Book picks similar to
The Full Monty by Wendy Holden


fiction
general-fiction
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mis-libros

Small World


Matt Beaumont - 2007
    The woman you see at the bus stop every morning; the man who reaches for the last newspaper just before you get to it. Everyone you meet, and some you nearly meet, will have an impact on the way your day goes.Small World is the story of a group of men and women, living and working in a city, who are connected through love, work, friendship, or simply by virtue of proximity. We connect with the hearts and minds of characters including an all-coping housewife, a stressed out working mother, a put-upon nanny, a long-suffering journalist, an Indian waiter who dreams of stardom, a grieving shop assistant, a stand-up comic and a psychotic policeman - all of whom speak directly to us about their innermost thoughts, fears and desires in a series of interwoven first-person narratives.

The Summer Job


Lizzy Dent - 2021
     What if you could be someone else? Just for the summer...Birdy has made a mistake. Everyone imagines running away from their life at some point. But Birdy has actually done it. And the life she's run into is her best friend Heather's. The only problem is, she hasn't told Heather.The summer job at the highland Scottish hotel that her world class wine-expert friend ditched turns out to be a lot more than Birdy bargained for. Can she survive a summer pretending to be her best friend? And can Birdy stop herself from falling for the first man she's ever actually liked, but who thinks she's someone else?One good friend's very bad decision is at the heart of this laugh-out-loud love story and unexpected tale of a woman finally finding herself in the strangest of places.

Fludd


Hilary Mantel - 1989
    He is the curate sent by the bishop to assist Father Angwin-or is he? In the most unlikely of places, a superstitious town that understands little of romance or sentimentality, where bad blood between neighbors is ancient and impenetrable, miracles begin to bloom. No matter how copiously Father Angwin drinks while he confesses his broken faith, the level of the bottle does not drop. Although Fludd does not appear to be eating, the food on his plate disappears. Fludd becomes lover, gravedigger, and savior, transforming his dull office into a golden regency of decision, unashamed sensation, and unprecedented action. Knitting together the miraculous and the mundane, the dreadful and the ludicrous, Fludd is a tale of alchemy and transformation told with astonishing art, insight, humor, and wit.

All Grown Up


Jami Attenberg - 2017
    But it’s what she leaves unsaid—she’s alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh—that feels the most true. Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult: her best friend, Indigo, is getting married; her brother—who miraculously seems unscathed by their shared tumultuous childhood—and sister-in-law are having a hoped-for baby; and her friend Matthew continues to wholly devote himself to making dark paintings at the cost of being flat broke. But when Andrea’s niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart? Told in gut-wrenchingly honest, mordantly comic vignettes, All Grown Up is a breathtaking display of Jami Attenberg’s power as a storyteller, a whip-smart examination of one woman’s life, lived entirely on her own terms.

Crooked Heart


Lissa Evans - 2014
    Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it. Noel's mourning his godmother, Mattie, a former suffragette. Brought up to share her disdain for authority and eclectic approach to education, he has little in common with other children and even less with Vee, who hurtles impulsively from one self-made crisis to the next. The war's thrown up new opportunities for making money but what Vee needs (and what she's never had) is a cool head and the ability to make a plan. On her own, she's a disaster. With Noel, she's a team. Together they cook up an idea. Criss-crossing the bombed suburbs of London, Vee starts to make a profit and Noel begins to regain his interest in life. But there are plenty of other people making money out of the war and some of them are dangerous. Noel may have been moved to safety, but he isn't actually safe at all…

Lost in Austen


Emma Campbell Webster - 2007
    Name: Elizabeth Bennet. Mission: To marry both prudently and for love. How? It's entirely up to the reader. The journey begins in Pride and Prejudice but quickly takes off on a whimsical Austen adventure of the reader's own creation. A series of choices leads the reader into the plots and romances of Austen's other works. Choosing to walk home from Netherfield Hall means falling into Sense and Sensibility and the infatuating spell of Mr. Willoughby. Accepting an invitation to Bath leads to Northanger Abbey and the beguiling Henry Tilney. And just where will Emma's Mr. Knightley fit in to the quest for a worthy husband? It's all up to the reader. A labyrinth of love and lies, scandals and scoundrels, misfortunes and marriages, Lost in Austen will delight and challenge any Austen lover.

Lady Oracle


Margaret Atwood - 1976
    Joan Foster is the bored wife of a myopic ban-the-bomber.  She takes off overnight as Canada's new superpoet, pens lurid gothics on the sly, attracts a blackmailing reporter, skids cheerfully in and out of menacing plots, hair-raising traps, and passionate trysts, and lands dead and well in Terremoto, Italy.  In this remarkable, poetic, and magical novel, Margaret Atwood proves yet again why she is considered to be one of the most important and accomplished writers of our time.

Living With It


Lizzie Enfield - 2014
    Her parents, Ben and Maggie, are devastated. So are their close friends Isobel and Eric.Isobel knows that her decision, taken years ago, not to have her own children vaccinated against measles is to blame for Iris’s deafness. And Ben knows this too. To make matters worse, Isobel is the woman he fell in love with in his twenties – the woman who married his best friend. As he and Maggie start legal proceedings, Isobel’s world begins to unravel.Lizzie Enfield’s compelling new novel explores the hearts and minds of ordinary people as they struggle to come to terms with the choices they’ve made. Acutely observed and utterly gripping, it explores love and loss, guilt and recovery, with humour, honesty and page-turning prose.

Made for Love


Alissa Nutting - 2017
    Life with Hazel's father is strained at best, but it's got to be better than her marriage to dominating tech billionaire, Byron Gogol. For over a decade, Hazel has been quarantining in Byron's family compound, her every movement and vital sign tracked. So when Byron demands to wirelessly connect the two of them via brain chips, turning Hazel into a human guinea pig, she makes a run for it. Will Hazel be able to free herself from Byron's virtual clutches before he finds her?

Marrying George Clooney: Confessions from a Midlife Crisis


Amy Ferris - 2009
    Along with fantasizing about marrying George Clooney, Ferris is faced with a plethora of other insomnia-induced thoughts and activities, from googling old boyfriends to researching obscure and fatal diseases on the web, from scouting five-star spa destinations to having angry, bitter, e-mail exchanges with her brother. She worries endlessly about her husband, relies heavily on Ambien, and tries to arrange care via the Internet for her mother (who has both severe dementia and a massive love-bubble crush on Jesus Christ) all while refraining from lighting up just one more cigarette. Marrying George Clooney explores a range of emotions experienced through this life-altering period. In this candid look at "the change," Ferris offers a humorous spin on a not-so-funny topic.

If You Were Here


Jen Lancaster - 2011
    Along their harrowing renovation journey, Mia and Mac get caught up in various wars with the homeowners' association, meet some less-than-friendly neighbors, and are joined by a hilarious cast of supporting characters, including a celebutard ex- landlady. As they struggle to adapt to their new surroundings- with Mac taking on the renovations himself- Mia and Mac will discover if their marriage is strong enough to survive months of DIY renovations.

Come, Thou Tortoise


Jessica Grant - 2009
    Oddly) Flowers is living quietly in Oregon with Winnifred, her tortoise, when she finds out her dear father has been knocked into a coma back in Newfoundland. Despite her fear of flying, she goes to him, but not before she reluctantly dumps Winnifred with her unreliable friends. Poor Winnifred. When Audrey disarms an Air Marshal en route to St. John’s we begin to realize there’s something, well, odd about her. And we soon know that Audrey’s quest to discover who her father really was—and reunite with Winnifred—will be an adventure like no other.

The Vagina Monologues


Eve Ensler - 1996
    They were a little shy. But once they got going, you couldn't stop them. Women secretly love to talk about their vaginas. They get very excited, mainly because no one's ever asked them before.

Eleanor Rigby


Douglas Coupland - 2004
    His arrival changes everything, and sets in motion a rapid-fire plot with all the twists and turns we expect of Coupland. By turns funny and heartbreaking, Eleanor Rigby is a fast-paced read and a haunting exploration of the ways in which loneliness affects us all.

Shiksa Goddess, or, How I Spent My Forties: Essays


Wendy Wasserstein - 2001
    Shiksa Goddess collects thirty-five of her urbane, inspiring, and deeply empathic essays–all written when she was in her forties, and all infused with her trademark irreverent humor.The full range of Wasserstein’s mid-life obsessions are covered in this eclectic collection: everything from Chekhov, politics, and celebrity, to family, fashion, and real estate. Whether fretting over her figure, discovering her gentile roots, proclaiming her love for ordered-in breakfasts, lobbying for affordable theater, or writing tenderly about her very Jewish mother and her own daughter, born when she was forty-eight and single, Wasserstein reveals the full, dizzying life of a shiksa goddess with unabashed candor and inimitable style.Shiksa goddess --A place they'd never seen: the theater --Hillary Clinton's muddled legacy --The forty-eight-hour turnaround --How suite it is --The LUMP list --She saw through us --First ladies get dressed --Good, better, Bette --Diary --Three sisters --Afternoon of a fan --How to do a Hollywood awards ceremony --Don't tell workshop --Wendy's workshop --The holiday chronicles --My low-fat dinner with Jamie Lee Curtis --Jill's adventures in real estate: or, I can get it for you at 3.2 --Women beware women --Designing men --The muse that mewed --Heidi chronicled --The me I'd like to be --Mom says every day is Mother's Day --Waif goodbye, hello bulge --Making nice: when is enough enough? --The state of the arts --Dear Broadway, this isn't really goodbye --Poles apart --Ah, that first feast in wild Manhattan --New York theater: isn't it romantic --Directing 101: George Abbott on what works --Theater problems? Call Dr. Chekhov --How I spent my forties --Days of awe: the birth of Lucy Jane