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Recommendations based on Lush Lifeby Richard Price
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz
An exploration of love, identity, and the power of fate in a family's struggles and triumphs.
Oscar de León (nicknamed Oscar Wao, a bastardization of Oscar Wilde ) is an overweight Dominican growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be successful with women but, from a ... (Wikipedia)
No Country for Old Men
by Cormac McCarthy
A gripping tale of violence and pursuit in Texas' desolate landscape.
The plot follows the interweaving paths of the three central characters (Llewelyn Moss, Anton Chigurh , and Ed Tom Bell) set in motion by events related to a drug deal gone bad near the ... (Wikipedia)
Motherless Brooklyn
by Jonathan Lethem
A detective investigates a powerful crime syndicate in New York City.
Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn’s very own self-appointed Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count, and rip apart our language in the most startling and original ways. ... (Goodreads)
A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
A satirical tale of an eccentric slacker's misadventures in New Orleans.
Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found, here, "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles ... (Goodreads)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
Two cousins create a comic book superhero and find success and adventure in 1940s New York.
The novel begins in 1939 with the arrival of 19-year-old Josef "Joe" Kavalier as a refugee in New York City , where he comes to live with his 17-year-old cousin, Sammy Klayman. With the help of his ... (Wikipedia)
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)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by Dave Eggers
An autobiographical account of a young man dealing with grief and responsibility.
'When you read his extraordinary memoir you don't laugh, then cry, then laugh again; you somehow experience these emotions all at once.' "Well, this was when Bill was sighing a lot. He had decided ... (Goodreads)
Empire Falls
by Richard Russo
A small town's citizens struggle to find meaning and find their place in a rapidly changing world.
Set in the decaying, nearly bankrupt, small town of Empire Falls, Maine, this is the story of the unassuming manager of the Empire Grill, Miles Roby, who has spent his life in the town. The town, and ... (Wikipedia)
Last Night at the Lobster
by Stewart O'Nan
A poignant story of a restaurant manager's last night at work, as he reflects on his present & past life decisions.
The Red Lobster perched in the far corner of a run-down New England mall hasn't been making its numbers and headquarters has pulled the plug. But manager Manny DeLeon still needs to navigate a tricky ... (Goodreads)
Unaccustomed Earth
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Collection of stories exploring the complexities of family, culture, and identity.
From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take ... (Goodreads)
Pastoralia
by George Saunders
Short stories exploring the complexities of modern life, through characters struggling to survive in an ever-changing world.
With this new collection, George Saunders takes us even further into the shocking, uproarious and oddly familiar landscape of his imagination. The stories in Pastoralia are set in a slightly skewed ... (Goodreads)
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
by Cormac McCarthy
A violent and bloody western epic, exploring the depths of human depravity.
An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America's westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the "wild west." ... (Barnes & Noble)
American Pastoral
by Philip Roth
A man's experience of the American Dream gone wrong, as his daughter's political radicalism unravels his family life.
Seymour Irving Levov is born and raised in the Weequahic section of Newark, New Jersey , in 1927 as the elder son of a successful Jewish American glove manufacturer, Lou Levov, and his wife Sylvia. ... (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)
The Devil All the Time
by Donald Ray Pollock
A dark tale of sin and redemption, set in a rural southern town.
The Devil All the Time follows the events and fates of various characters who all carry their own secrets from the past. As the novel progresses the lives of these people converge in unexpected ways. ... (Wikipedia)
The Son
by Philipp Meyer
Epic multigenerational saga of a Texas family, their rise to power, and the violent legacy they leave behind.
In 1849 thirteen year old Eli McCullough's family is attacked by the Comanches. The attack results in the rape and murder of his sister and mother. Eli and his older brother are kidnapped. While ... (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)
Drown
by Junot Díaz
A collection of interconnected stories of a young Dominican-American struggling to find his place in the world.
With ten stories that move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey, Junot Diaz makes his remarkable debut. Diaz's work is unflinching and strong, ... (Goodreads)
The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen
A family drama exploring the complexities of relationships, aging and life’s choices.
The novel shifts back and forth through the late 20th century, intermittently following spouses Alfred and Enid Lambert as they raise their children Gary, Chip, and Denise in the traditional ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Reamde
by Neal Stephenson
A thrilling adventure story set in the world of online gaming, with an international cast of characters.
“Stephenson has a once-in-a-generation gift: he makes complex ideas clear, and he makes them funny, heartbreaking, and thrilling.” — Time The #1, New York Times, bestselling author of, Anathem, Neal ... (Barnes & Noble)
Mystic River
by Dennis Lehane
Three childhood friends are reunited by a tragedy that exposes their dark past and tests their loyalty.
The novel revolves around three boys who grow up as friends in Boston — Dave Boyle, Sean Devine, and Jimmy Marcus. When the story opens, Dave is abducted by child molesters while he, Sean, and Jimmy ... (Wikipedia)
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
Exploration of the timeless struggle between good and evil, set against a backdrop of a family saga.
In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas ... (Goodreads)
Child 44
by Tom Rob Smith
A gripping tale of a police detective's investigation of a series of child murders in Stalinist Russia.
MGB officer Leo is a man who never questions the Party Line. He arrests whomever he is told to arrest. He dismisses the horrific death of a young boy because he is told to, because he believes the ... (Goodreads)
This Song Will Save Your Life
by Leila Sales
A teenage girl discovers her passion for music and finds a place to belong.
Making friends has never been Elise Dembowski’s strong suit. All throughout her life, she’s been the butt of every joke and the outsider in every conversation. When a final attempt at popularity ... (Goodreads)
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)
Everyman
by Philip Roth
A man's life story told through his relationships, questioning the meaning of life and mortality.
The book begins at the funeral of its protagonist. The remainder of the book, which ends with his death, looks mournfully back on episodes from his life, including his childhood, where he and his ... (Wikipedia)
Jesus' Son
by Denis Johnson
A collection of short stories exploring life of addiction and redemption.
Jesus' Son , the first collection of stories by Denis Johnson, presents a unique, hallucinatory vision of contemporary American life unmatched in power and immediacy and marks a new level of ... (Goodreads)
The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton
A young woman's struggle to navigate New York high society, in pursuit of financial security and true love.
Lily Bart, a beautiful but impoverished socialite, is on her way to a house party at Bellomont, the country home of her best friend, Judy Trenor. Her pressing task is to find a husband with the ... (Wikipedia)
The Round House
by Louise Erdrich
A teenage boy seeks justice for a crime committed against his mother in a Native American community.
The novel opens with Joe Coutts and his father, Judge Bazil Coutts, pulling out saplings from their house's garden and foundation. They realize Joe's mother and Bazil's wife, Geraldine Coutts, has ... (Wikipedia)
