WINNER OF THE LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FOR GAY FICTIONHussam and Wassim are teenage boys living in Syria during America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. When a surprise discovery results in tragedy, their lives, and those of their families, are shattered. Wassim promises Hussam his protection, but ten years into the future, he has failed to keep his promise. Wassim is on the streets, seeking shelter from both the city and the civil war storming his country. Meanwhile Hussam, ...

“Both a heartbreaking and heart-warming story, Melody Razak’s debut transports the reader into the home of a Brahmin family in 1940s Delhi. . . . The character portrayal is so intricate that as the plot twists and turns, you'll truly care what happens to them.”—The Independent (UK)A Millions Most Anticipated Book of 2022 • An Oprah Daily Most Anticipated Historical Fiction Novel of 2022 • A Betches Summer Pick

**This program is read by the author.For fans of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and My Brilliant Friend, an unforgettable story about female friendship and queer love in a Muslim-American community**"I LOVED EVERY MOMENT." —Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!"Bushra Rehman performs her novel of a queer Pakistani American girl who is coming of age in the 1980s and '90s. As Razia begins rebelling in small ways, Re...

**“Watkins’s prose is effortless and forthright. . . . This is an impressive feat of storytelling. . . . It’s a difficult read and a tender story of silences and secrets. It’s a novel about coming home, despite that home being broken. And it’s a brave triumph of a novel that readers won’t forget long after finishing it.”—The New York Times Book ReviewNamed a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Good Morning America * Essence* Esquire * The Root * Bustle * Ebony ...

A riveting family drama evocative of Angela’s Ashes and The Glass Castle**, about a woman who discovers the shocking secret at the center of her mother’s life.**Justine had always been told that her mother came from royal blood. The proof could be found in her mother’s elegance, her uppercrust London accent—and in a cryptic letter hinting at her claim to a country estate. But beneath the polished ...

**ONE OF CBC'S BEST CANADIAN FICTION BOOKS OF 2022A suspenseful and poignant tale from an award-winning writer about a girl navigating chaotic family life in a close-knit small town.**On a June afternoon in a small city, a wild-eyed girl named Francie dashes down a neighbourhood street, clutching a gun. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s running from, and she doesn’t know what she’s heading towards. All she understands is the need to survive. To save herself, she has no ch...

The acclaimed author of The Teller of Secrets returns with a gut-wrenching, yet heartwarming, story about a young Ghanaian woman’s struggle to make a life in the US, and the challenges she must overcome.Lola is twenty-one, and her life in Senegal couldn’t be better. An aspiring writer and university graduate, she has a great job, a nice apartment, a vibrant social life, and a future filled with possibility. But fate disrupts her world when she falls for Ar...

Written “with intelligence, compassion, and an occasional quiet lyricism” (Krys Lee, The Guardian), this mesmerizing novel is about a North Korean boy whose life is irrevocably changed when he stumbles across a mysterious Western book—a guide to Dungeons & Dragons—from the acclaimed author of the “sublime” (The New York Times) Far North.Ten-year-old Jun-su is a bright and obedient boy whose only desire is to be a credit t...

**WINNER OF THE 2020 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION“Wondrously and elegantly written in language that astonishes and moves the reader…This is an important book: an emotional and intellectual tour de force.” —Jane Urquhart**An experimental memoir about Partition, immigration, and generational storytelling, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart weaves together the poetry of memory with the science of embodied trauma, using the imagined v...

In this moving and thought-provoking memoir, a historian offers a personal look at the fallibilities of memory and the lingering impact of trauma as she goes back fifty years to tell the story of being a passenger on an airliner hijacked in 1970.On September 6, 1970, twelve-year-old Martha Hodes and her thirteen-year-old sister were flying unaccompanied back to New York City from Israel when their plane was hijacked by members of the Popular Front ...

In this stunning novel about judgment, courage, heartbreak, and change, author Silas House wrestles with the limits of belief and the infinite ways to love.In the aftermath of a flood that washes away much of a small Tennessee town, evangelical preacher Asher Sharp offers shelter to two gay men. In doing so, he starts to see his life anew—and risks losing everything: his wife, locked into her religious prejudices; his congregation, which shuns Asher after he delive...

***LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION*An epic, boundary-pushing tale of five young women rebelling against an era that relies on their submission, from the acclaimed author of Etta and Otto and Russell and James.**During the golden age of the Roman Empire, five girls enjoy a modest childhood in their small Portuguese village. They race each other through lemon orchards and pick fresh fruit for the commander who overlooks his people fro...