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Recommendations based on Water for Elephantsby Sara Gruen
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
The Art of Racing in the Rain
by Garth Stein
An uplifting story of a race car driver and the bond between humans and animals.
Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by ... (Goodreads)
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
by Lisa See
Story of two women in 19th-century China, exploring the power of female friendship.
In rural Hunan province called Puwei (nicknamed the Common Beauty Village), a county in China, Lily is destined to become a, laotong, pair with Snow Flower, a girl of the same age from Tongkou (the ... (Wikipedia)
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
by Jamie Ford
A touching story of the intersection of love, family, and culture during World War II.
Henry Lee, the son of Chinese parents in Seattle , Washington, is the only Asian child at his elementary school. His father makes him wear an "I Am Chinese" button so he will not be mistaken for a ... (Wikipedia)
Orphan Train
by Christina Baker Kline
A story of two women's intertwined lives, spanning generations and crossing continents.
The #1 New York Times Bestseller “A lovely novel about the search for family that also happens to illuminate a fascinating and forgotten chapter of America’s history. Beautiful.”—Ann Packer Moving ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Invention of Wings
by Sue Monk Kidd
A powerful story about a girl's journey to freedom, despite the limitations of slavery.
Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now ... (Goodreads)
Sarah's Key
by Tatiana de Rosnay
A French journalist unravels an untold story of the Holocaust, uncovering hidden secrets.
From beloved international sensation and #1, New York Times, bestselling author Tatiana de Rosnay come's her most celebrated novel, Sarah's Key,—now in mass market paperback!, Paris, July 1942: ... (Barnes & Noble)
Pope Joan
by Donna Woolfolk Cross
A story of a female Pope's rise to power in a male-dominated world.
Joan, the daughter of a priest and his Saxon wife, is born in 814 as the last of three children. When he discovers that Joan has learned to read, her father calls her “child of the devil” and blames ... (Wikipedia)
The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield
A mysterious storyteller reveals a dark family secret, transforming the lives of those around her.
Vida Winter, a famous novelist in England, has evaded journalists' questions about her past, refusing to answer their inquiries and spinning elaborate tales that they later discover to be false. Her ... (Wikipedia)
I Know This Much Is True
by Wally Lamb
A man's journey of self-discovery, coming to terms with family trauma and understanding his identity.
The novel takes place in Three Rivers, Connecticut in the early 1990s. Dominick Birdsey's identical twin , Thomas Birdsey, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia . With medication, Thomas is able to ... (Wikipedia)
Still Alice
by Lisa Genova
A woman's struggle to hold on to her identity in the face of a devastating diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience ... (Goodreads)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer
A young boy's quest to find the lock that matches a mysterious key his father left behind.
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and ... (Goodreads)
Little Bee
by Chris Cleave
A Nigerian refugee's quest for survival and a British woman's search for redemption.
Using alternating first-person perspectives , the novel tells the stories of Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee, and Sarah O'Rourke (née Summers), a magazine editor from Surrey . After spending two years ... (Wikipedia)
Love the One You're With
by Emily Giffin
A woman's journey of self-reflection and realization that leads to a life-changing decision.
How do you know if you've found, the one,? Can you really love the one you're with when you can't forget, the one who got away,? Emily Giffin, author of the, New York Times, bestselling novels, ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Paris Wife
by Paula McLain
A woman's journey of self-discovery, navigating the complexities of a passionate and tumultuous relationship.
The Paris Wife focuses on the romance, marriage and divorce of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson, who met when Hemingway was 20 years old, and Richardson 28. They marry and move ... (Wikipedia)
Along Came a Spider
by James Patterson
A detective races against time to solve a kidnapper's twisted game.
What have we got? A missing little girl named Maggie Rose . . . a family of three brutally murdered in the projects of Washington, D.C. . . . the thrill-killing of a beautiful elementary school ... (Goodreads)
Prodigal Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver
Three interconnected stories of nature, romance, and family in the Appalachian Mountains.
Prodigal Summer tells the story of a small town in Appalachia during a single, humid summer, when three interweaving stories of love, loss and family unfold against the backdrop of the lush wildness ... (Wikipedia)
She's Come Undone
by Wally Lamb
A young woman's trial-filled journey to self-acceptance and self-preservation.
Dolores Price is heartbroken when her handsome, but irresponsible father, Tony, leaves their suburban home for another woman. She and her mother, Bernice, move into her uptight Catholic grandmother's ... (Wikipedia)
The Other Boleyn Girl
by Philippa Gregory
A historical fiction recounting the rivalry between two sisters vying for the love of King Henry VIII.
In 1521 England, Queen Catherine of Aragon's failure to provide King Henry VIII a male heir has strained their marriage. Thomas Boleyn and his brother-in-law Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, plan ... (Wikipedia)
Loving Frank
by Nancy Horan
A romantic story of love and tragedy, as a woman risks everything for her forbidden passion.
The book opens to notes written by Mamah Borthwick, reminiscing on her life and expressing her longing to tell her views of what happened. The story begins with an account of Mamah’s attendance, with ... (Wikipedia)
A Prayer for Owen Meany
by John Irving
A boy's search for faith, set against a backdrop of unlikely events.
The story is narrated by John Wheelwright, a former citizen of New Hampshire who has become a voluntary expatriate from the United States, having settled in Toronto , Ontario , Canada and taken on ... (Wikipedia)
The Forgotten Garden
by Kate Morton
A woman's quest to uncover the secrets of her family's past, leading to a mysterious garden.
At Nell's joyous 21st birthday party her world falls apart when her father tells her she was adopted as a 4-year-old in 1913, seemingly abandoned on an Australian wharf and unable to remember her ... (Wikipedia)
A Spot of Bother
by Mark Haddon
A middle-aged man's struggle to overcome his anxieties and accept the changes in his life.
The novel follows George Hall, a 57-year-old hypochondriac , and his family following George's retirement from a career manufacturing playground equipment. George has hypochondria, an excessive ... (Wikipedia)
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd
by Jim Fergus
In 1875, May Dodd and a group of women are sent to marry Cheyenne warriors. May's journal tells of her journey and the relationships she forms.
Based on an actual historical event but told through fictional diaries, this,, is the story of May Dodd—a remarkable woman who, in 1875, travels through the American West to marry the chief of the ... (Barnes & Noble)
1st to Die
by James Patterson
Four female friends team up to catch a killer preying on newlyweds.
Four crime-solving friends face off against a killer in San Francisco in the Women's Murder Club novel that started James Patterson's thrilling series. Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay ... (Goodreads)
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
by David Wroblewski
An epic tale of family and loyalty set in a rural Wisconsin landscape.
Forte's Children Edgar comes from a line of dog breeders. After buying a farm, his grandfather, John Sawtelle, rents out the farmland and starts dog breeding . He and his wife have two sons, Edgar's ... (Wikipedia)
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
by Seth Grahame-Smith
A reimagining of Abraham Lincoln's life, combining history and fantasy in an action-packed narrative.
Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with ... (Goodreads)
Snow Falling on Cedars
by David Guterson
A murder trial in a small, coastal town reveals secrets of the past and its inhabitants.
Set on the fictional San Piedro Island in the northern Puget Sound region of the state of Washington coast in 1954, the plot revolves around a murder case in which Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese American ... (Wikipedia)
Like Water for Chocolate
by Laura Esquivel
Magical tale of forbidden love, crossed by cultural and family traditions.
The book is divided into 12 sections named after the months of the year, starting in January and ending in December. Each section begins with a Mexican recipe . The chapters connect each dish to an ... (Wikipedia)
Atonement
by Ian McEwan
A tale of the consequences of a child's mistake, and how its effects ripple through generations.
Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old English girl with a talent for writing, lives at her family's country estate with her parents Jack and Emily Tallis. Her older sister Cecilia has recently graduated from ... (Wikipedia)
The Kitchen House
by Kathleen Grissom
A young Irish girl is taken in by a plantation family in Virginia and becomes entangled in the lives of the slaves who work there.
When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned while onboard ship ... (Goodreads)
