Book picks similar to
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The Beech Tree


Don Phelan - 2011
    We follow Johnny and Margo, Johnny's lifelong, albeit socially taboo, friendship with his friend, “Bullet Joe” Rogan, a pitcher in the Negro Leagues.Johnny introduces his granddaughter, Debby, to the tree in 1957, an era of bobby socks, roller-skating carhops and Elvis music, and Debby meets Mason in 1967's Summer of Love, just before Mason is drafted to fight in Vietnam.For 30 years, Debby wonders whatever became of the boy who changed her life. Then she finds out.

The Book of Dreams


Nina George - 2016
    On his way to see his son, Sam, for the first time in years, Henri steps into the road without looking and collides with oncoming traffic. He is rushed to a nearby hospital where he floats, comatose, between dreams, reliving the fairytales of his childhood and the secrets that made him run away in the first place.After the accident, Sam--a thirteen-year old synesthete with an IQ of 144 and an appetite for science fiction--waits by his father's bedside every day. There he meets Eddie Tomlin, a woman forced to confront her love for Henri after all these years, and twelve-year old Madelyn Zeidler, a coma patient like Henri and the sole survivor of a traffic accident that killed her family. As these four very different individuals fight--for hope, for patience, for life--they are bound together inextricably, facing the ravages of loss and first love side by side.A revelatory, urgently human story that examines what we consider serious and painful alongside light and whimsy, The Book of Dreams is a tender meditation on memory, liminality, and empathy, asking with grace and gravitas what we will truly find meaningful in our lives once we are gone.

The Sock Wars


Maia Sepp - 2012
    But as she struggles to settle into a life of cohabitation, organic lentils, and sock thievery, she starts to wonder how she ended up there--and when she'll feel alive again.As she works through her grief and tries to find somewhere to belong, Lucy begins to understand that sometimes, realizing one dream means giving up another. Can a person who spends her time fixing other people's lives learn to let go enough to live her own?The Sock Wars is a poignant, funny reminder that there's one thing harder than living up to other people's expectations; facing your own.The Sock Wars has been a top 100 digital bestseller. Reach Maia online at www.maiasepp.com.

The Parisian


Isabella Hammad - 2019
    He discovers that everything is fragile: love turns to loss, friends become enemies and everyone is looking for a place to belong.Isabella Hammad delicately unpicks the tangled politics and personal tragedies of a turbulent era – the Palestinian struggle for independence from the British Mandate, the strife of the early twentieth century and the looming shadow of the Second World War. An intensely human story amidst a global conflict, The Parisian is historical fiction with a remarkable contemporary voice.

Small Days and Nights


Tishani Doshi - 2019
    Once there, she finds herself heir to an inheritance she could not have expected – a property on the beaches of Madras, and a sister she never knew she had: Lucia, who was born with Downs Syndrome and has spent her life in a residential facility.Grace sets up a new and precarious life along the coast of Madras, with Lucia, the village housekeeper Mallika, the drily witty Auntie Kavitha and an ever-multiplying litter of puppies. But Grace's attempts to play house prove first a struggle, then a strain, as she discovers the chaos, tenderness, fury and bewilderment of life with Lucia. Luminous, funny, surprising and heartbreaking, Small Days and Nights is the story of a woman caught in a moment of transformation, and the sacrifices we make to forge lives that have meaning.

Tales from a Vending Machine


Anees Salim - 2013
    Unfortunately, a stint at the airport lounge's tea vending machine does not seem to be getting her any closer to her dreams. To pass the time she daydreams, chats with air-hostesses and takes part in mock anti-terrorist drills. At home, she studies her English, fights with her twin and engages in a secret love affair with her cousin and neighbour, Eza. But when a scandal threatens her tenuous happiness, she must pull out all stops on her overactive imagination, and seek a terrible revenge.

The Finnish Girl


Dennis Frahmann - 2014
    Not just those you choose to keep from others, or even those that others guard from you. There remains those secrets that you so desperately keep hidden from yourself. They all catch up with Lempi Makinen Lahti.When Lempi's teenage son Danny discovers her suicide, he seeks to solve the mysteries that defined her life and death. A pack of letters and clippings hidden in an old family trunk may be the only keep to understanding both his mother's past and his own future.The Finnish Girl is a richly told tapestry of interwoven characters - the family patriarch who emigrates from Finland to the United States to create his own future, a son who turns his back on his home as part of an ill-fated mission to Russia during the Depression, the elderly mother who faces deportation in an America driven by fear during the Red Scare, and the young Finnish girl who cares too much about the injustices she sees.Decisions in one generation propel another on unexpected paths, until on family's hope for the American dream threaten to be come its nightmare.

The Moon, the Stars, and Madame Burova


Ruth Hogan - 2021
    She and her trusty pack of Tarot cards have seen the lovers and the liars, the angels and the devils, the dreamers and the fools. Now, after a lifetime of keeping other people's secrets, Madam Burova is ready to have a little piece of life for herself. But she still has one last thing to do--to fulfill a promise made in the 1970s, when she and her girlfriends were carefree, with their whole lives still before them.In London, it is time for another woman to make a fresh start. Billie has lost her university job, her marriage, and her place in the world when a sudden and unlikely discovery leaves her very identity in question. Determined to find answers, she must follow a trail...which leads to Brighton, the pier, and directly to Madame Burova's door.In a story spanning over fifty years, Ruth Hogan has conjured a magical world of 1970s holiday camps and seaside entertainers, eccentrics, heroes and villains, the lost and the found. Young people will make careless choices which echo down the years....but it's never too late to put things right.

Extraordinary Adventures


Daniel Wallace - 2017
    He lives in a seedy neighborhood and spends his free time with his spirited mother. Things happen to other people, and Bronfman knows it. Until, that is, he gets a call from operator 61217 telling him that he s won a free weekend at a beachfront condo in Destin, Florida. But there s a catch: the offer is intended for a couple, and Bronfman has only seventy-nine days to find someone to take with him.The phone call jolts Bronfman into motion, initiating a series of truly extraordinary adventures as he sets out to find a companion for his weekend getaway. Open at last to the possibilities of life, Bronfman now believes that anything can happen. And it does.A large-hearted and optimistic novel, Extraordinary Adventures is the latest from the New York Times bestselling Daniel Wallace.

The Magician


Colm Tóibín - 2021
    Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story Death in Venice. He is the most successful novelist of his time, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, a public man whose private life remains secret. He is expected to lead the condemnation of Hitler, whom he underestimates. His oldest daughter and son, leaders of Bohemianism and of the anti-Nazi movement, share lovers. He flees Germany for Switzerland, France and, ultimately, America, living first in Princeton and then in Los Angeles.The Magician is an intimate, astonishingly complex portrait of Mann, his magnificent and complex wife Katia, and the times in which they lived—the first world war, the rise of Hitler, World War II, the Cold War, and exile.

Both Sides of Love


Kimberly Wenzler - 2014
    Every day, Beth Butler is reminded of the accident that left her emotionally and physically scarred. Uncomfortable in public, she devotes her time and energy to caring for her husband and child. To help her out of her isolation, her husband convinces Beth to attend a meeting at their daughter’s school.Secluded at the back of the room, Beth is surprised when gorgeous and outgoing Noreen White extends a hand in friendship. The two form a close bond and Beth starts to feel a sense of happiness and solace long missing from her life. As their relationship blossoms, Beth comes face to face with her past and is torn between maintaining her secret or confiding a truth that could tear both her friendship and family apart.Both Sides of Love explores the power of true friendship, the beauty of true love, and one woman’s struggle to choose. Candid, humorous at times, and full of surprises, it is a must-read for anyone who has ever loved, lost, and loved again.

Family Trees


Kerstin March - 2015
    She'll never again depend on her errant mother, Jackie, who abandoned Shelby when she was a baby—and is forever searching for an elusive, glittering life. All Shelby needs is her beautiful, windswept Lake Superior, her loving grandparents, and the treasured-but-struggling family apple orchard she helps run—until a new love, Ryan Chambers, opens her heart to chance, and her eyes to a wider world than she ever imagined.But just as Shelby is looking toward an exciting future, Jackie unexpectedly returns—determined to make up for the past and "help" her daughter get everything she never could. Her confidence shaken, Shelby finds herself at odds with Ryan, and with his wealthy family's overbearing expectations. Now, through wrenching change and sudden loss, Shelby must find a way to see herself, and her mother, in a new light, forge an all-too-fragile understanding—and risk the kind of freedom that brings its own unexpected, enduring rewards…

Once Upon a Road Trip


Angela N. Blount - 2013
    With the pressures of choosing a practical future path bearing down, she needs a drastic change. Too old to run away from home, she opts instead to embark on a solo 2-month road trip. But her freedom is tempered by loneliness - and anxiety tests her resolve as she comes face-to-face with her quirky internet friends. Aside from contracting mono and repeatedly getting herself lost, Angeli's adventure is mired by more unforeseen glitches - like being detained by Canadian authorities, and a near-death experience at the hands of an overzealous amateur wrestler. Her odyssey is complicated further when she unwittingly earns the affections of two young men. One a privileged martial artist; the other a talented techie with a colorful past. Bewildered by the emotions they stir, Angeli spurns the idea of a doomed long-distance relationship. But she is unprepared for the determination of her hopeful suitors. In the wake of her refusal, one man will betray her, and the other will prove himself worthy of a place in her future. Angeli sets off in search of a better understanding of herself, the world, and her place in it. What she finds is an impractical love, with the potential to restore her faith in happy endings. A true story with an unapologetically honest outlook on life, love, faith, and adventure - Once Upon A Road Trip is a coming-of-age memoir.

The Grown Ups


Robin Antalek - 2015
    For reasons Sam doesn’t entirely understand, he and Suzie keep their budding relationship hidden from their close knit group of friends. But as the summer ends, Sam’s world unexpectedly shatters twice: Suzie’s parents are moving to a new city to save their marriage, and his own mother has suddenly left the house, leaving Sam’s father alone to raise two sons.Watching as her parents’ marital troubles escalate, Suzie takes on the responsibility of raising her two younger brothers and plans an early escape to college and independence. Though she thinks of Sam, she deeply misses her closest friend Bella, but makes no attempt to reconnect, embarrassed by the destructive wake of her parents as they left the only place Suzie called home. Years later, a chance meeting with Sam’s older brother will reunite her with both Sam and Bella - and force her to confront her past and her friends.After losing Suzie, Bella finds her first real love in Sam. But Sam’s inability to commit to her or even his own future eventually drives them apart. In contrast, Bella’s old friend Suzie—and Sam’s older brother, Michael—seem to have worked it all out, leaving Bella to wonder where she went wrong.Spanning over a decade, told in alternating voices, The Grown Ups explores the indelible bonds between friends and family and the challenges that threaten to divide them.

Who Rescued Who


Victoria Schade - 2020
    Or bonding with her long-lost aunt and uncle, their Border Collie, and their two very opinionated sheep. Or falling for the handsome local who runs the town's craft brewery. As Elizabeth's brief visit to Fargrove turns into an extended stay, she discovers that she has more in common with the new puppy than she realized.