Literary Fiction Psychological

Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent Midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously - and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas that sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein’s own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire.

Illumination Night follows the lives of a young blond giant who is as beautiful as he is frightening; an old woman at the end of her life whose last mission is to save her granddaughter's soul; a family torn apart by a wife's fears and a husband's unrealized desires; and the high school girl who comes to Martha's Vineyard against her will, who steals husbands and cars, and who will bring everyone together in a web of yearning, sin, and ultimate redemption.

In Like Life's eight exquisite stories, Lorrie Moore's characters stumble through their daily existence. These men and women, unsettled and adrift and often frightened, can't quite understand how they arrived at their present situations. Harry has been reworking a play for years in his apartment near Times Square in New York. Jane is biding her time at a cheese shop in a Midwest mall. Dennis, unhappily divorced, buries himself in self-help books about healthful food and healthy relationships.

In the late 1950s, in a small New England town, Reverend Tyler Caskey has suffered a terrible loss and finds it hard to be the person he once was. He struggles to find the right words in his sermons and in his conversations with those facing crises of their own, and to bring his five-year-old daughter, Katherine, out of the silence she has observed in the wake of the family’s tragedy.

That's what the officer tells single mother Aubrey Finch after she reports a kidnapping. So why hasn't anyone reported the little boy missing? Aubrey knows what she saw: a boy being taken against his will from the park. It doesn't matter that the mother can't be found. It doesn't matter if no one reported it. Aubrey knows he's missing.

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab, and soon, you'll be matched with your perfect partner - the one you're genetically made for. That's the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: Test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance, and love.

In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the 30s, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal.

In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing art-house horror flick. The weird part? Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot. The man who played “The Thin Kid” is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy.

Barton Dawes' unremarkable but comfortable existence suddenly takes a turn for the worst. A new highway extension is being built right over the laundry plant where he works - and right over his home. Dawes isn't the sort of man who will take an insult of this magnitude lying down. His steadfast determination to fight the inevitable course of progress drives his wife and friends away while he tries to face down the uncaring bureaucracy that has destroyed his life.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in "The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas". As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived, and famously testified that her 15-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who've long forgotten her.

In the powerful, haunting stories of Munro’s collection, men and women, in the midst of contemporary quandaries and crises, recall the long-buried yearnings, dreams, and hard choices that have given shape to their lives.

Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all—a loving relationship, a wonderful home, and their beautiful baby, Cora. But one night, when they are at a dinner party next door, a terrible crime is committed. Suspicion immediately lands on the parents. But the truth is a much more complicated story.

When Rowan stumbles across an ad for a live-in nanny, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss - with a staggeringly generous salary. And when she arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten - by the luxurious "smart" house fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family. What Rowan doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare - one that will end with a child dead and Rowan in prison awaiting trial for murder.

Flynn was only a teenager when her parents were killed in a terrible accident. Too young to lose her parents, too young to take on responsibility for her younger sister Kaiya, too young to protect Kaiya from the harshness of their new lives in the following years. Desperate to help her sister, Flynn reaches out to Willa Tomlinson, a grief counsellor renowned for helping her patients cope with profound loss. Under Willa’s influence and care, Kaiya finally seems to turn a corner, joining the climate action collective that Willa leads.

Salman Rushdie holds the literary world in awe with a jaw-dropping catalog of critically acclaimed novels that have made him one of the world's most celebrated authors. Winner of the prestigious Booker of Bookers, Midnight's Children tells the story of Saleem Sinai, born on the stroke of India's independence.

Intense, brilliant and moving, The Door is a compelling story about the relationship between two women of opposing backgrounds and personalities: one, an intellectual and writer; the other, her housekeeper, a mysterious, elderly woman who sets her own rules and abjures religion, education, pretense and any kind of authority. Beneath this hardened exterior of Emerence lies a painful story that must be concealed.

Harriet Westaway - better known as Hal - makes ends meet as a tarot reader, but she doesn’t believe in the power of her trade. On a day that begins like any other, she receives a mysterious and unexpected letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person - but she also knows that she can use her cold-reading skills to potentially claim the money. Hal attends the funeral of the deceased and meets the family...but it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation.

A former actress, Allison Rocca knows her husband, Tony, a screenwriter, has been extra busy lately. And news reporter Katy knows her ex, Chief Detective Sam Ladera, is desperately hunting the Video Killer. Still, each woman senses something unusual about the men's behavior. But as they attempt to find the truth, they unwittingly draw closer to the lens of a calculating madman searching for his next leading lady.

Leonora (Lee to some, Nora to others) is a reclusive writer, but when an old friend unexpectedly invites her to a weekend away in an eerie glass house, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. But a haunting realization creeps in to the party: they are not alone in the woods. Forty-eight hours later, Nora wakes up in a hospital bed with the knowledge that someone is dead. Wondering not “what happened?” but “what have I done?” she tries to piece together the events of the past weekend.

Animal Dreams is a passionate and complex novel about love, forgiveness, and one woman's struggle to find her place in the world. At the end of her rope, Codi Noline returns to her Arizona home to face her ailing father, with whom she has a difficult, distant relationship. There she meets handsome Apache trainman Loyd Peregrina, who tells her, "If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life."