books ₊˚✩

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

Mistborn: The Final Empire

Brandon Sanderson · 2006

First Love

Ivan Turgenev · 2004

This Is How You Lose the Time War

Amal El-Mohtar · 2020

* HUGO AWARD WINNER: BEST NOVELLA * NEBULA AND LOCUS AWARDS WINNER: BEST NOVELLA *<br/><br/>“[An] exquisitely crafted tale...Part epistolary romance, part mind-blowing science fiction adventure, this dazzling story unfolds bit by bit, revealing layers of meaning as it plays with cause and effect, wildly imaginative technologies, and increasingly intricate wordplay...This short novel warrants multiple readings to fully unlock its complexities.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)<br/><br/>From award-winning authors Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone comes an enthralling, romantic novel spanning time and space about two time-traveling rivals who fall in love and must change the past to ensure their future.<br/><br/>Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandment finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.<br/><br/>Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, becomes something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.<br/><br/>Except the discovery of their bond would mean the death of each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win. That’s how war works, right?<br/><br/>Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.

Heaven: Mieko Kawakami

Mieko Kawakami · 2021

'Mieko Kawakami is a genius' - Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times<br/><br/>From the bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs and international literary sensation Mieko Kawakami, comes a sharp and illuminating novel about a fourteen-year-old boy subjected to relentless bullying.<br/><br/>In Heaven, a fourteen-year old boy is tormented for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, he chooses to suffer in silence. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate, Kojima, who experiences similar treatment at the hands of her bullies. Providing each other with immeasurable consolation at a time in their lives when they need it most, the two young friends grow closer than ever. But what, ultimately, is the nature of a friendship when your shared bond is terror?<br/><br/>Unflinching yet tender, sharply observed, intimate and multi-layered, this simple yet profound novel stands as yet another dazzling testament to Mieko Kawakami’s uncontainable talent. There can be little doubt that it has cemented her reputation as one of the most important young authors at work today.<br/><br/>'An expertly told, deeply unsettling tale of adolescent violence' - Vogue<br/><br/>Translated from the Japanese by David Boyd and Sam Bett.

Talking at Night: A Novel

Claire Daverley · 2023

채식주의자

Han Kang · 2007

No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai · 1973

<p> Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being. </p><p>Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. His attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness.</p><p>Still one of the ten bestselling books in Japan, No Longer Human is an important and unforgettable modern classic: "The struggle of the individual to fit into a normalizing society remains just as relevant today as it was at the time of writing." (The Japan Times)</p>

The Secret History

Donna Tartt · 1992

<b><b><b><b>ONE OF <i>TIME MAGAZINE</i>'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • </b>INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "a<b>n accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (<i>Village Voice</i>)</b>, f<b>rom the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of <i>The Goldfinch.<br><br></i></b></b></b>One of <i>The Atlantic</i>’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years</b><br><br>Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.<br><br><b>“A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment . . . Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —<i>The New York Times</i></b>

A Little Life

Hanya Yanagihara · 2015

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) 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/><br/>NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE<br/><br/>A Little Life 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.

The Poppy War: A Novel (The Poppy War, 1)

R. F Kuang · 2019

<p>“I have no doubt this will end up being the best fantasy debut of the year [...] I have absolutely no doubt that [Kuang’s] name will be up there with the likes of Robin Hobb and N.K. Jemisin.” -- Booknest</p><p>A Library Journal, Paste Magazine, Vulture, BookBub, and ENTROPY Best Books of 2018 pick!</p><p>Washington Post "5 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel of 2018" pick!</p><p>A Bustle "30 Best Fiction Books of 2018" pick!</p><p>A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic, in the tradition of Ken Liu’s Grace of Kings and N.K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy.</p><p>When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.</p><p>But surprises aren’t always good.</p><p>Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.</p><p>For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .</p><p>Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.</p>

Orbital

Samantha Harvey · 2023

Seven Days in June

Tia Williams · 2022

The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, Book 1)

Brandon Sanderson · 2010

Conversations with Friends

Sally Rooney · 2017

Normal People

Sally Rooney · 2019

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE: A wondrously wise, genuinely unputdownable new novel from Sally Rooney, winner of the 2017 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award (at 26, tied with Zadie Smith for the youngest-ever recipient)--the quintessential coming-of-age love story for our time. Connell Waldron is one of the most popular boys in his small-town high school--he is a star of the football team, an excellent student, and never wanting for attention from girls. The one thing he doesn't have is money. Marianne Sheridan, a classmate of Connell's, has the opposite problem. Marianne is plain-looking, odd, and stubborn, and while her family is well-off, she has no friends to speak of. There is, however, a deep and undeniable connection between the two teenagers, one that develops into a secret relationship. Everything changes when both Connell and Marianne are accepted to Trinity College. Suddenly Marianne is well-liked and elegant, holding court with her intellectual friends while Connell hangs at the sidelines, not quite as fluent in language of the elite. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle each other, falling in and out of romance but never straying far from where they started. And as Marianne experiments with an increasingly dangerous string of boyfriends, Connell must decide how far he is willing to go to save his oldest friend. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a novel that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the inescapable challenges of family and friendships. Normal People is a book that you will read in one sitting, and then immediately share with your friends.

The Overstory: A Novel

Richard Powers · 2018

The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos)

Samantha Shannon · 2020

The New York Times bestselling "epic feminist fantasy perfect for fans of Game of Thrones" (Bustle).<br/><br/>NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY:<br/>AMAZON (Top 100 Editors Picks and Science Fiction and Fantasy) * CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY * BOOKPAGE * AUTOSTRADDLE<br/><br/>A world divided.<br/>A queendom without an heir.<br/>An ancient enemy awakens.<br/><br/>The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction--but assassins are getting closer to her door.<br/><br/>Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.<br/><br/>Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir

Dolly Alderton · 2021

New York Times Bestseller<br/>"There is no writer quite like Dolly Alderton working today and very soon the world will know it.” —Lisa Taddeo, author of #1 New York Times bestseller Three Women<br/>“Dolly Alderton has always been a sparkling Roman candle of talent. She is funny, smart, and explosively engaged in the wonders and weirdness of the world. But what makes this memoir more than mere entertainment is the mature and sophisticated evolution that Alderton describes in these pages. It’s a beautifully told journey and a thoughtful, important book. I loved it.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and City of Girls<br/>The wildly funny, occasionally heartbreaking internationally bestselling memoir about growing up, growing older, and learning to navigate friendships, jobs, loss, and love along the ride<br/>When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and—above all else— realizing that you are enough.<br/>Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it. Like Bridget Jones’ Diary but all true, Everything I Know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its terrifying and hopeful uncertainty.

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

Brandon Sanderson · 2023

The Song of Achilles: A Novel

Madeline Miller · 2012

A New York Times Bestseller<br/>“At once a scholar’s homage to The Iliad and startlingly original work of art….A book I could not put down.” —Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House<br/>A thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the legend of Achilles and the Trojan War from the bestselling author of Circe<br/>A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller’s monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction’s brightest lights—and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.<br/>“A captivating retelling of The Iliad and events leading up to it through the point of view of Patroclus: it’s a hard book to put down, and any classicist will be enthralled by her characterisation of the goddess Thetis, which carries the true savagery and chill of antiquity.” — Donna Tartt, The Times

Iron Flame (The Empyrean, 2)

Rebecca Yarros · 2023

Fourth Wing (The Empyrean Book 1)

Rebecca Yarros · 2023

<p><b>A #1 <i>New York Times</i> bestseller • TV series in development at MGM Amazon Studios with Michael B. Jordan’s Outlier Society • Amazon Best Books of the Year, #4 • Apple Best Books of the Year 2023 • Barnes & Noble Best Fantasy Book of 2023 • NPR “Books We Love” 2023 • Audible Best Books of 2023 • Hudson Book of the Year • Google Play Best Books of 2023 • Indigo Best Books of 2023 • Waterstones Book of the Year finalist • Goodreads Choice Award Winner • Newsweek Staffers’ Favorite Books of 2023 • Paste Magazine's Best Books of 2023</b><br><br><i>"Suspenseful, sexy, and with incredibly entertaining storytelling, the first in Yarros' Empyrean series will delight fans of romantic, adventure-filled fantasy."</i> —<i><b>Booklist</b></i><b>, starred review</b><br><br><i>"</i>Fourth Wing<i> will have your heart pounding from beginning to end... A fantasy like you've never read before."</i> <b>―#1 <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout</b><br><br><br><b>Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from #1 <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author Rebecca Yarros</b><br><br>Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: <i>dragon riders</i>.<br><br>But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.<br><br>With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.<br><br>She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.<br><br>Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.<br><br>Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: <i>graduate or die</i>.<br><br>The Empyrean series is best enjoyed in order.<br>Reading Order:<br>Book #1 Fourth Wing<br>Book #2 Iron Flame</p>

The Right Move (Windy City Series Book 2)

Liz Tomforde · 2023

Mile High (Windy City Series Book 1)

Liz Tomforde · 2022

Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Coco Mellors · 2022

The smash National bestseller and Goodreads Choice Award finalist--perfect for readers of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends. An addictive, humorous, and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by one couple’s impulsive marriage.<br/><br/>Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank’s life is full of all the excesses Cleo’s lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a Green Card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives, and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could’ve predicted.<br/><br/>Each compulsively readable chapter explores the lives of Cleo, Frank, and an unforgettable cast of their closest friends and family as they grow up and grow older. Whether it’s Cleo’s best friend struggling to embrace his gender queerness in the wake of Cleo’s marriage, or Frank’s financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates to support herself after being cut off, or Cleo and Frank themselves as they discover the trials of marriage and mental illness, each character is as absorbing, and painfully relatable, as the last.<br/><br/>As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, entertaining as it is deeply moving, Cleopatra and Frankenstein marks the entry of a brilliant and bold new talent.