Secondhand Literary Fiction Bargain Book Box SP2678
Secondhand Literary Fiction Bargain Box — 18 Books
Eighteen novels of remarkable range — a missionary traveling to another planet to bring Christianity to its alien inhabitants, a Finnish architect racing to build the world's tallest skyscraper, a Korean-American doctor returning to his wartime past, and a Soho brothel fighting off a property developer. Michel Faber's final novel sits alongside Patrick McCabe at his most hallucinatory, Chang-rae Lee at his most quietly devastating, the Italian collective Wu Ming in Cold War Europe, and a heavily annotated edition of one of Australian literature's great white whales. One of the most eclectic and rewarding boxes in this collection.
1. The Revenge of Mimi Quinn — Shirley Conran Shirley Conran (Lace) returns with a story of revenge served with the glamour and wit that made her one of the defining voices of the blockbuster novel. Compulsive and unapologetic in exactly the right way.
2. The Last Romantics — Tara Conklin A multigenerational family saga about four siblings and the summer that shapes everything that follows. Tara Conklin (The House Girl) writes about family mythology and the stories we inherit with warmth, intelligence, and real narrative sweep.
3. A Gesture Life — Chang-rae Lee A Japanese-Korean doctor living a quiet, careful life in suburban America begins to revisit his wartime past — and the carefully maintained surface of his existence begins to give way. Chang-rae Lee is one of the most important American novelists of his generation, and this is a novel of extraordinary emotional precision.
4. The Book of Strange New Things — Michel Faber A missionary travels to a distant planet to bring the word of God to its alien inhabitants — and back on Earth, his wife sends messages of a world in slow collapse. Faber's final novel, written as his wife was dying, is a profound meditation on faith, love, and the distances that open between people who love each other. One of the most remarkable novels of the last twenty years.
5. The Cloud Sketcher — Richard Rayner A Finnish architect arrives in America between the wars and becomes caught up in the race to build the sky — the age of the skyscraper, rendered with real historical and architectural texture alongside a love story that spans decades.
6. Hot Stew — Fiona Mozley From the Booker-shortlisted author of Elmet — a Soho brothel, a property developer who wants the building, and the community that forms in between. Mozley writes about power, place, and solidarity with the same fierce intelligence she brought to her debut. Alex Preston called it "a rollicking tale."
7. Devils in Exile — Chuck Hogan Veterans returning from Iraq fall into robbing drug dealers — and discover that crossing that line has consequences they didn't anticipate. Hogan (co-author of The Strain with Guillermo del Toro) writes about masculinity, moral injury, and the costs of war with visceral authenticity.
8. Take Me Apart — Sara Sligar A journalist hired to archive the papers of a famous photographer who died years ago begins to suspect that the official story of her death is wrong. Sligar writes literary crime fiction that is as interested in gender, power, and the image as it is in the mystery — genuinely gripping and genuinely intelligent.
9. Kismet — Luke Tredget Modern love in London, mediated by algorithms and apps — Tredget writes about online dating and the search for connection with a novelist's eye for what technology does to intimacy. Sharp, funny, and more emotionally layered than the premise suggests.
10. The Annotated Such is Life — Joseph Furphy One of the great unread masterpieces of Australian literature — Furphy's sprawling, digressive, wickedly comic novel about the Australian bush, finally given the scholarly apparatus it deserves. This annotated edition makes Such is Life genuinely accessible for the first time. Essential for anyone serious about Australian literary history.
11. Aki We Used to Be A novel about memory, friendship, and the distance between the people we were and the people we became — literary fiction with real emotional resonance and a cover that promises something worth discovering.
12. The Vale Girl — Nelika McDonald An Australian debut about a young woman in rural Victoria — McDonald writes about landscape, community, and the particular weight of small-town secrets with a confidence that belies the book's status as a first novel.
13. Home Grown Hero — Khurrum Rahman British crime fiction with real wit and pace — Ben Aaronovitch called it "as gripping and funny as his first thriller," which is about as good a recommendation as this genre offers. Rahman writes about British Muslim identity and the war on terror with sharp comedy and genuine moral seriousness.
14. The Body — Hanif Kureishi An elderly intellectual is offered the chance to transfer his consciousness into a young, beautiful body — and takes it. Kureishi at his most provocative and wickedly funny, asking what we think we own when we own ourselves.
15. In the Quiet — Eliza Henry Jones A mother dies and watches over her family from wherever the dead go — a novel about grief, love, and the things we leave behind told from an angle that makes the familiar feel completely new. Nikki Gemmell said "you will weep, and marvel, and pass this book on, and on, and on." She was right.
16. The Holy City — Patrick McCabe Winner of the Irish Novel of the Year Award — McCabe (The Butcher Boy) at his most hallucinatory and darkly comic, constructing a world where the boundary between the sacred and the profane has dissolved entirely. Not for the faint-hearted, and essential for anyone who wants Irish fiction at its most formally adventurous.
17. Drift — Brian Castro "An eerily intellectual comedy" — Australian Book Review. Brian Castro writes novels that demand and reward real attention, combining literary theory, autobiography, and fiction in ways that are consistently surprising. One of Australian literature's most singular and underappreciated voices.
18. 54 — Wu Ming From the Italian collective who gave us Q — a sprawling, dazzling novel set in 1954 at the hinge of the Cold War, where Cary Grant, a Yugoslavian partisan, a Rimini hotel, and the emerging television age somehow converge. Wu Ming writes history as carnival, and there is nothing else quite like it.
Genre: Fiction
Secondhand Literary Fiction Bargain Box — 18 Books
Eighteen novels of remarkable range — a missionary traveling to another planet to bring Christianity to its alien inhabitants, a Finnish architect racing to build the world's tallest skyscraper, a Korean-American doctor returning to his wartime past, and a Soho brothel fighting off a property developer. Michel Faber's final novel sits alongside Patrick McCabe at his most hallucinatory, Chang-rae Lee at his most quietly devastating, the Italian collective Wu Ming in Cold War Europe, and a heavily annotated edition of one of Australian literature's great white whales. One of the most eclectic and rewarding boxes in this collection.
1. The Revenge of Mimi Quinn — Shirley Conran Shirley Conran (Lace) returns with a story of revenge served with the glamour and wit that made her one of the defining voices of the blockbuster novel. Compulsive and unapologetic in exactly the right way.
2. The Last Romantics — Tara Conklin A multigenerational family saga about four siblings and the summer that shapes everything that follows. Tara Conklin (The House Girl) writes about family mythology and the stories we inherit with warmth, intelligence, and real narrative sweep.
3. A Gesture Life — Chang-rae Lee A Japanese-Korean doctor living a quiet, careful life in suburban America begins to revisit his wartime past — and the carefully maintained surface of his existence begins to give way. Chang-rae Lee is one of the most important American novelists of his generation, and this is a novel of extraordinary emotional precision.
4. The Book of Strange New Things — Michel Faber A missionary travels to a distant planet to bring the word of God to its alien inhabitants — and back on Earth, his wife sends messages of a world in slow collapse. Faber's final novel, written as his wife was dying, is a profound meditation on faith, love, and the distances that open between people who love each other. One of the most remarkable novels of the last twenty years.
5. The Cloud Sketcher — Richard Rayner A Finnish architect arrives in America between the wars and becomes caught up in the race to build the sky — the age of the skyscraper, rendered with real historical and architectural texture alongside a love story that spans decades.
6. Hot Stew — Fiona Mozley From the Booker-shortlisted author of Elmet — a Soho brothel, a property developer who wants the building, and the community that forms in between. Mozley writes about power, place, and solidarity with the same fierce intelligence she brought to her debut. Alex Preston called it "a rollicking tale."
7. Devils in Exile — Chuck Hogan Veterans returning from Iraq fall into robbing drug dealers — and discover that crossing that line has consequences they didn't anticipate. Hogan (co-author of The Strain with Guillermo del Toro) writes about masculinity, moral injury, and the costs of war with visceral authenticity.
8. Take Me Apart — Sara Sligar A journalist hired to archive the papers of a famous photographer who died years ago begins to suspect that the official story of her death is wrong. Sligar writes literary crime fiction that is as interested in gender, power, and the image as it is in the mystery — genuinely gripping and genuinely intelligent.
9. Kismet — Luke Tredget Modern love in London, mediated by algorithms and apps — Tredget writes about online dating and the search for connection with a novelist's eye for what technology does to intimacy. Sharp, funny, and more emotionally layered than the premise suggests.
10. The Annotated Such is Life — Joseph Furphy One of the great unread masterpieces of Australian literature — Furphy's sprawling, digressive, wickedly comic novel about the Australian bush, finally given the scholarly apparatus it deserves. This annotated edition makes Such is Life genuinely accessible for the first time. Essential for anyone serious about Australian literary history.
11. Aki We Used to Be A novel about memory, friendship, and the distance between the people we were and the people we became — literary fiction with real emotional resonance and a cover that promises something worth discovering.
12. The Vale Girl — Nelika McDonald An Australian debut about a young woman in rural Victoria — McDonald writes about landscape, community, and the particular weight of small-town secrets with a confidence that belies the book's status as a first novel.
13. Home Grown Hero — Khurrum Rahman British crime fiction with real wit and pace — Ben Aaronovitch called it "as gripping and funny as his first thriller," which is about as good a recommendation as this genre offers. Rahman writes about British Muslim identity and the war on terror with sharp comedy and genuine moral seriousness.
14. The Body — Hanif Kureishi An elderly intellectual is offered the chance to transfer his consciousness into a young, beautiful body — and takes it. Kureishi at his most provocative and wickedly funny, asking what we think we own when we own ourselves.
15. In the Quiet — Eliza Henry Jones A mother dies and watches over her family from wherever the dead go — a novel about grief, love, and the things we leave behind told from an angle that makes the familiar feel completely new. Nikki Gemmell said "you will weep, and marvel, and pass this book on, and on, and on." She was right.
16. The Holy City — Patrick McCabe Winner of the Irish Novel of the Year Award — McCabe (The Butcher Boy) at his most hallucinatory and darkly comic, constructing a world where the boundary between the sacred and the profane has dissolved entirely. Not for the faint-hearted, and essential for anyone who wants Irish fiction at its most formally adventurous.
17. Drift — Brian Castro "An eerily intellectual comedy" — Australian Book Review. Brian Castro writes novels that demand and reward real attention, combining literary theory, autobiography, and fiction in ways that are consistently surprising. One of Australian literature's most singular and underappreciated voices.
18. 54 — Wu Ming From the Italian collective who gave us Q — a sprawling, dazzling novel set in 1954 at the hinge of the Cold War, where Cary Grant, a Yugoslavian partisan, a Rimini hotel, and the emerging television age somehow converge. Wu Ming writes history as carnival, and there is nothing else quite like it.