Little, Brown and Company

Alternate History Novels - Hey, it Could Have Happened!

[via Audible.com]

What would our world be like if the other side had won WWII? If JFK had never been assassinated? If the Black Death had been much, much worse? The genre of alternate history explores questions like these and paints rich, imaginative versions of worlds that could have so easily existed, if just one pivotal moment in the past had turned out differently…

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

11.22.63 by Stephen King

Fates and Traitors: A Novel of John Wilkes Booth by Jennifer Chiaverini  

Farthing by Jo Walton

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters

Bombs Away by Harry Turtledove

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

The Year of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple

(Raquel Zaldivar/NPR)

We meet Eleanor Flood, the main character of Maria Semple’s new novel, on a day when she has resolved to change some things about her life. She and her family recently moved to Seattle from New York, where she had worked as an animator on a hit TV show. She’s still working a bit, but she has also become overwhelmed by the basics of daily life. Semple tells NPR’s Rachel Martin, “She has decided, instead of trying to accomplish a lot, to set the bar very low for herself … and try to at least get through the day with just a basic amount of dignity.”

Overwhelmed Mom Seeks ‘A Basic Amount Of Dignity’ In 'Today Will Be Different’

Image: George and Willie Muse were frequently exhibited as Eko and Iko. (Courtesy of Robert Stauffer)

When journalist Beth Macy first moved to Roanoke, Va. almost 30 years ago, a colleague told her about a tragic story that no one had ever been able to get: Two young African Americans, the Muse Brothers, had been stolen by a carnival in the late 19th or early 20th century — and exhibited in sideshows, because they were albinos.

Macy eventually did get the story, and it became her new book, Truevine.