Magnetic Literary Tales
Explore captivating Magnetic Literary Tales with our curated list of books. Discover enchanting stories that stick with you—perfect for book lovers seeking unforgettable reads.
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The Jewel Trader of Pegu
by Jeffrey Hantover
Adventure, treasure, and forbidden love are interwoven in this beautiful and original debut novel set in the lush land of 16th-century Southeast Asia.
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The Bastard of Istanbul
by Elif Shafak
A “vivid and entertaining” (Chicago Tribune) tale about the tangled history of two families, from the author of The Island of Missing Trees (a Reese's Book Club Pick) "Zesty, imaginative . . . a Turkish version of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club." —USA Today As an Armenian American living in San Francisco, Armanoush feels like part of her identity is missing and that she must make a journey back to the past, to Turkey, in order to start living her life. Asya is a nineteen-year-old woman living in an extended all-female household in Istanbul who loves Jonny Cash and the French existentialists. The Bastard of Istanbul tells the story of their two families--and a secret connection linking them to a violent event in the history of their homeland. Filed with humor and understanding, this exuberant, dramatic novel is about memory and forgetting, about the need to examine the past and the desire to erase it, and about Turkey itself.
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Desperation Moon
by Ken Douglas
When racecar driver Sara Hackett arrives home from a desert road race, she finds her niece and another girl have been kidnapped and a dead man has turned up in her bed. The kidnappers want a million dollars she doesn't have or they say they'll kill the kids.
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Moral Disorder and Other Stories
by Margaret Atwood
From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments • This brilliant collection of connected short stories strings together several decades of moments in the life of one woman—as an ambitious girl in the 1930s, as a young professional coming of age in the uncertain ‘50s and ‘60s, and as half of a couple growing old together. In a series of vividly evoked settings that span cities, backwoods, and farm country, we see this woman contending over time with an unstable sister, a married lover, aging parents, mystifying stepchildren, vulnerable farm animals, and her own changing self. By turns funny, lyrical, earthy, shocking, and deeply personal, Moral Disorder displays Margaret Atwood’s celebrated storytelling gifts and unmistakable style to their best advantage.
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The View from Castle Rock
by Alice Munro
From the award-winning and bestselling author of "Runaway" comes a new book of short stories that is as transporting as anything shes ever written ("New York Times").
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The Reluctant Fundamentalist
by Mohsin Hamid
A young Muslim American, Changez is living the American dream, with a Princeton education and high-paying job, until the events of September 11th force him to confront his personal allegiances.
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The Monsters of Templeton
by Lauren Groff
"The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass." So begins The Monsters of Templeton, a novel spanning two centuries: part a contemporary story of a girl's search for her father, part historical novel, and part ghost story, this spellbinding novel is at its core a tale of how one town holds the secrets of a family. In the wake of a wildly disastrous affair with her married archaeology professor, Willie Upton arrives on the doorstep of her ancestral home in Templeton, New York, where her hippie-turned-born-again-Baptist mom, Vi, still lives. Willie expects to be able to hide in the place that has been home to her family for generations, but the monster's death changes the fabric of the quiet, picture-perfect town her ancestors founded. Even further, Willie learns that the story her mother had always told her about her father has all been a lie: he wasn't the random man from a free-love commune that Vi had led her to imagine, but someone else entirely. Someone from this very town. As Willie puts her archaeological skills to work digging for the truth about her lineage, she discovers that the secrets of her family run deep. Through letters, editorials, and journal entries, the dead rise up to tell their sides of the story as dark mysteries come to light, past and present blur, old stories are finally put to rest, and the shocking truth about more than one monster is revealed.
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The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
by Dinaw Mengestu
Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution for a new start in the United States. Now he finds himself running a failing grocery store in a poor African-American section of Washington, D.C., his only companions two fellow African immigrants who share his bitter nostalgia and longing for his home continent. Years ago and worlds away Sepha could never have imagined a life of such isolation. As his environment begins to change, hope comes in the form of a friendship with new neighbors Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter. But when a series of racial incidents disturbs the community, Sepha may lose everything all over again. Watch a QuickTime interview with Dinaw Mengestu about this book.
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The Emperor's Children
by Claire Messud
A bestselling, masterful novel about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way—and not—in New York City. There is beautiful, sophisticated Marina Thwaite—an “It” girl finishing her first book; the daughter of Murray Thwaite, celebrated intellectual and journalist—and her two closest friends from Brown, Danielle, a quietly appealing television producer, and Julius, a cash-strapped freelance critic. The delicious complications that arise among them become dangerous when Murray’s nephew, Frederick “Bootie” Tubb, an idealistic college dropout determined to make his mark, comes to town. As the skies darken, it is Bootie’s unexpected decisions—and their stunning, heartbreaking outcome—that will change each of their lives forever. A richly drawn, brilliantly observed novel of fate and fortune—of innocence and experience, seduction and self-invention; of ambition, including literary ambition; of glamour, disaster, and promise—The Emperor’s Children is a tour de force that brings to life a city, a generation, and the way we live in this moment. A New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year
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Certain Girls
by Jennifer Weiner
Readers fell in love with Cannie Shapiro, the smart, sharp-tongued, bighearted heroine of Good in Bed who found her happy ending after her mother came out of the closet, her father fell out of her life, and her ex-boyfriend started chronicling their ex-sex life in the pages of a national magazine. Now Cannie's back. After her debut novel -- a fictionalized (and highly sexualized) version of her life -- became an overnight bestseller, she dropped out of the public eye and turned to writing science fiction under a pseudonym. She's happily married to the tall, charming diet doctor Peter Krushelevansky and has settled into a life that she finds wonderfully predictable -- knitting in the front row of her daughter Joy's drama rehearsals, volunteering at the library, and taking over-forty yoga classes with her best friend Samantha.As preparations for Joy's bat mitzvah begin, everything seems right in Cannie's world. Then Joy discovers the novel Cannie wrote years before and suddenly finds herself faced with what she thinks is the truth about her own conception -- the story her mother hid from her all her life. When Peter surprises his wife by saying he wants to have a baby, the family is forced to reconsider its history, its future, and what it means to be truly happy. Radiantly funny and disarmingly tender, with Weiner's whip-smart dialogue and sharp observations of modern life, Certain Girls is an unforgettable story about love, loss, and the enduring bonds of family.
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Grotesque
by Natsuo Kirino
Life at the prestigious Q High School for Girls in Tokyo exists on a precise social axis: a world of insiders and outsiders, of haves and have-nots. Beautiful Yuriko and her unpopular, unnamed sister exist in different spheres; the hopelessly awkward Kazue Sato floats around among them, trying to fit in.Years later, Yuriko and Kazue are dead — both have become prostitutes and both have been brutally murdered. Natsuo Kirino, celebrated author of Out, seamlessly weaves together the stories of these women’s struggles within the conventions and restrictions of Japanese society. At once a psychological investigation of the pressures facing Japanese women and a classic work of noir fiction, Grotesque is a brilliantly twisted novel of ambition, desire, beauty, cruelty, and identity by one of our most electrifying writers.
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Mudbound
by Hillary Jordan
In 1946, Laura McAllan tries to adjust after moving with her husband and two children to an isolated cotton farm in the Mississipi Delta.
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Love the One You're With
by Emily Giffin
Believing her marriage to Andy to be perfect in every way, Ellen runs into former flame Leo and wonders why she has been unable to forget him even though they brought out the worst in each other.
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Resistance
by Owen Sheers
In 1944, after the fall of Russia and the failed D-Day landings, half of Britain is occupied by enemy forces, and Sarah Lewis, a young farmer's wife, awakens to find that her husband has disappeared, along with all of the men from her remote Welsh village, a puzzle that is complicated by the arrival of a German patrol on a mysterious mission. A first novel. 30,000 first printing.
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We Disappear
by Scott Heim
From the acclaimed author of "Mysterious Skin" comes this dark and compellingnovel of addiction, obsession, love, and family.
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The Age of Shiva
by Manil Suri
Following his debut novel "The Death of Vishnu," Suri returns with a mesmerizing story of modern India richly layered with themes from Hindu mythology.
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The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte
by Laura Joh Rowland
Setting out for London to clear her name when she is falsely accused of plagiarism, Charlotte Brontë inadvertently stumbles on a murder scene and becomes involved in a chain of events that forces her to confront past demons while following a trail of clues.
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The Kept Man
by Jami Attenberg
A riveting debut novel from a rising literary star about a young woman whose husband has fallen into a coma, and her discovery of evidence that casts doubt on their marriage. Six years ago, Jarvis Miller's husband, an artist whose career was just starting to gain momentum, fell into a coma. And ever since, Jarvis has been waiting. At first, she was waiting for him to wake up so that their happy marriage could be continued. But she's spent too many years of dwindling hope, living as a half-widow, and selling off more and more pieces of his artwork to power the machines that keep him alive. Now, Jarvis has come to admit that she's waiting for her husband to die. One spring day at the local laundromat, Jarvis meets the members of the Kept Man Club: three handsome, interesting men, all married to breadwinner wives, who gather once a week on laundry day. Their companionship opens her eyes to the possibilities of family and friendship she's been missing for so many years. At the same time, her husband's best friend and his art dealer pressure Jarvis to collect the remainder of his work for a retrospective-a proposition that engenders mixed feelings, since it's usually an honor reserved for the already dead. Sorting through a hidden box of photographs, she uncovers evidence of a shocking betrayal that calls into question her idealized vision of the past. Told in a spare and utterly compelling narrative voice, The Kept Manis a compulsively readable novel about love and loss, one that is sure to establish Jami Attenberg as one of our most dynamic new storytellers.
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Mistress of the Art of Death
by Ariana Franklin
Sent to medieval Cambridge in order to exonerate Jewish prisoners who have been accused of murdering four children, University of Salerno medical expert Adelia discovers that the killer may be a former crusader.
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A Summer Affair
by Elin Hilderbrand
Claire Danner Crispin, mother of four young children and nationally renowned glassblower, bites off more than she can chew when she agrees to co-chair the Nantucket's Children Summer Gala. Claire is asked to chair the benefit, in part, because she is the former high school sweetheart of rock star Max West. Max agrees to play the gala and it looks like smooth sailing for Claire-until she promises a "museum-quality" piece of glass for the auction, offers her best friend the catering job, goes nose-to-nose with her Manhattan socialite co-chair, and begins a "good-hearted" affair with the charity's Executive Director, Lockhart Dixon. Hearts break and emotions are pushed to the limit in this riveting story of one woman's attempt to deal with loves past and present, family, business, and high-powered social pressures. Elin Hilderbrand's unique understanding of the joys and longings that animate women's lives will make this her newest summer bestseller.
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Pontoon
by Garrison Keillor
Astonished to learn that her impeccable mother led a secret life marked by her passionate love for a Las Vegas man and a private commitment to pleasure, Barbara elects to end destructive patterns in her own life while honoring her mother's final wishes, an effort that coincides with a veterinarian's efforts to marry her reluctant fianc.
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The Uncommon Reader
by Alan Bennett
From the author of The History Boys and The Clothes They Stood Up In A deliciously funny novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading. When the Queen in pursuit of her wandering corgis stumbles upon a mobile library she feels duty bound to borrow a book. Aided by Norman, a young man from the palace kitchen who frequents the library, Bennett describes the Queen's transformation as she discovers the liberating pleasures of the written word. With the poignant and mischievous wit of The History Boys, England's best loved author revels in the power of literature to change even the most uncommon reader's life.