Gary Shteyngart

"It's March 2020 and a calamity is unfolding. A group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next few months new bonds of friendship and love will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge among this unlikely cast of characters, each richly drawn and achingly human: a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American...

A dark tale of America's dysfunctional coming years, and of the timeless and tender feelings that just might bring us back from the brink.

Named as one of the New York Times Year's Ten Best upon its publication, Gary Shteyngart's Absurdistan is a biting, poignant satire of American-style democracy and the American Dream. After returning to Russia to attend his father's funeral, 30-year-old Misha is subsequently denied a visa when he attempts to re-enter the United States. What follows is a series of misadventures through the Eastern Bloc in which Misha runs afoul of crooked politicians,...

Abe Ravelstein is a brilliant professor at a prominent midwestern university and a man who glories in training the movers and shakers of the political world. He has lived grandly and ferociously—and much beyond his means. His close friend Chick has suggested that he put forth a book of his convictions about the ideas which sustain humankind, or kill it, and much to Ravelstein's own surprise, he does and becomes a millionaire. Ravelstein suggests

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Presents a collection of the year's best essays as selected by best-selling author Alexander Chee.