Book picks similar to
তালাশ by Shaheen Akhtar


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The Grass Dancer


Susan Power - 1994
    Set on a North Dakota reservation, this book weaves the stories of the old and the young, broken families, romantic rivals, and men and women in love and at war.

I'll Bring You Buttercups


Elizabeth Elgin - 1993
    It is also the story of the entanglements and rivalries of the two families who separately employ Alice and Tom.

Any Ordinary Day: Blindsides, Resilience and What Happens After the Worst Day of Your Life


Leigh Sales - 2018
    But one particular string of bad news stories – and a terrifying brush with her own mortality – sent her looking for answers about how vulnerable each of us is to a life-changing event. What are our chances of actually experiencing one? What do we fear most and why? And when the worst does happen, what comes next?In this wise and layered book, Leigh talks intimately with people who’ve faced the unimaginable, from terrorism to natural disaster to simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Expecting broken lives, she instead finds strength, hope, even humour. Leigh brilliantly condenses the cutting-edge research on the way the human brain processes fear and grief, and poses the questions we too often ignore out of awkwardness. Along the way, she offers an unguarded account of her own challenges and what she’s learned about coping with life’s unexpected blows.Warm, candid and empathetic, this book is about what happens when ordinary people, on ordinary days, are forced to suddenly find the resilience most of us don’t know we have.

The Accidental Wedding


Debra Elizabeth - 2017
    As she walks through the casino, she bumps into the most handsome man she’s ever seen. When he asks her to dinner, she doesn’t hesitate. As she learns Cade Tyndale’s story—he needs to wed or lose his British estate, her impulsive nature rears up and she agrees to marry him and move to England for one year. What does she have to lose except her heart to the impossibly handsome Earl of Barrett?

The Log Cabin Lady


Anonymous - 1922
    Dear, simple mother, in her terrible clothes, and the twins, got up with more thought for economy than for beauty! I shopped extravagantly with them. The youngsters wanted to see everything in New York; but mother, despite all of those hard, lonely years in our rough country and the many interesting things for her to do and see in New York-- mother wanted nothing better than to stay with the baby.

Sixty Summers


Amanda Hampson - 2019
    Forty years later, the three friends are turning sixty, each of them restless and disenchanted with their lives.Fran works in a second-hand bookshop. Her lover, one of a long line of disappointing men, is drifting away and her future is uncertain. Maggie married into a volatile family. Her beautiful, indulged twin daughters are causing havoc and her elderly mother-in-law has moved in and is taking charge.Rose has been an off-sider for her hopelessly vague but academically brilliant husband and their two sons. Time is running out to find and fulfil her own ambitions.In an attempt to recapture the sense of freedom and purpose they once possessed, they decide to retrace the steps of their 1978 backpacking trip through Europe and set off an odyssey that will test their friendship, challenge their beliefs and redefine the third age of their lives.

Christmas at the Little Cornish Gift Shop


Rachel Griffiths - 2018
    Her dreams of making it as a screenwriter failed and she has no idea what to do next. 
Reality TV star Jake Woodhouse was delighted to find a small, isolated Cornish cottage to rent for the holidays. He aims to spend his days there in peace and quiet, licking his wounds – his only company his faithful, but stubborn, British bulldog, Sherlock Bones. 
But as Ruby and Jake are drawn together by the magic of the festive season and the Little Cornish Gift Shop, they both begin to realise that sometimes it is possible to learn to trust again, and that friendship can be the most valuable Christmas gift of all. 
 This is the first of three short stories in The Little Cornish Gift Shop series. 
Look out for Spring at The Little Cornish Gift Shop coming in 2019.

My Salinger Year


Joanna Rakoff - 2008
    At twenty-three, after leaving graduate school to pursue her dreams of becoming a poet, Joanna Rakoff moves to New York City and takes a job as assistant to the storied literary agent for J. D. Salinger. She spends her days in a plush, wood-paneled office, where Dictaphones and typewriters still reign and old-time agents doze at their desks after martini lunches. At night she goes home to the tiny, threadbare Williamsburg apartment she shares with her socialist boyfriend. Precariously balanced between glamour and poverty, surrounded by titanic personalities, and struggling to trust her own artistic instinct, Rakoff is tasked with answering Salinger’s voluminous fan mail. But as she reads the candid, heart-wrenching letters from his readers around the world, she finds herself unable to type out the agency’s decades-old form response. Instead, drawn inexorably into the emotional world of Salinger’s devotees, she abandons the template and begins writing back. Over the course of the year, she finds her own voice by acting as Salinger’s, on her own dangerous and liberating terms. Rakoff paints a vibrant portrait of a bright, hungry young woman navigating a heady and longed-for world, trying to square romantic aspirations with burgeoning self-awareness, the idea of a life with life itself. Charming and deeply moving, filled with electrifying glimpses of an American literary icon, My Salinger Year is the coming-of-age story of a talented writer. Above all, it is a testament to the universal power of books to shape our lives and awaken our true selves.

The Miniaturist


Jessie Burton - 2014
    . ."On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office--leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.But Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist--an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways . . .Johannes' gift helps Nella to pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand--and fear--the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe. Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation . . . or the architect of their destruction?Enchanting, beautiful, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.

The Fairbairn Girls


Una-Mary Parker - 2013
    1891: The rich, aristocratic Fairbairn family have occupied Lochlee Castle in Argyllshire for the past five hundred years, and the current head of the family, the Earl of Rothbury, along with his wife, sons and daughters, all seem set for a happy future, until they fall victim to a wicked curse. Soon it seems the whole family is doomed, with tragedy and heartbreak around every corner. Can the surviving Fairbairns show bravery in adversity and carve out happy and successful lives, against all odds?

American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land


Monica Hesse - 2017
    But Charlie wasn't lighting fires alone: he had an accomplice, his girlfriend Tonya Bundick. Through her depiction of the dangerous shift that happened in their passionate relationship, Hesse brilliantly brings to life the once-thriving coastal community and its distressed inhabitants, who had already been decimated by a punishing economy before they were terrified by a string of fires they could not explain. Incorporating this drama into the long-overlooked history of arson in the United States, American Fire re-creates the anguished nights that this quiet county spent lit up in flames, mesmerizingly evoking a microcosm of rural America - a land half gutted before the fires even began.

Becoming Maria: Love and Chaos in the South Bronx


Sonia Manzano - 2015
    Emmy Award-winning actress and writer Sonia Manzano plunges us into the daily lives of a Latino family that is loving--and troubled. This is Sonia's own story rendered with an unforgettable narrative power. When readers meet young Sonia, she is a child living amidst the squalor of a boisterous home that is filled with noisy relatives and nosy neighbors. Each day she is glued to the TV screen that blots out the painful realities of her existence and also illuminates the possibilities that lie ahead. But--click!--when the TV goes off, Sonia is taken back to real life--the cramped, colorful world of her neighborhood and an alcoholic father. But it is Sonia's dream of becoming an actress that keeps her afloat among the turbulence of her life and times.Spiced with culture, heartache, and humor, this memoir paints a lasting portrait of a girl's resilience as she grows up to become an inspiration to millions.

Melting the Snow on Hester Street


Daisy Waugh - 2013
    Beautiful. Damned.Sumptuously evoking the Golden Age of Hollywood, a time when money is built on greed and love can be a trick of the light, Daisy Waugh’s stunning new novel is a compelling portrait of love, fame, and survival.It is the blistering summer of 1929 and Hollywood’s glamorous set appear to have it all. Everybody everywhere is living the Hollywood dream, including the elegant and charming, high-society couple, actor and actress Maximilian and Eleanor Beecham. But beneath the sophistication and glamour their insecure and unhappy marriage is on the brink of divorce and their finances are teetering on a knife’s edge after a series of failed films.When the creditors come in to take possession of the house, it seems all is lost and they have nowhere to turn but into the arms of their waiting lovers.But when they receive an invitation to one of the legendary weekend house parties at Hearst Castle – which they know will be filled every Hollywood big-shot around – they cannot resist one last shot of making it in the film industry. With gossip, glamour, scandal and decadence the party is the epitome of the Golden Era, but for Maximilian and Eleanor the time has come to make a decision that will change their future.Will they sacrifice everything for fame and fortune or can Eleanor and Maximilian learn to love each other again?

Deadlock


Iris Johansen - 2009
    Victims of one of the most ruthless and evil human beings on earth.  For two weeks they try to survive, until Emily is the unwitting instrument in Joel’s demise. John Garrett has worked for the CIA, MI6, and whoever else needed his services.  Now, the CIA comes calling with a desperate mission for him: save Emily Hudson.  But their may be more to this job than they let him know.  And soon, his connection to Emily has him questioning everything he thought to be true.  Emily has vengeance on her mind.  Will Garrett aid her in getting revenge?  Can Emily help him get to the truth behind a bigger conspiracy?  Or will they both die trying…With lightning-fast pacing, plot twists and shocking betrayals, Iris Johansen is at the top of her game in this latest thriller.

Cry of the Heart: A World War II Novel


Martin Lake - 2019
    Another woman took him in, at risk to herself. Viviane Renaud is a young mother living on the French Riviera in the Second World War. Times are hard but she is not the sort to be dismayed by circumstances. One day her life changes forever. A young Jewish woman, fleeing from the authorities, begs her to take care of her four year old boy, David. Almost without thinking, Viviane agrees. Viviane’s life is never the same again. She fabricates a story to explain how David came to be with her and must tip-toe around the suspicions of her neighbours, her friends and most of all her mother and sister. She and her husband, Alain, find allies in unlikely places, particularly an American woman, Dorothy Pine. But then, the world crashes around them. Threatened by Allied military success, Hitler sends the German army to occupy the south of France. With them come the SS and the Gestapo. The peril for Jews and for those, like Viviane, who hide them, appears overwhelming. The challenge for them now is to survive.