Book picks similar to
Human Capital by Stephen Amidon


fiction
thriller
tournament-of-books
tob

Dream Story


Arthur Schnitzler - 1926
    Dream Story tells how through a simple sexual admission a husband and wife are driven apart into rival worlds of erotic intrigue and revenge.

Only Ever Her


Marybeth Mayhew Whalen - 2019
    Preparations are in order. Friends and family are gathering in anticipation. Everything is going according to plan. Except that Annie herself has vanished. Did she have second thoughts?Or has something much worse happened to the bride-to-be?As the days pass, the list of suspects in her disappearance grows. Could it be the recently released man a young Annie misidentified as her mother’s killer? Could it be someone even closer to her?While her loved ones frantically try to track her down, they’re forced to grapple with their own secrets—secrets with the power to reframe entire relationships, leaving each to wonder how well they really knew Annie and how well they know themselves.

The Mystery Box


Eva Pohler - 2011
    Soccer mom Yvette Palmer lives an ordinary life in San Antonio, Texas when a box is delivered to her by mistake, and in taking it to its rightful owner—a crotchety neighbor named Mona who shares her back fence—is drawn into a strange and haunting tale.Mona’s ratty robe, mood swings, and secretive behavior all raise red flags, and Yvette is sure someone else is living there despit Mona’s claim to live alone, but Yvette is unable to break away as she listens to how Mona transformed from a young college woman about to be married to the odd, reclusive, ghost of a woman she is now.As Yvette listens to her neighbor's tale, she discovers a shocking connection, but doesn't know whether Mona's come to help or to harm her and her family.

Tinplate


Neville Steed - 1986
    Faced with threats from their owner, he sets out to recover them but finds himself up against far more than the greed of unscrupulous collectors.He’s in way over his head but at least the prospect of a countryside dig to excavate the remains of a crashed Spitfire can provide a little solace. Yet even this isn’t easy, and a growing resistance to the dig is being led by a local, indignant landlord.When rather more than the plane and its pilot are unearthed, Marklin finds himself up to his neck in skeletons from the past — skeletons that lead to attempts on his life …

The Sleeping Father


Matthew Sharpe - 2003
    His teenage son—the protagonist of the book, Chris—and his teenage daughter—Cathy—inherit money from their grandfather and decide to rehabilitate him on their own. decide to make one.Absent an adequate father, the children decide to make one, bringing with it a host of difficulties and opportunities. Chris tries everything from sex to capitalism in his search for guidance on the path to adulthood and Cathy, believing her secular Jewishness inadequate in the provision of a benign & divine Father, looks to Catholicism for solace and meaning.The Sleeping Father explores the shift in the way Americans think about mental health: away from regarding ourselves as being shaped by our upbringings and toward regarding ourselves as being shaped by the chemicals in our bloodstreams. The American family, in this novel, emerges as a microcosm of larger social institutions; Moms and Dads as in-home teachers, priests, presidents, and CEOs. In focusing on the Schwartz family in crisis, Sharpe addresses the larger crisis in faith and authority in contemporary American life.