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Recommendations based on The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Loveby Oscar Hijuelos
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The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri
A young Indian-American's journey of reconciling two different cultures and his own identity.
The story begins as Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, a young Bengali couple, leave Calcutta , India, and settle in Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts . Ashoke is an engineering student at the ... (Wikipedia)
Empire Falls
by Richard Russo
A small town's citizens struggle to find meaning and find their place in a rapidly changing world.
Set in the decaying, nearly bankrupt, small town of Empire Falls, Maine, this is the story of the unassuming manager of the Empire Grill, Miles Roby, who has spent his life in the town. The town, and ... (Wikipedia)
Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman
An exploration of the relationship between the individual and the divine, viewed through the lens of nature and its rhythms.
A collection of quintessentially American poems, the seminal work of one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century. ... (Goodreads)
The Shipping News
by Annie Proulx
A man's attempt to rebuild his life in a small Newfoundland town, discovering compassion and joy.
The story centers around Quoyle, a newspaper reporter from upstate New York , whose father had emigrated from Newfoundland . Shortly after his parents' joint suicide, Quoyle's unfaithful and abusive ... (Wikipedia)
The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
by Ernest Hemingway
Collection of short stories depicting the human experience in all its complexities.
THE ONLY COMPLETE COLLECTION BY THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as ... (Goodreads)
A Virtuous Woman
by Kaye Gibbons
A woman's struggle to overcome poverty and take control of her own destiny.
When Blinking Jack Stokes met Ruby Pitt Woodrow, she was twenty and he was forty. She was the carefully raised daughter of Carolina gentry and he was a skinny tenant farmer who had never owned ... (Goodreads)
The Sportswriter
by Richard Ford
A sportswriter navigates through life after the death of his son, reflecting on his past relationships and current struggles.
As a sportswriter, Frank Bascombe makes his living studying people–men, mostly--who live entirely within themselves. This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. But at thirty-eight, he suffers ... (Goodreads)
Reservation Blues
by Sherman Alexie
A Native American rock band embarks on a journey to reclaim their cultural identity.
The novel follows the story of the rise and fall of Coyote Springs, a rock and blues band of Spokane Indians from the Spokane Reservation . In 1995, Thomas Builds-The-Fire, Junior Polatkin, and ... (Wikipedia)
The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood
A complex, interwoven story of family secrets, love, tragedy, and mystery.
The novel's protagonist , Iris Chase, and her sister Laura, grow up well-off but motherless in a small town in southern Ontario. As an old woman, Iris recalls the events and relationships of her ... (Wikipedia)
Old Filth
by Jane Gardam
The life story of Sir Edward Feathers, a retired judge known as "Old Filth" (Failed In London Try Hong Kong), and his complex relationships.
Sir Edward Feathers has had a brilliant career, from his early days as a lawyer in Southeast Asia, where he earned the nickname Old Filth (FILTH being an acronym for Failed In London Try Hong Kong) ... (Goodreads)
Play It As It Lays
by Joan Didion
A woman's search for identity amidst the glamour and emptiness of 1960s Hollywood.
The novel begins with an internal monologue by the 31-year-old Maria Wyeth, followed by short reminiscences of her friend Helene, and ex-husband, film producer Carter Lang. The further narration is ... (Wikipedia)
Tender Is the Night
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
A young couple's tumultuous journey through love, wealth and tragedy.
Dick and Nicole Diver are a glamorous couple who rent a villa in the South of France and surround themselves with a circle of friends, mainly Americans. Also staying at the nearby resort are Rosemary ... (Wikipedia)
Inés of My Soul
by Isabel Allende
A historical novel of a woman's struggles and triumphs in colonial Latin America.
This historial novel is about the main facts of the life of Inés (an important figure in Chile), written in older Ines' first-person voice, with its intended audience to be Ines' adoptive daughter, ... (Wikipedia)
The Green Mile
by Stephen King
A prison guard discovers the power of redemption, and miracles, when he meets a mysterious inmate.
Featuring a first-person narrative told by Paul Edgecombe, the novel switches between Paul as an old man in the Georgia Pines nursing home writing down his story in 1996, and his time in 1932 as the ... (Wikipedia)
How the García Girls Lost Their Accents
by Julia Alvarez
Follows the lives of four sisters as they navigate their identities between two cultures.
The novel is written episodically and in reverse-chronological order. It consists of fifteen chapters in three parts: Part I (1989–1972), Part II (1970–1960), and Part III (1960–1956). Part I is ... (Wikipedia)
Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer
by Sena Jeter Naslund
A woman's journey of self-discovery, defying society's expectations and finding her own path.
A magnificent, vast, and enthralling saga, Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife is a remarkable epic spanning a rich, eventful, and dramatic life. Inspired by a brief passage in Moby Dick , it is the ... (Goodreads)
These Happy Golden Years
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
A young girl's journey of self-discovery as she moves through adulthood.
As the novel begins, Pa is taking Laura 12 miles from home in the dead of winter to her first teaching assignment at Brewster settlement. Laura being only 15 and a schoolgirl herself, is apprehensive ... (Wikipedia)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz
An exploration of love, identity, and the power of fate in a family's struggles and triumphs.
Oscar de León (nicknamed Oscar Wao, a bastardization of Oscar Wilde ) is an overweight Dominican growing up in Paterson, New Jersey. Oscar desperately wants to be successful with women but, from a ... (Wikipedia)
In Our Time
by Ernest Hemingway
A collection of short stories exploring themes of war, nature, and human relationships.
First published in 1925, earning Hemingway praise as a promising American writer. Contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories. This volume introduces readers to ... (Goodreads)
Chronicle of a Death Foretold
by Gabriel García Márquez
A murder mystery narrated by the townspeople and tracing the events leading up to the crime.
The non-linear story, told by an anonymous narrator, begins with the morning of Santiago Nasar's death. The reader learns that Santiago lives with his mother, Placida Linero; the cook, Victoria ... (Wikipedia)
The Hummingbird's Daughter
by Luis Alberto Urrea
A Mexican girl's journey to self-acceptance, discovering the power of faith and family.
The prizewinning writer Luis Alberto Urrea's long-awaited novel is an epic mystical drama of a young woman's sudden sainthood in late 19th-century Mexico. It is 1889, and the civil war is brewing in ... (Goodreads)
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
An escaped slave's daring escape to freedom, fighting against the brutality of slavery.
The story is told in the third person, focusing mainly on Cora. Scattered single chapters also focus on Cora's mother Mabel, the slavecatcher Ridgeway, a reluctant slave sympathizer named Ethel, and ... (Wikipedia)
In the Time of the Butterflies
by Julia Alvarez
A story of courage and sacrifice, as four sisters resist a tyrannical regime in the Dominican Republic.
This is the story of the four Mirabal sisters during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. At school, one of the sisters, Minerva , meets a girl, Sinita, who later became one ... (Wikipedia)
Naked Lunch
by William S. Burroughs
Surrealist exploration of addiction, delusions, and reality.
Naked Lunch is a non-linear narrative without a clear plot. The following is a summary of some of the events in the book that could be considered the most relevant. The book begins with the ... (Wikipedia)
The Raven and Other Poems
by Edgar Allan Poe
A collection of dark, gothic poems, exploring the depths of the human psyche.
A chilling, thrilling collection of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry, introduced by best-selling author Philip Pullman The Raven . . . Annabel Lee . . . Ulalume . . . these are some of the spookiest, most ... (Goodreads)
The World According to Garp
by John Irving
A humorous and heart-wrenching journey of life, love and literature.
This is the life and times of T. S. Garp, the bastard son of Jenny Fields—a feminist leader ahead of her times. This is the life and death of a famous mother and her almost-famous son; theirs is a ... (Goodreads)
Steppenwolf
by Hermann Hesse
The inner struggles of a tortured soul as he searches for redemption.
The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist , a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, the nephew of his landlady. The acquaintance adds a ... (Wikipedia)
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
by Judy Blume
A young girl's journey of self-discovery, navigating the transition from childhood to adolescence.
Margaret Simon is just eleven going on twelve when her family moves from New York City to Farbrook, New Jersey. Margaret's mother is Christian and her father is Jewish . Margaret has been raised ... (Wikipedia)
The Complete Anne of Green Gables 8-Book Box Set
by L.M. Montgomery
Follow the life of Anne Shirley, an imaginative and talkative orphan, as she grows up on Prince Edward Island.
Favorites for nearly 100 years, these classic novels follow the adventures of the spirited redhead Anne Shirley, who comes to stay at Green Gables and wins the hearts of everyone she meets. Includes ... (Goodreads)
White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
A multi-generational saga exploring identity, race, and culture in modern-day London.
On New Year's Day 1975, Archie Jones, a 47-year-old Englishman whose disturbed Italian wife has just walked out on him, is attempting to take his own life by gassing himself in his car when a chance ... (Wikipedia)
