Popular North American Contemporary Fiction Books

Find contemporary fiction books written by authors from North America for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge. (98)

71.

The Bradshaw Variations : A Novel by Rachel Cusk EN

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Description:
"Originally published in 2009 by Faber and Faber Limited, Great Britain. Published in the United States in 2010 By Farrar, Strauss and Giroux"--Title page verso.

72.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger EN

Rating: 3 (2 votes)
Description:
The "brilliant, funny, meaningful novel" (The New Yorker) that established J. D. Salinger as a leading voice in American literature--and that has instilled in millions of readers around the world a lifelong love of books. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth." The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient chi... continue

73.

The Cook by Harry Kressing EN

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Description:
The Cook opens with Conrad, nearly seven feet tall, gaunt, and dressed all in black, arriving on his bicycle in the town of Cobb. He quickly secures a job as cook for the wealthy Hill family, winning their hearts and stomachs with his delectable dishes, and before long he has everyone around him eating out of his hand. But Conrad has a sinister, inscrutable plan in view, and after becoming master of their palates, next may be their souls . . . A mouth-watering blend of delicious black humor and Kafkaesque horror story, The Cook (1965) is a dark fable "beginning in a vein of innocent fairy tale... continue

74.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
Ann Patchett, the New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and State of Wonder, returns with her most powerful novel to date: a richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. "'Do you think it's possible to ever see the past as it actually was?' I asked my sister. We were sitting in her car, parked in front of the Dutch House in the broad daylight of early summer." At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate e... continue

75.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Description:
When Eddie dies, trying to save a child from a terrible accident, he wakes up in heaven. Heaven, he discovers, is a place where your life on earth is finally explained to you. It is explained by five people, friends or strangers, who somehow affected your life - and who changed its path forever.

76.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Description:
Sixty years after a book's publication, its author remembers his lost love and missing son, while a teenage girl named for one of the book's characters seeks her namesake, as well as a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.

77.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune EN

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Description:
Lambda Literary Award-winning author TJ Klune’s bestselling, breakout contemporary fantasy that's "1984 meets The Umbrella Academy with a pinch of Douglas Adams thrown in." (Gail Carriger) A USA Today Bestseller! An Indie Next Pick! One of Publishers Weekly's "Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2020" One of Book Riot’s “20 Must-Read Feel-Good Fantasies” A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends hi... continue

78.

The Inhabited Woman by Gioconda Belli EN

Rating: 5 (2 votes)
Description:
A revolutionary romance by a Nicaraguan poet. The protagonists are two architects: Lavina, a woman from the privileged classes, and Felipe, a member of the national liberation movement. When Felipe is killed, Lavina takes over command of his unit.

79.

The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich EN

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Description:
In this stunning novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich tells a story of love, natural forces, spiritual yearnings, and the tragic impact of uncontrollable circumstances on ordinary people's lives. History is a flood. The mighty red . . . In Argus, North Dakota, a collection of people revolve around a fraught wedding. Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his. Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Ki... continue

80.

The Sluts by Dennis Cooper EN

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Description:
Set largely on the pages of a website where gay male escorts are reviewed by their clients, and told through the postings, emails, and conversations of several dozen unreliable narrators, The Sluts chronicles the evolution of one young escort's date with a satisfied client into a metafiction of pornography, lies, half-truths, and myth. Explicit, shocking, comical, and displaying the author's signature flair for blending structural complexity with direct, stylish, accessible language, The Sluts is Cooper's most transgressive novel since Frisk, and one of his most innovative works of fiction to ... continue