The Mark and the Void

Murray, Paul (Get this book)
A darkly comic, lightly metafictional tale about a banker seeking love and a novelist seeking wealth amid the fallout from the financial boom and bust in Ireland. Claude Martingale, a well-paid analyst in the Bank of Torabundo's Dublin office, finds his routine upset when a man named Paul asks if he can trail Claude as research for his next novel. His creative energy sends the book in many directions, making it a little loose and lumpy, but the same may be said of Dickens, with whom real Paul also shares wit, sympathy, and a purposeful sense of mischief. --Kirkus

Numero Zero

Eco, Umberto/ Dixon, Richard (Get this book)
Famed author of riddling intellectual mysteries and sophisticated, hard-hitting essays, Eco combines his delight in suspense with astute political satire in this brainy, funny, neatly lacerating thriller. Colonna, a demoralized hack journalist and ghost writer of detective stories, is certain on this otherwise typical June day in Milan in 1992 that his life is now in danger. Eco’s caustically clever, darkly hilarious, dagger-quick tale of lies, crimes, and collusions condemns the shameless corruption and greed undermining journalism and governments everywhere. A satisfyingly scathing indictment brightened by resolute love.--Booklist

Thirteen Ways of Looking

McCann, Colum (Get this book)
A superbly crafted and deeply moving collection of fiction, with a provocative back story. The Irish-born, New York-based McCann here offers four pieces of fiction that focus on the process of writing and the interplay between art and its inspiration. As he writes in a concluding Author's Note, "Every word we write is autobiographical, perhaps most especially when we attempt to avoid the autobiographical. For all its imagined moments, literature works in unimaginable ways." He provides literary framing with the title, evoking the oft-cited Wallace Stevens poem. The author's first collection of shorter fiction in more than a decade underscores his reputation as a contemporary master.--Kirkus

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights

Rushdie, Salman (Get this book)
In his latest novel, Rushdie (Joseph Anton) invents his own cultural narrative—one that blends elements of One Thousand and One Nights, Homeric epics, and sci-fi and action/adventure comic books. The title is a reference to the magical stretch of time that unites the book's three periods, which are actually millennia apart. In the first period (the 12th century), jinn princess Dunia falls in love with real-life philosopher and advocate of reason and science Averroes and bears multiple children. In the second period (current day), Dunia's descendants, a group including a gardener and a young graphic novelist, are unaware of their powerful lineage. Rushdie even incorporates a third period, a far-future millennium, further tying his story together across time. His magical realism celebrates the power of metaphor, while both historic accounts and fables are imbued with familiar themes of migration and separation, reason and faith, repression and freedom. Referencing Henry James, Mel Brooks, Mickey Mouse, Gracian, Bravo TV, and Aristotle, among others, Rushdie provides readers with an intellectual treasure chest cleverly disguised as a comic pop-culture apocalyptic caprice.--Publisher's Weekly

Did You Ever Have a Family

Clegg, Bill (Get this book)
In this sorrowful and deeply probing debut novel, literary agent and memoirist Clegg delivers a story of loss and its grueling aftermath. The story opens with an unimaginable tragedy: a Connecticut house is consumed by fire in the wee hours before a wedding. The bride's mother, June, is the only survivor. Everyone else—Lolly, June's daughter, with whom she had a strained relationship; June's womanizing ex-husband, Adam; June's ex-con boyfriend Luke, 20 years her junior; and Lolly's fiancé, Will—all die in the blaze. The conclusion of the family's narrative is foregone: due to the fire, everyone ends up dead or alone. But it's Clegg's deft handling of all the parsed details—missed opportunities, harbored regrets, and unspoken good intentions—that make the journey toward redemption and forgiveness so memorable. --Publisher's Weekly

Confession of the Lioness

Couto, Mia/ Brookshaw, David (Get this book)

Inspired by real events experienced by prolific author Couto, this lyrical novel is about the many facets of fear that haunt the people in the tiny village of Kulumani, deep in the bush of Mozambique. Though the plot can get lost in dense dreamlike passages, its depiction of the oppression of women is impossible to shake. Couto weaves a surreal mystery of humanity against nature, men against women, and tradition against modernity. --Publisher's Weekly

The Last Pilot

Johncock, Benjamin (Get this book)
Using the early days of the U.S. space exploration program as a backdrop, Johncock’s impressive debut laces fact with fiction to tell the tale of Jim Harrison, an Air Force test pilot, and his wife, Grace. Jim’s story is fascinating, and the author writes with a strong ear for dialogue, which rattles the pages with intensity. A marvelous, emotionally powerful novel.--Publisher's Weekly