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Recommendations based on Foreverby Pete Hamill
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
A coming of age story set in Brooklyn, depicting a young girl's struggles and growth.
The novel is split into five "books", each covering a different period in the characters' lives. Book One opens in 1912 and introduces 11-year-old Francie Nolan, who lives in the Williamsburg ... (Wikipedia)
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
by Gregory Maguire
A retelling of the classic Cinderella story from the perspective of one of the stepsisters, exploring themes of beauty, identity, and societal expectations.
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, the plain younger daughter of Margarethe Fisher, as she takes care of her mentally challenged older sister Ruth and her beautiful stepsister ... (Wikipedia)
The Man of My Dreams
by Curtis Sittenfeld
Hannah Gavener navigates through her relationships with men, family, and herself in this coming-of-age novel.
Hannah Gavener is fourteen in the summer of 1991. In the magazines she reads, celebrities plan elaborate weddings; in Hannah’s own life, her parents’ marriage is crumbling. And somewhere in between ... (Goodreads)
The Black Lyon
by Jude Deveraux
A medieval romance between a fierce knight and a headstrong lady, filled with passion, danger, and betrayal.
Darkly handsome and rich beyond imagining, the bold English conqueror was called Lyon for his-lion like fierceness. He had no match among enemies, or women ... until he met Lyonene, the green-eyed ... (Goodreads)
Fall on Your Knees
by Ann-Marie MacDonald
A multi-generational saga of secrets, tragedy, and resilience in a family of sisters.
At the start of the 20th century, James Piper sets fire to his dead mother’s piano and heads out across Cape Breton Island to find a new place to live. Working as a piano tuner, he meets and ... (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)
The Way the Crow Flies
by Ann-Marie MacDonald
A girl growing up in the Cold War era, struggling to make sense of the secrets and lies that surround her.
The optimism of the early sixties, infused with the excitement of the space race and the menace of the Cold War, is filtered through the rich imagination of high-spirited, eight-year-old Madeleine, ... (Goodreads)
The Widow of the South
by Robert Hicks
Based on a true story, a woman struggles to cope with the aftermath of the Civil War and the Battle of Franklin.
Tennessee, 1864. On a late autumn day, near a little town called Franklin, 10,000 men will soon lie dead or dying in a battle that will change many lives for ever. None will be more changed than ... (Goodreads)
I Sing the Body Electric! & Other Stories
by Ray Bradbury
Collection of stories exploring humanity and its impact on the universe.
The mind of Ray Bradbury is a wonder-filled carnival of delight and terror that stretches from the verdant Irish countryside to the coldest reaches of outer space. Yet all his work is united by one ... (Goodreads)
The Speed of Dark
by Elizabeth Moon
Lou Arrendale, an autistic man, faces a life-changing decision when offered a cure. Should he remain true to himself or conform to society's norms?
Lou Arrendale is a bioinformatics specialist, has high-functioning autism , and has made a good life for himself. A new manager at the firm where he works puts pressure on the department where many ... (Wikipedia)
A Reliable Wife
by Robert Goolrick
A dark tale of deception, secrecy and manipulation between two strangers in rural Wisconsin.
Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable ... (Barnes & Noble)
Olive Kitteridge
by Elizabeth Strout
An exploration of the life of a small-town woman, revealing her struggles and emotional complexities.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition – its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires. At times stern, at other times ... (Goodreads)
The Vampire Lestat
by Anne Rice
A vampire's exploration of his immortality and the secrets of the world of the undead.
Set in the late 18th century to the late 1980s, the story follows the 200-year-long life of the vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, and his rise from humble beginnings as impoverished nobility in the ... (Wikipedia)
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
by Maggie O'Farrell
Story of two women's struggle to uncover a dark family secret and reclaim their freedom.
In the middle of tending to the everyday business at her vintage-clothing shop and sidestepping her married boyfriend’s attempts at commitment, Iris Lockhart receives a stunning phone call: Her ... (Barnes & Noble)
Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghese
A sweeping journey of two twin brothers and their search for identity, belonging and family.
The story is told by the protagonist, Marion Stone. He and his conjoined twin Shiva are born at Mission Hospital (called "Missing" in accordance with the local pronunciation), Addis Ababa , in ... (Wikipedia)
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
by Douglas Adams
A comedic tale of a man's journey through the universe, encountering aliens and coming to terms with his own identity.
While hitchhiking through the galaxy, Arthur Dent is dropped off on a planet in a rainstorm. He appears to be in England on Earth, even though he saw the planet destroyed by the Vogons . He has been ... (Wikipedia)
The Bourne Identity
by Robert Ludlum
An amnesiac assassin must uncover his past and true identity in a deadly search for the truth.
The preface of the novel consists of two real-life newspaper articles from 1975 about terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as " Carlos the Jackal ." The story opens with gunfire on a boat in the ... (Wikipedia)
Voyager
by Diana Gabaldon
A grand adventure across time and space, filled with romance, danger and mystery.
Voyager opens on the battlefield at Culloden , where Jamie Fraser finds himself gravely wounded and his rival Jack Randall dead. Jamie is carried to a nearby farmhouse where 18 Highland soldiers have ... (Wikipedia)
Forest Mage
by Robin Hobb
A tale of redemption and survival set in the forests of the Six Duchies.
The story picks up where Shaman's Crossing left off. The Gernian Cavalla Academy is recovering from the devastating effects of Speck plague, a disease causing severe dysentery. The disease has run ... (Wikipedia)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz
An exploration of love, identity, and the power of fate in a family's struggles and triumphs.
Oscar de León (nicknamed Oscar Wao, a bastardization of Oscar Wilde ) is an overweight Dominican growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be successful with women but, from a ... (Wikipedia)
QB VII
by Leon Uris
A courtroom drama that explores the aftermath of a libel suit brought by a Polish doctor against an American author.
A famous author, Abraham Cady, stands trial for libel. In his book The Holocaust , he named eminent surgeon Sir Adam Kelno as one of the Jadwiga concentration camp 's most sadistic inmate/doctors. ... (Wikipedia)
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
Exploration of African culture and traditions, grappling with the tension between modernity and tradition.
The novel's protagonist , Okonkwo, is famous in the villages of Umuofia for being a wrestling champion, defeating a wrestler nicknamed "Amalinze The Cat" (because he never lands on his back). Okonkwo ... (Wikipedia)
The Bonesetter's Daughter
by Amy Tan
A Chinese-American woman rediscovers her heritage, uncovering her family's deep past.
Ruth is a self-sufficient woman who makes her living as a ghostwriter for self-help books . She lives with her boyfriend, Art Kamen, and acts as a stepmother to Art's two teenage daughters, Dory and ... (Wikipedia)
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
by Ernest J. Gaines
The life story of a former slave, Jane Pittman, who lived through the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.
Miss Jane Pittman. She is one of the most unforgettable heroines in American fiction, a woman whose life has come to symbolize the struggle for freedom, dignity, and justice. Ernest J. Gaines’s ... (Goodreads)
The Dragonbone Chair
by Tad Williams
Epic fantasy adventure to save the kingdom from an ancient evil.
Simon , a fourteen-year-old kitchen boy and servant in the great castle Hayholt, muddles his way through the daily routines of castle drudgery in the last days of the long reign of King John ... (Wikipedia)
Empire Falls
by Richard Russo
A small town's citizens struggle to find meaning and find their place in a rapidly changing world.
Set in the decaying, nearly bankrupt, small town of Empire Falls, Maine, this is the story of the unassuming manager of the Empire Grill, Miles Roby, who has spent his life in the town. The town, and ... (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)
Firestarter
by Stephen King
A young girl with pyrokinetic powers is pursued by a mysterious government agency.
Andy and Charlene "Charlie" McGee are a father/daughter pair on the run from a government agency known as The Shop. During his college years, Andy had participated in a Shop experiment dealing with ... (Wikipedia)
Beautiful Ruins
by Jess Walter
A romantic story of fate, secrets, and destiny, spanning from Italy in the 1960s to present day.
"The best novel of the year." — Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air A #1 New York Times bestseller, this “absolute masterpiece” (Richard Russo) is the story of an almost-love affair that begins on the ... (Goodreads)
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle
Collection of mysteries solved by the brilliant detective, Sherlock Holmes.
A study in scarlet – The sign of four -- Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : A scandal in Bohemia ; The red-headed league ; A case of identity ; The Boscombe Valley mystery ; The five orange pips ; The ... (Goodreads)
