Book picks similar to
Concrete Fever by Nathaniel Kressen
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Broken Sleep
Bruce Bauman - 2015
When he discovers that the woman who raised him is not his biological mother, he must hunt down his birth parents and unspool the intertwined destinies of the Teumer and Savant families. Salome Savant, Moses’s birth mother, is an avant-garde artist who has spent her life in and out of a mental health facility. Her son and Moses’s half-brother, Alchemy Savant, the mercurial front man of the world-renowned rock band The Insatiables, abandons music to launch a political campaign to revolutionize 2020s America. And then there’s Ambitious Mindswallow, aka Ricky McFinn, who journeys from juvenile delinquency in Queens to being The Insatiables’ bassist and Alchemy’s Sancho Panza. Bauman skillfully weaves the threads that intertwine these characters and the histories that divide them, creating a postmodern vision of America that is at once sweeping, irreverent, and heartbreaking.
Exclusive Chapter Sampler: A Year of Marvellous Ways
Sarah Winman - 2015
From the author of the bestselling WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT comes this spellbinding new novel.
Marvellous Ways is eighty-nine years old and has lived alone in a remote Cornish creek for nearly all her life. Lately she's taken to spending her days sitting by the river with a telescope. She's waiting for something - she's not sure what, but she'll know it when she sees it. Drake is a young soldier left reeling by the Second World War. When his promise to fulfil a dying man's last wish sees him wash up in Marvellous' creek, broken in body and spirit, the old woman comes to his aid. A Year of Marvellous Ways is a glorious, life-affirming story about the magic in everyday life and the pull of the sea, the healing powers of storytelling and sloe gin, love and death and how we carry on when grief comes snapping at our heels.
Disputed Land
Tim Pears - 2011
As the gathered family settle in to their first Christmas together for some years, the grown siblings - Rodney, Johnny and Gwen - are surprised when they are invited to each put stickers on the furniture and items they wish to inherit from their parents.Disputed Land is narrated by Leonard and Rosemary's thirteen-year-old grandson, Theo, who observes how from these innocent beginnings age-old fissures open up in the relationships of those around him. Looking back at this Christmas gathering from his own middle-age - a narrator at once nostalgic and naïve - Theo Cannon remembers his imperious grandmother Rosemary, alpha-male uncle Johnny, abominable twin cousins Xan and Baz; he recalls his love for his grandfather Leonard and the burgeoning feelings for his cousin Holly. And he asks himself the question: if a single family cannot solve the problem of what it bequeaths to future generations, then what chance does a whole society have of leaving the world intact?
Incredible Bodies
Ian McGuire - 2006
In this sordid and hilarious tale of whopping academic grants, sleeping on the job, sexual confusion and consenting adults, terrifying departmental secretaries, surprise impregnations and alcoholic lecturers we might conclude that most people are just not cut out for university life.
Nothing
Anne Marie Wirth Cauchon - 2013
I was moved."-Tao Lin, New York Times Book Review"A marvelously scathing indictment of a generation that has no choice but to burn. From Nothing’s outset, [Wirth Cauchon] crafts scenes with complexity and a scary prescience. [Nothing is] a riveting first piece of scripture from our newest prophet of misspent youth."-Paste"Like a movie adaptation of Daria as directed by Gregg Araki. The energy almost makes each page glow. Though this novel starts as Bret Easton Ellis, it ends as Nick Cave - thunderous, apocalyptic. The move into the grand and mythic separates Nothing from the usual stuff concerning the bored and the pretty."-Electric Literature"Nothing feels like the descendent of the masterful short stories of Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son. [A] noteworthy debut."-Bustle"A burning mean and darkly mysterious read."-Joy Williams"I could tell you that Anne Marie Wirth Cauchon has written an utterly contemporary novel of our fragmented culture, a novel that I think might be the great American novel of the selfie, brilliantly alternating the narratives of two young travelers partying and searching and losing themselves in the wild West — a Kerouac hitchhiker juxtaposed with the nihilistic, wanting, wandering Ruth and her toxic friendship with her prettier best friend. But this is what I want to tell you—this is what you need to know — Anne Marie Wirth Cauchon writes like a beast, brutal and ecstatic. You need to read this."-Kate Zambreno"An edgy debut. Cauchon's characters have serrated edges... they'll get under the reader's skin."-Publishers Weekly"Claustrophobic. It's August and the hills are on fire and I'm reading Nothing. I see Wirth Cauchon's characters lurking around Missoula, outside the bars and walking along the river, lost and fucked up, abused and abusers, seekers, trustafarians, and ne'er-do-wells. Stuck in the limbo of youthful identity crisis, desperate for a way in or a way out."-Jeff AmentRuth traded a dead-end life in Minneapolis for a dead-end life in Missoula. But in Missoula, she's got Bridget. "[Bridget] was gorgeous… but that wasn't it, that didn't quite explain it. What explained it was the curse. The curse of the unreasonably pretty, the curse of cult leaders and dictators. It sucked everyone to her, it consumed her, made her untouchable."After a local girl dies at a party, signaling the end of fun for the twentysomethings of Missoula, James and Ruth become involved. But jealousy over Bridget quickly complicates things.Nothing announces a nervy and assertive new voice, while also capturing the angst and foreboding that could mark it as an even grander generational statement.
Guardian of Deceit
William H. Coles - 2015
He is excited and afraid; he wants to recapture the love he knew with his parents before they died and become a doctor like his father. But in his new home of celebrities, crooks, untrustworthiness, and excessively wealthy deviants, lust and want thwart his search for selfless caring love, and in his quest to become a doctor, he discovers the altruism of health care and scientific discovery riddled with profit motivation and deficient moral standards. A finalist in the 2012 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition.
Toward That Which Is Beautiful
Marian O'Shea Wernicke - 2020
Desperate and afraid of her feelings for an Irish priest with whom she has been working, she spends eight days on the run, encountering a variety of characters along the way: a cynical Englishman who helps her out; a suspicious Peruvian police officer who takes her in for questioning; and two American Peace Corps workers who befriend her. As Kate traverses this dangerous physical journey through Peru, she also embarks upon an interior journey of self-discovery―one that leads her somewhere she never could have expected.
Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children
Dave Newman - 2012
The novel tries to capture the humanity and heartbreak of one man's struggle to navigate the vicissitudes of life as a working writer in America.
Bridge of Clay
Markus Zusak - 2018
As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father’s disappearance. At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge—for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle. The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?
Earth & Heaven
Sue Gee - 2001
has dared to take on a difficult, grief-stricken period of English history, and done so with sensitivity and understanding; EARTH AND HEAVEN is the clever, compelling result' The Times
The Homespun Wisdom of Myrtle T. Cribb
Sheri Reynolds - 2012
Cribb, a special-needs teacher from Virginia’s Eastern Shore, is captive in a dysfunctional marriage. Tired of living up to her husband’s and everyone else’s standards, Myrtle impulsively heads to wherever the road will take her. But soon she gets a surprise of her own. She finds an unlikely stowaway on her journey: Hellcat, the local drunk.Together, they embark on a pilgrimage that takes them everywhere from a shady highway motel to a hippie retreat center, developing an unlikely friendship while finding wisdom in the most unlikely places. The journey forces Myrtle to evaluate her marriage, her priorities, and her own prejudices, and compels her to share her hard-earned insights with other women who feel some dissatisfaction in their lives.With its iconoclastic, complex, and irresistible cast of characters, and bold yet sincere advice, The Homespun Wisdom of Myrtle T. Cribb is an engaging, heartbreaking, and joyful story to be cherished by those seeking an understanding of life’s greatest mysteries.
& Sons
David Gilbert - 2013
N. Dyer, whose novel Ampersand stands as a classic of American teenage angst. But as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend, he suffers a breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt and the novel that will forever endure as his legacy. He must gather his three sons for the first time in many years—before it’s too late. So begins a wild, transformative, heartbreaking week, as witnessed by Philip Topping, who, like his late father, finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family. First there’s son Richard, a struggling screenwriter and father, returning from self-imposed exile in California. In the middle lingers Jamie, settled in Brooklyn after his twenty-year mission of making documentaries about human suffering. And last is Andy, the half brother whose mysterious birth tore the Dyers apart seventeen years ago, now in New York on spring break, determined to lose his virginity before returning to the prestigious New England boarding school that inspired Ampersand. But only when the real purpose of this reunion comes to light do these sons realize just how much is at stake, not only for their father but for themselves and three generations of their family.
Killing Hemingway
Arthur Byrne - 2015
He’s found his teacher’s bad side, and she wants him expelled. Although learning is his favorite thing to do, and Teddy is good at it, what he really wants is a friend. Friendship can be hard to find and sometimes fades, but Teddy keeps trying. Even at a young age, Teddy is kind, with a strong sense of right and wrong. When Mrs. Braunshausen gives away his turn to feed Mr. Chompers, the class tortoise, Teddy is not happy about it. He loves Mr. Chompers. This is the story of a young genius who grows into a hopeless romantic. We follow his life from age six, through high school at age twelve, and on to his decision to go back to college (for a PhD in Literature) after finishing his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics at eighteen. A coming of age novel about life, decisions, love, and genius. Killing Hemingway is a perfect book for teen and young adult readers, those who never liked Hemingway, and anyone who enjoys a bit of humorous fiction with a side of cute.
One Rainy Day in May
Mark Z. Danielewski - 2015
The Familiar (Volume 1) ranges from Mexico to Southeast Asia, from Venice, Italy, to Venice, California, with nine lives hanging in the balance, each called upon to make a terrifying choice. They include a therapist-in-training grappling with daughters as demanding as her patients; an ambitious East L.A. gang member contracted for violence; two scientists in Marfa, Texas, on the run from an organization powerful beyond imagining; plus a recovering addict in Singapore summoned at midnight by a desperate billionaire; and a programmer near Silicon Beach whose game engine might unleash consequences far exceeding the entertainment he intends. At the very heart, though, is a twelve-year-old girl named Xanther who one rainy day in May sets out with her father to get a dog, only to end up trying to save a creature as fragile as it is dangerous . . . which will change not only her life and the lives of those she has yet to encounter, but this world, too—or at least the world we think we know and the future we take for granted.(With full-color illustrations throughout.)