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Recommendations based on Kitchens of the Great Midwestby J. Ryan Stradal
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The Lager Queen of Minnesota
by J. Ryan Stradal
A heartwarming story of two estranged sisters and their passion for brewing beer, family, and forgiveness.
A novel of family, Midwestern values, hard work, fate and the secrets of making a world-class beer. Two sisters, one farm. A family is split when their father leaves their shared inheritance entirely ... (Goodreads)
A Little Life
by Hanya Yanagihara
A powerful tale of four friends navigating life's hardships and the devastating effects of trauma.
The novel follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle-age. It focuses particularly on Jude, a lawyer with a mysterious past, ambiguous ethnicity, and unexplained ... (Wikipedia)
The Girls
by Emma Cline
An exploration of the dark side of teenagehood, as a young girl is drawn into a cult.
Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their ... (Goodreads)
Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
Post-apocalyptic exploration of a world drastically changed after a pandemic.
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse,, Station Eleven, tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper
by Phaedra Patrick
An elderly man embarks on an unexpected journey of self-discovery and healing.
Look for Phaedra Patrick’s newest perfectly charming read, The Secrets of Love Story Bridge . “An endearing celebration of life.” -RealSimple.com Perfect for fans of A Man Called Ove , this curiously ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Book of Unknown Americans
by Cristina Henríquez
The story of two families, their struggles and triumphs as they navigate life in America as immigrants.
Alma and Arturo Rivera leave their comfortable surroundings in Pátzcuaro, Mexico when their daughter Maribel suffers a severe head injury. Their journey into the United States leads them to Newark, ... (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)
An American Marriage
by Tayari Jones
A newlywed couple's lives are torn apart when the husband is wrongfully convicted of a crime. The novel explores love, loyalty, and injustice.
Roy, a sales representative for a textbook company, and Celestial, an artist specializing in custom made baby dolls, are newlyweds who live in Atlanta. After their first year of marriage they travel ... (Wikipedia)
The Last Letter from Your Lover
by Jojo Moyes
Two intertwining love stories across time, exploring the power of secrets and second chances.
From the #1, New York Times, bestselling author of, The Giver of Stars, a sophisticated, page-turning double love story spanning forty years and an unforgettable, Brief Encounter, for our times It is ... (Goodreads)
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
by Bryn Greenwood
A story of forbidden love, testing the boundaries of morality and redemption.
- A, New York Times, and, USA Today, bestseller - Book of the Month Club 2016 Book of the Year - Second Place Goodreads Best Fiction of 2016 A beautiful and provocative love story between two ... (Barnes & Noble)
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)
My Ántonia
by Willa Cather
A young man's reminiscences of his childhood in rural Nebraska, and of his friendships with the immigrants he met there.
Orphaned Jim Burden rides the trains from Virginia to Black Hawk, Nebraska, where he will live with his paternal grandparents. Jake, a farmhand from Virginia, rides with the 10-year-old boy. On the ... (Wikipedia)
The Silkworm
by Robert Galbraith
Detective investigates the murder of a novelist, uncovering shocking secrets.
Several months after solving the Lula Landry case , Cormoran Strike is asked by Leonora Quine to locate her novelist husband Owen, a former literary genius whose attempts to recreate his past success ... (Wikipedia)
Pachinko
by Lee Min-jin
A saga spanning four generations of a Korean family living in Japan, struggling to survive and thrive amidst prejudice and poverty.
The novel takes place over the course of three books: Book I Gohyang/Hometown, Book II Motherland, and Book III Pachinko. In 1883, in the little island fishing village of Yeongdo , which is a ferry ... (Wikipedia)
Bone Music
by Christopher Rice
A woman discovers her traumatic childhood memories were erased by her father, a serial killer, who recorded them onto vinyl records.
An Amazon Charts bestseller.,, There’s more than one way to stoke the flames of revenge…, Charlotte Rowe spent the first seven years of her life in the hands of the only parents she knew—a pair of ... (Barnes & Noble)
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)
A Dog's Purpose
by W. Bruce Cameron
A dog's journey to discovering its true purpose, through multiple lifetimes and owners.
The narrator first starts out as a feral Beagle / German Shepherd / terrier mix puppy. A few weeks later, after being nursed by their mother, a feral as well, the dog and his siblings Fast, Sister, ... (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)
The Almost Sisters
by Joshilyn Jackson
A Southern family navigates the complexities of identity, culture, and relationships.
With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the ... (Barnes & Noble)
My Name Is Mary Sutter
by Robin Oliveira
A midwife's journey of self-determination, as she strives to become a surgeon in the Civil War.
A, New York Times, bestseller and a moving Civil War novel about a young midwife who dreams of becoming a surgeon. Fans of Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, and ... (Goodreads)
Our Souls at Night
by Kent Haruf
An elderly couple's exploration of love, loneliness, and companionship.
A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future. In ... (Goodreads)
Today Will Be Different
by Maria Semple
A day in the life of a woman who tries to keep her promises to herself, but life keeps getting in the way.
A brilliant novel and instant New York Times bestseller from the author of, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, about a day in the life of Eleanor Flood, forced to abandon her small ambitions and awake to a ... (Barnes & Noble)
How to Find Love in a Bookshop
by Veronica Henry
Emotionally uplifting story of a young woman who inherits a bookshop and finds love and healing through the power of books.
"Absolutely delightful." –,People, The enchanting story of a bookshop, its grieving owner, a supportive literary community, and the extraordinary power of books to heal the heart Nightingale Books, ... (Goodreads)
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
by Carol Rifka Brunt
A young girl's journey of grief and healing as she discovers the secrets of her beloved uncle's life.
June Elbus is a 14-year-old girl living in Westchester in 1986. She is in love with her gay uncle, Finn Weiss, a fact she is scared to admit even to herself. Finn is dying of AIDS. Being a ... (Wikipedia)
The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
A young Indian-American's journey of reconciling two different cultures and his own identity.
The story begins as Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a young Bengali couple, leave Calcutta , India, and settle in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts . Ashoke is an engineering student at the ... (Wikipedia)
State of Wonder
by Ann Patchett
A journey in the Amazon rainforest to find a missing colleague and unlock the secrets of a mysterious drug.
In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, scientific miracles, and spiritual transformations, "State of Wonder" presents a world of stunning surprise and danger, rich in emotional ... (Goodreads)
Children of Blood and Bone
by Tomi Adeyemi
In a world where magic has been suppressed, a young girl fights to bring it back and overthrow the oppressive monarchy.
The novel takes place in the fictional land of Orïsha, inhabited by two distinct people: divîners, who have the capability to become magical maji and are marked by white hair, and non-magical ... (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)
A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
A satirical tale of an eccentric slacker's misadventures in New Orleans.
Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found, here, "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles ... (Goodreads)
Underground Airlines
by Ben H. Winters
In a modern-day America where slavery still exists, a black bounty hunter is tasked with capturing escaped slaves.
The novel is narrated by Victor, a former Person Bound to Labor ('peeb') who, after escaping the Hard Four, has been forced to work as an undercover agent for U.S. Marshal Bridge, infiltrating and ... (Wikipedia)
