Sabriel by Garth Nix
Since childhood, Sabriel has lived outside the walls of the Old Kingdom, away from the power of Free Magic, and away from the Dead who refuse to stay dead. But now her father, the Abhorson, is missing, and Sabriel must cross into that world to find him. With Mogget, whose feline form hides a powerful, perhaps malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage, Sabriel travels deep into the Old Kingdom. There she confronts an evil that threatens much more than her life and comes face-to-face with her own hidden destiny. . .
Wednesday, July 22 at 6:30pm
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
The epic novel, an African Game of Thrones, from the Man Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings. In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child.
Wednesday, August 26 at 6:30pm
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story. Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math. Roger and Dodger aren't exactly human, though they don't realise it. They aren't exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn't attained.
Wednesday, September 23rd at 6:30pm
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Smith's third novel is a brilliant analysis of family life, the institution of marriage, intersections of the personal and the political, and an honest look at people's deceptions.
Wednesday, July 29 at 6:30pm
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes. When within this striving "Brotherhood of the Arts," two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed--or untoyed with--by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.
Wednesday, August 19 at 6:30pm
Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom
In eight highly praised treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom--award-winning professor and acclaimed author of Lower Ed--is unapologetically "thick" deemed "thick where I should have been thin, more where I should have been less," McMillan Cottom refuses to shy away from blending the personal with the political, from bringing her full self and voice to the fore of her analytical work. Thick transforms narrative moments into analyses of whiteness, black misogyny, and status-signaling as means of survival for black women.
Wednesday, September 16 at 6:30pm
Skip by Molly Mendoza
Gloopy is running toward adventure, and away from their home and friends who don't understand their creative talent. Bloom is desperately trying to return home to their lake, and avoid the terrible violence of the city. Instead, both Bloom and Gloopy find what they need in each other, and bravely return home to challenge their fears and create beauty in their own worlds.
Monday, July 6 at 6:30pm
Upgrade Soul by Ezra Claytan Daniels
In this innovative and exquisitely drawn sci-fi graphic novel, an aging couple grapples with what it means to be human. Molly, a brilliant geneticist, and Hank, a famous comics creator, celebrate their 40th anniversary in a most unusual way: undergoing an experimental operation to clone themselves. Under the eye of an unsavory scientist, the operation goes awry, leaving Hank and Molly mentally and physically weakened-and their clones as "mutant fetuses" who retain their sparkling intelligence but resemble fleshy potatoes.
Monday, August 3 at 6:30pm
Portrait of a Drunk by Olivier Schrauwen, Jérôme Mulot, and Florent Ruppert
Guy is no master mariner, with a clipped red (or black) beard. He's just an ordinary member of the crew — able enough, but also a lazy, cowardly liar, a drunkard, and a thief. His story is told in two allegorical parts: "The Blowout" and "The Hangover." Three contemporary comics titans, Belgian Olivier Schrauwen (Parallel Lives) and the French duo Ruppert and Mulot (The Perineum Technique) collaborate to bring you the best pictorial and narrative elements of the great tales of the sea — bright colors, grand battles, gallows humor — in this tour de force of black comedy.
Monday, September 7 at 6:30pm
Georges by Alexandre Dumas
Long out of print in America, Alexandre Dumas's most daring narrative is now available in this major new translation by Tina A. Kover. Filled with intrigue, romance, and deadly vengeance, Georges is the story of a wealthy mulatto boy who is driven from his island home by racist landowners. Returning to Mauritius as an accomplished young man, Georges pits his strength against a powerful plantation owner, leading a dramatic slave uprising and claiming the heart of a beautiful white woman. Georges stands apart as the only book by Dumas that explores the potent subject of race.
Monday, July 27 at 6:30pm
Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
Babel-17, winner of the Nebula Award for best novel of the year, is a fascinating tale of a famous poet bent on deciphering a secret language that is the key to the enemy’s deadly force, a task that requires she travel with a splendidly improbable crew to the site of the next attack.
Monday, August 24 at 6:30pm
The Diart of Anais Nin by Anais Nin
This celebrated volume begins when Nin is about to publish her first book and ends when she leaves Paris for New York. Edited and with a Preface by Gunther Tuhlmann.
Monday, September 28 at 6:30pm
A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay about the Death of Walt Disney by Lucas Hnath
Lucas Hnath's darkly clever A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney centers on the reading, in a generic corporate conference room, of a stylized screenplay written by the great man himself, in the ultimate act of self-mythologizing. It's being read by the people it's about--Walt himself, his brother/henchman Roy, and Walt's resentful daughter and her ex-jock husband.It's about Walt's last days on earth.
Tuesday, July 28 at 6:30pm
Indecent by Paula Vogel
When Sholem Asch wrote God of Vengeance in 1907, he didn't imagine the height of controversy the play would eventually reach. Performing at first in Yiddish and German, the play's subject matter wasn't deemed contentious until it was produced in English, when the American audiences were scandalized by the onstage depiction of an amorous affair between two women. Paula Vogel's newest work traces the trajectory of the show's success through its tour in Europe to its abrupt and explosive demise on Broadway in 1923--including the arrest of the entire production's cast and crew.
Tuesday, August 25 at 6:30pm
Mr. Burns and Other Plays by Anne Washburn
An ode to live theater and the resilience of The Simpsons, Anne Washburn's apocalyptic comedy Mr. Burns--"even better than its hype" (New York Post)--is an imaginative exploration of how the culture of one generation can evolve into the mythology of the next. Following an enthusiastic critical reception from New York critics for its world premiere, Mr. Burns will receive its London premiere in spring 2014. Also included in the collection are The Small, I Have Loved Strangers, and 10 Out of 12, all of which, together, develop a theme of destruction, from the personal to the city to civilization and, finally, to the destruction of form.
Tuesday, September 28 at 6:30pm
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth
In the village of al-Awafi in Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who chooses to refuse all offers and await a reunion with the man she loves, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families, their losses and loves, unspool ... against a backdrop of a rapidly changing Oman, a country evolving from a traditional, slave-owning society into its complex present.
Friday, July 17 at 6:30pm
Welcome to America by Linda Boström Knausgård, translated by Martin Aitken
A family on the brink of silence Ellen has stopped talking. She thinks she may have killed her dad. Her brother's barricaded himself in his room. Their mother, a successful actress, carries on as normal. We're a family of light! she insists. But darkness seeps in everywhere and in their separate worlds each of them longs for togetherness. Welcome to America is an exquisite portrait of a sensitive, strong-willed child and a young mind in the throes of trauma, a family on the brink of implosion, and the love that threatens to tear them apart.
Friday, August 21 at 6:30pm
Dézafi by Frankétienne, translated by Asselin Charles
Dézafi is no ordinary zombie novel. In the hands of the great Haitian author known simply as Frankétienne, zombification takes on a symbolic dimension that stands as a potent commentary on a country haunted by a history of slavery. Now this dynamic new translation brings this touchstone in Haitian literature to English-language readers for the first time.
Friday, September 1 at 6:30pm
Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
Two teens--Daniel, the son of Korean shopkeepers, and Natasha, whose family is here illegally from Jamaica--cross paths in New York City on an eventful day in their lives--Daniel is on his way to an interview with a Yale alum, Natasha is meeting with a lawyer to try and prevent her family's deportation to Jamaica--and fall in love.
Tuesday, July 7 at 6:30pm
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan. But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving. Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.
Tuesday, August 4 at 6:30pm
Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
At the start of the Revolutionary War, Isabelis sold to a cruel loyalist family, even though she has been promised freedomby her former owner. Soon faced with the choice of working for or against theBritish, Isabel chooses to work with anyone who can help her.
Tuesday, September 1 at 6:30pm