Adam Gordon is a brilliant, if highly unreliable, young American poet on a prestigious fellowship in Madrid, struggling to establish his sense of self and his relationship to art. What is actual when our experiences are mediated by language, technology, medication, and the arts? Is poetry an essential art form, or merely a screen for the reader's projections? Instead of following the dictates of his fellowship, Adam's "research" becomes a meditation...

"From the author compared to Norah Ephron and Nancy Mitford, not to mention Jane Austen, comes a new novel celebrating the beauty, mischief, and occasional treachery of language. The Grammarians are Laurel and Daphne Wolfe, identical, inseparable redheaded twins who share an obsession with words. They speak a secret "twin" tongue of their own as toddlers; as adults making their way in 1980s Manhattan, their verbal infatuation continues, but this love,...

"Beneath the waters by the islands of Gelle-Geu, a star sleeps restlessly. The celebrated new starkeeper Ranra Kekeri, who is preoccupied by the increasing tremors, confronts the problems left behind by her predecessor. Meanwhile, the poet Erígra Lilún, who merely wants to be left alone, is repeatedly asked by their ancestor Semberí to take over the starkeeping helm. Semberí insists upon telling Lilún mysterious tales of the deliverance of the...

In the far north of Italy lies the valley of the ice-cream makers: about a dozen villages where, for generations, people have specialised in making ice cream. Giuseppe Talamini claims it was actually invented here. Every spring his family sets off for the ice-cream parlour in Rotterdam, returning to the mountains only in winter. Eldest son Giovanni Talamini decides to break with this tradition by pursuing a literary career. But then one day his younger...

Deciding to become a haiku poet in 1884 Japan, Yuko Akita embarks on a perilous journey to the side of his new master, a blind artist who has a unique insight into the properties of color, and along the way he becomes obsessed by a beautiful woman who has frozen to death.

As he cleans out his dead father's workshop, Jess Kirkman of North Carolina discovers a treasure map with the names of women. He goes to see them and obtains new insights into his father's character. Fourth installment in a family saga by the author of Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You.

"Cliopher Mdang has been appointed Viceroy of Zunidh by his beloved Radiancy, the Last Emperor, who has now left him behind in the Palace to safeguard the world during his absence on a quest to find an appropriately magical heir. When he returns, he will abdicate, and Cliopher will at last retire, satisfied with having achieved most of his life's political goals--even if his long-suppressed personal dreams are starting to bubble up. (Surely he used...

Set in a British military hospital during WWI, this novel blends fact and fiction, drawing its two protagonists from the pages of history. The author of Union Street (made into the film Stanley and Iris) portrays overwhelmed men who try to come to terms with their outrage of a futile war.

VEerity Wolf dreams of being a poet-not that she'd ever admit it to anyone. Her best friend, Jess, thinks she's definitely got what it takes, while her cat, Zorro, is characteristically indifferent. As for the cute boy she's just met, he's about to discover her best kept secret. When Verity stumbles on an old, mysterious book, Poemsia, she finds herself suddenly thrust into the dizzying world of social media stardom, where poets are the new rock stars...

Distraught at the loss of his inspiration, Lionel Savage, a poet from Victorian London, accidentally conjures the Devil and realizes that he has inadvertently sold his rich wife's soul to him, and plots a rescue mission to Hell with an assortment of unlikely companions.