January 22, 2022
Trips to the Philippines, Italy and Cuba; sci-fi from a Nigerian American fan favorite; and a memoir by a bestselling Booker Prize-winning writer. This selection will undeniably expand your experience of people, places and imagined worlds.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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Bibliolepsy
By GINA APOSTOL
Published by SOHO PRESS
We loved Filipino American writer Apostol’s historical novel, Insurrecto. This new novel is actually her debut, just out now in the U.S. Bibliolepsy is more contemporary in setting, taking place near the end of Ferdinand Marco’s dictatorship. Her unapologetic and delightful heroine, an orphan at eight, is a lover of literature with a desperate desire to connect through words and to meet (and have sex with) as many authors as she can. Both drenched in an erotic obsession with books and writers, and a snapshot of the Philippines during a political crisis, her first effort, says Apostol today, is a ‘love letter to art.’
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The Hummingbird
By SANDRO VERONESI
Published by HARPERVIA
Translated by Elena Pala
Michael Cunningham, Richard Ford, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ian McEwan: these great writers are but a few of the fans of Veronesi’s writing. This is the story of a Florentine family, and how one man rises to meet each challenge set before him, through hardship and happiness. It is Veronesi’s ninth novel and his second to be awarded Italy’s coveted Premio Strega. A stylish, intellectually satisfying book, it moves back and forth through seven decades as the life of our hero, ophthalmologist Marco Carrera, comes together like pieces of a puzzle—dazzling.
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Call Me Cassandra
By MARCIAL GALA
Published by FSG
Translated by Anna Kushner
Garcia’s novel is a coming-of-age story like no other. It manages to combine magical realism, gender identity, Cuba’s participation in the war in Angola, and Greek myth into one satisfying tale. Raúli, assigned male at birth, identifies with the beautiful Cassandra, daughter of the King of Troy and experiences parallels to her ancient story of prophecy, rape and war. This tale of a transgender person in ’70s Cuba, trapped in an intolerant society and surrounded by the impending revolution is a masterful effort, expertly translated, by a writer with a superior imagination.
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Goliath
By TOCHI ONYEBUCHI
Published by TORDOTCOM
Nigerian American Onyebuchi (Riot Baby) has degrees in screenwriting, economics and law. About his apocalyptic fiction for both youth and adults, he has said that science fiction allows him to get to a deeper truth in exploring race and gender. The new novel is set in the 2050s. Several threads and voices entwine as he describes a future where residents have fled Earth for colonization in space: one character looks back on the dismantled cities while those left behind attempt to salvage what is left of the great urban United States. Don’t miss our limited signed copies while they last.
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Manifesto
By BERNARDINE EVARISTO
Published by GROVE PRESS
Evaristo, a Londoner, became best known in the U.S. with 2019’s novel Girl, Woman, Other, winning the Booker Prize and becoming an independent bookstore’s dream to hand sell. She returns with her own personal story, which is as stirring and fierce as her fiction, and just as meaningful. Subtitled ‘On Never Giving Up,’ it is the sort of proclamation we need more than ever today. From her childhood onward we follow her development as a spirited activist and trailblazer with the sort of grit that will be inspiring to readers everywhere.
