Introduction In 1959, the Brown siblings were the biggest thing in country music. Their inimitable harmony would give rise to the polished sound of the multibillion-dollar country music industry we know today. But when the bonds of family began to fray, the flame of their celebrity proved as brilliant as it was fleeting. Masterfully jumping between the Browns’ once-auspicious past and the heartbreaking present, Nashville [...]
We the Animals by Justin Torres
Introduction Three brothers tear their way through childhood—smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn—he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white—and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes [...]
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Introduction Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen Hawking and Ringo Starr. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. His mission is to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his [...]
Eating for Beginners by Melanie Rehak
Introduction Melanie Rehak was always a passionate cook and food lover. After reading the likes of Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, and Wendell Berry, she tried to eat thoughtfully as well. But after the birth of her son, Jules, she wanted to know more: What mattered most, organic or local? Who were these local farmers? Was [...]
Mule by Tony D’Souza
About the Book James and Kate are golden children of the late twentieth century, flush with opportunity. But an economic downturn and an unexpected pregnancy send them searching for a way to make do. A winter in the mountains of California’s Siskiyou County introduces a tempting opportunity. A friend grows prime-grade marijuana; if James transports [...]
Buddha’s Orphans by Samrat Upadhyay
Introduction Raja and Nilu are fated to fall in love. They’ve both been abandoned—he through his mother’s suicide in the public pond, she through her mother’s constant escape into drink. He has grown up on the streets, she in a crumbling mansion. And yet they find each other again and again. First, when they are [...]
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
Introduction Harrison Opuku is standing in the street watching the police block off a body, the body of one of his classmates—who seems to have been murdered for his dinner. The police have no leads, so Harri and his best friend Dean launch into action. Armed with camouflage binoculars and detective techniques absorbed from television, [...]
The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Poetzsch
Introduction Magdalena, the clever and headstrong daughter of Bavarian hangman Jakob Kuisl, lives with her father outside the village walls and is destined to be married off to another hangman’s son—except that the town physician’s son is hopelessly in love with her. And her father’s wisdom and empathy are as unusual as his despised profession. [...]
My American Unhappiness by Dean Bakopoulos
Introduction “Why are you so unhappy?” That’s the question that Zeke Pappas—a thirty-three-year-old widower and scholar who directs the Great Midwestern Humanities Initiative—asks almost everybody he meets as part of an obsessive project, “The Inventory of American Unhappiness.” Yet he remains delightfully oblivious to the increasingly harsh realities that threaten his own life, opting instead [...]
The Happiness of Pursuit by Davis Phinney
Introduction For two decades, Davis Phinney was one of America’s most successful cyclists. He won two stages at the Tour de France and an Olympic medal. But after years of feeling off, he was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s. The body that had been his ally was now something else: a prison. The Happiness of Pursuit [...]
