Book picks similar to
Elegy for a Fabulous World by Alta Ifland


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The Last Illusion


Porochista Khakpour - 2014
    Rescued by a behavioral analyst, Zal awakens in New York to the possibility of a future. A stunted and unfit adolescent, he strives to become human as he stumbles toward adulthood. As New York survives one potential disaster, Y2K, and begins hurtling toward another, 9/11, Zal finds himself in a cast of fellow outsiders. A friendship with a famous illusionist who claims—to the Bird Boy's delight—that he can fly and an affair with a disturbed artist who believes she is clairvoyant send Zal's life spiraling into chaos. Like the rest of New York, he is on a collision course with devastation.

TJ's Last Summer in Cape Cod


Garfield Whyte - 2016
    Some will like it.... some wont but its all fiction and TJ just wanted a good time for his last summer back home. NOTE ... Uncle Peter cheats on his wife, so if you will have issues with this, then this is not the book for you. It's all fiction, with some youthful exuberance. We were all young at some time in our lives and we may have made mistakes too.One last wild summer before college. TJ always spent the summer with his uncle since he was 15. He looked forward to spending time with Uncle Peter and all the adventures he got to experience. But now he was 18 and this summer was going to be different; he had a girlfriend whom he could not bear to leave behind. During those past summers, TJ had been the sole witness and confidant to Uncle Peter and his endless shenanigans with the different women in his life. As such, TJ felt Uncle Peter owed him and it was time to collect; it was time for Uncle Peter to return the favor and cover for TJ. To TJ's delight, Uncle Peter was more than eager to comply and he even came up with the perfect plan for the two of them to spend time together without TJ leaving his girlfriend's side. Follow the wicked adventures of this duo as TJ finds himself at a crossroads between being an honorable man or the ladies' man his uncle groomed him to be. Was it worth it when summer ended? That will depend on whose side you are on.Some readers focus on Uncle Peter's cheating ways and less on the crux of the story which is, the unique bond between a nephew and and uncle as well as your sins will find you out.

Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America


María Hinojosa - 2020
    Years ago, when In the Heights was just starting off-Broadway, Maria got the word out to our community to support this new musical about our neighborhoods. She has been a champion of our triumphs, a critic of our detractors, and a driving force to right the wrongs our society faces. When Maria speaks, I’m ready to listen and learn.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda Emmy Award–winning journalist and anchor of NPR’s Latino USA, Maria Hinojosa, tells the story of immigration in America through her family’s experiences and decades of reporting, painting an unflinching portrait of a country in crisis.Maria Hinojosa is an award-winning journalist who has collaborated with the most respected networks and is known for bringing humanity to her reporting. In this beautifully-rendered memoir, she relates the history of US immigration policy that has brought us to where we are today, as she shares her deeply personal story. For thirty years, Maria Hinojosa has reported on stories and communities in America that often go ignored by the mainstream media. Bestselling author Julia Alvarez has called her “one of the most important, respected, and beloved cultural leaders in the Latinx community.” In Once I Was You, Maria shares her intimate experience growing up Mexican American on the south side of Chicago and documenting the existential wasteland of immigration detention camps for news outlets that often challenged her work. In these pages, she offers a personal and eye-opening account of how the rhetoric around immigration has not only long informed American attitudes toward outsiders, but also enabled willful negligence and profiteering at the expense of our country’s most vulnerable populations—charging us with the broken system we have today. This honest and heartrending memoir paints a vivid portrait of how we got here and what it means to be a survivor, a feminist, a citizen, and a journalist who owns her voice while striving for the truth. Once I Was You is an urgent call to fellow Americans to open their eyes to the immigration crisis and understand that it affects us all. Also available in Spanish as Una vez fui tú.

Mr. Fox


Helen Oyeyemi - 2011
    St John Fox, celebrated novelist, hasn’t seen her in six years. He’s unprepared for her afternoon visit, not least because she doesn’t exist. He’s infatuated with her. But he also made her up.“You’re a villain,” she tells him. ‘A serial killer . . . can you grasp that?”Will Mr Fox meet his muse’s challenge, to stop murdering his heroines and explore something of love? What will his wife Daphne think of this sudden change in her husband? Can there be a happy ending – this time?

Coyote Songs


Gabino Iglesias - 2018
    A woman offers colonizer blood to the Mother of Chaos. A boy joins corpse destroyers to seek vengeance for the death of his father.These stories intertwine with those of a vengeful spirit and a hungry creature to paint a timely, compelling, pulpy portrait of revenge, family, and hope.

Understories


Tim Horvath - 2012
    Whether making offhand references to Mystery Science Theater, providing a new perspective on Heidegger’s philosophy and forays into Nazism, or following the imaginary travels of a library book, Horvath’s writing is as entertaining as it is thought provoking.

The Art of Being Grateful & Other Short Stories


Manali Manan Desai - 2020
    The caller is a girl who says she has been kidnapped and will die if Aashna doesn't help her. Before Aashna can get details about the girl and her whereabouts, the phone gets cut off. Who was she and why did her voice sound eerily familiar? Will Aashna be able to help her?Maanvi's life has always been about making everyone around realize that she is worthy too. From her test grades to her body type, everyone always had a piece of advice to give or some judgement to pass. How does Maanvi get affected by these? Does she manage to prove her worth to the world?These and six other stories in this collection covering a range of genres including romance, mystery, horror, thriller and much more. Delve in for a delightful reading journey!

The Water Museum


Luis Alberto Urrea - 2015
    Examining the borders between one nation and another, between one person and another, Urrea reveals his mastery of the short form. This collection includes the Edgar-award winning "Amapola" and his now-classic "Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses," which had the honor of being chosen for NPR's "Selected Shorts" not once but twice. Suffused with wanderlust, compassion, and no small amount of rock and roll, The Water Museum is a collection that confirms Luis Alberto Urrea as an American master.

Brass


Xhenet Aliu - 2018
    Then she meets Bashkim, who is at once both worldly and naïve, a married man who left Albania to chase his dreams—and wound up working as a line cook in Waterbury, Connecticut. Back when the brass mills were still open, this bustling factory town drew one wave of immigrants after another. Now it’s the place they can’t seem to leave. Elsie, herself the granddaughter of Lithuanian immigrants, falls in love quickly, but when she learns that she’s pregnant, Elsie can’t help wondering where Bashkim’s heart really lies, and what he’ll do about the wife he left behind.   Seventeen years later, headstrong and independent Luljeta receives a rejection letter from NYU and her first-ever suspension from school on the same day. Instead of striking out on her own in Manhattan, she’s stuck in Connecticut with her mother, Elsie—a fate she refuses to accept. Wondering if the key to her future is unlocking the secrets of the past, Lulu decides to find out what exactly her mother has been hiding about the father she never knew. As she soon discovers, the truth is closer than she ever imagined.   Told in equally gripping parallel narratives with biting wit and grace, Brass announces a fearless new voice with a timely, tender, and quintessentially American story.

The Three Wise Monkeys


Jeet Gian - 2016
    And as is the fate of all morons, they were drawn intotrouble—deep trouble—of hiding crores of rupees of black money in secret offshore companies.Will their mistake of turning a blind eye to the philosophy of ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ cost them their careers and put them in prison? Or Will Lady Luck change their fortunes forever?

Smash All the Windows


Jane Davis - 2018
    It will take courage to learn how to live again.‘An all-round triumph.’ John HudspithFor the families of the victims of the St Botolph and Old Billingsgate disaster, the undoing of a miscarriage of justice should be a cause for rejoicing. For more than thirteen years, the search for truth has eaten up everything. Marriages, families, health, careers and finances.Finally, the coroner has ruled that the crowd did not contribute to their own deaths. Finally, now that lies have been unravelled and hypocrisies exposed, they can all get back to their lives.If only it were that simple.Tapping into the issues of the day, Davis delivers a highly charged work of metafiction, a compelling testament to the human condition and the healing power of art. Written with immediacy, style and an overwhelming sense of empathy, Smash all the Windows will be enjoyed by readers of How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall and How to be Both by Ali Smith.

Fresh Off the Boat


Eddie Huang - 2013
    Eddie Huang was raised by a wild family of FOB (“fresh off the boat”) immigrants—his father a cocksure restaurateur with a dark past back in Taiwan, his mother a fierce protector and constant threat. Young Eddie tried his hand at everything mainstream America threw his way, from white Jesus to macaroni and cheese, but finally found his home as leader of a rainbow coalition of lost boys up to no good: skate punks, dealers, hip-hop junkies, and sneaker freaks. This is the story of a Chinese-American kid in a could-be-anywhere cul-de-sac blazing his way through America’s deviant subcultures, trying to find himself, ten thousand miles from his legacy and anchored only by his conflicted love for his family and his passion for food. Funny, moving, and stylistically inventive, Fresh Off the Boat is more than a radical reimagining of the immigrant memoir—it’s the exhilarating story of every American outsider who finds his destiny in the margins.

Everything Belongs to the Future


Laurie Penny - 2016
    What kind of world have we made, where human beings can live centuries if only they can afford the fix? What kind of creatures have we become? The same as we always were, but keener.In the ancient heart of Oxford University, the ultra-rich celebrate their vastly extended lifespans. But a few surprises are in store for them. From Nina and Alex, Margo and Fidget, scruffy anarchists sharing living space with an ever-shifting cast of crusty punks and lost kids. And also from the scientist who invented the longevity treatment in the first place.Everything Belongs to the Future is a bloody-minded tale of time, betrayal, desperation, and hope that could only have been told by the inimitable Laurie Penny.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite


Suki Kim - 2014
    Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, the students sent to construction fields - except for the 270 students at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a walled compound where portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il look on impassively from the walls of every room, and where Suki has accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months, she will eat three meals a day with her young charges and struggle to teach them to write, all under the watchful eye of the regime. Life at PUST is lonely and claustrophobic, especially for Suki, whose letters are read by censors and who must hide her notes and photographs not only from her minders but from her colleagues - evangelical Christian missionaries who don't know or choose to ignore that Suki doesn't share their faith. She is mystified by how easily her students lie, unnerved by their obedience to the regime. To them, everything in North Korea is the best, the tallest, the most delicious, the envy of all nations. Still, she cannot help but love them - their boyish enthusiasm, their eagerness to please, the flashes of curiosity that have not yet been extinguished. As the weeks pass, she begins to hint at the existence of a world beyond their own - at such exotic activities as surfing the Internet or traveling freely and, more dangerously, at electoral democracy and other ideas forbidden in a country where defectors risk torture and execution. The students in turn offer Suki tantalizing glimpses into their lives, from their thoughts on how to impress girls to their disappointment that soccer games are only televised when the North Korean team wins. Then Kim Jong-il dies, leaving the students devastated, and leading Suki to question whether the gulf between her world and theirs can ever be bridged.Without You, There Is No Us offers a moving and incalculably rare glimpse of life in the world's most unknowable country, and at the privileged young men she calls "soldiers and slaves."

Aroon


M.B. Gibson - 2016
    A desolate maid. And one cold corpse. Richard Lynche, heir of an 18th century Tipperary estate, can find no peace. His bookish ways disgust his bullying letch of a father. His heartsick mother sinks ever-deeper into a drug-induced lethargy. The teen’s only solace are the loving arms of the homesick new maid, Eveleen. Meanwhile jealousy, lust, and oppression lead to gruesome visions, causing Richard to question his own sanity. Desperate to prevail over his demons, he determines there is only one way to stop the torture—a killing. Aroon is a cauldron of old-fashioned Irish stew. Spiced heavily with Downton Abbey, sprinkled with Shakespeare’s Hamlet and a dash of The Godfather’s Michael Corleone, it explores the underbelly of life during the Protestant Ascendancy.