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Recommendations based on Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want Itby Maile Meloy
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
A Visit from the Goon Squad
by Jennifer Egan
A mosaic of characters, lives, and relationships as they intertwine and evolve over time.
Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. ... (Goodreads)
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)
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories
by Alice Munro
Interconnected stories exploring the complexities of love, relationships, and family.
In the her tenth collection (the title story of which is the basis for the new film Hateship Loveship ), Alice Munro achieves new heights, creating narratives that loop and swerve like memory, and ... (Goodreads)
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)
Freedom
by Jonathan Franzen
A family saga revealing the struggles of a divided nation, and the power of love to heal.
The novel opens with a brief look at the Berglund family during their time living in St. Paul, Minnesota , from the perspective of their nosy neighbors. The Berglunds are portrayed as an ideal ... (Wikipedia)
Out Stealing Horses
by Per Petterson
An elderly man reflects on his past, uncovering long-buried secrets and memories.
We were going out stealing horses. That was what he said, standing at the door to the cabin where I was spending the summer with my father. I was fifteen. It was 1948 and one of the first days of ... (Goodreads)
What Is the What
by Dave Eggers
A young African refugee's journey from Sudan to America, struggling to survive and keep his culture alive.
Achak is separated from his family during the Second Sudanese Civil War when the Arab militia, referred to as murahaleen (which is Arabic for the deported), wipes out his Dinka village, Marial Bai . ... (Wikipedia)
Song of Solomon
by Toni Morrison
A tale of family, heritage, and identity, exploring the power of memory and its impact on the present.
Song of Solomon opens with the death of Robert Smith, an insurance agent and member of The Seven Days, an organization that kills white people in retaliation for the racial killing of black people. ... (Wikipedia)
The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood
A complex, interwoven story of family secrets, love, tragedy, and mystery.
The novel's protagonist , Iris Chase, and her sister Laura, grow up well-off but motherless in a small town in southern Ontario. As an old woman, Iris recalls the events and relationships of her ... (Wikipedia)
Atonement
by Ian McEwan
A tale of the consequences of a child's mistake, and how its effects ripple through generations.
Briony Tallis, a 13-year-old English girl with a talent for writing, lives at her family's country estate with her parents Jack and Emily Tallis. Her older sister Cecilia has recently graduated from ... (Wikipedia)
Tenth of December
by George Saunders
A collection of stories exploring the human condition through diverse characters and their struggles.
A young girl named Alison is kidnapped three days before her birthday. Kyle, a boy who lives nearby whose parents enforce very strict household rules, sees the event unfold and must decide whether to ... (Wikipedia)
A Gate at the Stairs
by Lorrie Moore
An exploration of identity and belonging in the midst of cultural divides.
The novel's main character is Tassie Keltjin. At age 20, Keltjin is attending a major university identified only as the " Athens of the Midwest ." When the novel opens, she is looking for a job as a ... (Wikipedia)
Kiss of the Spider Woman
by Manuel Puig
An unlikely friendship between two prisoners, exploring themes of sexuality, fantasy and politics.
Two prisoners, Luis Molina and Valentín Arregui, share a cell in a Buenos Aires prison. The story takes place between September 9, 1975 and October 8, 1975. , Molina, a transgender woman, is in jail ... (Wikipedia)
When Will There Be Good News?
by Kate Atkinson
A gripping mystery that intertwines the lives of three individuals, each with their own secrets and tragedies, leading to a shocking conclusion.
In her crime novel When Will There Be Good News?, featuring recurring character Jackson Brodie, Kate Atkinson begins with several seemingly unrelated storylines that slowly resolve into a whole. The ... (Wikipedia)
The Lost Daughter
by Elena Ferrante
A woman's exploration of guilt, secrets, and the power of motherhood.
Leda, a middle-aged divorcée, is alone for the first time in years after her two adult daughters leave home to live with their father in Toronto. Enjoying an unexpected sense of liberty, she heads to ... (Goodreads)
Tree of Smoke
by Denis Johnson
Epic tale of an American family's journey through the Vietnam War.
Johnson's novel revolves around the associations and interactions with Francis X. Sands, a retired Air Force colonel and war hero, now a CIA official in Southeast Asia. The story is told primarily ... (Wikipedia)
The Imperfectionists
by Tom Rachman
A story of interconnected lives, exploring the fragility of human relationships.
Set against the gorgeous backdrop of Rome, Tom Rachman’s wry, vibrant debut follows the topsy-turvy private lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language ... (Goodreads)
We the Animals
by Justin Torres
A coming-of-age story of a young boy growing up with a Puerto Rican family in Brooklyn, NY.
The young, unnamed narrator, a boy, grows up in a tight-knit family with two older brothers, Manny and Joel. His parents, who were teenagers when the boys were conceived and they married, have an ... (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)
The Member of the Wedding
by Carson McCullers
A young girl's struggles to find her identity and connection in the face of life-changing events.
The novel takes place over a few days in late August. It tells the story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams, who feels disconnected from the world; in her words, an "unjoined person." Frankie's ... (Wikipedia)
The Tiger's Wife
by Téa Obreht
A young doctor in a war-torn Balkan country uncovers the secrets of her grandfather's past, including his relationship with a mysterious woman known as the Tiger's Wife.
Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, the youngest of The New Yorker ’s twenty best American fiction writers under forty, has spun a timeless novel that will ... (Goodreads)
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
by Sherman Alexie
A collection of interconnected short stories about life on the Spokane Indian Reservation, exploring themes of identity, loss, and survival.
In this darkly comic short story collection, Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life ... (Goodreads)
Bel Canto
by Ann Patchett
A story of redemption and transformation amidst a hostage crisis.
Set in an unspecified South American country, , the story begins at a birthday party thrown at the country's vice presidential home in honor of Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large ... (Wikipedia)
The Crimson Petal and the White
by Michel Faber
A prostitute's journey of self-empowerment as she navigates the seedy underbelly of Victorian England.
Sugar, 19, prostitute in Victorian London, yearns for a better life. From brutal brothel-keeper Mrs Castaway, she ascends in society. Affections of self-involved perfume magnate William Rackham soon ... (Goodreads)
Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
A dynamic narrative spanning centuries, exploring the interconnectedness of humanity.
The book consists of six nested stories; each is read or observed by a main character of the next, thus they progress in time through the central sixth story. The first five stories are each ... (Wikipedia)
Too Much Happiness: Stories
by Alice Munro
Exploration of the human condition through stories of everyday people and their complex relationships.
In these ten stories, Alice Munro once again renders complex, difficult events and emotions into stories that shed light on the unpredictable ways in which men and women accommodate and often ... (Goodreads)
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
by Marisha Pessl
Blue van Meer navigates her senior year at an eccentric school, uncovering secrets and tragedies along the way.
Blue van Meer is a film-obsessed, erudite teenager. She is the daughter of itinerant and arrogant academic Gareth van Meer, who, after the death of his amateur lepidopteran-catching wife (and Blue's ... (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)
Sophie's Choice
by William Styron
A survivor of the Holocaust is confronted with a devastating moral dilemma.
Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel, has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher McGraw-Hill and has moved into a cheap boarding house in ... (Wikipedia)
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
by Sappho
Poetic exploration of love and desire, reflecting on the beauty of life and nature.
By combining the ancient mysteries of Sappho with the contemporary wizardry of one of our most fearless and original poets, If Not, Winter provides a tantalizing window onto the genius of a woman ... (Barnes & Noble)
