New Fiction eBooks

Sheila Heti's How Should a Person Be? is exactly what its title implies: an inquiry into how to live and how to do it well. Through a fictionalized account of her personal life, Heti explores the ways in which self-doubt, capriciousness, and the ego are tied to one's ability to live a creative life in the modern age. Yes, I know. This sounds so serious. Or maybe it doesn't. Either way, this novel is a rare gem that effectively combines philosophical musings with an absorbing and funny narrative, all without being pretentious. How Should a Person Be? is about what it means to make art, friends, and ultimately what it means to be human. I raced through it over the course of a few days, after which it stuck with me for weeks. I even read passages of it aloud to a friend, something I rarely do.

I first read this book when it was originally published in Canada in 2010. There have been some changes made to this, the US edition, which truly enhance the novel's original form. It's been almost two years since my initial reading of How Should a Person Be?, and I am still excited about the book. In fact, since that time, I've continued to ponder over and occasionally re-read selections from it. Each time, my heart aches a little more, and I learn something new about myself and about the world. I suppose one can't ask for much more than that. --Josie

My first thought upon finishing Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk was, "Wow! I love this book, but how am I going to sell it in San Francisco?" And unless you are able to step outside of your comfort-zone as a reader, I may not be very successful, which is a crying shame. This book has an energy that I rarely encounter, a voice that sparkles and pops, a plot that is Hollywood worthy, and it just may be the truest portrait of an American War Hero amidst the whirlwind of praise accompanying his "victory tour" home from a battle that only some feel we need to be fighting. It is also set in Texas, at a Dallas Cowboys football game, but please don't let that dissuade you either. Ben Fountain has talent in spades, and his blend of humor and pathos is a joy to behold. With Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk he has given us a novel that is so true it can only be called fiction, and a book that is so enjoyable that upon completion, you will find yourself in my unenviable position: trying to get everyone else to read this wonderful tale. --KH

When the family alligator wrestling business starts to go under due to a lack of tourism to your haunted swamp island, and your sister keeps running off to have torrid love affairs with dead men, and your mom won't respond on the Ouija board and a mysterious man appears to collect for his unsolicited services as a buzzard exterminator, sometimes you've got to take the rudder and venture to the bottom of things, so to speak. And, if this sweet grimy world you're navigating is the creation of Karen Russell, you know you're in for an other/under-worldly experience that is at once fantastic and heart-breakingly real. Swamplandia! is everything its premise promises and more.

Foster Wallace's unfinished final novel, about IRS agents working in Peoria, Illinois, might sound dreadfully boring (the book, after all, deals with those areas of life that are "massively, spectacularly dull"), but as with all of DFW's fiction, there's a lot more at work than any synopsis can capture. Proving Wallace's maxim that "almost anything you pay close, direct attention to becomes interesting," The Pale King is much more than a morbid curiosity. It is a book that demands attention from any reader interested in contemporary American literature.

Cole's debut, which has already earned the author comparisons to W.G. Sebald and Albert Camus, is a welcome addition to the genre of the walker's novel. In it, the narrator, a Nigerian immigrant doing his residency in Manhattan, ruminates on history (both personal and political), geography (as his walks radiate outward from Morningside Heights, all of the city is laid out to him), and his own psychology. Open City wanders at its own pace and proves itself to be that rare, unexpected marvel: a great American novel.

After I read Winter's Bone, I decided I had to read everything by Daniel Woodrell. Unfortunately, I discovered that pretty much all of his books were out of print. The Bayou Trilogy brings back into print three of his best. The writing is incredible, and these titles are absolutely drenched in southern gothic noir. This is one of my favorite books of the year. --Martin