From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.. The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under -- but rather than face the music, he's spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.. Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil -- can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written -- is there still time to find a happy ending?.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780374600303
|
Hardcover
Chain Gang All Stars
By Adjei-brenyah, Nana Kwame
The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own. * "A new and necessary American voice." - Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book ReviewLoretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780593317334
|
Hardcover
Eastbound
By Kerangal, Maylis De
In this gripping tale, a Russian conscript and a French woman cross paths on the Trans-Siberian railroad, each fleeing to the east for their own reasons Perfect for fans of Maggie Shipstead's Great Circle and The Lincoln Highway by Amor TowlesEastbound is both an adventure story and a duet of two vibrant inner worlds. In mysterious, winding sentences gorgeously translated by Jessica Moore, De Kerangal gives us the story of two unlikely souls entwined in a quest for freedom with a striking sense of tenderness, sharply contrasting the brutality of the surrounding world. Racing toward Vladivostok, we meet the young Aliocha, packed onto a Trans-Siberian train with other Russian conscripts. Soon after boarding, he decides to desert and over a midnight smoke in a dark corridor of the train, he encounters an older French woman, Hélène, for whom he feels an uncanny trust.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781953861504
|
Paperback
The Fraud
By Smith, Zadie
From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who deserves to tell their story - and who deserves to be believedIt is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper - and cousin by marriage - of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780525558965
|
Hardcover
North Woods
By Mason, Daniel
A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries - a daring, moving tale of memory and fate from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.. When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave - only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780593597033
|
Hardcover
The Best Minds
By Rosen, Jonathan
Acclaimed author Jonathan Rosen's haunting investigation of the forces that led his closest childhood friend, Michael Laudor, from the heights of brilliant promise to the forensic psychiatric hospital where he has lived since killing the woman he loved. A story about friendship, love, and the price of self-delusion, The Best Minds explores the ways in which we understand - and fail to understand - mental illness.. When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of college professors, the boys were best friends and keen competitors, and, when they both got into Yale University, seemed set to join the American meritocratic elite.. Michael blazed through college in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781594206573
|
Hardcover
Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs
By Howley, Kerry
From the acclaimed author of Thrown, a wild, humane, and hilarious meditation on post-privacy America. Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections - a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs tells the true story of intelligence specialist Reality Winner, a lone young woman who stuffs a state secret under her skirt and trusts the wrong people to help. After printing five pages of dangerous information she was never supposed to see, Winner finds herself at the mercy of forces more invasive than she could have possibly imagined.
Publisher: n/a
|
9780525655497
|
Hardcover
Fire Weather
By Vaillant, John
A stunning account of a colossal wildfire and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind from the award-winning, best-selling author of The Tiger and The Golden Spruce. "Riveting, spellbinding, astounding on every page ... Captures the majesty and horror of one of [our] great disasters." - David Wallace-Wells, #1 bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth. In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada's oil industry and America's biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration - the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina - John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781524732851
|
Hardcover
Master Slave Husband Wife
By Woo, Ilyon
The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave.In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities.
Publisher: n/a
|
9781501191053
|
Hardcover
Some People Need Killing
By Evangelista, Patricia
A fearless, powerfully written on-the-ground account of a nation careening into violent autocracy - told through harrowing stories of the Philippines' state-sanctioned killings of its citizens - from a journalist of international renown. "Tragic, elegant, vital . . . Evangelista risked her life to tell this story." - Tara Westover, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Educated. "My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I don't wait very long.". Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte.
The staff of The New York Times Book Review choose the year’s
standout fiction and nonfiction.
To learn more about the books on the list and those the reviewers wanted to include, listen to a special edition of the NYTBR podcast.
The Bee Sting
By Murray, Paul
From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.. The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under -- but rather than face the music, he's spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.. Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil -- can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written -- is there still time to find a happy ending?.
Chain Gang All Stars
By Adjei-brenyah, Nana Kwame
The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own. * "A new and necessary American voice." - Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book ReviewLoretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates.
Eastbound
By Kerangal, Maylis De
In this gripping tale, a Russian conscript and a French woman cross paths on the Trans-Siberian railroad, each fleeing to the east for their own reasons Perfect for fans of Maggie Shipstead's Great Circle and The Lincoln Highway by Amor TowlesEastbound is both an adventure story and a duet of two vibrant inner worlds. In mysterious, winding sentences gorgeously translated by Jessica Moore, De Kerangal gives us the story of two unlikely souls entwined in a quest for freedom with a striking sense of tenderness, sharply contrasting the brutality of the surrounding world. Racing toward Vladivostok, we meet the young Aliocha, packed onto a Trans-Siberian train with other Russian conscripts. Soon after boarding, he decides to desert and over a midnight smoke in a dark corridor of the train, he encounters an older French woman, Hélène, for whom he feels an uncanny trust.
The Fraud
By Smith, Zadie
From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who deserves to tell their story - and who deserves to be believedIt is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper - and cousin by marriage - of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.
North Woods
By Mason, Daniel
A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries - a daring, moving tale of memory and fate from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.. When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave - only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets.
The Best Minds
By Rosen, Jonathan
Acclaimed author Jonathan Rosen's haunting investigation of the forces that led his closest childhood friend, Michael Laudor, from the heights of brilliant promise to the forensic psychiatric hospital where he has lived since killing the woman he loved. A story about friendship, love, and the price of self-delusion, The Best Minds explores the ways in which we understand - and fail to understand - mental illness.. When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of college professors, the boys were best friends and keen competitors, and, when they both got into Yale University, seemed set to join the American meritocratic elite.. Michael blazed through college in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job.
Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs
By Howley, Kerry
From the acclaimed author of Thrown, a wild, humane, and hilarious meditation on post-privacy America. Who are you? You are data about data. You are a map of connections - a culmination of everything you have ever posted, searched, emailed, liked, and followed. In this groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction, Kerry Howley investigates the curious implications of living in the age of the indelible. Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs tells the true story of intelligence specialist Reality Winner, a lone young woman who stuffs a state secret under her skirt and trusts the wrong people to help. After printing five pages of dangerous information she was never supposed to see, Winner finds herself at the mercy of forces more invasive than she could have possibly imagined.
Fire Weather
By Vaillant, John
A stunning account of a colossal wildfire and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind from the award-winning, best-selling author of The Tiger and The Golden Spruce. "Riveting, spellbinding, astounding on every page ... Captures the majesty and horror of one of [our] great disasters." - David Wallace-Wells, #1 bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth. In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada's oil industry and America's biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration - the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina - John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.
Master Slave Husband Wife
By Woo, Ilyon
The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave.In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities.
Some People Need Killing
By Evangelista, Patricia
A fearless, powerfully written on-the-ground account of a nation careening into violent autocracy - told through harrowing stories of the Philippines' state-sanctioned killings of its citizens - from a journalist of international renown. "Tragic, elegant, vital . . . Evangelista risked her life to tell this story." - Tara Westover, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Educated. "My job is to go to places where people die. I pack my bags, talk to the survivors, write my stories, then go home to wait for the next catastrophe. I don't wait very long.". Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte.
For even more recommendations, see the 100 Notable Books of 2023 at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/21/books/notable-books.html. Complimentary access to the NYT available from Norfolk Public LIbrary's eMagazines & Newspapers.