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Recommendations based on The Middlesteinsby Jami Attenberg
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All Grown Up
by Jami Attenberg
A 39-year-old single woman navigates life in New York City, struggling with relationships, career, and family expectations.
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Middlesteins comes a wickedly funny novel about a thirty-nine-year-old single, childfree woman who defies convention as she seeks connection. Who is ... (Goodreads)
Fates and Furies
by Lauren Groff
A tale of the secrets and passions of a marriage, exploring the depths of private lives.
Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, ... (Goodreads)
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)
Dietland
by Sarai Walker
A woman's determined search to find her own power, while challenging the beauty standards imposed by society.
The diet revolution is here. And it’s armed. Plum Kettle does her best not to be noticed, because when you’re fat, to be noticed is to be judged. Or mocked. Or worse. With her job answering fan mail ... (Goodreads)
The Good House
by Ann Leary
A witty and poignant novel about a woman's struggle with alcoholism and the secrets that haunt her family's history.
Hildy Good is a townie. A lifelong resident of a small community on the rocky coast of Boston's North Shore, she knows pretty much everything about everyone. And she's good at lots of things, too. A ... (Barnes & Noble)
Mrs. Fletcher
by Tom Perrotta
A middle-aged divorcee explores her newfound freedom and sexuality while her son navigates college life.
Eve Fletcher is floundering. A forty-six-year-old divorcee whose beloved, clueless only child has just left for college, Eve is slowly learning to contend with life on her own when, late one night ... (Goodreads)
The Assistant
by Bernard Malamud
A Jewish grocer's assistant struggles with his conscience after discovering his boss's corrupt practices.
Morris Bober, the 60-year-old proprietor of an old-fashioned grocery store, faces destitution as his customers abandon him in favor of more modernized shops. The situation is aggravated late one ... (Wikipedia)
Some Luck
by Jane Smiley
A saga tracing five generations of a farming family in midwestern America.
On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different yet equally remarkable children: Frank, the brilliant, stubborn ... (Goodreads)
Heft
by Liz Moore
An unlikely bond between two vastly different teenage boys, struggling with identity and family.
Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn’t left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away, in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and ... (Goodreads)
Tenth of December
by George Saunders
A collection of stories exploring the human condition through diverse characters and their struggles.
A young girl named Alison is kidnapped three days before her birthday. Kyle, a boy who lives nearby whose parents enforce very strict household rules, sees the event unfold and must decide whether to ... (Wikipedia)
The Leftovers
by Tom Perrotta
A family struggles to cope with the mysterious disappearance of loved ones in a post-apocalyptic world.
Several years after a rapture-like event in which millions of people worldwide suddenly vanish without explanation, the citizens of Mapleton, Ohio are still struggling to cope with the massive loss ... (Wikipedia)
Benediction
by Kent Haruf
A story of compassion and redemption in a small Colorado town.
When Dad Lewis is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he and his wife must work together, along with their daughter, to make his final days as comfortable as possible, despite the bitter absence of their ... (Goodreads)
Dear Committee Members
by Julie Schumacher
An epistolary novel of a professor's reflections on his life and career.
Finally, a novel that puts the "pissed" back into "epistolary." Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at Payne University, a small and not very distinguished ... (Goodreads)
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
A multi-generational saga exploring identity, race, and culture in modern-day London.
On New Year's Day 1975, Archie Jones, a 47-year-old Englishman whose disturbed Italian wife has just walked out on him, is attempting to take his own life by gassing himself in his car when a chance ... (Wikipedia)
The Kind Worth Killing
by Peter Swanson
A dark psychological thriller involving a murderous plan and a deadly game of cat and mouse.
A devious tale of psychological suspense so irresistible that it prompts Entertainment Weekly to ask, “Is The Kind Worth Killing the next Gone Girl ?” From one of the hottest new thriller writers, ... (Barnes & Noble)
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)
The Nix
by Nathan Hill
A middle-aged man's quest to discover the truth about his mother and his own identity.
The Nix is an American epic novel in 10 parts that follows community college professor of English, Samuel Andresen-Anderson who is struggling to find meaning in his life in the years following his ... (Wikipedia)
Enduring Love
by Ian McEwan
A story of obsession and its consequences, as two men clash over a woman's affections.
Joe planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside to celebrate his lover's return after 6 weeks in the States. The perfect day turns to nightmare however, when they are involved in ... (Goodreads)
People of the Book
by Geraldine Brooks
A journey through time as an ancient book is discovered and its secrets revealed.
The "complex and moving" ( The New Yorker ) novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks follows a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war. Inspired by a true story, "People of the ... (Goodreads)
How the Light Gets In
by Louise Penny
Detective Armand Gamache investigates a murder in a small Canadian town, uncovering secrets and lies.
Christmas is approaching, and in Québec it's a time of dazzling snowfalls, bright lights, and gatherings with friends in front of blazing hearths. But shadows are falling on the usually festive ... (Goodreads)
Jesus' Son
by Denis Johnson
A collection of short stories exploring life of addiction and redemption.
Jesus' Son , the first collection of stories by Denis Johnson, presents a unique, hallucinatory vision of contemporary American life unmatched in power and immediacy and marks a new level of ... (Goodreads)
Defending Jacob
by William Landay
A father must defend his son who is accused of murder, unraveling the truth of a complex crime.
Andy Barber is an assistant district attorney in Newton , Massachusetts. He is investigating the murder of a 14-year-old boy, Ben Rifkin, who was a classmate of his son Jacob and was found stabbed to ... (Wikipedia)
Attachments
by Rainbow Rowell
A budding online romance between two co-workers, hindered by an unlikely obstacle.
"Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you..." Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's ... (Goodreads)
Island Girls
by Nancy Thayer
Three sisters reunite on Nantucket Island to confront their past and face their future.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Nancy Thayer returns to her beloved Nantucket in a highly emotional, wholly entertaining tale of three sisters forced to confront the past over one event-filled summer on the ... (Goodreads)
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
by Raymond Carver
Exploration of relationships, revealing the complexities of love and its many forms.
Alternate-cover edition can be found, here, In his second collection, Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated and beloved short-story writers in American literature—a haunting ... (Goodreads)
A Tale for the Time Being
by Ruth Ozeki
An exploration of the connections between two lives, bridging time, space and cultures.
In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying, but before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her ... (Goodreads)
The Sisters Brothers
by Patrick deWitt
A unique western, following two brothers on a quest to find and murder a prospector.
In 1851, Eli and Charlie Sisters, a pair of assassins of minor repute, are hired by a wealthy businessman known only as "the Commodore" to travel from Oregon City to California in order to murder a ... (Wikipedia)
The Outsider
by Stephen King
A man is accused of a brutal murder he claims he didn't commit, but evidence suggests otherwise. Is he really guilty or is something more sinister at play?
In Flint City, Oklahoma , police detective Ralph Anderson arrests the popular English teacher and Little League coach, Terry Maitland, in front of a crowd of baseball spectators. Maitland is charged ... (Wikipedia)
The Safest Lies
by Megan Miranda
A teenage girl's life is turned upside down when her mother is attacked, leading her to question everything she thought she knew about her family.
Can fear be inherited? Kelsey has lived most of her life in a shadow of fear, raised to see danger everywhere. Her mother hasn’t set foot outside their front door in seventeen years, since she ... (Goodreads)
Case Histories
by Kate Atkinson
A series of intertwining stories of people whose lives are changed by an unexpected event.
'Case Histories' tells the story of Jackson Brodie, a private investigator who tries to find out the truth of some cases. Brodie meets some people who reclaims his help to solve their cases Kirkus ... (Wikipedia)
