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Recommendations based on Big Brotherby Lionel Shriver
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
We Need to Talk About Kevin
by Lionel Shriver
A mother's struggle to come to terms with the monstrous acts of her disturbed son.
In the wake of a school massacre conducted by Kevin Khatchadourian, the 15-year-old son of Franklin Plaskett and Eva Khatchadourian, Eva begins writing letters to Franklin in November 2000. She ... (Wikipedia)
The Post-Birthday World
by Lionel Shriver
A woman's choice between two men, and its consequences, explored in two parallel universes.
In this eagerly awaited new novel, Lionel Shriver, the Orange Prize-winning author of the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, delivers an imaginative and entertaining look at the ... (Goodreads)
Sweet Tooth
by Ian McEwan
Story of a young woman's journey of self-discovery and the moral dilemmas she faces.
The plot is set in early-1970s England. Serena Frome ("rhymes with plume"), the daughter of an Anglican bishop, shows a talent for mathematics and is admitted to the University of Cambridge . But she ... (Wikipedia)
Inside the O'Briens
by Lisa Genova
A family's battle against Huntington's Disease, discovering strength in the face of tragedy.
Joe O’Brien is a forty-four-year-old police officer from the Irish Catholic neighborhood of Charlestown, Massachusetts. A devoted husband, proud father of four children in their twenties, and ... (Goodreads)
Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent
A woman awaits her execution in 19th-century Iceland, reliving her story of hardship, loss and faith.
Burial Rites tells the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a servant in northern Iceland who was condemned to death after the murder of two men, one of whom was her employer, and became the last woman put ... (Wikipedia)
A Spool of Blue Thread
by Anne Tyler
A family's history is revealed through the stories of four generations of its members.
A freshly observed, joyful and wrenching, funny and true new novel from Anne Tyler "It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is how Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how ... (Goodreads)
The Garden of Evening Mists
by Tan Twan Eng
A story of a woman's journey through grief, as she finds solace in the serenity of a Japanese garden.
Malaya, 1949. After studying law at Cambrige and time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals, Yun Ling Teoh seeks solace among the jungle fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she ... (Goodreads)
Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson
A woman lives multiple lives, reflecting on choices and consequences and the power of love.
The novel has an unusual structure, repeatedly looping back in time to describe alternative possible lives for its central character, Ursula Todd, who is born on 11 February 1910 to an ... (Wikipedia)
The Interestings
by Meg Wolitzer
A group of friends meet at a summer camp and navigate their way through life's ups and downs, successes and failures.
The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and ... (Goodreads)
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
by Anne Tyler
A family grapple with their disappointments, as they come to terms with the past.
Pearl Tull is a rigid perfectionist. She has three children with her husband, traveling salesman Beck, who abandons the family. After Beck leaves, Pearl struggles to maintain a front as if nothing is ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Jasper Jones
by Craig Silvey
An Australian coming-of-age story, exploring racial prejudice and the power of friendship.
The protagonist Charlie Bucktin is a quiet, book loving, 13-year-old boy who lives in the fictitious rural town of Corrigan, Western Australia. On a summer evening in 1965, Charlie receives an ... (Wikipedia)
Swimming Home
by Deborah Levy
A haunting tale of a poet's family vacation in the French Riviera, disrupted by the arrival of a disturbed young woman.
In the summer of 1994 the poet Joe Jacobs (Polish émigré Jozef Nowogrodzki) is on vacation in a summer home in the south of France with his wife Isabel, his daughter Nina, and their friends, the ... (Wikipedia)
The Amateur Marriage
by Anne Tyler
An exploration of a failed marriage and its consequences across generations.
The plot concerns the marriage of Michael Anton and Pauline Barclay, who meet when he tends to her bloodied brow in his family's grocery store, located in a primarily Eastern European enclave in ... (Wikipedia)
The Secret Chord
by Geraldine Brooks
A fictionalized account of the life of King David, exploring his rise to power and complex relationships with those around him.
Peeling away the myth to bring the Old Testament's King David to life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to ... (Goodreads)
Katherine
by Anya Seton
A historical romance novel set in 14th century England, following the life of Katherine Swynford and her love affair with John of Gaunt.
Katherine tells the true story of Katherine de Roet, born the daughter of a minor Flemish herald , later knight . Katherine has no obvious prospects, except that her sister is a waiting-woman to ... (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)
The Light Between Oceans
by M.L. Stedman
A lighthouse keeper and his wife make a heartbreaking decision that has lifelong repercussions.
Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found, here, Australia, 1926. After four harrowing years fighting on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns home to take a job as the lighthouse ... (Goodreads)
Heartburn
by Nora Ephron
A woman's journey of redemption after her husband's infidelity.
The narrator of the novel is Rachel Samstat (based on Nora Ephron), a food writer who is married to Mark Feldman (based on Carl Bernstein), a political journalist. Rachel is a Jewish New Yorker who ... (Wikipedia)
Self-Help
by Lorrie Moore
Collection of humorous short stories exploring the lives of characters facing disappointments and heartbreaks.
In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her exit. ... (Goodreads)
Fool's Assassin
by Robin Hobb
A retired assassin is called back into action, revealing secrets and betrayals of the past.
FitzChivalry ("Fitz") is a bastard of the royal Farseer family of the Six Duchies, who had previously used his inherited magical skills in the service of his king. After his past heroic sacrifices, ... (Wikipedia)
What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]
by Zoë Heller
An intriguing tale of a manipulative teacher and a forbidden affair, told through a colleague's perspective.
Barbara, a veteran history teacher at a comprehensive school in London , is a lonely, unmarried woman in her early sixties, and she is eager to find a close friend. However, she reveals that she has ... (Wikipedia)
Us
by David Nicholls
A couple's marriage is tested during a summer trip across Europe, forcing them to confront their past and future together.
Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that, against all odds, seduces beautiful Connie into a second date and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three ... (Goodreads)
Smilla's Sense of Snow
by Peter Høeg
An Arctic investigator's journey to uncover the truth behind a child's mysterious death.
Smilla Qaaviqaaq Jaspersen, 37-year-old product of the stormy union of a female Inuit hunter and a rich urban Danish physician, is a loner who struggles to live with her fractured heritage. Living ... (Wikipedia)
The Woman in Black
by Susan Hill
A Victorian lawyer is tasked with investigating a mysterious and frightening ghost.
The novel is narrated by Arthur Kipps, the young lawyer who formerly worked for Mr. Bentley. One Christmas Eve he is at home with his wife Esme and four stepchildren, who are sharing ghost stories. ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A butler reflects on his past, grappling with the lost opportunities of a life devoted to service.
The novel tells, in first-person narration , the story of Stevens, an English butler who has dedicated his life to the loyal service of Lord Darlington (who is recently deceased, and whom Stevens ... (Wikipedia)
Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War
by Sebastian Faulks
A poignant love story set during World War I, exploring the impact of war on human relationships and the human psyche.
Birdsong has an episodic structure, and is split into seven sections which move between three different periods of time before, during and after the war in the Stephen Wraysford plot, and three ... (Wikipedia)
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
A group of expatriates in 1920s Europe, struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of WWI.
On the surface, the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him unable to have sex—and the promiscuous divorcée usually identified as Lady Brett ... (Wikipedia)
Flight Behavior
by Barbara Kingsolver
A woman's struggle to reconcile her faith and environmentalism as she faces a mysterious ecological disaster.
Dellarobia Turnbow is a 28-year-old discontented housewife living with her poor family on a farm in Appalachia . On a hike to begin an affair with a telephone repairman, Turnbow finds millions of ... (Wikipedia)
