Book picks similar to
Africa's Child by Maria Nhambu


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read-more-than-once
recommended
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Broken Promises (Past Imperfect Mystery Book 1)


Anne Willow - 2018
    The unexpected death of her favorite aunt sends Julia to the artist town of Grand Marais. There she starts to weave tattered threads into a new tapestry while rediscovering her love of sketching and running the antique shop, Past Imperfect. Everything is just starting to go right when a mysterious package arrives bearing an antique letter opener arrives. Julia's natural curiosity is piqued but before she can untangle the mystery it's found embedded in Tom Peterson's chest. The tapestry of her new life begins to unravel as she is named a prime suspect. Now, left with few clues and a past not willing to let her go, Julia works to solve the mystery and the murder. Infidelity through time and a curse that only she can break - once she figures out how.

A Man Without a Country


Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 2005
    Whether he is describing his coming of age in America, his formative war experiences, or his life as an artist, this is Vonnegut doing what he does best: being himself. Whimsically illustrated by the author, A Man Without a Country is intimate, tender, and brimming with the scope of Kurt Vonnegut’s passions.

The Last Valentine


Felix Alexander - 2017
    Olivia, daughter of a drunkard police investigator who never knew the truth behind her mother’s disappearance, finds a bloodstained love letter in the hidden compartment of her father’s coat. Convinced it belonged to the man recently found dead she sets out to deliver it to the Labyrinth of Love Letters. A mysterious place believed to be an urban legend where the transients of forbidden love leave missives for one another. She enlists the help of Isaac Quintero to find the Labyrinth and they soon realize their quest has opened the door into Old Sienna’s darkest secrets—the perils, madness and depth of tragic love

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close


Jonathan Safran Foer - 2005
    When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.

These Three Words


Jess van der Hoech - 2018
    And if her family were different and her friends actually liked her. Better yet, maybe if she was a different person altogether, preferably a person who doesn't have anxiety about absolutely everything. Just as Luna begins to think all hope is lost, she meets Sadie Rainbow, a counsellor who supports Luna through a journey of self-discovery, where she learns coping strategies that really work and finds the power that can be hidden within three words. These Three Words is a unique therapeutic novel for teenagers with the aim of linking together the feelings, emotions and behaviours connected to anxiety, with some of the therapeutic tools that can be used in order to enable better self-regulation, increased confidence and different ways of thinking. The book is equally valuable to parents of teenagers with anxiety, giving them an insight and understanding into some of the issues that may be affecting their child, and potentially opening up a line of communication and a way forward between parent and teen.

Have a Little Faith: a True Story


Mitch Albom - 2009
    Feeling unworthy, Albom insists on understanding the man better, which throws him back into a world of faith he'd left years ago. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor--a reformed drug dealer and convict--who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof. Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat.As America struggles with hard times and people turn more to their beliefs, Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times. Although the texts, prayers, and histories are different, Albom begins to recognize a striking unity between the two worlds--and indeed, between beliefs everywhere.In the end, as the rabbi nears death and a harsh winter threatens the pastor's wobbly church, Albom sadly fulfills the rabbi's last request and writes the eulogy. And he finally understands what both men had been teaching all along: the profound comfort of believing in something bigger than yourself.Have a Little Faith is a book about a life's purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man's journey, but it is everyone's story. Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless.

Red Dragon


Thomas Harris - 1981
    Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.

The Vanishing Half


Brit Bennett - 2020
    But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

Contact


D. Rebbitt - 2017
    Level one is the most common, possible evidence. Level two, clear evidence of non-human intelligence. Level three is verified signs of non-human intelligence. Level three has a very high burden of proof, requiring verified artifacts. It is the last step before level four. Contact.Centuries ago, Humanity reached for the stars. But the galaxy has turned out to be a lonely place. The Imperial Survey Service explores systems and identifies planets for colonization beyond the edge of explored space, beyond the rim worlds. They also search for signs of an alien civilization. It is a part of their mission they take very seriously.A routine planetary survey mission to system X5682 believes they have found clear evidence of intelligent activity. The usual reports are made. Protocol demands that any reports of potential intelligent activity be investigated. A small fleet task force is dispatched. Their job is to secure the system. Task force Marines secure the site until Imperial Survey can verify the find. The routine has been played out many times, and always ends the same way. No scientific findings, an explainable phenomenon, no confirmation.Until now.The survey team leader is elated by his potential discovery. It is an elation the fleet task force commander does not share. His captains are also ambivalent, save one who is out to prove himself.Unfortunately, the fleet task force has to be to be cobbled together from people unfortunate enough to delay too long before proceeding on shore leave. The Marines are not exactly welcome in the midst of a group of scientists who are used to being immersed in their research on a new planet.The Imperial Fleet mostly keeps the peace and war is a faded memory. That means resources are tight and ships stay in service a long time. The task force that arrives is not exactly in perfect condition. Even the Marines have to be pulled from different ships and base assignments. Everyone expects a short mission once they reach the planet. All they have to do is wait for the specialist team from the Imperial Survey Service to show up and declare another potential find to be nothing after all.Unexpectedly, without warning, humanity makes first contact. Elation turns to desperation and a fight for survival. The Globur are coming.

A Pardon For Tommy


Patricia Nmukoso Enyi - 2017
    It holds all of her memories of Hurricane Katrina, memories which she would rather forget. There is one thing that makes her change her mind –Tommy, her beloved pet turkey who watched the destruction of her city from Chelsea’s backpack. It’s Tommy who represents hope and life, and all the good things that a Thanksgiving can bring. A Pardon for Tommy is a story with twists, turns and turkeys. It’s about family, friends and food.

Exotic Neurotic


Kenneth Jarrett Singleton - 2016
    In addition, many of Exotic Neurotic's thematic properties also pertain to love, illness, death, human anatomy, physical deformities, elimination, birth, and abortion.

The General's Daughter


Nelson DeMille - 1992
    She is the pride of Fort Hadley until, one morning, her body is found, naked and bound, on the firing range.Paul Brenner is a member of the Army's elite undercover investigative unit and the man in charge of this politically explosive case. Teamed with rape specialist Cynthia Sunhill, with whom he once had a tempestuous, doomed affair, Brenner is about to learn just how many people were sexually, emotionally, and dangerously involved with the Army's "golden girl." And how the neatly pressed uniforms and honor codes of the military hide a corruption as rank as Ann Campbell's shocking secret life.

When the Side Nigga His Brother


Cherlina Works - 2016
    The power of their charm takes them on a journey that leaves a trail of broken hearts and random cuddy buddies. They lived by the laws of “do not tell them that you love them and never ever sleep over”. However, that all changed the day they both met Tyla. The brothers engage in a bitter battle to win her heart and suddenly blood didn’t matter. Rules were made to be broken, right? When Tyla falls in love with one and disregards the other, it breaks the bonds between Tyri and Tyrease; neither of them saw it coming. Tyla was beautifully tempting, and women like her didn’t come around too often. Nevertheless, to fall in love with your brother’s girl is the ultimate betrayal, or is it? Will the love for one woman forever break their brotherly bond, or will they learn to accept what cards they were dealt? When the Side Nigga His Brother, the fight to be with the one you love, could very well cost you the love of another.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend


Matthew Dicks - 2012
    . . real or otherwise.Budo is lucky as imaginary friends go. He's been alive for more than five years, which is positively ancient in the world of imaginary friends. But Budo feels his age, and thinks constantly of the day when eight-year-old Max Delaney will stop believing in him. When that happens, Budo will disappear.Max is different from other children. Some people say that he has Asperger's Syndrome, but most just say he's "on the spectrum." None of this matters to Budo, who loves Max and is charged with protecting him from the class bully, from awkward situations in the cafeteria, and even in the bathroom stalls. But he can't protect Max from Mrs. Patterson, the woman who works with Max in the Learning Center and who believes that she alone is qualified to care for this young boy.

The Water is Wide


Pat Conroy - 1972
    Across a slip of ocean lies South Carolina. But for the handful of families on Yamacraw Island, America is a world away. For years the people here lived proudly from the sea, but now its waters are not safe. Waste from industry threatens their very existence–unless, somehow, they can learn a new life. But they will learn nothing without someone to teach them, and their school has no teacher.Here is PAT CONROY’S extraordinary drama based on his own experience–the true story of a man who gave a year of his life to an island and the new life its people gave him.