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From one of the sharpest voices in fiction today, a profound and enthralling novel about beauty, power, and capital's influence on art and those who devote their lives to creating it.'Blue Ruin is bracingly intelligent and often just plain beautiful. It's a reminder that fiction, at its best, is a place to encounter new experiences and dwell in big ideas. Kunzru is known for ambitious novels that bring politics to rich, imaginative life; Blue Ruin shows him at the top of his game.'Sandra Newman, Guardian'Book of the Day''I read everything Hari Kunzru writes, for my highest pleasure and my deepest sustenance.'Rachel Kushner'Genuinely thrilling...both a sharp dissection of the oily inner workings of the art world, and a compelling portrait of one man's desperate attempt to escape complicity in the capitalist machine.'Financial Times Once Jay was tipped for greatness, a rising star of the London art scene. Now, he lives out of his car and earns money delivery groceries to the wealthy of upstate New York, while all around a terrible pandemic rages. When Jay arrives at a house set in an enormous acreage of woodland, he is shocked to see somebody he thought forever lost to him. Standing on the porch is Alice, a lover from his art school days. Their relationship was tumultuous and destructive, ultimately ending when she left him for his best friend and fellow artist Rob. Alice and Rob have achieved the riches and success for which Jay once seemed destined. Ashamed and debilitated by the virus that has ravaged his body, Jay hopes she won't recognise him behind his dirty surgical mask. When she does, however, she invites him to recover on the property, setting in motion a reckoning decades in the making. Gripping and brilliantly orchestrated, Blue Ruin moves back and forth through time to deliver an extraordinary portrait of an artist as he reunites with his past and confronts the world he once loved and left behind.'Kunzru's brilliance is his ability to fold vertiginous questions [...] into his storytelling. In its unnerving depiction of [...] uneasy relationships, Blue Ruin not only keeps pace with White Tears and Red Pill, but also confirms his status as a master choreographer of the present moment's creeping anxiety.'Literary Review “[Blue Ruin] promises to be harrowing and darkly funny. Kunzru has a knack for the nightmarish present, and few things feel more nightmarish than a forced confrontation with the past in the early stages of the pandemic.” Lit Hub,'Most Anticipated Books of 2024'“Kunzru's [Blue Ruin] is a triumph of beauty and a true ode to the artist.” Oprah Daily,'Most Anticipated Books of 2024'“Kunzru takes on the excessive and rapacious tendencies of the art world in his dazzling latest... [Blue Ruin] is immensely satisfying.” Publishers Weekly “A lively, ever-intensifying story of race, immigration, work, and what it means to earn a living... [Blue Ruin is] a darkly ironic tale of two bubbles—an art world divorced from economic reality and a Covid era that segregated us from society... A dark, smart, provocative tale of the perils of art making.” Kirkus “Exquisite writing and keen insights into class tensions and creative dilemmas. Kunzru affirms that it's always a good time to live an examined life, even during a pandemic.” Booklist

Laura de León is a radar astronomer who studies Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs) such as threatening asteroids and comets at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California. In Los Angeles in 2020, several crises are coalescing. The first strain of SARS-CoV-2 triggers the lockdowns, the city roils with protests of Derek Chauvin's murder of George Floyd and the police killing of Breonna Taylor, while the Bobcat Fire sweeps across the San Fernando Valley. In the midst of these emergencies, Laura is struggling to keep her family alive. Simultaneously, Laura is trying to write the history section of a Congressional report titled the National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan. This report will advise Congress that it must develop a system to detect and deflect PHOs, and the section Laura is working on cites several historical meteorite impacts as proof that the Earth is now undefended against a significant impact event. A story about family, love, risk, and science, A History of Hazardous Objects contemplates how experiencing trauma and pain may help us secure a safer and more just world.

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • From one of the sharpest voices in fiction today, a profound and enthralling novel about beauty and power, capital, art and those who devote their lives to creating itOnce, Jay was an artist. After graduating from art school in London, he was tipped for greatness, a promising career taking shape before him. That was not to happen. Now, undocumented in the United States, having survived Covid, he lives out of his car and barely makes a living as an essential worker, delivering groceries in a wealthy area of upstate New York. One day, as Jay attempts to make a delivery at a house surrounded by acres of woods, he is confronted by his destructive past: Alice, a former lover from his art school days, and the friend she left him for. Recognizing Jay's dire circumstances, Alice invites him to stay on their property—where an erratic gallery owner and his girlfriend are isolating as well—setting in motion a reckoning that has been decades in the making.Gripping and brilliantly orchestrated, Blue Ruin moves back and forth through time, delivering an extraordinary portrait of an artist as he reunites with his past and confronts the world he once loved and left behind.

NATIONAL BESTELLER • An “exquisite” (The Boston Globe) exploration of love and loss, the struggles and limitations of family life—and how we all must learn to live together and apart—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours “The only problem with Michael Cunningham's prose is that it ruins you for mere mortals'work. He is the most elegant writer in America.”—The Washington PostNEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS'CHOICE • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Harper's Bazaar, Chicago Public Library, Lit Hub, Paste, Kirkus ReviewsApril 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are a little bit in love with Isabel's younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart. And then there is Nathan, age ten, taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while his sister, Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents.April 5, 2020: As the world goes into lockdown, the cozy brownstone is starting to feel more like a prison. Violet is terrified of leaving the windows open, obsessed with keeping her family safe. Isabel and Dan communicate mostly in veiled sleights and frustrated sighs. And dear Robbie is stranded in Iceland, alone in a mountain cabin with nothing but his thoughts—and his secret Instagram life—for company.April 5, 2021: Emerging from the worst of the crisis, the family reckons with a new, very different reality—and with what they've learned, what they've lost, and how they might go on. “[Cunningham] is one of love's greatest witnesses.”—Los Angeles Times “An absolutely stunning portrait of humanity... a masterpiece.”—Literary Hub

A World Literature Today Notable Translations of 2023Written by Germany's #1 bestselling author Juli Zeh, About People takes place in the middle of lockdown in spring 2020 and subtly describes the social and very private consequences of the pandemic.Fleeing stay-at-home orders in the big city, Dora and her dog move to the countryside to sit out the pandemic. She knows that Bracken, a village in the middle of nowhere, isn't the idyll most city dwellers dream of, but she's desperate for space and a change of scene. The quaint old house she's saved up for needs work, weeds have taken over the yard, and her skinhead neighbor fits all the stereotypes. Just what is Dora really looking for? Distance from her boyfriend Robert, whose climate activism has crossed into obsession? Refuge from her inner turmoil? Clarity on how the whole world got so messed up? As Dora tries to keep her demons in check, unexpected things start happening all around her. Juli Zeh's epic new novel explores our present predicaments, biases, weaknesses, and fears, but—above all—it reveals the strengths that come to light when we dare to be human.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, HARPER'S BAZAAR, VOGUE, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICE, THE IRISH TIMES, NEW REPUBLIC AND KIRKUS REVIEWSThe New York Times–bestselling, National Book Award–winning author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through brings her singular voice to a story about modern life and connection“I am committed, until one of us dies, to Nunez's novels. I find them ideal. They are short, wise, provocative, funny — good and strong company.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times“With the intimacy and humor of a great conversation, this novel makes you feel smarter and more alive.” —People Magazine“An ode to our basic need to connect with other beings, be they human or animal, even in a global crisis that told us to stay apart.” —NPR Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez's ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past. Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others, who here include an adrift member of Gen Z and a spirited parrot named Eureka. The Vulnerables reveals what happens when strangers are willing to open their hearts to each other and how far even small acts of caring can go to ease another's distress. A search for understanding about some of the most critical matters of our time, Nunez's new novel is also an inquiry into the nature and purpose of writing itself.

'A woman receives an unexpected call from a former classmate asking for help deciphering a puzzling interaction, and from there, Smith spins out a broader story about loneliness, refuge and freedom.” —The New York Times Book Review “Lyrical and timely…Smith's novel will push readers to consider what it means to let people into your life, even when you don't want to.” —TIME A story is never an answer. A story is always a question. A day spent locked in a room by border officials without any explanation as to why. A riddle that seemingly has no answer: curlew or curfew, you choose. A phone call from a college friend who hasn't been in touch in years. And all of it is somehow inextricably linked to the life of a young blacksmith hounded from her trade and branded a vagrant nearly 500 years ago.Award-winning author Ali Smith shines a guiding light through the nightmarish now with a provocative novel that intertwines our atomized present and the uncannily parallel era of the Black Plague. In the hope that our medieval past may unlock the answers we seek to understand our hazy future, Companion Piece is a kaleidoscope of human history and experience, and a stunning addition to Smith's gorgeous canon.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This sweeping novel from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.“An immersive saga about a passion-filled life.”—PeopleONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar, Real Simple, Reader's DigestVioleta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling.She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics.Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.

“[Doyle] imparts a sense of poignancy and glimpses of happiness, of grief and loss and small moments of connection... you're left feeling close to dazzled.” —Daphne Merkin, New York Times Book ReviewA brilliantly warm and witty portrait of our pandemic lives, told in ten heartrending short stories, from the Booker Prize–winning author of Paddy Clarke Ha Ha HaLove and marriage. Children and family. Death and grief. Life touches everyone the same. But living under lockdown, it changes us alone. In these ten beautifully moving short stories written mostly over the last year, Booker Prize winner Roddy Doyle paints a collective portrait of our strange times. A man abroad wanders the stag-and-hen-strewn streets of Newcastle, as news of the virus at home asks him to question his next move. An exhausted nurse struggles to let go, having lost a much-loved patient in isolation. A middle-aged son, barred from his mother's funeral, wakes to an oncoming hangover of regret. Told with Doyle's signature warmth, wit, and extraordinary eye for the richness that underpins the quiet of our lives, Life Without Children cuts to the heart of how we are all navigating loss, loneliness, and the shifting of history underneath our feet.

From the bestselling author of Thank You for Smoking and Make Russia Great Again comes a comic tour de force, the story of one man's “lively and funny” (New York Journal of Books) journey through lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.During the pandemic, an aging screenwriter is holed up in a coastal South Carolina town with his beloved second wife, Peaches. He's been binge-eating for a year and developed a notable rapport with the local fast-food chain Hippo King. He struggles to work—on a ludicrous screenplay about a Nazi attempt to kidnap FDR and, naturally, an article for Etymology Today on English words of Carthaginian origin. He's told Peaches so often about the origins of the word mayonnaise that she's developed an aversion to using the condiment. He thinks he has Covid. His wife thinks he is losing his mind. In short, your typical pandemic worries. Things were going from bad to worse even before his doctor suggested a battery of brain tests. He knows what that means: dementia! But even in these scary times, there are plenty of things to do to distract him. His iPhone is fat-shaming him. He's. been trying to read Proust and thinks the French novelist missed his true calling as a parfumier. And he's discovered nefarious Russian influence on the local coroner's face. Why is Putin so keen to control who decides who died peacefully and who by foul play in Pimento County. Could it be the local military base? Has Anyone Seen My Toes? is a “laugh-out-loud” (Publishers Weekly) romp through a time that has been anything but funny.

A Guardian Best Book of 2022 • “Clever and surprising.” —BuzzFeed • “Brilliantly funny.” —San Francisco Chronicle • “Ingenious.”—The Millions • “Powerful.” —Harper's Bazaar A captivating debut novel about a classics professor immersed in research for a new book on a prophecy in the ancient world who confronts chilling questions about her own life just as the pandemic descends—for readers of Jenny Offill, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Sally Rooney.Covid-19 has arrived in London, and the entire world quickly succumbs to the surreal, chaotic mundanity of screens, isolation, and the disasters big and small that have plagued recent history. As our unnamed narrator—a classics professor immersed in her studies of ancient prophecies—navigates the tightening grip of lockdown, a marriage in crisis, and a ten-year-old son who seems increasingly unreachable, she becomes obsessed with predicting the future. Shifting her focus from chiromancy (prophecy by palm reading) to zoomancy (prophecy by animal behavior) to oenomancy (prophecy by wine), she fails to notice the future creeping into the heart of her very own home, and when she finally does, the threat has already breached the gates. Brainy and ominous, imaginative and funny, Delphi is a snapshot and a time capsule—it vividly captures our current moment and places our reality in the context of myth. Clare Pollard has delivered one of our first great pandemic novels, a mesmerizing and richly layered story about how we keep on living in a world that is ever-more uncertain and absurd.

Narrativas fantásticas são tão antigas quanto o medo. Crônicas e Contos da Quarentena reúne sete relatos nos quais o leitor é convidado à intriga a partir de argumentos e atmosferas que fazem desbotar os limites entre o real e o imaginário. Produzido durante o isolamento social causado pela covid-19, o livro assombra por sugerir a hiper-realidade na qual estamos imersos.