Welcome to our Book Club Corner, where each month we highlight books new to paperback we think would make perfect picks for your next book club discussion. If you’re looking to join a book club, we host a wide variety of free, bookseller-run book clubs right here at BookPeople. Join us! We love to talk books.
The Sellout by Paul Beatty & Elizabeth Bruce
In The Sellout, Paul Beatty chronicles an urban farmer in a fictional California town called Dickens who tries to spearhead a revitalization of slavery and segregation. This gambit, of course, end up with him in front of the US Supreme Court. It is biting bit of satire that aims at the US Constitution, urban living in America, the civil rights movement, and other tenets of black American life. Beatty’s writing is topical and timely. You’ll laugh out loud and shake your head in dismay all at the same time.
“A fertile and original writer with enormous energy and verbal dazzle.” —The New York Times
The Sellout comes out in paperback on March 1st and is available for pre-order now.
The Night Sister by Jennifer McMahon
Once the thriving attraction of rural Vermont, the Tower Motel now stands in disrepair, alive only in the memories of Amy, Piper, and Piper’s kid sister, Margot. The three played there as girls until the day that their games uncovered something dark and twisted in the motel’s past, something that ruined their friendship forever. Now adults, Piper and Margot have tried to forget what they found that fateful summer, but their lives are upended when they receive news that Amy is accused of a horrific crime.
Jennifer McMahon is the author of bestsellers Promise Not To Tell and The Winter People, which is currently in its 10th printing. The Night Sister is a great choice for book clubs looking for mystery and suspense.
The Night Sister comes out in paperback on March 8th and is available for pre-order now.
Deep Singh Blue by Ranbir Singh Sidhu
Sidhu’s debut novel takes you inside the lives of an Indian-American family living in a small US town in the 1980s. This novel transcends stereotypes while exploring racial tension, dysfunctional family life and affairs of the heart, all with an unsentimental eye and sharp, funny wit. This is a family and a life that you have never read about before.
“I don’t know which virtue of Deep Singh Blue to recommend: the love-hate letter to northern California; the rich portraiture of Deep Singh, his family, and his tempestuous girlfriend; the oh-no-did-he-just-do-that storytelling; or indeed the blue that informs the restless, cutting, tender intelligence of the book. Enjoy them all, weeping and laughing and gasping. — Matthew Sharpe
Deep Singh Blue comes out in paperback on March 15th and is available for pre-order now.
The town of New Eden, peopled with hereditary oddities, has arrived at its last days. As two near-centenarian citizens prepare for their annual birthday tea, a third vows to interrupt the proceedings with a bold declaration. The Remnants cartwheels rambunctiously through the lives of wood-splitters, garment-menders, and chervil farmers, while exposing an electrical undercurrent of secrets, taboos, and unfulfilled longings. With his signature wit and wordplay, Robert Hill delivers a bittersweet gut-buster of an elegy to the collective memory of a community.
Fans of Margaret Atwood will love the dystopian end-of-the-world themes, older readers will appreciate the elderly protagonists, literary fiction lovers will connect to the clever word play, and others will love the juxtaposition of humor with dark themes. A most original novel!
Robert Hill’s 2006 novel, When All Is Said and Done, was short listed for the Ken Kesey Award For Fiction
The Remnants comes out in paperback on March 15th and is available for pre-order now.
Barefoot Dogs by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho
This collection of linked short stories follows the members of a well-to-do family from Mexico after their patriarch goes missing, presumably kidnapped on his way home from work. The stories span from Madrid to New York to Mexico and to Austin, Tx. Ruiz-Camacho’s Barefoot Dogs may appeal to fans of Junot Diaz or Dinaw Mengetsu, with his intimate and gut-wrenching stories of the immigrant experience.
“Each of these stories is a straight-on jab to the soul, the kind of sharp fictional punch that wakes us up to our own flawed, fragile, essential humanity. With this debut collection, Antonio Ruiz-Camacho shows he’s already a writer of the first rank, one of those rare storytellers who leaves you wanting more even as he breaks your heart.” – Ben Fountain
Antonio Ruiz-Camacho has been a journalist in Mexico, Europe and the US. He earned his MFA from The New Writer’s Project at UT Austin and lives in Austin with his family.
Barefoot Dogs comes out in paperback on March 22nd and is available for pre-order now.
FEATURED EVENT OF THE MONTH
Wednesday, March 23 at 7PM
Bestselling Author
HANYA YANAGIHARA
speaking & signing
This book, which became a surprise bestseller in 2015, was recently released in paperback. Join us with author Hanya Yanagihara in conversation with Clay Smith of Kirkus Reviews.
FEATURED DRINK OF THE MONTH
It’s March and spring is almost upon us! The time for patio dinner and patio happy hour and patio, well, everything. In honor of this time of year, the time when we emerge from our hidey-holes and remember why we love this town so much, I’m going to recommend that we all remember to drink 64 oz of water a day, at the very minimum. To help you keep track, BookPeople has 32 oz Nalgene bottles with our logo on them! Show everyone how much you love BookPeople, don’t contribute to plastic bottle waste, AND get your requisite 64 oz of water a day. Drink up!
Thanks for the great book reviews, I’ll be reading with my Kindle 🙂
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