Exquisite Fiction
Discover a curated list of exquisite fiction books that captivate and inspire. Explore timeless classics and modern masterpieces for every literary taste.
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The Discovery of Heaven
by Harry Mulisch
"Exhilerating, magnificent, dangerous." -- The Times Literary Supplement (London) One of the great novels of the Twentieth Century, described by John Updike as a meditation on "the persistence of trauma, the rapacity of eros, the fragility of our orderly schemes" On a cold night in Holland two men meet and change each other's lives forever. Max Delius - a hedonistic, yet brilliant astronomer who loves fast cars, nice clothes and beautiful women - picks up Onno Quist, a cerebral chaotic philologist who cannot bear the ordinariness of everyday life. Despite their differences, they fast become great friends. And when they learn they were conceived on the same day, it is clear that their meeting is no coincidence. As the pair fall into and out of love with the same woman - Ada - so their lives become further intertwined. For all three are on a mysterious journey destined to shape human history. The Discovery of Heaven is internationally recognized as a masterpiece. Rich in philosophical, psychological, historical and theological enquiry, it is an extravagant, bold and satisfying novel of ideas.
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Shark Dialogues
by Kiana Davenport
"Compares with Toni Morrison."--Glamour Beginning with the fateful meeting of a nineteenth-century Yankee sailor and the runaway daughter of a Tahitian chief, and sweeping over a century and a half of passionate, turbulent Hawaiian history, Shark Dialogues takes its place as the first novel to do justice to the rich heritage and cruel conflicts of the beautiful and beleaguered islands and their people. Surreal, provocative, erotic, magical, meaningful, and supremely wise, it is a tale of islanders and invaders, of victors and victims, of queens and whores, of lepers and healers. And at its center are Pono, the magnificent pure-blooded matriarch and seer, and her four mixed-blood granddaughters seeking to come to terms with the contradictions of their ancestries and the hungers of their hearts. Their loves, their hates, the bonds joining them, and the furies possessing them are interwoven with ancient legends and lore of the islands whose past offers their salvation and whose future is their fate. Kiana Davenport has written a major contribution to the literature of the Pacific Rim--a great reading experience both brilliantly contemporary in its form and timeless in its illumination. "A giant, image-fevered, luxuriant saga of a Hawaiian family... powerful, memorable, intoxicating."--Kirkus Reviews "Complex, resonant... handles the sweep of history and the nuance of the personal equally well... Sensuous."--San Francisco Chronicle
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Sacred Hunger
by Barry Unsworth
William Kemp owns a slave ship, his nephew and son serve aboard the ship, the crew and human cargo are stranded on the coast of Florida.
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The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov
Originally published: Dana Point, Calif.: Ardis, 1995.
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Atonement
by Ian McEwan
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness that provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from the acclaimed Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author. On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia’s childhood friend. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives. As it follows that crime’s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece. Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons.
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Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie
The story of Saleem Sinal, born precisely at midnight, August 15, 1947, the moment India became independent. Saleem's life parallels the history of his nation.
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Birdsong
by Sebastian Faulks
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A mesmerising story of love and war spanning three generations and the unimaginable gulf between the First World War and the 1990s In this "overpowering and beautiful novel" (The New Yorker), the young Englishman Stephen Wraysford passes through a tempestuous love affair with Isabelle Azaire in France and enters the dark, surreal world beneath the trenches of No Man's Land. Sebastian Faulks creates a world of fiction that is as tragic as A Farewell to Arms and as sensuous as The English Patient, crafted from the ruins of war and the indestructibility of love.
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Ship of Fools
by Katherine Anne Porter
A novel recounting the lives and actions of the passengers on a ship en route from Mexico to Germany in 1931.