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Fiction Books in this online selection represent only a sliver of what we offer in the store. If you've got a particular book in mind and want to check on its availability, call us at 415-362-8193.

<<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >>>     sort list by title | author Suite for Barbara Loden Nathalie Léger How easy it is to swoon and obsess over Barbara Loden and her visionary film Wanda.  This canny fascination is the most splendid synthesis of author, actress, film, and memory. —Recommended by Cassie, City Lights Books Shelter in Place A Novel Alexander Maksik Set in the Pacific Northwest in the jittery, jacked-up early 1990s, Shelter in Place, by one of America's most thrillingly defiant contemporary authors, is a stylish literary novel about the hereditary nature of mental illness, the fleeting intensity of youth, the obligations of family, and the dramatic consequences of love. Selected Works Justin Chin, Jennifer Joseph A Bay Area legend who knew how to excite readers, make them laugh, leave them devastated. Then, make them fall in love (with him), say "Heck yeah!" & clap their hands until it hurt—it still hurts. A beautiful soul taken too soon. —Recommended by Jared The Revolutionaries Try Again A Novel Mauro Javier Cardenas Extravagant, absurd, and self-aware, The Revolutionaries Try Again plays out against the lost decade of Ecuador's austerity and the stymied idealism of three childhood friends—an expat, a bureaucrat, and a playwright—who are as sure about the evils of dictatorship as they are unsure of everything else, including each other. The Visiting Privilege New and Collected Stories Joy Williams The legendary writer's first collection in more than ten years—and, finally, the definitive one. A literary event of the highest order. Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing as a given from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. A Manual for Cleaning Women Selected Stories Lucia Berlin Detox centers, laundromats, and triage units are not expected terrain for short stories, but these are the scenarios you find yourself in while reading Lucia Berlin. Her writing is absurdly real and tragically hilarious, often plucked from her own tumultuous life. —Recommended by Cassie, City Lights Books and also by Peter, City Lights Books Christodora A Novel Tim Murphy A captivating portrait of how ambition, compulsion, and trauma form and re-form the lives of us all, Christodora is a closely observed panoramic novel that powerfully evokes the danger, chaos, and wonder of New York City—and the strange and moving ways in which its dwellers' lives can intersect. —Recommended by Paul After the Parade A Novel Lori Ostlund This generous debut by local author Lori Ostlund is a strange delight. —Recommended by Cassie, City Lights Books From Flannery O'Connor and Rona Jaffe Award winner Lori Ostlund, a deeply moving and beautiful debut novel about a man who leaves his longtime partner in New Mexico for a new life in San Francisco... Dragonfish A Novel Vu Tran "Vu Tran's Dragonfish is that rare hybrid marvel―a literary thriller, a narrative of migration and loss that upends the conventions of any form." ―Dinaw Mengestu, author of All Our Names Muse A Novel Jonathan Galassi Paul Dukach is heir apparent at Purcell & Stern, one of the last independent publishing houses in New York, whose shabby offices on Union Square belie the treasures on its list. Working with his boss, the flamboyant Homer Stern, Paul learns the ins and outs of the book trade—how to work an agent over lunch; how to swim with the literary sharks... Grief Is the Thing with Feathers A Novel Max Porter Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar--a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons who like him struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness... The Lost Civilization of Suolucidir Susan Daitch Indiana Jones meets Italo Calvino in a masterful, absurdist blend of biting social satire, rollicking adventure, invented history and mythology. A Cure for Suicide A Novel Jesse Ball All of Ball's books are beautiful, but the heart-stopping beauty of this book's complex internal logic reaches the sublime. It is its own argument for existence. —Recommended by Erin Kind of like how you can read all of Vonnegut when you're young, I've read all of Ball's work into my 30s. —Recommended by Jake, City Lights Books Counternarratives Stories and Novellas John Keene If I were on a deserted island and had to pick one book to read over and over again, I. would. take. this. one. —Recommended by Tân, City Lights Books Also recommended by Andy, City Lights Books <<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >>>