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New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century
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Updated August 9, 2024
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How to be both
Smith, Ali
Paper Book
Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith's novels are like nothing else. A true original, she is a one-of-a-kind literary sensation. Her novels consistently attract serious acclaim and discussion - and have won her a dedicated readership who are drawn again...
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Bring up the bodies :
Mantel, Hilary,
Paper Book
The sequel to Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Bring Up the Bodies delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn. The basis for the TV show on BBC and PBS Masterpiece...
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On beauty : a novel
Smith, Zadie.
Paper Book
In this loose retelling of Howard's End, Zadie Smith considers the big questions: Why do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we visit our mistakes on our children? What makes life truly beautiful? Set in New England mainly and London partly, On...
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Station Eleven
Mandel, Emily St. John
Paper Book
An audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame and ambition set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, from the author of three highly acclaimed previous novels. One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of...
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The human stain
Roth, Philip.
Paper Book
It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth...
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The sympathizer
Nguyen, Viet Thanh
Paper Book
Now an HBO Limited Seriesfrom Executive Producers Park Chan-wook and Robert Downey Jr., StreamingExclusively on Max Winner of the 2016Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2016 EdgarAward for Best First Novel Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medalfor...
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The return : fathers, sons, and the land in between
Matar, Hisham
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * The acclaimed memoir about fathers and sons, a legacy of loss, and, ultimately, healing--one of The New York Times Book Review's ten best books of the year, winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle...
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The emperor of all maladies :
Mukherjee, Siddhartha.
Paper Book
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, adapted as a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is "an extraordinary achievement" (The New Yorker)--a magnificent, profoundly humane "biography" of cancer. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science...
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The story of the lost child
Ferrante, Elena
Paper Book
A BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY - NEW YORK TIMES The "stunning conclusion" to the bestselling saga of the fierce lifelong bond between two women, from a gritty Naples childhood through old age (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The Story of the Lost Child concludes the...
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An American marriage
Jones, Tayari
Paper Book
* One of the New York Times' '100 Best Books of the 21st Century' * 'A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.' Barack Obama Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of the American Dream. He is a young...
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Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Yellin, David G.
Paper Book
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Exit west
Hamid, Mohsin
Paper Book
Discover the unforgettable novel picked among 2017's most anticipated books by the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Buzzfeed, New York Timesand many more...An extraordinary story of love and hope, travelling from the Middle East to London and beyond, from the bestselling, Man Booker...
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Olive Kitteridge
Strout, Elizabeth.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * The beloved first novel featuring Olive Kitteridge, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Lucy Barton and the Oprah's Book Club pick Olive, Again "Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive...
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Secondhand time :
Aleksievich, Svetlana,
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The magnum opus and latest work from Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature--a symphonic oral history about the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST...
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The new Jim Crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness
Alexander, Michelle
Paper Book
One of the New York Times's Best Books of the 21st Century Named one of the most important nonfiction books of the 21st century by Entertainment Weekly, Slate, Chronicle of Higher Education, Literary Hub, Book Riot, and Zora A tenth-anniversary edition of the iconic...
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Far from the tree : parents, children and the search for identity
Solomon, Andrew
Paper Book
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, a Books for a Better Life Award, and one of The New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of 2012, this masterpiece by the National Book Award-winning author of The Noonday Demon features stories of parents who not only learn to...
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The plot against America /
Roth, Philip
Paper Book
When the renowned aviation hero and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh defeated Franklin Roosevelt by a landslide in the 1940 presidential election, fear invaded every Jewish household in America. Not only had Lindbergh, in a nationwide radio address, publicly blamed the Jews for sel&...
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The great believers
Makkai, Rebecca
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy...
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DEMON COPPERHEAD. NO US RIGHT
Kingsolver, Barbara.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES READERS BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION TWICE WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE...
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Heavy : an American memoir
Laymon, Kiese
Paper Book
*Selected as One of the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times* *Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, NPR, Broadly, BuzzFeed (Nonfiction), The Undefeated, Library Journal...
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Middlesex
Eugenides, Jeffrey
Paper Book
A dazzling triumph from the bestselling author of The Virgin Suicides - the astonishing tale of a gene that passes down through three generations of a Greek-American family and flowers in the body of a teenage girl. In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in...
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STAY TRUE: A MEMOIR
HSU, HUA
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A gripping memoir on friendship, grief, the search for self, and the solace that can be found through art, by the New Yorker staff writer Hua Hsu "This book is exquisite and excruciating and I will be...
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Nickel and dimed : on (not) getting by in America
Ehrenreich, Barbara.
Paper Book
Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity. Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in...
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The looming tower :
Wright, Lawrence,
Paper Book
A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of...
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Tenth of december : stories
Saunders, George
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * NAMED ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST FICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY AND BUZZFEED * NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK...
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Runaway : stories
Munro, Alice
Paper Book
“Runaway” is the first story in this stunning collection, sure to be a runaway success. All of the eight stories here are new, published in book form for the first time. Two of the eight have never appeared anywhere, so this will be a special feast for the millions of Munro fans around...
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Life after life
Atkinson, Kate.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE COSTA NOVEL AWARD What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the...
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TRUST. NO UK RIGHTS
Díaz, Hernán M.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE "Buzzy and...
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The vegetarian : a novel
Han, Kang
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE * "[Han] Kang viscerally explores the limits of what a human brain and body can endure, and the strange beauty that can be found in even the most extreme forms of renunciation."--Entertainment Weekly One of the New York...
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Persepolis
Satrapi, Marjane
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's acclaimed graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. "A wholly original achievement.... Satrapi evokes herself and her schoolmates coming of age in a...
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A mercy
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * In "one of Morrison's most haunting works" (The New York Times), the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the story of a mother and a daughter--a mother who casts off her...
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The goldfinch
Tartt, Donna.
Paper Book
A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner from the author of The Secret History that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book...
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Postwar :
Judt, Tony.
Paper Book
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize * Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award * One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century "Impressive . . . Mr. Judt writes with enormous authority." --The Wall Street Journal ...
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A brief history of seven killings
James, Marlon
Paper Book
A SPECIAL EDITION OF THE 2015 BOOKER PRIZE WINNER, WITH A BRAND-NEW FOREWORD AND A Q&A WITH THE AUTHOR * With a new foreword by Bernardine Evaristo * 'Epic in every sense of the word' New York Times Jamaica, 1976. Seven gunmen storm Bob Marley's...
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Small things like these
Keegan, Claire
Paper Book
** A SUNDAY TIMES AND IRISH TIMES BESTSELLER ** ** Chosen as a Spectator, Irish Times and Irish Independent Book of the Year ** FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FOSTER, SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE IS AN UNFORGETTABLE...
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A visit from the Goon Squad
Egan, Jennifer.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER * With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption "features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously,...
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Between the world and me
Coates, Ta-Nehisi
Paper Book
In the 150 years since the end of the Civil War and the ratificiation of the Thirteenth Amendment, the story of race and America has remained a brutally simple one, written on flesh- it is the story of the black body, exploited to create the country's foundational wealth, violently segregated to...
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The line of beauty :
Hollinghurst, Alan
Paper Book
Winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the NBCC award. From Alan Hollinghurst, the acclaimed author of The Sparsholt Affair, The Line of Beauty is a sweeping novel about class, sex, and money during four extraordinary years of change and...
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White teeth
Smith, Zadie.
Paper Book
One of the most talked about fictional debuts of recent years, WHITE TEETH is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the...
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Sing, unburied, sing
Ward, Jesmyn
Paper Book
_______________ SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018 WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2017 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017 SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW STATESMAN...
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Cloud atlas : a novel
Mitchell, David
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE * By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks . . . One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in...
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Americanah
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEY'S WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 'A delicious, important novel' The Times 'Alert, alive and gripping' Independent 'Some novels tell a great story and others make you change the way you look at the world. Americanah does both.' Guardian As...
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Atonement :
McEwan, Ian
Paper Book
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony&...
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The overstory :
Powers, Richard,
Paper Book
An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent...
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Hateship, friendship, courtship, loveship, marriage :
Munro, Alice,
Paper Book
A superb new collection from one of our best and best-loved writers. Nine stories draw us immediately into that special place known as Alice Munro territory–a place where an unexpected twist of events or a suddenly recaptured memory can illumine the arc of an entire life. The fate of a strong...
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Behind the beautiful forevers
Boo, Katherine.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY "Inspiring . . . extraordinary . . . [Katherine Boo] shows us how people in the...
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Evicted :
Desmond, Matthew.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * ONE OF TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY One of the most acclaimed books of our time, this modern classic "has set a...
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Lincoln in the bardo : a novel
Saunders, George
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE The "devastatingly moving" (People) first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast...
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The sellout
Beatty, Paul
Paper Book
A Book of the Decade, 2010-2020 (Independent) * One of the New York Times' '100 Best Books of the 21st Century' A LAUGH-OUT-LOUD SATIRE ABOUT RACE, CLASS AND INEQUALITY IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICA, BY A LITERARY GENIUS AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME Winner of the Man Booker...
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Pachinko /
Lee, Min Jin,
Paper Book
In this New York Times bestseller, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan-the inspiration for the television series on Apple TV+. In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored...
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Outline
Cusk, Rachel
Paper Book
Literary Hub, Best Books of the Decade, A Finalist for the Folio Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction One of The New York Times' Top Ten Books of the Year Named a A New York Times...
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The road
McCarthy, Cormac
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately,...
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The year of magical thinking /
Didion, Joan
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage--and a life, in good times and bad--that will speak to...
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The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao /
Dâiaz, Junot,
Paper Book
Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of The New York Times's 100 Best Books of the...
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Gilead /
Robinson, Marilynne
Paper Book
2005 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction 2004 National Book Critics Circle Winner In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the...
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Never let me go /
Ishiguro, Kazuo,
Paper Book
From the acclaimed author of The Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans, a moving new novel that subtly reimagines our world and time in a haunting story of friendship and love. As a child, Kathy–now thirty-one years old–lived at Hailsham, a private...
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The Underground Railroad :
Whitehead, Colson,
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. One of The New York Times's 10...
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The known world
Jones, Edward P.
Paper Book
From National Book Award-nominated author Edward P. Jones comes a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power. Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize Award and recognized as the fourth best book of the 21st century by the New York Times, The Known World continues to show its...
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Wolf Hall :
Mantel, Hilary,
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel's New York Times bestselling Wolf Hall is "a darkly brilliant reimagining of life under Henry VIII. . . ....
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The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration
Wilkerson, Isabel
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER * TIME'S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE * ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY "A brilliant and stirring epic . . . Ms. Wilkerson does for the...
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My brilliant friend
Ferrante, Elena.
Paper Book
#1 BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY - NEW YORK TIMES Now an HBO series: the first volume in the New York Times-bestselling "enduring masterpiece" about a lifelong friendship between two women from Naples (The Atlantic). Beginning in the 1950s in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the...
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