7 expected book novelties of the second half of 2021

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Several world bestsellers, which are published in Russian for the first time.

1. "Deacon King Kong" by James McBride

One day, a clumsy old deacon nicknamed Blazer shoots local drug dealer Deems Clemens in front of everyone. This is how the whirlpool of funny and sad events begins. The result is a touching book about the hectic lives of little people with big souls in New York in the 60s.

“James McBride… wrote a kind of jazz novel,” says translator Anastasia Zavozova, “in which the composition seems to be non-linear and born right on the spot, and the story itself is not lost in it”.

2. "Stranger in the Mirror", Liv Constantine

Addison marries Gabriel, who saved her two years ago. But the bride does not remember anything from her past life. And in another city, a father for the hundredth time tells his seven-year-old daughter how they met her mother, who suddenly disappeared.

The Stranger in the Mirror is a psychological thriller with two parallel storylines. The main character tries to put together her personality from many pieces and understand who she really is. More than once it will seem to the reader that he is close to solving the mystery, but the next plot twists will again be confusing.

3. "House of Illusion", Carmen Maria Machado

Machado explores the mechanisms of emotional abuse and tries to figure out how he ended up in a destructive relationship with a charismatic but psychologically unstable woman.

The writer perceives her own body as a haunted house, as a place of sudden, unpredictable horrors. To convey them, she uses different genres: horror, erotica, a story of growing up. This is how we got a book that will interest connoisseurs of experimental prose.

4. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

At the nursing home, the Thursday Murder Club meets weekly, with four middle-aged men investigating unsolved crimes to relieve boredom. But one day mysterious murders begin to take place in the village. Will the "Club" be able to cope with the real business?

The Thursday Killing Club is the best-selling debut novel since Harry Potter. The book made a splash in the UK, and now it is walking around the world in triumph. Agatha Christie intrigue and Buckman vibe.

5. "28 Years, Every Summer" by Elin Hildebrand

Jake and Malorie met at the beach cottage. Several mini-disasters - and the couple became close. They told each other everything: about troubles, dreams and even Jake's upcoming marriage. It's time to leave. But I don’t want to! The young people came up with this: to return to the cottage every year. Together.

For 28 years in a row, Jake and Malorie give free rein to their senses for only three days at the end of summer. Year after year, everyone lives two lives: one is secret, but real, the other is correct, but someone else's. The coming summer is special. Malorie is terminally ill. Now what?

6. Lost Words by Pip Williams

Esme spent her childhood in Oxford, where her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers select words for the new Oxford English Dictionary. Esme notes that scientists clearly consider some words more important than others. And expressions from the world of women are often forgotten and unrecorded.

The girl decides to correct the injustice and create her own vocabulary, which soon becomes part of women's struggle for their rights. So fiction became intertwined with reality: suffragettes, the Oxford Dictionary, World War I and little Esme's struggle with prejudice.

7. "The unearthly world", Yaa Gyasi

Gifty, the daughter of migrants from Ghana, is studying at the Department of Neurology at Stanford. The girl is experimenting: trying to wean mice from self-destructive behavior. In fact, this is not just scientific research, but also an attempt to understand family problems. Why is her brother addicted to drugs? How to get a mother out of depression?

The book brought together science and religion, the search for their place in the world and dissolution of oneself in the family. The heroes hide in a cocoon from a carefully constructed silence, ask questions to God and with nostalgia remember their homeland, where fruits are eaten right from the ground, and you can be happy without money.