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Recommendations based on The Testament of Maryby Colm Tóibín
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Nora Webster
by Colm Tóibín
A widow navigates life in a small Irish town in the 1960s, finding solace in music and independence.
From one of contemporary literature's most acclaimed and beloved authors comes this magnificent new novel set in a small town in Ireland in the 1960s, where a fiercely compelling, too-young widow and ... (Goodreads)
Brooklyn
by Colm Tóibín
A young Irish woman's migration to America, exploring themes of identity and belonging.
Eilis Lacey is a young woman who is unable to find work in 1950s Ireland . Her older sister Rose organises a meeting with a Catholic priest called Father Flood on a visit from New York City , who ... (Wikipedia)
TransAtlantic
by Colum McCann
Interwoven stories of transatlantic journeys that span generations of history.
It tells the intertwined stories of Alcock and Brown (the first non-stop transatlantic fliers in 1919), the visit of Frederick Douglass to Ireland in 1845/46, and the story of the Irish peace process ... (Wikipedia)
NW
by Zadie Smith
A story of a group of friends in London navigating love and identity in their complex lives.
Set in northwest London, Zadie Smith’s brilliant tragicomic novel follows four locals—Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan—as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their ... (Goodreads)
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
An exploration of memory and its impact on the present, looking at the choices we make in life.
By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be ... (Goodreads)
Lila
by Marilynne Robinson
A young woman's journey of self-discovery and exploration of faith and spirituality.
Marilynne Robinson, one of the greatest novelists of our time, returns to the town of Gilead in an unforgettable story of a girlhood lived on the fringes of society in fear, awe, and wonder. Lila, ... (Goodreads)
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
by Karen Joy Fowler
A family's secrets and a girl's quest for the truth about her own identity.
The, New York Times, bestselling author of, The Jane Austen Book Club, introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Luminaries
by Eleanor Catton
A complex mystery set in New Zealand's gold rush era, as a web of secrets and lies unravels.
The story begins with one of the book's protagonists, Walter Moody, arriving in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel after having encountered a horrific sight on his boat trip to Hokitika . There, he ... (Wikipedia)
Let the Great World Spin
by Colum McCann
Interconnected stories of ordinary lives in 1970s New York, inspired by a high-wire artist's death-defying feat.
The events of the story are told in a largely non-linear fashion, with several different narrators telling the story from different perspectives. The story is interspersed with fictionalized accounts ... (Wikipedia)
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An exploration of race, identity, and belonging as two Nigerian immigrants experience life in America and beyond.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to ... (Goodreads)
The Tiger's Wife
by Téa Obreht
A young doctor in a war-torn Balkan country uncovers the secrets of her grandfather's past, including his relationship with a mysterious woman known as the Tiger's Wife.
Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker ’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will ... (Goodreads)
Bring Up the Bodies
by Hilary Mantel
A gripping historical drama recounting the downfall of Anne Boleyn during the reign of Henry VIII.
Bring Up the Bodies follows closely upon the events of Wolf Hall . The King and Cromwell —now Master Secretary to the King's Privy Council—are guests of the Seymour family at Wolf Hall. The King ... (Wikipedia)
Burnt Sugar
by Avni Doshi
A daughter's complex relationship with her mother, who is suffering from memory loss. A story of love, resentment, and the search for identity.
In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her loveless marriage to join an ashram, endured a brief stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents), and spent years chasing after a ... (Goodreads)
Salvage the Bones
by Jesmyn Ward
A family struggles to survive in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane.
The novel follows a working-class African-American family living in southern Mississippi in 2005. The family consists of Daddy, his daughter Esch (the narrator), and his sons Randall, Skeetah, and ... (Wikipedia)
Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson
A woman lives multiple lives, reflecting on choices and consequences and the power of love.
The novel has an unusual structure, repeatedly looping back in time to describe alternative possible lives for its central character, Ursula Todd, who is born on 11 February 1910 to an ... (Wikipedia)
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
by Anthony Marra
An exploration of the aftermath of a civil war, and the power of human connection.
A brilliant debut novel that brings to life an abandoned hospital where a tough-minded doctor decides to harbor a hunted young girl, with powerful consequences. In the final days of December 2004, in ... (Goodreads)
Oryx and Crake
by Margaret Atwood
An exploration of a post-apocalyptic world, and the power of human nature.
The novel focuses on a post-apocalyptic character called "Snowman", living near a group of primitive human-like creatures whom he calls Crakers . Flashbacks reveal that Snowman was once a boy named ... (Wikipedia)
Dear Life
by Alice Munro
A collection of stories of ordinary people facing extraordinary moments of change and transformation.
Suffused with Munro's clarity of vision and her unparalleled gift for storytelling, these tales about departures and beginnings, accidents and dangers, and outgoings and homecomings both imagined and ... (Goodreads)
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
by José Saramago
A retelling of the life of Jesus Christ, delving into his motivations and emotions.
This is a skeptic' s journey into the meaning of God and of human existence. At once an ironic rendering of the life of Christ and a beautiful novel, Saramago' s tale has sparked intense discussion ... (Goodreads)
Dept. of Speculation
by Jenny Offill
A woman's exploration of relationships, marriage, and motherhood amidst personal and familial struggles.
Dept. of Speculation is a portrait of a marriage. It is also a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us all. ... (Goodreads)
As I Lay Dying
by William Faulkner
A family's struggle to fulfill the dying wish of their mother, amidst personal and societal challenges.
The book is narrated by 15 different characters over 59 chapters. It is the story of the death of Addie Bundren and her poor, rural family's quest and motivations—noble or selfish—to honor her wish ... (Wikipedia)
1Q84
by Haruki Murakami
A surreal journey of two people entangled in a mysterious dual-world conspiracy.
The events of 1Q84 take place in Tokyo during a fictionalized year of 1984, with the first volume set between April and June, the second between July and September, and the third between October and ... (Wikipedia)
The Waves
by Virginia Woolf
Inner musings of six characters in search of individual identity, expressed through the ebb and flow of the sea.
The novel follows its six narrators from childhood through adulthood. Woolf is concerned with the individual consciousness and the ways in which multiple consciousnesses can weave together. Bernard ... (Wikipedia)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy
A young woman's struggles against societal expectations, and her journey of resilience and self-realization.
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780141439594 . When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting ... (Goodreads)
The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A butler reflects on his past, grappling with the lost opportunities of a life devoted to service.
The novel tells, in first-person narration , the story of Stevens, an English butler who has dedicated his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington (who is recently deceased, and whom Stevens ... (Wikipedia)
Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent
A woman awaits her execution in 19th-century Iceland, reliving her story of hardship, loss and faith.
Burial Rites tells the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a servant in northern Iceland who was condemned to death after the murder of two men, one of whom was her employer, and became the last woman put ... (Wikipedia)
The Vegetarian
by Han Kang
A woman's radical decision to pursue a vegetarian lifestyle, leading to unexpected and far-reaching consequences.
The Vegetarian tells the story of Yeong-hye, a home-maker who, one day, suddenly decides to stop eating meat after a series of dreams involving images of animal slaughter. This abstention leads her ... (Wikipedia)
The Round House
by Louise Erdrich
A teenage boy seeks justice for a crime committed against his mother in a Native American community.
The novel opens with Joe Coutts and his father, Judge Bazil Coutts, pulling out saplings from their house's garden and foundation. They realize Joe's mother and Bazil's wife, Geraldine Coutts, has ... (Wikipedia)
Swimming Home
by Deborah Levy
A haunting tale of a poet's family vacation in the French Riviera, disrupted by the arrival of a disturbed young woman.
In the summer of 1994 the poet Joe Jacobs (Polish émigré Jozef Nowogrodzki) is on vacation in a summer home in the south of France with his wife Isabel, his daughter Nina, and their friends, the ... (Wikipedia)
The Sparrow
by Mary Doria Russell
A Jesuit mission to an alien planet ends in tragedy, raising questions about faith, morality, and the nature of God.
In the year 2019, the SETI program at Arecibo Observatory discovers radio broadcasts of music from the vicinity of Alpha Centauri . The first expedition to Rakhat, the world that is sending the ... (Wikipedia)
