Contemporary fiction genre books (1024)


721.

The Bee Sting : A Novel by Paul Murray EN

Rating: 5 (3 votes)
Country: Europe / Ireland flag Ireland
Description:
"The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under--but rather than face the music, he's spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home. Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught b... continue

722.

The Birdwoman's Palate by Laksmi Pamuntjak EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Indonesia flag Indonesia
Description:
In this exhilarating culinary novel, a woman's road trip through Indonesia becomes a discovery of friendship, self, and other rare delicacies. Aruna is an epidemiologist dedicated to food and avian politics. One is heaven, the other earth. The two passions blend in unexpected ways when Aruna is asked to research a handful of isolated bird flu cases reported across Indonesia. While it's put a crimp in her aunt's West Java farm, and made her own confit de canard highly questionable, the investigation does provide an irresistible opportunity. It's the perfect excuse to get away from corrupt and c... continue

723.

The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: North America / Cuba flag Cuba
Description:
Haunting and transcendently twisted, this English-language debut from a Cuban literary star is a tale of race, magic, belief, and fate The Stuart family moves to a marginal neighborhood of Cienfuegos, a city on the southern coast of Cuba. Arturo Stuart, a charismatic, visionary preacher, discovers soon after arriving that God has given him a mission: to build a temple that surpasses any before seen in Cuba, and to make of Cienfuegos a new Jerusalem. In a neighborhood that roils with passions and conflicts, at the foot of a cathedral that rises higher day by day, there grows a generation marked... continue

724.

The Body Where I was Born by Guadalupe Nettel EN

0 Ratings
Description:
The first novel to appear in English by one of the most talked-about and critically acclaimed writers of new Mexican fiction. From a psychoanalyst's couch, the narrator looks back on her bizarre childhood—in which she was born with an abnormality in her eye into a family intent on fixing it. In a world without the time and space for innocence, the narrator intimately recalls her younger self—a fierce and discerning girl open to life’s pleasures and keen to its ruthless cycle of tragedy. With raw language and a brilliant sense of humor, both delicate and unafraid, Nettel strings together hard-w... continue

725.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme EN

Rating: 4.1 (8 votes)
Description:
Integrating both Maori myth and New Zealand reality, The Bone People became the most successful novel in New Zealand publishing history when it appeared in 1984. Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that "to care for anything is to invite disaster." Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon... continue

726.

The Book of Collateral Damage by Sinan Antoon EN

0 Ratings
Country: Asia / Iraq flag Iraq
Description:
Sinan Antoon returns to the Iraq war in a poetic and provocative tribute to reclaiming memory Widely-celebrated author Sinan Antoon's fourth and most sophisticated novel follows Nameer, a young Iraqi scholar earning his doctorate at Harvard, who is hired by filmmakers to help document the devastation of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. During the excursion, Nameer ventures to al-Mutanabbi street in Baghdad, famed for its bookshops, and encounters Wadood, an eccentric bookseller who is trying to catalogue everything destroyed by war, from objects, buildings, books and manuscripts, flora and fauna, to... continue

727.

The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Asia / Palestine flag Palestine
Description:
What if all Palestinians vanished from their homeland overnight? Alaa, a young Palestinian, is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. Ariel, Alaa’s neighbour and friend, is a liberal Zionist, critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza yet faithful to the project of Israel. When he wakes up one morning to find that all Palestinians have suddenly vanished, Ariel begins searching for clues to the secret of the collective disappearance; that search, and his reaction to it, intimately reveal the f... continue

728.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting : A Novel by Milan Kundera EN

Rating: 5 (4 votes)
Description:
Rich in its stories, characters, and imaginative range, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is the novel that brought Milan Kundera his first big international success in the late 1970s. Like all his work, it is valuable for far more than its historical implications. In seven wonderfully integrated parts, different aspects of human existence are magnified and reduced, reordered and emphasized, newly examined, analyzed, and experienced.

729.

The Book of Proper Names : A Novel by Amelie Nothomb EN

Rating: 4 (2 votes)
Country: Europe / Belgium flag Belgium
Description:
The latest novel by France's "literary lioness" (Elle Magazine) tells the story of an orphan girl named--haplessly--Plectrude. Raised by an eccentric if loving aunt, she is a dreamy child who is discovered to have enormous gifts as a dancer. Accepted at Paris's most prestigious ballet school, Plectrude devotes herself to artistic perfection, until the body can take no more.

730.

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife : A Novel by Anna Johnston EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Oceania / Australia flag Australia
Description:
A zany case of mistaken identity allows a lonely old man one last chance to be part of a family in this warm, life-affirming debut novel. “A funny, heartfelt story about found family and seeing the silver lining in life. Fans of Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove and Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures will especially enjoy this new novel.”—Library Journal “Would you mind terribly, old boy, if I borrowed the rest of your life? I promise I’ll take excellent care of it.” Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he’d return it wash... continue