Search History oscillates between a wild cyberdog chase and lunch-date monologues as Eugene Lim deconstructs grieving and storytelling with uncanny juxtapositions and subversive satire. Frank Exit is dead—or is he? While eavesdropping on two women discussing a dog-sitting gig over lunch, a bereft friend comes to a shocking realization: Frank has been reincarnated as a dog! This epiphany launches a series of adventures—interlaced with digressions about AI-generated fiction, virtual reality, Asian American identity in the arts, and lost parents—as an unlikely cast of accomplices and enemies pursues the mysterious canine. In elliptical, propulsive prose, Search History plumbs the depths of personal and collective consciousness, questioning what we consume, how we grieve, and the stories we tell ourselves.

In a remote English manor house, modern admirersof the much-maligned King Richard III—one of Shakespeare's most extraordinary villains—are gathered for a grand weekend of dress-up and make-believe murder. But the fun ends when the masquerade turns more sinister . . . and deadly. Jacqueline Kirby, an American librarian on hand for the festivities, suddenly finds herself in the center of strange, dark doings . . . and racing to untangle a murderous puzzle before history repeats itself in exceptionally macabre ways.

“Lauren Grodstein breaks your heart, then miraculously pieces it back together so it’s bigger—and stronger—than before.” —Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You How can a woman learn to let go of the people she loves the most? Karen Neulander, a successful New York political consultant and single mother, has always been fiercely protective of her son, Jacob, now six. She’s had to be: when Jacob’s father, Dave, found out Karen was pregnant and made it clear that fatherhood wasn’t in his plans, Karen walked out of the relationship, never telling Dave her intention was to raise their child alone. But now Jake is asking to meet his dad, and with good reason: Karen is dying. When she finally calls her ex, she’s shocked to find Dave ecstatic about the son he never knew he had. First, he can’t meet Jake fast enough, and then he can’t seem to leave him alone. Karen quickly grows anxious as she watches Dave insinuate himself into Jake’s life just as her own strength and hold on Jake grow more tenuous. As she struggles to play out her last days in the “right” way for Jake, Karen wrestles with the knowledge that the only thing she cannot bring herself to do for her son—let his father become a permanent part of his life—is the thing he needs from her the most. With heart-wrenching poignancy, unexpected wit, and mordant humor, Lauren Grodstein has created an unforgettable story about parenthood, sacrifice, and life itself.

Reprint. Originally published: Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, A 2013.

A teenage girl comes of age amid hidden dangers and family secrets in the Minnesota woods in this “beautiful, icy [and] electrifying debut” novel (NPR). Teenage Linda lives with her parents in the austere woods of northern Minnesota, where their nearly abandoned commune stands as a last vestige of a counter-culture world. Isolated at home and an outsider at school, Linda is drawn to the new history teacher Mr. Grierson. But his shocking arrested for child pornography leaves Linda adrift as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires. When the young Gardner family moves in across the lake, Linda finds herself welcomed into their home as a babysitter for their little boy. But this new sense of belonging comes with secrets and expectations she doesn’t understand. Over the course of a summer, Linda will have to make choices that reverberate throughout her life. Finalist for the Man Booker Award One of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2017

An accessible and wide-ranging study of the history of the book within local, national and global contexts.

Designed as a companion to The Columbia Literary History of the United States, this compilation of 31 major essays covers the American novel from the 1700s to the present, although the majority deal with the 20th century. Within each era, themes, genres, and topics such as realism, gender, romance, and technology are discussed in depth, as well as modern Canadian, Caribbean, and Latin American fiction. Each essayist selects only the authors who best illustrate the topic, thus subtly skewing the view of the literary scene at that time. The volume also covers women, minorities, popular fiction, and the book marketplace. ISBN 0-231-07360-7: $59.95.