LITERATURA EN OTROS IDIOMAS

Margaret Anne (“Moddie”) Yance had just returned to her native land in the Midwestern town of X, to mingle with the friends of her youth, to get back in touch with her roots, and to recover from a stressful decade of living in the city in a small apartment with a man she now believed to be a megalomaniac or perhaps a covert narcissist. So begins Halle Butler's sadistically precise and hilarious Banal Nightmare, which follows Moddie as she abruptly ends her long-term relationship and moves back to her Midwestern hometown, throwing herself at the mercy of her old friends as they, all suddenly tipping toward middle age, go to parties, size each other up, obsess over past slights, and dream of wild triumphs and elaborate revenge fantasies. When her friend Pam invites a mysterious East Coast artist to take up a winter residency at the local university, Moddie has no choice but to confront the demons of her past and grapple with the reality of what her life has become. As the day of reckoning approaches, friends will become enemies, enemies will become mortal enemies, and old loyalties will be tested to their extreme. Banal Nightmare is filled with complicated characters who will dazzle you in their rendering just as often as they will infuriate you with their decisions. Halle Butler singularly captures the volatile, angry, aggrieved, surreal and entirely disorienting atmosphere of the modern era.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a Happily Ever After, he kills off his entire cast. They’re polar opposites. In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke and bogged down with writer’s block. Then one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

They were sisters and they would last past the end of time. Sam and Elena dream of another life. On the island off the coast of Washington where they were born and raised, they and their mother struggle to survive. Sam works on the ferry that delivers wealthy mainlanders to their vacation homes while Elena bartends at the local golf club, but even together they can’t earn enough to get by, stirring their frustration about the limits that shape their existence. Then one night on the boat, Sam spots a bear swimming the dark waters of the channel. Where is it going? What does it want? When the bear turns up by their home, Sam, terrified, is more convinced than ever that it’s time to leave the island. But Elena responds differently to the massive beast. Enchanted by its presence, she throws into doubt the desire to escape and puts their long-held dream in danger. A story about the bonds of sisterhood and the mysteries of the animals that live among us—and within us—Bear is a propulsive, mythical, richly imagined novel from one of the most acclaimed young writers in America.

As First Lady of the United States of America the first African American to serve in that role she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare. In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations and whose story inspires us to do the same.

Emily Walker hates having her carefully crafted world disrupted by anyone, most of all her legendary nemesis, Jack Bennett. He’s the opposite of the wonderful heroes she dreams up in her double life as a romance writer, which is why Emily was perfectly happy when Jack left Rome, Kentucky, mid-school year with his fiancée. The last thing Emily saw coming was Jack’s return at the start of the summer after calling off the wedding and ending his relationship, but he’s here to stay—as her colleague and her neighbor. Jack is glad to be back, eager to renovate his house and work on the next mystery novel under his bestselling pen name. But when he realizes he’s now neighbors with the one woman who has always pushed his buttons, he discovers something he’s even more excited about—thwarting Emily and her petty plans to sabotage his return. With their chemistry-fueled animosity at an all-time high, Emily accidentally sends an email to their school’s principal that could reveal her secret literary side hustle. She needs to steal back her manuscript, and Jack—she hates to admit—is just the man to help her. Surprisingly, he agrees. Will their unlikely alliance put an end to their rivalry? Or could it lead to a steamy plot twist they never saw coming?

Like Passages, this groundbreaking book uses the poignant, powerful voices of adoptees and adoptive parents to explore the experience of adoption and its lifelong effects. A major work, filled with astute analysis and moving truths.