A set of three novels by Ágota Kristóf, a collection of reinvented fairy tales by Kelly Link, a short story by Devon Halliday, and memoirs by Emilia McKenzie and Mark Vonnegut

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We arrive from the Big Town. We've been traveling all night. Mother's eyes are red. She's carrying a big cardboard box, and the two of us are each carrying a small suitcase containing our clothes, plus Father's big dictionary, which we pass back and forth when our arms get tired. 
—From The Notebook, The Proof, and The Third Lie, a set of three novels by Ágota Kristóf, a Hungarian writer who moved to Switzerland when she was twenty-one. The novels are sometimes referred to collectively as The Notebook Trilogy (Grove Press, 1997). They were translated from the French by, respectively, Alan Sheridan, David Watson, and Marc Romano, and are collected here in one long volume. The books were originally published individually in French as Le grand cahier, La preuve, and Le troisième mensonge (Éditions du Seuil, 1986, 1988, 1991).

Please note: this set of three novels contains a fair amount of violence and themes that may not be for everyone.

The white cat said that she could not possibly consider allowing him to leave for at least another day. And so he spent the evening in the company of cats, playing board games and drinking games, while his dogs lay panting and happy on the flagstones beside the hearth. 
—From White Cat, Black Dog, a collection of seven stories by Kelly Link (Random House, 2023). Each story is preceded by a black and white illustration by Shaun Tan. My favorite stories were the bookends of the collection, "The White Cat's Divorce" and "Skinder's Veil." This excerpt, from "The White Cat's Divorce," appears on page 15 of the paperback. I recommend this book in print and as an audiobook; both versions were excellent. The stories were narrated by, in order, Rebecca Lowman, Dan Stevens, Dominic Hoffman, Kristen Sieh, Ish Klein, Tanya Cubric, and Patton Oswalt (Books on Tape, 2023). 

Frank keeps his eyes moving in their steady rotation, fixing his face in an empty and unsuggestive smile. Whenever he sees the student now he feels a kind of mental tilt, a shiver of precarity, and he has to shake it off like a dream.
—From "Nothing That Counts," a short story by Devon Halliday, One Story, Issue 317 (September 19, 2024)

My dear friend Charlotte died one Wednesday in May 2018. She was 34 years old. . . . A humble comic could never do justice to who she was. It's not really about suicide or mental health, either. 
—From But You Have Friends, a graphic memoir by Emilia McKenzie (Top Shelf Productions, 2023).

June 1969: Swarthmore Graduation. The night before, someone had taken white paint and painted "Commence What?" on the front of the stage. The maintenance crew had dutifully covered it over with red, white, and blue bunting, but we all knew it was there. 
—From The Eden Express, a memoir by Mark Vonnegut (Praeger Publishing, 1975). This book has been reissued in print at least once or twice since then, but I was listening to the audiobook, which was narrated by Pete Cross (Dreamscape Media, 2017). 

A story collection by Fumio Yamamoto, a novel by Solvej Balle, short stories by Camille Bordas and Emma Cairns Watson, and a poem by D. Nurkse

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As it was my birthday, our table was covered with plates and glasses from the full-course meal and a bottle of wine we usually would never order. In the seven years we'd been together, we'd had our share of arguments, but this was the first time the atmosphere between us had become so charged and heavy.
—From The Dilemmas of Working Women, a collection of five stories by Fumio Yamamoto, translated from the Japanese by Brian Bergstrom (HarperVia, 2025). The book was originally published in Japanese as Planaria (Bungeishunju Ltd., 2000). Also, just a quick shoutout to the hardcover jacket designer, Sarah Kellogg, who used a photograph by Ulas & Merve (Merve Türkan and Ulaş Kesebir, a pair of London-based Turkish photographers who work together professionally). The cover is quite striking. Along with reading the print book, I listened to the audiobook, which was narrated by Yuriri Naka. I really like listening to her. She narrated a different book that I listened to in 2025: Hunchback, a short novel by Saou Ichikawa (Hogarth, 2025). The HarperCollins page for The Dilemmas of Working Women has a sample of the audiobook as well as a sample of the print book. The segment above is from the title story and appears on page 162 of the hardcover. 

It is the eighteenth of November. I have got used to that thought. I have got used to the sounds, to the gray morning light and to the rain that will soon start to fall in the garden.
—From On the Calculation of Volume I, a novel by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland (New Directions, 2024). This is the first book in a series of seven and has been published by arrangement with Copenhagen Literary Agency. Originally published as Om udregning af rumfang I (Pelagraf, 2020).

Repatriation—there's such a ring to it, such drama. I imagined maimed bodies in dirty tents, nurses changing brown, bloodied gauze, bending over beds to tell the wounded, "The call came in—you're going home." Yet I worked in Special Consular Services at our Embassy in Paris. The Americans I helped repatriate mostly broke legs in Pigalle or crashed rental cars in Normandy. 
—From "Chicago on the Seine," a short story by Camille Bordas, The New Yorker (June 17, 2024), pp. 46-52. 

Nadine had selected this service in particular because it was the only one that did not require you to submit your name or photograph. All you had to do was provide your phone number and your answer to the question, "If you had the opportunity to dissect another person, who would it be, and which part of their insides would you be most interested in looking at?"
—From "The Dissection Question," a short story by Emma Cairns Watson, One Story, Issue 310 (February 29, 2024).

There was a protest outside Thomas Jefferson 
and children were lying down histrionically, . . . 
—From "The Age of Miracle Weapons," a poem by D. Nurkse, The New Yorker (June 10, 2024), p. 43.