Pride month Fiction

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up. Now a major motion picture starring Emma Watson and Logan Lerman. Stephen Chbosky's new film Wonder, starring Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts is out now. Charlie is a freshman. And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix-tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But Charlie can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.'A coming of age tale in the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace... often inspirational and always beautifully written' USA Today

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WINNER OF The Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella, the Reddit Stabby Award for Best Novella AND The British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novella SHORTLISTED FOR 2020 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award The Ray Bradbury Prize Kitschies Red Tentacle Award Kitschies Inky Tentacle Brave New Words Award 'A fireworks display from two very talented storytellers' Madeline Miller, author of Circe. Co-written by two award-winning writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space. Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future. Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There's still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That's how war works. Right? 'An intimate and lyrical tour of time, myth and history' John Scalzi, bestselling author of Old Man's War 'Lyrical and vivid and bittersweet' Ann Leckie, Hugo Award-winning author of Ancillary Justice 'Rich and strange, a romantic tour through all of time and the multiverse' Martha Wells, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Murderbot Diaries

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One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.   Following the cycles of history, memory, and time,  The Emperor of Gladness  shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

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Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, and Written by James Ivory WINNER BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY ACADEMY AWARD Nominated for Four Oscars A New York Times BestsellerA USA Today Bestseller A Los Angeles Times Bestseller. A Vulture Book Club Pick An Instant Classic and One of the Great Love Stories of Our Time Andre Aciman's Call Me by Your Name is the story of a sudden and powerful romance that blossoms between an adolescent boy and a summer guest at his parents' cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. Each is unprepared for the consequences of their attraction, when, during the restless summer weeks, unrelenting currents of obsession, fascination, and desire intensify their passion and test the charged ground between them. Recklessly, the two verge toward the one thing both fear they may never truly find again: total intimacy. It is an instant classic and one of the great love stories of our time.

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MATURE CONTENT **OVER 3 MILLION COPIES SOLD**WINNER OF THE ORANGE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONTHE INTERNATIONAL SENSATIONA SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'Captivating' DONNA TARTT'I loved it' J K ROWLING' Ravishingly vivid' EMMA DONOGHUE Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something deeper - despite the displeasure of Achilles's mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfill his destiny. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear. 'A book I could not put down' ANN PATCHETT‘ An exciting, sexy, violent Superman version of The Iliad’ GUARDIAN ‘Sexy, dangerous, mystical’ BETTANY HUGHES

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‘I will carry this story, and the people in it, with me for the rest of my life' JOHN GREEN, author of The Fault in Our StarsAN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERSHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST 2024A BARNES & NOBLE DISCOVER PRIZE FINALISTSHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD 2024NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, AMAZON, TIME AND SARAH JESSICA PARKERON BARACK OBAMA'S SUMMER READING LIST 2024'Smart, dazzling, different . . . This book is thrilling.'Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake'An absolute jewel of a novel'Tommy Orange, author of Wandering Stars'A kaleidoscopic debut'GuardianCyrus Shams has always been lost. He’s grown up tangled in the mysteries of his past – an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields, a haunting work of art by an exiled painter, and his mother, whose plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf when he was just a baby. Now, newly sober and maybe in love, he’s headed for an encounter that will transform everything he thought he knew. Can a final revelation change the truth of Cyrus's life?Electrifying, funny, and all-consuming, Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! is a masterpiece.* Martyr! was an instant New York Times bestseller w/c 27/1/24

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZESHORTLISTED FOR THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 'Astonishing.' Stylist 'Electrifying.' O: The Oprah Magazine 'Brilliant and heartbreaking.' Marie Claire 'Propulsive and resonant.' Esquire. They burned down the market on the day Vivek Oji died. One afternoon, a mother opens her front door to find the length of her son's body stretched out on the veranda, swaddled in akwete material, his head on her welcome mat. The Death of Vivek Oji transports us to the day of Vivek's birth, the day his grandmother Ahunna died. It is the story of an over protective mother and a distant father, and the heart-wrenching tale of one family's struggle to understand their child, just as Vivek learns to recognize himself. Teeming with unforgettable characters whose lives have been shaped by Vivek's gentle and enigmatic spirit, it shares with us a Nigerian childhood that challenges expectations. This novel, and its celebration of the innocence and optimism of youth, will touch all those who embrace it. What readers are saying: 'The book is so beautifully written and I've never read anything like it ever before.' 'This is a gorgeously written story of identity, sexuality, love, grief, friendship, and the need to live the life you want, even in a country where doing so might be deadly . . . This was emotional, beautiful, and so poignant, and their storytelling took my breath away.' 'This book is both so joyful and so devastating.' 'The way Emezi made me care so deeply about these characters was just incredible, so that when the whole truth of Vivek's death was revealed I felt so personally affected by it. This book is about so many things all at once . . . The writing is so simple yet beautifully emotive. And I cried.' 'FIVE HUGE STARS . . . The Death of Vivek Oji is a poignant and tantalizing novel that wraps you up in its web of characters and feeds on you with carnivorous force, all while softening your heart and mind to a world outside of the normal social constraints we have been conditioned to.'(Goodreads reader reviews)

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From the author of the Booker nominated, international bestseller Nightcrawling: a novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a Florida beach town.When Adela Woods tells her parents she’s pregnant, they immediately send her a thousand miles away to stay with her grandmother in Padua Beach. The intention is that she will leave her baby in 'the forgotten Panhandle of Florida'. and resume her suburban life nine months later as though nothing happened. But Adela’s plans are soon washed away by the tide.First, Adela meets Emory, a new mother determined to defy the expectations of everyone around her, returning to high school with her newborn baby strapped to her chest. Then she meets Simone, ringleader of ‘the Girls,’ a group of young mothers who create a village together in the back of her red truck―dancing, breastfeeding, raising their children and themselves.The town thinks they’ve lost their way. Really, they are finding it.But as they look for love, make and break friendships, navigate the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood, Adela, Emory and Simone also find themselves on an inescapable collision course with one another.A novel full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman, a daughter, and a mother.

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The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller ‘Prepare your hearts, for Douglas Stuart is back. After the extraordinary success of Shuggie Bain, his second novel, Young Mungo, is another beautiful and moving book, a gay Romeo and Juliet set in the brutal world of Glasgow’s housing estates.’ – The Observer. The extraordinary, powerful second novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo is both a vivid portrayal of working-class life and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men: Mungo and James. Born under different stars, Protestant Mungo and Catholic James live in a hyper-masculine world. They are caught between two of Glasgow’s housing estates, where young working-class men divide themselves along sectarian lines, and fight territorial battles for the sake of reputation. They should be sworn enemies if they’re to be seen as men at all, and yet they become best friends as they find a sanctuary in the doocot that James has built for his prize racing pigeons. As they begin to fall in love, they dream of escaping the grey city, and Mungo must work hard to hide his true self from all those around him, especially from his elder brother Hamish, a local gang leader with a brutal reputation to uphold. But the threat of discovery is constant and the punishment unspeakable. When Mungo’s mother sends him on a fishing trip to a loch in western Scotland with two strange men behind whose drunken banter lie murky pasts, he needs to summon all his inner strength and courage to get back to a place of safety, a place where he and James might still have a future. Imbuing the everyday world of its characters with rich lyricism, Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo is a gripping and revealing story about the meaning of masculinity, the push and pull of family, the violence faced by so many queer people, and the dangers of loving someone too much.

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In this title, Seven steps to heaven, this streetwise philosopher of the shebeens and entrepreneur par excellence takes the back seat as her son Kokoroshe, street urchin turned lawyer, takes centre stage. This is a multilayered family saga, a riveting tale of love, betrayal, and a search for identity - sexual and otherwise. Dark and understated, but sometimes boisterous and with the in-your-face humour that made Bitches' Brew a hit with readers and critics alike, is the engine that drives Seven Steps To Heaven to a painful yet satisfying climax.

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THE SUNDAY TIMES 1# BESTSELLER & BOOKER PRIZE WINNER This is Britain as you've never read it. This is Britain as it has never been told. From Newcastle to Cornwall, from the birth of the twentieth century to the teens of the twenty-first, Girl, Woman, Other follows a cast of twelve characters on their personal journeys through this country and the last hundred years. They're each looking for something - a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope . . .'The most absorbing book I read all year' Roxane Gay '[Bernardine Evaristo] is one of the very best that we have' Nikesh Shukla 'Beautifully interwoven stories of identity, race, womanhood, and the realities of modern Britain. The characters are so vivid, the writing is beautiful and it brims with humanity' Nicola Sturgeon 'A choral love song to black womanhood in modern Great Britain' Elle' Bernardine Evaristo can take any story from any time and turn it into something vibrating with life' Ali Smith 'Exceptional. You have to order it right now' Stylist

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