Counterpoint: 634 books

The real life behind Helen Hunt’s Oscar-nominated performance in The Sessions: “A provocative and unusual book about a provocative and unusual profession” (Booklist).   For the past forty years, Cheryl Cohen Greene has worked as a surrogate partner, helping clients to confront and ultimately...

The human rights journalist and author of Irritable Hearts: A PTSD Love Story shines a light on the Karen refugees fleeing Burma’s genocide.   There’s a civil war (the world’s longest running, in fact) raging between the Burmese government and ethnic rebels. But since Burma is a country nearly...

Amidst the fog of San Francisco, a debut author reflects on his brother’s life and suicide in this “painful, intimate, and exquisitely written” memoir (Peter Orner).   In San Francisco, the summer fog blows inland off the ocean and the landscape changes from moment to moment. Amidst this ever-changing...

In this “often riotous, ultimately moving Cat’s Cradle for our time,” a Texas couple prepares for the apocalypse (Kirkus Reviews). In Austin, Milton and Rica are expecting their first child. It’s four days and counting. Not for the baby. But for the end of the world. Evidence: Haydon...

A horrifying, hilarious and subversive “work of literary devilry” about lust and envy, a man and a girl, and a plan (The New York Times).   Hailed as “wicked, sexy, funny, ghastly, [and] tragic” (Michael-Lindsay Hogg), Undone is the tour-de-force black comedy by International IMPAC Dublin...

The “inspirational” true story of a glamorous young life upended—and transformed—by a sudden brain trauma (Sacramento Bee).   A Publishers Weekly Best Nonfiction Book of the Year   “Having just graduated from college, Krug and her dreamy French boyfriend, Claude, leave the flatlands of...

Their father’s body ravaged by illness, two siblings try to recover from failed marriages and rebuild their lives in this moving, hilarious novel.   Judy Lee’s life has not turned out the way she’d imagined. She’s divorced, she’s broke, and her dreams of being a painter have fallen by the...

Eugenics, body horror, eros, and medical ethics collide is this “ambitious, provocative, and wildly inventive” dystopian satire (Publishers Weekly). Anne Hatley is a sharp-witted and acerbic young teacher in need of a reprieve from the drudgery of work and a tedious relationship. She accepts...

A “sharply observed” collection of ten stories in which a character’s everyday life takes them on a journey of self-actualization and transformation (Toronto Star). In this striking debut collection, characters find unexpected moments of profound insight while navigating the monotony...

“An elegy for an era . . . Funny, raucous, and deliciously irreverent . . . This generous, big-hearted novel is a joy to read.” —Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk It’s 2007, and the independent video stores are dying. But Waring Wax, the grumpy guy behind the...

This debut novel is “full of madcap energy, swagger, and brinksmanship” (Fiona Maazel, author of Last, Last Chance). Rochester, New York, 1999: An arsonist is loose on the streets of a city in decline. Gone are the days of Rioting in the Vomit Cruiser, searching for a possible Tokyo Rocking...

An “unsettling, scary, and often brilliant” novel based on two of the most notorious crimes of the 1980s: “Sharp, twisted . . . this is a keeper” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The year was 1981. The US was entering a deep recession, the Soviet Union was an Evil Empire, and John...

An “enchanting” memoir of an artist in search of herself: “A sure hit for fans of Sara Benincasa’s Agorafabulous! and Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind of Girl” (Booklist, starred review). Caca Dolce is the “funny, candid, and bracingly self-aware” story of Chelsea Martin’s coming...

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year that “fondly recalls John Kennedy Toole’s 1980 classic A Confederacy of Dunces.” Esmerelda Van Twinkle, a failed pastry chef turned obese copy shop manager, stumbles into motherhood after a semi-intentional liaison with good-natured coupon...