an original and a canonical presence in Irish fiction” (Colm Toibin), Small Things Like These is Claire Keegan’s landmark new novel, the tale of one man’s courage — and a remarkable portrait of love and family
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man, who is father to five girls, faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
Already a bestseller in France and certain to be read worldwide for generations to come, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting and inspiring story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically celebrated and iconic writers.
Rock Concert
Rock Concert is a lively, entertaining, wide-ranging oral history of the golden age of the rock concert based on over ninety interviews with musicians, promoters, stagehands, and others who contributed to the huge cultural phenomenon that is live rock. It provides a fascinating, immediate look at the evolution of rock ‘n roll through the lens of live performances —spanning from the rise of R&B in the late 1940s, through the hippie gatherings of the ‘60s, to the growing arena and stadium tours of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips, the British Invasion that brought the Beatles in the ‘60s, the Grateful Dead’s free flowing jams, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall are just a few of the defining musical acts that drive this rich narrative. Featuring dozens of key players in the history of rock and filled with colorful anecdotes, Rock Concert will speak to anyone who has experienced the transcendence of live rock.
The Committed
The long-awaited new novel from one of America’s most highly regarded contemporary writers, The Committed follows the unnamed Sympathizer as he arrives in Paris in the early 1980s with his blood brother Bon. The pair try to overcome their pasts and ensure their futures by engaging in capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. Traumatized by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, Man, and struggling to assimilate into French culture, the Sympathizer finds Paris both seductive and disturbing. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals whom he meets at dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt,” he finds stimulation for his mind but also customers for his narcotic merchandise. But the new life he is making has perils he has not foreseen, whether the self-torture of addiction, the authoritarianism of a state locked in a colonial mindset, or the seeming paradox of how to reunite his two closest friends whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition. The Sympathizer will need all his wits, resourcefulness, and moral flexibility if he is to prevail. Both literary thriller and novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen’s position in the firmament of American letters.
Frankissstein
In Brexit Britain, a young transgender doctor called Ry is falling in love with Victor Stein, a celebrated professor leading the public debate around AI while carrying out some experiments of his own in a vast underground network of tunnels. Meanwhile, Ron Lord, just divorced and living with his mom again, is set to make his fortune launching a new generation of sex dolls for lonely men everywhere. Across the Atlantic, in Phoenix, Arizona, a cryogenics facility houses dozens of bodies of men and women who are medically and legally dead … but waiting to return to life. In fiercely intelligent prose, Jeanette Winterson shows us how much closer we are to that future than we realize. Funny and furious, bold and clear-sighted, Frankissstein is a love story about life itself.
John Woman
A convention-defying novel by bestselling writer Walter Mosley, John Woman recounts the transformation of an unassuming boy named Cornelius Jones into John Woman, an unconventional history professor—while the legacy of a hideous crime lurks in the shadows.
At twelve years old, Cornelius, the son of an Italian-American woman and an older black man from Mississippi named Herman, secretly takes over his father’s job at a silent film theater in New York’s East Village. Five years later, as Herman lives out his last days, he shares his wisdom with his son, explaining that the person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself—as Professor John Woman, a man who will spread Herman’s teachings into the classrooms of his unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past.
Engaging with some of the most provocative ideas of recent intellectual history, John Woman is a compulsively readable, deliciously unexpected novel about the way we tell stories, and whether the stories we tell have the power to change the world.