Akashic Books Ignition: 146 books

From the award-winning author of The Boy Detective Fails: A novel of two brothers growing up on the other side of the tracks.   “A trailer park in the Plains town of Tenderloin is the setting of this crusty coming-of-age debut, which features some of the liveliest characters just this side of believable...

A tale of political downfall from “an exceptional creative talent perfectly in tune with his own rapidly changing times” (Robert Coover, bestselling author of The Public Burning).   In 2002, real-life mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, Vincent “Buddy” Cianci was convicted of extortion. This...

“Haunting” stories about crimes that are “often submerged in the greater tragedy of a beautiful city constantly torn within and without by violence” (Publishers Weekly). Beirut is a city both urban and rural, a city of violence and forgiveness, memory and forgetfulness, war and peace....

A hustler searches for truth in a dystopian Boston, in this novel of “comically elaborate twists and turns of plot [and] broad social satire” (Robert Coover, bestselling author of The Public Burning). An abandoned child hustles on the streets of a dystopic, near-future Boston in the aftermath...

An “entertaining” novel about a family of three women “navigating relationships, a half-dozen lovers and innumerable dogs” (Publishers Weekly).   Alice Hunter is a thirty-six-year-old professional gambler living in Queens, New York. She is modestly successful as a horseplayer and enjoys her...

By the author of Waiting in Vain: “A sparkling gift, the tale of a meager, shoeless, raggedy abandoned Cinderella whose hardships make her all the wiser” (The Washington Post).   Set in 1942 on the imagined island of San Carlos—a cultural cocktail of Trinidad, Cuba, and Jamaica—this is the...

“A fast-paced story of father and son, packed with misadventures and set against the backdrop of contemporary Jamaica” (Kirkus Reviews).   Everton Dorril, a rising star at a Jamaican beverage company, immediately fears the worst when his stepmother calls one morning to tell him his father is...

The River City emerges as a hot spot for unseemly noir in this anthology with a foreword by New York Times–bestselling author Tom Robbins. A rich literary tradition sets the stage for this talented group of authors who take their inspiration from Virginia’s capital city. Edgar Allan Poe...

Years after her son was abducted, a mother opens the door to a young man in this “unique and very moving novel” (Booklist).   Beverley Cottrell had a prestigious job, a beautiful husband and baby boy. It was all stolen from her one winter afternoon when her son, Malakay, was kidnapped from a...

“A perceptive and moving tale of an African-American middle-class marriage struggling to right itself.” —Publishers Weekly   Justin and Sally Peters are both passionate educators—Justin a hardened, Harvard-educated professor of literature at a small public college, and Sally a gentle elementary...

“Every country (if she’s lucky) gets the Mark Twain she deserves, and Winkler is ours, bristling with savage Jamaican wit” (Marlon James). Being dead is most definitely an impediment to writing a book, under ordinary circumstances. But the narrator of this novel, Taddeus Augustus Baps,...

This tragicomic novel set in sixteenth-century Jamaica is a “gusty, boisterous, [and] entertaining . . . slice of historical fiction” (Alan Cheuse, NPR, All Things Considered).   Winner of the 2014 Townsend Prize for Fiction   A fortune-seeking band of ragtag sailors travel aboard the Santa...

“A captivating tale of Oufoula Sindede, an African diplomat in a passionless marriage who falls madly in love with Marguerite, a New York City artist.” —Essence   Dutifully married to lovely Nerida, Oufoula goes through the motions, formally keeping his distance from the woman with whom he...

“[Evaristo’s] chef d’oeuvre; a masterful dissection of the life of a 74 year-old, British-Caribbean gay man.” —The Huffington Post * Winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction * A Top Ten Favorite of the American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender...