 | The Children's Book
by A.S. Byatt
Vintage Books $16.95
20% off: $13.56 | “[A.S. Byatt’s] new novel, a staggeringly detailed and charged re-creation of the period between the end of the 19th century and the first world war, overflows with people attempting to define their responsibilities, whether to fulfill them or to evade them; with those in pursuit of enlightenment or seeking to manipulate it; and with some simply attempting to unearth who they are and what they should do to survive.” —The Guardian (UK) |
 | Chronic City
by Jonathan Lethem
Vintage Books $15.95
20% off: $12.76 | “One of America’s finest novelists explores the disconnections among art, government, space travel, and parallel realities, as his characters hunger for elusive meaning. Long associated with the borough of Brooklyn, Lethem shifts to Manhattan in the indeterminate near future, ringing changes on the speculative science fiction that first earned him a cult following.... Lethem’s most ambitious work to date.” —Kirkus Reviews |
 | Curse of the Wolf Girl
by Martin Millar
Underland Pr $15.95
20% off: $12.76 | Kallix, a morose, laudanum-addicted, unschooled, slightly anorexic werewolf is on the run. The youngest daughter of the chief of a clan of werewolves, unfairly held responsible for his death, and justifiably responsible for the deaths of a great many other werewolves, is prohibited from returning to Scotland in order to maintain the uneasy peace that temporarily prevails in court. It isn’t much better for her in London. The love of her life is in hiding and her enemies increase in number by the day. |
 | The Elephant's Journey
by Jose Saramago
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt $24.00
20% off: $19.20 | “Saramago’s [last novel] is set in the 16th century, when complex dynastic codes required that King Joao III of Portugal send Archduke Maximilian of Austria a suitable wedding gift. Scorning his wife’s suggestion of a religious artifact, he chooses Solomon, the court pachyderm.... The chief pleasure lies in the nonagenarian author’s wry observations on animal psychology, military etiquette, the nature of storytelling, and the hypocrisy of priests.... This is the best sort of historical fiction, which uses a little-known incident to illuminate both present and past.” —The Daily Mail (UK) |
 | Freedom
by Jonathan Franzen
Farrar Straus & Giroux $28.00
20% off: $22.40 | “Jonathan Franzen’s galvanic new novel, Freedom, showcases his impressive literary toolkit...and his ability to throw open a big, Updikean picture window on American middle-class life. With this book, he’s not only created an unforgettable family, he’s also completed his own transformation from a sharp-elbowed, apocalyptic satirist focused on sending up the socio-economic-political plight of this country into a kind of 19th-century realist concerned with the public and private lives of his characters.... Mr. Franzen has written his most deeply felt novel yet—a novel that turns out to be both a compelling biography of a dysfunctional family and an indelible portrait of our times.” —The New York Times |
 | Our Tragic Universe
by Scarlett Thomas
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt $19.95
20% off: $15.96 | Meg Carpenter is broke. Her novel is years overdue. Her cell phone is out of minutes. And her moody boyfriend’s only contribution to the household is his sour attitude. So she jumps at the chance to review a pseudoscientific book that promises life everlasting. But who wants to live forever? Consulting cosmology and physics, tarot cards, koans (and riddles and jokes), new-age theories of everything, narrative theory, Nietzsche, Baudrillard, and knitting patterns, Meg wends her way through Our Tragic Universe, asking this and many other questions. |
 | Room
by Emma Donoghue
Little Brown & Co $24.99
20% off: $19.99 | To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough...not for her or for him. |
 | Skippy Dies
by Paul Murray
Faber & Faber $28.00
20% off: $22.40 | “The publisher’s summary of Skippy Dies warns of a dark comedy with supernatural overtones about a group of boarding-school boys, interwoven with the hapless romantic adventures of an emotionally inadequate history master. It sounds as though we are being invited into stereotyped fictional territory. But, in fact, the novel is a triumph...brimful of wit, narrative energy, and a real poetry and vision.” —The Sunday Times (UK) |
 | War Dances
by Sherman Alexie
Grove Pr $14.00
20% off: $11.20 | “Alexie’s appealing collection of short stories, poems, and self-interrogations opens with an attempted murder and closes with an epitaph. Mortality is much on the mind of this puckish writer, who continues to sift common truths through the sieve of his Indian identity, albeit with the alacrity of a man barreling away from his youth.” —The New York Times |
 | Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel
Picador USA $16.00
20% off: $12.80 | “Wolf Hall [is] a darkly magnificent novel set in the earlier part of the reign of Henry VIII.... A good historical novel snakes a vivid story through a vivid panorama. The better ones...have a third dimension, with full-fleshed characters borne on a current that runs far deeper than their actions. Wolf Hall, recently named winner of the 2009 Man Booker Prize, moves through an Einsteinian fourth dimension: time.... History is a feast whose various and vital excitements and intrigues make the book a long and complex pleasure.” —The Boston Globe |
