Books with category 🗣 Social Commentary
Displaying books 1-48 of 103 in total

It Can't Happen Here

2035

by Sinclair Lewis

It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, rampant promiscuity, crime, and a liberal press.

This novel remains uniquely important, a shockingly prescient story that's as fresh and contemporary as today's news.

Happiness & Love

2025

by Zoe Dubno

Following a young woman over the course of one outrageous and insufferable downtown dinner party at the home of her estranged best friends—an artist and curator couple, whom she now realizes stand for everything she detests—Happiness and Love is a piercing debut novel about brazen materialism, self-obsession, and the empty careerism of so-called cultural elites.

Years after escaping New York and the center of its artistic world—a group of self-important, depraved, and unscrupulous artists, curators, and hangers-on—our narrator is back in town. With no plans to see anyone she once knew, she’s wandering around the Lower East Side, thinking about the recent death of her former best friend, Rebecca, when she runs into Eugene, one half of the artist-curator couple at the heart of her old social set. Despite her better judgement, she accepts his invitation to a dinner party. And though the party is held only hours after Rebecca’s funeral, it not a memorial of Rebecca but a dinner held in honor of a young, newly famous actress whose lateness delays the party by hours.

As the guests sip their natural wine and await the actress’s arrival, the narrator, from her perch on the corner seat of a white sofa, silently, systematically, and mercilessly eviscerates them—their manners, their relationships, their delusions and failures, and the complete moral poverty that brings them here, to Nicole and Eugene’s loft on the Bowery. When the guest of honor finally does arrive, she sets in motion a disastrous end to the evening, laying bare the depravity and decadence of the hosts’ empty little lives—a hollowness that the narrator herself knows all too well.

Full of Myself

In this vulnerable exploration of personal identity, the New York Times bestselling author of I’m Still Here chronicles her efforts to live as her full self in a society that wants women—and Black women in particular—to do anything but that.

At the height of her success as an antiracism educator and writer, Austin Channing Brown reached a crossroads. “I love my work,” she writes, “and I am tired. Tired of protesting. Tired of ‘saving democracy.' Tired of expending all the energy it takes to bust out of America’s tiny boxes.” She began to ask, “What do I deserve, not just as a citizen but as a human?”

Full of Myself is her answer to that question. Weaving personal narrative with perceptive social commentary, she offers a look at the mechanisms that limit who Black women are allowed to be—at work, at home, in community—and the defining moments when she decided that all the women within her should be free. From skinny dipping in the ocean to becoming a mom, she delves into the drama of life and invites women to begin defining themselves not by the tiny boxes handed to us, but as a people born free—free in spirit, free in hope, free in joy.

For women seeking to understand the true roots of their burnout, or anyone wondering what it means to live joyfully in a hostile world, Full of Myself is a breath of fresh air and an invitation to full humanity.

People Like Us

2025

by Jason Mott

People Like Us is Jason Mott’s electric new novel. It is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason’s life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt.


In People Like Us, two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds.


People Like Us is wickedly funny and achingly sad all at once. It is an utter triumph bursting with larger-than-life characters who deliver a very real take on our world. This book contains characters experiencing deep loss and longing; it also is buoyed by riotous humor and characters who share the deepest love.


It is the newest creation of a writer whose work amazes, delivering something utterly new yet instantly recognizable as a Jason Mott novel. Finishing the novel will leave you absolutely breathless and, at the same time, utterly filled with joy for life, changed forever by characters who are people like us.

The Doorman

2025

by Chris Pavone

The new electrifying thriller from the New York Times bestseller and master of the shock ending.

Chicky Diaz is everyone's favourite doorman at the Bohemia, New York City's world-famous home of celebrities, financiers, and the cultural elite. In the basement staff room, the life-and-death stakes of daily life are hardly news to the primarily Black and Latino hospitality. So, when the NYPD fatally shoots an unarmed Black man and the streets swell with both protestors and counter protestors, the staff's concerns are less about the building or its residents and more about their survival – and what justice will look like.

As tensions escalate, Chicky mans the line between the turbulence outside and the oblivious residents living within. But Chicky has his own problems, the kind that have led him to carry a gun on tonight's shift for the first time in thirty years. Because tonight, someone is going to die.

A piercing portrait of the way we live now that is also a finely-honed thriller of ticking-clock suspense, The Doorman is about class and privilege in a city poised to boil over, and the ever-starker divisions testing everything New York City likes to believe about itself.

The Message

Ta-Nehisi Coates originally set off to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic Politics and the English Language, but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.


The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk” city of “old traditions and new machinery,” but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally, he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.


He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning” of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.


And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.


Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.

Banal Nightmare

2024

by Halle Butler

A ferocious novel by one of the boldest voices in American fiction and the author of The New Me, Margaret Anne (“Moddie”) Yance had just returned to her native land in the Midwestern town of X, to mingle with the friends of her youth, to get back in touch with her roots, and to recover from a stressful decade of living in the city in a small apartment with a man she now believed to be a megalomaniac or perhaps a covert narcissist.

So begins Halle Butler's sadistically precise and hilarious Banal Nightmare, which follows Moddie as she abruptly ends her long-term relationship and moves back to her Midwestern hometown, throwing herself at the mercy of her old friends as they, all suddenly tipping toward middle age, go to parties, size each other up, obsess over past slights, and dream of wild triumphs and elaborate revenge fantasies. When her friend Pam invites a mysterious East Coast artist to take up a winter residency at the local university, Moddie has no choice but to confront the demons of her past and grapple with the reality of what her life has become. As the day of reckoning approaches, friends will become enemies, enemies will become mortal enemies, and old loyalties will be tested to their extreme.

Banal Nightmare is filled with complicated characters who will dazzle you in their rendering just as often as they will infuriate you with their decisions. Halle Butler singularly captures the volatile, angry, aggrieved, surreal and entirely disorienting atmosphere of the modern era.

Pink Slime

Pink Slime is a harrowing, intimate novel about a woman and the people who depend on her as the world around them teeters on the edge—marking an award-winning Latin American author's US debut. In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford—a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance.

In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining relationships: with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows—even if staying means being left behind. An evocative elegy for a safe, clean world, Pink Slime is buoyed by humor and its narrator's resiliency. This unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge, and the beauty and fragility of our most intimate relationships.

One Of Our Kind

2024

by Nicola Yoon

One of Our Kind, the first adult novel by #1 New York Times best-selling author Nicola Yoon, presents a terrifying and thought-provoking look at the concept of true freedom in America. In a narrative reminiscent of Get Out meets The Stepford Wives, we follow the story of a woman who uncovers a dark secret within her seemingly utopian community.

Jasmyn and King Williams, seeking a like-minded community for their growing family, move to the planned Black utopia of Liberty, California. While King quickly adapts to the Liberty way of life, Jasmyn finds it difficult to fit in. Her expectations of a community striving for racial equality are dashed when she realizes that the residents are more preoccupied with luxury spa treatments than addressing societal issues.

As Jasmyn's disillusionment grows, she befriends others who share her concerns. However, their collective unease turns to horror as they watch their loved ones fall under the seductive influence of Liberty's ethos. When Jasmyn uncovers a horrifying secret about the founders of Liberty, she faces a reality that could shatter her world in unimaginable ways.

Combining edge-of-your-seat thrills with incisive social commentary, One of Our Kind delves into the complexities of freedom and the dangerous assumptions we make about ourselves and others.

Birds Aren't Real

Birds Aren't Real presents what is claimed to be the true story of a vast conspiracy involving mass avian murder and the implementation of a large-scale surveillance campaign in US history.

The book asks a provocative question: Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? It points out the curious absence of baby pigeons from our everyday sights, suggesting that pigeons, and indeed all birds, come out of a factory as fully grown adults. This, the authors argue, is one of the many pieces of evidence for the bird drone surveillance crisis they allege began in 1959, when the Deep State is said to have eradicated over 12 billion birds and replaced them with drone replicas designed to spy on citizens.

Authors Peter McIndoe and Connor Gaydos act as whistleblowers, tracing the roots of what they describe as a political conspiracy so expansive that it might be mistaken for an elaborate hoax. They present themselves as Bird Truthers, risking everything to bring to light information about the surveillance crisis, its proliferation, and the individuals today who are striving to spread awareness and restore America to the ideal of freedom. The book is replete with illustrations, activities, and purportedly leaked classified documents meant to persuade even the most skeptical readers of the authors' claims.

The manifesto is urgent, the cause is pressing, and the question lingers: Will you stand and fight before it's too late?

Mean Boys

2024

by Geoffrey Mak

Mean Boys: A Personal History delves into the complex world of male friendships and rivalries, exploring how they shape our identities and experiences. Geoffrey Mak shares his personal journey, examining the intricate dynamics of competition and camaraderie among men.

Through a series of vivid anecdotes and reflective insights, Mak reveals the often unspoken rules that govern male relationships. He sheds light on the challenges and triumphs that come with navigating these bonds, offering a candid look at the role of masculinity in modern society.

This memoir is not just a tale of personal growth but a broader commentary on the societal expectations placed on men. Mak's narrative is both thought-provoking and relatable, as he invites readers to reconsider what it means to be a 'mean boy' in today's world.

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 a redefining a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

Victim

2024

by Andrew Boryga

Victim is a fearless satire about Javier Perez, a hustler from the Bronx who manipulates his life story for gain. With the bite of Paul Beatty and the subversive wit of Danzy Senna, this debut novel explores the lengths to which one man will go to make his story resonate.

Javier, from a family of hustlers, learns early how to turn his background—murdered drug dealer dad, single cash-strapped mom, best friend in prison for gang activity—into opportunities. His tailored story secures a full scholarship to a prestigious university, bringing him closer to his dream of becoming a famous writer.

As a college student, Javier embellishes his life story beyond recognition. The only real tie to his past is his correspondence with his childhood best friend, Gio, who's unconcerned with Javier's newfound insights into white privilege and the school-to-prison pipeline. After graduation, a viral essay catapults Javier to journalist status at a legendary magazine, where his "unique perspective" is celebrated.

But Gio knows the truth behind Javier's facade. Once out of prison, will Gio join in on Javier's ruse, or will the deceit unravel? Victim humorously critiques virtue signaling and trauma narratives, questioning the authenticity of diversity and the extremes one might pursue for a compelling story.

Anita de Monte Laughs Last

New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a mesmerizing novel about a first-generation Ivy League student who uncovers the genius work of a female artist decades after her suspicious death.

Who gets to leave a legacy? 1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn't. By 1998 Anita's name has been all but forgotten—certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student, is preparing her final thesis.

On College Hill, surrounded by progeny of film producers, C-Suite executives, and international art-dealers, most of whom float through life knowing that their futures are secured, Raquel feels herself an outsider. Students of color, like Raquel, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.

But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita's story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist.

Moving back and forth through time and told from the perspectives of both women, Anita de Monte Laughs Last is a propulsive, witty examination of power, love, and art, daring to ask who gets to be remembered and who is left behind in the rarefied world of the elite.

Change

Change is an autobiographical novel from Édouard Louis, hailed as one of the most important voices of his generation—about social class, transformation, and the perils of leaving the past behind.

One question took center stage in my life, it focused all of my thoughts and occupied every moment when I was alone with myself: how could I get this revenge, by what means? I tried everything. Édouard Louis longs for a life beyond the poverty, discrimination, and violence in his working-class hometown—so he sets out for school in Amiens, and, later, university in Paris.

He sheds the provincial “Eddy” for an elegant new name, determined to eradicate every aspect of his past. He reads incessantly; he dines with aristocrats; he spends nights with millionaires and drug-dealers alike. Everything he does is motivated by a single obsession: to become someone else.

At once harrowing and profound, Change is not just a personal odyssey, a story of dreams and of “the beautiful violence of being torn away,” but a profound portrait of a society divided by class, power, and inequality.

This American Ex-Wife

2024

by Lyz Lenz

This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life is a deeply validating manifesto on the gender politics of marriage and divorce in America today, presenting an argument that the former needs a reboot. Journalist and proud divorcée Lyz Lenz delivers an exuberant and unapologetic account, flipping the script on the media's portrayal of divorced women.

Studies indicate that nearly 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women—women who seek liberation from relationships premised on their fundamental inequality. Through a combination of reportage, sociological research, literature, and popular culture, this book weaves personal stories of union and separation to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of American marriage.

Lenz pushes for a collective reevaluation of the institution, challenging the notion that divorce is a personal failure when, in fact, it may be a practical and powerful solution for women to reclaim the power they deserve. This raucous manifesto for acceptance, solidarity, and collective female refusal offers readers a riveting ride, all the while pointing toward a future of greater freedom.

Spectral Evidence

2024

by Gregory Pardlo

Spectral Evidence is a profound exploration by Gregory Pardlo, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Digest and Air Traffic. In this major collection of poetry, Pardlo's words flow seamlessly through a variety of themes, from the life of pro-wrestler Owen Hart to Tituba, the only Black woman accused during the Salem witch trials, and the MOVE organization's confrontations with Philadelphia Police.

The collection invites readers to ponder on topics such as Blackness, beauty, faith, and the impact of law. It is both cerebral and intimate, urging us to reflect on our notions of devotion and art, the criminalization and mortality of Black bodies, and the quest for justice. These themes are intricately woven into our current societal fabric, our history, and the Western literary tradition. Pardlo's poetry acts as a bridge connecting the past and present, challenging us to consider the role of art in interpreting and understanding the world around us.

The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade

2024

by Hannah Durkin

The Survivors of the Clotilda joins the ranks of Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Zora Neale Hurston’s rediscovered classic Barracoon, offering an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil. This compelling narrative is told through the stories of its survivors—the final documented survivors of any slave ship—whose lives diverged and intersected in profound ways.


The Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on American soil, docked in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860—more than half a century after a federal law banned the importation of captive Africans, and nine months before the start of the Civil War. The last of its survivors lived well into the twentieth century, serving as the last witnesses to the final act of a significant and tragic period in world history.


In this epic work, Dr. Hannah Durkin tells the stories of the Clotilda’s 110 captives, drawing on intensive archival, historical, and sociological research. The Survivors of the Clotilda follows their lives from their kidnappings in modern-day Nigeria through a terrifying 45-day journey across the Middle Passage; from the subsequent sale of the ship’s 103 surviving children and young people into slavery across Alabama to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement in Selma; from the foundation of an all-Black African Town (later Africatown) in Northern Mobile—an inspiration for writers of the Harlem Renaissance, including Zora Neale Hurston—to the foundation of the quilting community of Gee’s Bend—a Black artistic circle whose cultural influence remains enormous.


An astonishing, deeply compelling tapestry of history, biography, and social commentary, The Survivors of the Clotilda is a tour de force that deepens our knowledge and understanding of the Black experience and of America and its tragic past.

BOAT SHOES – SOLILOQUY OF A USELESS EATER: Book Two

2023

by Daire Feeney

Ever wonder what really goes on behind the scenes at one of the most prestigious residential buildings in New York City—a multiple dwelling Upper East Side building located on Fifth Avenue, where the 0.01% of society pretends to commingle with the meager 1%—and jaw-droppingly told through the introspective eyes of an intelligent, browbeaten, misanthropic, self-medicating doorman?

“Never give in to psychiatry when in pursuit of the American Dream.” – Daire Feeney.

In his debut series of novels, Daire Feeney has been loosely described as Frank McCourt meets Chuck Palahniuk as he tells an unbelievable transgressive story of a Fifth Avenue doorman. BOAT SHOES – SOLILOQUY OF A USELESS EATER tells the story of a first-generation son of Irish immigrants who, after falling on hard financial times, and a subsequent failed suicide attempt, finds himself seeking employment at his old high school job as a Fifth Avenue doorman.

The reader follows the NYC native throughout a grueling 16-hour doorman shift as he is ridiculed by his employers, plied with narcotics by the old guard, sexually assaulted by residents, and becomes witness—and participant—to a wide range of inconceivable acts of moral turpitude; all in the pursuit of his specious American Dream.

The Fraud

2023

by Zadie Smith

From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, The Fraud is a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and about who deserves to be believed.

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life, and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

Andrew Bogle meanwhile grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. He knows that the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.

The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title—captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task…

Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity, and the mystery of “other people.”

Ordinary Human Failings

2023

by Megan Nolan

It's 1990 in London, and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition, and a brisk disregard for the 'peasants' - ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star looks set to rise when he stumbles across a scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents loved across the neighbourhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and 'bad apples': the Greens.

At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, other-worldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life - and love - got in her way. Crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment, there's nowhere for her to go and no chance of escape. Now, with the police closing in on a suspect and the tabloids hunting their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations.

Chain Gang All Stars

Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own.

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE's corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar's path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system's unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means.

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma

2023

by Claire Dederer

Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma is a passionate, provocative, and blisteringly smart interrogation of how we experience art in the age of #MeToo. Author Claire Dederer poses the critical question: What do we do with the art of monstrous men? Can we still love the work of Roman Polanski and Michael Jackson, Hemingway and Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation?

Dederer explores the concept of monstrousness in men and women artists alike, prompting readers to examine their own responses and behavior. With a focus on the tumultuous relationship between art, the artist's biography, and the audience, this book delves deep into one of our most pressing cultural conversations. It is a work that is morally wise, deeply considered, and sharply written, urging both the fan and the reader to engage with these complex issues.

Small Mercies

2023

by Dennis Lehane

Small Mercies, a compelling novel by Dennis Lehane, unfolds against the backdrop of a sweltering Boston summer in 1974. Mary Pat Fennessy is caught in a relentless struggle to fend off the bill collectors, living a life steeped in the traditions of Southie, the Irish American neighborhood that prides itself on its heritage and independence.

As the city simmers under a heatwave, Mary Pat's world is upended when her teenage daughter Jules fails to return home one evening. Concurrently, the mysterious death of a young Black man on the subway tracks appears to be a separate tragedy. Yet, as Mary Pat delves deeper into her search for Jules, she unwittingly stirs the pot of a brewing storm—posing questions that draw the ire of Marty Butler, the local Irish mob boss, and his henchmen who are quick to silence any disturbance to their operations.

Set against the explosive period of school desegregation in Boston, which ignites violence in the streets, Small Mercies is not just a thriller; it's a stark portrayal of criminality, the abuse of power, and a raw examination of America's persistent racial divide. Lehane delivers a narrative that is as enthralling as it is unsettling—a testament to his prowess as one of the finest novelists of our time.

The Survivalists

2023

by Kashana Cauley

A single Black lawyer puts her career and personal moral code at risk when she moves in with her coffee entrepreneur boyfriend and his doomsday-prepping roommates in a novel that’s packed with tension, curiosity, humor, and wit from a writer with serious comedy credentials.


In the wake of her parents’ death, Aretha, a habitually single Black lawyer, has had only one obsession in life—success—until she falls for Aaron, a coffee entrepreneur. Moving into his Brooklyn brownstone to live along with his Hurricane Sandy-traumatized, illegal-gun-stockpiling, optimized-soy-protein-eating, bunker-building roommates, Aretha finds that her dreams of making partner are slipping away, replaced by an underground world, one of selling guns and training for a doomsday that’s maybe just around the corner.


For readers of Victor LaValle’s The Changeling, Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, and Zakiya Harris’s The Other Black Girl, The Survivalists is a darkly humorous novel from a smart and relevant new literary voice that’s packed with tension, curiosity and wit, and unafraid to ask the questions most relevant to a new generation of Americans: Does it make sense to climb the corporate ladder? What exactly are the politics of gun ownership? And in a world where it’s nearly impossible for young people to earn enough money to afford stable housing, what does it take in order to survive?

Demon Copperhead

Demon Copperhead is set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, unraveling the life of a boy born to a teenage single mother in a single-wide trailer. He possesses no material wealth, save for his dead father's good looks, copper-colored hair, a sharp wit, and an innate ability to survive. Told through his candid perspective, Demon navigates the treacherous landscape of foster care, child labor, failing schools, athletic achievement, addiction, disastrous romances, and profound losses.

As he confronts the harsh reality of his own invisibility within a society that has relegated rural people to the shadows, even in popular culture where superheroes favor cities over the countryside, Demon's journey is a testament to resilience.

Inspired by Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, which itself was a product of Dickens' experiences with institutional poverty and its detrimental effects on children, Demon Copperhead carries forward Dickens' legacy of indignation and empathy. Barbara Kingsolver employs these sentiments to weave a narrative that is both a nod to a classic and a voice for the modern generation of 'lost boys' and all those rooted to places of cursed beauty they cannot fathom leaving.

The Last White Man

2022

by Mohsin Hamid

From the New York Times bestselling author of Exit West, comes a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change.

One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Overnight, Anders’s skin has turned dark, and the reflection in the mirror seems a stranger to him. At first, he shares his secret only with Oona, an old friend turned new lover. Soon, reports of similar events begin to surface. Across the land, people are awakening in new incarnations, uncertain how their neighbors, friends, and family will greet them.

Some see the transformations as the long-dreaded overturning of the established order that must be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders’s father and Oona’s mother, a sense of profound loss and unease wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different hue—an opportunity for a kind of rebirth, a chance to see ourselves anew.

In Mohsin Hamid’s lyrical and urgent prose, The Last White Man powerfully uplifts our capacity for empathy and the transcendence over bigotry, fear, and anger it can achieve.

The Witches Are Coming

2021

by Lindy West

In this wickedly funny cultural critique, the author of the critically acclaimed memoir and Hulu series Shrill exposes misogyny in the #MeToo era.

This is a witch hunt. We're witches, and we're hunting you.

From the moment powerful men started falling to the #MeToo movement, the lamentations began: this is feminism gone too far, this is injustice, this is a witch hunt. In The Witches Are Coming, firebrand author Lindy West turns that refrain on its head. You think this is a witch hunt? Fine. You've got one.

In a laugh-out-loud, incisive cultural critique, West extolls the world-changing magic of truth, urging readers to reckon with dark lies in the heart of the American mythos, and unpacking the complicated, and sometimes tragic, politics of not being a white man in the twenty-first century. She tracks the misogyny and propaganda hidden (or not so hidden) in the media she and her peers devoured growing up, a buffet of distortions, delusions, prejudice, and outright bullsh*t that has allowed white male mediocrity to maintain a death grip on American culture and politics.

West writes, “We were just a hair’s breadth from electing America’s first female president to succeed America’s first black president. We weren’t done, but we were doing it. And then, true to form—like the Balrog’s whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, ‘If I can’t have you, no one can’—white American voters shoved an incompetent, racist con man into the White House.”

We cannot understand how we got here—how the land of the free became Trump's America—without examining the chasm between who we are and who we think we are, without fact-checking the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and each other. The truth can transform us; there is witchcraft in it. Lindy West turns on the light.

The Cherry Orchard

2021

by Anton Chekhov

Published to tie in with the world premiere at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.

In Chekhov's tragi-comedy - perhaps his most popular play - the Gayev family is torn by powerful forces, forces rooted deep in history, and in the society around them. Their estate is hopelessly in debt: urged to cut down their beautiful cherry orchard and sell the land for holiday cottages, they struggle to act decisively.

Tom Murphy's fine vernacular version allows us to re-imagine the events of the play in the last days of Anglo-Irish colonialism. It gives this great play vivid new life within our own history and social consciousness.

Such a Fun Age

2021

by Kiley Reid

Such a Fun Age is a striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Kiley Reid. It's a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, centered around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.


Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.


But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.


With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown-up. It is a searing debut for our times.

Stand on Zanzibar

2021

by John Brunner

Norman Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically—it’s about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he’s about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him.

These two men’s lives weave through one of science fiction’s most praised novels. Written in a way that echoes John Dos Passos’ U.S.A. Trilogy, Stand on Zanzibar is a cross-section of a world overpopulated by the billions. Where society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers, mass-marketed psychedelic drugs, and mundane uses of genetic engineering.

Though written in 1968, it speaks of a near future, and is frighteningly prescient and intensely powerful.

The Age of Innocence

2020

by Edith Wharton

The Age of Innocence, written by Edith Wharton, is a poignant exploration of New York society in the 1870s. Following the end of the First World War, Wharton delves into the intricacies of the world she was born into and sought to escape from throughout her life.

The protagonist, Newland Archer, embodies the charm, tact, and enlightenment of his society. Fully integrated into its standards and rules, Archer's engagement to the impeccable May Welland signifies a future of safety and conventionality. However, the arrival of May's cousin, Ellen Olenska, disrupts his well-laid plans. Ellen, independent and free-thinking, separated from her husband, challenges Archer to reassess the values and assumptions of his insular world. As their love grows, Archer faces a critical decision about where his ultimate loyalty lies.

Lost Illusions

Handsome would-be poet Lucien Chardon is poor and naive, but highly ambitious. Failing to make his name in his dull provincial hometown, he is taken up by a patroness, the captivating married woman Madame de Bargeton, and prepares to forge his way in the glamorous beau monde of Paris.


But Lucien has entered a world far more dangerous than he realized, as Madame de Bargeton's reputation becomes compromised and the fickle, venomous denizens of the courts and salons conspire to keep him out of their ranks. Lucien eventually learns that, wherever he goes, talent counts for nothing in comparison to money, intrigue, and unscrupulousness.


Lost Illusions is one of the greatest novels in the rich procession of the Comédie Humaine, Balzac's panoramic social and moral history of his times.

High-Rise

2020

by J.G. Ballard

When a class war erupts inside a luxurious apartment block, modern elevators become violent battlegrounds and cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on "enemy" floors. In this visionary tale, human society slips into violent reverse as once-peaceful residents, driven by primal urges, re-create a world ruled by the laws of the jungle.

Agnes Grey

2019

by Anne Brontë

Agnes Grey, written by Anne Brontë, draws heavily from personal experience to represent the many 19th Century women who worked as governesses and suffered daily abuse as a result of their position.

After losing the family savings, Richard Grey withdraws from family life, leaving his youngest daughter, Agnes, feeling helpless and frustrated. Determined to take control and gain freedom, Agnes applies for a job as a governess to the children of a wealthy English family. Arriving at the Bloomfield mansion armed with confidence and purpose, she soon faces the harsh reality of her position.

The cruelty of the family slowly strips Agnes of her dignity and belief in humanity. This tale of female bravery in the face of isolation and subjugation is a masterpiece, with a simple prosaic style that propels the narrative forward in a gentle yet rhythmic manner.

Anne Brontë, the somewhat lesser-known Brontë sister, was the first to publish her work under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Her brave voice resonates during one of the most prejudiced and patriarchal times of English history.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

2019

by Robert Tressell

The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists is a semi-autobiographical novel by Robert Tressell, following the struggle of a house painter to find employment in the fictional town of Mugsborough, based on Hastings. Originally published after Tressell's death, the novel tells a compelling tale of a working-class family trying to avoid the workhouse.

The book captures the desperation and misery of a twelve-month struggle to survive, offering a unique insight into the lives of the working poor during the early 20th century. A remarkable and poignant work of social commentary that remains relevant to this day.

Through its emblematic characters, the novel argues for a socialist politics as the only hope for a civilized and humane life for all. It is a timeless work whose political message is as relevant today as it was in Tressell's time.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

2018

by Hank Green

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is a sweeping, cinematic debut novel by Hank Green, co-creator of Crash Course, Vlogbrothers, and SciShow. The story follows a young woman, April May, who becomes an overnight celebrity after discovering a giant sculpture in New York City at three a.m.

Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship—like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor—April and her best friend, Andy, make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day, April wakes up to a viral video and a new life.

News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world—from Beijing to Buenos Aires—and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.

Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. All eyes are on April to figure out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.

Compulsively entertaining and powerfully relevant, the novel grapples with big themes, including how the social internet is changing fame, rhetoric, and radicalization; how our culture deals with fear and uncertainty; and how vilification and adoration spring from the same dehumanization that follows a life in the public eye.

Adjustment Day

2018

by Chuck Palahniuk

The author of Fight Club takes America beyond our darkest dreams in this timely satire. People pass the word only to those they trust most: Adjustment Day is coming. They’ve been reading a mysterious book and memorizing its directives. They are ready for the reckoning.

Adjustment Day, the author’s first novel in four years, is an ingeniously comic work in which Chuck Palahniuk does what he does best: skewer the absurdities in our society. Smug, geriatric politicians bring the nation to the brink of a third world war in an effort to control the burgeoning population of young males; working-class men dream of burying the elites; and professors propound theories that offer students only the bleakest future.

When Adjustment Day arrives, it fearlessly makes real the logical conclusion of every separatist fantasy, alternative fact, and conspiracy theory lurking in the American psyche.

Milkman

2018

by Anna Burns

In an unnamed city, to be interesting is dangerous. Middle sister, our protagonist, is busy attempting to keep her mother from discovering her maybe-boyfriend and to keep everyone in the dark about her encounter with Milkman. But when first brother-in-law sniffs out her struggle, and rumors start to swell, middle sister becomes 'interesting'. The last thing she ever wanted to be.

To be interesting is to be noticed and to be noticed is dangerous. Milkman is a tale of gossip and hearsay, silence and deliberate deafness. It is the story of inaction with enormous consequences.

Told with ferocious energy and sly, wicked humor, Milkman establishes Anna Burns as one of the most consequential voices of our day.

Negeri Di Ujung Tanduk

2018

by Tere Liye

Di Negeri di Ujung Tanduk, kehidupan semakin rusak, bukan karena orang jahat semakin banyak, tapi semakin banyak orang yang memilih tidak peduli lagi.

Di Negeri di Ujung Tanduk, para penipu menjadi pemimpin, para pengkhianat menjadi pujaan, bukan karena tidak ada lagi yang memiliki teladan, tapi mereka memutuskan menutup mata dan memilih hidup bahagia sendirian.

Tapi di Negeri di Ujung Tanduk setidaknya, kawan, seorang petarung sejati akan memilih jalan suci, meski habis seluruh darah di badan, menguap segenap air mata, dia akan berdiri paling akhir, demi membela kehormatan.

Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

From the best-selling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists comes a powerful new statement about feminism today—written as a letter to a friend. A few years ago, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie received a letter from a dear friend from childhood, asking her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. Dear Ijeawele is Adichie's letter of response.

Here are fifteen invaluable suggestions—compelling, direct, wryly funny, and perceptive—for how to empower a daughter to become a strong, independent woman. From encouraging her to choose a helicopter, and not only a doll, as a toy if she so desires; having open conversations with her about clothes, makeup, and sexuality; debunking the myth that women are somehow biologically arranged to be in the kitchen making dinner, and that men can "allow" women to have full careers, Dear Ijeawele goes right to the heart of sexual politics in the twenty-first century.

It will start a new and urgently needed conversation about what it really means to be a woman today.

Los Divinos

2018

by Laura Restrepo

Un crimen real que conmovió a una sociedad entera. Un alegato contra el feminicidio, por una de las autoras más importantes en español.

El cuerpo de una niña es encontrado flotando en el agua en lo que parece un ritual. En el fondo de este episodio se encuentra el mundo superficial de unos jóvenes ricos y exitosos que mantienen desde la infancia una hermandad maligna y que contrasta con el de la víctima, pobre, sobreviviente de la violencia de su lugar de origen.

Los divinos es la recreación hecha desde la ficción de un crimen real pero, sobre todo, es la novela más importante de una de las mejores escritoras de Latinoamérica.

Una historia basada en uno de los crímenes más impactantes cometidos en Colombia en los últimos años.

Howards End

Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster about social conventions, codes of conduct, and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. A strong-willed and intelligent woman refuses to allow the pretensions of her husband's smug English family to ruin her life. Howards End is considered by some to be Forster's masterpiece.

I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual

I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual is a hilarious and insightful collection of essays by Luvvie Ajayi, a comedian, activist, and popular culture blogger at AwesomelyLuvvie.com. This book dissects our cultural obsessions and calls out bad behavior in our increasingly digital, connected lives.

With over 500,000 readers a month at her enormously popular blog, Ajayi is a go-to source for smart takes on pop culture. In her debut book, she serves up necessary advice for the masses, passing on lessons and side-eyes on life, social media, culture, and fame. From addressing those terrible friends we all have to serious discussions of race and media representation, this book is a manual for anyone looking to bring some "act right" into their lives.

With a lighthearted, razor-sharp wit and a unique perspective, I'm Judging You offers a road map for navigating the complexities of modern life, social media, and popular culture.

Acide sulfurique

2016

by Amélie Nothomb

Vint le moment où la souffrance des autres ne leur suffit plus : il leur en fallut le spectacle.

Concentration : la dernière-née des émissions télévisées. On enlève des gens, on recrute des kapos, on filme… Tout de suite, le plus haut score de téléspectateurs, l’audimat absolu qui se nourrit autant de la cruauté filmée que de l’horreur dénoncée.

Etudiante à la beauté stupéfiante, Pannonique est devenue CKZ 114 dans le camp de concentration télévisé. Le premier sévice étant la perte de son nom, partant de son identité.

Zdena, chômeuse devenue la kapo Zdena, découvre en Pannonique son double inversé et se met à l’aimer éperdument. Le bien et le mal en couple fatal, la victime et le bourreau, la belle et la bête aussi.

Quand les organisateurs du jeu, pour stimuler encore l’audience, décident de faire voter le public pour désigner les prisonniers à abattre, un tollé médiatique s’élève mais personne ne s’abstient de voter et Pannonique joue sa vie…

The Mirage of Love

2015

by Lady Diana

The Mirage of Love by Lady Diana is a captivating fiction that centers around the life of a protagonist woman. Happily married to her lover, she finds herself estranged from her husband after four years. Lost in the monotony of life without love and respect, she leads a servile existence repressed from joy and desires.

Determined to escape the deadly clutches of expectations and social repressions, she seeks to rise above menial existence and achieve her dreams. She falls in love with another man, her teacher and mentor, yet fears acknowledging her feelings due to potential social accusations. An incident awakens her to life's temporality, leading her into an ambitious and intimate relationship with her mentor.

In a world led by her lover, ambition becomes tangible, and she faces the disorder of the human world, particularly that of women. A critical moment arrives when she must choose between the men, showcasing her independence and strength.

This novel is a bold exploration of a woman's struggle against societal norms, representing the universal search for identity among womankind. The protagonist's journey is one of lust, self-realization, and the quest for identity beyond the home hemisphere.

Daha

2013

by Hakan Günday

İnsanları çaresiz bırak, iç organlarından roket yaparlar!

Siz bu cümleyi okurken, bir yerlerde insanlar, ülkelerindeki savaş, açlık ve yoksulluktan kaçmak için sonu zifiri bir yolculuğa çıkmaya hazırlanıyor. Ancak bu hikâye o kaçak göçmenlerle değil, onları kaçıranlardan biriyle ilgili. Adı Gazâ. Babası bir insan kaçakçısı, Gazâ da onun çırağı. Henüz 9 yaşında. Yani, hayata ve insana dair, öğrenmemesi gereken ne varsa, hepsini öğrenecek yaşta.

“Doğu ile Batı arasındaki fark, Türkiye’dir. Hangisinden hangisini çıkarınca geriye Türkiye kalır, bilmiyorum ama aralarındaki mesafe Türkiye kadar, ondan eminim. Ve biz orada yaşıyorduk. Her gün politikacıların televizyonlara çıkıp jeopolitik öneminden söz ettiği bir ülkede. Önceleri çözemezdim ne anlama geldiğini. Meğer jeopolitik önem, içi kapkaranlık ve farları fal taşı gibi otobüslerin, sırf yol üstünde diye, gecenin ortasında mola verdiği kırık dökük bir binanın ada ve parsel numaralarıyla yapılan çıkar hesapları demekmiş.

1.565 km uzunluğunda koca bir Boğaz Köprüsü anlamına geliyormuş. Ülkede yaşayanların boğazlarının içinden geçen dev bir köprü. Çıplak ayağı Doğu’da, ayakkabılı olanı Batı’da ve üzerinden yasadışı ne varsa geçip giden, yaşlı bir köprü. Kursağımızdan geçiyordu hepsi. Özellikle de, kaçak denilen insanlar… Elimizden geleni yapıyorduk... Boğazımıza takılmasınlar diye. Yutkunup gönderiyorduk hepsini. Nereye gideceklerse oraya… Sınırdan sınıra ticaret… Duvardan duvara…

The Last Day of a Condemned Man

2013

by Victor Hugo

The Last Day of a Condemned Man (1829) is a short novel by Victor Hugo. Having witnessed several executions by guillotine as a young man, Hugo devoted himself in his art and political life to opposing the death penalty in France. Praised by Dostoevsky as "absolutely the most real and truthful of everything that Hugo wrote," The Last Day of a Condemned Man is a powerful story from an author who defined nineteenth-century French literature.

If you knew when and where you would die, how would you spend your final moments? For Hugo’s unnamed narrator, such an existential question is made reality. Sentenced to death for an unspecified crime, he reflects on his life as its last seconds wane in the shadows of a cramped prison cell. Recording his emotional state, observations, and conversations with a priest and fellow prisoner, the condemned man forces us to not only recognize his humanity, but question our own.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Victor Hugo’s The Last Day of a Condemned Man is a classic work of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

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