Literary Fiction Political

A propulsive and ambitious novel as electrifying as The Wire, from a writer hailed as the West Coast's Richard Price—a mesmerizing epic of crime and opportunity, race, revenge, and loyalty, set in the chaotic streets of South Central LA in the wake of one of the most notorious and incendiary trials of the 1990s. At 3:15 p.m. on April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted three white Los Angeles Police Department officers charged with using excessive force to subdue a black man named Rodney King and failed to reach a verdict on the same charges involving a fourth officer. Less than two hours later, the city exploded in violence that lasted six days. In nearly 121 hours, fifty-three lives were lost. But there were even more deaths unaccounted for: violence that occurred outside of active rioting sites by those who used the chaos to viciously settle old scores.

An unnamed country is leaving the darkness of a decade at war, and to commemorate the armistice, the government commissions a new road connecting two halves of the state. Two men, foreign contractors from the same company, are sent to finish the highway. While one is flighty and adventurous, wanting to experience the nightlife and people, the other wants only to do the work and go home. But both men must eventually face the absurdities of their positions and the dire consequences of their presence.

Max Bowman has been gone for a long time. So long that he’s lost his home, his love, his money and most of his memories. Now, the Russian Rat Pack is hunting him down. A dog puppet with Lego blocks for teeth is barking out strange warnings. His weird brother is hiding something in the basement. And the woman Max left behind is involved with a crooked lobbyist whose menace is almost as big as his stomach, as well as the stunning secret he’s got under wraps. Oh yeah. And Donald Trump is also now president.

Yunus Turabi, a bus driver in Tehran, leads an unremarkable life. A solitary man since the unexpected deaths of his father and mother years ago, he is decidedly apolitical - even during the driver’s strike and its bloody end. But everyone has their breaking point, and Yunus has reached his.

Pam, Daniel, and Joe might be the worst punk band on the Lower East Side. Struggling to scrape together enough cash and musical talent to make it, they are waylaid by surprising arrivals - a daughter for Pam and Daniel, a solo hit single for Joe. As the ‘90s wane, the three friends share in one another’s successes, working together to elevate Joe’s superstardom and raise baby Flora. On September 11, 2001, the city’s unfathomable devastation coincides with a shattering personal loss for the trio. In the aftermath, Flora comes of age, navigating a charged political landscape.

Éric Vuillard’s gripping novel The Order of the Day tells the story of the pivotal meetings which took between the European powers in the run up to World War Two. What emerges is a fascinating and incredibly moving account of failed diplomacy, broken relationships and the catastrophic momentum which led to conflict.

Originally conceived as a novel but then transformed into a play by Ayn Rand, Ideal is the story of beautiful but tormented actress Kay Gonda. Accused of murder, she is on the run and turns for help to six fans who have written letters to her, each telling her that she represents their ideal - a respectable family man, a far-left activist, a cynical artist, an evangelist, a playboy, and a lost soul.

Former government minister Ralph Singh is the perpetual outsider: displaced, disillusioned, and now living in exile, Ralph reflects on his earlier life and the searing effects of colonialism. Ralph's constant estrangement sees him ever attempting to fit into various communities, only to find home in more transient spaces. Born on the tropical island of Isabella, he is one of West India's many "Mimic Men".

Douglas Braithwaite is an American aviator and managing director of an airline flying humanitarian aid from Kenya to war-ravaged Sudan. Quinette Hardin is an evangelical Christian from Iowa whose human rights group works to redeem slaves from Arab raiders. Fitzhugh Martin is a multiracial Kenyan seeking a calling that will rejuvenate his directionless life. These and other characters populate Philip Caputo's riveting novel that describes the classic confrontation between Westerners and the Third World.

Former Michigan detective Adam Tatum receives an unexpected offer, a golden opportunity that seems almost too good to be true. He travels to 10 Downing Street to participate in a high-stakes conference. Immediately after his visit, a bomb detonates, wounding the prime minister and placing Adam Tatum squarely in the crosshairs of suspicion. Sensing a setup, Tatum flees with his family, desperately fighting for survival in an unfamiliar country.

A dazzling, compassionate and deeply moving audiobook from one of world literature's rising stars. A mesmerising literary novel, Questions of Travel charts two very different lives. Laura travels the world before returning to Sydney, where she works for a publisher of travel guides. Ravi dreams of being a tourist until he is driven from Sri Lanka by devastating events. Around these two superbly drawn characters, a double narrative assembles an enthralling array of people, places and stories.

His last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure provoked such widespread and bitter attacks that Hardy claimed it caused him to stop writing novels. The primary causes of the uproar involved Hardy’s frank treatment of sexual themes and his unconventional portrayal of the pillars of Victorian society: the British university system, marriage, and religion. Today, many consider this to be Hardy’s finest work.

Pussy is the story of Prince Fracassus, heir presumptive to the Duchy of Origen, famed for its golden-gated skyscrapers and casinos, who passes his boyhood watching reality shows on TV, imagining himself to be the Roman Emperor Nero, and fantasizing about hookers.

He is idle, boastful, thin skinned and egotistic. He has no manners, no curiosity, no knowledge, no idea and no words with which to express them. Could he, in that case, be the very leader to make the country great again?

Published at the height of the McCarthy era, Norman Mailer's audacious novel of socialism is at once an elegy and an indictment, a sinuous moral thriller and an intellectual slugfest. Wounded during World War II, Mike Lovett is an amnesiac, and much of his past is a secret to himself. But when Lovett rents a room in Brooklyn, he finds that his housemates have secrets of their own: one betrays a husband no one ever sees; another may have been a Communist executioner.

The old-fashioned struggle for fairness has finally been abandoned. It was a misguided endeavor. The world is divided into two groups, pats and quads. The pats may kill the quads as they like, and do. The quads have no recourse but to continue with their lives. The Divers’ Game is a thinly veiled description of our society, an extreme case that demonstrates a truth: we must change or our world will collapse. What is the effect of constant fear on a life, or on a culture?

Samuel has lived alone for a long time. One morning, he finds the sea has brought someone to offer companionship and to threaten his solitude. An intense and powerful audiobook about guilt and fear, friendship and rejection; about the meaning of home.

A rural working-class New England town elects as its mayor a New York hedge fund millionaire in this inspired novel for our times - fiction in the tradition of Jonathan Franzen and Jennifer Egan. Here are the dramas of 21st-century America - rising inequality, working class decline, a new authoritarianism - played out in the classic setting of some of our greatest novels: the small town. The Locals is that rare work of fiction capable of capturing a fraught American moment in real time.

It's early one morning on a hot day in August, and millennial congressman Alexander Paine Wilson (R), planning his first reelection campaign and in deep denial about his sexuality, receives a mysterious, over-sized FedEx delivery on his front stoop. Inside is a gigantic taxidermied aardvark. This outrageous, edge-of-your-seat novel hurtles between contemporary Washington, DC, where Wilson tries to get rid of the unsightly beast before it destroys his career, and Victorian England - where we meet Titus Downing, the taxidermist who stuffed the aardvark....

A father and three of his seven children work brutal hours in a mine, facing hazards such as landslides, fire, and poisoned air, to scrape together enough money for food. When their lodger, Étienne, shares ideas about a workers' revolt, the family gradually embraces his plans. Soon the settlement is aflame with resolve to strike for better wages and working conditions. Savage and horrifying events ensue as miners clash with management and with each other.

Caught in the midst of England's War of the Roses, young Dick Shelton's loyalties are torn between a guardian who betrays him and the leader of the secret fellowship, "The Black Arrow".