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Book Discussion Collection
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Mycroft Holmes: A Novel
by
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Co-written by the NBA All-Star, an original novel starring the enigmatic brother of Sherlock Holmes follows the early partnership between Mycroft, a rising star in the government; and his best friend, Cyrus Douglas; as they investigate a series of murders in Trinidad.
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The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
by
Diane Ackerman
Documents the true story of Warsaw Zoo keepers and resistance activists Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who in the aftermath of Germany's invasion of Poland saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish citizens by smuggling them into empty cages and their home villa.
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Americanah
by
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Separated by respective ambitions after falling in love in occupied Nigeria, beautiful Ifemelu experiences triumph and defeat in America while exploring new concepts of race, while Obinze endures an undocumented status in London until the pair is reunited in their homeland 15 years later, where they face the toughest decisions of their lives. By the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun.
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Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
by
Svetlana Aleksievich
The people of Chernobyl talk about their lives before, during, and after the worst nuclear reactor accident in history, which occurred on April 26, 1986 in the Soviet Union in Chernobyl, a disaster that spread radioactive contamination across much of Europe.
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The Japanese Lover: A Novel
by
Isabel Allende
A multigenerational epic by the New York Times best-selling author of The House of the Spirits follows the impossible romance between a World War II escapee from the Nazis and a Japanese gardener's son, whose story is discovered decades later by a care worker who would come to terms with her past.
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In the Time of the Butterflies
by
Julia Alvarez
A story based on actual events evokes the horror of the Dominican Republic under dictator General Trujillo, as three sisters die in a jeep "accident."
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Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944
by
Stephen E. Ambrose
Recounts the initial airborne mission that paved the way for the Normandy landings, detailing the mission's preparations, hand-to-hand fighting, heroics, and importance.
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In the Garden of Papa Santuzzu
by
Tony Ardizzone
A richly detailed chronicle of the slow and steady emigration of a close Sicilian family to America in the early 1900s captures the individual stories of family members as they successive escape their feudal past for a better future.
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Life after Life: A Novel
by
Kate Atkinson
Follows the experiences of a woman, who, after being born on a snowy night in 1910, repeatedly dies and reincarnates into the same life to correct missteps and ultimately save the world.
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Alias Grace
by
Margaret Atwood
A finalist for the Booker Prize, a national best-seller by the author of The Handmaid's Tale tells the story of an enigmatic Victorian woman accused of a double murder and the psychologist who treats her.
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Sense and Sensibility
by
Jane Austen
Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened loss - the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.
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A Man Called Ove
by
Fredrik Backman
A curmudgeon hides a terrible personal loss beneath a cranky and short-tempered exterior while clashing with new neighbors, a boisterous family whose chattiness and habits lead to unexpected friendship.
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The Sense of an Ending
by
Julian Barnes
Follows a middle-aged man as he reflects on a past he thought was behind him, until he is presented with a legacy that forces him to reconsider different decisions, and to revise his place in the world
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The Widow
by
Fiona Barton
After Jean's husband dies, the community wants to know the real truth about the crime he was suspected of—but Jean has secrets of her own.
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The Paris Architect: A Novel
by
Charles Belfoure
A Parisian architect is paid handsomely to devise secret hiding spaces for Jews in his Nazi-occupied country but struggles with risking his life for a cause he is ambivalent towards, until a personal failure brings home their suffering.
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City of Thieves: A Novel
by
David Benioff
Documenting his grandparents' experiences during the siege of Leningrad, a young writer learns his grandfather's story about how a military deserter and he tried to secure pardons by gathering hard-to-find ingredients for a powerful colonel's daughter's wedding cake
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Alice I Have Been: A Novel
by
Melanie Benjamin
Octogenarian Alice, who as a child inspired Lewis Carroll's famous Wonderland character, looks back on a life marked by an implacable mother, her halcyon days in Oxford and the sons who went off to war.
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The Uncommon Reader
by
Alan Bennett
Obliged to borrow a book when her corgis stray into a mobile library, the Queen discovers a passion for reading, setting the palace upon its head and causing the royal head of Great Britain to question her role in the monarchy.
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The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
by
Katarina Bivald
A Swedish tourist opens a bookstore in Broken Wheel, Iowa, to honor her deceased pen pal and makes some unconventional choices that threaten to bring long-hidden secrets to light as she attempts to share her love of reading with the locals.
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Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands: A Novel
by
Chris Bohjalian
Living in an igloo of ice and trash bags half a year after a cataclysmic nuclear disaster, Emily, convinced that she will be hated as the daughter of the drunken father who caused the meltdown, assumes a fictional identity while protecting a homeless boy.
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Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
by
Katherine Boo
A first book by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist profiles everyday life in the settlement of Annawadi as experienced by a Muslim teen, an ambitious rural mother of a prospective female college student and a young scrap metal thief, in an account that illuminates how their efforts to build better lives are challenged by regional religious, caste and economic tensions.
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Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
by
Anthony Bourdain
A New York City chef who is also a novelist recounts his experiences in the restaurant business, and exposes abuses of power, sexual promiscuity, drug use, and other secrets of life behind kitchen doors, in a new portable edition that includes annotations from the author.
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Fahrenheit 451
by
Ray Bradbury
A totalitarian regime has ordered all books to be destroyed, but one of the book burners, Guy Montag, suddenly realizes their merit.
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Wuthering Heights
by
Emily Bronte
The passionate love of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff mirrors the powerful moods of the Yorkshire moors.
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The Road to Character
by
David Brooks
The New York Times columnist and best-selling author of The Social Animal evaluates America's transition to a culture that values self-promotion over humility, explaining the importance of an engaged inner life in personal fulfillment.
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People of the Book: A Novel
by
Geraldine Brooks
Offered a coveted job to analyze and conserve a priceless Sarajevo Haggadah, Australian rare-book expert Hanna Heath discovers a series of tiny artifacts in the volume's ancient binding that reveal its historically significant origins. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March.
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The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine
by
Alex Brunkhorst
Collecting quotes for the obituary of a legendary film producer, young journalist Thomas Cleary is invited by the man's eccentric daughter to tour the exclusive upper echelons of Hollywood society, where he pursues a romance with an enigmatic shut-in.
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Tell the Wolves I'm home: A Novel
by
Carol Rifka Brunt
Her world upended by the death of a beloved artist uncle who was the only person who understood her, fourteen-year-old June is mailed a teapot by her uncle's grieving friend, with whom June forges a poignant relationship.
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My Ántonia
by
Willa Cather
In the late nineteenth century, a fourteen-year-old immigrant girl from Bohemia and a ten-year-old orphan boy arrive in Black Hawk, Nebraska, and in teaching each other form a friendship that will last a lifetime.
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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay: A Novel
by
Michael Chabon
In 1939 New York City, Joe Kavalier, a refugee from Hitler's Prague, joins forces with his Brooklyn-born cousin, Sammy Clay, to create comic-book superheroes inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams.
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Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
by
Jung Chang
Traces three generations of a family in twentieth-century China, during which a warlord's concubine, a powerful Communist Party member, and a Cultural Revolution survivor witness Mao's impact on their nation and their livelihoods
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Skating under the Wire : A Mystery
by
Joelle Charbonneau
When a dead body turns up at her best friend's bridal shower, Rebecca Robbins, while trying to cook Thanksgiving dinner and track down the thieves responsible for a string of home invasions, must solve a murder and get her friend safely married with the help of her Elvis-loving grandmother.
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Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir
by
Roz Chast
A graphic memoir by a long-time New Yorker cartoonist celebrates the final years of her aging parents' lives through four-color cartoons, family photos and documents that reflect the artist's struggles with caregiver challenges.
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And Then There Were None
by
Agatha Christie
A killer stalks a group of ten total strangers on an isolated island off the Devon coast, in a suspenseful story of murder and retribution, set to a sinister nursery rhyme.
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Little Bee
by
Chris Cleave
The Somerset Maugham Award-winning author of Incendiary presents a tale of a precarious friendship between an illegal Nigerian refugee and a recent widow from suburban London, a story told from the alternating and disparate perspectives of both women.
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The Girls: A Novel
by
Emma Cline
Mesmerized by a band of girls in the park she perceives as enjoying a life of free and careless abandon, 1960s teen Evie Boyd becomes obsessed with gaining acceptance into their circle, only to find herself drawn into a cult and seduced by its charismatic leader. Reading-group guide available.
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Ready Player One
by
Ernest Cline
Immersed in a mid-21st-century virtual utopia to escape an ugly real world of famine, poverty and disease, Wade Watts joins a violent effort to solve a series of puzzles by the virtual world's wealthy creator, who has promised that the winner will be his heir, in a book that is the basis for the forthcoming film.
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Between the World and Me
by
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Told through the author's own evolving understanding of the subject over the course of his life comes a bold and personal investigation into America's racial history and its contemporary echoes.
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The Alchemist
by
Paulo Coelho
"A special 25th anniversary edition of Paulo Coehlo's extraordinary international bestselling phenomenon--the inspiring spiritual tale of self-discovery that has touched millions of lives around the world.Combing magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations. Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different--and far more satisfying--than he ever imagined. Santiago's journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life's path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams. "
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Disgrace
by
J. M. Coetzee
Set between Cape Town and a remote farm in the Eastern Cape, this spare, unflinching novel of the modern South Africa traces the relationship between a farmer and his daughter.
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The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss
by
Anderson Cooper
A poignant correspondence between the CNN journalist and his iconic designer mother, exchanged in the aftermath of the latter's brief illness, shares a rare window into their relationship and the life lessons imparted by an aging mother to her adult son.
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The Almond Tree
by
Michelle Cohen Corasanti
A tale of two Palestinian brothers, one full of anger and hate, the other trying to build a bridge through scientific endeavour. Gifted with a mind that continues to impress the elders in his village, Ichmad Hamid struggles with knowing that he can do nothing to save his friends and family. Living on occupied land, his entire village operates in fear of losing their homes, jobs, and belongings. But more importantly, they fear losing each other. On Ichmad's twelfth birthday, that fear becomes reality. With his father imprison ed, his family s home and possessions confiscated, and his siblings quickly succumbing to hatred in the face of conflict, Ichmad begins an inspiring journey using his intellect to save his poor and dying family. In doing so he reclaims a love for others that was lost through a childhood rife with violence and loss, and discovers a new hope for the future.
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The Towers of Tuscany
by
Carol M. Cram
Sofia is trained in secret as a painter in her father's workshop during a time when women did not paint openly. She loves her work, but her restless spirit leads her to betray her extraordinary gifts to marry a man who comes to despise her for not producing a son. After Sofia's father is crushed by his own fresco during an attack motivated by a vendetta, Sofia realizes she must escape her loveless marriage. She flees to Siena, where disguised as a boy, she paints again. When her work attracts the notice of a nobleman who discovers the woman under the dirty smock, Sofia is faced with a choice that nearly destroys her.
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Levi's Will: A Novel
by
W. Dale Cramer
"A family saga of pain and reconciliation set behind the closed doors of an Amish community. Spanning three generations, the story follows the life of Will McGruder, who having fled as a young man, seeks to heal the past by bringing his new family to meet his Amish relatives"
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Sleeping Arrangements
by
Laura Cunningham
A memoir of growing up in the Bronx during the 1950s follows Lily--the illegitimate daughter of Rosie--who, after her mother's death, is raised by a pair of eccentric bachelor uncles.
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The Hours
by
Michael Cunningham
A novel about three very different women--Virginia Woolf, Clarissa Vaughan, and Laura Brown--whose lives and destinies become intertwined spans the nation, from New York to Los Angeles, and follows them to a haunting and surprising conclusion. (A new film, written by David Hare, directed by Stephen Daldry, starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman)
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Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend
by
Matthew Dicks
A creative tale imparted from the perspective of long-time imaginary friend, Budo, traces his awareness of his advancing age and constant thoughts of the inevitable day when 8-year-old Max, an boy with autism, will stop believing in him, a progression that is complicated by a teasing bully and Max's abduction by an overly-possessive therapist.
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The Language of Flowers: A Novel
by
Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Discovering the symbolic meanings of flowers while languishing in the foster-care system, eighteen-year-old Victoria is hired by a florist when her talent for helping others is discovered, a situation that leads her to confront a painful secret from her past.
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Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
by
Annie Dillard
A collection of essays on the natural world during a year spent in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia reflects the author's interactions with her wilderness surroundings. Reader's Guide available. Winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize.
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Spies in the Family: An American Spymaster, His Russian Crown Jewel, and the Friendship That Helped End the Cold War
by
Eva Dillon
In the summer of 1975, seventeen-year-old Eva Dillon was living in New Delhi when her father was exposed as a CIA spy. Eva had long believed that her father was a U.S. State Department employee. She had no idea that he was handling the CIA’s highest-ranking double agent—Dmitri Fedorovich Polyakov—a Soviet general whose code name was TOPHAT. Dillon’s father and Polyakov had a close friendship that went back years, to their first meeting in Burma in the mid-1960s. At the height of the Cold War, the Russian offered the CIA an unfiltered view into the vault of Soviet intelligence. His collaboration helped ensure that tensions between the two nuclear superpowers did not escalate into a shooting war. Spanning fifty years and three continents, Spies in the Family is a deeply researched account of two families on opposite sides of the lethal espionage campaigns of the Cold War, and two men whose devoted friendship lasted a lifetime, until the devastating final days of their lives. With impeccable insider access to both families as well as knowledgeable CIA and FBI officers, Dillon goes beyond the fog of secrecy to craft an unforgettable story of friendship and betrayal, double agents and clandestine lives, that challenges our notions of patriotism, exposing the commonality between peoples of opposing political economic systems. Both a gripping tale of spy craft and a moving personal story, Spies in the Family is an invaluable and heart-rending work.
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All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel
by
Anthony Doerr
A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with their respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast. By the award-winning author of About Grace. A #1 New York Times best-seller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
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Dancing at the Rascal Fair
by
Ivan Doig
Anna Ramsey and Angus McCaskill engage in a fateful contest of the heart as they forge new lives in the beautiful Two Medicine country of Montana.
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The Whistling Season
by
Ivan Doig
Hired as a housekeeper to work on the early 1900s Montana homestead of widower Oliver Milliron, the irreverent and perpetually whistling Rose and her font-of-knowledge brother, Morris, endeavor to educate the widower's reluctant sons while witnessing local efforts on a massive irrigation project.
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A Northern Light
by
Jennifer Donnelly
While working at the local hotel, the drowned body of a young woman washes onto the shore and gets Mattie thinking again of the loss of her mother, her family’s struggles, and her unhappy life in her small community, but when she reads the girl’s letters, Mattie is inspired and becomes determined to follow her dream of moving to New York City to become a writer.
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Room: A Novel
by
Emma Donoghue
A 5-year-old narrates a riveting story about his life growing up in a single room where his mother aims to protect him from the man who has held her prisoner for seven years since she was a teenager.
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Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
by
Angela Duckworth
Argues that focused persistence is more important than talent in enabling high achievement, drawing on the author's pioneering research and experience to counsel readers on how to promote optimal performance through perseverance
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My Cousin Rachel
by
Daphne Du Maurier
"From the first page...the reader is back in the moody, brooding atmosphere of Rebecca." -The New York Times From the bestselling author of Rebecca, another classic set in beautiful and mysterious Cornwall. Philip Ashley's older cousin Ambrose, who raised the orphaned Philip as his own son, has died in Rome. Philip, the heir to Ambrose's beautiful English estate, is crushed that the man he loved died far from home. He is also suspicious. While in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman. But the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned to paranoia and fear. Now Rachel has arrived at Philip's newly inherited estate. Could this exquisite woman, who seems to genuinely share Philip's grief at Ambrose's death, really be as cruel as Philip imagined? Or is she the kind, passionate woman with whom Ambrose fell in love? Philip struggles to answer this question, knowing Ambrose's estate, and his own future, will be destroyed if his answer is wrong.
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Rebecca
by
Daphne Du Maurier
A classic novel of romantic suspense finds the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter entering the home of her mysterious and enigmatic new husband and learning the story of the house's first mistress, to whom the sinister housekeeper is unnaturally devoted.
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Remember Me this Way: A Novel
by
Sabine Durrant
On the first anniversary of her husband Zach's death, Lizzie goes to lay flowers where his fatal accident took place, only to discover that someone has been there before her, which forces her to realize that she didn't really know him—or what he was capable of.
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Margaret the First
by
Danielle Dutton
Dramatizes the life of Margaret Cavendish, the shy, gifted and wildly unconventional 17th-century Duchess whose husband encouraged her writing and desire for a career, which earned her fame and infamy in England.
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The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream
by
Thomas Dyja
A cultural history of mid-20th-century Chicago traces the emergence of mass-marketing practices, technological advances and artistic development that profoundly influenced modern America, offering additional insight into the role of racial divisions, housing projects and migration.
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What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel
by
Dave Eggers
A winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award traces the story of two child Sudanese civil war refugees and their witness to the devastation that has torn their homeland, a time during which one struggles to understand what is happening and the other joins the rebel army.
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Zeitoun
by
Dave Eggers
Documents the story of a long-time New Orleans resident who was forced to stay behind during Hurricane Katrina while the rest of his family evacuated, describing how he spent days after the storm traveling by canoe to feed abandoned animals before he was inexplicably arrested.
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Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America
by
Barbara Ehrenreich
"Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job--any job--can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she workedas a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupationsrequire exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity--a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate strategems for survival. Read it for the smoldering clarity of Ehrenreich's perspective and for a rare view of how "prosperity" looks from the bottom. You will never see anything--from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal--quite the same way again. "
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The Turner House
by
Angela Flournoy
Learning after a half-century of family life that their house on Detroit's East Side is worth only a fraction of its mortgage, the members of the Turner family gather to reckon with their pasts and decide the house's fate.
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The Ensemble
by
Aja Gabel
The addictive novel about four young friends navigating the cutthroat world of classical music and their complex relationships with each other, as ambition, passion, and love intertwine over the course of their lives.
Jana. Brit. Daniel. Henry. They would never have been friends if they hadn't needed each other. They would never have found each other except for the art which drew them together. They would never have become family without their love for the music, for each other.
Brit is the second violinist, a beautiful and quiet orphan; on the viola is Henry, a prodigy who's always had it easy; the cellist is Daniel, the oldest and an angry skeptic who sleeps around; and on first violin is Jana, their flinty, resilient leader. Together, they are the Van Ness Quartet. After the group's youthful, rocky start, they experience devastating failure and wild success, heartbreak and marriage, triumph and loss, betrayal and enduring loyalty. They are always tied to each other - by career, by the intensity of their art, by the secrets they carry, by choosing each other over and over again.
Following these four unforgettable characters, Aja Gabel's debut novel gives a riveting look into the high-stakes, cutthroat world of musicians, and of lives made in concert. The story of Brit and Henry and Daniel and Jana, The Ensemble is a heart-skipping portrait of ambition, friendship, and the tenderness of youth.
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The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by
Neil Gaiman
Storytelling genius Neil Gaiman delivers a whimsical, imaginative, bittersweet and at times deeply scary modern fantasy about fear, love, magic and sacrifice to reveal and to protect us from the darkness inside—a moving, terrifying and elegiac fable.
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Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by
Atul Gawande
A prominent surgeon argues against modern medical practices that extend life at the expense of quality of life while isolating the dying, outlining suggestions for freer, more fulfilling approaches to death that enable more dignified and comfortable choices. By the author of The Checklist Manifesto.
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Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
by
Doris Kearns Goodwin
An analysis of Abraham Lincoln's political talents identifies the character strengths and abilities that enabled his successful election above three accomplished candidates, in an account that inspired the November 2012 film Lincoln, directed by Steven Spielberg.
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Lord of Misrule: A Novel
by
Jaimy Gordon
In the early 1970s, trainer Tommy Hansel attempts a horse racing scam at a small, backwoods track in West Virginia, but nothing goes according to his plan when the horses refuse to cooperate and nearly everyone at the track seems to know his scheme.
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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
by
David Grann
Presents a true account of the early 20th-century murders of dozens of wealthy Osage and law-enforcement officials, citing the contributions and missteps of a fledgling FBI that eventually uncovered one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. A New York Times best-seller and National Book Award finalist.
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The Fault in Our Stars
by
John Green
Despite the medical miracle that has bought her a few more years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, but when Augustus Waters suddenly appears at the Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be rewritten.
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Water for Elephants: A Novel
by
Sara Gruen
Ninety-something-year-old Jacob Jankowski remembers his time in the circus as a young man during the Great Depression, and his friendship with Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, and Rosie, the elephant, who gave them hope.
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Snow Falling on Cedars
by
David Guterson
A Japanese-American fisherman's 1954 murder trial becomes the backdrop of a story that follows a doomed love affair between a white boy and a Japanese girl, a simmering land dispute, and the wartime internment of San Piedro's Japanese residents.
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Homegoing
by
Yaa Gyasi
Two half sisters, unknown to each other, are born into different villages in 18th-century Ghana and experience profoundly different lives and legacies throughout subsequent generations marked by wealth, slavery, war, coal mining, the Great Migration and the realities of 20th-century Harlem.
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
by
Mark Haddon
After stumbling upon his neighbor's dog, Wellington, impaled on a garden fork and being blamed for the killing, fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone, an autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, decides to track down the real killer and turns to his detective hero to help him with the investigation, which brings him face to face with a family crisis. A first novel.
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Exit West: A Novel
by
Mohsin Hamid
Two young lovers engage in a furtive affair shaped by local unrest on the eve of a civil war that erupts in a cataclysmic bombing attack, forcing them to abandon their previous home and lives.
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Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
by
Gabrielle Hamilton
The chef of New York's East Village Prune restaurant presents an account of her search for meaning and purpose in the central rural New Jersey home of her youth, marked by a first chicken kill, an international backpacking tour, and the opening of a first restaurant.
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The Nightingale
by
Kristin Hannah
Reunited when the elder's husband is sent to fight in World War II, French sisters Vianne and Isabelle find their bond as well as their respective beliefs tested by a world that changes in horrific ways.
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The Dry
by
Jane Harper
Receiving a sinister anonymous note after his best friend's suspicious death, federal agent Aaron Falk is forced to confront the fallout of a twenty-year-old false alibi against a backdrop of the worst drought Melbourne has seen in a century.
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Five Quarters of the Orange
by
Joanne Harris
Framboise Simon returns to the French village where she grew up as a girl during the German occupation, and relives the tragic events that surrounded her family.
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Living with the Devil: A Family's Search for the Truth in the Face of Deception, Infidelity and Murder
by
Lori Hart
A FAMILY'S SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH IN THE FACE OF DECEPTION, INFIDELITY AND MURDER. As the principal of his own law firm and known as "Mr. Condo" to his Chicago condominium clients, Donnie Rudd was at the top of his game. Charming, offbeat, and eccentric, he appeared on his own television show and taught at a local college. But behind the public persona of a successful lawyer, Donnie Rudd's life was unraveling as police investigated the death of his second wife, the murder of a local woman, and claims of fraud by several clients. The fascinating memoir by Donnie's step daughters describes the chaos of life with a sociopath as the allegations of infidelity, madness, and murder against Donnie interrupt their lives again and again. The sisters recount the riveting true story of events over a span of 40 years that will leave readers breathless and wondering how Rudd was able to evade accountability for so long. In the midst of the madness also lies a story of redemption and triumph as the family overcomes the dysfunction of their early tumultuous life.
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The Sun Also Rises
by
Ernest Hemingway
A brilliant profile of the Lost Generation, Hemingway's first bestseller captures life among the expatriates on Paris's Left Bank during the 1920s, the brutality of bullfighting in Spain, and the moral and spiritual dissolution of a generation.
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The Book of Unknown Americans
by
Cristina Henríquez
Moving from Mexico to the United States when their daughter suffers a near-fatal accident, the Riveras confront cultural barriers, their daughter's difficult recovery, and her developing relationship with a Panamanian boy.
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Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse
Blends elements of psychoanalysis and Asian religions to probe an Indian aristocrat's efforts to renounce sensual and material pleasures and discover ultimate spiritual truths.
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Blackbird House
by Alice Hoffman
An evocative, episodic novel by the author of Practical Magic presents a series of interlinking stories that capture the lives and fortunes of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over the course of two centuries. Reader's Guide included.
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The Keeper of Lost Things: A Novel
by Ruth Hogan
Having collected a lifetime of lost objects in order to deal with the loss of his fiancée, Anthony Peardew bequeaths his secret life's mission to his unsuspecting assistant, Laura, leaving her his house and all its lost treasures--and the responsibility to return each one to its owner.
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The Dress Lodger
by Sheri Holman
In a novel set in London during the Industrial Revolution, a prostitute borrows a blue dress to attract a higher class of client and is shadowed through the streets by an evil old woman hired by the dress' owner to keep an eye on her.
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You are One of Them: A Novel about Secrets, Betrayal, and the Friend who Got Away
by Elliott Holt
A first novel by a Pushcart Prize-winning writer traces the friendship between all-American girl Jenny and Sarah, the shy daughter of troubled parents, during the height of the Cold War, a bond that is nearly shattered by Jenny's unexpected fame and plane crash death that Sarah learns a decade later might have been a hoax.
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Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
by Gail Honeyman
"Smart, warm, uplifting, the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realizes the only way to survive is to open her heart. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. That, combined with her unusual appearance (scarred cheek, tendency to wear the same clothes year in, year out), means that Eleanor has become a creature of habit (to say the least) and a bit of a loner. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kind of friends who rescue each other from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond's big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one."
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The Obituary Writer
by Ann Hood
An obituary writer searching for her missing lover at the turn of the twentieth century is linked to a woman considering leaving her loveless marriage in 1963 in this literary mystery from the best-selling author of The Red Thread.
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The Word Is Murder
by Anthony Horowitz
London. Diana Cowper, wealthy mother of a famous actor, goes to a funeral parlor to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator, is assigned to the case. Hawthorne decides he needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz. Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself at the center of a story he cannot control.
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The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
Traces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son, in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of the present day.
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Brave New World: And, Brave New World Revisited
by Aldous Huxley
Huxley's vision of the future comes to life in his astonishing 1931 novel Brave New World--a world of tomorrow in which capitalist civilization has been reconstituted through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering--and its sequel.
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The Fourth Hand: A Novel
by John Irving
When a New York journalist suffers a horrible accident--his left hand eaten by a lion while reporting on a story from India--witnessed by millions on television, viewers rally to help him.
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Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro
A reunion with two childhood friends draws Kathy and her companions on a nostalgic odyssey into their lives at Hailsham, an isolated private school in the English countryside, and a confrontation with the truth about their childhoods.
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News of the World: A Novel
by Paulette Jiles
In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a widower and itinerant news reader, is offered fifty dollars to bring an orphan girl, who was kidnapped and raised by Kiowa raiders, from Wichita Falls back to her family in San Antonio.
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The 100-year-old Man who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared
by Jonas Jonasson
Confined to a nursing home and about to turn 100, Allan Karlsson, who has a larger-than-life back story as an explosives expert, climbs out of the window in his slippers and embarks on an unforgettable adventure involving thugs, a murderous elephant, and a very friendly hot dog stand operator.
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The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel
by Rachel Joyce
Jolted out of emotional numbness by a letter from an old friend who wants to say goodbye before she dies, Harold Fry embarks on a 600-mile hiking journey to his friend's side without supplies, an endeavor that stirs up memories of his unhappy marital and parenting experiences.
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Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging
by Sebastian Junger
Explores the historical, psychological, and anthropological roles of tribal societies to examine the human instinct to belong to small, purposeful groups and how regaining tribal connections may be essential to mental survival in the modern world. By the best-selling author of The Perfect Storm and War.
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The Boy in the Suitcase
by Lene Kaaberbol
Red Cross nurse Nina Borg is drawn into Copenhagen's brutal underworld when she becomes the unwitting caretaker of a three-year-old boy who may be a victim of child trafficking.
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Elmhurst Public Library 125 S Prospect Ave. Elmhurst, Illinois 60126 (630) 279-8696elmlib.org |
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