OBD Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Century (So Far): Fiction - Adult

An ode to George Orwell's "1984" told in alternating male and female voices relates the stories of Aomame, an assassin for a secret organization who discovers that she has been transported to an alternate reality, and Tengo, a mathematics lecturer and novice writer.

An unforgettable love story about a searing affair between an American woman and an African man in 1970s America and an unflinching novel about the fragmentation of lives that straddle countries and histories. All Our Names is the story of two young men who come of age during an African revolution, drawn from the safe confines of the university campus into the intensifying clamor of the streets outside. But as the line between idealism and violence...

"A young woman from Nigeria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in America, only to find her dreams are not all she expected"-- Provided by publisher.

In the summer of 1935 Briony Tallis misinterprets a moment's flirtation between her sister and the son of a servant. A crime occurs soon after, the repercussions of which are followed through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the 20th century.

A novel that spans fifty years. The Italian housekeeper and his long-lost American starlet; the producer who once brought them together, and his assistant. A glittering world filled with unforgettable characters.

First published in 2001, Bel Canto is possibly Ann Patchett's most beloved novel. Set in an unnamed South American country, at the home of the vice president, it is the story of a lavish birthday party honoring Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has enthralled the international guests with a mesmerizing performance. The evening is perfect--until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire...

"A modern love story about two childhood friends, Sam, raised by an actress mother in LA's Koreatown, and Sadie, from the wealthy Jewish enclave of Beverly Hills, who reunite as adults to create video games, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. On a bitter cold day, in the December of his Junior Year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway...

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fukú--the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents,...

Recounts the connected stories of people from the past and the distant future, from a nineteenth-century notary and an investigative journalist in the 1970s to a young man who searches for meaning in a post-apocalayptic world.