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Recommendations based on Go, Went, Goneby Jenny Erpenbeck
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
All My Puny Sorrows
by Miriam Toews
A heart-wrenching story of two sisters as one battles depression and the other struggles to keep her alive.
The novel recounts the tumultuous relationship of the Von Riesen sisters, Elfrieda and Yolandi, the only children of an intellectual, free-spirited family from a conservative Mennonite community. ... (Wikipedia)
Middlemarch
by George Eliot
A grand narrative of life in a small English town, exploring the lives of its inhabitants.
Middlemarch centres on the lives of residents of Middlemarch, a fictitious Midlands town, from 1829 onwards – the years up to the 1832 Reform Act . The narrative is variably considered to consist of ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Noise of Time
by Julian Barnes
A fictionalized account of the life of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, exploring the tension between artistic integrity and political pressure.
A compact masterpiece dedicated to the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich: Julian Barnes’s first novel since his best-selling, Man Booker Prize–winning The Sense of an Ending. In 1936, ... (Goodreads)
Homegoing
by Yaa Gyasi
Spanning centuries, the intertwining stories of two African sisters, their descendants, and the legacy of slavery.
Effia is raised by her mother, Baaba, who is cruel to her. Nevertheless she works hard to please her mother. Known as a beauty, Effia is intended to be married to the future chief of her village, but ... (Wikipedia)
Less
by Andrew Sean Greer
A man's journey of self-discovery and coming to terms with his life choices.
PROBLEM: You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years now engaged to someone else. You can’t say yes–it would all be ... (Goodreads)
The Summer Book
by Tove Jansson
A grandmother and her granddaughter explore a remote summer island together, learning about life, love, and nature.
An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and ... (Goodreads)
The Rings of Saturn
by W.G. Sebald
An exploration of the physical and metaphysical landscapes of the English coast.
The Rings of Saturn — with its curious archive of photographs — records a walking tour along the east coast of England. A few of the things which cross the path and mind of its narrator (who both is ... (Goodreads)
Exit West
by Mohsin Hamid
Reflection on displacement and immigration as two refugees traverse the world in search of a new life.
Nadia and Saeed meet when they are working students in an unnamed city. Saeed is more conservative and still lives at home, as custom generally requires, but the more independent Nadia has chosen to ... (Wikipedia)
Disappearing Earth
by Julia Phillips
Two sisters go missing in a remote Russian town, unraveling the lives of its inhabitants. A haunting exploration of loss, identity, and community.
In an isolated town in Far Eastern part of Russia two young girls go missing. The literary review aggregator Book Marks reported that 75% of critics gave the novel a "rave" review and 25% gave it a ... (Wikipedia)
Ghana Must Go
by Taiye Selasi
A family saga that explores the complexities of identity, love, loss, and the immigrant experience.
The death of Kweku Sai, a renowned surgeon, in Ghana launches a series of events in his family's life. Although he has left them behind, his wife Fola and their four children—Olu, Kehinde, Taiwo, and ... (Wikipedia)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer
A young boy's quest to find the lock that matches a mysterious key his father left behind.
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and ... (Goodreads)
Pygmalion
by George Bernard Shaw
The transformation of a poor flower girl into an elegant society lady.
George Orwell claimed that "The central plot of Shaw's play, Pygmalion , is lifted out of Peregrine Pickle [by Tobias Smollett ], and I believe that no one has ever pointed this out in print, which ... (Wikipedia)
The Story of a New Name
by Elena Ferrante
Two young women's search for identity and independence in a patriarchal society.
In 2012, Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend introduced readers to the unforgettable Elena and Lila, whose lifelong friendship provides the backbone for the Neapolitan Novels. The Story of a New ... (Goodreads)
The Rotters' Club
by Jonathan Coe
A group of school friends navigating life's ups and downs during the 1970s in England.
Three teenage friends grow up in 1970s Britain watching their lives change as their world gets involved with IRA bombs, progressive and punk rock , girls and political strikes. In 2003, a four-part ... (Wikipedia)
A Fine Balance
by Rohinton Mistry
A gripping story of four unlikely lives intertwined in the tumult of India's caste system.
The book exposes the changes in Indian society from independence in 1947 to the Emergency called by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi . Mistry was generally critical of Indira Gandhi in the book. ... (Wikipedia)
Here I Am
by Jonathan Safran Foer
A multi-generational Jewish family struggles to make sense of the chaos of the 21st century.
Christian Lorentzen has described the plot as a blend of several different events, including "[a] divorce, a suicide, a bar mitzvah, an earthquake, an all-out Middle Eastern war, and the putting to ... (Wikipedia)
The Idiot
by Elif Batuman
A young woman's journey of self-discovery, learning to navigate the complexities of life.
Selin Karadağ is a freshman studying linguistics at Harvard University . She meets an older Hungarian mathematics student, Ivan, in a Russian language class and the two begin corresponding over ... (Wikipedia)
10:04
by Ben Lerner
A poet's journey through life, confronting the obstacles of mortality and identity.
In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her ... (Goodreads)
Washington Black
by Esi Edugyan
A young slave in Barbados becomes an assistant to a scientist and embarks on a journey of self-discovery and adventure.
Washington Black is an eleven-year-old field slave who knows no other life than the Barbados sugar plantation where he was born. When his master's eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, ... (Goodreads)
An Untamed State
by Roxane Gay
A woman's fight against her captors, as she struggles to survive the horrors of captivity.
Mireille Duval Jameson is born and raised in the United States, her parents are from Haitian descent. Her parents move back to Haiti. While vacationing at her parents' house with her husband and ... (Wikipedia)
Wolf Hall
by Hilary Mantel
A historical fiction about the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII.
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry ... (Goodreads)
Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders
A spiritual exploration of death, exploring the afterlife through the eyes of President Lincoln.
In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by ... (Goodreads)
A Thousand Acres
by Jane Smiley
A family's story of death and inheritance, exposing secrets of their past.
Larry Cook is an aging farmer who decides to incorporate his farm, handing complete and joint ownership to his three daughters, Ginny, Rose, and Caroline. When the youngest daughter objects, she is ... (Wikipedia)
The Book of Strange New Things
by Michel Faber
Intergalactic missionary journeys to an alien planet, facing challenges of faith and morality.
A monumental, genre-defying novel over ten years in the making, Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things is a masterwork from a writer in full command of his many talents. It begins with Peter, ... (Goodreads)
Human Acts
by Han Kang
An exploration of the devastating effects of political violence, told through the lens of one family's tragedy.
Human Acts deals with the May 1980 Gwangju uprising and the death of the young boy Kang Dong-ho. The novel is composed of seven chapters including the final epilogue, with each chapter tracing the ... (Wikipedia)
The Autumn of the Patriarch
by Gabriel García Márquez
A powerful tyrant's downfall as he is manipulated by his inner circle and loses his grip on power.
One of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most intricate and ambitious works, The Autumn of the Patriarch is a brilliant tale of a Caribbean tyrant and the corruption of power. From charity to deceit, ... (Goodreads)
White Oleander
by Janet Fitch
A young girl's struggles to survive in a series of foster homes, finding strength in her resilience.
Astrid Magnussen is a 12-year-old girl living in Los Angeles , California with her mother, Ingrid Magnussen, a self-centered and eccentric poet. Astrid's father, Klaus Anders, left before Astrid was ... (Wikipedia)
The Buddha in the Attic
by Julie Otsuka
A story of Japanese picture brides, told through a chorus of their collective voice.
There is no plot in the usual sense of specific individuals going through particular events. The novel is told in the first person plural, from the point of view of many girls and women, none of whom ... (Wikipedia)
Outline
by Rachel Cusk
A woman's journey of self-reflection, exploring relationships and the complexities of life.
An English woman writer flies to Athens to teach a summer writing workshop. On the plane, she meets an older Greek bachelor , who tells her about his two failed marriages. The next day she meets with ... (Wikipedia)
