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Recommendations based on The Most Beautiful Book in the World: Eight Novellasby Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
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Monsieur Ibrahim and The Flowers of the Qur'an
by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt
A young Jewish boy befriends a Muslim shopkeeper and embarks on a journey of self-realization.
The book begins with a young Moïse, commonly referred to as Momo, preparing to search for a prostitute . It is written as a reflection of his childhood, and he notes that he was only eleven years old ... (Wikipedia)
A Fraction of the Whole
by Steve Toltz
A quirky, whimsical exploration of family dynamics, life's absurdities, and the human condition.
A Fraction of the Whole uses a multi-perspective narrative, often going back in time to show Martin's perspective on events before returning to Jasper's story in the present. The framing narrative of ... (Wikipedia)
The Forty Rules of Love
by Elif Shafak
A story of romance and spiritual enlightenment, exploring the teachings of a Sufi master.
Ella Rubenstein is forty years old and unhappily married when she takes a job as a reader for a literary agent. Her first assignment is to read and report on Sweet Blasphemy , a novel written by a ... (Goodreads)
Letter to a Child Never Born
by Oriana Fallaci
A woman reflects on her life and contemplates the implications of motherhood.
Published by Rizzoli in 1975, Letter to a Child Never Born was quickly translated and sold in twenty-seven countries worldwide, becoming an extraordinary success. It is the tragic monologue of a ... (Goodreads)
Shanghai Girls
by Lisa See
Two sisters navigate the turmoil of 1930s Shanghai, while struggling to protect each other.
Shanghai Girls is divided into three parts: Fate, Fortune, and Destiny. Here See treats Chinese immigration from a personal view through Pearl's narration. In, On Gold Mountain, she objectively ... (Wikipedia)
On Love
by Alain de Botton
A philosophical exploration of love, exploring its nature and forms.
"The longing for a destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life" we are told at the outset of Alain de Botton's On Love, a hip, charming, and devastatingly witty rumination on the thrills ... (Goodreads)
The Snow Queen
by Hans Christian Andersen
A courageous young girl embarks on a journey to rescue a friend from the clutches of an evil queen.
Reprinted here for the first time since the 19th century, these color illustrations by T. Pym make the classic Andersen fairy tale even more magical. One of Andersen's best-beloved tales, The Snow ... (Goodreads)
Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel García Márquez
An epic love story spanning decades, exploring the power of true love.
The main characters of the novel are Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza. Florentino and Fermina fall in love in their youth. A secret relationship blossoms between the two with the help of Fermina's ... (Wikipedia)
The Suicide Shop
by Jean Teulé
A family runs a shop that sells everything needed for a successful suicide. The youngest son, however, has a different outlook on life.
Has your life been a failure? Let's make your death a success With the twenty-first century just a distant memory and the world in environmental chaos, many people have lost the will to live. And ... (Goodreads)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
A story of two unlikely outcasts who find solace and comfort in each other's company.
The story revolves mainly around the characters of Renée Michel and Paloma Josse, residents of an upper-middle class Left Bank apartment building at 7 Rue de Grenelle – one of the most elegant ... (Wikipedia)
Blindness
by José Saramago
A society is plunged into chaos when everyone suddenly loses their sight.
Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The novel follows the misfortune of a ... (Wikipedia)
The Gadfly
by Ethel Lilian Voynich
A young man’s struggle to find his place in the world against his oppressive society.
The Gadfly is a novel by Ethel Lilian Voynich, published in 1897, set in 1840s Italy under the dominance of Austria, a time of tumultuous revolt and uprisings. The story centers on the life of the ... (Goodreads)
The Autumn of the Patriarch
by Gabriel García Márquez
A powerful tyrant's downfall as he is manipulated by his inner circle and loses his grip on power.
One of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most intricate and ambitious works, The Autumn of the Patriarch is a brilliant tale of a Caribbean tyrant and the corruption of power. From charity to deceit, ... (Goodreads)
Dreams of Joy
by Lisa See
A young woman's journey to discover her Chinese roots, only to find unexpected truth and tragedy.
Dreams of Joy is organized in four sections—The Tiger Leaps, The Rabbit Dodges, The Dog Grins, and The Dragon Rises. Joy is the Tiger – romantic, artistic, rash, and impulsive. In this novel, unlike ... (Wikipedia)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
by Dai Sijie
Two city boys discover the beauty of the countryside, and the power of art, during the Cultural Revolution.
The novel, written by Dai Sijie, is about two teenage boys during the Chinese Cultural Revolution , Luo, described as having "a genius for storytelling", , and the unnamed narrator, "a fine ... (Wikipedia)
The Course of Love
by Alain de Botton
A realistic portrayal of a couple's relationship, from the initial infatuation to the challenges of long-term commitment.
“An engrossing tale [that] provides plenty of food for thought” ( People , Best New Books pick), this playful, wise, and profoundly moving second novel from the internationally bestselling author of ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Housekeeper and the Professor
by Yōko Ogawa
A gentle story of friendship and understanding between a brilliant mathematician and his housekeeper.
The narrator's housekeeping agency dispatches her to the house of the Professor, a former mathematician who can remember new memories for only 80 minutes. She is more than a little frustrated to find ... (Wikipedia)
Strange Pilgrims
by Gabriel García Márquez
Collection of stories about Latin American travelers, exploring the depths of human experience.
In Barcelona, an aging Brazilian prostitute trains her dog to weep at the grave she has chosen for herself. In Vienna, a woman parlays her gift for seeing the future into a fortunetelling position ... (Goodreads)
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
by Helen Simonson
A widower finds love and acceptance in an unlikely place, challenging social conventions.
You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as ... (Goodreads)
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)
Me and Mr. Darcy
by Alexandra Potter
A modern-day woman travels to England and falls in love with a man who resembles Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice."
Dreams come true in this hilarious, feel-good fairy tale about life, love, and dating literature’s most eligible bachelor! After a string of disastrous dates, Emily Albright decides she’s had it with ... (Goodreads)
Death with Interruptions
by José Saramago
A mysterious phenomenon that stops all deaths leading to a dilemma of moral, ethical and social implications.
The book, set in an unnamed, landlocked country at a point in the unspecified past, opens with the end of death. Mysteriously, at the stroke of midnight on January 1, no one in the country ... (Wikipedia)
Heart of a Dog
by Mikhail Bulgakov
A satirical story of a scientist who attempts to transform a stray dog into a human.
Moscow , 1924. While foraging for trash one winter day, a stray dog is found by a cook and scalded with boiling water. Lying forlorn in a doorway, the dog awaits his end awash in self-pity. To his ... (Wikipedia)
Unaccustomed Earth
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Collection of stories exploring the complexities of family, culture, and identity.
From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take ... (Goodreads)
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)
The Gambler
by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A story of addiction and gambling, and the psychological depths of a man’s desperation.
The first-person narrative is told from the point of view of Alexei Ivanovich, a tutor working for a Russian family living in a suite at a German hotel. The patriarch of the family, The General, is ... (Wikipedia)
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
An exploration of memory and its impact on the present, looking at the choices we make in life.
By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be ... (Goodreads)
Père Goriot
by Honoré de Balzac
A tale of ambition, greed, and human relationships in 19th century Paris.
The novel opens with an extended description of the Maison Vauquer, a boarding house in Paris' rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève covered with vines, owned by the widow Madame Vauquer. The residents include ... (Wikipedia)
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Collection of stories exploring the struggles of Indian-American immigrants in the US.
A married couple, Shukumar and Shoba, live as strangers in their house until an electrical outage brings them together when all of sudden "they [are] able to talk to each other again" in the four ... (Wikipedia)
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
by Ben H. Winters
A parody of Jane Austen's classic novel, with added sea monsters and adventure on the high seas.
The story follows the plot of Sense and Sensibility , but places the novel in an alternate universe version of Regency era United Kingdom where an event known as “The Alteration” has turned the ... (Wikipedia)
