To Keep You Thinking

Three wickedly funny sisters. One family's extraordinary history and legacy. A single suicide note that spans a century.

A Reunion of Ghosts is a tale of fate and blood, sin and absolution; partly a memoir of sisters unified by a singular burden, partly an unflinching eulogy of those who have gone before, and above all a profound commentary on the events of the 20th century. You'll come to understand how your actions today may reverberate through history and affect future generations.

History often forgets the people left behind. Painstakingly researched, Stalin's Daughter is a revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history’s most monstrous dictators—her father, Josef Stalin.

With access to KGB, CIA, and Soviet government archives, as well as the close cooperation of Svetlana’s daughter, Rosemary Sullivan pieces together Svetlana’s incredible life in a masterful account of unprecedented intimacy.

What makes a memoir or biography good, thought-provoking and memorable? Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers’ experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr’s own process. As she breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, she breaks open our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminates the cathartic power of reflecting on the past; anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.

Perhaps it might also make you re-think the way you want to live your live. How would you want your biography to be written?

A 70-year-old ex-Marine, a delusional son, and an anti-government woman. These three people are embroiled in what is a complicated relationship, showing us an insight to the roots of the American psyche. What is the difference between heroism and violence?

This one will make you question the sanctity of marriage, and what family means. The hot, sweltering temperatures of a summer turns up the heat in this suburban setting, and life for one family is about to change forever.

In the ruins of a future America, fifteen-year-old Ice Cream Star and her nomadic tribe live off the detritus of a crumbled civilization. Theirs is a world of children; before reaching the age of twenty, they all die of a strange disease they call Posies--a plague that has killed for generations. There is no medicine, no treatment; only the mysterious rumor of a cure.

Yet she travels hundreds of miles across treacherous, unfamiliar territory when she finds out her brother has the disease, where she will experience love, heartbreak, cruelty, terror, and betrayal. This is a one-of-a-kind coming-of-age novel, yet also a unique piece of science fiction.

Alexandra Kleeman's unforgettable debut is a missing-person mystery told from the point of view of the missing person; an American horror story that concerns sex and friendship, consumption and appetite, faith and transformation, real food and reality television; and, above all, a wholly singular vision of modern womanhood by a frightening, "stunning" (Conjunctions), and often very funny voice of a new generation.

It starts off as a chronicle of the smallness and pointlessness of life, then slowly spirals into a descent into mindless consumer culture, You'll finish the book and leave thinking about just how much you are equally immersed in this cycle of desire, want and consumerism.

A Head Full of Ghosts is a great thriller filled with domestic drama, psychological suspense, and a touch of modern horror. The Barretts have their lives torn apart when fourteen-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. The medical bills are overwhelming, and the nothing seems to be working. And so the family will take whatever they can now -- from religious help to a exploitative TV production documenting their lives. The novel does a great work of juxtaposing memory and reality, science and religion, as well as mental illness and the idea of possession.

At the end of a long winter, the body of an infant is discovered in the woods near the town’s prestigious university campus. No one knows who the baby is, or how her body ended up out there. But there is no shortage of opinions. And when a young journalist is tasked to cover the story, the entire town runs the risk of their own deep, dark secrets getting uncovered.

It's a crime thriller no doubt, but it's also insight to how institutionalised crime and small town politics can taint a town of generations.

It's always weird to read about your own humanity and species in third person, but Harari reiterates that we're just a bunch of ignorant beings. Homo sapiens have existed for 2.4 million years, but the current version of us (that is what we know of) has only walked the earth for 150,000 years - just 6%. We know little of our predecessors, their language, culture and way of life. You'll get to cut through all the confusing jargon, and understand the history of our legacy.

Don't mistake this for yet another dystopian novel chastising humanity for their reliance on robots, even if its set in the future circa 2040 where humanity has just fought off a serious addiction to robots. Between computers and humans, and the desperate desire to find someone or something to connect with, this book is a thoughtful, poignant novel that explores the creation of Artificial Intelligence — illuminating the very human need for communication, connection, and understanding.

Undermajordomo Minor is an ink-black comedy of manners, an adventure, and a mystery, and a searing portrayal of rural Alpine bad behaviour, but above all it is a love story. And Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing. This is one great work of comic fiction.

Lidia Yuknavitch explores the treacherous, often violent borders between war and sex, love and art. An American photographer captures one of the most famous images when documenting war in Eastern Europe. And it begets these thought-provoking questions: Who is controlling the action? And what will happen when these two worlds—east and west, real and virtual—collide?

A gripping novel of culture clash and murder: as summer draws to a close, a small Long Island town is gripped by a series of mysterious deaths—and one young man, a loner taken in by a local, tries to piece together the crimes before his own time runs out.

Orient is a psychologically probing and intelligent page turner; one whose characters simply are larger than life thanks to Christopher Bollen's wonderful writing. Crime in a small town always draws links to nearly everyone, and you'll be hard pressed not to fall in love (or sympathy) with nearly everyone in it.

We meet an awkward lesbian student who is impregnated and married by a gay poetry professor in a 1960s college setting. And what unravels is a family torn apart by the boredom of domesticity and emotional erosion. And when Peggy runs off with one child but not the other, it sparks off a lifetime of identity crisis. See how the sins of the past carry on to the present, and if the lost siblings will ever meet.

A suspenseful debut novel of desire, obsession, power, and vulnerability, in which a crisis of inheritance leads to the downfall of a wealthy family of Persian Jews in early twentieth-century Iran.

Haunting, suspenseful, and inspired by events in the author's own family, The Girl from the Garden is an evocative and poignant exploration of sacrifice, betrayal, and the indelible legacy of the families that forge us.

Failure is the one thing that many of us would like to avoid, but perhaps that's what makes us soft, unaccepting and fearful of the unknown? Author Jessica Lahey writes that parents must learn to allow their children to experience the disappointment and frustration that occur from life’s inevitable problems so that they can grow up to be successful, resilient, and self-reliant adults. Now that's something worth a change in perspectives.