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Recommendations based on Heftby Liz Moore
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
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 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)
One Last Thing Before I Go
by Jonathan Tropper
A washed-up musician faces his mortality and tries to make amends with his estranged family.
“Mistakes have been made.” Drew Silver has begun to accept that life isn’t going to turn out as he expected. His fleeting fame as the drummer for a one-hit wonder rock band is nearly a decade behind ... (Goodreads)
The Sound and the Fury
by William Faulkner
Tragic story of the decline of a southern family, exploring the human condition.
The first section of the novel is narrated by Benjamin "Benjy" Compson, a source of shame to the family due to his diminished mental capacity; the only characters who show genuine care for him are ... (Wikipedia)
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
by Carol Rifka Brunt
A young girl's journey of grief and healing as she discovers the secrets of her beloved uncle's life.
June Elbus is a 14-year-old girl living in Westchester in 1986. She is in love with her gay uncle, Finn Weiss, a fact she is scared to admit even to herself. Finn is dying of AIDS. Being a ... (Wikipedia)
Longbourn
by Jo Baker
A retelling of "Pride and Prejudice" from the perspective of the servants at Longbourn.
Sarah is a young woman of marrying age. Orphaned, she came to work for the Bennet family with whom she still resides along with the other servants including the married Mr and Mrs Hill and the much ... (Wikipedia)
Fool
by Christopher Moore
A bawdy and whimsical take on the classic tale of King Lear and the madness that ensues.
Pocket is the royal fool at the court of King Lear of Britain. To prevent Lear from marrying off his daughter Cordelia, a girl Pocket is especially fond of, he schemes with Edmund of Gloucester. ... (Wikipedia)
The Girl You Left Behind
by Jojo Moyes
A woman's search for answers and justice, despite the consequences of war-torn France.
From the, New York Times, bestselling author of, The Giver of Stars, a sweeping bestseller of love and loss, deftly weaving two journeys from World War I France to present day London. Paris, World ... (Goodreads)
Wife 22
by Melanie Gideon
Alice Buckle, a suburban housewife, participates in a marriage survey and begins an online flirtation with the researcher.
For fans of Helen Fielding’s, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Allison Pearson’s, I Don’t Know How She Does It, comes an irresistible novel of a woman losing herself . . . and finding herself again . . . ... (Goodreads)
The Middlesteins
by Jami Attenberg
A family struggles with the matriarch's obesity and its impact on their relationships. A poignant and humorous exploration of love, addiction, and forgiveness.
For more than thirty years, Edie and Richard Middlestein shared a solid family life together in the suburbs of Chicago. But now things are splintering apart, for one reason, it seems: Edie's enormous ... (Barnes & Noble)
My Name Is Lucy Barton
by Elizabeth Strout
A woman's journey of self-reflection, uncovering secrets from her past.
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Her unexpected visit forces Lucy to confront ... (Goodreads)
The Marriage Plot
by Jeffrey Eugenides
A young woman's exploration of love, life, and her place in the world.
It's the early 1980s - the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to the ... (Goodreads)
Dietland
by Sarai Walker
A woman's determined search to find her own power, while challenging the beauty standards imposed by society.
The diet revolution is here. And it’s armed. Plum Kettle does her best not to be noticed, because when you’re fat, to be noticed is to be judged. Or mocked. Or worse. With her job answering fan mail ... (Goodreads)
The Snow Child
by Eowyn Ivey
A couple's dream of a child comes true in the Alaskan wilderness, but with unexpected consequences.
Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart–he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she ... (Goodreads)
Someone
by Alice McDermott
A young woman's struggle to find her place in a rapidly changing world.
An ordinary life - its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion - lived by an ordinary woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott's extraordinary ... (Goodreads)
Defending Jacob
by William Landay
A father must defend his son who is accused of murder, unraveling the truth of a complex crime.
Andy Barber is an assistant district attorney in Newton , Massachusetts. He is investigating the murder of a 14-year-old boy, Ben Rifkin, who was a classmate of his son Jacob and was found stabbed to ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Death of Bees
by Lisa O'Donnell
A teenage girl and her young brother struggle to survive after their parents' mysterious disappearance.
After Marnie discovers the dead bodies of her parents, she and her sister decide against reporting the deaths to the police and instead bury their bodies. Reporting the death would mean social ... (Wikipedia)
The Story of Beautiful Girl
by Rachel Simon
A love story between two people with intellectual disabilities, on a journey to find home and belonging.
It is 1968. Lynnie, a young white woman with a developmental disability, and Homan, an African American deaf man, are locked away in an institution, the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, and ... (Goodreads)
The Language of Flowers
by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
A young woman's journey of healing and redemption through the power of flowers.
The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in ... (Goodreads)
Half Blood Blues
by Esi Edugyan
Tale of a jazz band's tumultuous journey through the shadows of Nazi Germany.
The aftermath of the fall of Paris, 1940. Hieronymus Falk, a rising star on the cabaret scene, is arrested in a cafe and never heard from again. He is twenty years old. A German citizen. And he is ... (Goodreads)
How to Talk to a Widower
by Jonathan Tropper
A young widower struggles to move on after his wife's death, while navigating relationships with family and friends.
"Beautifully crafted", "Fantastically funny." "Compulsively readable." Jonathan Tropper has earned wild acclaim—-and comparisons to Nick Hornby and Tom Perrotta—for his biting humor and insightful ... (Goodreads)
All Grown Up
by Jami Attenberg
A 39-year-old single woman navigates life in New York City, struggling with relationships, career, and family expectations.
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Middlesteins comes a wickedly funny novel about a thirty-nine-year-old single, childfree woman who defies convention as she seeks connection. Who is ... (Goodreads)
A Walk Across the Sun
by Corban Addison
Two sisters in India are orphaned after a tsunami and sold into the sex trade. A lawyer and activist fight to save them.
The novel follows two narratives, one following the orphaned teenage sisters Ahalya and Sita, who formerly lived near the coast of Chennai with their family, and another following a lawyer named ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Sisters Brothers
by Patrick deWitt
A unique western, following two brothers on a quest to find and murder a prospector.
In 1851, Eli and Charlie Sisters, a pair of assassins of minor repute, are hired by a wealthy businessman known only as "the Commodore" to travel from Oregon City to California in order to murder a ... (Wikipedia)
Silver Sparrow
by Tayari Jones
Two teenage girls navigate their complicated relationship as sisters and daughters of a bigamist father in 1980s Atlanta.
Dana Lynn Yarboro's parents meet in Atlanta, Georgia when her father is buying an anniversary present for his wife. Her mother, a young divorcée named Gwen Yarboro, becomes James Witherspoon's ... (Wikipedia)
The Absolutist
by John Boyne
Two friends in World War I grapple with identity, loyalty and love in the face of tragedy.
It is September 1919: twenty-one-year-old Tristan Sadler takes a train from London to Norwich to deliver a package of letters to the sister of Will Bancroft, the man he fought alongside during the ... (Goodreads)
The Chaperone
by Laura Moriarty
A woman's journey of self-discovery while escorting a young dancer to New York City.
The Chaperone is a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922 and the summer that would change them both. Only a few years before becoming a ... (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)
