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Recommendations based on The Septembers of Shirazby Dalia Sofer
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
The Space Between Us
by Thrity Umrigar
A poignant story of two women from different social classes in Mumbai, India, and their unlikely friendship that defies societal norms.
The Space Between Us takes place in present-day India and centers on two women: Serabai (Sera) Dubash, an upper-middle-class , Parsi widow, and her domestic servant of more than twenty years, Bhima. ... (Wikipedia)
The Agony and the Ecstasy
by Irving Stone
An epic tale of Michelangelo's life and art, the struggles and triumphs of his creative genius.
Celebrating the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo’s David, New American Library releases a special edition of Irving Stone’s classic biographical novel—in which both the artist and the man are ... (Goodreads)
The Kitchen God's Wife
by Amy Tan
A Chinese-American woman's story of family, culture, and personal growth.
The novel opens with the narrative voice of Pearl Louie Brandt, the American-born daughter of a Chinese mother and a Chinese-American father, living in San Jose, California . Pearl's mother, Winnie ... (Wikipedia)
Birds of a Feather
by Jacqueline Winspear
Private investigator Maisie Dobbs investigates the murder of a wealthy aviatrix in 1920s London.
An eventful year has passed for Maisie Dobbs. Since starting a one-woman private investigation agency in 1929 London, she now has a professional office in Fitzroy Square and an assistant, the ... (Goodreads)
Half of a Yellow Sun
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Story of two sisters navigating a civil war in Nigeria, and the effects of colonialism.
The novel takes place in Nigeria prior to and during the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70). The effect of the war is shown through the relationships of five people's lives including the twin daughters of ... (Wikipedia)
Peony in Love
by Lisa See
A young woman's journey of self-discovery and exploration of love.
Peony's father, a wealthy, cultured man with important political contacts, is planning a performance of The Peony Pavilion on his estate. This is seen by many as controversial because the opera may ... (Wikipedia)
Birds Without Wings
by Louis de Bernières
A story of a town in Turkey affected by war and political turmoil, told through the lives of its inhabitants.
The pace of the book is languid, even slow. The story is set in Eskibahçe, a small fictional village in southwestern coastal Anatolia during the 1900s, spanning World War I and the era of Turkish ... (Wikipedia)
The Hour I First Believed
by Wally Lamb
A teacher's life is shattered by the Columbine shooting, leading to a journey of self-discovery and healing.
When high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his wife, Maureen, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, while Caelum is away, Maureen finds herself in ... (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)
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)
Stones from the River
by Ursula Hegi
A dwarf girl navigates life in a small German town during WWII, facing discrimination and secrets.
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780684844770 From the highly acclaimed, award-winning author of Floating in My Mother's Palm comes a stunning novel about ordinary people living in extraordinary ... (Goodreads)
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 Inheritance of Loss
by Kiran Desai
An exploration of the effects of colonialism on the characters' lives in a small Himalayan town.
In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his ... (Goodreads)
The Beautiful and Damned
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A young couple's struggle to maintain their marriage while searching for financial stability.
The Beautiful and Damned tells the story of Anthony Patch in 1910s New York, a socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon's fortune; his complicated marriage to Gloria Gilbert; the couple's troubling ... (Wikipedia)
The Known World
by Edward P. Jones
A story of a former slave turned landowner navigating the complex social dynamics of Antebellum America.
One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones. The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black ... (Goodreads)
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)
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An exploration of race, identity, and belonging as two Nigerian immigrants experience life in America and beyond.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to ... (Goodreads)
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)
This Side of Paradise
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A young man's quest to find purpose and meaning in a turbulent post-war world.
The book is written in three parts. Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner, is convinced that he has an exceptionally promising future. He attends boarding school and later Princeton University. He ... (Wikipedia)
Hawaii
by James A. Michener
Epic saga of the history, culture and people of the Hawaiian Islands.
The novel tells the history of Hawaiian Islands from the creation of the isles to the time they became an American state, through the viewpoints of selected characters who represent their ethnic and ... (Wikipedia)
The Lacuna
by Barbara Kingsolver
Exploring the ties between art, politics and identity in tumultuous 1930s Mexico.
The novel tells the story of Harrison William Shepherd beginning with his childhood in Mexico during the 1930s. His parents are separated so he lives back and forth between the United States with his ... (Wikipedia)
On Beauty
by Zadie Smith
A story of two families, their struggles with identity, race, and class, and the beauty that can be found in unexpected places.
On Beauty centres on the story of two families and their different yet increasingly intertwined lives. The Belsey family consists of university professor Howard, a white Englishman; his ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Prince of Tides
by Pat Conroy
A man's search for solace and understanding in his troubled family's past.
Tom Wingo is a middle-aged man with a wife and three young daughters who has recently lost his job as a high school English teacher and football coach. He learns that his twin sister, Savannah, has ... (Wikipedia)
Kafka on the Shore
by Haruki Murakami
A surreal journey of self-discovery, exploring the boundaries between the real and surreal.
Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between both plots, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters. The odd-numbered chapters tell the 15-year-old ... (Wikipedia)
The Snow Child
by Eowyn Ivey
A couple's dream of a child comes true in the Alaskan wilderness, but with unexpected consequences.
Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart–he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she ... (Goodreads)
Bleak House
by Charles Dickens
A social commentary on the English legal system, exploring themes of inequality, injustice and corruption.
Bleak House opens in the twilight of foggy London, where fog grips the city most densely in the Court of Chancery. The obscure case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, in which an inheritance is gradually ... (Goodreads)
City of Thieves
by David Benioff
Two young men embark on a perilous mission in the besieged Leningrad of WWII.
The story is introduced as the recollections of the narrator's grandfather Lev Beniov, a contemporary Russian Jewish émigré. It is set in the first week of 1942, with the 17-years-old Lev trying to ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The White Tiger
by Aravind Adiga
An exploration of the Indian class system, told from the perspective of a lower-caste man.
The entire novel is narrated through letters by Balram Halwai to the Premier of China, who will soon be visiting India. Balram is an Indian man from an impoverished background, born in the village of ... (Wikipedia)
