Washoe County Library System

"In her signature sharp prose, brilliantly translated by Jamie Chang, Nam-Joo returns with this haunting account of a neglected housing complex in the shadows of Town: a former fishing village bought out by a massive conglomerate. Town is prosperous and safe-but only if you're a citizen with "valuable skills and assets," which the residents of Saha Estates are not. Disenfranchised and tightlipped, the Saha are forced into harsh labor, squatting in...

Three hundred gone. Just six left. The building was once home to families, friends, children, couples, love, life. Now, almost every apartment is empty, the inhabitants forced out by the developers tearing down the old social housing to build luxury homes. Only a few of the inhabitants have fought back against the attempts to evict them from their homes and their histories. And they have been joined by passionate student protester and would-be journalist,...

Once more, we catch up with the delightful goings-on in the fictitious 44 Scotland Street from Alexander McCall Smith. With customary charm and deftness, Alexander McCall Smith gives us another instalment in this popular series, currently running in The Scotsman. Anything could happen to Bertie and the gang, especially with an invitation to one of Scotlands premier jazz festivals.

The lives of thirty-seven-year-old Francis Orme and his parents and the other residents of the Observatory Mansions are changed when the vulnerable, sympathetic, and resourceful Anna Tap moves into an apartment there. Edward Carey's debut is a novel of immense originality - a strangely haunting landscape occupied by compelling and unforgettable characters. Once the Orme family's magnificent ancestral estate, Observatory Mansions is now a crumbling...

In a condemned tower block in Glasgow, residents slowly trickle away until a young man is left alone with only the angels and devils in his mind for company. Stumbling from one surreal situation to the next, he encounters others on the margins of society, finding friendship and camaraderie wherever it is offered, grappling with who he is and what shape his future might take. The Voids is an unsparing story of modern-day Britain, told with brilliant...

"The Helena is an art deco apartment building that has witnessed the changing face of South Miami Beach for seventy years, observing the lives housed within. Among those who have called apartment 2B home across the decades are a Cuban concert pianist whoperforms in a nursing home; the widow of an intelligence officer raising her young daughter alone; a man waiting on a green card marriage to run its course so that he can divorce his wife and marry...

"Twenty-five-year-old Kat Bennett has never felt at home anywhere, and especially not in crumbling Shelley House. According to her neighbors, she's prickly and unapproachable, but beneath her tough exterior, Kat is plagued by guilt from her past. Seventy-seven-year-old Dorothy Darling is Shelley House's longest resident, and if you believe the other tenants, she's as cantankerous and vindictive as they come. Except there's a good reason Dorothy spends...