November 22, 2025
Four taut novels will keep you on the edge of your seat, plus a posthumous memoir from a favorite rock star. We have a spy story set in the ’60s; a fascinating historical novel about the discovery of an enormous marine animal; a quietly tense book about what happens when a mysterious visitor comes to an English coastal town; a speculative 1984-like novel from a National Book Award-winning historian; and the ‘bromance’ of Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese provides a nostalgic glimpse into the wild party at the intersection of music and film.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
-
.
Beasts of the Sea
By Iida Turpeinen
Published by Little, Brown and Company
Translated by David Hackston
In Turpeinen’s utterly compelling historical novel, two ships sail from Kamchatka in Siberia to find the Northwest Passage. One is led by Captain Bering; the naturalist Georg Steller is along to log the plants and animals on the way. What he discovers is miraculous. This is a gripping tale of hardship and wonder, taking place in three time frames: the 1741 expedition; the mid-1800s salvage attempt to locate an enormous mythical sea cow; and 1952 when a museum restores the ancient skeleton they discovered. Reminiscent of the novels of Richard Powers, Ian McGuire, and Andrea Barrett, it is a revelatory, often true, often heartbreaking, story about extinction and man against nature.
-
.
The Predicament
By William Boyd
Published by Grove/Atlantic
Welcome the return of Gabriel Dax, the writer turned reluctant spy we met last year. This time, he travels to both Guatemala and Germany, using the research for the book he is writing about the world’s rivers as a foil. It’s 1963 and one of his assignments is to prevent a possible attempt on the life of JFK who is to appear in Berlin to give a speech. (Yes, that speech.) Gabriel is a loner but also hungers for connection. He finds himself daydreaming about a real relationship with his MI6 handler, and his cottage and cat in Sussex—hence ‘the predicament.’ The suspense is subtle but keeps increasing until the very end.
.
-
.
The Emergency
By George Packer
Published by FSG
Known for his prize-winning narrative nonfiction, Packer imagines a modern world on the verge of collapse. Dr. Rustin and his family live in an unnamed city by a river. He is chief surgeon at the Imperial College Hospital when the local youth begin to violently revolt. He tells his wife and children at the dinner table, “We’ll go about our normal lives…. These things never last.” Famous last words. Soon, the government officials flee the city, and the residents split into Burghers (urban) and Yeomen (rural). Threatening to destroy not only the Rustin family but all of society, Packer’s speculative uprising is a chilling dystopian view of our future that feels all too possible.
-
.
Seascraper
By Benjamin Wood
Published by Scribner
A stranger comes to town—the start of so many stories—serving as the perfect springboard for a slip of a novel that takes place over two days. Thomas Flett, a lonely ‘shanker’ and frustrated folk musician at the far-end of his youth, spends his days in the North of England fishing shrimp to sell at market. As he scrapes the dwindling crustaceans (“his dreams are full of slag heaps made from rotten shrimp”), you can almost smell them on the page. But then a Hollywood scout arrives and turns Tom’s life upside down. The allure of escape and glamour (despite apprehension) hover over this gem which was longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize.
.
-
.
Insomnia
By Robbie Robertson
Published by Crown
Robertson (Testimony) passed in 2023 at the age of 80, but left a legacy of music—not only from his years as guitarist in The Band but also through the memorable soundtracks he created for movies directed by his friend Martin Scorsese. (His last was for Killers of the Flower Moon.) This memoir focuses on the friendship that bloomed in the ’70s, particularly when Scorsese lived in Malibu, and their experiences working on the concert film The Last Waltz. The book is sprinkled heavily with anecdotes filled with bold-faced names (Kubrick, Nicholson, Coppola, De Palma, Minnelli, De Niro) and the drug-fueled decadent parties they threw and attended. A must for any rock fan.
