Recommendations based on Everything Matters!by Ron Currie Jr.

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. A Visit from the Goon Squad

    by Jennifer Egan
    A mosaic of characters, lives, and relationships as they intertwine and evolve over time.

    Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. ... (Goodreads)

  2. Freedom

    by Jonathan Franzen
    A family saga revealing the struggles of a divided nation, and the power of love to heal.

    The novel opens with a brief look at the Berglund family during their time living in St. Paul, Minnesota , from the perspective of their nosy neighbors. The Berglunds are portrayed as an ideal ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Look at Me

    by Jennifer Egan
    A woman's story of self-discovery and transformation in the digital age.

    At the start of this edgy and ambitiously multilayered novel, a fashion model named Charlotte Swenson emerges from a car accident in her Illinois hometown with her face so badly shattered that it ... (Goodreads)

  4. Junky

    by William S. Burroughs
    A gritty, autobiographical account of a man's descent into the underworld of addiction.

    Before his 1959 breakthrough, Naked Lunch , an unknown William S. Burroughs wrote Junky , his first novel. It is a candid eye-witness account of times and places that are now long gone, an ... (Goodreads)

  5. Super Sad True Love Story

    by Gary Shteyngart
    A darkly comic exploration of love in a technologically-driven world.

    The son of a Russian immigrant , protagonist Leonard (Lenny) Abramov, a middle-aged, middle class, otherwise unremarkable man whose mentality is still in the past century, falls madly in love with ... (Wikipedia)

  6. The Magician King

    by Lev Grossman
    A quest to restore the magic of a fantasy world, while discovering the power of self-discovery.

    The Magician King follows two story lines, beginning at the same time as the beginning and end of The Magicians . In one, following her unsuccessful interview at Brakebills, Julia returns to ... (Wikipedia)

  7. Preacher, Volume 1: Gone to Texas

    by Garth Ennis
    A preacher with a dark past gains the power of Genesis, sets out on a journey to find God and hold him accountable for abandoning his creation.

    Preacher tells the story of Jesse Custer , a preacher in the small Texas town of Annville. Custer is accidentally possessed by the supernatural creature named Genesis, the infant of the unauthorized, ... (Wikipedia)

  8. Reamde

    by Neal Stephenson
    A thrilling adventure story set in the world of online gaming, with an international cast of characters.

    “Stephenson has a once-in-a-generation gift: he makes complex ideas clear, and he makes them funny, heartbreaking, and thrilling.” — Time The #1, New York Times, bestselling author of, Anathem, Neal ... (Barnes & Noble)

  9. The Complete Poems

    by Anne Sexton
    A collection of powerful, confessional pieces exploring the beauty, tragedy, and pain of human experience.

    From the joy and anguish of her own experience, Sexton fashioned poems that told truths about the inner lives of men and women. This book comprises Sexton's ten volumes of verse, including the ... (Barnes & Noble)

  10. Housekeeping

    by Marilynne Robinson
    A story of two sisters navigating their lives in a small town, and the matriarchal figure that unites them.

    Ruthie narrates the story of how she and her younger sister Lucille are raised by a succession of relatives in the fictional town of Fingerbone, Idaho (some details are similar to Robinson's ... (Wikipedia)

  11. The Art of Fielding

    by Chad Harbach
    A college baseball team's success and failures are intertwined with the lives of five individuals.

    Henry Skrimshander begins the novel as a 17-year-old playing on a Legion baseball team in Lankton, South Dakota. Although physically short and not muscular, Henry has an unusual gift for fielding, ... (Wikipedia)

  12. Galápagos

    by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
    A journey to the Galápagos Islands revealing secrets of evolution, humanity, and the future.

    Galápagos is the story of a small band of mismatched humans who are shipwrecked on the fictional island of Santa Rosalia in the Galápagos Islands after a global financial crisis cripples the world's ... (Wikipedia)

  13. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

    by David Mitchell
    An epic tale of love and adventure set in an 18th century Japanese trading port.

    The novel begins in the summer of 1799 at the Dutch East India Company trading post Dejima in the harbor of Nagasaki . It tells the story of a Dutch trader's love for a Japanese midwife who is ... (Wikipedia)

  14. Invisible Monsters

    by Chuck Palahniuk
    A woman's journey to re-establish her identity and find her place in the world.

    The narrator of the story is an unnamed disfigured woman who goes by multiple pseudonyms, notably Daisy St. Patience and Bubba Joan—identities given to her by Brandy Alexander, with whom she spends ... (Wikipedia)

  15. A Tale for the Time Being

    by Ruth Ozeki
    An exploration of the connections between two lives, bridging time, space and cultures.

    In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying, but before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her ... (Goodreads)

  16. City of Thieves

    by David Benioff
    Two young men embark on a perilous mission in the besieged Leningrad of WWII.

    The story is introduced as the recollections of the narrator's grandfather Lev Beniov, a contemporary Russian Jewish émigré. It is set in the first week of 1942, with the 17-years-old Lev trying to ... (Wikipedia)

  17. The Orphan Master's Son

    by Adam Johnson
    A man's struggle to survive in a totalitarian North Korean regime and his journey to freedom.

    Part 1 details Jun Do's upbringing in a state orphanage and his service to the state, including as a kidnapper of Japanese citizens , and later as a signal operator stationed on a fishing boat. Due ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Living Dead in Dallas

    by Charlaine Harris
    A vampire detective novel, exploring a mystery that has its roots in the supernatural.

    This book opens with Sookie Stackhouse finding the dead body of Lafayette in the backseat of Andy Bellefleur 's car, which had been left at Merlotte's the night before. Sookie learns that her friend ... (Wikipedia)

  19. The Bone Clocks

    by David Mitchell
    A time-spanning saga of a war between two powerful supernatural forces.

    Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew ... (Goodreads)

  20. Tenth of December

    by George Saunders
    A collection of stories exploring the human condition through diverse characters and their struggles.

    A young girl named Alison is kidnapped three days before her birthday. Kyle, a boy who lives nearby whose parents enforce very strict household rules, sees the event unfold and must decide whether to ... (Wikipedia)

  21. A Million Little Pieces

    by James Frey
    An addict's story of recovery, as he struggles to overcome his demons.

    Intense, unpredictable, and instantly engaging, this is a story of drug and alcohol abuse and rehabilitation as it has never been told before. It is also the introduction of a bold and talented ... (Goodreads)

  22. Anthem

    by Ayn Rand
    An individual's quest for freedom amidst a dystopian society determined to control thought and behavior.

    Equality 7-2521, a 21-year-old man writing by candlelight in a tunnel under the earth, tells the story of his life up to that point. He exclusively uses plural pronouns ("we", "our", "they") to refer ... (Wikipedia)

  23. I Can Be a Better You

    by Tarryn Fisher
    A twisted tale of obsession and identity, as two women become dangerously entangled in a game of manipulation and deceit.

    When Fig Coxbury buys a house on West Barrett Street, it's not because she likes the neighborhood, or even because she likes the house. It's because everything she desires is next door: The husband, ... (Goodreads)

  24. Bright Side

    by Kim Holden
    A heartwarming story of a woman's journey through life, love, and loss, finding hope and positivity in the darkest of times.

    "THIS BOOK! You. Must. Read. It. It's beautiful. Heart-wrenching." -Colleen Hoover, #1 New York Times bestselling authorAn inspiring, life-changing story about the power of love in all its forms, ... (Barnes & Noble)

  25. The Realm of Possibility

    by David Levithan
    A novel in verse that explores the interconnected lives of high school students, their struggles, and their search for identity and love.

    This collection of linked poems from David Levithan, the author of the, New York Times, bestseller, Every Day, and the groundbreaking classic, Boy Meets Boy, and the co-author of, Will Grayson, Will ... (Barnes & Noble)

  26. A Little Life

    by Hanya Yanagihara
    A powerful tale of four friends navigating life's hardships and the devastating effects of trauma.

    The novel follows the lives of four friends in New York City from college through to middle-age. It focuses particularly on Jude, a lawyer with a mysterious past, ambiguous ethnicity, and unexplained ... (Wikipedia)

  27. Last Orders

    by Graham Swift
    Four men take a journey to scatter their friend's ashes, reflecting on their past and present lives.

    The story makes much use of flashbacks to tell the convoluted story of the relationships between a group of war veterans who live in the same corner of London , the backbone of the story being the ... (Wikipedia)

  28. Rascal

    by Sterling North
    A boy and his pet raccoon, Rascal, have adventures in the woods and learn about life and loss.

    Subtitled "a memoir of a better era", North's book is about being young and having a pet raccoon. Rascal chronicles young Sterling's loving yet distant relationship with his father, dreamer David ... (Wikipedia)

  29. The Man from Beijing

    by Henning Mankell
    A small Swedish village is rocked by a brutal murder, which leads to a global conspiracy. A thrilling mystery with political undertones.

    In January 2006 the police make the gruesome discovery of the bodies of 19 people who have been brutally murdered in the remote hamlet of Hesjövallen in northern Sweden . The protagonist Birgitta ... (Wikipedia)

  30. High Fidelity

    by Nick Hornby
    A man reflects on his past relationships while trying to understand the nature of love.

    Rob Fleming is a 35-year-old man who owns a record shop in London called Championship Vinyl. His lawyer girlfriend, Laura, has just left him and now he's going through a crisis. At his record shop, ... (Wikipedia)