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Recommendations based on The Family Fangby Kevin Wilson
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Collection of stories exploring the struggles of Indian-American immigrants in the US.
A married couple, Shukumar and Shoba, live as strangers in their house until an electrical outage brings them together when all of sudden "they [are] able to talk to each other again" in the four ... (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)
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)
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)
The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
A group of people investigating a mysterious and haunted house, uncovering its secrets.
It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted ... (Goodreads)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon
Two cousins create a comic book superhero and find success and adventure in 1940s New York.
The novel begins in 1939 with the arrival of 19-year-old Josef "Joe" Kavalier as a refugee in New York City , where he comes to live with his 17-year-old cousin, Sammy Klayman. With the help of his ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Interestings
by Meg Wolitzer
A group of friends meet at a summer camp and navigate their way through life's ups and downs, successes and failures.
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 ... (Goodreads)
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)
A Confederacy of Dunces
by John Kennedy Toole
A satirical tale of an eccentric slacker's misadventures in New Orleans.
Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found, here, "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles ... (Goodreads)
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
An exploration of memory and its impact on the present, looking at the choices we make in life.
By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be ... (Goodreads)
The Spellman Files
by Lisa Lutz
A light-hearted, comedic mystery involving a colorful detective family.
Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be ... (Goodreads)
Commonwealth
by Ann Patchett
Intertwining story of two families across multiple generations, and how their lives become intertwined.
It started at Franny Keating’s christening party. Bert Cousins wasn’t even invited, but looking for an excuse to get out of the house, away from his three noisy children and pregnant wife for a few ... (Wikipedia)
Unaccustomed Earth
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Collection of stories exploring the complexities of family, culture, and identity.
From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take ... (Goodreads)
Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
A dynamic narrative spanning centuries, exploring the interconnectedness of humanity.
The book consists of six nested stories; each is read or observed by a main character of the next, thus they progress in time through the central sixth story. The first five stories are each ... (Wikipedia)
This is Where I Leave You
by Jonathan Tropper
A family comes together during a week of sitting shiva, rediscovering the joys of being a family.
A riotously funny, emotionally raw New York Times bestselling novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind—whether we like it or not. The death of Judd Foxman’s father marks ... (Goodreads)
Shantaram
by Gregory David Roberts
An Australian convict escapes to India and embarks on a journey of self-discovery.
In 1978, Roberts was sentenced to a 19-year imprisonment in Australia after being convicted of a series of armed robberies of building society branches, credit unions , and shops. In July 1980, he ... (Wikipedia)
Night Film
by Marisha Pessl
A journalist's quest to uncover the truth behind a reclusive film director's dark legacy.
Ashley Cordova, the daughter of legendary reclusive director Stanislas Cordova, commits suicide. With the belief that Stanislas Cordova was heavily involved in her death, disgraced investigative ... (Wikipedia)
The Age of Miracles
by Karen Thompson Walker
An exploration of the effects of a global phenomenon on a young girl's life.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY,, People ∙ O: The Oprah Magazine ∙ Financial Times ∙ Kansas City Star ∙ BookPage ∙ Kirkus Reviews ∙ Publishers Weekly ∙ Booklist, , , With a voice as ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Devil All the Time
by Donald Ray Pollock
A dark tale of sin and redemption, set in a rural southern town.
The Devil All the Time follows the events and fates of various characters who all carry their own secrets from the past. As the novel progresses the lives of these people converge in unexpected ways. ... (Wikipedia)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
by Shirley Jackson
A family isolated from society, struggling to cope with prejudice and tragedy.
My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two ... (Goodreads)
Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghese
A sweeping journey of two twin brothers and their search for identity, belonging and family.
The story is told by the protagonist, Marion Stone. He and his conjoined twin Shiva are born at Mission Hospital (called "Missing" in accordance with the local pronunciation), Addis Ababa , in ... (Wikipedia)
Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson
A woman lives multiple lives, reflecting on choices and consequences and the power of love.
The novel has an unusual structure, repeatedly looping back in time to describe alternative possible lives for its central character, Ursula Todd, who is born on 11 February 1910 to an ... (Wikipedia)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
A young Native American boy's struggles to survive in a difficult world.
The book follows a fourteen-year-old boy living with his family on the Spokane Indian Reservation near Wellpinit, Washington for a school year. It is told in episodic diary style, moving from the ... (Wikipedia)
The Days of Abandonment
by Elena Ferrante
An exploration of womanhood and psychological turmoil in the aftermath of a broken marriage.
The whole story is based on the sudden end of a seemingly solid, happy marriage. Olga, a stay at home mother in her late 30s, is told by her husband Mario that he is leaving her and their two ... (Wikipedia)
Pigeon English
by Stephen Kelman
A young Ghanaian boy living in London investigates a murder in his community.
The novel begins with the death of a young boy on the fictional Dell Farm estate in an unspecified area of London. Harri Opoku, a recent Ghanaian immigrant living with his mother and sister, becomes ... (Wikipedia)
The Virgin Suicides
by Jeffrey Eugenides
A dark and mysterious tale about the mysterious suicides of five teenage sisters in a suburban town.
As an ambulance arrives for the body of Cecilia Lisbon, a group of anonymous adolescent neighborhood boys recalls the events leading up to her death. The Lisbons are a Catholic family living in the ... (Wikipedia)
Bel Canto
by Ann Patchett
A story of redemption and transformation amidst a hostage crisis.
Set in an unspecified South American country, , the story begins at a birthday party thrown at the country's vice presidential home in honor of Katsumi Hosokawa, the visiting chairman of a large ... (Wikipedia)
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)
Fates and Furies
by Lauren Groff
A tale of the secrets and passions of a marriage, exploring the depths of private lives.
Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, ... (Goodreads)
