The Wind That Lays Waste by Selva Almada: “The Wind That Lays Waste begins in the great pause before a storm. Reverend Pearson is evangelizing across the Argentinian countryside with Leni, his teenage daughter, when their car breaks down. This act of God or fate leads them to the workshop and home of an aging mechanic called Gringo Brauer and a young boy named Tapioca. […] As tensions between these characters ebb and flow, beliefs are questioned and allegiances are tested, until finally the growing storm breaks over the plains.”

History. A Mess. by Sigrún Pálsdóttir: “While studying a seventeenth-century diary, the protagonist of History. A Mess.uncovers information about the first documented professional female artist. This discovery promises to change her academic career, and life in general . . . until she realizes that her “discovery” was nothing more than two pages stuck together. At this point there’s no going back though, and she goes to great lengths to hide her mistake—undermining her sanity in the process.”

Vincent and Alice and Alice by Shane Jones: “Meet Vincent. After his divorce from Alice he’s lost his way, and is mindlessly working for the State, counting down the days till retirement. When his boss tells him to participate in a program that promises not only to increase productivity, but show him his ‘ideal life’ he thinks: what’s the harm? […] But what the program shows him, is that his ideal life is simply Alice. She’s back. Is she real? A clone? A hologram?”