Clown Girl

Bluebeard

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. · 300 pages

Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn. But then a voluptuous young widow badgers Rabo into telling his life story—and Vonnegut in turn tells us the plain, heart-hammering truth about man’s careless fancy to create or destr

The Family Fang

Kevin Wilson · 309 pages

Performance artists Caleb and Camille Fang dedicated themselves to making great art. But when an artist's work lies in subverting normality, it can be difficult to raise well-adjusted children. Just ask Buster and Annie Fang. For as long as they can remember, they starred (unwillingly) in their parents' madcap pieces. But now that they are grown up, the chaos of their childhood has made it difficu

Trainspotting

Irvine Welsh · 352 pages

Scottish writer Irvine Welsh's first novel, Trainspotting, is a collection of short-stories revolving around a group of friends, their drug use, and struggles in the city of Edinburgh.

Fight Club

Chuck Palahniuk · 208 pages

A man who struggles with insomnia meets a colorful extremist, and they create a secret organization together. Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation’s most visionary satirist in this, his first book. Fight Club’s estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret after-hours boxing matches in the base

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden

Jonas Jonasson · 400 pages

In a tiny shack in the largest township in South Africa, Nombeko Mayeki is born. Put to work at five years old and orphaned at ten, she quickly learns that the world expects nothing more from her than to die young, be it from drugs, alcohol, or just plain despair. But Nombeko has grander plans. She learns to read and write, and at just fifteen, using her cunning and fearlessness, she makes it out

Munmun

Jesse Andrews · 330 pages

In an alternate reality a lot like our world, every person's physical size is directly proportional to their wealth. The poorest of the poor are the size of rats, and billionaires are the size of skyscrapers. Warner and his sister Prayer are destitute—and tiny. Their size is not just demeaning, but dangerous: day and night they face mortal dangers that bigger richer people don't ever have to think

Forrest Gump

Winston Groom · 240 pages

A man named Forest Gump sits at a bus stop and tells everyone about his life. It starts in a doctor's office when he gets leg braces. Then he goes to school where he meets Jenny, and his entire school career and football. Then it goes on to college football. then to Vietnam where he meets bubba. then bubba dies and forest saves a whole platoon. After the war forest gets a medal of honor and runs a

The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty

Amanda Filipacchi · 334 pages

"Meet the Knights of Creation, a group of artistic friends struggling with society's standards of beauty. Barb, a stunningly beautiful costume designer, chooses to don a fat suit in hopes that it will help her meet the man of her dreams--a man who can see beyond her looks. Lily, Barb's brilliantly talented, unfortunate-looking musician friend, goes to fantastic lengths to attract the shallow man s

Factotum

Charles Bukowski · 205 pages

One of Charles Bukowski's best, this beer-soaked, deliciously degenerate novel follows the wanderings of aspiring writer Henry Chinaski across World War II-era America. Deferred from military service, Chinaski travels from city to city, moving listlessly from one odd job to another, always needing money but never badly enough to keep a job. His day-to-day existence spirals into an endless litany o

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Ken Kesey · 311 pages

An international bestseller and the basis for a hugely successful film, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was one of the defining works of the 1960s. A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, the novel chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Randle Patrick McMurphy and the totalitarian rule of Big Nurse. McMurphy swaggers into

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

George Saunders · 179 pages

George Saunders has seen the future of America and it is funny. Bleak, yes, and sad and toxic and greedy - and very, very weird - but funny, too. With today's malls and theme parks and ecological disasters as their foundation, these stories build a tomorrow inhabited by fat executives in despair, genetic mutants in servitude, virtual-reality merchants in Chapter 11, and American Dreamers everywher

Nobody's Fool

Richard Russo · 549 pages

In 1750, without warning or apparent reason, the mineral springs of the colonial resort town of Bath, New York, ran dry. A little more than two hundred years later, after numerous warnings and for too many reasons, Sully, the unluckiest man in this unlucky town, isn't doing too hot either. He's broke, out of a job, and the owner of a dead pickup truck. The good news? Sully has the dumbest man in N

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England

Brock Clarke · 305 pages

Sam Pulsifer is determined to put his past behind him after serving a prison term for torching an American literary landmark and killing two people in the blaze, but when the homes of notable American writers begin to go up in smoke, his history makes him the prime suspect.

Death of a Bookseller

Alice Slater · 481 pages

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER! LONGLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD 2024 *** SHORTLISTED FOR THE DEBUT OF THE YEAR at the FINGERPRINT AWARDS *** WOULD YOU KILL FOR A GOOD STORY? 'A confident, sassy, pitch-black debut' CAROLINE KEPNES 'Your new obsession' ERIN KELLY 'Savage, witty and all-consuming' ABIGAIL DEAN 'A dark masterpiece. It will work its way under your skin like

The Sellout

Paul Beatty · 304 pages

A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's *The Sellout* showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality―the black Chinese restaurant. Born

Little

Edward Carey · 448 pages

The Sisters Brothers

Patrick deWitt · 379 pages

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, El

A Confederate General from Big Sur

Richard Brautigan · 159 pages

The White Tiger

Aravind Adiga · 304 pages

Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along.

Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew

Shehan Karunatilaka · 416 pages

Retired sportswriter W.G. Karunasena is dying. He will spend his final months drinking arrack, making his wife unhappy, ignoring his son, and tracking down Pradeep S. Mathew, a spin bowler who has mysteriously disappeared.

Half His Age

Jennette McCurdy · 262 pages

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes a sad, funny, thrilling novel about sex, consumerism, class, desire, loneliness, the internet, rage, intimacy, power, and the (oftentimes misguided) lengths we’ll go to in order to get what we want. Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And

The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook

Matt Dinniman · 544 pages

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Welcome to the Iron Tangle! Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, have to team up with other contestants not just to survive, but to solve a deadly puzzle in this third, mind-twisting novel in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series—now with bonus material exclusive to this print edition. Earth has been transformed into the set of the galaxy’s most watched game show

Treasure Island!!!

Sara Levine · 172 pages

"When a college graduate with a history of hapless jobs (ice cream scooper; gift wrapper; laziest ever part-time clerk at the Pet Library) reads Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, she is dumbstruck by the timid design of her life. ... Convinced that Stevenson's book is cosmically intended for her, she redesigns her life according to its core values: boldness, resolution, independence,

The First Bad Man

Miranda July · 288 pages

Een alleenstaande vrouw lijdt aan diverse obsessies, die zij aan vorige levens wijt, totdat ze eindelijk de realiteit ervaart.