Have You Read...Gary Shteyngart

Last year, The New Yorker named Gary Shteyngart one of their “20 Under 40” writers to watch – and for good reason. He has published some exceptionally funny and compelling work in his relatively-young life. Shteyngart spent his first seven years in St. Petersburg before immigrating with his parents to the United States and settling in New York. Straddling both cultures, his literary voice is a pleasing blend of Russian severity and American frivolity - which he deftly uses to skewer the prevailing nonsense of our times.

	The Russian Debutante's Handbook In his debut novel, Gary Shteyngart introduces the first in a series of protagonists that share more than a passing resemblance to the author. The man in this instance is Vladimir Girshkin, a 25 year-old son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, living in New York City and failing to meet his parent’s high expectations. While working in a low-paying job helping recent immigrants, Vladimir meets Francesca, a girl from a wealthy family, and becomes involved in some shady activities to maintain the funds for an upper-crust lifestyle - dealings that eventually lead him to a troubled trip to Prava, “the Eastern European Paris of the Nineties.” More about the book
	Absurdistan Misha “Snack Daddy” Vainberg is a food coveting, hip-hop loving, would-be American from a prominent Russian family. Due to some fallout from his father’s nefarious business practices, Misha is unable to maintain his U.S. visa or his other-side-of-the-tracks Bronx girlfriend. Desperate to leave St. Petersburg, Misha sets out to buy a Belgian passport in the oil-soaked Caspian nation Absurdistan – but soon finds himself embroiled in a nascent ethnic civil war. More about the book
	Super Sad True Love Story Set in a dystopian, not-too-distant future New York, America’s character flaws have grown outsized and the nation is crumbling underneath them. The “Bipartisan” government has devolved into a despotic police state and is losing a war of choice with Venezuela. The country is well-passed default on its debt and the Chinese creditors are ready to repossess. Most of the citizenry is resigned to focus on their äppäräti (devices that are a few rungs up the evolutionary ladder from iPhones) and ogle each other’s credit scores. In this world, we find the unlikely coupling of homely, middle-aged Lenny and a brooding young beauty named Eunice. Their affair is an implausibility set against the stark backdrop of an America in rapid decline. More about the book

Have You Read...Sebastian Faulks?

Sebastian Faulks is one of Britain's most popular literary authors, yet he remains relatively unknown in the US. A former journalist and editor who turned to fiction in his late twenties, he writes richly detailed, well-researched stories that are deeply evocative of the some of the 20th century's most remarkable periods and places, from WWII-era Europe to America on the brink of the Vietnam War. His perspective is thoroughly modern, but his books have an old-fashioned, epic feeling--often due to their wartime settings and lush romantic plots. As a testament to his popularity, and in a break from his usual work, Faulks was commissioned by the Ian Fleming estate to write a new James Bond book, Devil May Care, for the 2008 centenary of Fleming's birth. If you enjoy sweeping historical dramas that have decidedly literary bent, check out Sebastian Faulks.

	Birdsong A young British executive travels to France on business in 1910 where he meets and falls madly in love with an unhappily married older woman. The two share a brief but passionate love affair, the consequences of which will linger long after he goes back to Britain. Six years later he returns to France as an officer about to enter the brutal trench warfare in the Somme Valley and encounters his former love again. More about the book
	Charlotte Gray The title character is a young Scottish woman who travels to London during WWII where she falls in love with an RAF pilot. When he disappears on a mission over France, she volunteers for the government's secretive "G Section" and heads to France to aid the Resistance and locate her lover. This book was adapted into a movie starring Cate Blanchett. More about the book
	On Green Dolphin Street In 1960, the reserved wife of a troubled British diplomat stationed in America falls for a jazz-loving New York journalist. Their affair unfolds amid some of the 20th century's watershed events--the Nixon-Kennedy campaign, the escalation of the Cold War, and the dawning of one of the most tumultuous decades in America. More about the book
	Human Traces This sweeping story takes place at the dawning of modern psychiatry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and follows two doctors who meet and discover a shared passion for the workings of the human mind. Both doctors have their own personal motivations and very different approaches to their work, but they share a mutual goal of establishing an innovative treatment facility for the mentally ill. As the pair's work takes them through Europe, America, and Africa, the reader glimpses each character's own exposure to illness, tragedy, grief, and madness. More about the book

Have You Read...Bentley Little?

Bentley Little is one of the horror genre's best kept secrets. He has been writing for twenty years and has penned more than a dozen novels and over one hundred short stories but almost never gives interviews, doesn't have a website, and rarely appears at book signings. He published his first novel in 1990 and it won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, the genre's highest annual honor for new novelists. Since then, he has gone on to develop a unique voice that has won famous fans such as Stephen King and Dean Koontz.

Little's books often revolve around supernatural forces at play in the familiar, everyday world of modern America. His novels are often set in the Southwest, usually Arizona, and have very short titles that reflect the world of the novel -- The Association is about a sinister homeowner's group, The Store is about a big box retailer with evil lurking in its aisles, The Policy is about a deadly life insurance contract. Although he employs seemingly mundane settings, Little’s plot twists and turns can be truly horrifying in a visceral, sometimes repulsive, way. Don’t be surprised to open up one of Little’s books and find yourself among re-animated murder victims bent on revenge, mutilated goats portending the Apocalypse, and murderous clowns who exist in another dimension.

If you’ve read all of Koontz and King and are looking for a fresh voice in the horror genre who employs both the supernatural and the satirical to get at what’s most horrifying in our modern world, give Bentley Little at try.

LPL owns the following:

	The Academy Evil stalks the halls and possesses the principle at a newly-formed charter school. More about the book
	The Association A gated community’s newest residents find that non-compliance with the rules and regulations of the Homeowner’s Association can be deadly. More about the book
	The Collection Thirty two short stories that showcase the author’s dark, demented visions. More about the book
	Dominion A new student trying to fit in at a new school forges a friendship that has horrific implications for the student body. More about the book
	His Father’s Son A man hears his father’s deathbed murder confession and must grapple with the evils unleashed by this long-held secret. More about the book
	The Policy A salesman offers insurance policies that not only cover accidental death and dismemberment, but often lead to those ends as well. More about the book
	The Resort A dream vacation at an exclusive destination soon turns into a nightmare for one family. More about the book
	The Revelation The signs of the Apocalypse are upon a small town in Arizona and salvation may lie with a pregnant woman and fire-and-brimstone itinerant preacher. More about the book
	The Store A big box retailer comes to a small town and offers jobs and benefits to the area, but at a horrific price. More about the book

Have You Read...Haruki Murakami?

Quirky, surreal, bizarre, ironic, and completely original are all adjectives used to describe Japanese author Haruki Murakami's fiction. Acclaimed by critics world-wide, he writes about themes of modern life, especially the alienation that comes from an increasingly technological society. His works often center on a young, modern man who approaches the bizarre circumstances he finds himself in with a dry, deadpan perspective. Although they almost always take place in Japan, his stories and novels are full of references to American popular culture and could almost take place anywhere. If you are looking for a fresh voice and a unique point of view, check out one of Murakami's books. We recommend the following:

	The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria. - Publisher Description More about the book
	A Wild Sheep Chase It begins simply enough: A twenty-something advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend, and casually appropriates the image for an insurance company's advertisement. What he doesn’t realize is that included in the pastoral scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man in black who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes our hero from the urban haunts of Tokyo to the remote and snowy mountains of northern Japan, where he confronts not only the mythological sheep, but the confines of tradition and the demons deep within himself. - Publisher Description More about the book
	Norwegian Wood Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman. - Publisher Description More about the book
	Kafka on the Shore Kafka on the Shore is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, and the reasons for that convergence become clear, Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder. - Publisher Description More about the book

Have You Read...Penelope Fitzgerald?

British author Penelope Fitzgerald penned her first book at age 58, after a career as a teacher, bookseller, and mother. The winner of England's prestigious Booker Prize and the first non-American to win the National Book Critics Circle Award, she is known for a spare writing style applied to intricate plots and deft characterizations. Though her novels rarely exceed 200 pages, they are as satisfying as a longer yarn because of their attention to detail, distinct settings, and the complex moral situations her characters confront. Many of her novels were based very loosely on her own life experiences. Fitzgerald died in 2000, at the age of 83. If you're interested in trying one of her novels, we recommend one of these:

	The Blue Flower Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. In eighteenth-century Germany, the impetuous student of philosophy who will later gain fame as the Romantic poet Novalis seeks his father's permission to wed his true philosophy -- a plain, simple child named Sophie. The attachment shocks his family and friends. This brilliant young man, betrothed to a twelve-year-old dullard! How can it be? -Publisher Description More about the book
	Offshore Winner of the Booker Prize. On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag of eccentrics live in houseboats. Belonging to neither land nor sea, they belong to one another. There is Maurice, a homosexual prostitute; Richard, a buttoned-up ex-navy man; but most of all there's Nenna, the struggling mother of two wild little girls. How each of their lives complicates the others is the stuff of this perfect little novel. -Publisher Description More about the book
	The Bookshop In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop - the only bookshop - in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to enlarge her neighbors' lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Florence's warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, and the shop is apparently haunted. Only too late does she begin to suspect the truth: a town that lacks a bookshop isn't always a town that wants one. -Publisher Description More about the book
	Human Voices When British listeners tuned in to the BBC's Nine O'Clock News in the middle of 1940, they had no idea what human dramas-and follies-were unfolding behind the scenes. Targeted by enemy bombers, the BBC had turned its concert hall into a dormitory for both sexes, and personal chaos rivaled the political. The tense relationship between two departmental directors is at the center of Human Voices, as is Annie, a sixteen-year-old assistant who falls hopelessly in love with the monstrously selfish one. Reading this intimate glimpse behind the scenes of the BBC in its heyday, "one is left with the sensation," William Boyd wrote in London Magazine, "that this is what is was really like." -Publisher Description More about the book