Less by Andrew Sean Greer

A breakout romantic comedy by the bestselling author of five critically acclaimed novels.

Who says you can't run away from your problems?

You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes - it would be too awkward - and you can't say no - it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.

QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?

ANSWER: You accept them all.

What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face. Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.

Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.

A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author The New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy.

263 pages (July 2017)

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Title Read-alikes: Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane; Love by Roddy Doyle; Remembrance of Things I Forgot by Bob Smith; Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier; Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner; Honestly, We Meant Well by Grant Ginder; A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall by Andy Abramowitz; This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance! by Jonathan Evison; Heart of Junk by Luke Geddes; George and Lizzie by Nancy Pearl; There There by Tommy Orange; Normal People by Sally Rooney; and The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead.

That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.

Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because survival is insufficient." But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.

Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all.

A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it. 

333 pages (September 2014)

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Title Read-alikes: A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen; The Book of M by Peng Shepherd; Find Me by Laura Van Den Berg; The Dog Stars by Peter Heller; After the Flood by Kassandra Montag; On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee; Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn; Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter; The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker; Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy; The Lightest Object in the Universe by Kimi Eisele; Doomsday Book by Connie Willis; and Hyperion by Dan Simmons.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose.

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.

A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to life two people who couldn’t have less in common—a heartbreakingly romantic novel that asks, What do you do when making the person you love happy also means breaking your own heart?

369 pages (December 2012)

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Title Read-alikes: The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves; How to Walk Away by Katherine Center; Photos of You by Tammy Robinson; My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan; You're Not You by Michelle Wildgen; We Are All Made of Stars by Rowan Coleman; The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison; Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg; Every Note Played by Lisa Genova; The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth; All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews; The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty; and The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion.

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

The riveting confession of a woman awakened, transformed, and betrayed by passion and desire for a world beyond her own.

 

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Emperor's Children, a brilliant new novel: the riveting confession of a woman awakened, transformed, and betrayed by passion and desire for a world beyond her own.  

Nora Eldridge, an elementary school teacher in Cambridge, Massachusetts, long ago compromised her dream to be a successful artist, mother and lover. She has instead become the “woman upstairs,” a reliable friend and neighbor always on the fringe of others’ achievements. Then into her life arrives the glamorous and cosmopolitan Shahids—her new student Reza Shahid, a child who enchants as if from a fairy tale, and his parents: Skandar, a dashing Lebanese professor who has come to Boston for a fellowship at Harvard, and Sirena, an effortlessly alluring Italian artist.

When Reza is attacked by schoolyard bullies, Nora is drawn deep into the complex world of the Shahid family; she finds herself falling in love with them, separately and together. Nora’s happiness explodes her boundaries, and she discovers in herself an unprecedented ferocity—one that puts her beliefs and her sense of self at stake.

Told with urgency, intimacy and piercing emotion, this brilliant novel of passion and artistic fulfillment explores the intensity, thrill—and the devastating cost—of embracing an authentic life.

253 pages (April 2013)

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Title Read-alikes: Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh; The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt; The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold; The Blue Guitar by John Banvile; Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier; Exhibit Alexandra by Natasha Bell; Luster by Raven Leilani; Indiscretion by Charles Dubow; The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood; Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng; The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine; Life After Life by Kate Atkinson; and The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer.

All Other Nights by Dara Horn

How is tonight different from all other nights? For Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army during the Civil War, it is a question his commanders have already answered for him -- on Passover, 1862, he is ordered to murder his own uncle in New Orleans, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After this harrowing mission, Jacob is recruited to pursue another enemy agent, the daughter of a Virginia family friend. But this time, his assignment isn’t to murder the spy, but to marry her. Their marriage, with its riveting and horrifying consequences, reveals the deep divisions that still haunt American life today.

Based on real personalities like Judah Benjamin, the Confederacy’s Jewish Secretary of State and spymaster, and on historical facts and events ranging from an African-American spy network to the dramatic self-destruction of the city of Richmond, All Other Nights is a gripping and suspenseful story of men and women driven to the extreme limits of loyalty and betrayal. It is also a brilliant parable of the rift in America that lingers a century and a half later: between those who value family and tradition first, and those dedicated, at any cost, to social and racial justice for all.

In this eagerly-awaited third novel, award-winning author Dara Horn brings us page-turning storytelling at its best. Layered with meaning, All Other Nights presents the most American of subjects with originality and insight -- and the possibility of reconciliation that might yet await us.                

363 pages (April 2009)

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Title Read-alikes: Secessia by Kent Wascom; Rebel by Bernard Cornwell; On Secret Service by John Jakes; My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira; Sisters of Shiloh by Kathy Hepinstall; Neverhome by Laird Hunt; The March by E. L. Doctorow; I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe; The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran; The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer; Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant; If All the Seas Were Ink by Ilana Kurshan; and The Book of Separation: a memoir by Tova Mirvis.

Canada by Richard Ford

"First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then the murders, which happened later."

When fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons' parents rob a bank, his sense of a happy, knowable life is forever shattered. In an instant, this private cataclysm drives his life across a threshold that can never be uncrossed.

His parents' arrest and imprisonment mean a threatening and uncertain future for Dell and his twin sister, Berner. Willful and burning with resentment, Berner flees their home in Montana, abandoning her brother and her life. But Dell is not completely alone. A family friend intervenes, spiriting him across the Canadian border, in hopes of delivering him to a better life. There, afloat on the prairie of Saskatchewan, Dell is taken in by Arthur Remlinger, an enigmatic and charismatic American, whose suave reserve masks a dark and violent nature.

Undone by the calamity of his parents' robbery and arrest, Dell struggles under the vast prairie sky to remake himself and define the adults he thought he knew and loved. But his search for grace and peace only moves him nearer a harrowing and murderous collision with Remlinger, an elemental force of darkness.

A true masterwork of haunting and spectacular vision from one of our greatest writers, Canada is a profound novel of boundaries traversed, innocence lost and reconciled, and the mysterious and consoling bonds of family. Told in spare elegant prose, resonant and luminous, it is destined to become a classic

420 pages (May 2012)

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Title Read-alikes: The Round House by Louise Erdrich; The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall; Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks; Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden; The Painter by Peter Heller; Peace Like a River by Leif Enger; Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje; History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund; Still Missing by Chevy Stevens; Wyoming by J. P. Gritton; El Paso by Winston Groom; You Must Set Forth at Dawn by Wole Soyinka; and Simón by Miqui Otero.

Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan

In her best-selling debut, Commencement, J. Courtney Sullivan explored the complicated and contradictory landscape of female friendship. Now, in her highly anticipated second novel, Sullivan takes us into even richer territory, introducing four unforgettable women who have nothing in common but the fact that, like it or not, they’re family.

For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. Their beachfront property, won on a barroom bet after the war, sits on three acres of sand and pine nestled between stretches of rocky coast, with one tree bearing the initials “A.H.” At the cottage, built by Kelleher hands, cocktail hour follows morning mass, nosy grandchildren snoop in drawers, and decades-old grudges simmer beneath the surface.

As three generations of Kelleher women descend on the property one summer, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.

By turns wickedly funny and achingly sad, Maine unveils the sibling rivalry, alcoholism, social climbing, and Catholic guilt at the center of one family, along with the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other.

388 pages (June 2010)

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Title Read-alikes: The Matchmaker by Elin Hilderbrand; Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead; Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders by Julianna Baggott; Ladies of the Lake by Haywood Smith; Summer People by Elin Hiderbrand; Summer Rental Mary Kay Andrews; The Dutch House by Ann Patchett; Monogamy by Sue Miller; Emily, Alone by Stewart O'Nan; All Adults Here by Emma Straub; Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner; The Comeback by Ella Berman; and Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Moving from San Francisco in the 1970s to a vividly imagined New York City sometime after 2020, Jennifer Egan portrays the interlacing lives of men and women whose desires and ambitions converge and collide as the passage of time, cultural change, and private experience define and redefine their identities.

Bennie Salazar, a punk rocker in his teenage years, is facing middle age as a divorced and disheartened record producer. His cool, competent assistant, Sasha, keeps everything under control—except for her unconquerable compulsion to steal. Their diverse and diverting memories of the past and musings about the present set the stage for a cycle of tales about their friends, family, business associates, and lovers.

A high school friend re-creates the wild, sexually charged music scene of Bennie’s adolescence and introduces the wealthy, amoral entertainment executive Lou Kline, who becomes Bennie’s mentor and eventually faces the consequences of his casual indifference to the needs of his mistresses, wives, and children. Scotty, a guitarist in Bennie’s long-defunct band, emerges from life lived on the fringes of society to confront Bennie in his luxurious Park Avenue office, while Bennie’s once-punk wife, Stephanie, works her way up in the plush Republican suburb where they live.

Other vignettes explore the experiences and people that played a role in Sasha’s life. An uncle searching for Sasha when she runs away at seventeen becomes aware of his own disillusionments and disappointments as he tries to comfort her. Her college boyfriend describes a night of drug-fueled revelry that comes to a shocking end. And her twelve-year-old daughter contributes a clever PowerPoint presentation of the family dynamics—including hilariously pointed summaries of her mother’s “Annoying Habit #48” and “Why Dad Isn’t Here.”

From a trenchant look at the vagaries of the music business and the ebb and flow of celebrity to incisive dissections of marriage and family to a provocative vision of where America is headed, A Visit from the Goon Squad is unnerving, exhilarating, and irresistible.

340 pages (June 2010)

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Title Read-alikes: NW by Zadie Smith; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz; Trick Mirror by Ji Tolentino; One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper; Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon; Trust Exercise by Susan Choi; Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell; Vernon Subutex 1 by Virginie Despentes; and Wonderland by Stacey D'Erasmo.

Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante

A stunning first novel, both literary and thriller, about a retired orthopedic surgeon with dementia, Turn of Mind has already received worldwide attention. With unmatched patience and a pulsating intensity, Alice LaPlante brings us deep into a brilliant woman's deteriorating mind, where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse.

As the book opens, Dr. Jennifer White's best friend, Amanda, who lived down the block, has been killed, and four fingers surgically removed from her hand. Dr. White is the prime suspect and she herself doesn't know whether she did it. Told in White's own voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these life-long friends—two proud, forceful women who were at times each other's most formidable adversaries. As the investigation into the murder deepens and White's relationships with her live-in caretaker and two grown children intensify, a chilling question lingers: is White's shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it?

A startling portrait of a disintegrating mind clinging to bits of reality through anger, frustration, shame, and unspeakable loss, Turn of Mind is a remarkable debut that examines the deception and frailty of memory and how it defines our very existence.

307 pages. (July 2011)

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Title Read-alikes: The Breakdown by B. A. Paris; Someone Really Not Her Mother by Harriet Scott Chessman; Still Alice by Lisa Genova; The Pocket Wife by Susan Crawford; The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey; The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok; Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey; Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson; and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.