By Gerald Dierkes

Looking for something new to read over spring break, maybe a comedy? The library catalog offers so many award-winning titles of contemporary fiction, you may have trouble deciding.

The “Google Preview” link , now appearing in many books’ catalog records, can help you decide. This new feature connects you to a summary, reviews and other useful information about a particular book.

Comedy:

Damned: Life Is Short, Death Is Forever by Chuck Palahniuk

Wise Children by Angela Carter

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

Historical fiction:

In the Name of Salomé by Julia Alvarez

The Green Corn Rebellion by William Cunningham

Panorama by H. G. Adler

The Girl in the Blue Beret by Bobbie Ann Mason

Stories set in the United States:

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward

Stories set in other countries:

Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz

The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith

Solace by Belinda McKeon

Coming-of-age novels:

Spidertown by Abraham Rodriguez

Dragon Chica by May-Lee Chai

Thriller:

Oil on Water by Helon Habila

Science fiction:

Ice Trilogy by Vladimir Sorokin

Novels that defy categories (!):

Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

A Tomb on the Periphery by John Domini

There Is No Year by Blake Butler

Bound by Antonya Nelson

The Privileges by Jonathan Dee

Model Home by Eric Puchner

Something to Tell You by Hanif Kureishi

The Pale King: an Unfinished Novel by David Foster Wallace

Randy Lopez Goes Home by Rudolfo A. Anaya

The Passages of H.M.:  a Novel of Herman Melville by Jay Parini

The Black Album; with, “My son the fanatic” and a Short Story by Hanif Kureishi

Short story collections:

The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories by Don DeLillo

Before the End, After the Beginning by Dagoberto Gilb

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans

Read the fiction and poetry of the writers featured in the 14th annual Villanova Literary Festival:

C. D. Wright

Juan Felipe Herrera

Hugo Hamilton

Téa Obreht

William Kennedy

Graphic novels based on great literary classics:

Dante’s Divine Comedy

The Canterbury Tales

The Odyssey: a Graphic Novel

King Lear: a Play by William Shakespeare

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment: a Graphic Novel

Beowulf

Such graphic novels may help you apprehend a story and its characters before you delve into the original texts. They may also provide an uncommon perspective by emphasizing certain elements of a story.

Guides that use the graphic-novel format to explain complex, scientific topics:

The Manga Guide to Biochemistry

The Manga Guide to Relativity

The Manga Guide to the Universe

Here is one search strategy to help you find addition titles:

1. From the library home page, click the “Search” tab.

2. Click on Books & More and then the Advanced Search link.

3. Fill in the fields as indicated below. This will provide a list of titles ordered for the English department in 2011 that have the word Novel in the title and Fiction as a Subject. Some, but not all, will be recent novels added to the library. Insert Stories instead of Novel for short story collections.

Substitute “12eng” for the first term to obtain a list of titles ordered for the English department in 2012.

And please, let us know in the “Comments” below what new fiction you would like us to order.

Happy reading!

Also contributing: Luisa Cywinski