May 17, 2025
This week, we recommend a historical novel—steeped in philosophy and collapsing time—that we’re launching at The Center. Two debut works of fiction focus on food, both entertainingly comic; and we have two graphic works—one featuring a sidesplitting take on farm life, another introducing us to the wonderful world of bugs. There is plenty to make you chuckle, as well as ponder life’s bigger questions.
Happy reading,
Melanie Fleishman
Buyer, The Center for Fiction Bookstore
Featured Books
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The Book of Records
By MADELEINE THIEN
Published by W. W. NORTON
It has been almost a decade since Canadian novelist’s Thien’s fiction first appeared, claiming the two top literary prizes in Canada and making the Booker Prize shortlist. Her new novel features a building made of time, called “The Sea,” where a father and daughter arrive after fleeing their home in former China. The book is a magical and haunting exploration of migration that was inspired by both Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges. Thien has said the novel “deals with questions about survival, about our obligations to one another, […] about what it means to think about the time we live in.”
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Food Person
By ADAM ROBERTS
Published by KNOPF
The plot reads like a setup for a perfect storm. Our protagonist, Isabella, is a devoted ‘food person’ who has lost her gig at a digital food magazine when the chance to ghostwrite a cookbook arises. The author, Molly, is a famously narcissistic actress with a reputation for creating chaos who is also reeling from a scandal-ridden history. As the action unfolds and pandemonium ensues, their relationship (think Hacks) slowly deepens. Brooklyn resident Roberts, who has written a food blog for twenty years, brings his inside perspective on the volatile culinary industry to bear on a first novel of extreme delight.
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Insectopolis
By Peter Kuper
Published by W. W. NORTON
There have been many books published recently about insects and their fascinating histories. Kuper’s talent here is shining a light on a scientific subject while bringing the study of insect societies into contrast with human behavior through cartoons. In fact, Kuper, who has adapted classics like The Metamorphosis—more insects!—has taught a class on the graphic novel at Harvard University. He is also simultaneously publishing a companion coloring book to this new one. Told through the POV of the insects themselves, there are so many fun facts (about ants, dung beetles, butterflies, and more)—readers will be enthralled by this unconventional history of entomology
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Aftertaste
By DARIA LAVELLE
Published by SIMON & SCHUSTER
Foodies rejoice. Kyiv-born Lavelle manages to apply her love of wonderful meals to a debut novel that is a romance, a ghost story, and a story of grief. Kostya lost his father at a young age—ever since, he has felt the presence of spirits that trigger memories (aftertastes) of imaginary meals. He wonders what it would be like to enable those who’ve lost loved ones to have a last meal with them, a form of clairgustance–or clairvoyant tasting. He decides to open a restaurant dedicated to the gift he has, but the result attracts the Russian mob, and Aftertaste becomes a delicious supernatural thriller set in the exciting New York culinary scene.
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Spent
By ALISON BECHDEL
Published by MARINER
Bechdel’s bestseller Fun Home was a graphic memoir about coming out to her family that became a smash hit on Broadway. In her hilarious new comic novel, a cartoonist named Alison runs a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont and is in an existential crisis about the country. Her first graphic memoir about growing up is made into a TV show, Death and Taxidermy, winning Emmy after Emmy. But when Alison’s partner Holly posts an instructional wood-chopping video that goes viral, her own envy and competition get the better of her. Being compared to a gay Curb Your Enthusiasm, it’s just in time for Pride.
