Powered by a book like {foo}
Recommendations based on Ajax Penumbra 1969by Robin Sloan
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloan
A young man's exploration of an unusual bookstore, unlocking a world of secrets.
The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, but after a few days on the job, Clay ... (Goodreads)
Sourdough
by Robin Sloan
A software engineer discovers the joy of baking sourdough bread and the mysterious origins of the starter.
Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two ... (Goodreads)
The Golem and the Jinni
by Helene Wecker
Two supernatural creatures from different mythologies, living in New York City, find companionship and friendship in each other.
In the Polish town of Konin at the end of the 19th century, a corrupt kabbalist named Yehudah Schaalman creates a golem in the shape of a woman at the request of young Otto Rotfeld, who seeks a ... (Wikipedia)
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
by Gabrielle Zevin
Life of an isolated bookseller is transformed when an unexpected visitor brings unexpected joy.
“Marvelously optimistic about the future of books and bookstores and the people who love both.”—, The Washington Post, A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Reader on the 6.27
by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent
An unlikely friendship between a book-loving commuter and a mysterious author.
An irresistible French sensation - Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore meets Amelie - The Reader on the 6.27 explores the power of books through the lives of the people they save. It is sure to capture ... (Goodreads)
The Murmur of Bees
by Sofía Segovia
A Mexican boy's quest for identity and justice in a small rural town.
From a beguiling voice in Mexican fiction comes an astonishing novel—her first to be translated into English—about a mysterious child with the power to change a family’s history in a country on the ... (Goodreads)
Requiem for a Dream
by Hubert Selby Jr.
A tale of four characters and their struggles with addiction, leading to a devastating climax.
This story follows the lives of Sara Goldfarb, her son Harry, his girlfriend Marion Silver, and his best friend Tyrone C. Love, who are all searching for the key to their dreams in their own ways. In ... (Wikipedia)
Armada
by Ernest Cline
A videogamer embarks on an epic journey to save the world from alien invaders.
Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming ... (Goodreads)
The Miniaturist
by Jessie Burton
Set in 17th century Amsterdam, a woman is given a mysterious gift of a dollhouse replica of her home.
Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam–a city ruled by glittering wealth and oppressive religion--a masterful debut steeped in atmosphere and shimmering with mystery, in the tradition of Emma Donoghue, ... (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 Humans
by Matt Haig
A man's journey of self-discovery, struggling to understand the complexities of being human.
Body-snatching has never been so heartwarming . . . The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable novel about alien abduction, mathematics, and that most interesting subject of all: ourselves. Combine ... (Goodreads)
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
by Neil Gaiman
Collection of short stories, exploring the boundaries of the imaginative.
Multiple award winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman returns to dazzle, captivate, haunt, and entertain with this third collection of short fiction following Smoke and Mirrors and ... (Goodreads)
Britt-Marie Was Here
by Fredrik Backman
A woman's quest for independence and self-discovery, learning to embrace life and take risks.
The plot of the novel focuses on a "nag-hag" woman who has recently left her cheating husband and has taken on a job in the city of Borg, working at the recreation center. The city itself is barely a ... (Wikipedia)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer
A young boy's quest to find the lock that matches a mysterious key his father left behind.
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and ... (Goodreads)
Hollow City
by Ransom Riggs
An orphan and his friends set out on a daring journey to save their world from destruction.
After fleeing in a boat from the hollowgasts, the peculiar children are caught up in a bad storm and need to find land. They land on a beach only to find that the wights are trying to track them ... (Wikipedia)
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
by Fredrik Backman
An imaginative quest to uncover the truth behind a beloved grandmother's mysterious stories.
The story takes place in Sweden and follows Elsa, a 7-year-old who knows she is different from other children her age. Elsa has a habit of correcting others' grammar, she is smart for her age, and is ... (Wikipedia)
The Year of the Flood
by Margaret Atwood
A dystopian tale of survival as humanity faces a new plague, and two women fight against a powerful corporation.
The Year of the Flood details the events of, Oryx and Crake, from the perspective of the lower classes in the pleeblands , specifically the God's Gardeners. God's Gardeners are a religious sect that ... (Wikipedia)
The Girl with All the Gifts
by M.R. Carey
A post-apocalyptic world where a young girl holds the key to humanity's survival.
Twenty years ago humanity was infected by a variant of the fungus native to South America called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which led to the Breakdown - the end of civilization as it was before. ... (Wikipedia)
The Shipping News
by Annie Proulx
A man's attempt to rebuild his life in a small Newfoundland town, discovering compassion and joy.
The story centers around Quoyle, a newspaper reporter from upstate New York , whose father had emigrated from Newfoundland . Shortly after his parents' joint suicide, Quoyle's unfaithful and abusive ... (Wikipedia)
Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman
A mysterious journey through a hidden realm of London, filled with danger and unexpected allies.
Neverwhere is the story of Richard Mayhew and his trials and tribulations in London. At the start of the story, he is a young businessman, recently moved from Scotland and with a normal life ahead. ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Dark Tower
by Stephen King
Epic fantasy quest to save the world by reaching the mysterious Dark Tower.
The seventh and final installment of Stephen King's The Dark Tower saga is perhaps the most anticipated book in the author's long career. King began this epic tale about the last gunslinger in the ... (Goodreads)
Stephen King's N.
by Marc Guggenheim
A psychiatrist uncovers a patient's obsession with a mysterious stone circle and the terrifying consequences that follow.
In the outer circle of a nested narrative , a woman named Sheila writes to her childhood friend Charlie about her brother, Johnny, a psychiatrist who recently committed suicide. Sheila suspects it ... (Wikipedia)
The October Man
by Ben Aaronovitch
A murder investigation in a small German town uncovers dark secrets and hidden motives.
Trier is famous for wine, Romans and for being Germany’s oldest city. So when a man is found dead with his body impossibly covered in a fungal rot, the local authorities know they are out of their ... (Goodreads)
The Gift of the Magi
by O. Henry
A young couple's story of love and sacrifice as they give up their most prized possessions for one another.
On Christmas Eve , Della Young discovers that she has only $1.87 to buy a present for her husband Jim. She visits the nearby shop of a hairdresser, Madame Sofronie, who buys Della's long hair for ... (Wikipedia)
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 Dead
by Charlie Higson
A deadly virus has wiped out most of the world's population, leaving a group of children to fend for themselves in a post-apocalyptic London.
The Dead begins a year before the events in, The Enemy, , where an unnamed user posts a video on Youtube titled "The Scared Kid". In it, a boy frantically talks to the camera about how his friends ... (Wikipedia)
Wool Omnibus
by Hugh Howey
Uncovering the truth behind a post-apocalyptic world, where society is hidden beneath a giant dome.
The story of Wool takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth. , Humanity clings to survival in the Silo, a subterranean city extending one hundred forty-four stories beneath the surface. The series ... (Wikipedia)
The End of the World Running Club
by Adrian J. Walker
After a catastrophic asteroid strike, a man must run across a post-apocalyptic UK to reunite with his family.
The #1 International Bestseller! A Science Fiction & Fantasy Book to Keep on Your Radar by io9 and Gizmodo A fast-paced, literary, dystopian thriller for fans of fiction like Andy Weir's The Martian ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Map of Salt and Stars
by Zeyn Joukhadar
A young Syrian-American girl and her family flee to Syria, retracing the journey of a 12th-century girl who mapped the stars.
It is the summer of 2011, and Nour has just lost her father to cancer. Her mother, a cartographer who creates unusual, hand-painted maps, decides to move Nour and her sisters from New York City back ... (Goodreads)
