Emily St. John Mandel

Read more than once but still in great condition. UK version!

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Tennessee

A Novel

"From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, a captivating novel of money, beauty, white-collar crime, ghosts, and moral compromise in which a woman disappears from a container ship off the coast of Mauritania and a massive Ponzi scheme implodes in New York, dragging countless fortunes with it"--

The Glass Hotel

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Megha Majumdar

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

"After a fiery attack on a train leaves 104 people dead, the fates of three people become inextricably entangled. Jivan, a bright, striving woman from the slums looking for a way out of poverty, is wrongly accused of planning the attack because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir, a slippery gym teacher from Jivan's former high school, has hitched his aspirations to a rising right wing party, and his own ascent becomes increasingly linked to Jivan's fall. Lovely, a spirited, impoverished, relentlessly optimistic hjira, who harbors dreams of becoming a Bollywood star, can provide the alibi that would set Jivan free--but her appearance in court will have unexpected consequences that will change the course of all of their lives. A novel about fate, power, opportunity, and class; about innocence and guilt, betrayal and love, and the corrosive media cycle that manufactures falsehoods masquerading as truths--A Burning is a debut novel of exceptional power and urgency, haunting and beautiful, brutal, vibrant, impossible to forget"--

A Burning

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Lauren Groff

Read more than once but in excellent condition!

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

WINNER OF THE 2022 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE

FINALIST FOR THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION

One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2021

Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, NPR, The Financial Times, Good Housekeeping, Esquire, Vulture, Marie Claire, Vox, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today and more!

"A relentless exhibition of Groff's freakish talent. In just over 250 pages, she gives us a character study to rival Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell ." - USA Today

"An electric reimagining . . . feminist, sensual . . . unforgettable." - O, The Oprah Magazine

"Thrilling and heartbreaking." -Time Magazine

"[A] page-by-page pleasure as we soar with her." -New York Times

One of our best American writers, Lauren Groff returns with her exhilarating first new novel since the groundbreaking Fates and Furies.

Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.

At first taken aback by the severity of her new life, Marie finds focus and love in collective life with her singular and mercurial sisters. In this crucible, Marie steadily supplants her desire for family, for her homeland, for the passions of her youth with something new to her: devotion to her sisters, and a conviction in her own divine visions. Marie, born the last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, is determined to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. But in a world that is shifting and corroding in frightening ways, one that can never reconcile itself with her existence, will the sheer force of Marie's vision be bulwark enough?

Equally alive to the sacred and the profane, Matrix gathers currents of violence, sensuality, and religious ecstasy in a mesmerizing portrait of consuming passion, aberrant faith, and a woman that history moves both through and around. Lauren Groff's new novel, her first since Fates and Furies, is a defiant and timely exploration of the raw power of female creativity in a corrupted world.

Matrix

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Joy Williams

Read once. The spine is a little worn on the bottom. See photos. 

With a new introduction by Karen Russell, the 40th anniversary edition of The Changeling is a visionary fairy tale and a work of mythic genius by one of our best writers.


Forty years later, The Changeling is no less haunting and no less visionary than the day it was published, but it has only become clearer that Joy Williams is a virtuosic stylist and a singular thinker--a genius in every sense of the word.            

When we first meet Pearl--young in years but advanced in her drinking--she's on the lam, sitting at a hotel bar in Florida, throwing back gin and tonics with her infant son cradled in the crook of her arm. But her escape is brief, and the relief she feels at having fled her abusive husband, and the Northeastern island his family calls home, doesn't last for long. Soon she's being shepherded back. The island, for Pearl, is a place of madness and pain, and her round-the-clock drinking spurs on the former even if it dulls the latter. And through this lens--Pearl's fragile consciousness--readers encounter the horror and triumph of both childhood and motherhood in a new light.            

With language that flits between exuberance and elegy, the plainspoken and the poetic, Joy Williams has blended, as Rick Moody writes, "the arresting improbabilities of magic realism, with the surrealism of the folkloric revival . . . and with the modernist foreboding of Under the Volcano," and created something entirely original and entirely consuming. 

The Changeling

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Ayobami Adebayo

A dazzling story of modern Nigeria and two families caught in the riptides of wealth, power, romantic obsession, and political corruption from the celebrated author of Stay with Me, "in the lineage of great works by Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie" (The New York Times).

Eniola is tall for his age, a boy who looks like a man. Because his father has lost his job, Eniola spends his days running errands for the local tailor, collecting newspapers, begging when he must, dreaming of a big future.

Wuraola is a golden girl, the perfect child of a wealthy family. Now an exhausted young doctor in her first year of practice, she is beloved by Kunle, the volatile son of an ascendant politician.

When a local politician takes an interest in Eniola and sudden violence shatters a family party, Wuraola's and Eniola's lives become intertwined. In her breathtaking second novel, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ shines her light on Nigeria, on the gaping divide between the haves and the have-nots, and the shared humanity that lives in between.

A Spell of Good Things

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Diana Evans

A sweeping and gorgeously rendered exploration of home and yearning, following the fracturing of a family upon the demise of its patriarch In the early hours of June 14, 2017, the world watches as flames leap up the sides of a residential high-rise in West London, consuming Grenfell Tower and many of the lives within it. Across town, an earlier spark has caught fire. A cigarette left burning in an ashtray. A table strewn with post-it reminders and old newspapers. And one Cornelius Winston Pitt—estranged husband, complicated dad, and Pitt family patriarch—takes his final breaths alone. These twin tragedies open Diana Evans’s A House for Alice, an aching portrait of a family of women shaken by loss and searching for closure. At the novel’s center is Alice herself, the Pitt matriarch who, after fifty years in England, now longs to live out her final years in her homeland of Nigeria. Her three daughters are torn on the issue of whether she stays or goes, and while youngest sibling Melissa also grapples with the embers of her own failed relationship, the Pitt family’s foundational pillars—of trust, love, and cultural identity—begin to crack. Intimately drawn and set against a fraught political backdrop, yet equally full of hope, humor, and humanity, A House for Alice traces the scars of grief and betrayal across generations and uncovers the secrets we keep from those closest to us.

A House for Alice

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Sophie Wan

Set against a high-society Shanghai wedding, a heartfelt, funny, dazzling debut about a relucant bride and her two best friends, each with their own motives and fed up with the way society treats women, who launch a heist to steal all the gift money on the big day Lulu has always been taught that money is the ticket to a good life. So, when Shanghai's most eligible bachelor surprises her with a proposal, the only acceptable answer is yes, even if the voice inside her head is saying no. His family's fortune would solve all her parents' financial woes, but Lulu isn't in love or ready for marriage. The only people she can confide in are her two best friends: career-minded Rina, who is tired of being passed over for promotion as her biological clock ticks away; and Jane, a sharp-tongued, luxury-chasing housewife desperate to divorce her husband and trade up. Each of them desires something different: freedom, time, beauty. None of them can get it without money. It's not long before they realize that Lulu's wedding is their golden opportunity. With Shanghai's elite clamoring to attend, it stands to be the social event of the season, which means more than enough cash gifts to transform the women's lives. To steal the money on the big day, all they'll need is a trustworthy crew and a brilliant plan. But as the plot grows increasingly complicated and relationships are caught in the cross fire, the women are forced to face that having it all might come at a steep price...

Women of Good Fortune

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Rafael Frumkin

Read once but like new! The dustcover is folded a little unevenly, but it arrived from the publisher that way. It’s not really noticeable. 

A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 from Vulture, Elle, Lithub, and Electric Literature
"Theranos but make it gay."--Electric Literature

Best friends (and occasional lovers) Ezra and Orson are teetering on top of the world after founding a company that promises instant enlightenment in this thrilling caper about scams, schemes, and the absurdity of the American Dream.

At seventeen, Ezra Green doesn't have a lot going for him: he's shorter than average, snaggle-toothed, internet-addicted, and halfway to being legally blind. He's also on his way to Last Chance Camp, the final stop before juvie.

But Ezra's summer at Last Chance turns life-changing when he meets Orson, brilliant and Adonis-like with a mind for hustling. Together, the two embark upon what promises to be a fruitful career of scam artistry. But when they try to pull off their biggest scam yet--Nulife, a corporation that promises its consumers a lifetime of bliss--things start to spin wildly out of control.

Searing and charming, with the suspense of The Talented Mr. Ripley, the decadence of The Great Gatsby, and the wit of Succession, Confidence is a story for anyone who knows that the American Dream is just another pyramid scheme.

Confidence

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Rumaan Alam

A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award (Fiction) A Best Book of the Year From: The Washington Post * Time * NPR * Elle * Esquire * Kirkus * Library Journal * The Chicago Public Library * The New York Public Library * BookPage * The Globe and Mail * EW.com * The LA Times * USA Today * InStyle * The New Yorker * AARP * Publisher's Lunch * LitHub * Book Marks * Electric Literature * Brooklyn Based * The Boston Globe A magnetic novel about two families, strangers to each other, who are forced together on a long weekend gone terribly wrong. From the bestselling author of Rich and Pretty comes a suspenseful and provocative novel keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped--and unexpected new ones are forged--in moments of crisis. Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they've rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older couple--it's their house, and they've arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural area--with the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone service--it's hard to know what to believe. Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple--and vice versa? What happened back in New York? Is the vacation home, isolated from civilization, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one other?

Leave the World Behind

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Abi Daré

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK! “Brave, fresh . . . unforgettable.”—The New York Times Book Review “A celebration of girls who dare to dream.”—Imbolo Mbue, author of Behold the Dreamers (Oprah’s Book Club pick) Shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and recommended by The New York Times, Marie Claire, Vogue, Essence, PopSugar, Daily Mail, Electric Literature, Red, Stylist, Daily Kos, Library Journal, The Everygirl, and Read It Forward! The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her “louding voice” and speak up for herself, The Girl with the Louding Voice is a simultaneously heartbreaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams. Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in her path, Adunni never loses sight of her goal of escaping the life of poverty she was born into so that she can build the future she chooses for herself – and help other girls like her do the same. Her spirited determination to find joy and hope in even the most difficult circumstances imaginable will “break your heart and then put it back together again” (Jenna Bush Hager on The Today Show) even as Adunni shows us how one courageous young girl can inspire us all to reach for our dreams…and maybe even change the world.

The Girl with the Louding Voice

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Naomi Alderman

Brand new. Never read. Bend on back dustcover. See photos. 

From the award-winning, bestselling author of The Power comes a white-knuckle tour de force and dazzling exploration of the world we have made and where we are going. The Future—as the richest people on the planet have discovered—is where the money is. The Future is a few billionaires leading the world to destruction while safeguarding their own survival with secret lavish bunkers. The Future is private weather, technological prophecy and highly deniable weapons. The Future is a handful of friends—the daughter of a cult leader, a non-binary hacker, an ousted Silicon Valley visionary, the concerned wife of a dangerous CEO, and an internet-famous survivalist—hatching a daring plan. It could be the greatest heist ever. Or the cataclysmic end of civilization. The Future is what you see if you don’t look behind you. The Future is the only reason to do anything, the only object of desire. The Future is here.

The Future

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Karin Lin-Greenberg

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

"Lin-Greenberg’s web of characters illustrate the complex lives of ordinary people." —Time As a once-bustling mall prepares to shut its doors for the final time, the residents of an upstate New York town must reckon with a shocking act that forces them to reevaluate who they are in this "remarkable study of ordinary people's extraordinary inner lives" (Publishers Weekly, starred review) The inhabitants of a small town have long found that their lives intersect at one focal point: the local shopping mall. But business is down, stores are closing, and as the institution breathes its last gasp, the people inside it dream of something different, something more. In its pages, You Are Here brings this diverse group of characters vividly to life—flawed, real, lovable strangers who are wonderful company and prove unforgettable even after the last store has closed. The only hair stylist at Sunshine Clips secretly watches YouTube primers on how to draw and paint, just as her awkward young son covertly studies new illusions for his magic act. His friend and magician’s assistant, a high school cashier in the food court, has attracted the unwanted attention of a strange boy at school. She tells no one except the mall’s chain bookstore manager, a failed academic living in the tiny house he built in his mother-in-law's backyard. His family is watched over by the judgmental old woman next door, whose weekly trips to Sunshine Clips hide a complicated and emotional history and will spark the moment when everything changes for them all. Exploring how the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are inextricably bound to the places we call home, You Are Here is a keenly perceptive and deeply humane portrait of a community in transition, ultimately illuminating the magical connections that can bloom from the ordinary wonder of our everyday lives.

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Sarah Gailey

GOODREADS: The Hottest Books of Summer 2019 OMNIVORACIOUS: 10 Most Anticipated SF and Fantasy Books of Summer EW: Books to Read in June POPSUGAR: 21 New Books You Need to Read GOODREADS: Meet the Rising Stars of Science Fiction and Fantasy LITHUB: Ultimate Summer Books Preview REFINERY 29: The Best Books of June 2019 AV CLUB: Books to Read in June BUSTLE: 50 New Books of Summer 2019 GOODREADS: The 24 Most Popular Sci-Fi & Fantasy Novels of 2019 THE VERGE: 11 New SFF Books to Check Out GOOD HOUSEKEEPING: Best New Books to Add to Your Summer Reading BUZZFEED: 29 Summer Books to Get Excited About Sharp, mainstream fantasy meets compelling thrills of investigative noir in Magic for Liars, a fantasy debut by rising star Sarah Gailey. Ivy Gamble was born without magic and never wanted it. Ivy Gamble is perfectly happy with her life – or at least, she’s perfectly fine. She doesn't in any way wish she was like Tabitha, her estranged, gifted twin sister. Ivy Gamble is a liar. When a gruesome murder is discovered at The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages, where her estranged twin sister teaches Theoretical Magic, reluctant detective Ivy Gamble is pulled into the world of untold power and dangerous secrets. She will have to find a murderer and reclaim her sister—without losing herself. “An unmissable debut.”—Adrienne Celt, author of Invitation to a Bonfire

Magic for Liars

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Julissa Arce

The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

AN INDIE BESTSELLER

Most Anticipated by ELLE * Bustle * Bloomberg * Kirkus * HipLatina * SheReads * BookPage * The Millions * The Mujerista * Ms. Magazine * and more

"Unflinching" --Ms. Magazine * "Phenomenal" --BookRiot * "An essential read" --Kirkus, starred review * "Necessary" --Library Journal * "Powerful" --Joaquin Castro * "Illuminating" --Reyna Grande * "A love letter to our people" --José Olivarez * "I have been waiting for this book all my life" --Paul Ortiz

Bestselling author Julissa Arce calls for a celebration of our uniqueness, our origins, our heritage, and the beauty of the differences that make us Americans in this powerful polemic against the myth that assimilation leads to happiness and belonging for immigrants.

"You sound like a white girl." These were the words spoken to Julissa by a high school crush as she struggled to find her place in America. As a brown immigrant from Mexico, assimilation had been demanded of her since the moment she set foot in San Antonio, Texas, in 1994. She'd spent so much time getting rid of her accent so no one could tell English was her second language that in that moment she felt those words--you sound like a white girl?--were a compliment. As a child, she didn't yet understand that assimilating to "American" culture really meant imitating "white" America--that sounding like a white girl was a racist idea meant to tame her, change her, and make her small. She ran the race, completing each stage, but never quite fit in, until she stopped running altogether.

In this dual polemic and manifesto, Julissa dives into and tears apart the lie that assimilation leads to belonging. She combs through history and her own story to break down this myth, arguing that assimilation is a moving finish line designed to keep Black and brown Americans and immigrants chasing racist American ideals. She talks about the Lie of Success, the Lie of Legality, the Lie of Whiteness, and the Lie of English--each promising that if you obtain these things, you will reach acceptance and won't be an outsider anymore. Julissa deftly argues that these demands leave her and those like her in a purgatory--neither able to secure the power and belonging within whiteness nor find it in the community and cultures whiteness demands immigrants and people of color leave behind.

In You Sound Like a White Girl, Julissa offers a bold new promise: Belonging only comes through celebrating yourself, your history, your culture, and everything that makes you uniquely you. Only in turning away from the white gaze can we truly make America beautiful. An America where difference is celebrated, heritage is shared and embraced, and belonging is for everyone. Through unearthing veiled history and reclaiming her own identity, Julissa shows us how to do this.

You Sound Like a White Girl

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Tajja Isen

And Other White Lies I've Been Told

"A fearless and darkly comic essay collection about race, justice, and the limits of good intentions. In this stunning debut collection, Catapult editor-in-chief and award-winning voice actor Tajja Isen explores the absurdity of living in a world that has grown fluent in the language of social justice but doesn't always follow through. These nine daring essays explore the sometimes troubling and often awkward nature of that discord. Some of My Best Friends takes on the cartoon industry's pivot away from colorblind casting, the pursuit of diverse representation in the literary world, the law's refusal to see inequality, and the cozy fictions of nationalism. Isen deftly examines the quick, cosmetic fixes society makes to address systemic problems, and reveals the unexpected ways they can misfire. ...Isen interlaces cultural criticism with her lived experience to explore the gaps between what we say and what we do, what we do and what we value, what we value and what we demand."--Publisher's website.

Some of My Best Friends

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Daniel Hornsby

Succession meets Bad Blood in this sharp-toothed satire of Silicon Valley and the 1 percent, in which the black-sheep son of an industrial tycoon starts working for a tech pioneer who's running a biomedical startup selling nothing less than immortality, only to uncover the horrifying truth at the heart of her sublime promises. "Exceptional, horrifically hilarious, and deeply original.” —Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here Chuck Gross would like nothing more than to prune himself from his family tree. He’s already clipped his name, turning Charles Grossheart, Jr.—son of a billionaire labor exploiter, weapons manufacturer, and climate change denier—into ordinary good-guy Chuck, the “self-made” proprietor of an up-and-coming punk label. But when Daddy threatens to cut him off, Chuck is forced to get a “real job”—and conveniently, an old college friend has just swept back into his life with the perfect opportunity. Famed Harvard dropout and biotech darling Olivia Watts says she is on the verge of totally reinventing the field of medicine, but when Chuck signs on, he soon discovers that things at the vast Kenosis campus are not quite how they appear. Secret labs, vanished employees, and mutated test subjects seem to be as impossible as they are sinister. Is Olivia simply a scammer, or does her technology threaten to usher humanity toward a far bloodier fate? Moreover, does Chuck—who has never accomplished anything without the aid of Daddy’s money—stand a chance of stopping her? Daniel Hornsby hilariously skewers the insatiable hungers of the ultrarich in a novel that no one will be able to resist sinking their teeth into.

Sucker

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Julie Otsuka

Brand new. I accidentally ended up with two copies. 😅

A story told from five different points of view chronicles the experiences of Japanese Americans caught up in the nightmare of the World War II internment camps.

When the Emperor Was Divine

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Rin Usami

Asa Yoneda

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A DECEMBER INDIE NEXT PICK!

"Haunting and sincere, Idol, Burning subverts and astonishes. Rin Usami balances humor, obsession, heartbreak, and sacrifice in her debut, crafting a story that's both enveloping and expansive. Usami's writing is thrilling and deft, and her novel illuminates the shadows cloaking our digital lives, leaving us with honesty and grace in equal measures. Idol, Burning is a barnburner and a prayer and a testament to the lengths that we'll go to reach for our dreams."--Bryan Washington, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot

The novel that lit the Japanese publishing world on fire: From a breathtaking up-and-coming writer, a twenty-first century Catcher in the Rye that brilliantly explores toxic fandom, social media, and alienated adolescence.

Akari is a high school student obsessed with "oshi" Masaki Ueno, a member of the popular J-Pop group Maza Maza. She writes a blog devoted to him, and spends hours addictively scrolling for information about him and his life. Desperate to analyze and understand him, Akari hopes to eventually see the world through his eyes. It is a devotion that borders on the religious: Masaki is her savior, her backbone, someone she believes she cannot survive without--even though she's never actually met him.

When rumors surface that her idol assaulted a female fan, social media explodes. Akari immediately begins sifting through everything she can find about the scandal, and shares every detail to her blog--including Masaki's denials and pleas to his fans--drawing numerous readers eager for her updates.

But the organized, knowledgeable persona Akari presents online is totally different from the socially awkward, unfocused teenager she is in real life. As Masaki's situation spirals, his troubles threaten to tear apart her life too. Instead of finding a way to break free to save herself, Akari becomes even more fanatical about Masaki, still believing her idol is the only person who understands her.

A blistering novel of fame, disconnection, obsession, and disillusion by a young writer not much older than the novel's heroine, Idol, Burning shines a white-hot spotlight on fandom and "stan" culture, the money-making schemes of the pop idol industry, the seductive power of social media, and the powerful emotional void that opens when an idol falls from grace, only to become a real--and very flawed--person.

Translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda.

Idol, Burning

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Laura Warrell

GMA BUZZ PICK • How do we find belonging when love is unrequited? A "gorgeously written debut" (Celeste Ng, best-selling author of Little Fires Everywhere) filled with jazz and soul, about the perennial temptations of dangerous love, told by the women who love Circus Palmer—trumpet player and old-school ladies’ man—as they ultimately discover the power of their own voices. “Elegant, unexpected and…unforgettable.” —New York Times Book Review “A modern masterpiece.” —Jason Reynolds, best-selling author of Look Both Ways It’s 2013, and Circus Palmer, a forty-year-old Boston-based trumpet player and old-school ladies’ man, lives for his music and refuses to be tied down. Before a gig in Miami, he learns that the woman who is secretly closest to his heart, the free-spirited drummer Maggie, is pregnant by him. Instead of facing the necessary conversation, Circus flees, setting off a chain of interlocking revelations from the various women in his life. Most notable among them is his teenage daughter, Koko, who idolizes him and is awakening to her own sexuality even as her mentally fragile mother struggles to overcome her long-failed marriage and rejection by Circus. Delivering a lush orchestration of diverse female voices, Warrell spins a provocative, soulful, and gripping story of passion and risk, fathers and daughters, wives and single women, and, finally, hope and reconciliation.

Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm

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Colson Whitehead

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NOMINEE * A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR * NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..." To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. 

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. 

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either. 

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa--the "Waldorf of Harlem"--and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. 

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? 

Harlem Shuffle's ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It's a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. 

But mostly, it's a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

Harlem Shuffle

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Chang-rae Lee

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A manifesto to happiness—the one found when you stop running from who you are.” –New York Times Book Review “An extraordinary book, acrobatic on the level of the sentence, symphonic across its many movements—and this is a book that moves…My Year Abroad is a wild ride—a caper, a romance, a bildungsroman, and something of a satire of how to get filthy rich in rising Asia.” – Vogue From the award-winning author of Native Speaker and On Such a Full Sea, an exuberant, provocative story about a young American life transformed by an unusual Asian adventure – and about the human capacities for pleasure, pain, and connection. Tiller is an average American college student with a good heart but minimal aspirations. Pong Lou is a larger-than-life, wildly creative Chinese American entrepreneur who sees something intriguing in Tiller beyond his bored exterior and takes him under his wing. When Pong brings him along on a boisterous trip across Asia, Tiller is catapulted from ordinary young man to talented protégé, and pulled into a series of ever more extreme and eye-opening experiences that transform his view of the world, of Pong, and of himself. In the breathtaking, “precise, elliptical prose” that Chang-rae Lee is known for (The New York Times), the narrative alternates between Tiller’s outlandish, mind-boggling year with Pong and the strange, riveting, emotionally complex domestic life that follows it, as Tiller processes what happened to him abroad and what it means for his future. Rich with commentary on Western attitudes, Eastern stereotypes, capitalism, global trade, mental health, parenthood, mentorship, and more, My Year Abroad is also an exploration of the surprising effects of cultural immersion—on a young American in Asia, on a Chinese man in America, and on an unlikely couple hiding out in the suburbs. Tinged at once with humor and darkness, electric with its accumulating surprises and suspense, My Year Abroad is a novel that only Chang-rae Lee could have written, and one that will be read and discussed for years to come.

My Year Abroad

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Mary H. K. Choi

“Smart and funny, with characters so real and vulnerable, you want to send them care packages. I loved this book.” —Rainbow Rowell From debut author Mary H.K. Choi comes a compulsively readable novel that shows young love in all its awkward glory—perfect for fans of Eleanor & Park and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. For Penny Lee, high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she’d somehow landed a boyfriend, they never managed to know much about each other. Now Penny is heading to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer. It’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind. Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him. When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to, you know, see each other.

Emergency Contact

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Jen Wilde

Signed by the author! Read once. Perfect condition.

Fans of One of Us Is Lying and The Hazel Wood are cordially invited to spend one fateful night surviving an elite private school's epic masquerade ball in Jen Wilde's debut thriller, This Is the Way the World Ends.

As an autistic scholarship student at the prestigious Webber Academy in New York City, Waverly is used to masking to fit in--in more ways than one. While her classmates are the children of the one percent, Waverly is getting by on tutoring gigs and the generosity of the school's charming and enigmatic dean. So when her tutoring student and resident "it girl" asks Waverly to attend the school's annual fundraising Masquerade disguised as her, Waverly jumps at the chance--especially once she finds out that Ash, the dean's daughter and her secret ex-girlfriend, will be there.

The Masquerade is everything Waverly dreamed of, complete with extravagant gowns, wealthy parents writing checks, and flowing champagne. Most importantly, there's Ash. All Waverly wants to do is shed her mask and be with her, but the evening takes a sinister turn when Waverly stumbles into a secret meeting between the dean and the school's top donors--and witnesses a brutal murder. This gala is harboring far more malevolent plots than just opening parents' pocketbooks. Before she can escape or contact the authorities, a mysterious global blackout puts the entire party on lockdown. Waverly's fairy tale has turned into a nightmare, and she, Ash, and her friends must navigate through a dizzying maze of freight elevators, secret passageways, and back rooms if they're going to survive the night.

And even if they manage to escape the Masquerade, with technology wiped out all over the planet, what kind of world will they find waiting for them beyond the doors?

This Is the Way the World Ends (SIGNED)

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Karin Tanabe

From Rodeo Drive to the French Riviera, Karin Tanabe's The Sunset Crowd is a tale of survival and reinvention, of faking it until you make it, and the glittering appeal of success and stardom, as it seeks to answer that timeless question--who gets to have the American dream?

Money and fame: in 1970's Los Angeles, everyone is fighting to reach the top, but very few have the talent, ambition, and luck to get there.

Meet LA darling Evra Scott. The daughter of an Oscar-winning director and a Brazilian bombshell actress, Evra is the city's reigning style queen. By day, she's at the helm of Sunset on Sunset, the store beloved by Hollywood's young and beautiful. By night, she's on the arm of Kai de la Faire, Hawaii's hottest export, and the screenwriter of the moment.

Enter Theodora Leigh. The twenty-something Paramount assistant looks like a big screen star, but her sights are firmly set behind the scenes, as she fights to become a movie producer in a town where sex and sexism sell. Theodora's got the talent and instincts, but she's not willing to wait. Luckily, getting ahead by any means necessary is LA's mantra.

Observing it all is Bea Dupont, a photographer for Rolling Stone and Vogue, who never misses the party, but always keeps to its fringes. A Manhattan blue blood turned West Coast bohemian, Bea holds Evra's Sunset crowd together. She's also Kai's oldest friend, and she's harbored a not-so-secret flame for him since they met at an elite Swiss boarding school.

But in Hollywood, no one stays on top forever. And it's not long before Theodora's unrelenting ambition sets in motion a dramatic quest for power in an industry that is as glamorous as it is duplicitous.

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