Avery is flailing financially and emotionally. Struggling with graduate school and the collection of cultural reports she is supposed to be writing, she dates older men for money, and others for the oblivion their egos offer. In desperation, she takes a job at a right-wing dating app.
Meanwhile her wealthy best friend, Frances, drops out of grad school, gets married, and somehow still manages to finish an experimental documentary about rural isolation and right-wing conspiracy theories. Frances’s triumphant return to New York as the toast of the art world sends Avery into a tailspin, pushing her to make a series of dangerous decisions.
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.
Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. The residents continue to grapple with life’s big questions: What is a family? What is a community? And what, if anything, are we willing to sacrifice in order to protect them?
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.
So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?
One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them is a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured vet returning from Afghanistan, a septuagenarian business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. And then, tragically, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor.
Edward's story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place for himself in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a piece of him has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery--one that will lead him to the answers of some of life's most profound questions: When you've lost everything, how do find yourself? How do you discover your purpose? What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live?
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.
Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.
2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?
Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.
Shortlisted for the TikTok Book Awards in the Book of the Year, 2023 and the Goodreads Debut and Fiction Book of the Year, 2023.
It’s fair to say that Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson’s. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting.
When her mum returns from her latest trip to Ghana, Maddie leaps at the chance to get out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts”: She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But it's not long before tragedy strikes, forcing Maddie to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils—and rewards—of putting her life on the line.
Smart, funny, and deeply affecting, Jessica George's Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures―and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong.
The acclaimed bestselling author of Sandwich is back with a wonderful novel, full of laughter and heart, about marriage, family, and what happens when life doesn’t go as planned.
If you loved Rocky and her family on vacation on Cape Cod, wait until you join them at home two years later. (And if this is your first meeting with this crew, get ready to laugh and cry—and relate.)
Rocky, still anxious, nostalgic, and funny, is living in Western Massachusetts with her husband Nick and their daughter Willa, who's back home after college. Their son, Jamie, has taken a new job in New York, and Mort, Rocky’s widowed father, has moved in.
It all couldn’t be more ridiculously normal . . . until Rocky finds herself obsessed with a local accident that only tangentially affects them—and with a medical condition that, she hopes, won’t affect them at all.
With her signature wit and wisdom, Catherine Newman explores the hidden rules of family, the heavy weight of uncertainty, and the gnarly fact that people—no matter how much you love them—are not always exactly who you want them to be.
“The best book about adultery since Madame Bovary.” —Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection
A hilariously acerbic sliding doors novel about a chance meeting between two young parents, both happily married (just not to each other) that sparks a will-they-won’t-they romance—perfect for fans of Big Swiss and Acts of Service.
When Cora meets Sam at a baby group in their small town, the chemistry between them is undeniable. Both are happily married young parents with two kids, and neither sees themselves as the type to engage in an affair. Yet their connection grows stronger, and as their lives continue to intertwine, the romantic tension between them becomes all-consuming—until their worlds unravel into two parallel timelines. In one, they pursue their feelings. In the other, they resist.
As reality splits, the everyday details of Cora’s life—her depressing marketing job, her daughter’s new fascination with the afterlife, her husband’s obsession with podcasts about the history of rope—gain fresh perspective. The intersecting and diverging timelines blur the boundaries of reality and fantasy, questioning what might have been and what truly matters.
The Ten Year Affair is a witty, emotionally-charged exploration of marriage, family life, and the roads not taken, that ultimately do we really want our fantasies to come true?
A “big-hearted and true” (Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winner) debut novel set in a small rural town amid a congressional race when life-changing secrets are unearthed by the candidates, their families, and a clique of gay second homeowners.
The trendy rural town of Griffin has become a popular destination for weekenders and the city’s second homeowners but now a congressional race in this swing district is highlighting tensions between life-long residents and new arrivals. The campaign pits local pub owner and town supervisor Chip Riley against the wealthy young carpetbagger Paul Banks, challenging the social and political loyalties of their families and friends with lasting repercussions.
Diane Riley, Chip’s wife, is a religiously devout real estate agent who feels conflicted about selling second homes—including to Paul and his much older husband, Stan. The Riley’s eldest son Joe is grieving the recent overdose death of his best friend and spiraling into drugs himself, while their youngest son, Will, is a newly out college student seduced by the decadent lifestyle and sexual openness of Paul’s clique but burdened by his sense of obligation to his father.
Meanwhile, Stan Banks uses the race to give purpose to the pain of losing his brother to AIDS, even as he begins to doubt Paul’s readiness for office. And within their growing circle of city transplants, Eric Larimer finds unexpected connection with a local farmer that opens his eyes to the region’s complexity as Leon Rogers, still reeling from a divorce, becomes increasingly desperate to infiltrate the Banks’s exclusive crew.
Spanning six months from Memorial Day to Election Day, Town & Country paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of a community in flux. For readers of Fredrick Backman and Jen Beagin, this “powerful and extremely well-written book” (Colum McCann, National Book Award winner) asks the essential and timeless What makes a home, and what do we owe our neighbors?
Welcome Back!
Track your reading progress and sync your library.