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Recommendations based on My Name Is Lucy Bartonby Elizabeth Strout
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Anything Is Possible
by Elizabeth Strout
An exploration of the interconnected lives of a small town's inhabitants, and the power of redemption.
Short story collection Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. Here are two sisters: one ... (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)
Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi
Spanning centuries, the intertwining stories of two African sisters, their descendants, and the legacy of slavery.
Effia is raised by her mother, Baaba, who is cruel to her. Nevertheless she works hard to please her mother. Known as a beauty, Effia is intended to be married to the future chief of her village, but ... (Wikipedia)
Commonwealth
by Ann Patchett
Intertwining story of two families across multiple generations, and how their lives become intertwined.
It started at Franny Keating’s christening party. Bert Cousins wasn’t even invited, but looking for an excuse to get out of the house, away from his three noisy children and pregnant wife for a few ... (Wikipedia)
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
An escaped slave's daring escape to freedom, fighting against the brutality of slavery.
The story is told in the third person, focusing mainly on Cora. Scattered single chapters also focus on Cora's mother Mabel, the slavecatcher Ridgeway, a reluctant slave sympathizer named Ethel, and ... (Wikipedia)
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
A small group of misfit college students uncover a sinister secret and their lives become entangled with dangerous consequences.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the ... (Goodreads)
Miller's Valley
by Anna Quindlen
A coming-of-age story of Mimi Miller, who grows up in a small town that is slowly being flooded.
For generations the Millers have lived in Miller’s Valley. Mimi Miller tells about her life with intimacy and honesty. As Mimi eavesdrops on her parents and quietly observes the people around her, ... (Goodreads)
Fates and Furies
by Lauren Groff
A tale of the secrets and passions of a marriage, exploring the depths of private lives.
Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, ... (Goodreads)
A God in Ruins
by Kate Atkinson
An exploration of the life of a World War II pilot and the effects of trauma on his family.
The novel is about the life of Teddy Todd (younger brother of Ursula Todd, the protagonist of the companion work,, Life After Life, ). Events in his life are not revealed in chronological order. The ... (Wikipedia)
Our Souls at Night
by Kent Haruf
An elderly couple's exploration of love, loneliness, and companionship.
A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future. In ... (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)
Euphoria
by Lily King
Three anthropologists in the 1930s study a tribe in New Guinea, leading to a complex love triangle and ethical dilemmas.
A New York Times Bestseller,Winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize,Winner of the 2014 New England Book Award for Fiction,A Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award,A Best Book of the Year for:,, ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Invention of Wings
by Sue Monk Kidd
A powerful story about a girl's journey to freedom, despite the limitations of slavery.
Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world—and it is now ... (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)
News of the World
by Paulette Jiles
Captain Kidd travels through Texas in 1870, reading the news to townspeople. He is tasked with returning a young girl to her family.
The book opens in 1870 on the wild border between Texas and Indian Territory , where a 10-year-old girl has been released after four years of captivity. Kiowa raiders had killed her family and taken ... (Wikipedia)
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)
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)
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)
The Children Act
by Ian McEwan
A family court judge must make a difficult decision between the law and her conscience.
Fiona Maye is a respected High Court Judge specialising in Family Law and living in Gray's Inn Square. While reviewing a case, she is approached by her husband, Jack, who tells her that because of ... (Wikipedia)
Hag-Seed
by Margaret Atwood
A modern retelling of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" with a cast of unique characters.
Hag-Seed follows the life of Felix, once experimental Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg theatre festival, now an exiled man who speaks to his daughter's ghost. Felix's fall from the theatrical ... (Wikipedia)
Vinegar Girl
by Anne Tyler
A retelling of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" set in modern day Baltimore.
Pulitzer Prize winner and American master Anne Tyler brings us an inspired, witty and irresistible contemporary take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedies. Kate Battista feels stuck. How did ... (Goodreads)
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 Immortalists
by Chloe Benjamin
Four siblings visit a fortune teller who predicts the dates of their deaths, leading them to confront mortality and shape their lives accordingly.
If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims ... (Goodreads)
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 Green Road
by Anne Enright
A family's journey through life, with each member reflecting on their individual paths.
The first half of the novel concerns each family member individually and goes chronologically from 1980 to 2005. Each of the four Madigan children and their mother Rosaleen receive a chapter of their ... (Wikipedia)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
A coming of age story set in Brooklyn, depicting a young girl's struggles and growth.
The novel is split into five "books", each covering a different period in the characters' lives. Book One opens in 1912 and introduces 11-year-old Francie Nolan, who lives in the Williamsburg ... (Wikipedia)
The Ninth Hour
by Alice McDermott
A young Irish immigrant commits suicide, leaving his pregnant wife to be taken care of by the nuns of the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor.
From National Book Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize Finalist Alice McDermott,, The Ninth Hour, is the critically-acclaimed “haunting and vivid portrait of an Irish Catholic clan in early twentieth ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Signature of All Things
by Elizabeth Gilbert
A woman's quest for knowledge and self-fulfillment, spanning through the 19th century.
A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge, from the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and Committed. In The Signature of All Things, ... (Goodreads)
The Door
by Magda Szabó
A mysterious doorkeeper guards the door between two worlds, changing the lives of two women.
The novel begins with Magda, the narrator, recounting the recurring dream that haunts her in her old age. As Magda explains, after waking up from this dream, she is forced to face the fact that "I ... (Wikipedia)
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)
