The Best Fiction Novels 2024

1. The Flight of Peter Fromm (Paperback)

The Flight of Peter Fromm is a novel of ideas disguised as the biography of a young man from a Pentecostal fundamentalist background in Oklahoma, who loses his faith while a student at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His spiritual odyssey is narrated by his mentor, a professor at the divinity school - who is actually a humanist who believes neither in God nor in an afterlife. Although Peter never abandons his theism or his admiration for Jesus, he reaches a point where he feels it would be hypocritical to remain within the church and to become the evangelist he had hoped to be.The counterpoint between Peter and the narrator reflects the eternal conflict between theism and atheism. In following the changes of Peter's beliefs, almost every aspect of Protestant theology and ethics is explored. The evolution of Peter's faith parallels the evolution of Christian theology, from the day of Pentecost to contemporary liberal theology.

The Flight of Peter Fromm is a novel of ideas disguised as the biography of a young man from a Pentecostal fundamentalist background in Oklahoma, who loses his faith while a student at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His spiritual odyssey is narrated by his mentor, a professor at the divinity school - who is actually a humanist who believes neither in God nor in an afterlife. Although Peter never abandons his theism or his admiration for Jesus, he reaches a point where he feels it would be hypocritical to remain within the church and to become the evangelist he had hoped to be.The counterpoint between Peter and the narrator reflects the eternal conflict between theism and atheism. In following the changes of Peter's beliefs, almost every aspect of Protestant theology and ethics is explored. The evolution of Peter's faith parallels the evolution of Christian theology, from the day of Pentecost to contemporary liberal theology.

2. The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (Paperback)

Mad, immortal stories now surfaced from the literary underground. Charles Bukowski's stories have addicted legions of American readers, even though the high literary establishment continues to ignore them. In Europe, however (particularly in Germany, Italy, and France where he is published by the great publishing houses), he is critically recognized as one of America's greatest realist writers. In Bukowski's trademark semi-autobiographical short prose style, he addresses recurrent themes such as Los Angeles bar culture, alcoholism, gambling, sex, and violence. Many of the stories contain elements of fantasy and surrealism. Stories contained in The Most Beautiful Women in Town include: "Kid Stardust on the Porterhouse;" "Life in a Texas Whorehouse;" "Six Inches;" "The Day We Talked About James Thurber;" "The Copulating Mermaid of Venice, Calif;" and "A Drinking Partner" among many others. "Collections such as The Most Beautiful Woman in Town . . . showcase Bukowski's impressive narrative and creative abilities in stories that most often take place in bars and dingy apartments but are not simply about sex and alcohol. They're about staying alive in a world where the only choice for the majority of us is to face a firing squad in an office every day--the post office, in Bukowski's case--or maintain a commitment to creativity as we struggle to pay for food and a meager place to live."--Adam Perry, Santa Fe Reporter

The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (Paperback)

3. Cold Sassy Tree (Hardcover)

The unforgettable characters of Cold Sassy, Georgia, are presented in this heartwarming story of modern times coming to a small Southern town. "Rich with emotion, humor and tenderness".--Washington Post Book World. Received enormous national publicity as a Hallmark Hall of Fame TV-movie starring Faye Dunaway. The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around - fast. When Grandpa E. Rucker Blakeslee announces one July morning in 1906 that he's aiming to marry the young and freckledy milliner, Miss Love Simpson - a bare three weeks after Granny Blakeslee has gone to her reward - the news is served up all over town with that afternoon's dinner. And young Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a major scandal. Boggled by the sheer audacity of it all, and not a little jealous of his grandpa's new wife, Will nevertheless approves of this May-December match and follows its progress with just a smidgen of youthful prurience. As the newlyweds' chaperone, conspirator, and confidant, Will is privy to his one-armed, renegade grandfather's second adolescence; meanwhile, he does some growing up of his own. He gets run over by a train and lives to tell about it; he kisses his first girl, and survives that too. Olive Ann Burns has given us a timeless, funny, resplendent novel - about a romance that rocks an entire town, about a boy's passage through the momentous but elusive year when childhood melts into adolescence, and about just how people lived and died in a small Southern town at the turn of the century. Inhabited by characters who are wise and loony, unimpeachably pious and deliciously irreverent, Cold Sassy, Georgia, is the perfect setting for the debut of a storyteller of rare brio, exuberance, and style.

Cold Sassy Tree (Hardcover)

4. Pre-Owned Inheritor (Mass Market Paperback) 0886777283 9780886777289

The third novel in Cherryh's Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences... Six months have passed since the reappearance of the starship Phoenix --the same ship which brought a colony of humans to the hostile environment of alien atevi nearly two hundred years ago. During these six months, the atevi have reconfigured their fledgling space program in a bid to take their place in the heavens alongside humans. But the return of the Phoenix has added a frighteningly powerful third party to an already volatile situation, polarizing both human and atevi political factions, and making the possibility of all-out planetary war an even more likely threat. On the atevi mainland, human ambassador Bren Cameron, in a desperate attempt to maintain the peace, has arranged for one human representative from the Phoenix to take up residence with him in his apartments, and for another to be stationed on humanity's island enclave. Bren himself is unable to return home for fear of being arrested or assassinated by the powerful arch conservative element who wish to bar the atevi from space. Responsible for a terrified, overwhelmed young man, and desperately trying to keep abreast of the atevi associations, how can Bren possibly find a way to save two species from a three-sided conflict that no one can win?

The third novel in Cherryh’s Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences… Six months have passed since the reappearance of the starship Phoenix—the same ship which brought a colony of humans to the hostile environment of alien atevi nearly two hundred years ago. During these six months, the atevi have reconfigured their fledgling space program in a bid to take their place in the heavens alongside humans. But the return of the Phoenix has added a frighteningly powerful third party to an already volatile situation, polarizing both human and atevi political factions, and making the possibility of all-out planetary war an even more likely threat. On the atevi mainland, human ambassador Bren Cameron, in a desperate attempt to maintain the peace, has arranged for one human representative from the Phoenix to take up residence with him in his apartments, and for another to be stationed on humanity's island enclave. Bren himself is unable to return home for fear of being arrested or assassinated by the powerful arch conservative element who wish to bar the atevi from space. Responsible for a terrified, overwhelmed young man, and desperately trying to keep abreast of the atevi associations, how can Bren possibly find a way to save two species from a three-sided conflict that no one can win?

5. The Road to Los Angeles, (Paperback)

I had a lot of jobs in Los Angeles Harbor because our family was poor and my father was dead. My first job was ditchdigging a short time after I graduated from high school. Every night I couldn't sleep from the pain in my back. We were digging an excavation in an empty lot, there wasn't any shade, the sun came straight from a cloudless sky, and I was down in that hole digging with two huskies who dug with a love for it, always laughing and telling jokes, laughing and smoking bitter tobacco.

The Road to Los Angeles, (Paperback) Author: Ecco Press ISBN: 9780876856499 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 2002-05-31 Page Count: 176

6. Tales of Ordinary Madness, (Paperback)

Exceptional stories that come pounding out of Bukowski's violent and depraved life. Horrible and holy, you cannot read them and ever come away the same again. This collection of stories was once part of the 1972 City Lights classic, Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness. That book was later split into two volumes and republished: The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and, this book, Tales of Ordinary Madness. With Bukowski, the votes are still coming in. There seems to be no middle ground--people seem either to love him or hate him. Tales of his own life and doings are as wild and weird as the very stories he writes. In a sense, Bukowski was a legend in his time, a madman, a recluse, a lover; tender, vicious; never the same. "Bukowski ... a professional disturber of the peace ... laureate of Los Angeles netherworld [writes with] crazy romantic insistence that losers are less phony than winners, and with an angry compassion for the lost."--Jack Kroll, Newsweek "Bukowski's works are extraordinarily vivid and often bitterly funny observations of people living on the very edge of oblivion. His poetry, in all its glorious simplicity, was accessible the way poetry seldom is a testament to his genius."--Nick Burton, PIF Magazine

Tales of Ordinary Madness, (Paperback) Author: City Lights Books ISBN: 9780872861558 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1984-01-01 Page Count: 238

7. Hot Water Music (Paperback)

With his characteristic raw and minimalist style, Charles Bukowski takes us on a walk through his side of town in Hot Water Music. He gives us little vignettes of depravity and lasciviousness, bite sized pieces of what is both beautiful and grotesque. The stories in Hot Water Music dash around the worst parts of town - a motel room stinking of sick, a decrepit apartment housing a perpetually arguing couple, a bar tended by a skeleton - and depict the darkest parts of human existence. Bukowski talks simply and profoundly about the underbelly of the working class without raising judgement. In the way he writes about sex, relationships, writing, and inebriation, Bukowski sets the bar for irreverent art - his work inhabits the basest part of the mind and the most extreme absurdity of the everyday.

Hot Water Music (Paperback)

8. Afca's Defensive Football Drills (Paperback)

In this day of explosive scoring and rules changes that favor the offense, fielding a competitive defense is more difficult than ever. AFCA's Defensive Football Drills tries to level the playing field by providing the defense with practice activities that teach defenders the skills they need to excel. The book's 70 drills are divided into four sections: - Defensive Line drills - Linebacker drills - Defensive Back drills - Team Defense drills Developed in cooperation with the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA)--the leading football coaching organization with more than 8,000 members--this book features drills and insights from many of the country's best college and high school defensive coaches. AFCA's Defensive Football Drills develops the fundamental skills every defender needs to compete in today's game--an aggressive style of play and an understanding of complex defensive strategies. All of the drills in the book are presented in a standardized two-page format and are accompanied by a list of key coaching points and an illustration, making them easy to understand and teach. Many of the drills can be performed by players without a coach's supervision. AFCA's Defensive Football Drills--it's the best defensive read a coach or player can make!

Afca's Defensive Football Drills (Paperback)