Book picks similar to
The Face Tells the Secret by Jane Bernstein
literary-fiction
judaica
possible-book-club-read
contemporary-fiction
Summary - A Man Named Ove: Book By Fredrik Backman
The Summary Guy - 2017
Ove was a simple man who tried to live the simplest life he possibly could. He worked in a factory for as long as he could remember and was satisfied with his life. But after several events happened, one of them being the death of his wife, Ove decided to end his life. He tried to commit suicide on several occasions, but every attempt ended unsuccessfully. However, everything changed after some foreigners decided to move into the house next to his. It is the story about the life of a man who just could not fit in. His mindset and the way he lived was different from the lives of other people. His love for numbers and order to the point of obsession drove Ove to become a hermit. The novel is written in the style of a memoir, a reminiscing of the past life of a man who slowly embraced his fate as his life comes to its inevitable end. Filled with strong emotions of pain, loneliness, and the "good ol' days, '' A Man Called Ove is a drama that will leave no one indifferent. It is a novel in which the author wants to show to his readers that the life of a grumpy, old, and bitter man was once filled with colors other than just black and white. Here Is A Preview of What You Will Get: - A summarized version of the book. - You will find the book analyzed to further strengthen your knowledge. - Fun multiple-choice quizzes, along with answers to help you learn about the book. Get a copy, and learn everything about A Man Called Ove.
Why the Tree Loves the Ax
Jim Lewis - 1998
Readers of Denis Johnson, David Foster Wallace, Mary Gaitskill, Susanna Moore, and other contemporary fiction writers will welcome this haunting novel about a 27-year-old woman who flees her failed marriage only to find herself involved in a perplexing spiral of murder, counterfeit, and false identity.
The Bottom of the Sky
William C. Pack - 2009
It is a riveting tale of two disparate worlds joined by one man and his ultimate redemption.
American Dad
Tama Janowitz - 1981
Through the eyes of the young Earl Przepasniak ("a name unwieldy as a tumour"), it narrates the outrageous and tender story of Mavis, poet and mother, and Robert, the American dad. Earl's life revolves around the deeply wounding split of his parents and his attempts, through a less-than-idyllic childhood and the inexorable onslaught of manhood, to overcome the irresistible force of his father. But it is only when his parents meet their respective fates that Earl can feel not only loyal and guilty, but also free...
Famous Baby
Karen Rizzo - 2014
Karen Rizzo wraps a timeless drama about the love between mothers and daughters in a fresh, snappy package for the social media age.” —CHRISTINA SCHWARZ, author of The Edge of the Earth and Drowning Ruth, an Oprah’s Book Club SelectionBefore there were Real Housewives and Tiger Moms, the was Ruth Sternberg, the hugely popular First Mother of Mommy Blogging—or, as Ruth’s daughter, Abbie prefers to call her, the First Lady of Cyber Exploitation.Eighteen year-old Abbie has finally found her way out of the limelight, by moving a solid five hundred miles away from Ruth and her “maternal instincts.” But when she hears that her ailing, beloved grandmother is moving in with Ruth, she suspects that her mother has found a new blog subject to exploit. Abbie kidnaps Grandma to save her from the same fate, and thus begins an uproarious battle of wills. Famous Baby wisely and hilariously explores mother love, identity, and the hazards of parental over-sharing in the social media age.Karen Rizzo, who lives with her actor husband and two children in Los Angeles, California, is the author of Things to Bring, S#!T to Do… and Other Inventories of Anxiety, a memoir centered around her penchant for lists. Her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Fit Pregnancy, and women’s humor anthologies, and her plays have been staged at several theatres. Famous Baby is her first novel.
The Orchard
David Hopen - 2020
In ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn, his days are dedicated to intense study and religious rituals, and adolescence feels profoundly lonely. So when his family announces that they are moving to a glitzy Miami suburb, Ari seizes his unexpected chance for reinvention.Enrolling in an opulent Jewish academy, Ari is stunned by his peers’ dizzying wealth, ambition, and shameless pursuit of life’s pleasures. When the academy’s golden boy, Noah, takes Ari under his wing, Ari finds himself entangled in the school’s most exclusive and wayward group. These friends are magnetic and defiant—especially Evan, the brooding genius of the bunch, still living in the shadow of his mother’s death.Influenced by their charismatic rabbi, the group begins testing their religion in unconventional ways. Soon Ari and his friends are pushing moral boundaries and careening toward a perilous future—one in which the traditions of their faith are repurposed to mysterious, tragic ends.Mesmerizing and playful, heartrending and darkly romantic, The Orchard probes the conflicting forces that determine who we become: the heady relationships of youth, the allure of greatness, the doctrines we inherit, and our concealed desires.
The Adventuress
N.D. Coleridge - 2012
From her scorpion tattoo to her other worldly charms, she's a shrewd woman-on-the-make who will not be swayed in her quest for the top.From her humble beginnings as a matron's assistant at a top girls' boarding school, Cath embarks on a journey that will take her from a Portsmouth backstreet to the boardrooms of the global empires. With a cast of footballers, media moguls, lords and dukes, Coleridge charts the rise of a woman who will not be denied, right to the very pinnacle of society—a Royal Wedding.N. D. Coleridge has been praised by everyone from Tina Brown to The New Yorker to Graydon Carter for his irresistibly funny and flawless dissection of social mores. Cutting a sweep from the 80s to the present day, this Vanity Fair for our age is keenly observed, hilarious, and utterly addictive.
Flights of Angels: Stories
Ellen Gilchrist - 1998
Described by "Publishers Weekly" as "easily Gilchrist's best book in years, " this collection of stories gives readers a taste of her gifted sense of the language and the humor of human foibles.
Cat Step
Alison Irvine - 2021
She barely thought twice about making the decision, but it soon began to consume her every thought. And not just her thoughts, but those of every neighbour, police officer and social security worker in a 15-mile radius. But this is her child. Surely she knows best?After she’d made the move to a small town in Scotland, the rolling hills and blustery beaches seemed to be the perfect backdrop for her and her four-year-old daughter, Emily, to start again. It wasn’t always easy just the two of them, but Liz was sure that she could manage this time. And now this?Sometimes, one mistake is all it takes to unravel everything. Cat Step is a lyrically sparse tale about judgement, intergenerational relationships, community, class and the expectations that we place on mothers. With sharp prose Alison Irvine has crafted a compassionate narrative that compels you to listen on.
Home Leave
Libby Purves - 1997
But all that was years ago. Now, amid growing tensions, marriage-fatigue and resentments, the tragedy of Toby's disappearance jolts his sisters and brother into making journeys, back in time and into their own hearts.
A Fragile Peace
Teresa Crane - 1984
But before the day is out that peace is shattered due to a war being fought in a country not their own.Summer 1940: London is at war, and for the first time in the history of combat a civilian population is under attack from the air. As a consequence - also for the first time - a generation of young men is called upon to face the enemy not from within an organised force on land or on sea but in individual and lethal combat in the skies above the green, fertile and until now peaceful fields of southern England…
The war was not of their making but the Jordan family will do whatever it takes to save all that they hold dear. The perfect family saga of love, war and hope for fans of Josephine Cox, Lily Graham and Natasha Lester.
The UnAmericans
Molly Antopol - 2014
An actor, phased out of Hollywood for his Communist ties during McCarthyism, tries to share a meaningful moment with his son. An Israeli soldier comes of age when his brother is maimed on their communal farm. A gallerist, swept up by the 1970s dissident art movement, begins smuggling paintings out of Moscow and curating underground shows in her Jerusalem home. This is a rare collection as accomplished at capturing our soaring triumphs as it is our crippling defeats--a hopeful reminder that we are all closer and more capable than we sometimes feel.
The World to Come
Dara Horn - 2006
The unlikely thief, former child prodigy Benjamin Ziskind, is convinced that the painting once hung in his parents' living room. This work of art opens a door through which we discover his family's startling history--from an orphanage in Soviet Russia where Chagall taught to suburban New Jersey and the jungles of Vietnam.