Discounted for November 2025: Captivating Literary Books You Don’t Want to Miss!

Celeste finds herself leading the life of her dreams, engaged to the wealthy Alex—or so she thinks.

Soon, she will question everything, including her relationship and her past, with memories of seemingly disappearing friends, and a passion she still holds for a man named Nathan. 

At last, Celeste must come to terms with the lies she has carried and the choices she has made. In the process, she challenges herself, her fiancé, and the very fabric of society.

In a dark and enthralling tale, author Joshua Gaylord intertwines the lives of students and teachers at an all-girls prep school in New York City, with secrets at every turn. 

As described by Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You, “Hummingbirds positively glistens with erudition and insight.”

Winner of the Booker Prize, The Birds of Paradise is set during the British Raj in India. A coming-of-age tale, the young protagonist comes to identify with India under the Raj as he forges a friendship with a British diplomat’s daughter.

But when the boy is sent away to England, his paradise is shattered, as he experiences his exile as both a personal wound and an emblem of the Partition, “in a novel that in a short space recreates a man’s lifetime” (Time). 

From the acclaimed author of Catch-22 comes a short story about an evening that changes everything. In the American South of the twentieth century, schools were recently desegregated. 

Carter is a high school teacher and football coach, waiting to hear the outcome of a serious fight involving two of his students. Other townspeople have joined in the spectacle, and Carter must ultimately decide whether to stick with the crowd or take a stand. 

From "one of the more daring young stylists working today" comes a novel set in New York in the early 1990s, when the recession is in full swing (Time Out New York). The Internet has yet to be adopted into daily life, and the term "dot-com" has not been invented.

Can a young Midwestern man, reeling with promise but wasting away at his minimum wage job in corporate America, forge a new path for himself while writing his debut novel?

Perry and Baby Girl are best friends, though you wouldn’t think so on the outside looking in. Driven by dares and power struggles, the duo is intent on appearing brave and adventurous to the world—without realizing that real danger lurks not far away. 

Jamey, who pretends to be a high school student online, has been stalking the girls, on Facebook and in person, unbeknownst to them.

When they eventually meet up in person, and discover that Jamey is not the shy student he has pretended to be, Perry and Baby Girl will take whatever measures necessary to protect themselves. 

When tensions rise between the Athenians and the Macedonians, the great philosopher Aristotle and his student Stephanos must journey across the Aegean Sea. In a tale of pirates, political intrigue, and more, the pair come face to face with the horrors of war. 

Described by Kirkus Reviews as “unusually authentic,” it will be up to Aristotle to explain the dangers they face in this suspenseful mystery.

Selected as a Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post, Refinery29, and more, the novel begins with the Zhen family's return to China after years spent chasing the American dream. Lina, her husband Wei, and daughter Karen settle into a high-rise in Shanghai, only for her to one day discover her priceless bracelet has gone missing.

What follows is a wave of mistrust in the family, particularly with Lina, who must come to terms with her feelings for her husband’s brother, Qiang. And when Qiang returns after years on the run, all will reckon with the past, in a story that “would be perfect Oscar material” (Washington Post).