A Thousand Times Before

The Moor's Last Sigh

Salman Rushdie · 437 pages

"The Moor evokes his family's often grotesque but compulsively moving fortunes and the lost world of possibilities embodied by India in this century. His is a tale of premature deaths and family rifts, of thwarted loves and mad passions, of secrecy and greed, of power and money, and of the even more morally dubious seductions and mysteries of art."--BOOK JACKET.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Junot Diaz · 352 pages

Things have never been easy for Oscar. A ghetto nerd living with his Dominican family in New Jersey, he's sweet but disastrously overweight. He dreams of becoming the next J. R. R. Tolkien and he keeps falling hopelessly in love. Poor Oscar may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku - the curse that has haunted his family for generations. With dazzling energy and insight Díaz immerses us

Before We Visit the Goddess

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni · 210 pages

"A beautiful, powerful new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of Sister of My Heart and The Mistress of Spies about three generations of mothers and daughters who must discover their greatest source of strength in one another--a masterful, brilliant tale of a family both united and torn apart by ambition and love. The daughter of a poor baker in rural Bengal, India, Sabitri yearns to

Difficult Daughters

Manju Kapur · 267 pages

"Set around the time of Partition, Difficult Daughters is the story of a woman torn between family duty, the desire for education, and illicit love. Virmati, a young woman born in Amritsar into an austere and high-minded household, falls in love with a neighbour, the Professor - a man who is already married. That the Professor eventually marries Virmati, installs her in his home (along-side his fu

Dreaming in Cuban

Cristina Garcia · 251 pages

A vivid and funny first novel about three generations of a Cuban family divided by conflicting loyalties over the Cuban revolution, set in the world of Havana in the 1970s and '80s and in an emigre neighborhood of Brooklyn. It is a story of immense charm about women and politics, women and witchcraft, women and their men.

Malas

Marcela Fuentes · 375 pages

Gingerbread

Helen Oyeyemi · 372 pages

Unaccustomed Earth

Jhumpa Lahiri · 352 pages

These eight stories by beloved and bestselling author Jhumpa Lahiri take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand, as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life. Here they enter the worlds of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers. Rich with the signature gifts that have established Jhumpa Lahiri as one of our most essential writers,

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

Kiran Desai · 216 pages

Sampath Chawla is born into a family slightly off kilter, to a mother not quite like her neighbours, in a town not quite like other towns. After years of failure, it does not seem as if Sampath is going to amount to much. Then Sampath climbs up a guava tree in search of a life of peaceful contemplation - and becomes unexpectedly famous as a hermit. News of the guru in the tree soon spreads. Sampat

The House of the Spirits

Isabel Allende · 433 pages

"The unforgettable first novel that established Isabel Allende as one of the world's most gifted and imaginative storytellers. The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a

Secret Daughter

Shilpi Somaya Gowda · 352 pages

On the eve of the monsoons, in a remote Indian village, Kavita gives birth to a baby girl. But in a culture that favors sons, the only way for Kavita to save her newborn daughter's life is to give her away. It is a decision that will haunt her and her husband for the rest of their lives, even after the arrival of their cherished son.Halfway around the globe, Somer, an American doctor, decides to a

Dollar Bahu

Sudha Murty · 142 pages

The Probable Future

Alice Hoffman · 336 pages

Alice Hoffman's most magical novel to date--three generations of extraordinary women are driven to unite in crisis and discover the rewards of reconciliation and love. Women of the Sparrow family have unusual gifts. Elinor can detect falsehood. Her daughter, Jenny, can see people's dreams when they sleep. Granddaughter Stella has a mental window on the future--a future that she might not want to s

Beauty Is a Wound

Eka Kurniawan · 470 pages

"The English-language debut of Indonesia's greatest young novelist, Eka Kurniawan: "without a doubt the most original, imaginatively profound, and elegant writer of fiction in Indonesia today: its brightest and most unexpected meteorite" (Benedict Anderson). One afternoon on a weekend in May, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years. So begins Beauty Is a Wound, an epic,

Invisible Lives

Anjali Banerjee · 284 pages

Lakshmi Sen, a young woman who has the uncanny ability perceive people's secret longings, puts her gift to use in her widowed mother's Seattle sari shop--finding fabrics that ease a bride's cold feet, evoke a widow's first love, and even soothes a young autistic boy's fears. Her reputation draws the interest of Bollywood star Asha Rae, but whenever the Rae's charming chauffeur Nick is around, Laks

Big Breasts and Wide Hips

Mo Yan · 547 pages

China's most important contemporary literary voice delivers a portrait of twentieth-century China full of historical sweep and earthy exuberance.In his latest novel, Mo Yan--arguably China's most important contemporary literary voice--recreates the historical sweep and earthy exuberance of his much acclaimed novel Red Sorghum. In a country where patriarchal favoritism and the primacy of sons survi

If I Told You Once

Judy Budnitz · 300 pages

"In her novel about mothers, daugthers, and love, Judy Budnitz gives the traditional folktale an electrifying twist as she follows four generations of women from an Eastern European village to the tenements of an American city."--BOOK JACKET. "Illana, eager to escape her formidable mother's all-consuming love, embarks on an epic journey to the New World and is met along the way by evil, magic, an

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

Leslye Walton · 301 pages

Born with bird wings into a family cursed to be foolish in love, sixteen-year-old Ava delves into her family's past hoping to understand her unusual nature and learn to fit in with her peers, but she is ill-prepared for what she discovers. Born with the wings of a bird and eager to be accepted by her peers, 16-year old Ava ventures into the world, ill-prepared for what she discovers and naive to

A Visitation of Spirits

Randall Kenan · 257 pages

From Publishers Weekly As its title suggests, a powerful strain of mysticism runs through this story of personal awakening in a black North Carolina family, but first-time novelist Kenan has a rare gift for naturalism as well, capturing the texture of farm life with vivid detail. The novel follows Horace Cross, a brilliant, tormented teenager who is his family's greatest hope, through a night whe

Tamarind Woman

Anita Rau Badami · 269 pages

"Set in the railway colonies of India, Tamarind Woman tells a story of two generations of women. Kamini, an overachiever, lives in a self-imposed exile in Canada. Her mother, Saroja, nicknamed Tamarind Woman due to her sour tongue, is trapped by the customs of traditional Indian life. When Saroja informs her daughter that she has sold their house and is going on a journey across India alone by tr

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

Fredrik Backman · 392 pages

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. When Elsa's grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa's greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother's instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attac

The Girl in the Garden

Kamala Nair · 305 pages

When Rakhee Singh is ten years old, her mother takes her from their Minnesota home to visit relatives in India. There she discovers a family secret that will haunt her. Only as a woman on the verge of marriage does Rakhee find the strength to confront the events of that summer and face the price of secrets.

Pashmina

Nidhi Chanani

The Taste of Apple Seeds

Katharina Hagena · 280 pages

"When Iris unexpectedly inherits her grandmother's house in the country, she also inherits the painful memories that live there. Iris gives herself a one-week stay at the old house, after which she'll make a decision: keep it, or sell it. The choice is not so simple, though, for her grandmother's cottage is an enchanting place where currant jam tastes of tears, sparks fly from fingertips, love's e