December 19, 2020
This year lacked many things, but great literature was, thankfully, not among them. It’s no mystery, however, that more titles than usual seemed to slip by un(der)noticed—some may have run aground due to the timing of the pandemic, others just did not get the love we felt they deserved. For our last newsletter of 2020 the staff at the Center (who collectively read a great deal this past year) each contributed one gem you may have missed.
We wish you all a safe and happy holiday. And we hope to see you at the Center in the new year!
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, Center for Fiction Bookstore
Our Selections
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Don't Turn Out the Lights
By JONATHAN MABERRY (Editor)
Published by HARPERCOLLINS
“So many of us remember being scared by the terrifying tales (and even more frightening illustrations) in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. This new tribute is an exceptional collection of bone chilling tales for young people that opens the door for a new generation and superbly pays homage to the influential series.” [Ages 8-12]
—Allison Escoto
Head Librarian & Education Director -
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Dead Astronauts
By JEFF VANDERMEER
Published by PICADOR
“The Annihilation series turned me into a huge Jeff VanderMeer fan. At the beginning of lockdown, I wanted to read something that didn’t have a traditional narrative structure and took on a non-human POV. Dead Astronauts is weird fiction at its weirdest—a creepy, suspenseful, and dreamlike world where a trio of ‘post-humans’ on an unclear mission roam. The perspective shifts between a secretive blue fox and an incredibly old fish-like sea monster. This isn’t an easy read, but try to stick with it. For a while, none of it makes sense until suddenly it does.”
—Carla Cain-Walther
PR & Marketing Manager. -
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Ruthie Fear
By MAXIM LOSKUTOFF
Published by WW NORTON
“Ruthie Fear defies genre—part Western, part lit fiction, part science fiction and even horror. This novel centers around Ruthie, a young girl raised by her single father in a rural part of Montana where violence and poverty are commonplace, but love also thrives. In a year with many excellent debut novels I adored the main character and didn’t want the book to end (disclaimer—the ending will throw you for a loop).”
—Kristin Henley
Managing Director -
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Nine Moons
By GABRIELA WIENER
Published by RESTLESS BOOKS
Translated from the Spanish by Jessica Powell
“From the provocative writer who brought you Sexographies comes the pregnancy memoir that you didn’t even know could ever be written. Wiener takes an experience that countless people have gone through, and puts it in an entirely new light. Whereas most would separate sex, pregnancy, and motherhood (despite the fact that they are all intricately linked), she blends these aspects of life in such a frank, honest, and funny memoir that is clearly written from a very vulnerable and raw place. I couldn’t put this one down, and you won’t be able to either!”
—Kylah Balthazar
Bookseller. -
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Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing
By MARYLA SZYMICZKOWA
Published by MARINER BOOKS
Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
“An utterly delightful period comedy of manners and witty social commentary on life at the end of the 19th century in Austro-Hungarian Kraków. Two dead bodies and a woman’s disappearance thicken the plot, but the driving narrative force is amateur detective, and indeed first-time sleuth, Zofia Turbotyńska, bourgeois wife of a pleasant medical school professor who does not share his wife’s social-climbing aspirations but is wise enough not to ask too many questions about what she gets up to in the course of a day.”
—Linda Cicely Morgan
Development Director -
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Black Bottom Saints
By ALICE RANDALL
Published by AMISTAD PRESS
“Part historical fiction, part drink menu, Alice Randall remixes the Catholic Saints Day books to canonize the residents and performers of Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood, which was urban developed out of existence in the early 1960s. As enjoyable as it is inventive, Alice Randall breaks the mold of the American novel to create something wholly unique.”
—marcus scott williams
Bookseller & Inventory Manager. -
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Death in Her Hands
By OTTESSA MOSHFEGH
Published by PENGUIN PRESS
“I admit I’m behind on 2020 releases and since none I’ve read so far could be called ‘overlooked,’ I’ll spotlight Ottessa Moshfegh’s hypnotic imitation of a detective novel. Like one’s private thoughts over the course of a day (or eight-plus months . . .) spent inside with little to do, Death in Her Hands is messy, repetitive, distressing, and tender. I loved every page.”
—Matt Kafoury
Graphic Designer & Webmaster -
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Enter the Aardvark
By JESSICA ANTHONY
Published by LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY
“This novel helped get me through the beginning of the pandemic when I really wanted to escape reality, and it may have gotten lost in the shuffle due to its March release. Jessica Anthony’s inventive, zany, and totally entertaining novel is set in motion when a stuffed aardvark appears on the doorstep of a hapless, Reagan-loving, taxidermy-obsessed, unacknowledged gay young D.C. congressman. We watch, helpless with laughter, as his hubristic life unravels. This hilarious yet heartfelt novel is a welcome breath of fresh air. Readers of satirical masterpieces from vintage Waugh to Paul Beatty to Gary Shteyngart should gobble it up.”
—Melanie Fleishman
Bookstore Buyer. -
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The Thirty Names of Night
By ZEYN JOUKHADAR
Published by ATRIA BOOKS
“This novel moves through time and space in twin narratives with many threads: the internal struggles that precede coming out as trans, mother loss and grief, migration and immigration, artistic expression, oppression, family, community, and history. The stories are set in Brooklyn, Syria, and diasporic Syrian-American communities in the United States. Joukhadar’s lyrical prose has the magic of myth, and his characters’ stories, though at times devastatingly hard, are imbued with a determined resiliency. The scenes of the protagonist’s intersectional queer community in Brooklyn are rarely printed in novels, which makes the book feel quietly revolutionary. Ultimately, the reason I recommend this novel so passionately, is how squarely it landed in my heart. In a brutal year, that love was a gift.”
—Melanie McNair
Director of Public Programming -
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Snow
By JOHN BANVILLE
Published by HANOVER SQUARE PRESS
“Agatha Christie meets Georges Simenon, or even Stieg Larsson! Some call John Banville Ireland’s best living novelist, but in Snow he drops his longstanding crime pseudonym of Benjamin Black to introduce a new sleuth, St. John Strafford. The terrain is again the Irish 1950s, which Banville calls ‘perfect noir territory’: a grim society still ‘priest-ridden’ and shadowed by its peculiar religious and ethnic tensions. Admirers of the exquisite prose in Banville’s ‘literary’ novels will find lots to like here, while missing none of the tension and crackle of his Quirke series. But cradle Catholics may wish to avoid: evil emanates from Rome!”
—Michael Roberts
Interim Executive Director. -
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A Room Called Earth
By MADELEINE RYAN
Published by PENGUIN TWO
“Most books aren’t truly vulnerable; there is a certain polished perfection by which even the most raw stories are generally protected, but what makes A Room Called Earth such a meaningful read is that this protective layer is completely stripped back, giving you unrestricted access to the heart of the story at all times. I’ve never before felt so truly inside the mind of a character, and so gripped by a stream of consciousness. This book will leave you with a refreshing outlook on life and the feeling that you’ve encountered something truly special.”
—Sandia Ashley
Bookseller -
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Pandemic!
By SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
Published by POLITY PRESS
“Everyone’s favorite Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s analysis of the global pandemic could be the metaphorical nail in the coffin you need to beat your family in a political debate over Zoom. This is the perfect gift to give your college kid stuck at home who never stops talking about Hegel.”
—Tess Wagman
Bookseller.