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Recommendations based on English Creekby Ivan Doig
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The Whistling Season
by Ivan Doig
A coming-of-age story set in rural Montana in 1909, following a family's struggles and triumphs during the homesteading era.
"Can't cook but doesn't bite." So begins the newspaper ad offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition" that draws the hungry attention of widower Oliver ... (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)
Norwegian by Night
by Derek B. Miller
An elderly veteran's journey of redemption and transformation, set amidst the backdrop of Norway's war-torn history.
He will not admit it to Rhea and Lars - never, of course not - but Sheldon can't help but wonder what it is he's doing here.. Eighty-two years old, and recently widowed, Sheldon Horowitz has ... (Goodreads)
Montana 1948
by Larry Watson
A young boy in rural Montana discovers the dark secrets of his family and town, leading to a moral dilemma.
When David's Native American housekeeper Marie Little Soldier falls ill, Frank Hayden, the local doctor and David's uncle, is called. Marie detests the use of a doctor and insists upon seeing another ... (Wikipedia)
The Killer Angels
by Michael Shaara
A gripping story of the Battle of Gettysburg, told through the eyes of the soldiers on both sides.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain , one of the major characters, remembers reciting to his father a speech from, Hamlet, : "What a piece of work is man...in action how like an angel!" Sgt. Buster Kilrain ... (Wikipedia)
The Promise
by Chaim Potok
A young man's journey to reconcile his religious beliefs with his passion for secular studies.
The Promise starts a few months after The Chosen left off, with Danny having just started his graduate program in psychology and Reuven having started rabbinical school. The novel begins in the ... (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)
Bridge of Sighs
by Richard Russo
A sweeping story of a small town and its inhabitants, facing the challenges of life and love.
Bridge of Sighs courses with small-town rhythms and the claims of family. Here is a town, as well as a world, defined by magnificent and nearly devastating contradictions. Louis Charles (“Lucy”) ... (Goodreads)
LaRose
by Louise Erdrich
A family's tragedy brings them together, pushing them to confront the past and embrace their future.
LaRose is set in North Dakota , on an Ojibwa reservation in the "era of George W. Bush and 9/11." , The novel's protagonist is LaRose Iron, a young Native American boy. , His father, Landreaux Iron, ... (Wikipedia)
Lonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry
Epic tale of two former Texas Rangers on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana.
It is the late 1870s. , Captain Woodrow F. Call and Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae, two famous retired Texas Rangers , run the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium in the small Texas border ... (Wikipedia)
Hannah Coulter
by Wendell Berry
A rural family's struggles to survive both the trials of life and the destruction of their beloved land.
Hannah Coulter is Wendell Berry’s seventh novel and his first to employ the voice of a woman character in its telling. Hannah, the now–elderly narrator, recounts the love she has for the land and for ... (Barnes & Noble)
Nobody's Fool
by Richard Russo
Sully, a 60-year-old handyman, navigates life in a small town, dealing with family drama and personal struggles.
Richard Russo's slyly funny and moving novel follows the unexpected operation of grace in a deadbeat town in upstate New York—and in the life of one of its unluckiest citizens, Sully, who has been ... (Goodreads)
For Whom the Bell Tolls
by Ernest Hemingway
A soldier's story of courage and survival in the Spanish Civil War.
The novel graphically describes the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. It is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan. It draws on Hemingway's own ... (Wikipedia)
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 Pickwick Papers
by Charles Dickens
Witty comedy of misadventures of a group of travelers in 19th century England.
Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as The Pickwick Papers –-a comic masterpiece that catapulted its 24-year-old author to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the ... (Goodreads)
Straight Man
by Richard Russo
A university professor's humorous journey of self-discovery as he navigates campus politics.
William Henry Devereaux, Jr., spiritually suited to playing left field but forced by a bad hamstring to try first base, is the unlikely chairman of the English department at West Central Pennsylvania ... (Goodreads)
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
A grim tale of a Victorian industrial city, highlighting its struggles of poverty, injustice and strife.
"My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else," proclaimed Charles Dickens in explaining the theme of this classic novel. Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas ... (Goodreads)
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)
Einstein's Dreams
by Alan Lightman
Exploring the mysteries of time as imagined through the dreams of Albert Einstein.
The novel fictionalizes Albert Einstein as a young scientist who is troubled by dreams as he works on his theory of relativity in 1905. The book consists of 30 chapters, each exploring one dream ... (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)
Plainsong
by Kent Haruf
Interconnected stories of rural life in small-town America, and the struggles of the people living there.
A heartstrong story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity, set on the High Plains east of Denver. In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his ... (Goodreads)
The House I Loved
by Tatiana de Rosnay
A woman refuses to leave her home in 1860s Paris as the city undergoes modernization. She writes letters to her deceased husband about her memories and struggles.
From the, New York Times, bestselling author of, Sarah's Key, and, A Secret Kept, comes an absorbing new novel about one woman's resistance during an époque that shook Paris to its very core. Paris, ... (Goodreads)
An Echo in the Bone
by Diana Gabaldon
18th-century Scottish and American characters struggle with loyalty, betrayal, and love in the midst of war.
In the 20th century at Lallybroch, Brianna, Roger, Jem, and Mandy are reading letters from Claire and Jamie from the past, one of which mentions hidden gold, with a location known only to Jem. ... (Wikipedia)
Angle of Repose
by Wallace Stegner
A man's search for his ancestors and their stories, leading to a journey of self-discovery.
Lyman Ward narrates a century after the fact. Lyman interprets the story at times and leaves gaps that he points out at other times. Some of the disappointments of his life, including his divorce, ... (Wikipedia)
Perelandra
by C.S. Lewis
Epic sci-fi fantasy about a man's mission to a new planet to protect it from evil.
The story starts with the philologist Elwin Ransom , some years after his return from Mars at the end of, Out of the Silent Planet, , receiving a new mission from the Oyarsa (the angelic ruler) of ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Eiger Sanction
by Trevanian
Art professor and assassin Jonathan Hemlock is forced to climb the treacherous Eiger mountain to complete a deadly mission.
Dr. Jonathan Hemlock is an art professor and mountaineer . He is also a collector of paintings, most of them obtained from the black market . To finance his collection Hemlock, who served in a ... (Wikipedia)
Exhume
by Danielle Girard
Medical examiner Annabelle Schwartzman investigates a series of murders that lead her to confront her own dark past.
Dr. Annabelle Schwartzman has finally found a place to belong. As the medical examiner for the San Francisco Police Department, working alongside homicide detective Hal Harris, she uncovers the tales ... (Goodreads)
Edinburgh Twilight
by Carole Lawrence
A murder mystery set in Victorian Edinburgh, where a detective and a medical student team up to solve the case.
As a new century approaches, Edinburgh is a city divided. The wealthy residents of New Town live in comfort, while Old Town’s cobblestone streets are clotted with criminals, prostitution, and ... (Barnes & Noble)
Twisted Prey
by John Sandford
Lucas Davenport investigates a political assassination plot, but the suspects are elusive and dangerous.
Lucas Davenport confronts an old nemesis, now more powerful than ever as a U.S. senator, in the thrilling new novel in the #1 , ,, New York Times, , ,-bestselling Prey series, Lucas Davenport had ... (Goodreads)
