COLLECTION ONE: FICTION
Perhaps the best form of literary escapism can be found in fiction. From the Ancient Greeks to spiritual traditions of Africa, to 1980s Chicago and many places in between, this is a list of diverse worlds and characters that come from the minds of some of our favorite Festival speakers.
Please support local businesses and order your books from Festival bookseller Buxton Books’ online bookshop! Don’t see a title? Call them at 843.723.1670 and a bookseller will be happy to assist you.
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
The Man Booker Prize–winning blend of fabulism and gritty realism and the story of a spirit child straddling two worlds according to African legends
FranKISSstein by Jeanette Winterson
An audacious love story that weaves together disparate lives into an exploration of transhumanism, artificial intelligence, and queer love
Circe by Madeline Miller
A bold and subversive re-telling of the life of a Greek goddess
My Life as a Rat by Joyce Carol Oates
A story that traces a life of banishment from a family that forces a young woman to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from a long exile into a transformed life
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris during the early stages of the AIDS epidemic