Life of Pi is a Canadian philosophical novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist is Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, India, who explores issues of spirituality and metaphysics from an early age. After a shipwreck, he survives 227 days while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger peculiarly named Richard Parker and an orangutan named Orange Juice along with several other zoo animals, raising questions about the nature of reality and how it is perceived and told.
Cate Kennedy is an Australian author based in Victoria.
The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change is a 2005 book by Australian scientist Tim Flannery. It discusses climate change, its scientific basis and effects, and potential solutions.
Magic for Beginners is a collection of nine works of fantasy and light horror short fiction by American writer Kelly Link, released by Small Beer Press in 2005. The stories were all previously published in other venues from 2002 to 2005.
Adrienne Kennedy is an American playwright. She is best known for Funnyhouse of a Negro, which premiered in 1964 and won an Obie Award. She won a lifetime Obie as well. In 2018 she was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame.
All Aunt Hagar's Children (2006) is a collection of short stories by African-American author Edward P. Jones; it was his first book after winning the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for The Known World. The collection of 14 stories centers on African Americans in Washington D.C. during the 20th century. The stories can be broken down by how the characters suffer burdens from families, society, and themselves. "Each story traces a journey--planned or unplanned, taken or failed--and an obvious root/route symbolism runs throughout the collection." Jones is noted for writing long short stories and these are no exception, they are sometimes called "novelistic", characters are fully fleshed out.
Nam Le is a Vietnamese-born Australian writer, who won the Dylan Thomas Prize for his book The Boat, a collection of short stories. His stories have been published in many places including Best Australian Stories 2007, Best New American Voices, Zoetrope: All-Story, A Public Space and One Story. In 2008 he was named a "5 Under 35" honoree by the National Book Foundation. In 2024 he published his first poetry collection with Knopf, 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem.
The Lazarus Project is a 2008 novel by Bosnian fiction writer and journalist Aleksandar Hemon. It features the true story of the death of Lazarus Averbuch, a teenaged Jewish immigrant to Chicago who was shot and killed by a police officer in 1908. It was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as, the winner of the inaugural Jan Michalski Prize for Literature in 2010.
Small Island is a novel written by British author Andrea Levy.
The Buddha in the Attic is a 2011 novel written by American author Julie Otsuka about Japanese picture brides immigrating to America in the early 1900s. It is Otsuka's second novel. The novel was published in the United States in August 2011 by the publishing house Knopf Publishing Group.
Dear Life is a short story collection by Canadian writer Alice Munro, published in 2012 by McClelland and Stewart.
The Book of Night Women is a 2009 novel by Jamaican author Marlon James. The book was first published in hardback on February 19, 2009, by Riverhead Books. The story follows Lilith, a young woman born into slavery, who challenges the boundaries of what is expected of her.
Anything Is Possible is a 2017 novel of related short stories by the American author Elizabeth Strout. The novel returns to the fictional rural town of Amgash, Illinois, which is the protagonist's hometown in Strout's 2016 novel My Name Is Lucy Barton. Former U.S. President Barack Obama included Anything Is Possible on a list of the best books he read in 2017. Anything is Possible won The Story Prize, a book award for short story collections.
Asymmetry is the first novel by American author Lisa Halliday, published in February 2018 by Simon & Schuster. The novel has received critical acclaim with The New Yorker calling it "a literary phenomenon" and The New York Times including it in the list of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Barack Obama included the book in his list of best books from 2018. The cover of the first edition locates the novel on Manhattan's Upper West Side by displaying the distinctive turret of 271 West End Avenue at 72nd Street.
Grand Union: Stories is a 2019 short story collection by Zadie Smith. It was published on 3 October 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books.
The Largesse of the Sea Maiden: Stories is a 2018 short story collection by Denis Johnson. It was published posthumously on January 16, 2018, by Random House. It consists of five short stories, three of which were previously published in The New Yorker and Playboy. Johnson finished the collection a few weeks before his death in May 2017.
Girl, Woman, Other is the eighth novel by Bernardine Evaristo. Published in 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, it follows the lives of 12 characters in the United Kingdom over the course of several decades. The book was the co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments.
Hamnet is a 2020 novel by Maggie O'Farrell. It is a fictional account of William Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, who died at age eleven in 1596, focusing on his parents' grief. In Canada, the novel was published under the title Hamnet & Judith.
The Friend is a novel by American writer Sigrid Nunez published by Riverhead Books in 2018. The book concerns an unnamed novelist who adopts a Great Dane that belonged to a deceased friend and mentor.
The Big Jubilee Read is a 2022 campaign to promote reading for pleasure and to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. A list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, 10 from each decade of Elizabeth II's reign, was selected by a panel of experts and announced by the BBC and The Reading Agency on 18 April 2022.
