Stuart Little

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be Black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post–9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.

At once powerful and tender, Americanah is a remarkable novel that is “dazzling…funny and defiant, and simultaneously so wise.” —San Francisco Chronicle

This exceptional Egyptian novel – as mesmerising as it is controversial – caused an unprecedented stir when it was first published in Arabic.

Welcome to the Yacoubian Building, Cairo: once grand, now dilapidated, and full of stories and passion. Some live in squalor on its rooftop while others inhabit the faded glory of its apartments and offices. Within these walls religious fervour jostles with promiscuity; bribery with bliss; modern life with ancient culture. At ground level, Taha, the doorman’s son, harbours career aspirations and romantic dreams – but when these are dashed by unyielding corruption, hope turns to bitterness, with devastating consequences.

Alaa Al Aswany’s superb novel about Egypt’s many contradictions is at once an impassioned celebration and a ruthless dissection of a society dominated by dishonesty.

introduces us to families burdened equally by the past and the future. Here, we meet a childless couple with very different desires; a college professor comforting a troubled student; a mother seeking refuge from an abusive husband; an embittered spinster recalling the loss of a dear childhood friend; and a young woman waiting to join her lover abroad. High expectations – whether of success in Nigeria, or the dream of opportunity and accomplishment in America – consume them. In language that is both raw and elegant, his stories are often told from the point of a view of a child – a little girl, an adult daughter. Her closely observed characters populate stories that offer a clear-eyed view of an often traumatic family life, questioning the purpose of their time on earth, and whether there is a hereafter, or a different kind of afterlife altogether, outside of Port Harcourt. Happiness, Like Water heralds the arrival of a fearless and sensitive literary voice.

Life in Glory, Wyoming, population fifty-one, isn’t exactly exciting. The dusty old town isn’t even on the map. And for rancher Luke McCallister, that’s just fine. Broken by tragedy, the stoic cowboy spends his time at his Ten Bar Ranch or down at Ima Jane’s Rimrock Bar, trying to avoid the gossip being served along with the food and drink. But the everyday quiet of his life is shattered when he finds a human skull–and possibly the key to Glory’s oldest mystery.

It was one hundred years ago that a band of outlaws were said to have buried their gold in Glory. The one surviving bandit took the secret of the treasure’s hiding place with him to the gallows. Angie Sommers knows the story cold: that man was her great-great-grandfather. She’s come to Glory to see if the old legend of the gold is true, and she wants Luke to help her find it. She even has incentive: a possible clue written by the dead man himself.

Luke has no interest in chasing after pipe dreams. He’s seen the damage too much hope can bring. Still, he can’t deny that Angie makes him feel things he hasn’t allowed himself to feel in years. Something about her sweet, trusting nature, her honest eyes, and unshakable belief makes him feel alive again–and that could be dangerous. For someone else is determined to stop Angie, someone who would do anything for the outlaws’gold. Now, bound by the thinnest of ties and shadowed by danger, Luke and Angie set off in search of a mystery as romantic as the west itself on a journey of faith that will take them into Wyoming’s rugged, treacherous terrain and even deeper into the heart’s tender graces…

“The passion, spirit and strength readers expect from a Calder story–and a Calder hero–shine through.  .  .”
—Publishers Weekly on Lone Calder Star
“Dailey’s pacing, narrative, characterization and dialogue are all handled with verve and grace.”
—Publishers Weekly on Calder Promise