Showing posts with label Mainstream Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mainstream Fiction. Show all posts

Monday, October 24, 2022

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

A twelve-year-old boy struggles with the worst kind of fame - as the sole survivor of a notorious plane crash - in a heart-wrenching and life-affirming novel for readers of Small Great Things, Little Fires Everywhere, and The Immortalists.

What does it mean not just to survive, but to truly live? 

One summer morning, twelve-year-old Edward Adler, his beloved older brother, his parents, and 183 other passengers board a flight in Newark headed for Los Angeles. Among them are a Wall Street wunderkind, a young woman coming to terms with an unexpected pregnancy, an injured vet returning from Afghanistan, a business tycoon, and a free-spirited woman running away from her controlling husband. Halfway across the country, the plane crashes. Edward is the sole survivor.

Edward's story captures the attention of the nation, but he struggles to find a place for himself in a world without his family. He continues to feel that a piece of him has been left in the sky, forever tied to the plane and all of his fellow passengers. But then he makes an unexpected discovery—one that will lead him to the answers of some of life's most profound questions: When you've lost everything, how do find yourself? How do you discover your purpose? 

Dear Edward is at once a transcendent coming-of-age story, a multidimensional portrait of an unforgettable cast of characters, and a breathtaking illustration of all the ways a broken heart learns to love again.

340 pages (January 2020)

 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
Review from npr
 

Ann Napolitano | PRH Author Lunch ALA 2019 (prhlibrary):

This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver; The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt; History Lesson for Girls by Aurelie Sheehan;  Before the Fall by Noah Hawley; The Hondbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michele Young-Stone; Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter; Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg; Afterlife by Julia Alvarez; Still Life with Monkey by Katharine Weber; Here Until August: Stories by Josephine Rowe; The Dependents by Katharine Dion; The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer; and My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Tuesday, October 18, 2022

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

This unforgettable novel puts human faces on the Syrian war with the immigrant story of a beekeeper, his wife, and the triumph of spirit when the world becomes unrecognizable.

Nuri is a beekeeper and Afra, his wife, is an artist. Mornings, Nuri rises early to hear the call to prayer before driving to his hives in the countryside. On weekends, Afra sells her colorful landscape paintings at the open-air market. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the hills of the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo—until the unthinkable happens. When all they love is destroyed by war, Nuri knows they have no choice except to leave their home. But escaping Syria will be no easy task: Afra has lost her sight, leaving Nuri to navigate her grief as well as a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece toward an uncertain future in Britain.

Nuri is sustained only by the knowledge that waiting for them is his cousin Mustafa, who has started an apiary in Yorkshire and is teaching fellow refugees the art of beekeeping. As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss but dangers that would overwhelm even the bravest souls. Above all, they must make the difficult journey back to each other, a path once so familiar yet rendered foreign by the heartache of displacement.

Moving, intimate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a book for our times: a novel that at once reminds us that the most peaceful and ordinary lives can be utterly upended in unimaginable ways and brings a journey in faraway lands close to home, never to be forgotten.

317 pages (August 2019)

 
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
     
 
Review from Time
 

Book Trailer:

Christi Lefteri on the importance of telling migrants' stories (from SkyNews):


This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid; And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini; Nujeen: one girl's incredible journey from war-torn Syria in a wheelchair by Nujeen Mustafa; No Land to Light On by Yara Zgheib; Legends of the North Cascades by Jonathan Evison; The Doctor of Aleppo by Dan Mayland; A Feather on the Water by Lindsay Jayne Ashford; Where You Come From by Saša, Stanišić; Someone You Love is Gone by Gurjinder Basran; People Want to Live by Ali Farah; Ishmael's Oranges by Claire Hajaj; City of Jasmine by Olga Grjasnowa; and Midwinter by Fiona Melrose.

Friday, February 4, 2022

Fault Lines: A Novel by Emily Itami

Combining the incisive intimacy of Sally Rooney with the sharp wit of Helen Fielding, a compulsively readable and astonishingly relatable debut novel about marriage, motherhood, love, self and the vibrant, surprising city that is modern Tokyo

Mizuki is a Japanese housewife. She has a hardworking husband, two adorable children and a beautiful Tokyo apartment. It’s everything a woman could want, yet sometimes she wonders whether she would rather throw herself off the high-rise balcony than spend another evening not talking to her husband and hanging up laundry.

Then, one rainy night, she meets Kiyoshi, a successful restaurateur. In him, she rediscovers freedom, friendship and the neon, electric pulse of the city she has always loved. But the further she falls into their relationship, the clearer it becomes that she is living two lives --- and in the end, we can choose only one.

Funny, provocative and startlingly honest, Fault Lines is for anyone who has ever looked in the mirror and asked, Who am I, and how did I get here? A bittersweet love story and a piercing portrait of female identity, it introduces Emily Itami as a debut novelist with astounding resonance and wit.

216 pages (September 2021)

 
 
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 

Bookclubs IG Live Interview with Emily Itami:


This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami; The Expatriates by Janice Y. K. Lee; My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki; Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen; Good Company by Cynthia D'aprix Sweeney; Want by Lynn Steger Strong; Regrets Only by Erin Duffy; Trying by Emily Phillips; No Regrets by Tabitha Webb; Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum; The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton; The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams; and We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride.

Monday, July 31, 2017

We Are All Made of Stars by Rowan Coleman

A dedicated nurse, Stella finds comfort at the hospice where she works the late shift, especially since her husband returned from Afghanistan—cold, distant, and shattered by painful memories he refuses to share. The hospice at night is another world, where the dying receive closure by creating the letters that Stella helps them write. The pages are filled with love and humor, sometimes regret, and, occasionally, even instructions for a perplexed husband on how to run appliances. There’s one rule: The letters are mailed only after the patient has passed.

Suddenly Stella is faced with a dilemma: A woman under her care, Grace, has written a confession to the son she abandoned many years before. The letter clearly needs to be read before Grace dies. But if Stella mails it now, she breaks the rule—and risks tampering not only with Grace’s wishes but also with fate.

Navigating passion and grief, loyalty and loss, and a marriage threatened by silence and secrets, Stella discovers that letters hold a special power: granting solace, saving memories, nurturing relationships. As the words endure, love redeems.

342 pages. (July 2016)

Check availability
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 

Book Trailer:


This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: And Again by Jessica Chiarella; Me Before You by Jojo Moyes; The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey; Bearing the Body by Ehud Havazelet; The Mother's Promise by Sally Hepworth; Nora Webster by Colm Toibin; Tempting Fate by Jane Green; On Second Thought by Kristan Higgins; A Walk Along the Beach by Debbie Macomber; Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt; and Ned's Circus of Marvels by Justin Fisher.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

What the Waves Know by Tamara Valentine

In the tradition of Sue Monk Kidd and Beth Hoffman comes a compelling debut novel about a young woman's quest to find herself—and her voice—on the island where she lost both. The tiny state of Rhode Island is home to even tinier Tillings Island—which witnessed the biggest event of Izabella Rae Haywood's life. For it was there, on Iz's sixth birthday, that her father left...and took her voice with him.

Eight years later in the summer of 1974, Iz’s mother is through with social workers, psychiatrists and her daughter's silence. In one last attempt to return Iz’s voice, the motley pair board the ferry to Tillings in hopes that the journey will help Izabella heal herself by piecing together splintered memories of the day her words fled.

But heartbreak is a difficult puzzle to solve, and everyone in Tillings seems to know something Iz does not. Worse, each has an opinion about Izabella's dreamer of a father, the undercurrents of whose actions have spun so many lives off course.

Now, as the island's annual Yemayá festival prepares to celebrate the ties that bind mothers to children, lovers to each other, and humankind to the sea, Izabella must unravel the tangled threads of her own history and reclaim a voice gone silent…or risk losing herself—and any chance she may have for a future—to the past. What the Waves Know is a moving, magical novel that asks us to consider the stories which tell the truth and the stories we tell ourselves.

326 pages (February 2016)

 
Lit Guide from LitLovers.
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 

Book Trailer:


Title Read-alikes: The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve; Dreams of Falling by Karen White; Family Tree by Susan Wiggs; Monogamy by Sue Miller; Porch Lights by Dorothea Benton Frank; Where We Belong by Emily Giffin; Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons; The Second Home by Christina Clancy; Rainy Day Sisters by Kate Hewitt; Terrible Virtue by Ellen Feldman; The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach by Pam Jenoff and Mystic Summer by Hannah McKinnon; and The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Love Water Memory by Jennie Shortridge

Inspired by a true story, this bittersweet novel about a woman with a rare form of amnesia explores the raw, tender complexities of relationships and personal identity. Library Journal calls it “an emotional heart-tugger that doesn’t go where readers might expect; a fascinating turnabout...” 
 
If you could do it all over again, would you still choose him?
 
At age thirty-nine, Lucie Walker has no choice but to start her life over when she comes to, up to her knees in the chilly San Francisco Bay, with no idea how she got there or who she is. Her memory loss is caused by an emotional trauma she knows nothing about, and only when handsome, quiet Grady Goodall arrives at the hospital does she learn she has a home, a career, and a wedding just two months away.
What went wrong?

Grady seems to care for her, but Lucie is no more sure of him than she is of anything. As she collects the clues of her past self, she unlocks the mystery of what happened to her. The painful secrets she uncovers could hold the key to her future—if she trusts her heart enough to guide her

328 pages (April 2013)

 
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 
 

Book Trailer (Simon & Schuster Books):


Title Read-alikes: You Were There Too by Colleen Oakley; Family Tree by Susan Wiggs; The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood; The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman; Lost and Found by Danielle Steel; Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister; Now That You Mention It by Kristan Higgins; What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty; I Almost Forgot About You by Terry Mcmillan; Heart Like Mine by Amy Hatvany; Where You Can Find Me by Sheri Joseph; The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow by Rita Leganski; and The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. by Nichole Bernier.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

In this striking literary debut, Carol Rifka Brunt unfolds a moving story of love, grief, and renewal as two lonely people become the unlikeliest of friends and find that sometimes you don’t know you’ve lost someone until you’ve found them.

1987. There’s only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that’s her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn’s company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June’s world is turned upside down. But Finn’s death brings a surprise acquaintance into June’s life—someone who will help her to heal, and to question what she thinks she knows about Finn, her family, and even her own heart.

At Finn’s funeral, June notices a strange man lingering just beyond the crowd. A few days later, she receives a package in the mail. Inside is a beautiful teapot she recognizes from Finn’s apartment, and a note from Toby, the stranger, asking for an opportunity to meet. As the two begin to spend time together, June realizes she’s not the only one who misses Finn, and if she can bring herself to trust this unexpected friend, he just might be the one she needs the most.

An emotionally charged coming-of-age novel, Tell the Wolves I’m Home is a tender story of love lost and found, an unforgettable portrait of the way compassion can make us whole again.

360 pages (June 2012)

 
Lit Guide from LitLovers.
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 

Meet the Author: Carol Rifka Brunt (Darien Library):


This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving; The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay; Cruel Beautiful World by Caroline Leavitt; Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett; Faithful by Alice Hoffman; The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez; Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens; Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell; The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt; That Kind of Mother by Rumaan Alam; The Hollow Ground by Natalie S. Harnett; The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey; and The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

From the internationally best-selling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, comes Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia.
 
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. is the astonishing and riveting tale of a man's journey from impoverished rural boy to corporate tycoon. It follows its nameless hero to the sprawling metropolis (an unnamed contemporary city in “rising Asia") where he begins to amass an empire built on that most fluid, and increasingly scarce, of goods: water. Yet his heart remains set on something else, on the pretty girl whose star rises along with his, their paths crossing and recrossing, a lifelong affair sparked and snuffed and sparked again by the forces that careen their fates along. 
 
Stealing its shape from the self-help books devoured by ambitious youths all over “rising Asia,” the novel is genre-bending and playful but also reflective and profound in its portrayal of the thirst for ambition and love in a time of shattering economic and social upheaval. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, Mohsin Hamid's third novel, confirms that this radically inventive storyteller is among the most important of today's international writers.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is a striking slice of contemporary life at a time of crushing upheaval. Romantic without being sentimental, political without being didactic, and spiritual without being religious, it brings an unflinching gaze to the violence and hope it depicts. And it creates two unforgettable characters who find moments of transcendent intimacy in the midst of shattering change.

228 pages (March 2013)

 
Lit Guide from LitLovers.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
Review from npr
 

Book Trailer (Penguin Books UK):


This title is available for download as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser; A State of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee; This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz; The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer; NW by Zadie Smith; Love by Toni Morrison; Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelo; The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen; Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan; Street of Eternal Happiness by Rob Schmitz; Temporary People by Deepak Unnikrishnan; A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Moshammed Hanif; and A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

From bestselling author Meg Wolitzer a dazzling, panoramic novel about what becomes of early talent, and the roles that art, money, and even envy can play in close friendships.

The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.

The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules’s now-married best friends, become shockingly successful—true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.

Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.

468 pages (April 2013)

 
Lit Guide from LitLovers.
 
 
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
Review from npr
 
Author Webpage

Meg Wolitzer in Conversation with Delia Ephron (New York Society Library):
 
Meg Wolitzer reads from The Interestings at Eat, Drink & Be Literary (BAMorg):
 
Meg Wolitzer at The Moth: First Love, Long Island 1975:

This title is available for download as an eBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: The Ensemble by Aja Gabel; Invincible Summer by Alice Adams; Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam; Two Across by Jeffrey Bartsch; Expectation by Anna Hope; Close to Hugh by Marina Endicott; Freedom by Jonathan Franzen; Trust Exercise by Susan Choi; Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante; Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff; Where'd You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple; The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt; and Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt.