The Mountains Sing

A Winner of the 2020 Lannan Literary Awards Fellowship, a NY Times Editors’ Choice Selection, & a finalist of the Audie 2021 Best Audiobook of the Year

With the epic sweep of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and the lyrical beauty of Vaddey Ratner’s In the Shadow of the Banyan, The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War.

Trần Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore apart not just her beloved country, but also her family.

Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the language and traditions of Việt Nam, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves, while showing us the true power of kindness.

“Balances the unrelenting devastation of war with redemptive moments of surprising humanity.” —Booklist

“Lyrical and at once heart-wrenching and hopeful.” —NPR

“Epic in scope, and a celebration of the human spirit, The Mountains Sing is a story you won't soon forget.” —PopSugar

“A poignant and vivid portrayal of a brutal slice of Vietnamese history from a perspective that is so rarely heard abroad: that of the Vietnamese themselves. We are starkly reminded of how those wars—and wars everywhere—wash over and drown both the guilty and innocent alike.” —Baingana

(Group read suggestion from Julie Jacobs, book club moderator.)

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Last Night I Dreamed of Peace

Rich in detail, this posthumously published diary of a twenty-seven-year-old Vietcong woman doctor gives us fresh insight into the lives of those fighting on the other side of the Vietnam War.

Saved from destruction by an American soldier and then published in Vietnam 35 years later, Trâm’s wartime diaries chronicle the last two years of her life as an idealistic young North Vietnamese battlefield surgeon. Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is a story of the struggle for one’s ideals amid the despair and grief of war, but most of all, it is a story of hope in the most dire circumstances.

”Urgent, simple prose that pierces the heart.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Remarkable. . . A gift from a heroine who was killed at 27, but whose voice has survived to remind us of the humanity and decency that endure amid—and despite—the horror and chaos of war.” —O, The Oprah Magazine

“Faithfully translated by Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnamese American journalist Pham, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is witness to the tragedy of war, a reminder made more pertinent every day. A book of hope to be read by all.” —The Bloombury Review

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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No Mud, No Lotus

The author, Thích Nhất Hạnh, is one of the most famous Zen Buddhist Masters in the world credited with popularizing “mindfulness” in the West after being exiled from his native Vietnam because of his peace efforts during the war.

No Mud, No Lotus remembers the ancient wisdom that we grow into our own enlightenment out of adversity like the beautiful lotus flowers that only live in the deep muck of muddy swamps—without mud, there is no lotus.

With his signature clarity and sense of joy, Hanh offers practices and inspiration to help us acknowledge our struggles and transform suffering to find true happiness.

“I, like many of you, have endured much suffering during the pandemic. But I am grateful for Hanh’s wisdom. No Mud, No Lotus has provided me so much support—both when it was first published a number of years ago and, more recently, throughout this challenging time.” —Mind Over

“As Thich Nhat Hanh nears the end of his most inspiring life, he has no time left to expound on tangents. This book cuts to the core—fast. With so much wisdom condensed in this small book, this is the most potent and practical guide I have ever read.” —Jack Sherman

“Serene and wise, No Mud, No Lotus is an immensely practical guide to overcoming life’s big and little problems.” —Namrata

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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The Sorrow of War

The daring and controversial novel that took the world by storm—a story of politics, selfhood, survival, and war.

Heart-wrenching, fragmented, raw, former Vietcong soldier Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War provides a strikingly honest look at how the Vietnam War forever changed everything.

In this novel of North Vietnam, Kien, a lone survivor from the Glorious 27th Youth brigade of the Vietcong, revisits the haunting sites of battles and relives a parade of horrors, as he grapples with his ghosts, his alcoholism and attempts to arrange his life in writing.

Published against government wishes in Vietnam because of its nonheroic, non-ideological tone, this now classic work has won worldwide acclaim and become an international bestseller.

“Vaults over all the American fiction that came out of the Vietnam War to take its place alongside the greatest war novel, All Quiet on the Western Front. This is to understate its qualities, for, unlike All Quiet, it is about much more than war. A book about writing, about lost youth, it is also a beautiful, agonizing love story.” —The Independent

“Dramatic . . . Chronicle[s] the wrecked lives of North Vietnamese soldiers who enter the war with blazing idealism, only to sink deeper into disillusionment and pessimism as everything they know falls apart around them.” —The Washington Post

“Powerful . . . A remarkable emotional intensity builds as the author mixes harrowing flashback scenes from the war with images from his pastoral youth, from his heartbreaking homecoming after a decade away, and finally from the nightmare calamity that gives the book its tragic power.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

(A special thank you to book club member, Eydis West for the suggestion.)

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The Unwanted

Saigon fell to the Viet Cong on April 30, 1975. Kien Nguyen watched the last U.S. Army helicopter leave without him, without his brother, without his mother, without his grandparents. Left to a nightmarish existence in a violated and decimated country, Kien was more at risk than most because of his odd blond hair and his light eyes—because he was Amerasian.

He was the most unwanted.

Told with stark and poetic brilliance, this is a story of survival and hope, a moving and personal record of a tumultuous and important piece of history. The Unwanted is the only memoir by an Amerasian who stayed behind in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon and who is now living in America.

“A remarkable tale of survival at all costs.” —People

“The son of a wealthy Vietnamese woman and an American businessman, Nguyen was nearly eight when Saigon fell to the Vietcong. For the next decade, he and his family endured hardships brought on by the privileged lives they had previously enjoyed. Nguyen is adept at capturing both the broad sweep of life under the Vietcong and the peculiarities of growing up in a colorful and emotionally dysfunctional family during a jarring and vicious revolution. But perhaps the most engaging aspect of his memoir is its portrayal of the ironies that ensue when the old order collapses and the social hierarchy is turned upside down.” —Publisher’s Weekly

Trigger warning: Rape, sexual violence, & the killing of a dog.

(A special thank you to book club member, Beth Cummings for the suggestion.)

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Wild Mustard

Wild Mustard, an anthology of prizewinning short fiction by contemporary Vietnamese writers, captures the kaleidoscopic experiences of modern Vietnam's youth, navigating between home and newly expanded horizons, as they seek new opportunities through migration, education, and integration not only into their nation but into the world.

Following the tradition of the “Under 40” collections popularized by magazines such as the New Yorker and Granta, but with greater stakes and greater differences between the previous generation of writers and this new one, Wild Mustard seeks to change how North American readers think of Vietnam. Escaping the common fixation on the Vietnam War and its aftermath, these stories reflect the movement and dynamism of the young Vietnamese who find themselves in a vibrant world.

“This beautiful collection of short stories introduces a new side of Vietnam that pulls it out of the historical prison of the Vietnam War, where it’s been trapped for the last forty years. While the stories are specific to Vietnam, they are written in such a way that Anglophone readers of this translation can relate to, which makes them so relevant and important.” —Firpo

“The first anthology to focus on Vietnamese writers born after the Vietnam War, Wild Mustard makes you realize that whatever you thought you knew about Vietnam and its literature is woefully out of date. This is an important collection, one that shows Vietnamese fiction to be not only vibrant and alive, but also a very different creature than what you thought it was.” —Brian Evenson, noted author

(Group read suggestion from Julie Jacobs, book club moderator.)

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The Secret of Hoa Sen

Winner of the Poetry of the Year Award from the Hanoi Writers Association

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is among the most exciting writers to emerge from post-war Vietnam. The Secret of Hoa Sen shines with craft, art, and deeply felt humanity. These penetrating poems, published in bilingual English and Vietnamese, build new bridges between two cultures bound together by war and destruction.

“Born in 1973 in Vietnam’s north but raised in the south’s lush delta, award-winning poet Nguyễn writes precise, vibrant poems that give voice to her country’s present, grounded in tradition and dark history.” —Library Journal

“Nguyễn writes eloquently about family, femaleness and the sensual beauty of her country. When she writes of place, I feel that I am walking past the rice shoots in a long ago world.” —Omaha World-Herald

“Nguyễn's poetic attention is diverse and wide in scope, but never far from her country and family... one cannot help but feel that each poem is written into the Vietnamese landscape of the poet’s imagination. Not carved, but delicately inscribed; so as to preserve the beauty of a country whose wounds must not define it.” —Poetry International

“My Mother’s Rice

Through the eyes of my childhood I watch my mother,
who labored in a kitchen built from straw and mud.
She lifted a pair of chopsticks and twirled sunlight into a pot of boiling rice,
the perfume of a new harvest
soaked her worn shirt as she bent and fed rice straws to the hungry flames.
I wanted to come and help, but the child in me
pulled myself into a dark corner
where I could watch my mother’s face
teach beauty how to glow in hardship,
and how to sing the rice to cook with her sunbaked hands.

That day in our kitchen
I saw how perfection was arranged
by soot-blackened pans and pots,
and by the bend back of my mother, so thin
she would disappear if I wept, or cried out.”

The King is Always above the People

Longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction

An urgent, essential collection of stories about Latin American families, immigration, broken dreams, LA gang members, and other tales of high stakes journeys

Betrayal. Family secrets. Doomed love. Uncertain futures. Migration. In Daniel Alarcón’s hands, these are transformed into deeply human stories with high stakes. In "The Thousands," people are on the move and forging new paths; hope and heartbreak abound. A man deals with the fallout of his blind relatives' mysterious deaths and his father's mental breakdown and incarceration in "The Bridge." A gang member discovers a way to forgiveness and redemption through the haze of violence and trauma in “The Ballad of Rocky Rontal.” And in the tour de force novella, "The Auroras", a man severs himself from his old life and seeks to make a new one in a new city, only to find himself seduced and controlled by a powerful woman. Richly drawn, full of unforgettable characters, The King is Always Above the People reveals experiences both unsettling and unknown, and yet eerily familiar in this new world.

“Alarcón is an empathic observer of the isolated human, whether isolated by emigration or ambition, blindness or loneliness, poverty or war. His stories have a reporter's mix of kindness and detachment, and his endings land like a punch in the gut. His purpose isn't to approve or condemn, or to liberate. He's writing to show us other people's lives, and in every case, it's a pleasure to be shown.” —NPR

"Showcases his talent as a master storyteller. In 10 vivid, captivating stories, Alarcón explores family relationships, secrets, betrayal, hope, love, heartbreak, immigration, forgiveness, and redemption." —Buzzfeed

“Dynamic novelist and journalist Alarcón delivers a collection of loosely affiliated short stories, each buzzing and alive…Alarcón’s gift for generating real, tangible characters propels readers through his recognizable yet half-real worlds.” —Booklist

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All Our Wrong Todays

Winner of le Prix Bob-Morane (a French sci-fi literary award) for best international novel

You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we’d have? Well, it happened. In 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed . . . because it wasn’t necessary.

Except Tom Barren just can’t seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that’s before his life gets turned upside-down. Blindsided and heartbroken by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland.

But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and—maybe, just maybe—his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom’s search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future—our future—is supposed to be. 

“Entertainingly mixes thrills and humor.”—Entertainment Weekly

“Belongs in a burgeoning genre of books like Andy Weir’s The Martian that wrap self-deprecating humor around unabashedly nerdy science...Refreshing.” —GQ

“A thrilling tale of time travel and alternate timelines with a refreshingly optimistic view of humanity’s future.” —Andy Weir, bestselling author of The Martian

“Instantly engaging.…A timeless, if mind-bending, story about the journeys we take, populated by friends, family, lovers, and others, that show us who we might be, could be—and maybe never should be—that eventually leads us to who we are.”—USA Today

“On top of this brilliant philosophical premise of parallel versions of one’s life and the people in it—of what might have been had history unfolded different—Mastai’s language is also rife with an infectious humor you won’t be able to stop reading.”—Harper’s Bazaar

Note: Great on audio too.

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The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

Written by a Nobel Prize-winning author

“Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one's consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.”

One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought.

Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the writings of Kafka, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, these philosophical essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning.

With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.

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Poppies of Iraq

Nominated for the Kirkus Prize & YALSA's Great Graphic Novels. Appeared on best of the year lists from Kirkus, Guardian, Vulture, Forbes, and more.

Poppies of Iraq is Brigitte Findakly’s nuanced tender chronicle of her relationship with her homeland Iraq, co-written and drawn by her husband, the acclaimed cartoonist Lewis Trondheim. In spare and elegant detail, they share memories of her middle class childhood touching on cultural practices, the education system, Saddam Hussein’s state control, and her family’s history as Orthodox Christians in the Arab world. 

Poppies of Iraq is intimate and wide-ranging; the story of how one can become separated from one’s homeland and still feel intimately connected yet ultimately estranged.

Signs of an oppressive regime permeate a seemingly normal life: magazines arrive edited by customs; the color red is banned after the execution of General Kassim; Baathist militiamen are publicly hanged and school kids are bussed past them to bear witness. As conditions in Mosul worsen over her childhood, Brigitte’s father is always hopeful that life in Iraq will return to being secular and prosperous. The family eventually feels compelled to move to Paris, however, where Brigitte finds herself not quite belonging to either culture. Trondheim brings to life Findakly’s memories to create a poignant family portrait that covers loss, tragedy, love, and the loneliness of exile.

“What is it like to grow up in Iraq? That’s the question at the heart of Poppies of Iraq... a beautifully drawn graphic novel that shows how growing up in Iraq is more complicated than it seems." —Bitch Magazine

“Poignant and powerful... a meditation on the ache and longing for a place you can no longer return.” —Boston Globe

"Small in size but large in impact, this intimate memoir is a highly relevant and compassionate story of family, community, prejudice, and the struggle to love when the forces of the world push groups apart."—Kirkus

“[Poppies of Iraq's] power lies in the contrast between the matter-of-fact nature of the text and visuals, and the dread and horror of the backdrop... there is also hope to be found here — the hope that, no matter what befalls a nation, there will always be individuals who can craft something beautiful by virtue of their survival.” —Vulture

"This absorbing graphic memoir offers an insider’s view of the rapid cultural changes that beset Iraq in the latter half of the 20th century... Short vignettes about her family, school, and local customs are alternately bittersweet, funny, and affecting as a series of military and political coups impact her family’s life in Iraq... A moving, thought-provoking title for all collections."—School Library Journal, Starred Review

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The Wall

A NY Times Bestseller & multi award-winning book

”I was born at the beginning of it all, on the Red side—the Communist side—of the Iron Curtain." Through annotated illustrations, journals, maps, and dreamscapes, Peter Sís shows what life was like for a child who loved to draw, proudly wore the red scarf of a Young Pioneer [a youth Marxist-Leninist organization in communist Czechoslovakia], stood guard at the giant statue of Stalin, and believed whatever he was told to believe. But adolescence brought questions. Cracks began to appear in the Iron Curtain, and news from the West slowly filtered into the country. Sís learned about beat poetry, rock 'n' roll, blue jeans, and Coca-Cola. He let his hair grow long, secretly read banned books, and joined a rock band. Then came the Prague Spring of 1968, and for a teenager who wanted to see the world and meet the Beatles, this was a magical time. It was short-lived, however, brought to a sudden and brutal end by the Soviet-led invasion. But this brief flowering had provided a glimpse of new possibilities—creativity could be discouraged but not easily killed.

By joining memory and history, Sís takes us on his extraordinary journey: from infant with paintbrush in hand to young man borne aloft by the wings of his “glorious artwork” (Elle) which “makes for irresistible reading.” (Washington Post Book World)

“A masterpiece for readers young and old.” —Starred, Kirkus Reviews

“A powerful combination of graphic novel and picture book . . . Terrific design dramatizes the conflict between conformity and creative freedom.” —Starred, Booklist

“Sís, who has entranced children and adults with his magical stories and drawings, has taken his talent to a new level. Peter, born to dream and draw, is now also teaching the tragic history of his native land under communism in this beautiful, poignant, and important work for those of all ages. ” —Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Sec of State

(A special thank you to book club member, Sarah Jean for the book suggestion.)

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Note: Whether you read the book with a child or on your own, it’s a quick read so we added on a 29-minute dramatic Czech film nominated for an Academy Award entitled “Most” aka “The Bridge”. (Free on YouTube with closed captions here.)

Trailer:

Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia

This slim but dense novel is the story of a middle-aged teacher who is employed by a local Mafia boss to teach his drop-out 20-year-old daughter some creative writing.

Beata embraces lover after lover as well as political causes new to Eastern Europe: the environment, animal rights, feminism, consumerism, new-age religion. The book gives a gritty but witty portrait of today's Prague, its mafiosi and their ex-secret police bodyguards, the expatriate Americans, and many an extraordinary Czech, from a cremation enthusiast to a hopelessly naïve sex-education teacher.

The narrator, himself a writer and teacher who is in love with Beata, must portray her fate in terms that explain her nihilism without losing faith in his own positive craft of story-telling.

The unusual structure of the book, with its many post-modernist quotes from other writers, also serves as a serious exploration of the changed role of the writer in Central and Eastern Europe today. This comical-tragical-sexual tale is told in the best Czech tradition of Milan Kundera, Ivan Klíma, Bohumil Hrabal and Ludvík Vaculík.

“Brilliant satire of modern-day Prague.” —ALA Booklist

(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)

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The Castle

Kafka's final novel was written during 1922, when the tuberculosis that was to kill him was already at an advanced stage. Left unfinished by Kafka and not published until 1926, two years after his death, The Castle is the haunting tale of K.’s relentless, unavailing struggle with an inscrutable authority in order to gain access to the Castle.

Scrupulously following the fluidity and breathlessness of the sparsely punctuated original manuscript, Mark Harman’s new translation reveals levels of comedy, energy, and visual power previously unknown to English language readers.

Like much of Kafka's work, The Castle is enigmatic and polyvalent. Is it an allegory of the sprawling Austro-Hungarian Empire as it disintegrates into modern nation states, or a quasi-feudal system giving way to a new freedom for the subject? Is it the search by a central European Jew for acceptance and integration into a dominant culture? Is it a spiritual quest for grace or salvation, or an individual's struggle between his sense of independence and his need for approval? Is K. is an opportunist, a victim, or an outsider battling against an elusive authority? Is the Castle a benign source of authority or a whimsical system of control?

Like K., the reader is presented with conflicting perspectives that rehearse the existential dilemmas and uncertainties of literary modernity.

“[Harman’s translation is] semantically accurate to an admirable degree, faithful to Kafka’s nuances, and responsive to the tempo of his sentences and to the larger music of his paragraph construction. For the general reader or for the student, it will be the translation of preference for some time to come.” —The New York Review of Books

Note: The translation by Mark Harman is the one we recommend.

(Group read suggestion from Mia DeGiovine Chaveco, book club co-founder.)

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Helga’s Diary

Anne Frank's harrowing account finished before the concentration camp. This remarkable diary by a teenage girl takes readers inside.

Alongside her father and mother and the 45,000 Jews who live in Prague, Helga endures the Nazi invasion and regime: her father is denied work, schools are closed to her, she and her parents are confined to their flat. Then deportations begin, and her friends and family start to disappear.

In 1941, Helga and her parents are sent to the concentration camp of Terezín, where they live for three years. Here Helga documents their daily life—the harsh conditions, disease and suffering, as well as moments of friendship, creativity and hope—until, in 1944, they are sent to Auschwitz. Helga leaves her diary behind with her uncle, who bricks it into a wall to preserve it.

Helga's father is never heard of again, but miraculously Helga and her mother survive the horrors of Auschwitz, the grueling transports of the last days of the war, and manage to return to Prague. Helga writes down her experiences since Terezín, completing the diary. Out of the 15,000 children interred in Terezin, she is 1 of just 132 children who survived.

Reconstructed from her original notebooks, which were later retrieved from Terezín, and from the loose-leaf pages on which Helga wrote after the war, the diary is presented here in its entirety, accompanied by an interview with Helga and illustrated with the paintings she made during her time at Terezín. As such, Helga's Diary is one of the most vivid and comprehensive testimonies written during the Holocaust ever to have been recovered.

“The most moving Holocaust diary published since Anne Frank.” —The Telegraph

“A breathtaking account…a chilling testament to the tragedy of the Holocaust.”
—Publishers Weekly

“What's startling throughout is the resilience with which her buoyant spirit keeps bobbing up past the hardships, indignities, and cruelties.” —Francine Prose

“Page after page of writing that candidly, expertly, showcases humanity at its best and its worst.” —The Rumpus

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

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My Crazy Century

Ivan Klíma, “a writer of enormous power and originality” (The NY Times Book Review), has penned an intimate autobiography that explores his life under Nazi and Communist regimes. More than a memoir, My Crazy Century explores the ways in which the epoch and its dominating totalitarian ideologies impacted the lives, character, and morality of Klíma’s generation.

Klíma’s story begins in the 1930s, in the Terezin concentration camp outside of Prague, where he was forced to spend almost four years of his childhood. These political events form the backdrop to Klíma’s personal experiences, with the arrest and trial of his father; the early revolt of young writers against socialist realism; his first literary successes; and his travels to the free part of Europe, which strengthened his awareness of living as part of a colossal lie.

Klíma also captures the brief period of liberation during 1968’s Prague Spring, in which he played an active role; the Soviet invasion that crushed its political reforms; the rise of the dissident movement; and the collapse of the Communist regime in the middle of the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

“[An] absorbing memoir . . . The author relates all this with a mordant humor and a limpid prose that registers both the overt fear that repression engenders and the subtler moral corruptions it works in victims and perpetrators. . . . Klíma’s searching exploration of a warped era is rich in irony—and dogged hope.” —Publishers Weekly

“My Crazy Century is the prizewinning memoir of a writer who, deprived of freedom for much of this life, never ceased to be free in his imagination, creativity, and art. Neither Nazi nor Communist rulers could rob Ivan Klíma of his amazing ability—and fierce determination—to distill drops of truth from the sea of experience. Klíma was a witness, and participant, in the most dramatic events in twentieth century Europe. This is his story, brilliantly, wittily and poignantly told.” —Secretary Madeleine Albright

(Group read suggestion from Beth McCrea, book club co-founder.)

Note: Because this book is longer than our usual reads, an additional month will be given to read it if it is chosen.

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Spaceman of Bohemia

“A love song to Prague....Funny, humane and oddly down-to-earth in ways that its scenario cannot possibly convey. With its lessons in Czech history/culture and interplanetary shenanigans, this zany satirical debut is bursting at the seams and should win many fans.” (Guardian)

Orphaned as a boy, raised in the Czech countryside by his doting grandparents, Jakub Prochvozka has risen from small-time scientist to become the country's first astronaut. When a dangerous solo space mission offers him both the chance at heroism he's dreamt of, and a way to atone for his father's sins as a Communist informer, he ventures boldly into the vast unknown. But in so doing, he leaves behind his devoted wife, Lenka, whose love, he realizes too late, he has sacrificed on the altar of his ambitions.

Alone in deep space, Jakub discovers a possibly imaginary giant alien spider, who becomes his unlikely companion. Over philosophical conversations about the nature of love, life and death, and the deliciousness of bacon, the pair form an intense and emotional bond. Will it be enough to see Jakub through a clash with secret Russian rivals and return him safely to Earth?

Rich with warmth and suspense and surprise, Spaceman of Bohemia is an exuberant delight from start to finish. Very seldom has a novel this profound taken readers on a journey of such boundless entertainment and sheer fun.

”In Kalfar's zany novel . . . the spaceman, the alien, and the rest of the book's extravagant conceptual furniture are merely metaphors for the human-scale issues that are its real concerns, in particular the collapse of Jakub's marriage. That's not to say Kalfar hasn't done his research. There are lovingly detailed passages on life in zero gravity, but all the whizzy space business is harnessed to the basic question of what it means to leave and whether it's possible to come back. The alien acts as a Proustian trigger for Jakub's memories . . . But for all the strangeness of outer space, it is the writing about his home, the place to which he longs to return and perhaps never can, that beats strongest in this wry, melancholy book.” —NY Times Book Review

”The best, most enjoyably heartbreaking, most fun book you'll read this year. On the surface, you'll see affinities with Gary Shteyngart, with The Martian, with Kelly Link. But Jaroslav Kalfar's voice is entirely his own. I beg you: take this strange, hilarious, profound, life-affirming trip into literary outer space.” —Library Journal

(A special thank you to book club member, Elke Richelsen for the suggestion.)

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Amora

Sweeping nearly every major Brazilian literary prize in 2016—including the Prêmio Jabuti and Prêmio Açorianos de Literatura—Amora has propelled Natália Borges Polesso to the forefront of the international literary world.

From an emerging talent comes an exquisite collection of stories exploring the complexity of love between women.

Amora dares explore the way women love each other—the atrophy and healing of the female spirit in response to sexual desire and identity. These thirty-three short stories and poems, crafted with a deliberate delicacy, each capture the candid, private moments of women in love.

Together, these stories and the women who inhabit them reveal an illuminating portrait of the sacred female romance, with all its nuances, complexities, burdens, and triumphs revealed. These pages are adorned with a mosaic of unforgettable moments, including a lesbian granddaughter discovering unexpected commonalities with her grandmother, a teenager’s tryst with her friend after disenchanting sex with a boy, and an old couple’s dreamy Sunday-morning ritual.

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First Spring Grass Fire

Lambda Literary Award Finalist

Transgender indie electronica singer-songwriter Rae Spoon has six albums to their credit, including I Can't Keep All of Our Secrets. This first book by Rae (who uses “they” as a pronoun) is a candid, powerful story about a young person growing up queer in a strict Pentecostal family in Alberta.

The narrator attends church events and Billy Graham rallies faithfully with their family before discovering the music that becomes their salvation and means of escape. As their father's schizophrenia causes their parents' marriage to unravel, the narrator finds solace and safety in the company of their siblings, in their nascent feelings for a girl at school, and in their growing awareness that they are not the person their parents think they are. With a heart as big as the prairie sky, this is a quietly devastating, heart-wrenching coming-of-age book about escaping dogma, surviving abuse, finding love, and risking everything for acceptance.

“First Spring Grass Fire will be meaningful to anyone who has struggled to fit in. By telling these stories—of being different, queer, raised in a rigid belief system you didn't choose, trying to be yourself within circumstances you can't control—Rae Spoon illustrates the triumph in reclaiming and controlling your own identity. This moving collection is a story of what we do to find a place, physical or intangible, that we can call home.” —National Post

“The prose is concise without ornamentation; emotionally moving because of its raw honesty. While issues of gender and sexuality certainly underline the majority of the narrator's existential despair, the book works because it pushes the reader to understand the humanity of the narrator rather than simply a trans or lesbian narrative. It demonstrates the commonality of grief, loss, fear, pain, love, and longing.”
—Lambda Literary

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Under My Skin



Min Lee is a workaholic who can’t say no. She substitutes sleep with Red Bull and, through a combination of repression and bad habits, has managed to score herself a luxury apartment, a fabulous boyfriend and the approval of her billionaire CEO. Things are looking pretty awesome… well, apart from those body image issues that constantly plague her.

But Min thinks she's got everything worked out. She's arranged her comfort zone and has zero desire to look outside of it… or, so she tells herself.

It’s not until a troubled schoolgirl tracks her down from the Internet, stalks her to her home and noses her way into life that Min begins to admit that something is wrong in her perfect world. Something that she's never thought about before, and doesn’t even want to think about. Something that has the power to ruin all her relationships and dismantle everything in her life she’s worked so very hard for.

What if “she” isn’t the right word for Min at all?

“When was the last time a book hooked you so deeply you actually worried about the characters when you weren't reading? I didn’t want this book to end!” —Olin Elliott

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