Literary Fiction

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“Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders takes the flamboyant playwright on another rollicking mystery ride with friends Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker in tow.”

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Alice Bliss . . . adroitly illustrates the burden of war, not only on those deployed, but also on those left behind.”

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An abortionist, a whore, and a dope dealer walk into a bar . . .

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J. M. Tohline’s first novel, The Great Lenore, is a beautiful book. It is beautiful in the same way that J. D. Salinger’s books are beautiful.

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Faith is a story about the many ways we can create belief systems and trust structures, and the even greater number of ways that those systems and structures can be threatened and destroye

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Did you ever wonder what is worse: To possess houses, cars and everything money can buy only to lose it all? Or to watch your husband die then become estranged from your only child?

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Though there are glimmers of potential and heart, Saskia Walker’s The Harlot is marred with frustrating—and avoidable—flaws.

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Haley Tanner’s debut novel, Vaclav and Lena, captures the slow, methodical thought processes of young children, the awkward diction of non-English speaking immigrants, and the hearts of it

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Nalini Singh’s Kiss of Snow, her most highly anticipated novel yet, will satisfy readers, but probably not in the way they expect.

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In the United Kingdom, author Will Self is well enough known to have been the punch line for a rapid-fire gag on “Absolutely Fabulous,” which is, in the realm of pop culture, high praise indeed.

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An enigmatic book with a puzzling title, Prayer and Parable explores the lives and thoughts of ordinary people with the assumption that we might learn something from their interactions and

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Middle-aged Sandy Sullivan works as a home stager in the suburbs of Boston. But Sandy is frustrated. She desperately wants to sell the huge home she and her husband, Greg, bought many years ago.

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If author Lynne Tillman were writing recipes and not short fiction, she no doubt would insist that all ingredients be fresh, crisp, and organic—because her short stories are of the sort that seem v

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Quirky and edgy—the yin and yang of a good story. These two words give the concise description of The Brick Murder: A Tragedy, an anthology of short stories by Kurt Jose Ayau.

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Early on in the pages of his latest novel, The Burning House, author Paul Lisicky diligently gives his readers an overview of the mechanics on which his story will spin, as he writes:

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Bonnie Jo Campbell (a National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist) takes on tough subjects in her fiction, and this tale of a rebellious wilderness girl in Michigan is no ex

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Written in the present tense, Friendship Bread introduces the reader to Avalon, Illinois, and the epitome of small-town America.

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The competing interests of the Big Law game—power, ego, money, competing with sense of partnership, duty to advocate clients’ interests, and pursuit of justice as an officer of the court—are all ex

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The Pale King, David Foster Wallace’s posthumous, unfinished novel is a study in ambiguity, anchored in the trivial precision of personal statistical descriptions and the apparent precisio

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No stranger to the newspaper industry herself, Rainbow Rowell’s debut is incredibly fun, quirky and full of charm; and reads like You’ve Got Mail meets Four Weddings and a Funeral

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In the preface to his 2008 definitive text How Fiction Works, author and literary critic James Wood writes:

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Ann Patchett’s newest novel, State of Wonder, begins when a Minnesota pharmaceutical company receives word that one of its researchers has perished “from fever” deep in the Amazon jungle,

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Light Lifting by Alexander MacLeod is a muscular collection of short stories. That is to say, the collection is filled with physicality of all sorts.

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Meg Wolitzer is known for writing about women’s issues, though primarily she writes about sex. Possibly that explains her reputation and popularity.

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In Nazareth, North Dakota, debut novelist Tommy Zurhellen lovingly reimagines the New Testament as a series of interlocking tales set in the northernmost regions of the American heartland.

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