Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking
by Aoibheann Sweeney
Part coming-of-age tale and part coming-out story—but most of all a hypnotic examination of the ways in which myths are both shaped by and shape us—Aoibheann Sweeney’s novel is the story of Miranda, a young girl growing up with her reclusive scholar father on a lonely Maine Island.

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England
by Brock Clarke
Convicted for burning down the house of Emily Dickinson, Sam Pulsifer has done his time and now he's free to act as your charming guide through New England's literary past. A darkly funny satire, Brock Clarke's novel is fueled by a deeply reverent sense of history and a firm refusal to succumb to snark.

The Name of the Wind
by Patrick Rothfuss
Hailed as the new star on the fantasy scene, Patrick Rothfuss has imagined an enthralling world in which the protagonist Kvothe is torn by conflicting desires to avenge the death of his family and to attain the highest level of learning. The Name of the Wind is the first in a trilogy.

No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories
by Miranda July
Miranda July's stunning debut collection of stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, contains piercing, expertly unadorned stories. July conjures life-altering consequences from seemingly insignificant encounters. With compassion, she unearths people's (often unattractive) need to be loved and accepted.

WINNER
The Raw Shark Texts
by Steven Hall
If Jaws were to be swallowed and regurgitated by a certain Viennese psychoanalyst, what he spit out might look something like Steven Hall's Raw Shark Texts. An unsettling and defiantly original rumination on memory, love, and death, the story occasionally takes the form of a postmodern thriller in the midst of an identity crisis.

The Secret of Lost Things
by Sheridan Hay
An 18-year-old Australian bibliophile lands in New York with little more than stars in her eyes. When she lands a job assisting in a second-hand bookstore, her real-world education commences along with the search for a purportedly missing Melville manuscript. Sheridan Hay's The Secret of Lost Things is a loving homage to a gentle madness.