November 15, 2025
This week’s grouping features a multigenerational slate of authors, ranging from their 20s to their 80s—one debut showing remarkable promise alongside new additions to familiar authors’ enormously accomplished bodies of work. We have the latest futuristic fiction from a Scandinavian writer with a devoted following; a memoir (‘of sorts,’ as the subtitle states) by a prize-winning writer of over fifty volumes; eleven stories from one of the finest imaginations out there; a self-published runaway bestseller in a new edition; and a first-time novelist already winning accolades for her acutely observed portrait of Gen Z. Age is only a number.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
-
.
The Pelican Child
By Joy Williams
Published by Knopf
With her seventh collection of stories, Williams continues to earn her place among America’s most acclaimed short-fiction writers. With deceptively simple prose, she infuses her writing with an edgy wit, and, sentence-for-sentence, she is a beautiful stylist. Her stories often have an environmental component (she is a fierce critic of the devastation of our landscape). Her characters include heiresses, a man with a cancer diagnosis, and, in the story “Baba Iaga & The Pelican Child,” the title character from Slavic folklore who perilously encounters John James Audubon. (Love the Walton Ford cover, too.) Give this writer one of the major prizes, please!
-
.
On the Calculation of Volume (Book III)
By Solvej Balle
Published by New Directions
Translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell
Balle, shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award for Translated Literature, has written a series of novels about the strange adventures of Tara Selter, a married antiquarian bookseller. This is the third installment (the two previously translated editions are Book I and Book II) of a septology, but easily stands on its own. Tara wanders in isolation through time and space on November 18th. She relives this autumn day over and over like Groundhog’s Day, musing philosophically on the human condition. In this episode, she meets two fellow travelers, a Norwegian sociologist and a 17-year-old girl. It is one of the most absorbing works of speculative fiction in print.
.
-
.
Book of Lives
By Margaret Atwood
Published by Doubleday
This Canadian author has produced a multitude of novels, poetry collections, and essays, including the game-changing The Handmaid’s Tale (40 years ago!), which we awarded our inaugural On Screen Award in 2019. In this memoir, Atwood brings us fully into her incredibly rich life—from her surprising childhood through her long-lasting writing career. She cites Hermes and Apollo as models for writers: “Most cultures have a version of this duality, since both form and energy are needed for any work of art.” She is humble in the spotlight, but also willing to use her fame to get political messages across for human rights and personal freedom. Atwood is a most delightful companion—always entertaining and good fun.
-
.
Theo of Golden
By Allen Levi
Published by Atria Books
This novel is quite the phenomenon—self-published in 2023, it’s now available from Atria. Golden is a small town in Georgia (based on the author’s hometown of Columbus) where a mysterious traveler arrives one day. In the local coffee shop, he sees 92 pencil portraits, which he proceeds to buy and give to the sitters. His abundant generosity transforms the town. “It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another.” Like the work of Fredrik Backman, it is a feel-good book about creativity, love, and the importance of random acts of kindness. It comes at a time when we all could use an uplifting message.
.
-
.
Flat Earth
By Anika Jade Levy
Published by Catapult
Levy’s marvelous first novel has a setup many readers will recognize. The lives and fortunes of two best friends are radically diverging. Our narrator, Avery, is not in a good place—emotionally, romantically, academically, financially. She relies on pills to help herself focus. But her beautiful friend Frances, from a wealthy family, is well on her way to success with a blossoming film career and now returning triumphantly from Manhattan. Their escapades (which include a road trip that ends at a Flat Earth Conference in Dallas) find Avery making a series of bad choices. This is both a biting contemporary satire and a spot-on portrait of female friendship and growing up.
