Archives par étiquette : Grove Atlantic

I CHEERFULLY REFUSE de Leif Enger

A rollicking narrative in the most evocative of settings, this latest novel is a symphony against despair and a rallying cry for the future.

I CHEERFULLY REFUSE
by Leif Enger
Grove Press, April 2024

Set in a not-too-distant America, I CHEERFULLY REFUSE is the tale of a bereaved musician setting sail across a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. Rainy, an endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs and remote islands of the inland sea. Encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, Rainy finds on land an illiterate and increasingly desperate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. Amidst the Swiftean challenges of life at sea and no safe landings, Rainy is lifted by the beauty around him, surprising humor, generous strangers, and an unexpected companion in a young girl who comes aboard. And as his innate guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his strengthening wake.

I CHEERFULLY REFUSE epitomizes the “musical, sometimes magical and deeply satisfying kind of storytelling” (Los Angeles Times) for which Leif Enger is cherished.

Leif Enger was raised in Osakis, Minnesota, and worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio before writing his bestselling debut novel Peace Like a River, which won the Independent Publisher Book Award and was one of the Los Angeles Times and Time Magazine’s Best Books of the Year. His second novel, So Brave, Young, and Handsome, was also a national bestseller, No. 8 on Amazon’s Top 100 Editors’ Picks and a Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award Honor Book for Fiction. His third novel, Virgil Wander, was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and was named a best book of the year by Amazon, Library Journal, Bookpage, and Chicago Public Library. He lives with his wife in Duluth, MN.

CODIFIED d’Andrew Smith

From award-winning journalist Andrew Smith, contributing writer for the Sunday Times and the Guardian, CODIFIED is an immersive, sharp-eyed tour of the world of computer programming, told through Smith’s own journey to learn how to code.

CODIFIED
by Andrew Smith
‎ Atlantic Monthly Press/Grove Atlantic, Winter 2024

Andrew Smith’s first book, Moondust, was a #1 UK and international bestseller, nominated for two British Book Awards (including Read of the Year), and cited by the Times as one of its “100 Best Books of the Decade.” His follow-up Totally Wired—centered on the late 1990s dot-com bubble and its tumultuous crash—was published to rave reviews, hailed as “effervescent and vivid . . . a book whose time has come” (Sunday Times). Smith’s latest, CODIFIED, is a mesmerizing, up-to-the-minute account of the world of coders, as experienced through his own endeavor to become one.
Throughout history, technological revolutions have been driven by the invention of machines. But today, the power of the tech transforming our world lies in an intangible and impenetrable cosmos of software: algorithmic code. So symbiotic has our relationship with this code become that we barely notice it anymore. We can’t see it, are not even sure how to think about it, and yet we do almost nothing that doesn’t depend on it. In a world increasingly governed by technologies that so few can comprehend, who controls the future?
CODIFIED follows Andrew Smith on his immersive trip into the world of coding, taking us behind the scenes into the lives—and minds—of the new gatekeepers of the 21st century: those who write code. Smith embarks on a quest to understand this sect in what he believes to be the only way possible: by learning to code himself. Along the way, he becomes involved with a wild array of characters and takes part in several lively rituals of initiation into the coding world: he visits a global coding conference in Ohio, where he meets the creator of the Python programming language; and he takes part in a 24-hour “hackathon” in Silicon Valley, a Darwinian race to see who can build the best app overnight. At the start of his odyssey he travels to Magdeburg, Germany to have his brain scanned by a team of scientists studying the effects of coding on the human brain and will share the results of the final comparison scan. Smith delivers a vivid, effervescent portrait of a culture working in an office or coworking space near you—all while wrestling with everything that’s at stake in this stage of technological evolution. How do we control a technology that most people can’t understand? And are we programming ourselves out of existence? By-turns illuminating, alarming, and amusing, CODIFIED is an essential book for our times.

“Smith is an ideal narrator: sharp-eyed yet increasingly affectionate about his subjects; expert enough to dissect Apollo minutiae clearly but not so obsessed as to leave a general reader trailing in the jetwash.”
—Financial Times on Moondust

“A brilliant exploration of madness and genius in the early days of the web. Fascinatingly weird . . . terrific.”
—Guardian on Totally Wired

“A rich mix of cultural history, reportage and personal reflection.” —Evening Standard on Moondust

“Highly entertaining . . . [Smith’s] superb book is a fitting tribute to a unique band of 20th-century heroes.”
—GQ on Moondust

Andrew Smith has worked as a critic and feature writer for the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Observer, and The Face, and has penned documentaries for the BBC. He is the author of the internationally bestselling book Moondust, about the nine remaining men who walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972, and Totally Wired. He was raised in the UK and currently lives in California.

LUSH LIVES de J. Vanessa Lyon

A deliciously queer, whimsical and sexy novel set in the art and auction world, LUSH LIVES features a cast of bold and brilliant women who are unafraid to take big risks, challenge authority and maybe, just maybe, find love along the way.

LUSH LIVES
by J. Vanessa Lyon
Roxane Gay Books/Grove Atlantic, August 2023

For Glory, inheriting her Aunt Lucille’s Harlem brownstone feels like more of a curse than a blessing. She’s a restless West Coast artist struggling to find gallery representation, who doesn’t have the money or time to look after the house of an aunt she hardly knew. She reluctantly moves East, thinking of it as a free residency, but when she decides to see if any of the house’s contents have value, the inheritance leads her to Parkie de Groot, a savvy, ambitious appraiser at a luxury auction house who is on the verge of a coveted promotion if she plays her cards right. Though they are complete opposites, Glory and Parkie form an unlikely alliance and work to unearth the origins of a rare manuscript hidden in the brownstone’s trove. In doing so, they learn more than they could ever have imagined about not only Lucille’s life but the history of Harlem and how it shaped so many artists and thinkers whose footsteps Glory and Parkie hope to walk in.
Though they have an undeniable connection, there are complications. Parkie hasn’t been in a relationship since a toxic ex shattered her belief in herself, and is reluctant to make herself vulnerable with Glory, who is as ambitious as she is passionate about making her art. As intrigued as she is by Parkie, Glory is consumed by her work, not checking her phone for days on end and holding Parkie at arm’s length though she so very much wants to pull the other woman close. When these women do get out of their own way, though, the electricity between them is fierce.
That electricity is tested, however, when Glory and Parkie start keeping secrets from each other, threatening the promise of their relationship and their journey to uncover the mysteries of the brownstone and Harlem and the women who made their lives possible. Will the truths they are searching for bring Parkie and Glory back together or just drive them further apart?
LUSH LIVES is a charming and romantic novel with a sharp enough edge to make things interesting. The prose shoots off the page and into your heart and soul.

J. Vanessa Lyon is the author of The Groves (an Audible Original). She is an art historian, former appraiser, and occasional curator who teaches at a New England liberal arts college.

AND THEN HE SANG A LULLABY d’Ani Kayode Somtochukwu

A searingly honest and resonant debut from a Nigerian writer and queer liberation activist, exploring what love and freedom cost in a society steeped in homophobia.

AND THEN HE SANG A LULLABY
by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu
Roxane Gay Books/Grove Atlantic, June 2023

 

August is a God-fearing track star who leaves Enugu City to attend university and escape his overbearing sisters. He carries the weight of their lofty expectations, the shame of facing himself, and the haunting memory of a mother he never knew. It’s his first semester and pressures aside, August is making friends, doing well in his classes. He even almost has a girlfriend. There’s only one problem: he can’t stop thinking about Segun, an openly gay student who works at a local cybercafé. Segun carries his own burdens and has been wounded in too many ways. When he meets August, their connection is undeniable, but Segun is reluctant to open himself up to August. He wants to love and be loved by a man who is comfortable in his own skin, who will see and hold and love Segun, exactly as he is.
Despite their differences, August and Segun forge a tender intimacy that defies the violence around them. But there is only so long Segun can stand being loved behind closed doors, while August lives a life beyond the world they’ve created together. And when a new, sweeping anti-gay law is passed, August and Segun must find a way for their love to survive in a Nigeria that was always determined to eradicate them. A tale of rare bravery and profound beauty, AND THEN HE SANG A LULLABY is an extraordinary debut that marks Ani as a voice to watch.

Ani Kayode Somtochukwu is an award-winning Nigerian writer and queer liberation activist. His work interrogates themes of queer identity, resistance, and liberation. His writings have appeared in literary magazines across Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America.

 

CITY OF LAUGHTER de Temim Fruchter

A rich and riveting work that marries centuries-old folklore to 21st-century queer literary fiction, CITY OF LAUGHTER spans four generations of Jewish women who are bound by blood, half-hidden secrets, and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years

CITY OF LAUGHTER
by Temim Fruchter
Grove Press, Spring 2023

The exciting debut of a Rona Jaffe Award winner, CITY OF LAUGHTER is a book for the reader of Orlando, Jeanette Winterson, Andrea Lawlor, and the dog-eared Bashevis Singer paperback she still returns to after her first gay kiss. It tangles beautifully with Jewish spirituality and generational silence, with a history of displacement and a present life half-lived for fear of invoking ancestral judgment—and young queer people have a way of upsetting the familial applecart…
Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter, and as this story opens an 18th century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make the bride and groom laugh on their wedding day, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger—bringing the laughter that the people of Ropshitz desperately need.
In the present day, Shiva Margolin, a young woman named for a mourning rite, is a graduate student in Jewish folklore getting over the heartbreak of her first big queer love amid mourning the death of her beloved father. She struggles to connect with her mother, who harbors secrets and barriers that Shiva can’t break. When the opportunity arises for her to visit Poland on a half-formed research trip, she takes it; she’s interested in her mysterious matriarchal line, in particular Mira Wollman, the great-grandmother about whom no one speaks, and who left a piece of herself behind in Poland when she emigrated. But as in most folklore, the answers to Shiva’s questions won’t come so easily. Zigzagging between our known universe and a tapestry of real and invented Jewish folklore, CITY OF LAUGHTER is epic and sharply intimate, both fantastical and hyperreal.

Temim Fruchter was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish household, and her faith in communal experience and the spirit world remains central to her identity; this novel was inspired by her own great-grandmother, who was born in Ropshitz. Temim holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland, and was previously a founding member and drummer for The Shondes, a feminist punk band. She has received fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Vermont Studio Center, first prize in short fiction from both American Literary Review and New South, the 2020 Jane Hoppen Residency, and a 2020 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award. She lives in Brooklyn.