Displaying 6 books

The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story

The Nobel Prize winner’s latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas.

In September 1913, Mieczysław, a student suffering from tuberculosis, arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort in what is now western Poland. Every day, its residents gather in the dining room to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur, to obsess over money and status, and to discuss the great issues of the day: Will there be war? Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women inherently inferior?

Meanwhile, disturbing things are beginning to happen in the guesthouse and its surroundings. As stories of shocking events in the surrounding highlands reach the men, a sense of dread builds. Someone--or something--seems to be watching them and attempting to infiltrate their world.

Little does Mieczysław realize, as he attempts to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.

A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore, and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.

James

James, by Percival Everett, is a brilliant and action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the perspective of the enslaved character Jim. This novel is both harrowing and ferociously funny, showcasing Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion in a radically new light.

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold and separated from his wife and daughter, he decides to hide on Jackson Island to plan his next move. Meanwhile, Huck Finn, seeking to escape his violent father, fakes his own death. Together, they embark on a dangerous and transcendent journey down the Mississippi River, facing floods, storms, and scam artists, all while navigating the promise and peril of the Free States and beyond.

With electrifying humor and lacerating observations, James is set to be a major publishing event, redefining a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

O Caledonia

In the tradition of Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, this is a darkly humorous modern classic of Scottish literature about a doomed adolescent growing up in the mid-20th century.

Janet lies murdered beneath the castle stairs, attired in her mother’s black lace wedding dress, lamented only by her pet jackdaw…

Author Elspeth Barker masterfully evokes the harsh climate of Scotland in this atmospheric gothic tale. It has been compared to the works of the Brontës, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edward Gorey. Immersed in a world of isolation and loneliness, Barker’s ill-fated young heroine, Janet, turns to literature, nature, and her Aunt Lila, who offers brief flashes of respite in an otherwise foreboding life. People, birds, and beasts move through the background in a tale that is as rich and atmospheric as it is witty and mordant. The family’s motto—Moriens sed Invictus (Dying but Unconquered)—is a well-suited epitaph for wild and courageous Janet, whose fierce determination to remain steadfastly herself makes her one of the most unforgettable protagonists in contemporary literature.

Wandering Stars

2024

by Tommy Orange

Wandering Stars is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Pulitzer Prize-finalist Tommy Orange's breakout bestseller There There. This novel traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through to the shattering aftermath of Orvil Red Feather's shooting in There There.

Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star's son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father's jailer. Under Pratt's harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

Oakland, 2018. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is barely holding her family together after the shooting that nearly took the life of her nephew Orvil. From the moment he awakens in his hospital bed, Orvil begins compulsively googling school shootings on YouTube. He also becomes emotionally reliant on the prescription medications meant to ease his physical trauma. His younger brother, Lony, suffering from PTSD, is struggling to make sense of the carnage he witnessed at the shooting by secretly cutting himself and enacting blood rituals that he hopes will connect him to his Cheyenne heritage. Opal is equally adrift, experimenting with Ceremony and peyote, searching for a way to heal her wounded family.

Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange once again delivers a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous, a book piercing in its poetry, sorrow, and rage—a masterful follow-up to his already-classic first novel, and a devastating indictment of America's war on its own people.

Be A Revolution

2024

by Ijeoma Oluo

Be A Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too is an eye-opening and galvanizing look at the current state of anti-racist activism across America by Ijeoma Oluo, the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want To Talk About Race and Mediocre.

In this book, Oluo examines the impact of white male supremacy on our systems, culture, and lives throughout American history and presents a compelling argument for understanding these systems of oppression. More importantly, it addresses the critical question: What can we do about them?

Be A Revolution showcases the efforts of people across America working to create real positive change in our structures. It covers various powerful systems such as education, media, labor, health, housing, policing, and more, highlighting the actions taken to create change for intersectional racial equity.

Moreover, it provides readers with insights into how they can find entryways into change in these areas or contribute to the important work being done elsewhere. Oluo's goal is to educate, inspire action, and shift conversations on race and racism from a place of pain and trauma to a place of loving action. This book is not only an urgent chronicle of an important moment in history but also an inspiring and restorative call for action.

Martyr!

2024

by Kaveh Akbar

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar is an electrifying, funny, and wholly original novel that heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction. The story follows Cyrus Shams, a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, who is guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings on a remarkable search for a family secret. This journey leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus grapples with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother's plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident, and his father's life in America was circumscribed by his work at a factory farm. As a drunk, an addict, and a poet, Cyrus's obsession with martyrs drives him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death and toward his mother, through a painting that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, and others.

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