October Picks for Higher Education

From the New York Times bestselling author of Behold the Dreamers and How Beautiful We Were, a captivating novel about love lost—and the weight of regret“Every Story Is a Love Story is a deeply moving, beautifully told novel about grief, regret, anger, forgiveness, and the insistent resilience of the human heart. Imbolo Mbue’s generosity on the page is breathtaking.”—Patrick Ryan, author of BuckeyeWhat if I’d never gotten into that car? What if I’d pulled out of the driveway five minutes earlier, or ten minutes later?Three years ago, Wolo’s wife was killed in a tragic car accident. In an instant, the great love of his life was gone, and so was their beautiful future. In the face of a loss that seemed insurmountable, Wolo has slowly rebuilt a semblance of a life: he goes to work, hangs out with a small circle of friends, and fends off the matchmaking efforts of the older women in his family. The grief that dogged him has, with time, become a little gentler.Until a letter arrives one day, unbidden, threatening to upend his life once again. It is from Victoria, the woman who was behind the wheel that terrible day. Wolo’s family pastor tells him the letter is the work of the devil; his mother expressly forbids him from making further mention of it; his father’s second wife calls, from Cameroon, to tell him to destroy it. But Wolo ponders it for days, and ultimately agrees to meet with the woman who killed his wife. When he does, the compassion and deep remorse of the woman affects him in ways he had never imagined, and he begins to wonder if the long road to healing can be shared. What do we owe to those who have hurt us? Are we defined by our worst moments and our deepest regrets? And, more than anything, can forgiveness ease our suffering? Moving and full of life, Every Story Is a Love Story charts the uneven path from heartbreak to healing.

KIRKUS PRIZE FINALIST • A spellbinding tour de force from the bestselling author of The Invisible Bridge—a novel about varieties of infidelity, the provenance of a literary masterpiece, and the power of storytelling to shape identity and destiny. "Luna, Phoenix, Queen reimagined what I thought a novel could do. My favorite kind of novel." —Caro Claire Burke, author of YesteryearDava and Barr Pennington, professors at a Midwestern university, both harbor potent secrets. Fiction writing is his specialty, English literature is hers. But Dava is unhappy in their marriage, and secretly in love with a colleague, Svetlana White, who teaches in the Russian Studies department; spurred by their complicated liaison, she spends her nights working on a novel about two women who run a domestic violence shelter in coastal Maine. Though she loves the work and the refuge it provides, the writing becomes increasingly difficult as her memory begins to fail; tests reveal that she’s suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s. After a precipitous decline, she moves to a memory-care facility in a neighboring town. Soon afterward, her husband, alone in the house at night, discovers her hidden manuscript, which he reads with envy, and then with anger, as he extrapolates his wife’s affair from the relationship described in the novel’s pages. Over the next two years he rewrites the novel and publishes it as his own, to wide acclaim. But persistent feelings of guilt lead him to confess his theft to an unlikely party, who leads others to the truth.Luna, Phoenix, Queen tells its tale of artistic and marital betrayal in a chorus of voices. We hear from Barr as he becomes obsessed with Luna, a horrifically injured dog at a local shelter; from Dava as she meets Svetlana for the first time, on a transatlantic flight to Dublin; from Milo, Dava’s son, as he hides in the woods with Naomi, Svetlana’s daughter; from Svetlana, experiencing the loss of a relationship that ended before it could come to fruition; from Evie, Barr’s research assistant, who witnessed Dava’s last days at home with her husband; from James, the Penningtons’ younger son, who makes a startling discovery after his father’s death; and from Milo and Svetlana again, as they grieve the injustice of Barr’s theft and confront the devastation of Dava’s disease.In a narrative that spans four decades and four thousand miles, Luna, Phoenix, Queen illuminates the power of storytelling and explores the terror of losing the ability to make sense of our world. It is a cry of rage against our vulnerability and helplessness; an acknowledgment of the mysteries beneath the familiar surface of our world; and ultimately, if unexpectedly, a radical testament to love in its many forms.

A breathtaking archaeological journey that illuminates the unsung role of music and sound in shaping human civilization

The 50th anniversary edition of the spellbinding classic that started it all, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author. This dazzling special edition features a jacket with foil and embossing, sprayed edges, designed endpapers, a new foreword by Leigh Bardugo, an afterword by Christopher Rice, and never-before-seen bonus pages from Anne Rice's original manuscript.

A haunting gathering of classic Japanese tales of monsters and demons, yōkai and oni and yūrei, that live on in popular manga, anime, J-horror films, and video games A Penguin Classic

Bestselling author and renowned psychologist Kelly McGonigal offers a groundbreaking look at joy and how we can embrace it

100th Anniversary Deluxe Edition: A richly illustrated, full-color, clothbound celebration of the novel that established Hemingway as the preeminent voice of the Lost Generation Rediscover a literary masterpiece through illuminating commentary that brings its colorful world to vivid life