Summer Reading Suggestions 2015: Fiction

Writing the biography of a cyber criminal who released a virus into Australia's prison system and allowed hundreds of asylum seekers and prisoners to escape, left-wing journalist Felix Moore struggles to convey the hacker's intentions as a political protest against Australia's relationship with the United States. By two-time Booker Prize Winner, Peter Carey

Features 27 stories by women writers of color whose short fiction has earned them a range of honors, including John Simon Guggenheim Fellowships, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Flannery O'Connor Award, and inclusion in the Best American Short Stories and O. Henry anthologies. The prose addresses such themes as racial prejudice, media portrayal of beauty, and family relationships, and spans genres from the comic and the surreal to startling realism.

Mantel’s collection of contemporary short stories about modern England includes monster tales, near-memoir pieces, and mini-sagas of family and social fracture as triggered by sex, marriage, and class. By the award-winning author of Wolf Hall.

This collection of eight short stories by the award-winning author of A Gate at the Stairs includes "Debarking," in which a recently divorced man struggles to hold himself together as the United States prepares to invade Iraq; and "Foes," in which a political argument at a Georgetown fundraiser goes awry against a backdrop of the September 11th attacks.

A young music prodigy goes missing from a hotel room that was the site of an infamous murder-suicide 15 years earlier. This event revives trauma for a bridesmaid who witnessed the first crime and incites an eccentric cast of characters during a snowstorm that traps everyone on the grounds.

Jam Gallahue, fifteen, unable to cope with the loss of her boyfriend Reeve, is sent to a therapeutic boarding school in Vermont, where a journal-writing assignment for an exclusive, mysterious English class transports her to the magical realm of Belzhar,where she and Reeve can be together.

While sleepwalker Angus Lordie gets into trouble for his activities at a local bar, long-suffering septuagenarian Bertie dreams about his 18th birthday and Matthew and Espeth struggle to care for their triplets. By the best-selling author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.

Mitchell interweaves six narratives spanning the period between 1984 and the 2030s to chronicle a secret war between a cult of soul-decanters and a small group of vigilantes who would take them down. Bone Clocks mixes the supernatural, sci-fi, humor, satire, and realism. By the award-winning author of Cloud Atlas.

Recounting the story of her life to her granddaughter, octogenarian Addie describes how she was raised in early 20th-century America by suspicious Jewish immigrant parents in a teeming multicultural neighborhood. By the author of The Red Tent and Day After Night.

A highly respected London judge hides behind her professional accomplishments her decision to separate from a husband who wants an open marriage. This loss challenges her beliefs throughout a case involving parents whose faith forbids a life-saving transfusion for their son. By the author of Atonement.

When their daughter disappears while out for a morning run during a late-summer vacation in the Rocky Mountains, her parents embark on a harrowing journey down increasingly divergent and solitary paths where they must answer some difficult questions to find the truth.

Embarking on a more than 3,000-kilometer walking journey from rural Canada to the East coast so that she can see the ocean for the first time in her life, an octogenarian woman has experiences that blur her perspectives between illusion, memory, and reality.

Chronicling the history of modern China through a controversial lens, this novel from a winner of the Noble Prize in Literature tells the story of Gugu, a revered midwife, who, to prove her allegiance to the Communist party, strictly enforces the one-child policy, performing abortions on women as many as eight months pregnant. By the author of Red Sorghum.

Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, Lehane's novel captures the political and social unrest of a nation at the crossroads where past meets future. Filled with a cast of richly drawn, unforgettable characters, The Given Day tells the story of two families (one black, one white) swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. By the author of Mystic River.

The lives of five women from two different families are forever linked and altered by a drunk private eye during the Depression in this first noir graphic novel from the award-winning author, playwright, cartoonist, and illustrator.

Mamoon Azam is an eminent Indian-born writer who has made a career in England. Now, in his early seventies, his reputation is fading; his book sales are nonexistent and the expensive habits of his flamboyant second wife are bleeding him dry. In a final attempt to revitalize his career, Mamoon’s publisher commissions Harry, an ambitious young writer, to produce a provocative biography to bring Mamoon back into the public eye.

A businessman, a skeptical soldier of fortune, and the soldier's girlfriend embark on a family visit to the Uganda-Congo borderland that is overshadowed by shifting loyalties and respective secrets. By the National Book Award-winning author of Tree of Smoke.

In Let Me Be Frank with You, Ford reinvents his character Frank Bascombein the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. In four richly luminous narratives,Bascombe (and Ford) attempts to reconcile, interpret and console a worldundone by calamity. It is a moving and funny odyssey through the Americawe live in at this moment. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Canada.

A teenager in post-Katrina Mississippi discovers the whereabouts of a missing young girl after finding a strange book that describes how a young couple time travel from 1964 to 1985 to help a friend.

Triggering a romance and debate by seeking shelter in a church and becoming a minister's wife, homeless Lila reflects on her hardscrabble life. She is on the run with a canny young drifter as she tries to reconcile her painful past with her husband's gentle Christian worldview. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead. Short-listed for this year’s Booker Prize.

Shocked by discoveries in her late father's diary (he was a CIA mole), Lilian Shang travels to China to meet the family her father was forced to abandon after World War II. By the National Book Award-winning author of Waiting

The disturbing fate of a runaway older sister is gradually revealed in a tale told from the perspectives of the Hurst family; a teen girl whose hallucinogen use has landed her in a mental ward, an autistic youth who is regressing into his own world, a workaholic and alcoholic father, and an insidiously manipulative mother.

This autobiographical novel focuses on a young man trying to make sense of his place in the disjointed world that surrounds him. My Struggle: Book One introduces American readers to the international literary sensation that is the provocative six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Knausgaard is unafraid of the big issues -- death, love, art, fear -- and committed to the intimate details of life as it is lived.

Possessing an uncanny gift for imitating anyone he meets, Giovanni Bernini grows famous and falls in love with an enigmatic stage singer who challenges his talents and causes him to evaluate his own true self.

Years after a charismatic minister is banished in the wake of a faith-shattering tragedy, a heroin-addicted rock-and-roll guitarist from the same hometown reconnects with the man and forges a terrible pact.

A brutal act of racial violence against a 14-year-old girl shocks and galvanizes a racially torn New Jersey community, which becomes a maelstrom of strong personalities, police responses, media hype and secrets. By the National Book Award-winning author of The Accursed.

A previously unpublished novel by a literary master, Skylight tells the intertwined stories of the residents of a faded apartment building in 1940s Lisbon. Silvestre and Mariana, a happily married elderly couple, take in a young nomad, Abel, and soon discover their many differences. Skylight is a portrait of ordinary people, painted by a great observer of the immense beauty and profound hardships of the modern world.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres
follows the triumphs and tragedies of a farm family from post-World War I America through the early 1950s.

This new collection by the author of The Last Girlfriend on Earth takes his culture-skewering style to new heights with tales that explore conflicts between parents and children, including "Animals," in which a class hamster's life is in the hands of a notorious young caregiver. By Dalton alum, Simon Rich ’02

When his most prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, is stolen, bookstore owner A. J. Fikry begins isolating himself from his friends, family and associates before receiving a mysterious package that compels him to remake his life.

Presents three short novels which explore the influence of the past, the complexities of human relationships, and the mysterious power of Paris over its residents and visitors. A trio of intertwined novellas from the 2014 Nobel Laureate for Literature.

Ferrante continues the story of Lina and Elena as they push against boundaries in 1970s Italy. Lina has left her husband and is working in a factory while taking care of her son and Elena has graduated from college and published a novel.

Assigned to a ceremonial post in Mancreu, British consul and Afghanistan war veteran Lester Ferris is compelled to disregard widespread underworld activities while bonding with a comic-addicted youth who during a violent uprising desperately relies on him for help. By the award-winning author of Angelmaker.

Taking a job at the studio where David O. Selznick is filming Gone with the Wind, Julie Crawford becomes an assistant to Carole Lombard, a rising actress from Julie's hometown who embarks on a scandalous affair with Clark Gable. By the New York Times best-selling author of The Dressmaker.


In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath. Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction -- stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story -- as well “Black Dog” a new tale exclusive to this collection that revisits the world of American Gods.

A mild-mannered scientist with a hidden sense of humor struggles to repair his marriage and his relationship with his teenage son during a month-long European tour. By the best-selling author of One Day.

This tale, inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald's last years in Hollywood, finds him reflecting on past events at the height of the Jazz Age while falling in love, struggling to hold his family together, and writing The Last Tycoon. By the best- selling author of Last Night at the Lobster.

This emotionally charged debut novel is told in the collective voices of the wives of the team who created the atom bomb. The novel traces their struggles to adapt and raise children in a rugged military town where everything their husbands are doing is an intense secret.

Sequestered to dead-end positions for nearly two decades after accidentally shooting a civilian, sergeant Billy Graves joins a third-shift group of New York detectives and investigates a brutal case with ties to his early career. By the author of Clockers.

Working as a consigliere to the Bartolo crime family, traveling between Tampa and Cuba, former crime kingpin Joe Coughlin, who has everything -- money, power, anonymity and a beautiful mistress -- is forced to pay for his life of sin when the dark truth of his past emerges.