{"title":"September 2026 Literary Fiction","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"9781805465805","title":"Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt","description":"\u003cp\u003eTravis lives an unassuming life with his cat in a small English town. Travis also happens to be the cosmic force of Death, visiting people in their final days and hours of life, before shepherding them into whatever happens next. He doesn't judge them, doesn't feel emotion at their passing, and never tries to change anyone's fate... until he meets a young, single midwife called Dalia and her boisterous eight-year-old daughter, Layla. As he gets closer to this small, seemingly unremarkable family, Travis begins to learn what it is that makes life so worth living, and so what it is that is irrevocably lost in death.Full of compassion and deep magic, Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt might be a novel about Death, but it's also about the joy of being alive - because only through knowing that all things must end can we truly appreciate all the things that we already have, from the people around us to the strange wonder of our spinning world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ben Reeves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53284101751102,"sku":"9781805465805","price":455.0,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4357\/7662\/files\/9781805465805.jpg?v=1775571428"},{"product_id":"9781399835022","title":"Country People","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Told with warmth and wit, Mason's prose shimmers in this immersive ode to stories, to the land, and its people' Lucy Steeds, author of The Artist'A charming, funny, exhilarating Vermont adventure' Clare Fuller, author of Swimming Lessons'Full of joy - and exactly the kind of reading experience we could all do with right now. The book of the summer' Mick Herron, author of Slow HorsesA year in the life of a family as they strike out into the unknown-a rollicking, lyrical novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason, the bestselling author of North Woods and one of America's greatest living writersMiles Krzelewski is a devoted husband, a doting father beloved for his outlandish bedtime stories, and the proud owner of a truffle-hunting dog in a land with no truffles. He is also a bit lost, twelve years late with his PhD on Russian folktales, and increasingly haunted by a sense that he's become a disappointment to his family. So when his wife Kate accepts a visiting professorship at a prestigious college in the far away forests of Vermont, he decides that this will be his year to finally move forward with his life.But Miles is a man of many enthusiasms, who possesses, in Kate's words, 'a great capacity to fall in with anyone, anywhere.' And no sooner does he arrive than he finds himself entangled with a cast of characters as colorful as any of his folktales, from a ghostly tree surgeon to a scythe-mad biochemist, a Shakespearean temptress and a photographer of snowflakes obsessed with chronicling, on thousands of index cards, the world's delusions in a \"Inventory of Wrong Ideas.\" The new friends, the enchanted woods, the histories: sure, no PhD, but all good fun. Until Miles stumbles upon a bizarre - even ridiculous - local legend, which, he soon suspects, might not be just a legend after all.Joyous, absurd, and life-affirming, Country People is a luminous exploration of marriage and parenthood, the nature of belief and the power of stories, and the ways in which we find connection in an increasingly fragmented world.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Daniel Mason","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53291396137278,"sku":"9781399835022","price":440.0,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4357\/7662\/files\/9781399835022.jpg?v=1775656977"},{"product_id":"9781770109711","title":"Spud: Two for the Road","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt is 2004 and it’s make or break for Spud Milton and his acting career. Having survived his ten-year school reunion and avoided becoming a shareholder in a dubious wellness start-up company, he believes he is free and clear of the Crazy Eight. Spud and his creative sidekick Fox have their sights set on the National Arts Festival to showcase their satirical sketch show, Viper. Despite needing to dodge a few potholes – including the up-ending of the Milton family dynamics, the unanticipated revival of a romance, and an encounter with an officious car guard – Spud is all set to take his chances on the road less travelled. He has not factored in Rambo’s manipulative powers. The casual idea floated at the reunion weekend about a year-end backpacking trip somewhere in South East Asia has been elevated to an odyssey. What’s more, Spud, who has never been overseas, has been designated regional manager. If Rambo has a secret agenda, he’s not about to share it with the Crazy Eight. In what Spud has dubbed the Year of the Icarus, the possibility of someone getting their wings scorched is not to be dismissed, but the lure of an all-expenses-paid exotic holiday is hard to resist …\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"John van de Ruit","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53880577458494,"sku":"9781770109711","price":380.0,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4357\/7662\/files\/9781770109711_d9a965f4-b587-48f4-b673-e7b4a999386f.jpg?v=1783669283"}],"url":"https:\/\/exclusivebooks.co.za\/collections\/september-2026-literary-fiction.oembed","provider":"Exclusive Books Online","version":"1.0","type":"link"}