THE WEIRD SISTERS by Eleanor Brown

When their mother becomes ill, the three daughters of a Shakespearean scholar return home with plenty of baggage.  The family constantly drops quotes from the Bard;  the narration is in the first person plural voice of the sisters;  there is lots of humor in this story about siblings learning to communicate.

JULIAN BARNES: A Winning Writer

Whether in a novel such as ARTHUR & GEORGE, short story collections (PULSE, THE LEMON TABLE), or memoir (NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF), Barnes writes with wit, elegance, and perception.  His most recent novel, THE SENSE OF AN ENDING, won the 2011 Man Booker Prize.

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MY KOREAN DELI: Risking It All for a Convenience Store by Ben Ryder Howe

The author, an editor at Paris Review, agrees to his wife’s wish to buy a convenience store for her Korean immigrant parents.  Now deeply in debt, Howe and his wife live in the basement of his in-laws’ Staten Island home;  he keeps his day job on the Upper East Side while working the night shift at the Brooklyn store.  An often uproarious account of the customers and his own dilemmas, the book is also concerned with family relationships and success. 

THE TWISTED THREAD by Charlotte Bacon

 

Young English teacher Madeline doesn’t come from the same privileged background as many of her students at New England’s Armitage Academy.  When a star student is found dead, the mystery begins;  so does the tension between the elite school’s administration and the town police. 

THE UPRIGHT PIANO PLAYER by David Abbott

 

 

How does the impeccable Henry Cage become involved with a random act of violence and its consequences?  This melancholy debut novel explores the theme of chance and its intrusion into even the most cautious of lives.