book club!

A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara · 2016

<b><i>NEW YORK TIMES</i> BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (<i>NPR</i>) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.<br></b><br><b><b><b><b><b><b><b>NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST <b><b><b>•</b></b></b></b> MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST <b>• <b><b><b><b><b> WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE</b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b></b><br><br><i>A Little Life</i> follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.

Girls Against God

Jenny Hval · 2020

A genre-warping, time-travelling horror novel-slash-feminist manifesto for fans of Clarice Lispector and Jeanette Winterson. Welcome to 1990s Norway. White picket fences run in neat rows and Christian conservatism runs deep. But as the Artist considers her work, things start stirring themselves up. In a corner of Oslo a coven of witches begin cooking up some curses. A time-travelling Edvard Munch arrives in town to join a death metal band, closely pursued by the teenaged subject of his painting Puberty, who has murder on her mind. Meanwhile, out deep in the forest, a group of school girls get very lost and things get very strange. And awful things happen in aspic. Jenny Hval's latest novel is a radical fusion of queer feminist theory and experimental horror, and a unique treatise on magic, writing and art. "Strange and lyrical. Hval’s writing is surreal and rich with the grotesque banalities of human existence." —Publishers Weekly "The themes of alienation, queerness, and the unsettling nature of desire align Hval with modern mainstays like Chris Kraus, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Maggie Nelson." —Pitchfork

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

Eric Larocca · 2021

Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death.<br/><br/>A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s -- a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires.<br/><br/>What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

Mina

Kim Sagwa · 2018

“Kim Sagwa is South Korea’s young, brilliant, fearless writer.” ― Don Mee Choi, author of Hardly War<br/>“She doesn’t know what to do, and that amounts to a state of torture.”<br/>Crystal toils day and night to earn top grades at her cram school. She’s also endlessly texting, shopping, drinking, vexing her boyfriends, cranking up her mp3s, and fantasizing about her next slice of cheesecake. Her non- stop frenzy never quite manages the one thing that might calm her down: opening up about the pressures that are driving her to the edge. She certainly hasn’t talked with her best friend, Mina, nor Mina’s brother, whom she’s developing a serious crush on. And Crystal’s starting to lose her grip.<br/>In this shocking English debut, award-winning Korean author Kim Sagwa delivers an astonishingly complex portrait of modern-day adolescence. With pitch-perfect dialogue and a precise eye for detail, Kim creates a piercingly real teen protagonist―at once powerful, vulnerable, and utterly confused. As one bad decision leads to another, this promising life spirals to a devastating climax.

In the Miso Soup

Ryu Murakami · 2006

"Mr. Murakami’s novels are filled with entertaining psychopaths." -- The New York Times From postmodern Renaissance man Ryu Murakami, master of the psychothriller and director of Tokyo Decadence, comes this hair-raising roller-coaster ride through the nefarious neon-lit world of Tokyo’s sex industry It's just before New Year, and Frank, an American tourist, has hired Kenji to take him on a guided tour of Tokyo's nightlife. But, Frank's behaviour is so odd that Kenji begins to entertain a horrible suspicion: his client may in fact have murderous desires. Although Kenji is far from innocent himself, he unwillingly descends with Frank into an inferno of evil, from which only his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Jun, can possibly save him.

ALL THE LOVERS IN THE NIGHT

Mieko Kawakami · 2023

From literary sensation and International Booker Prize-shortlisted author Mieko Kawakami, the bestelling author of Breasts and Eggs and Heaven comes All the Lovers in the Night, an extraordinary, deeply moving and insightful story set in contemporary Tokyo.<br/><br/>Fuyuko Irie is a freelance proofreader in her thirties. Living alone in an overwhelming city and unable to form meaningful relationships, she has little contact with anyone other than her colleague, Hijiri. But a chance encounter with a man named Mitsutsuka awakens something new in her. Through their weekly meetings, Fuyuko starts to see the world in a different light and still, painful memories from her past begin to resurface. As Fuyuko realizes she exists in a small world of her own making she begins to push at her own boundaries. But will she find the strength to bring down the walls that surround her?<br/><br/>Pulsing and poetic, modern and shocking, this is an unforgettable novel from Japan’s most exciting writer.

Acts of Desperation

Megan Nolan · 2021

Heralding the arrival of “a huge literary talent” (Karl Ove Knausgaard), Megan Nolan’s riveting debut is “a blistering anti-romance” (Catherine Lacey) about love addiction and what it does to us.<br/><br/>Wouldn’t I do anything to reverse my loss, the absence of him?<br/><br/>In the first scene of this provocative gut-punch of a novel, our unnamed narrator meets a magnetic writer named Ciaran and falls, against her better judgment, completely in his power. After a brief, all-consuming romance he abruptly rejects her, sending her into a tailspin of jealous obsession and longing. If he ever comes back to her, she resolves to hang onto him and his love at all costs, even if it destroys her…<br/><br/>Part breathless confession, part lucid critique, Acts of Desperation renders a consciousness split between rebellion and submission, between escaping degradation and eroticizing it, between loving and being lovable. With unsettling, electric precision, Nolan dissects one of life’s most elusive mysteries: Why do we want what we want, and how do we want it?<br/><br/>Heralding the arrival of a stunning new literary talent, Acts of Desperation interrogates the nature of fantasy, desire, and power, challenging us to reckon honestly with our own insatiability.<br/><br/>"Hot as viscera." —The New Republic

Lapvona

Moshfegh Otessa · 2022

In a village in a medieval fiefdom buffeted by natural disasters, a motherless shepherd boy finds himself the unlikely pivot in a power struggle that puts all manner of faith to a savage test, in a spellbinding novel that represents Ottessa Moshfegh's most exciting leap yet.<br/><br/>Little Marek, the abused and delusional son of the village shepherd, never knew his mother; his father told him she died in childbirth. One of life's few consolations for Marek is his enduring bond with the blind village midwife, Ina, who suckled him when he was a baby, as she did for many of the village's children.<br/><br/>Ina's gifts extend beyond childcare: she possesses a unique ability to communicate with the natural world. Her gift often brings her the transmission of sacred knowledge on levels far beyond those available to other villagers, however religious they might be. For some people, Ina's home in the woods outside the village is a place to fear and to avoid, a godless place.<br/><br/>Among their number is Father Barnabas, the town priest and lackey for the depraved lord and governor, Villiam, whose hilltop manor contains a secret embarrassment of riches. The people's desperate need to believe that there are powers that be who have their best interests at heart is put to a cruel test by Villiam and the priest, especially in this year of record drought and famine.<br/><br/>But when fate brings Marek into violent proximity to the lord's family, new and occult forces upset the old order. By year's end, the veil between blindness and sight, life and death, the natural world and the spirit world will prove to be very thin indeed.

The Giver (Giver Quartet, Book 1)

Lois Lowry · 1993

In Lois Lowry’s Newbery Medal–winning classic, twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind his fragile community. Life in the community where Jonas lives is idyllic. Designated birthmothers produce newchildren, who are assigned to appropriate family units. Citizens are assigned their partners and their jobs. No one thinks to ask questions. Everyone obeys. Everyone is the same. Except Jonas. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to understand the dark, complex secrets behind his fragile community. Gradually Jonas learns that power lies in feelings. But when his own power is put to the test—when he must try to save someone he loves—he may not be ready. Is it too soon? Or too late? Told with deceptive simplicity, this is the provocative story of a boy who experiences something incredible and undertakes something impossible. In the telling it questions every value we have taken for granted and reexamines our most deeply held beliefs. The Giver has become one of the most influential novels of our time. Don't miss the powerful companion novels in Lois Lowry's Giver Quartet: Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son.

The Brothers Karamazov

Fyodor Dostoyevsky · 2012

It''s Kind of a Funny Story

Ned Vizzini · 2010

Like Many Ambitious New York City Teenagers, Craig Gilner Sees Entry Into Manhattan's Executive Pre-professional High School As The Ticket To His Future. Determined To Succeed At Life—which Means Getting Into The Right High School To Get Into The Right College To Get The Right Job—craig Studies Night And Day To Ace The Entrance Exam, And Does. That's When Things Start To Get Crazy. At His New School, Craig Realizes That He Isn't Brilliant Compared To The Other Kids; He's Just Average, And Maybe Not Even That. He Soon Sees His Once-perfect Future Crumbling Away.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Novel (Before the Coffee Gets Cold Series, 1)

Toshikazu Kawaguchi · 2020

*NOW AN LA TIMES BESTSELLER*<br/><br/>*OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD*<br/><br/>*AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER*<br/><br/>If you could go back in time, who would you want to meet?<br/><br/>In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee—the chance to travel back in time.<br/><br/>Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn’t so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.<br/><br/>Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time?<br/><br/>Meet more wonderful characters in the next captivating novel in the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series, Before We Say Goodbye!<br/><br/>Read the rest of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series:<br/>Tales from the Cafe Before Your Memory Fades

Circe

Madeline Miller · 2020

"A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story," this #1 New York Times bestseller is "both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right" (Alexandra Alter, The New York Times). In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world. #1 New York Times bestseller -- named one of the best books of the year by NPR, the Washington Post, People, Time, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, Bustle, Newsweek, the A.V. Club, Christian Science Monitor, Refinery 29, BuzzFeed, Paste, Audible, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Thrillist, NYPL, Self, Real Simple, Goodreads, Boston Globe, Electric Literature, BookPage, the Guardian, Book Riot, Seattle Times, and Business Insider

The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger · 2019

The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caufield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.

The Haunting of Hill House (Penguin Classics)

Shirley Jackson · 2006

The greatest haunted house story ever written—the inspiration for the hit Netflix horror series!<br/><br/>One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years<br/><br/>First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting”; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.<br/><br/>For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Great Gatsby

Roger Lathbury · 2000

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Stephen Chbosky · 2012

“A timeless story for every young person who needs to understand that they are not alone.” —Judy Blume<br/><br/>“Once in a while, a novel comes along that becomes a generational touchstone. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those books.” —R. J. Palacio, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wonder<br/><br/>This #1 New York Times bestselling coming-of-age story with millions of copies in print takes a sometimes heartbreaking, often hysterical, and always honest look at high school in all its glory.<br/><br/>The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.<br/><br/>A #1 New York Times bestseller for more than a year, adapted into a major motion picture starring Logan Lerman and Emma Watson (and written and directed by the author), and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults (2000) and Best Book for Reluctant Readers (2000), this novel for teen readers (or wallflowers of more-advanced age) will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps feel nostalgic for those moments when you, too, tiptoed onto the dance floor of life.

Shatter Me Series 6-Book Box Set: Shatter Me, Unravel Me, Ignite Me, Restore Me, Defy Me, Imagine Me

Tahereh Mafi · 2021

<p>Juliette can kill with a touch--will she wield her power for good, or will it turn her into the monster she's always feared she truly is? Find out in the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Shatter Me series--all six novels are now available in this paperback box set!</p> <p>One touch is all it takes. One touch, and Juliette Ferrars can bring a grown man to his knees, begging for mercy. One touch, and she can kill.</p> <p>No one knows why Juliette has such incredible power. It feels like a curse, like too great a burden for one person alone to bear. But The Reestablishment sees her as an opportunity. As a deadly weapon. And they'll stop at nothing to shape her into what they want.</p> <p>Juliette has never fought for herself before. But when she's reunited with the one person who ever cared about her, she finds a strength she never knew she had.</p> <p>This bestselling series from powerhouse author Tahereh Mafi showcases relentlessly thrilling action, heart stopping romance, and a war-torn world in which rebellion is the only path to freedom.</p>

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Ottessa Moshfegh · 2019

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Vice, Bustle, The New York Times, The Guardian, Kirkus Reviews, Entertainment Weekly, The AV Club, & Audible A New York Times Bestseller • New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century “One of the most compelling protagonists modern fiction has offered in years: a loopy, quietly furious pillhead whose Ambien ramblings and Xanaxed b*tcheries somehow wend their way through sad and funny and strange toward something genuinely profound.” — Entertainment Weekly “Darkly hilarious . . . [Moshfegh’s] the kind of provocateur who makes you laugh out loud while drawing blood.” —Vogue From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes. Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

Frankenstein: The 1818 Text (Penguin Classics)

Mary Shelley · 2018

<b>Mary Shelley’s classic novel, presented in its original 1818 text, with an introduction from National Book Critics Circle award-winner Charlotte Gordon</b><br>  <br> <b>Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s <i>The Great American Read</i></b><br>  <br>The original 1818 text of <i>Frankenstein</i> preserves the hard-hitting and politically-charged aspects of Shelley’s original writing, as well as her unflinching wit and strong female voice. This edition also emphasizes Shelley’s relationship with her mother—trailblazing feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who penned <i>A Vindication of the Rights of Woman</i>—and demonstrates her commitment to carrying forward her mother’s ideals, placing her in the context of a feminist legacy rather than the sole female in the company of male poets, including Percy Shelley and Lord Byron.<br>  <br> This edition includes a new introduction and suggestions for further reading by National Book Critics Circle award-winner and Shelley expert Charlotte Gordon, literary excerpts and reviews selected by Gordon, and a chronology and essay by preeminent Shelley scholar Charles E. Robinson. <br>  <br>Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Nausea (New Directions Paperbook)

Jean-Paul Sartre · 2013

Sartre's greatest novel ― and existentialism's key text ― now introduced by James Wood.<br/>Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogs his every feeling and sensation. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which “spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time ― the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain.”<br/>Winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature (though he declined to accept it), Jean-Paul Sartre ― philosopher, critic, novelist, and dramatist ― holds a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. La Nausée, his first and best novel, is a landmark in Existential fiction and a key work of the twentieth century.

The Stranger

Albert Camus · 1989

With the intrigue of a psychological thriller, The Stranger—Camus's masterpiece—gives us the story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. With an Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie; translated by Matthew Ward.<br/><br/>Behind the subterfuge, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd" and describes the condition of reckless alienation and spiritual exhaustion that characterized so much of twentieth-century life.<br/><br/>“The Stranger is a strikingly modern text and Matthew Ward’s translation will enable readers to appreciate why Camus’s stoical anti-hero and devious narrator remains one of the key expressions of a postwar Western malaise, and one of the cleverest exponents of a literature of ambiguity.” —from the Introduction by Peter Dunwoodie<br/><br/>First published in 1946; now in translation by Matthew Ward.

Dracula

Bram Stoker · 2017

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes horrifying discoveries about his client and his castle. Soon afterwards, a number of disturbing incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked at Whitby; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the imminent arrival of his 'Master'. In the ensuing battle of wits between the sinister Count Dracula and a determined group of adversaries, Bram Stoker created a masterpiece of the horror genre, probing deeply into questions of human identity and sanity, and illuminating dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.