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Recommendations based on The Mars Roomby Rachel Kushner
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Elmet
by Fiona Mozley
A family living off the grid in rural England faces threats from the outside world. A haunting exploration of violence, loyalty, and love.
The narrator who speaks in the sections in cursive seems to be looking for somebody against a modern landscape of highways, lorries and café stopovers. We will come to realise that this is Daniel, ... (Wikipedia)
The Flamethrowers
by Rachel Kushner
An exploration of art, politics, and identity in 1970s New York and Italy.
In 1975, a young art school graduate from Reno moves to New York City hoping to become a successful artist. She meets an older, more established artist, Sandro Valera, the heir of Moto Valera, an ... (Wikipedia)
Tin Man
by Sarah Winman
A story of friendship, love, and loss as three characters navigate life-altering decisions.
This is almost a love story. Ellis and Michael are twelve when they first become friends, and for a long time it is just the two of them, cycling the streets of Oxford, teaching themselves how to ... (Goodreads)
There There
by Tommy Orange
A powerful novel that follows the lives of twelve Native Americans living in Oakland, California, as they prepare for a powwow.
The book begins with an essay by Orange, detailing "brief and jarring vignettes revealing the violence and genocide that Indigenous people have endured, and how it has been sanitized over the ... (Wikipedia)
Motherhood
by Sheila Heti
A woman contemplates whether or not to have a child, exploring the complexities and societal expectations surrounding motherhood.
From the author of How Should a Person Be? (“one of the most talked-about books of the year”— Time Magazine ) and the New York Times Bestseller Women in Clothes comes a daring novel about whether to ... (Goodreads)
The Overstory
by Richard Powers
Nine strangers are brought together by their love for trees, leading to a fight to save the last of the remaining forests.
Nicholas Hoel, Mimi Ma, Adam Appich, Ray Brinkman, Dorothy Cazaly, Douglas Pavlicek, Neelay Mehta, Patricia Westerford, and Olivia Vandergriff are people who had unique relationships with trees which ... (Wikipedia)
The House of Broken Angels
by Luis Alberto Urrea
A Mexican-American family comes together to celebrate the final birthday of their patriarch, as they confront their past and present struggles.
In this "raucous, moving, and necessary" story by a Pulitzer Prize finalist (,San Francisco Chronicle,), the De La Cruzes, a family on the Mexican-American border, celebrate two of their most beloved ... (Barnes & Noble)
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)
The Sellout
by Paul Beatty
An outrageous satire of race and civil rights in modern America.
The novel concerns a narrator, referred to by his childhood nickname "Bonbon" or his last name, "Me," who attempts to reintroduce segregation and keep a slave named Hominy in Dickens, his Los Angeles ... (Wikipedia)
Sing, Unburied, Sing
by Jesmyn Ward
A family's journey through the Mississippi Delta, confronting a traumatic past.
It is Jojo's thirteenth birthday. To step into his new role as a man, Jojo tries to bravely help his grandfather, Pop, kill a goat. Jojo ends up throwing up at the sight although Pop is sympathetic. ... (Wikipedia)
Exit West
by Mohsin Hamid
Reflection on displacement and immigration as two refugees traverse the world in search of a new life.
Nadia and Saeed meet when they are working students in an unnamed city. Saeed is more conservative and still lives at home, as custom generally requires, but the more independent Nadia has chosen to ... (Wikipedia)
The Perfect Nanny
by Leïla Slimani
A captivating and chilling story of a nanny's descent into madness.
This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780143132172. When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for ... (Goodreads)
The Hummingbird's Daughter
by Luis Alberto Urrea
A Mexican girl's journey to self-acceptance, discovering the power of faith and family.
The prizewinning writer Luis Alberto Urrea's long-awaited novel is an epic mystical drama of a young woman's sudden sainthood in late 19th-century Mexico. It is 1889, and the civil war is brewing in ... (Goodreads)
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 Story of a New Name
by Elena Ferrante
Two young women's search for identity and independence in a patriarchal society.
In 2012, Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels. The Story of a New ... (Goodreads)
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)
The Fortress of Solitude
by Jonathan Lethem
A young man's exploration of friendship, identity and belonging in a rapidly changing world.
From the prize-winning author of Motherless Brooklyn , a daring, riotous, sweeping novel that spins the tale of two friends and their adventures in late 20th-century America. This is the story of two ... (Goodreads)
Manhattan Beach
by Jennifer Egan
A female-led story of crime, courage and sacrifice set in 1940s Brooklyn.
Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea ... (Goodreads)
Redeployment
by Phil Klay
Collection of stories of soldiers' experiences in Iraq, spanning the battlefield and homecoming.
Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven ... (Goodreads)
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)
Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders
A spiritual exploration of death, exploring the afterlife through the eyes of President Lincoln.
In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by ... (Goodreads)
Bitter Orange
by Claire Fuller
A tale of love, obsession, and betrayal set in a dilapidated English country mansion.
From the attic of Lyntons, a dilapidated English country mansion, Frances Jellico sees them—Cara first: dark and beautiful, then Peter: striking and serious. The couple is spending the summer of 1969 ... (Goodreads)
Everything Under
by Daisy Johnson
A haunting story of a mother and daughter, their secrets, and the search for a lost person.
The dictionary doesn’t contain every word. Gretel, a lexicographer by trade, knows this better than most. She grew up on a houseboat with her mother, wandering the canals of Oxford and speaking a ... (Goodreads)
Heroes of the Frontier
by Dave Eggers
A mother takes her two children on a road trip through Alaska, escaping her past and searching for a new beginning.
A captivating, often hilarious novel of family, loss, wilderness, and the curse of a violent America, Dave Eggers's Heroes of the Frontier is a powerful examination of our contemporary life and a ... (Goodreads)
The Animators
by Kayla Rae Whitaker
Two female animators create a hit film, but their personal lives unravel as they confront their past traumas.
In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and ... (Goodreads)
Everything Here Is Beautiful
by Mira T. Lee
The story of two sisters, one with a mental illness, and their journey through love, loss, and the complexities of family relationships.
Two Chinese-American sisters—Miranda, the older, responsible one, always her younger sister’s protector; Lucia, the headstrong, unpredictable one, whose impulses are huge and, often, life changing. ... (Goodreads)
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
by Karen Joy Fowler
A family's secrets and a girl's quest for the truth about her own identity.
The, New York Times, bestselling author of, The Jane Austen Book Club, introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award ... (Barnes & Noble)
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)
The Topeka School
by Ben Lerner
A coming-of-age story set in the 90s, exploring the complexities of language, masculinity, and family dynamics.
FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE WINNER OF THE, LOS ANGELES TIMES, BOOK PRIZE, ONE OF, THE ,, NEW YORK TIMES, TOP TEN BOOKS OF THE YEAR A, TIME, GQ, Vulture,, and, WASHINGTON POST , TOP 10 BOOK of the ... (Barnes & Noble)
