National Network for Equitable Library Service

A lyrical novel of love and betrayal in the aftermath of the fall of Saigon—from the author of Monkey Bridge. A singular work of witness, inspiration, and courage, The Lotus and the Storm marks the welcome return of Lan Cao’s pitch-perfect voice, telling the story only she can tell. Four decades after the war, Vietnam’s flavors of clove and cinnamon have been re-created by a close-knit refugee community in a Virginia suburb. But the lives of Minh and Mai, father and daughter, are haunted by ghosts, secrets, and the loss of their country.

A moving and original debut novel. Observant, warm, and extraordinary. "There is an other-worldly quality about the Abrolhos which is beyond the reach of ordinary storytelling. Emily Brugman has captured them, staked them to the page in all their isolation and aridity and scoured indifference, because her storytelling is extraordinary." —Jock Serong, bestselling author of Preservation. "Strongly written, deeply felt, original." —Tegan Bennett Daylight. "Beautiful, fresh, wise and true—startlingly good." —Robert Drewe, award-winning author of Whipbird.

A pair of thematically linked novellas from the acclaimed author of Lizard, Amrita, and Goodbye Tsugumi. In cherished novels such as Kitchen and Goodbye Tsugumi, Banana Yoshimoto’s warm, witty, and heartfelt depictions of the lives of young Japanese have earned her international acclaim and bestseller status. Her insightful, spare vision returns in two novellas possessed by the ghosts of love found and lost. In Hardboiled, the unnamed narrator is hiking in the mountains on an anniversary she has forgotten about, the anniversary of her ex-lover’s death.

In this “witty, perceptive novel”, a young woman moves to Tokyo and encounters the world of university enrollment and impending adulthood (Elle). Banana Yoshimoto’s novels of young life in Japan have made her an international sensation. Goodbye Tsugumi is an offbeat story of a deep and complicated friendship between two female cousins that ranks among her best work. Maria is the only daughter of an unmarried woman. She has grown up at the seaside alongside her cousin Tsugumi, a lifelong invalid, charismatic, spoiled, and occasionally cruel.

"Haunting... To read The Good Negress is to fall under a spell, to open a window, to fly." -Los Angeles Times Book Review. Twenty years after its initial publication, The Good Negress continues to be an important part of the literary canon, as relevant and necessary as ever. Set in 1960s Detroit, the novel centers around Denise Palms, who leaves her grandmother's home in rural Virginia to reunite with her mother, stepfather, and older brothers. As a black teenage girl, Denise is given scarce opportunity beyond cooking, cleaning, and raising her mother's baby.

Fresh talent CJ Hauser makes her literary debut with The From-Aways, an irreverent story of family, love, friendship, and lobsters, in the tradition of J. Courtney Sullivan’s Maine and Richard Russo’s Empire Falls. Two women come to Maine in search of family and find more love, heartbreak, and friendship than they ever imagined one little fishing town could hold. When Leah, a young New York reporter, meets Henry, she falls in love with everything about him: his freckles, green thumb, and tales of a Maine childhood. They marry quickly, and Leah convinces Henry to move back to Menamon.

Au lieu d’aménager la maison qu’il vient juste de faire construire, le narrateur de Pas d’inquiétude va être contraint de prendre un long congé pour rester près de son fils malade et s’installe avec lui dans un tête-à-tête fait de gestes et d’actes inédits chaque jour réinventés. Homme au foyer malgré lui, il s’éloigne de l’imprimerie où il travaille et de Manu, l’ami indispensable, et glisse dans une vie domestique et invisible, pendant que sa femme, récemment embauchée dans une PME, ne peut se permettre aucune absence et n’a d’autre alternative que se dévouer à son poste.

An eccentric old man is dying of cancer, and his painfully proud daughter must ask an embittered doctor for help. In this moving story of sacrifice, sorrow, and redemption, a quiet town in the Shenandoah Valley and the powerful city of Washington D.C. become the settings for a story of personal healing and renewed faith. Written by a beloved and best-selling author, One Shenandoah Winter is a heart-touching novella that reveals the true meaning of Christmas.

I try to see him among a migrating flock—he will take the loneliness of my room on his long journey; each whistling note he makes will be a little of my sadness falling over the ocean, to be swallowed in the clash of waves and the commotion of many birds flying. “Tell me the truth,” demands fifteen-year-old Megumi Shimizu as her mother hurriedly packs. But her mother refuses to admit that she is leaving forever—leaving her husband to his mistress, her home to her silent, resentful mother-in-law, her daughter to survive, if she can.

Having given voice in previous novels to the extraordinary Kate Vaiden, Blue Calhoun, and Roxanna Slade, Reynolds Price — one of America's most respected men of letters — adds Noble Norfleet to his gallery of compelling portraits. A few days before Noble Norfleet's eighteenth birthday, his family suffers a violent catastrophe. The sole survivor, Noble throws himself into a reckless affair with his Spanish teacher, whose husband is fighting in Vietnam.