New & Recommended Paperback Fiction

John Updike is an incredible author. His novels and stories have received numerous accolades and have been made into critically acclaimed films. His works are a mainstay of every bookstore. This new collection of stories is filled with the kind of elegant fiction we’ve come to expect: personal stories of loss, revelation and redemption. If you love short fiction, My Father’s Tears is a must for your collection. —Z.G.R.

Edgy, catchy, and not easily categorized, local author Karen Tei Yamishita’s I Hotel is a dazzling book. Divided into ten novellas, one for each year, I Hotel begins in during the troubled year of 1968. Imagery, bold characters, and a sense of movement carry us forward through each novella until we arrive at the one setting that has seen it all: The International Hotel. Here the history, culture, and personalities of Yamishita’s cast of characters come crashing together, breathing and full of life. The fate of the hotel becomes a larger metaphor about America on the brink. Part graphic novel, part magical realism, part cultural warfare story, this novel is a showcase for a talent that is hard to describe. Read it, look at it, take it in. —S.M.C.

Zafón is a master of poetic writing, and in The Angel’s Game, he turns out a stunning tale of one man’s descent into madness. This is a story about writing, books, and love, and the dangerous obsession that is the dark side of any passion. As an added bonus, the book provides further insight into a truly great literary creation, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. —Flannery

Her Fearful Symmetry is entirely different in tone than Niffenegger’s bestselling novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife, but it is just as captivating. Centering on a pair of twins that move to London after inheriting a flat that backs onto Highgate Cemetery, Niffenegger tells a haunting (literally) story. Encircling themes of love and loss, letting go and holding on, and the way we can sometimes begin to bleed into one another, the novel ultimately leads us toward the blurred boundaries of life and death. Intrigued? You should be. —S.M.C.

In this book of short stories, Adichie shows us sides of Nigerians that have often been overlooked: their culture, traditions, and feelings. Even though the stories are about people from the same country, they could not be more diverse. Adichie really draws you into the minds of her characters and truly makes you feel as though you are in the moment. This is not just another token fiction book about Africa; it stands alone. —Saraphine

Three young Mexican women cross the border with a gay escort in this good-humored road novel from Luis Alberto Urrea, bestselling author of The Hummingbird’s Daughter. Library Journal calls it “a surprising, inventive, and very funny novel populated by an array of quirky characters. [Urrea’s] fast-paced, accessible style has the crossover appeal of a John Steinbeck or Cormac McCarthy, while the politically charged undercurrent of the novel pulses with a compassionate vision of the future. Highly recommended.”