Literary Fiction Political

When John Nelson abandoned his government job to join a scrappy band of activists, he didn't realize trying to save the world would be so hard. His ideals remain strong, but his optimism is wearing thin. Parts per Million, Julia Stoops' socially conscious, fast-paced debut novel, is set in Portland, Oregon, in 2002. As the trio dives into antiwar protests and investigates fraud at an elite university, Nelson falls in love with an unlikely houseguest, Deirdre, a photographer from Ireland - and a recovering addict.

Bluegrass musician, former journalist and editor, and now PhD in English, Mark Brumfeld has arrived at his 30s with significant debt and no steady prospects. His girlfriend Cassie - a punk bassist in an all-female band, who fled her Midwestern childhood for a new identity - finds work at a “new media” company. When Cassie refuses his marriage proposal, Mark leaves New York and returns to the basement of his childhood home in the Baltimore suburbs.

When Rebecca Laurelson is forced to leave her post as a trauma surgeon in an east African field hospital, she arrives at her aunt’s house on the Indian Ocean and is taken into the heart of a family she has never met before. It’s a world of all-night beach parties and constant cocktail receptions, and within its languorous embrace her attraction for her much younger cousin grows. But these gilded lives and their fellow white Africans on the coast are under threat - Islamist terror attacks are on the rise and Rebecca knows more about this violence than she is prepared to reveal.

Gina Perini manages a bookstore in one of San Francisco's most lively neighborhoods. Although she thrives in her world of books, her harrowing escape from the war in the Balkans years earlier remains fresh in her mind. There are still those who are searching for her and who are intent on vengeance. Gina suddenly gets news that someone from her past is still alive - someone she had given up hope of finding. This sets in motion a chain of events that will stretch across the country and push her love and resourcefulness to the limit.

En el puerto de La Habana desembarca una mañana de principios de los años 50 un joven asturiano, Patricio, sin otro patrimonio que sus ganas de comerse el mundo y sin otro afán que dejar atrás una aldea aún envuelta en las sombras de una posguerra interminable.

Set against a backdrop of the current political and cultural upheaval in the US and Eastern Europe, The Unmade World is a thoughtful, scope-y literary novel with a dose of suspense that moves from Poland to California to the Hudson Valley and back to Poland. It covers a decade in the lives of an American journalist and a Polish small businessman turned petty criminal and the wrenching aftermath of an accidental, tragic encounter between these two on a snowy night in 2006 on the outskirts of Krakow. The accident costs the lives of the American journalist Richard Brennan's wife and daughter, an event that colors the rest of his life. It also leads to a downward spiral for Bogdan Baranowsk, leaving emotional scars as he suffers the seemingly inevitable loss of his business, his home, and his wife.

Ross Egan has quietly labored for years in the West African nation of Dutannuru, a tiny republican democracy that emerged from the wreckage of the brutal civil war that claimed the brilliant engineer's wife and child. Then Egan is abruptly thrust onto the world stage at the center of the deadly international crisis. His actions and resulting notoriety land him on the short list of individuals capable of challenging the US presidential incumbent, seen by some as the most dangerously leftist president ever.

Er liebt sein Land, das er nicht mehr versteht. Er hasst die Liberalen. Er schläft nicht ohne seine Waffen. Er ist das Gegenteil von politisch korrekt. Er liebt seine Enkelin Ella über alles. Er hat einen Gehirntumor, für den er das Agent Orange aus dem Vietnamkrieg verantwortlich macht. Er überlebt die Operation. Er nimmt die letzte Chance wahr, sich mit seiner Vergangenheit, seinem Sohn und seinem Erzfeind aus dem Krieg, Clayton Fire Bear, auszusöhnen. Er heißt David Granger, 68 Jahre, Vietnamveteran. Er ist: ein Mann mit Anstand.

Every now and then, we come across a novel that moves us like no other, that seems like a miracle of the imagination, and that haunts us long after the book is closed. James Levine’s The Blue Notebook is that kind of book. It is the story of Batuk, an Indian girl who is taken to Mumbai from the countryside and sold into prostitution by her father; the blue notebook is her diary, in which she recalls her early childhood, records her life on the Common Street, and makes up beautiful and fantastic tales.

Oliver's Tale is a thinker's piece and while written in the same spirit as George Orwell's Animal Farm it has its own unique social, political, and religious message to be discovered by readers. Surrounded by a colorful cast of animal characters, Oliver experiences a spiritual growth in his relationship with God as he becomes privy to the secret plan of the Gray Skunk, the most mesmerizing and dangerous foe the Cove has ever faced.

With droll humor and biting wit, critically acclaimed author James Whorton, Jr. pens enjoyable novels in the tradition of John Kennedy Toole and Walker Percy. In Frankland, a socially challenged young man named John H. Tolley aspires to be a prestigious historian despite his lack of a college degree. To that end, he embarks on a journey to east Tennessee to track down 17th President Andrew Johnson’s secret papers, which may or may not actually exist. When he arrives, he meets a quirky group of people who inadvertently serve to obstruct him....

In 1983 junior diplomat and brilliant linguist Angela Morgan witnessed the death of her young husband during the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut. Devastated by her loss, she fled back to Washington, DC, and hid in the backwaters of the US State Department. With the exception of a two-year tour of duty in the former Soviet Union in the late '80s, she managed for almost two decades to avoid high-profile postings that would advance her career.

A riveting novel about two women - one Serbian, one Bosnian - whose deep friendship spans decades and continents, war and peace, love, and estrangement, in the vein of Elena Ferrante and Julia Alvarez. From the moment Marija walks into Lara's classroom, freshly moved to Serbia from Sarajevo, Lara is enchanted by her vibrant beauty, confidence, and wild energy - and knows that the two are destined to be lifelong friends. But when the Bosnian War pits their homelands against each other in a bloodbath, Lara and Marija are forced to separate for the first time.

Set against the backdrop of Argentina's Dirty War and infused with magical realism, The Blue Line is a breathtaking story of love and betrayal by one of the world's most renowned writers and activists. Ingrid Betancourt, author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Even Silence Has An End, draws on history and personal experience in this deeply felt portrait of a woman coming of age as her country falls deeper and deeper into chaos.

Life in a Palestinian refugee camp is filled with poverty, and hopeless frustration at the best of times - and 2001 is far from the best of times. Muhammad, already scarred by violence and tragedy, is plunged into depression when the frequent curfews make it impossible for him to find work. He can no longer face the thought of crossing the military checkpoint, but all available jobs are on the other side. His inability to provide for his family drives him to despair.

Part Primary Colors, part House of Cards, The Means takes you deep into high-stakes politics where everyone has something to hide. Tom Pauley is a conservative trial attorney in Durham, NC, who is tapped by GOP leaders to campaign for the Governor's mansion. His bold style makes him a favorite for a run at the White House. Mitchell Mason is the president-elect of the United States, pushed into politics by a father determined to create a political dynasty.

When Beth arrives in DC, she hates everything about it: the confusing traffic circles, the ubiquitous Ann Taylor suits, the humidity that descends each summer. At dinner parties, guests compare their security clearance levels. They leave their BlackBerrys on the table. They speak in acronyms. And once they realize Beth doesn't work in politics, they smile blandly and turn away.

A spellbinding historical novel about a woman who befriends Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and is drawn into their world of intrigue, from the author of Margot. On June 19, 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed for conspiring to commit espionage. The day Ethel was first arrested in 1950, she left her two young sons with a neighbor, and she never came home to them again. Brilliantly melding fact and fiction, Jillian Cantor reimagines the life of that neighbor and the lives of Ethel and Julius.

Jamie McAlister has resigned herself to the fact that in this job market, her painfully expensive degree might only get her a position at Starbucks, when she suddenly lands a prestigious internship at the White House. Although she doesn’t hit it off with the other interns, she is eager to work hard and make the best of the opportunity while it lasts. An unexpected encounter late one evening with the charismatic President Gregory Rutland seems like just a fleeting flirtation, but when he orchestrates clandestine meetings and late-night phone calls, their relationship quickly escalates....

Wry, moving, beautifully observed and politically astute, this latest audiobook from one of New Zealand's finest chroniclers pinpoints universal truths through very NZ lives. Life isn't always like it appears in the movies. In 1952 Irene Sandle takes her young daughter to Motueka. Irene was widowed during the war and is seeking a new start and employment in the tobacco fields. There, she finds the reality of her life far removed from the glamour of the screen.