Classic fiction is reimagined in these fresh takes on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Tempest, Othello, Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, and Howard’s End.
James by Percival Everett
A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. While many narrative set pieces of the original remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
Hag-seed by Margaret Atwood
Felix is at the top of his game as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. Now he’s staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan.
New Boy by Tracy Chevalier
Starting his fifth school in five years, Osei Kokote, a diplomat’s son, hoping to survive his first day becomes friends with Dee, the most popular girl in school, but Ian is determined to destroy the budding friendship.
March by Geraldine Brooks
As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the war, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs.
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane’s fortieth birthday fast approaches. Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible.
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society–she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee treated as an exotic attraction by her peers while the most important doors remain closed to her.
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn’t like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. Then Jerome, Howard’s older son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing icon Monty Kipps. The two families find themselves thrown together in a beautiful corner of America, enacting a cultural and personal war against the background of real wars that they barely register.
