The Best Books of 2024 – All Genres (A Year-End List Aggregation)

General – 2024

“What are the best All Genres of books released in 2024?” We looked at 1282 of the top All Genres of books, aggregating and ranking

Other Years: 2025 2024 2023
Other Subjects 2024: Art/Coffee Audiobook Bio/Memoir Children Comic Cookbook Fiction General History Mystery/Thriller/Horror Nonfiction Picture Poetry Sci-Fi/Fantasy Science/Nature YA
#1
James: A Novel

James: A Novel

by Percival Everett
Amazon Bookshop
#2
Martyr!

Martyr!

by Kaveh Akbar
Amazon Bookshop
#3
The God of the Woods

The God of the Woods

by Liz Moore
Amazon Bookshop
#4
All Fours

All Fours

by Miranda July
Amazon Bookshop
#5
The Ministry of Time

The Ministry of Time

by Kaliane Bradley
Amazon Bookshop
#6
Colored Television

Colored Television

by Danzy Senna
Amazon Bookshop
#7
Intermezzo

Intermezzo

by Sally Rooney
Amazon Bookshop
#8
Headshot

Headshot

by Rita Bullwinkel
Amazon Bookshop
#9
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

by Salman Rushdie
Amazon Bookshop
#10
There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

by Hanif Abdurraqib
Amazon Bookshop
#20
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

by Jonathan Haidt
Amazon Bookshop
#21
The Safekeep

The Safekeep

by Yael Van Der Wouden
Amazon Bookshop

"It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be--led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel's doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season. Eva is Isabel's antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn't. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house--a spoon, a knife, a bowl--Isabel's suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel's paranoia gives way to infatuation--leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva--nor the house in which they live--are what they seem"--Dust jacket.

#46
The Anthropologists

The Anthropologists

by Aysegül Savas
Amazon Bookshop

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD LONGLIST * NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER, TIME, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE * A DAKOTA JOHNSON x TEATIME BOOK CLUB PICK * VULTURE #1 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE SELECTION "The Anthropologists is mesmerizing; I felt I read it in a single breath." -Garth Greenwell "Savas is an author who simply, and astoundingly, knows." -Bryan Washington Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park.” Back in their home countries parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly out of reach. But Asya and Manu's new world is growing, too, they hope. As they open the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release? Unfolding over a series of apartment viewings, late-night conversations, last rounds of drinks and lazy breakfasts, The Anthropologists is a soulful examination of homebuilding and modern love, written with Aysegül Savas' distinctive elegance, warmth, and humor.

#72
Orbital

Orbital

by Samantha Harvey
Amazon Bookshop

Life on our planet as you've never seen it before 'A slim, profound study of intimate human fears set against epic vistas' GUARDIAN 'Stunning... An uplifting book' SUNDAY TIMES A team of astronauts in the International Space Station collect meteorological data, conduct scientific experiments and test the limits of the human body. But mostly they observe. Together they watch their silent blue planet, circling it sixteen times, spinning past continents and cycling through seasons, taking in glaciers and deserts, the peaks of mountains and the swells of oceans. Endless shows of spectacular beauty witnessed in a single day. Yet although separated from the world they cannot escape its constant pull. News reaches them of the death of a mother, and with it comes thoughts of returning home. They look on as a typhoon gathers over an island and people they love, in awe of its magnificence and fearful of its destruction. The fragility of human life fills their conversations, their fears, their dreams. So far from earth, they have never felt more part - or protective - of it. They begin to ask, what is life without earth? What is earth without humanity?

#102
Cahokia Jazz

Cahokia Jazz

by Francis Spufford
Amazon Bookshop

From "one of the most original minds in contemporary literature" (Nick Hornby) the bestselling and award-winning author of Golden Hill delivers a noirish detective novel set in the 1920s that reimagines how American history would be different if, instead of being decimated, indigenous populations had thrived. Like his earlier novel Golden Hill, Francis Spufford's Cahokia Jazz inhabits a different version of America, now through the lens of a subtly altered 1920s--a fully imagined world full of fog, cigarette smoke, dubious motives, danger, dark deeds. And in the main character of Joe Barrow, we have a hero of truly epic proportions, a troubled soul to fall in love with as you are swept along by a propulsive and brilliantly twisty plot. On a snowy night at the end of winter, Barrow and his partner find a body on the roof of a skyscraper. Down below, streetcar bells ring, factory whistles blow, Americans drink in speakeasies and dance to the tempo of modern times. But this is Cahokia, the ancient indigenous city beside the Mississippi living on as a teeming industrial metropolis, filled with people of every race and creed. Among them, peace holds. Just about. But that corpse on the roof will spark a week of drama in which this altered world will spill its secrets and be brought, against a soundtrack of jazz clarinets and wailing streetcars, either to destruction or rebirth.

#108
Greta & Valdin

Greta & Valdin

by Rebecca K. Reilly
Amazon Bookshop

"Valdin is still in love with his ex-boyfriend Xabi, who used to drive around Auckland in a ute but now drives around Buenos Aires in one. Greta is in love with her fellow English tutor Holly, who doesn't know how to pronounce Greta's surname, Vladislavljevic, properly. From their Auckland apartment, brother and sister must navigate the intricate paths of modern romance as well as weather the small storms of their eccentric MÄ ori-Russian-Catalonian family"--

#157
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

by Tia Williams
Amazon Bookshop

From the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is an epic love story one hundred years in the making... Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing. Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her. When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers. One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way. Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked. Includes a Reading Group Guide.

#209
In Ascension

In Ascension

by Martin MacInnes
Amazon Bookshop

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZEAn astonishing novel about a young microbiologist investigating an unfathomable deep vent in the ocean floor, leading her on a journey that will encompass the full trajectory of the cosmos and the passage of a single human life Leigh grew up in Rotterdam, drawn to the waterfront as an escape from her unhappy home life and volatile father. Enchanted by the undersea world of her childhood, she excels in marine biology, travelling the globe to study ancient organisms. When a trench is discovered in the Atlantic ocean, Leigh joins the exploration team, hoping to find evidence of the earth's first life forms - what she instead finds calls into question everything we know about our own beginnings. Her discovery leads Leigh to the Mojave desert and an ambitious new space agency. Drawn deeper into the agency's work, she learns that the Atlantic trench is only one of several related phenomena from across the world, each piece linking up to suggest a pattern beyond human understanding. Leigh knows that to continue working with the agency will mean leaving behind her declining mother and her younger sister, and faces an impossible choice: to remain with her family, or to embark on a journey across the breadth of the cosmos. Exploring the natural world with the wonder and reverence we usually reserve for the stars, In Ascension is a compassionate, deeply inquisitive epic that reaches outward to confront the greatest questions of existence, looks inward to illuminate the smallest details of the human heart, and shows how - no matter how far away we might be and how much we have lost hope - we will always attempt to return to the people and places we call home.

#247
Praiseworthy

Praiseworthy

by Alexis Wright
Amazon Bookshop

An astonishing and monumental masterpiece from the towering Australian writer Alexis Wright whose “words explode from the page” (The Monthly) WINNER OF THE 2024 MILES FRANKLIN AWARD WINNER OF THE 2024 STELLA PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2024 JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE WINNER OF THE 2023 QUEENSLAND AWARD FOR LITERARY FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD In a small town in the north of Australia, a mysterious haze cloud heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors. A visionary on his own holy quest, Cause Man Steel seeks the perfect platinum donkey to launch an Aboriginal-owned donkey transport industry, saving Country and the world from fossil fuels. His wife, Dance, seeking solace from his madness, studies butterflies and moths and dreams of repatriating her family to China. One of their sons, named Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to end it all by walking into the sea. Their other child, Tommyhawk, wants nothing more than to be adopted by Australia’s most powerful white woman. Praiseworthy is an epic masterpiece that bends time and reality—a cry of outrage against oppression, greed, and assimilation.

#261
Sonny Boy: A Memoir

Sonny Boy: A Memoir

by Al Pacino
Amazon Bookshop

The Instant New York Times Bestseller “The book is a beautiful trip.” (New York Times Magazine) • “Soulful . . . Feels like hanging out within a history of American movies over the last 50 years.” (Los Angeles Times) • “Startlingly cinematic ... A fine memoir.” (The Guardian) From one of the most iconic actors in the history of film, an astonishingly revelatory account of a creative life in full To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such force. But Pacino was in his midthirties by then, and had already lived several lives. A fixture of avant-garde theater in New York, he had led a bohemian existence, working odd jobs to support his craft. He was raised by a fiercely loving but mentally unwell mother and her parents after his father left them when he was young, but in a real sense he was raised by the streets of the South Bronx, and by the troop of buccaneering young friends he ran with, whose spirits never left him. After a teacher recognized his acting promise and pushed him toward New York’s fabled High School of Performing Arts, the die was cast. In good times and bad, in poverty and in wealth and in poverty again, through pain and joy, acting was his lifeline, its community his tribe. Sonny Boy is the memoir of a man who has nothing left to fear and nothing left to hide. All the great roles, the essential collaborations, and the important relationships are given their full due, as is the vexed marriage between creativity and commerce at the highest levels. The book’s golden thread, however, is the spirit of love and purpose. Love can fail you, and you can be defeated in your ambitions—the same lights that shine bright can also dim. But Al Pacino was lucky enough to fall deeply in love with a craft before he had the foggiest idea of any of its earthly rewards, and he never fell out of love. That has made all the difference.

#282
The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World

The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World

by William Dalrymple
Amazon Bookshop

The internationally bestselling author of The Anarchy returns with a sparkling, soaring history of ideas, tracing South Asia's under-recognized role in producing the world as we know it. For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilization, creating around it a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific. In The Golden Road, William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India's oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia. For the first time, he gives a name to this spread of Indian ideas that transformed the world. From the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero), India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world – and our world today as we know it.

#348
A Nasty Little War: The Western Intervention Into the Russian Civil War

A Nasty Little War: The Western Intervention Into the Russian Civil War

by Anna Reid
Amazon Bookshop

The first comprehensive history of the failed Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War, a decisive turning point in the relationship between Russia and the West Overlapping with and overshadowed by the First World War, the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War was one of the most ambitious military ventures of the twentieth century. Launched in the summer of 1918, it drew in 180,000 troops from fifteen different countries in theaters ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic, and from Poland to the Pacific. Though little remembered today, its consequences stoked global political turmoil for decades to come. In A Nasty Little War, top Russia historian Anna Reid offers a sweeping and deeply researched account of the conflict. Initially launched to prevent Germany from exploiting the power vacuum in Eastern Europe left by the Russian Revolution, the Intervention morphed into a bid to destroy the Bolsheviks on the battlefield. But Allied armaments, supplies, and loans could not prevent Russia's anti-Bolshevik armies from collapsing, and the Allies were forced to retreat in defeat. The humiliation sapped British imperial swagger, chastened American idealism, and stoked militarism and nationalism in France and Germany. Combining immersive storytelling with deep research, A Nasty Little War reveals how the Allied Intervention reshaped the West's relationship with Russia.

#367
Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour

Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour

by Nora Nguyen
Amazon Bookshop

A rollicking, unforgettable romance about two strangers finding love despite their best efforts as they embark on a sweeping matchmaking tour through Việt Nam, perfect for readers of Carley Fortune and Abby Jimenez. What’s a few weeks to a lifetime of promise? Evie Lang’s life is in shambles. On the heels of losing her beloved aunt, she's unceremoniously fired from her poetry professorship by her secret boyfriend. Lacking income and inspiration, she's stuck in Ohio with no idea how to move forward—until hope arrives in a surprising letter. Auntie Hảo left Evie the deed to her San Francisco row house, a place full of Evie’s happiest memories. The catch? To inherit, she must go on a pre-arranged matchmaking tour in Việt Nam. The last thing Evie wants is to spend time with a group of strangers looking for love. But she can't resist the chance to finally visit her family’s native home. A world away, Adam Quyền has a chip on his shoulder. He’s working around the clock as CMO for his sister’s elite matchmaking business, a job complicated by her insistence that he knows nothing about love. He’s desperate to prove himself, so when she challenges him to join the inaugural tour, he reluctantly agrees. Adam thinks Evie is chaotic and unpredictable. Evie thinks Adam is grumpy and uptight. But from the bustling streets of Hồ Chí Minh City to the soaring waterfalls in Đà Lạt, they keep getting thrown together, their animosity charged with attraction…and they discover that true love may be out there, if they are willing to take a leap. Two stubborn hearts, one whirlwind adventure, Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour is a story of how loving (and living) bravely can lead you to the most unexpected places—and the most imperfectly perfect loves.

#372
All My Precious Madness

All My Precious Madness

Amazon Bookshop

Henry Nash has hauled his way from a working class childhood in Bradford, through an undergraduate degree at Oxford, and into adulthood and an academic elite. But still, he can't escape his anger. As the world - and men in particular - continue to disappoint him, so does his rage grow in momentum until it becomes almost rapturous. And lethal. A savagely funny novel that disdains literary and moral conventions, All My Precious Madness is also a work of deep empathy even when that also means understanding the darkest parts of humanity. It is, as critic Stephen Mitchelmore says, the book for everyone who longs for 'an English Bernhard' - and to read one of the most electric debuts of the last decade.

#382
American Spirits

American Spirits

by Barb Rosenstock
Amazon Bookshop

CAN THE DEAD TALK TO THE LIVING? Discover the astonishingly true story of Maggie, Kate, and Leah Fox—the Civil War-era sisters and teen mediums who created the American séance. A real-life ghost story for young adult readers interested in the supernatural, American history, and women’s rights! Rap. Rap. Rap. The eerie sound was first heard in March of 1848 at the home of the Fox family in Hydesville, New York. The family’s two daughters, Kate and Maggie, soon discovered that they could communicate with the spirit that was making these uncanny noises; he told them he had been a traveling peddler who had been murdered. This strange incident, and the ones that followed, generated a media frenzy beyond anything the Fox sisters could have imagined. Kate and Maggie, managed (or perhaps manipulated) by their elder sister Leah, became famous spirit mediums, giving public exhibitions, and advising other celebrities of their day. But were the Fox sisters legitimate? In the years that followed their rise, the Civil War killed roughly 1 in 4 soldiers, increasing the demand for contacting the dead. However, media campaigns against the sisters gathered steam as well... This thrilling and mysterious true story from veteran author Barb Rosenstock (Caldecott Honor winner) will spark teens’ interest in American history, encourage media literacy, and reveal insights into the Civil War era, fake news, and women's rights.

#391
Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World

Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World

by Yepoka Yeebo
Amazon Bookshop

New Yorker Best Book of the Year "A fascinating story brilliantly told."--The Boston Globe * "A non-fiction masterpiece."--Philadelphia Inquirer The astounding, never-before-told story of how an audacious Ghanaian con artist pulled off one of the 20th century's longest-running and most spectacular frauds. When Ghana won its independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to snatch any assets that colonialism hadn't already stripped. A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation's inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country's gold overseas. Into this big lie stepped one of history's most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty in Ghana and trained in the United States, John Ackah Blay-Miezah declared himself custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions. You, too, could claim a piece--if only you would "invest" in Blay-Miezah's fictitious efforts to release the equally fictitious fund. Over the 1970s and '80s, he and his accomplices--including Ghanaian state officials and Nixon's former attorney general--scammed hundreds of millions of dollars out of thousands of believers. Blay-Miezah lived in luxury, deceiving Philadelphia lawyers, London financiers, and Seoul businessmen alike, all while eluding his FBI pursuers. American prosecutors called his scam "one of the most fascinating--and lucrative--in modern history." In Anansi's Gold, Yepoka Yeebo chases Blay-Miezah's ever-wilder trail and discovers, at long last, what really happened to Ghana's missing wealth. She unfolds a riveting account of Cold War entanglements, international finance, and postcolonial betrayal, revealing how what we call "history" writes itself into being, one lie at a time.

#451
Brooklyn Crime Novel

Brooklyn Crime Novel

by Jonathan Lethem
Amazon Bookshop

Named a Most Anticipated Book by: New York Times * Boston Globe * CrimeReadsFrom the bestselling and award-winning author of The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn comes a sweeping story of community, crime, and gentrification, tracing more than fifty years of life in one Brooklyn neighborhood."A blistering book. A love story. Social commentary. History. Protest novel. And mystery joins the whole together: is the crime 'time'? Or the almighty dollar? I got a great laugh from it too. Every city deserves a book like this." -- Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon and Let the Great World SpinOn the streets of 1970s Brooklyn, a daily ritual goes down: the dance. Money is exchanged, belongings surrendered, power asserted. The promise of violence lies everywhere, a currency itself. For these children, Black, brown, and white, the street is a stage in shadow. And in the wings hide the other players: parents; cops; renovators; landlords; those who write the headlines, the histories, and the laws; those who award this neighborhood its name.The rules appear obvious at first. But in memory's prism, criminals and victims may seem to trade places. The voices of the past may seem to rise and gather as if in harmony, then make war with one another. A street may seem to crack open and reveal what lies behind its glimmering facade. None who lived through it are ever permitted to forget.Written with kaleidoscopic verve and delirious wit, Brooklyn Crime Novel is a breathtaking tour de force by a writer at the top of his powers. Jonathan Lethem, "one of America's greatest storytellers" (Washington Post), has crafted an epic interrogation of how we fashion stories to contain the uncontainable: our remorse at the world we've made.

#456
Butter

Butter

by Asako Yuzuki
Amazon Bookshop

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer, and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in the Tokyo Detention House convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, whom she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination, but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew, and Kajii can’t resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a master class in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii, but it seems that Rika might be the one changing. Do she and Kajii have more in common than she once thought? Inspired by the real case of a convicted con woman and serial killer—the “Konkatsu Killer”—Asako Yuzuki’s Butter is a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance, and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.

#504
Death by a Thousand Cuts

Death by a Thousand Cuts

by Shashi Bhat
Amazon Bookshop

Longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize • One of Apple Canada’s Best Ebooks of 2024 • CBC Books' Top Pick for Most Anticipated Canadian Fiction for Spring 2024 A breathtaking and sharply funny collection about the everyday trials and impossible expectations that come with being a woman, from the Governor General’s Literary Award-shortlisted author of The Most Precious Substance on Earth. What would have happened if she’d met him at a different time in her life, when she was older, more confident, less lonely, and less afraid? She wonders not whether they would have stayed together, but whether she would have known to stay away. A writer discovers that her ex has published a novel about their breakup. An immunocompromised woman falls in love, only to have her body betray her. After her boyfriend makes an insensitive comment, a college student finds an experimental procedure that promises to turn her brown eyes blue. A Reddit post about a man’s habit of grabbing his girlfriend’s breasts prompts a shocking confession. An unsettling second date leads to the testing of boundaries. And when a woman begins to lose her hair, she embarks on an increasingly nightmarish search for answers. With honesty, tenderness, and a skewering wit, these stories boldly wrestle with rage, longing, illness, and bodily autonomy, and their inescapable impacts on a woman’s relationships with others and with herself.

#513
Dirrayawadha

Dirrayawadha

Amazon Bookshop

Dirrayawadha is full of heart and hope, truth-telling and history – and shimmers with language too' Guardian 'A story from the past given vivid life for new understanding’ Kate Grenville _______________________________________________ Bathurst, 1820s Miinaa was a young girl when the white ghosts first arrived. She remembers the day they raised a piece of cloth and renamed her homeland 'Bathurst'. Now she lives at Cloverdale and works for a white family who have settled there. The Nugents are kind, but Miinaa misses her miyagan. His brother, Windradyne, is a Wiradyuri leader, and visits when he can, bringing news of unrest across their ngurambang. Miinaa hopes the violence will not come to Cloverdale. When Irish convict Daniel O'Dwyer arrives at the settlement, Miinaa's life is transformed again. The pair are magnetically drawn to each other and begin meeting at the bila in secret. Dan understands how it feels to be displaced, but they still have a lot to learn about each other. Can their love survive their differences and the turmoil that threatens to destroy everything around them? From the bestselling author of Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) comes another groundbreaking historical novel about resistance, resilience and love during the frontier wars. Praise for Dirrayawadha (Rise Up): ‘Dirrayawadha is a story of the courage of the Wiradyuri nation and the love of their Country. Anita Heiss is a remarkable writer.' Tony Birch ‘To read the book is to enter a lost time, a retrieved war, and to learn much, not least Wiradyuri. With dhuluny (truth) and marrumbang (love) of story, Heiss makes something good. And that is something for which modern Australia can be grateful.’ The Age 'Historical in tone, yet absolutely contemporary in scope, Dirrayawadha is a beautiful triumph.' Mirandi Riwoe 'Dirrayawadha is a beautifully written and masterful telling of a pivotal point in our history.' Nicole Alexander

#521
Doppelganger

Doppelganger

Amazon Bookshop

#1 NATIONAL BESTELLER • Shortlisted for the 2024 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism • Shortlisted for the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize • A New York Times Notable Book • Vulture’s #1 Book of Year • A Guardian Best Ideas Book of the Year What if you woke up one morning and found you'd acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you'd devoted your life to fighting against? “If I had to name a single book that makes sense of these last few dark years, it would be this one.” ―Katie Roiphe, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) Not long ago, Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were similar enough to her own that many people confused her for the other. For a vertiginous moment, she lost her bearings. And then she got interested, in a reality that seems to be warping and doubling like a digital hall of mirrors. It’s happening in our politics as New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers find common cause with fire-breathing far right propagandists (all in the name of protecting “the children”). It’s happening in our culture as AI gobbles up music, paintings, fiction and everything in between and spits out imitations that threaten to overtake the originals. And it’s happening to many of us as individuals as we create digital doubles of ourselves, filtered and curated just so for all the other duplicates to see. An award-winning journalist, bestselling author, public intellectual and activist, Naomi Klein writes books that orient us in our time. She has offered essential accounts of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Now, as liberal democracies teeter on the edge, Klein takes aim at absurdist authoritarianism, using a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the doubles that haunt us. Part tragicomic memoir, part chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Doppelganger invites readers on a wild ride, smashing through the mirror world, charting a path beyond despair towards true solidarity.

#533
Enter Ghost

Enter Ghost

by Isabella Hammad
Amazon Bookshop

"Isabella Hammad is a master of subtle nuance." -- New York Times After years away from her family's homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. This is her first trip back since the second intifada and the deaths of their grandparents: while Haneen made a life here commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new. At Haneen's, Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, and finds herself roped into a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Sonia is soon rehearsing Gertude's lines in Classical Arabic and spending more time in Ramallah than Haifa, along with a dedicated group of men from all over historic Palestine who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, each want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many violent obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home. A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine, Enter Ghost is a story of diaspora, displacement, and the connection to be found in family and shared resistance. Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad's highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite feat, an unforgettable story of artistry under occupation.

#534
Erotic Vagrancy

Erotic Vagrancy

by Roger Lewis
Amazon Bookshop

Thirteen years in the writing, Erotic Vagrancy doesn't only surpass every other biography of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton yet to appear, this rich, vital and passionately articulated book, which is as extravagant and wayward as its two subjects, is also about celebrity, creativity, being flawed, being brilliant, sexuality, the intermingling of a low and a highbrow existence, pride, insecurity, attraction and repulsion, and devilry. We see Taylor the child actress exchanging dogs and horses for husbands. We see Burton emerging from the mists and brimstone of Wales to be the greatest theatrical animal of his generation. The pair come together in Rome during the making of Cleopatra, which gives Lewis the opportunity for a major farcical set-piece. We then enter a world of jewels and private jets, vodka, yachts and furs - the splendid vulgarity of the Sixties, where the narrative of Taylor and Burton becomes a Pop Art story. Then, inevitably, it all goes wrong, with alcoholism, violence, recrimination and divorce ( twice ) - with Burton, whom Lewis depicts as a Faustus figure, damned by fame, dead at fifty-eight. Stephen Fry has said, 'It is one of the very best biographies I have ever read. One of the best books about fame, desire, Hollywood and mid-to-late twentieth century culture ever written. Inside which, brilliant, hilarious and sensitive insights on all manner of subjects fizz and froth. Magnificent, terrible, tragic, triumphant.'

#539
Everybody Knows

Everybody Knows

by Jordan Harper
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In this "hardboiled mystery" (Maureen Corrigan) from an Edgar Award winning author, a fearless black-bag publicist exposes the belly of the L.A. beast. Welcome to Mae Pruett's Los Angeles, where "Nobody talks. But everybody whispers." As a "black-bag" publicist tasked not with letting the good news out but keeping the bad news in, Mae works for one of LA's most powerful and sought-after crisis PR firms, at the center of a sprawling web of lawyers, PR flaks, and private security firms she calls "The Beast." They protect the rich and powerful and depraved by any means necessary. After her boss is gunned down in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel in a random attack, Mae takes it upon herself to investigate and runs headfirst into The Beast's lawless machinations and the twisted systems it exists to perpetuate. It takes her on a roving neon joyride through a Los Angeles full of influencers pumped full of pills and fillers; sprawling mansions footsteps away from sprawling homeless encampments; crooked cops and mysterious wrecking crews in the middle of the night. Edgar Award-winner Jordan Harper's Everybody Knows is addicting and alarming, a "juggernaut of a novel" and "an absolute tour de force." It is what the crime novel can achieve in the modern age: portray the human lives at the center of vast American landscapes, and make us thrill at their attempts to face impossible odds. Recommended by New York Times Book Review - NPR/Fresh Air - Wall Street Journal - Washington Post - LA Times -CrimeReads- Alta Online - Lit Hub- Kirkus Reviews- Publishers Weekly- NBC/TODAY and many more! - An ABA January 2023 Indie Next List Pick - A NYTBR Editors' Choice Selection "The book everybody's been waiting for" --Michael Connelly "An absolute tour de force"--S. A. Cosby "The best mystery novel I've read in years" --James Patterson

#541
Everything and Nothing At All

Everything and Nothing At All

by Jenny Heijun Wills
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FINALIST FOR THE 2024 WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION • The Globe and Mail's Best Books of 2024 • CBC's Best Canadian Non-Fiction of 2024 "Here is my disconnect: the private and public self. My mind and body. The real person and curated spectacle. . . . Are there actual roots with which to fasten this performance to anything real?" As a transnational and transracial adoptee, Jenny Heijun Wills has spent her life navigating the fraught spaces of ethnicity and belonging. As a pan-polyam individual, she lives between types of family—adopted, biological, chosen—and "community"; heternormativity and queerness; commitment and a constellation of love. And as a parent with a lifelong eating disorder, who self-harms to cope with mental illness, her love language is to feed, but daily she wishes her body would disappear. These facets of Wills' being have served as the anchors she once clung to and the harsh parameters of what others now imagine she can be. Everything and Nothing At All weaves together a lifetime of literary criticism, cultural study, and a personal history into a staggering tapestry of knowledge. And though the experiences of accumulating this knowledge have often been shot through with pain, Wills spins these threads into priceless gold—a radical, fearless vision of kinship and family. Devastating, illuminating, and beautifully crafted, these essays breathe life into the ambiguities and excesses of Wills' self, transforming them into something more—something that could be everything.

#562
Fire Rush

Fire Rush

by Jacqueline Crooks
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FINALIST FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE Named a Most Anticipated Book by The Washington Post, Bustle, The Millions, and The Chicago Review of Books "[A] powerful debut." --The Washington Post "An exceptional and stunningly original novel by a major new writer." --Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, Other Set amid the Jamaican diaspora in London at the dawn of 1980s, a mesmerizing story of love, loss, and self-discovery that vibrates with the liberating power of music Yamaye lives for the weekend, when she goes raving with her friends, the "Tombstone Estate gyals," at The Crypt, an underground dub reggae club in their industrial town on the outskirts of London. Raised by her distant father after her mother's disappearance when she was a girl, Yamaye craves the oblivion of sound - a chance to escape into the rhythms of those smoke-filled nights, to discover who she really is in the dance-hall darkness. When Yamaye meets Moose, a soulful carpenter who shares her Jamaican heritage, a path toward a different kind of future seems to open. But then, Babylon rushes in. In a devastating cascade of violence that pits state power against her loved ones and her community, Yamaye loses everything. Friendless and adrift, she embarks on a dramatic journey of transformation that takes her to the Bristol underworld and, finally, to Jamaica, where past and present collide with explosive consequences. The unforgettable story of one young woman's search for home, animated by a ferocity of vision, electrifying music, and the Jamaican spiritual imagination, Fire Rush is a blazing achievement from a brilliant voice in contemporary fiction.

#579
Gaslight

Gaslight

by Femi Kayode
Amazon Bookshop

In this follow-up to Kayode's "action-packed and spirited debut" Philip Taiwo returns to solve a missing-persons case, and in so doing, uncovers dark secrets the church has worked tirelessly to hide (Oyinkan Braithwaite, author of My Sister, the Serial Killer). A shadow has fallen over the megachurch in Ogun State, Nigeria: the beloved Bishop Dawodu has been arrested for the murder of his wife. Sade Dawodu has vanished without a trace and although no body has been found, the police have acted based on what they claim is damning evidence. Philip Taiwo, hot off the success of solving the Okriki Three case, is brought on to investigate. He quickly learns that Sade, young, impulsive, and outspoken, is no favorite of the congregants. She has also been known to disappear for long stretches of time. As Taiwo and his trusted associate, Chika plunge into the investigation, they unearth secrets that go beyond the missing persons case, ones that if leaked, threaten to shatter not only the Bishop, but the church itself. Taiwo quickly begins to feel like a hired gun, put up to the task with the express purpose to clear the bishop's name rather than find the naked truth. As Taiwo strives to crack the vast conspiracy he's up against, he's tugged away by the demands of family life, and derailed by systemic challenges: in Nigeria, cash is king, there are no viable databases, and records are sparse. Through his eyes, we're treated to religion's cult-like grip, the ways in which the state is in bed with the church, and the difference between police corruption in Nigeria and America, where Philip has been living for over two decades. In turns high-octane, dark and political, but always emotionally stirring, this highly-anticipated follow-up to LIGHTSEEKERS has the bones of a classic mystery with a fresh, global tilt.

#591
Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind

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This is the tale of Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled, light-minded, flirtatious daughter of a wealthy plantation owner in the South, who arrives at young womanhood just in time to see the Civil War forever change her life. In spite of a huge popularity around men, she only loves Ashley Wilkes. But one day she meets the daring and rude, handsome and charming Captain Butler. Scarlett does not like him at first sight, as he is arrogant and disparaging against her. Whilst Butler falls in love with Scarlett at first sight. – Since its original publication in 1936, Gone with the Wind – winner of the Pulitzer Prize and one of the bestselling novels of all time – has been heralded by readers everywhere as ›The Great American Novel‹.

#605
Hard By The Cloud House

Hard By The Cloud House

by Peter Walker
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The legend of Te Hokioi, the extinct giant eagle of New Zealand, leads Peter Walker from a Canterbury sheep run to the Rare Books Room of the British Library and to &‘ sacred' Raiatea in Polynesia, as he uncovers the story of the predator which once ruled over the Southern Alps.Was this bird, whose existence was confirmed by scientists only in 2009, the Rukh of Arab legends? Does that mean that medieval Islamic mariners were once blown far into the Pacific, saw the great raptor and made it back home to tell the tale?From the calamitous encounter of South Island Maori with colonisation to the glories of tenth-century Baghdad, Hard by the Cloud House is a heady mix of history, memoir, science and mythology.

#608
Hazzard and Harrower: the letters

Hazzard and Harrower: the letters

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Shirley Hazzard and Elizabeth Harrower met in person for the first time in London in 1972, six years after they began a correspondence that would span four decades. They exchanged letters, cards and telegrams, and made occasional phone calls between Harrower’s home in Sydney and Hazzard’s apartments in New York, Naples and Capri. The two women wrote to each other of their daily lives, of impediments to writing, their reading, politics and world affairs, and in Hazzard’s case, her travels. And they wrote about Hazzard’s mother, for whose care Harrower took increasing — and increasingly reluctant — responsibility from the early 1970s (precisely the period when she herself virtually stopped writing). Edited by Brigitta Olubas, Hazzard’s official biographer, and Susan Wyndham, who interviewed both Hazzard and Harrower, this is an extraordinary account of two literary luminaries, their complex relationship and their times. ‘Hazzard and Harrower is a book to keep close and return to often.’ — Michelle de Kretser ‘Vital, compelling, terrifying, revelatory — and a literary pleasure in its own right.’ — Anna Funder ‘Beautiful, wise and unflinching. Will we ever have a chance like this again to eavesdrop on two great writers as they talk books, people and the world for forty years?’ — David Marr ‘An engrossing portrayal of forty years of complicated friendship between two writers, only one of whom has the steel — or is it the ruthlessness? — to put her art before everything else.’ — Charlotte Wood ‘I read these letters with mounting excitement. There is a righteous delight in seeing female talent reclaimed: two great Australian writers finally treated with the care and rigour they deserve.’ — Diana Reid

#619
Hi, It’s Me

Hi, It’s Me

by Fawn Parker
Amazon Bookshop

Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Finalist • Globe and Mail Top 100 Best Books of 2024 • One of Indigo’s Most Anticipated Canadian Books • One of the CBC’s Canadian Fiction Books to Read in Fall 2024 • Governor General's literary Award for Fiction, Finalist Women Talking meets Study for Obedience in this stunning depiction of fresh grief by Fawn Parker, the Giller Prize–longlisted author of What We Both Know. Shortly after her mother’s death, Fawn arrives at the farmhouse. While there, she will stay in her mother’s bedroom in the house that is also occupied by four other women who live by an unusual set of beliefs. Wrestling with longstanding compulsive and harmful behaviours, as well as severe self-doubt, Fawn is confronted with the reality of her mother’s death. It is her responsibility to catalogue the furniture and possessions in the room, then sell or dispose of them. Instead, Fawn becomes fixated on archiving her mother’s writing and documents, searching for signs, and drawing tenuous connections to help her understand more about the enigmatic woman in the pages. I am surrounded by mocking evidence of her inhabitancy of this room. Quickly, it is expiring. Today she was alive. When the day runs out that will no longer be true. Tomorrow I will be able to say that yesterday she was alive, at least. The next day, nothing. She will just be dead. The fact seems to be at its smallest now, growing with time. For now she is many things, and there are many places left to find her. In Hi, It’s Me, Fawn Parker is unafraid to explore the bewildering relationship between the living and the dead. Strikingly original, provocative, and engrossing Hi, It’s Me takes us into the furthest corners of grief, invoking the physicality and painful embodiment of terminal illness with astonishing precision and emotional force. This mesmerizing, devastating novel asks: Why must it be this way?

#659
Impossible Creatures

Impossible Creatures

by Katherine Rundell
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A boy called Christopher is visiting his reclusive grandfather when he witnesses an avalanche of mythical creatures come tearing down the hill. This is how Christopher learns that his grandfather is the guardian of one of the ways between the non-magical world and a place called the Archipelago, a cluster of magical islands where all the creatures we tell of in myth live and breed and thrive alongside humans. They have been protected from being discovered for thousands of years; now, terrifyingly, the protection has worn thin, and creatures are breaking through.

#688
Kick the Latch

Kick the Latch

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About one woman’s fine, hard life at the racetrack, Kick the Latch–with its ruthless concision and artful mysteries–is lightning in a bottle Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch vividly captures the arc of one woman’s life at the racetrack—the flat land and ramshackle backstretch; the bad feelings and friction; the winner’s circle and the racetrack bar; the fancy suits and fancy boots; and the “particular language” of “grooms, jockeys, trainers, racing secretaries, stewards, pony people, hotwalkers, everybody”—with economy and integrity. Based on transcribed interviews with Sonia, a horse trainer, the novel investigates form and authenticity in a feat of synthesis reminiscent of Charles Reznikoff’s Testimony. As Scanlan puts it, “I wanted to preserve—amplify, exaggerate—Sonia’s idiosyncratic speech, her bluntness, her flair as a storyteller. I arrived at what you could call a composite portrait of a self.” Whittled down with a fiercely singular artistry, Kick the Latch bangs out of the starting gate and carries the reader on a careening joyride around the inside track.

#698
Let’s Dance

Let’s Dance

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For David Bowie fans young and old comes a very special picture book celebrating dancing and being joyful while paying homage to an iconic musical figure. "Let's dance. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues..." Embrace the spirit and mood of iconic musician David Bowie in this must-have book for any Bowie fan, especially those wanting to introduce a new generation to a favorite musical artist. Lightly adapting the lyrics to "Let's Dance" for a younger audience, kids and parents will soon be tapping their shoes to this lively book with bright, fun, whimsical artwork.

#757
Moderate to Poor

Moderate to Poor

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE A Granta Best Young British Novelist 'A thrilling love for the stuff of language ... Magical' JON McGREGOR ‘Poignant and playful’ DAILY MAIL ‘A writer with few real rivals’ IRISH TIMES 'A visionary writer' JAN CARSON

#762
Moon of the Turning Leaves (Moon, #2)

Moon of the Turning Leaves (Moon, #2)

by Waubgeshig Rice
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In this gripping stand-alone literary thriller set in the world of the award-winning post-apocalyptic novel Moon of the Crusted Snow, a scouting party led by Evan Whitesky ventures into unknown and dangerous territory to find a new home for their close-knit Northern Ontario Indigenous community more than a decade after a world-ending blackout.For the past twelve years, a community of Anishinaabe people have made the Northern Ontario bush their home in the wake of the power failure that brought about societal collapse. Since then they have survived and thrived the way their ancestors once did, but their natural food resources are dwindling, and the time has come to find a new home.Evan Whitesky volunteers to lead a mission south to explore the possibility of moving back to their original homeland, the "land where the birch trees grow by the big water" in the Great Lakes region. Accompanied by five others, including his daughter Nangohns, an expert archer, Evan begins a journey that will take him to where the Anishinaabe were once settled, near the devastated city of Gibson, a land now being reclaimed by nature.But it isn't just the wilderness that poses a threat: they encounter other survivors. Those who, like the Anishinaabe, live in harmony with the land, and those who use violence.

#765
Mouth

Mouth

by Joshua Hull
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About MOUTH: Screenwriter Joshua Hull (Glorious) makes his longform prose debut! After a stranger leaves him a secluded property, drifter Rusty finds himself the caretaker of a massive, tooth-filled mouth in the ground…and it’s hungry. His situation is complicated by Abigail, a wannabe filmmaker who stumbles on the secret. Together, the odd pair set out to discover the origins of Mouth and the hidden history of its former owner, setting in motion an outlandish scheme that could endanger them all. Cover art by Halil Karasu. Interior illustrations by Kristofor Harris. "The definitive modern day grotto grotesquerie, mincing Herschell Gordon Lewis with Hunter S. Thompson into an amuse-bouche of a novella. You'll eat this up." Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters “One of the wildest and strangest stories I’ve read in years. Harrowing, unpredictable, and breathtakingly cinematic, MOUTH is a delicious macabre gem.” Jonathan Janz, author of Marla and Children of the Dark “A fun yet beautifully haunting piece with layers of darkness and light.” Michael J. Seidlinger, author of Anybody Home? . “Absolutely disturbing and hilariously funny. This is Joshua Hull at his finest. A must for lovers of surreal and weird horror." Rebekah McKendry, director of Glorious

#788
New Stories

New Stories

by Owen Marshall
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So much is chance, don’t you think?’ Accidental meetings, unexpected turns in the road, job offers that take you into new territories: our lives seem arbitrary and unpredictable, as if at the whim of the god of fortune. In this latest, stunning collection of short stories by acclaimed writer Owen Marshall, people teeter on the brink of experience. From murder to an affair, to a promotion or a breakdown, the array of vivid characters aren’t always aware of what they encounter, not sure whether they are being given an opportunity, a challenge, a temptation, a lesson, or just another day to get through. Meanwhile, feelings of fear, lust, curiosity and frustration simmer beneath the surface. Will the people grasp what life throws at them? ‘What are the chances, aye? One in a million or more, like being struck by lightning or having a satellite fall on you, yet it has to happen to someone.’

#818
Our Crumbling Foundation

Our Crumbling Foundation

by Gregor Craigie
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICY A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK An urgent and illuminating examination of the unrelenting housing crisis Canadians find ourselves facing, by Balsillie Prize finalist and CBC Radio host Gregor Craigie, Our Crumbling Foundation offers real-life solutions from around the world and hope for new housing innovation in the face of seemingly impossible obstacles. Canada is experiencing a housing shortage. Although house prices in major Canadian cities appeared to have topped out, new housing isn’t coming onto the market quickly enough. Higher interest rates have only tightened the pressure on buyers, and renters, too, as rising mortgage rates cost landlords more, which are passed along to tenants in rent increases. Even with recent federal budget commitments to bring more housing online by 2030, there will still be a shortfall of 3.5 million homes by then. Gregor Craigie is a CBC journalist in Victoria, one of the highest-priced housing markets in the country. On his daily radio show On The Island he's been talking for over 17 years to local experts and to those across the country about housing. Craigie has travelled to many of the places he profiles in the book, and in his interviews with Canadians he presents the human face of the shortfall as he speaks with renters, owners and homeless people, exploring their varying predicaments and perspectives. He then shows, through comparable profiles of people across the globe, how other North American and international jurisdictions (Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Helsinki, Singapore, Ireland, to name a few) are housing their citizens better, faster and with determination—solutions that could be put into practice here. With passion, knowledge and vigour, Craigie explains how Canada reached this critical impasse and will convince those who may not yet recognize how badly our entire country is in need of change. Our Crumbling Foundation provides hope for finding our way out of the crisis by recommending a number of approaches at all levels of government. The prescription for how we’re going to house ourselves, and do so equitably, requires not just a business solution, nor simply a social solution, but rather a combination of both, working hand-in-hand with all levels of government, and quickly, in order to catch up with and outpace the needs of Canadians in this ever-intensifying crisis over a basic human right.

#821
Out of the Darkness

Out of the Darkness

by Frank Trentmann
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A gripping and nuanced history of the German people from World War II to the war in Ukraine, including revealing new primary source material on Germany's transformation In 1945, Germany lay in ruins, morally and materially. Its citizens stood condemned by history, responsible for a horrifying genocide and war of extermination. But by the end of Angela Merkel's tenure as chancellor in 2021, Germany looked like the moral voice of Europe, welcoming more than one million refugees, holding together the tenuous threads of the European Union, and making military restraint the center of its foreign policy. At the same time, Germany's rigid fiscal discipline and energy deals with Vladimir Putin have cast a shadow over the present. Innumerable scholars have asked how Germany could have degenerated from a nation of scientists, poets, and philosophers into one responsible for genocide. This book raises another vital question: How did a nation whose past has been marked by mass murder, a people who cheered Adolf Hitler, reinvent themselves, and how much? Trentmann tells this dramatic story of the German people from the middle of World War II through the Cold War and the division into East and West to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the struggle to find a place in the world today. This journey is marked by a series of extraordinary moral conflicts: admissions of guilt and shame vying with immediate economic concerns; restitution for some but not others; tolerance versus racism; compassion versus complicity. Through a range of voices--German soldiers and German Jews; displaced persons in limbo; East German women and shopkeepers angry about energy shortages; opponents and supporters of nuclear power; volunteers helping migrants and refugees, and right-wing populists attacking them--Trentmann paints a remarkable and surprising portrait spanning eighty years of the conflicted people at the center of Europe, showing how the Germans became who they are today.

#843
Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking

Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking

Amazon Bookshop

SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2024 'Tender and merciless . . . a hallucinatory window into what it means to excavate the past in a world committed to its erasure' ABIGAIL SHINN, Goldsmiths Prize Judge 'Kaleidoscopic and beguiling . . . A singular and thrilling debut that shows what happens when objective truth and meaning are drowned in the shifting river of history and politics' ANDREW McMILLAN 'A novel full of hopeful glitter - and one I know I will return to' A K BLAKEMORE, Guardian 'Insightful, affecting and assured . . . Written with a poetry as defamiliarising as it is rich' OISÍN FAGAN 'Strange, intriguing, exhilarating' CAMILLA GRUDOVA The almost daughter is almost normal, because she knows how to know and also not know. She knows and does not know, for instance, about the barracks by the athletics field, and about the lonely woman she visits each week. She knows - almost - about ghosts, and their ghosts, and she knows not to have questions about them. She knows to focus on being a woman: on training her body and dreaming only of escape. Then, the almost daughter meets Oksana. Oksana is not even almost normal, and the questions she has are not normal at all. Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking is the story of a young woman coming of age in a town reckoning with its brutal past, for readers of Milkman and A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing.

#847
Pretty Ugly

Pretty Ugly

by David Sedaris, illustrated by Ian Falconer
Amazon Bookshop

Contradictions (both real and apparent), oppositions, enigmas, provocations, challenges——this is the kind of material that makes a life, and is the kind of material that, in fiction, one is never quite sure of. With Pretty Ugly, Kirsty Gunn reminds us again that she is a master of just such stuff, presenting ambiguity and complication as the essence of the storyteller's endeavour. The sheer force of life that Gunn is able to load these stories up with is both testament to her unrivalled skill and an exercise in what she describes as 'reading and writing ugly', in order to pursue the deeper truths that lie at the heart of both the human imagination and human rationality. So here we have all the strange and seemingly impossible dualities that make up real life——and pretty ugly it can be, as well as beautiful, hopeful, bleak, difficult, exhilarating. But never, ever dull.

#850
Q&A

Q&A

by Adrian Tomine
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Everything you wanted to know about storytelling or Adrian Tomine but were too afraid to ask “That would’ve been too easy and spontaneous for me, and I had to find a way to make everything more complicated.” And yet for over thirty years, bestselling author, screenwriter, and New Yorker cover artist Adrian Tomine’s work has set the standard for contemporary storytelling. With Tomine, his readership has grown from the dedicated following of his comic-book series Optic Nerve to include a wider but still engaged, opinionated, and ever-inquiring public. And now, for the first time in print, Tomine responds to his readers directly, tackling their questions and comments with generosity, humor, and vulnerability. Q&A is one part personal history, one part masterclass in crafting quality entertainment. With questions pulled from his time at the Substack Writers’ Residency, and with additional, new material, Q&A is an indispensable addition to the collections of eagle-eyed fans and aspiring artists, writers, and cartoonists alike. Tomine answers questions about his preferred tools, his creative process, the ups and downs of adaptation, and perhaps most importantly—how to pronounce his last name. Illustrated with drafts, outtakes, and photos from the artist’s personal collection, this rare peek into the mind of a contemporary cartooning giant lays out the method to his meticulous brand of madness. The artist looks back on his career in response to queries from his—maybe adoring but mostly curious—public with his signature dry wit and unflinching, self-deprecating honesty.

#859
Rare Flavours

Rare Flavours

by Ram V
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Discover the tantalizing tale of Rubin Baksh, a demonic Rakshasa with a down-to-earth dream of being the next Anthony Bourdain. To achieve his vision, Rubin enlists Mo, a filmmaker who has seen better days, to document the world-renowned cuisine of India and the people behind such glorious food. But little does Mo know that there's more to Rubin than meets the eye, and the mortals play a darker role in the show than they were prepared for... Entice your palate and feast on the follow up offering from the Eisner, Harvey, and Ringo Award-nominated The Many Deaths of Laila Starr team of Ram V (Detective Comics, Blue In Green) and Filipe Andrade (Fantastic Four, Star) with this acclaimed masterpiece, collected into a single deluxe hardcover edition. Collects Rare Flavours issues #1-6.

#862
real ones: a novel

real ones: a novel

by Katherena Vermette
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*LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE* *FINALIST FOR THE 2025 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD* From the author of the nationally bestselling Strangers saga comes a heartrending story of two Michif sisters who must face their past trauma when their mother is called out for false claims to Indigenous identity. June and her sister, lyn, are NDNs—real ones. Lyn has her pottery artwork, her precocious kid, Willow, and the uncertain terrain of her midlife to keep her mind, heart and hands busy. June, a Métis Studies professor, yearns to uproot from Vancouver and move. With her loving partner, Sigh, and their faithful pup, June decides to buy a house in the last place on earth she imagined she’d end up: back home in Winnipeg with her family. But then into lyn and June’s busy lives a bomb drops: their estranged and very white mother, Renee, is called out as a “pretendian.” Under the name (get this) Raven Bearclaw, Renee had topped the charts in the Canadian art world for winning awards and recognition for her Indigenous-style work. The news is quickly picked up by the media and sparks an enraged online backlash. As the sisters are pulled into the painful tangle of lies their mother has told and the hurt she has caused, searing memories from their unresolved childhood trauma, which still manages to spill into their well curated adult worlds, come rippling to the surface. In prose so powerful it could strike a match, real ones is written with the same signature wit and heart on display in The Break, The Strangers and The Circle. An energetic, probing and ultimately hopeful story, real ones pays homage to the long-fought, hard-won battles of Michif (Métis) people to regain ownership of their identity and the right to say who is and isn’t Métis.

#864
Reconciling History: A Story of Canada

Reconciling History: A Story of Canada

by Jody Wilson-raybould
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One of Indigo's Top 10 History Books of 2024 and Top 100 Books of 2024 • One of the Toronto Star’s 25 books to read this season From the #1 national bestselling author of 'Indian' in the Cabinet and True Reconciliation, a truly unique history of our land—powerful, devastating, remarkable—as told through the voices of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The totem pole forms the foundation for this unique and important oral history of Canada. Its goal is both toweringly ambitious and beautifully direct: To tell the story of this country in a way that prompts readers to look from different angles, to see its dimensions, its curves, and its cuts. To see that history has an arc, just as the totem pole rises, but to realize that it is also in the details along the way that important meanings are to be found. To recognize that the story of the past is always there to be retold and recast, and must be conveyed to generations to come. That in the act of re-telling, meaning is found, and strength is built. When it comes to telling the history of Canada, and in particular the history of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, we need to accept that the way in which our history has traditionally been told has not been a common or shared enterprise. In many ways, it has been an exclusive and siloed one. Among the countless peoples and groups that make up this vast country, the voices and experiences of a few have too often dominated those of many others. Reconciling History shares voices that have seldom been heard, and in this ground-breaking book they are telling and re-telling history from their perspectives. Born out of the oral history in True Reconciliation, and complemented throughout with stunning photography and art, Reconciling History takes this approach to telling our collective story to an entirely different level.

#892
Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century

Shadows at Noon: The South Asian Twentieth Century

by Joya Chatterji
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A groundbreaking view of South Asian history in the twentieth century that underlines the similarities and intertwined cultures of India and Pakistan "[A] definitive new 20th-century thematic history of the Indian subcontinent that rejects hegemonic conceptions of national 'difference.'"--Financial Times This radically original and ambitious history of the Indian subcontinent explores the region's unique twentieth-century history and foregrounds the deep connections, rather than the well-publicized fissures, between the cultures of India and Pakistan. Taking the partitions of British India rather than the two world wars as the century's inflection points, Joya Chatterji examines how issues of nationalism, internal and external migration, and technological innovation contributed to South Asia's tumultuous twentieth century. Chatterji weaves together elements of her autobiography and family history; stories of such legendary figures as Tagore, Jinnah, Gandhi, and Nehru; and, in particular, the accounts of the many who were left behind and marginalized in relentless nation-building projects. Chatterji examines the countries' mirroring patterns in state building, social and cultural life, modes of leisure, consumption, and oppression, and offers a timely course correction to our understanding of the dynamics of South Asian history. It reframes the events of the twentieth century that are continuing to play out in the present day.

#907
Sketchy, Vol. 1

Sketchy, Vol. 1

by Makihirochi
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As her twenties slip by, Ako feels like she's falling behind. But a group of skateboarding girls will bring a newfound passion into her life in this reflective, relatable josei manga from the creator of Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live? Ako finds herself coasting along, watching her twenties pass her by. Work at the video rental store, see her boyfriend, repeat... Her days are becoming an indistinguishable, listless blur. Until she encounters a skateboarder practicing a trick--and she's a girl! For some reason, Ako feels a pull toward the sport. Slowly, all the dreams and ambitions she gave up on and the futures she imagined for herself come flooding back, and Ako resolves to change herself now, before it's too late. But is it ever really too late to discover something new? From the creator of the digital fan favorite Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live? comes a portrait of young adulthood that will attract fans of Inio Asano, Akiko Higashimura, and Taiyo Matsumoto.

#914
Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1945-1959

Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1945-1959

by Peter Parker
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**A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR** Quite simply, this book is a work of genius - Matthew Parris, The Spectator An essential study of post-war gay London life... one of the best anthologies I have ever read - John Self, The Observer With it’s wide-ranging selection, generous biographical notes and provocative bibliography, Some Men in London is a serious and important contribution to our understanding of Britain up to today - Fiona Sampson, The Tablet An absolutely extraordinary book ... about actually what life was like for homosexual men in London in the 1940s and the 1950s... It’s amazing - Dominic Sandbrook The first part of a major new anthology which uncovers the rich reality of life for queer men in London In the 1940s, it was believed that homosexuality had been becoming more widespread in the aftermath of war. A moral panic ensued, centred around London as the place to which gay men gravitated. In a major new anthology, Peter Parker explores what it was actually like for queer men in London in this period, whether they were well-known figures such as John Gielgud, ‘Chips’ Channon and E.M. Forster, or living lives of quiet – or occasionally rowdy – anonymity in pubs, clubs, more public places of assignation, or at home. It is rich with letters, diaries, psychological textbooks, novels, films, plays and police records, covering a wide range of viewpoints, from those who deplored homosexuality to those who campaigned for its decriminalisation. This first volume, from 1945 to 1959, details a community forced to live at constant risk of blackmail or prison. Yet it also shows a thriving and joyous subculture, one that enriched a mainstream culture often ignorant of its debt to gay creators. Some Men In London is a testament to queer life, which was always much more complex than newspapers, governments and the Metropolitan Police Force imagined.

#922
Spoilt Creatures

Spoilt Creatures

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An Observer top ten best new novelist for 2024 'Emma Cline's The Girls meets Lord of the Flies . . . compelling, cultish and utterly feral' ALICE SLATER, author of Death of a Bookseller' A simmering debut, heady with the righteousness of female rage' KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE, author of The Mercies 'Lush and dreamlike - a sweltering novel, where the sunlight pulses with nightmarish dread' COLIN WALSH, author of Kala 'A modern-day Dionysian cult of women in the woods - haunting and exhilarating' JENNIFER SAINT, author of Ariadne THEY THOUGHT THEY KNEW EVERYTHING ABOUT US. THE KIND OF WOMEN WE WERE. Iris seeks a different kind of life. Promise comes in the form of Hazel, who lives at Breach House - a women's commune on a remote farm. At Breach House, the women live and eat in abundance, are guided by landscape and ritual, all while under the leadership of their gargantuan matriarch, Blythe. But is Breach House truly the haven it seems? When an unforgivable transgression comes to light and power struggles intensify, the women find themselves hurtling towards an act of devastating violence that will threaten everything they've fought to create. ⭐ What readers are saying: ⭐ 'I could not recommend this more if I tried... A powerful, remarkable debut novel filled with sublime prose, a warm quiet queerness, and a feral female rage' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'Simply breathtaking, this book was unstoppable' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'When I tell you I absolutely devoured this book, I mean it. She's sapphic, she's feral, and she's very difficult to put down' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 'The poetry of Twigg's words...I wanted to swallow them whole and have them sit in me forever. They were just so good' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

#933
Stranger

Stranger

by Emily Hunt
Amazon Bookshop

Acclaimed Poet Emily Hunt's Highly Anticipated Second Collection of Poems STRANGER, Emily Hunt's long-awaited follow-up to her acclaimed debut collection of poems, intimately chronicles the effects of love, labor, and grief on the life and sensibility of an artist. These poems shed a shifting light on the peculiar textures of our era. Hunt treads with concision, vigor, and excitement, addressing directly lived experiences--from the mundane to the profound. Whether it's her curious interactions with dating apps, 19th century political speeches, dizzying corporate communication, or emails from her schizophrenic brother, the exact details and use of language in these poems become almost elemental, making an urgent record of the present. STRANGER blurs the boundary between life and art--"The things that happened / bled into the language we exchanged."--with the crystalline touch and nuance of a truly gifted writer.

#980
The Bridegroom Was a Dog

The Bridegroom Was a Dog

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A schoolteacher tells her class a fable about a princess who promises her hand in marriage to a dog that has licked her bottom clean. Strangely, a doglike suitor then appears to court the teacher. Much to the chagrin of her friends, an odd romance ensues - simmering with secrets, chivalry, and sex.

#983
The Brush

The Brush

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The Way of the Brush: Painting Techniques of China and Japan examines the technique, style, traditions, and methods of Chinese ink painting and how they were interpreted in Japanese art. Illustrated with over 250 images and packed with instructions, The Way of the Brush covers every aspect of brush painting, from brushstrokes, composition and the painting surface to meaning, perspective and artistic philosophy. Part One is a study of the techniques of Chinese painting and explains the elements, techniques and principles which eventually carried over into Japanese painting. Part Two is devoted to technical challenges and basic problems associated with the art, including the issue of fakes and forgeries of Chinese art in Japan. Also included are three appendices and a full bibliography.

#985
The C.I.A.

The C.I.A.

by Hugh Wilford
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In this “superb” (Kathryn Olmsted) new history of American intelligence, a celebrated historian uncovers how the CIA became the foremost defender of America’s covert global empire As World War II ended, the United States stood as the dominant power on the world stage. In 1947, to support its new global status, it created the CIA to analyze foreign intelligence. But within a few years, the Agency was engaged in other operations: bolstering pro-American governments, overthrowing nationalist leaders, and surveilling anti-imperial dissenters at home. The Cold War was an obvious reason for this transformation—but not the only one. In The CIA, celebrated intelligence historian Hugh Wilford draws on decades of research to show the Agency as part of a larger picture, the history of Western empire. While young CIA officers imagined themselves as British imperial agents like T. E. Lawrence, successive US presidents used the covert powers of the Agency to hide overseas interventions from postcolonial foreigners and anti-imperial Americans alike. Even the CIA’s post-9/11 global hunt for terrorists was haunted by the ghosts of empires past. Comprehensive, original, and gripping, The CIA is the story of the birth of a new imperial order in the shadows. It offers the most complete account yet of how America adopted unaccountable power and secrecy abroad and at home.

#994
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma

The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma

by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - An urgent warning of the unprecedented risks that AI and other fast-developing technologies pose to global order, and how we might contain them while we have the chance--from a co-founder of the pioneering artificial intelligence company DeepMind "A fascinating, well-written, and important book."--Yuval Noah Harari "Essential reading."--Daniel Kahneman "An excellent guide for navigating unprecedented times."--Bill Gates Named One of the Best Books of the Year by the Inc. Non-Obvious Book Awards - Finalist for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award We are approaching a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change. Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy. None of us are prepared. As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies. In The Coming Wave, Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side, the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other. Can we forge a narrow path between catastrophe and dystopia? This groundbreaking book from the ultimate AI insider establishes "the containment problem"--the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies--as the essential challenge of our age.

#997
The Cracked Mirror

The Cracked Mirror

by Chris Brookmyre
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FORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW THIS IS NOT THAT CRIME NOVEL You know Penny Coyne. The little old lady who has solved multiple murders in her otherwise sleepy village, despite bumbling local police. A razor-sharp mind in a twinset and tweed. You know Johnny Hawke. Hard-bitten LAPD homicide detective. Always in trouble with his captain, always losing partners, but always battling for the truth, whatever it takes. Against all the odds, against the usual story, their worlds are about to collide. It starts with a dead writer and a mysterious wedding invitation. It will end with a rabbit hole that goes so deep, Johnny and Penny might come to question not just whodunnit, but whether they want to know the answer. A cross-genre hybrid of Agatha Christie and Michael Connelly, The Cracked Mirror is the most imaginative and entertaining crime novel of the year, a genre-splicing rollercoaster with a poignantly emotional heart.

#1001
The Cure for Drowning

The Cure for Drowning

by Loghan Paylor
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LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE Evocative, magical and luminously written, The Cure for Drowning is not only a brilliant, boundary-pushing love story but a Canadian historical novel that boldly centres queer and non-binary characters in unprecedented ways. Born Kathleen to an immigrant Irish farming family in southern Ontario, Kit McNair has been a troublesome changeling since, at ten, they fell through the river ice and drowned—only to be nursed back to life by their mother's Celtic magic. A daredevil in boy's clothes, Kit chafes at every aspect of a farmgirl's life, driving that same mother to distraction with worry about where Kit will ever fit in. When Rebekah Kromer, an elegant German-Canadian doctor's daughter, moves to town with her parents in April 1939, Rebekah has no doubt as to who 19-year-old Kit is. Soon she and Kit, and Kit's older brother, Landon, are drawn tight in a love triangle that will tear them and their families apart, and send each of them off on a separate path to war. Landon signs up for the Navy. Kit, now known as Christopher, joins the Royal Air Force, becoming a bomber navigator relied on for his luck and courage. Rebekah serves with naval intelligence in Halifax, until one more collision with Landon changes the course of her life and draws her back to the McNair farm—a place where she'd once known love. Fallen on even harder times, the McNairs welcome all the help she is able to give, and she believes she has found peace at last. Until, with the war over, Kit and Landon return home. Told in the vivid, unforgettable voices of Kit and Rebekah, The Cure for Drowning is a powerfully engrossing novel that imagines a history that is truer than true.

#1004
The Distaste of the Earth

The Distaste of the Earth

by Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih
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The Distaste of the Earth imaginatively weaves an ancient world of Khasi kings and queens, warriors and plunderers, and chronicles the sorrows of a young man caught up in that world. This layered fictional history of a land where a queen falls in love with a pauper, where animals recount their tales of woe against man, and where retribution—destructive to both good and bad—arrives, sooner or later, begins in a pata, the local bar, whose patrons form a microcosm of the world around them. Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih masterfully equips these endearing characters to explore, through the tragic life of the protagonist, the nature of human existence, raising questions about earthly powers, godly dispensation, and where our anthropocentric attitude is leading us. Through a universe of fierce warriors and ruthless wars, the novel grapples with themes such as greed and oppression, revenge and justice, love and the tragedy of love, strife and the peace that comes when one ‘unyokes’ oneself, ‘disconnected from the sources of wretchedness, a fluffy down in the wind of fortune’. The novel reimagines a world where man is a despot, where God is ostensibly absent, perhaps much like our own, outlining issues at once ancient and contemporary with startling clarity.

#1020
The Forever War

The Forever War

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A soldier experiences the toll of interstellar war against a deadly alien foe in this Hugo and Nebula Award–winning science fiction masterpiece. In this novel, a landmark of science fiction that began as an MFA thesis for the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and went on to become an award-winning classic—inspiring a play, a graphic novel, and most recently an in-development film—man has taken to the stars, and soldiers fighting the wars of the future return to Earth forever alienated from their home. Conscripted into service for the United Nations Exploratory Force, a highly trained unit built for revenge, physics student William Mandella fights for his planet light years away against the alien force known as the Taurans. “Mandella’s attempt to survive and remain human in the face of an absurd, almost endless war is harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking, and true,” says Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Junot Díaz—and because of the relative passage of time when one travels at incredibly high speed, the Earth Mandella returns to after his two-year experience has progressed decades and is foreign to him in disturbing ways… Now celebrating its 50th anniversary, The Forever War is based in part on the author’s experiences in Vietnam. It is regarded as one of the greatest military science fiction novels ever written, capturing the alienation that servicemen and women experience even now upon returning home from battle. This book shines a light not only on the culture of the 1970s in which it was written, but also on our potential future. “To say that The Forever War is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise. It is…as fine and woundingly genuine a war story as any I’ve read” (William Gibson). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Joe Haldeman including rare images from the author’s personal collection

#1022
The Fraud

The Fraud

by Zadie Smith
Amazon Bookshop

From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story--and who gets 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. 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."

#1050
The Kamogawa Food Detectives

The Kamogawa Food Detectives

by Hisashi Kashiwai
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The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series, for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold. What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time? Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that's not the main reason customers stop by . . . The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories – dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility. A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.

#1063
The Leap Year Gene

The Leap Year Gene

by Shelley Wood
Amazon Bookshop

February 29, 1916: On Leap Year Day, war widow Lillian McKinley gives birth at last to a baby girl who gestated far longer than she should. Kit proves to be a happy and intelligent child, but unnaturally slow to age--growing just one year older every four. For decades, she and her family must keep on the move to protect her secret--from insatiable newshounds, Nazi scientists, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies. When Kit can finally pass for an adult, she must decide whether she wants to stay perpetually on the run or form lasting ties. Ultimately, once the human genome is mapped and research on altering it begins, she'll need to make some difficult choices about the strange quirk in her DNA that has made her who she is.

#1084
The Mires

The Mires

by Tina Makereti
Amazon Bookshop

Water will come and you think it will be soft. You think it will be smooth and find its way around your things: your houses and cars and furniture, your gardens and windows and hope. But water can be the foot of an elephant, the horns of a moose, a herd of buffalo running from a lion, water can be the kauri falling in the forest, a two-tonne truck, a whole stadium filled with 50,000 people, screaming . . . Water is life, and water can be death.' Three women give birth in different countries and different decades. In the near future, they become neighbours in a coastal town in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Single parent Keri has her hands full with four-year-old Walty and teen Wairere, a strange and gifted child who is drawn to the waters of the indigenous wetlands. New to the street is Sera and her family, who are refugees from ecological devastation in Europe and living next door is Janet, an older white woman with an opinion about everything. When Janet's adult son Conor unexpectedly arrives home sporting a fresh buzzcut and a disturbing tattoo, no one suspects just how extreme the young man has become - no one except Wairere who can feel both the danger, and the swamp beneath their street, watching and waiting. FINALIST OF THE OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS 2025

#1089
The Mountains Are High

The Mountains Are High

by Alec Ash
Amazon Bookshop

In 2020, Alec Ash left behind his old life as a journalist in buzzy Beijing, and moved to Dali, a rural valley in China's Yunnan province, centred around a great lake shaped like an ear and overlooked by the Cang mountain range. Here, he hoped to find the space and perspective to mend heartbreak after a broken engagement and escape the trappings of fast-paced, high-pressured city life. Originally home to the Bai people, Dali has become a richly diverse community of people of all ages and backgrounds, with one shared goal- to reject the worst parts of modernity and live more simply, in tune with the natural world and away from the nexus of authoritarian power. It is into this community that Alec embeds himself, from political dissidents to bohemian hippies, charting his first year of life in Dali among these fascinating neighbours. The Mountains Are Highis a beautifully written, candid memoir about the catalysts for change and personal development that comes from taking a leap of faith, and how remodeling your attitude to conventional success can genuinely transform your life. As one of the 'new migrants' tells Alec when he arrives- it is easy to change your environment, far more difficult to change your mind. 'I am deeply impressed that Alec was able to create a new life for himself in this remote corner of rural China where "the mountains are high and the emperor far away," and indeed, to gain a new perspective on life. Beautifully crafted, The Mountains are Highwas a joy to read.' -Lijia Zhang, author of Lotus 'The Mountains Are Highis a fascinating story of modern China, told from the perspective of those trying to escape it. Alec Ash conjures up the paradise of Dali and the colourful characters that live there with an eye for the surreal. A writer of great talent.' -Charlie Gilmour, author of Featherhood 'The Mountains Are Highis a treasure. Part escapist tale, and part a lesson on the history, culture, and people of enchanted Dali. It's a young man's journey we all yearn for and only dream of taking.' -James M. Zimmerman, author of The Peking Express- the bandits who stole a train, stunned the West, and broke the Republic of China

#1092
The Natural Way of Things

The Natural Way of Things

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“The Handmaid’s Tale for our age” (The Economist), this dystopian tale about a group of women held prisoner in the Australian desert is a prescient feminist fable and international classic from the Booker-shortlisted author of Stone Yard Devotional and The Weekend. Two women awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves imprisoned in a broken-down property in the middle of a desert. Strangers to each other, they have no idea where they are or how they came to be there with eight other women, their heads shaved, guarded by two inept yet vicious jailers. Doing hard labor under a sweltering sun, the prisoners soon learn what links them: in each woman's past is a sexual scandal with a powerful man. They pray for rescue but as the hours turn into days and the days into weeks and months, it becomes clear that the women must rescue themselves. The Natural Way of Things is a lucid and illusory fable and a brilliantly plotted novel of ideas that reminds us of humankind's own vast contradictions—the capacity for savagery, selfishness, resilience, and redemption all contained by a single, vulnerable body.

#1102
The Peacock and the Sparrow

The Peacock and the Sparrow

by I.S. Berry
Amazon Bookshop

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE WEEK During the Arab Spring, an American spy's final mission goes dangerously awry in this explosive and "remarkable debut" (Joseph Kanon, New York Times bestselling author) from a former CIA officer that is perfect for fans of John le Carré, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Alan Furst. Shane Collins, a world-weary CIA spy, is ready to come in from the cold. Stationed in Bahrain off the coast of Saudi Arabia for his final tour, he's anxious to dispense with his mission--uncovering Iranian support for the insurgency against the monarchy. But then he meets Almaisa, a beautiful and enigmatic artist, and his eyes are opened to a side of Bahrain most expats never experience, to questions he never thought to ask. When his trusted informant becomes embroiled in a murder, Collins finds himself drawn deep into the conflict and his growing romance with Almaisa upended. In an instant, he's caught in the crosshairs of a revolution. Drawing on all his skills as a spymaster, he must navigate a bloody uprising, win Almaisa's love, and uncover the murky border where Bahrain's secrets end and America's begin. "A breathless tour-de-force, the perfect spy tale" (Ian Caldwell, author of The Fifth Gospel) and dripping with authenticity, The Peacock and the Sparrow is a timely story of the elusiveness of truth, the power of love and belief, and the universal desire to be part of a cause greater than oneself.

#1141
The Sunbird

The Sunbird

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In Wilbur Smith's The Sunbird, Dr. Ben Kazin is a brilliant archeologist. Louren Sturvesant is rich, impulsive, and physically imposing, everything Ben is not. Now, the two men--friends, competitors and partners--are searching for the legendary lost city of Opet, built by an Egyptian culture that reached Africa two thousand years ago, then vanished completely. For Ben, the expedition is a chance to prove a controversial thesis. For Louren, it is a chance to spend millions--and make it all back in gold and glory. But what awaits them is an astounding discovery, a siege of terror, and an act of betrayal that will tear the two men apart and bind them together forever... Hidden beneath water, jungle, and blood-red cliffs is a lost world where two men and a beautiful woman were caught in a furious battle of passions two thousands years ago, but which has begun once again....

#1153
The Underworld Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean

The Underworld Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean

by Susan Casey
Amazon Bookshop

For all of human history, the deep ocean has been a source of wonder and terror, an unknown realm that evoked a singular, compelling question: What’s down there? Unable to answer this for centuries, people believed the deep was a sinister realm of fiendish creatures and deadly peril. But now, cutting-edge technologies allow scientists and explorers to dive miles beneath the surface, and we are beginning to understand this strange and exotic underworld: A place of soaring mountains, smoldering volcanoes, and valleys 7,000 feet deeper than Everest is high, where tectonic plates collide and separate, and extraordinary life forms operate under different rules. Far from a dark void, the deep is a vibrant realm that’s home to pink gelatinous predators and shimmering creatures a hundred feet long and ancient animals with glass skeletons and sharks that live for half a millennium—among countless other marvels.

#1168
Theory & Practice

Theory & Practice

by Michelle de Kretser
Amazon Bookshop

WINNER OF THE STELLA PRIZE A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "Theory & Practice is a thrillingly original hybrid work that seeks truthful answers to the most difficult questions of the day—questions about the nature of love, art, and desire, about the thorny cultural legacy of colonialism and the unappeasable human yearning for connection." —Sigrid Nunez, author of The Vulnerables A new novel of startling intelligence from prizewinning Australian author Michelle de Kretser, following a writer looking back on her young adulthood and grappling with what happens when life smashes through the boundaries of art It’s 1986, and “beautiful, radical ideas” are in the air. The narrator of Theory & Practice, a young woman originally from Sri Lanka, arrives in Melbourne for graduate school to research the novels of Virginia Woolf. In the bohemian neighborhood of St. Kilda she meets artists, activists, students—and Kit. He claims to be in a “deconstructed relationship.” They become lovers, and the narrator’s feminism comes up against her jealousy. Meanwhile, an entry in Woolf’s diary upends what the narrator knows about her literary idol, and throws her own work into disarray. What happens when our desires run contrary to our beliefs? What should we do when the failings of revered figures come to light? Who is shamed when the truth is told? Michelle de Kretser’s new novel offers a spellbinding meditation on the moral complexities that arise in the gap between our values and our lives.

#1183
Time Shelter

Time Shelter

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At one point they tried to calculate when time began, when exactly the earth had been created," begins Time Shelter's enigmatic narrator, who will go unnamed. "In the mid-seventeenth century, the Irish bishop Ussher calculated not only the exact year, but also a starting date: October 22, 4,004 years before Christ." But for our narrator, time as he knows it begins when he meets Gaustine, a "vagrant in time" who has distanced his life from contemporary reality by reading old news, wearing tattered old clothes, and haunting the lost avenues of the twentieth century. In an apricot-colored building in Zurich, surrounded by curiously planted forget-me-nots, Gaustine has opened the first "clinic for the past," an institution that offers an inspired treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers: each floor reproduces a past decade in minute detail, allowing patients to transport themselves back in time to unlock what is left of their fading memories. Serving as Gaustine's assistant, the narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to nostalgic scents and even wisps of afternoon light. But as the charade becomes more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic to escape from the dead-end of their daily lives-a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.

#1195
Trondheim: A Novel

Trondheim: A Novel

by Cormac James
Amazon Bookshop

"In Norway, thousands of miles from home, a student drops dead on the street. A passerby revives his heart, but he remains in a coma from which he may never wake. His mothers rush across the continent to his bedside where they endure the strain of helpless waiting, pushing their troubled relationship to the edge. A profound exploration of a family in crisis, Trondheim portrays the way each woman copes with the looming tragedy and the possibility of healing in the wake of a life-altering emergency"--

#1205
Unruly

Unruly

by David Mitchell
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INSTANT #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER • A rollicking history of England’s kings and queens from Arthur to Elizabeth I, a tale of power, glory, and excessive beheadings by award-winning British actor and comedian David Mitchell “Clever, amusing, gloriously bizarre and razor sharp. Mitchell [is] a funny man and a skilled historian.”―The Times Think you know the kings and queens of England? Think again. In Unruly, David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits. Taking us back to King Arthur (spoiler: he didn’t exist), Mitchell tells the founding story of post-Roman England up to the reign of Elizabeth I (spoiler: she dies). It’s a tale of narcissists, inadequate self-control, middle-management insurrection, uncivil wars, and a few Cnuts, as the English evolved from having their crops stolen by the thug with the largest armed gang to bowing and paying taxes to a divinely anointed king. How this happened, who it happened to, and why the hell it matters are all questions that Mitchell answers with brilliance, wit, and the full erudition of a man who once studied history—and won’t let it off the hook for the mess it’s made. A funny book that takes history seriously, Unruly is for anyone who has ever wondered how the British monarchy came to be—and who is to blame.

#1214
Volte Face

Volte Face

by Dominique Hecq
Amazon Bookshop

Volte-face, the name of the book itself brings up a picture of differing opinions, conflicting ideas, yin and yang, two sides of a coin, whatever you choose to call it. The one thread running through all these poems is a fresh perspective to long accepted ideas and maxims which hardly anyone even tries to turn around and see from other perspectives. There are poems that inspire and uplift, present unpleasant truths, instruct and command as well as simply state unchangeable facts seen from another side. These works are not the rosy cosy kind, nor are there any love poems in here. However, these poems are suitable for all ages and contain no disturbing or depressing thoughts.

#1259
Woman, Life, Freedom

Woman, Life, Freedom

by Marjane Satrapi
Amazon Bookshop

The emancipator revolution of woman, life, freedom in Iran was the most different political and cultural movement among the whole middle east, because it was calling for liberalism in the Middle East. Iranians rose up bravely against the Islamic totalitarian regime. By putting away traditions and political Islam as a governing model in the Middle East region, they want to destroy the rigid laws and put an end to the religious governing system. They want change and are fighting for women's rights, liberalism, equality, and democracy. In this book, the nature and the reason of this revolution is debated.

#1264
Woodworm

Woodworm

by Layla Martinez
Amazon Bookshop

The house breathes. The house contains bodies and secrets. 'A house of women and shadows built from poetry and revenge' Mariana Enriquez The house is visited by ghosts, by angels that line the roof like insects, and by saints that burn the bedsheets with their haloes. It was built by a small-time hustler as a means of controlling his wife, and even after so many years, their daughter and her granddaughter can't leave. They may be witches or they may just be angry, but when the mysterious disappearance of a young boy draws unwanted attention, the two isolated women, already subjects of public scorn, combine forces with the spirits that haunt them in pursuit of something that resembles justice. Layla Martínez's eerie debut novel Woodworm is class-conscious horror that drags generations of monsters into the sun. Translated by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott