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Recommendations based on The Amateur Marriageby Anne Tyler
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Ladder of Years
by Anne Tyler
A woman's quest to find herself after leaving her family behind and embarking on a new life.
Married with three almost-grown children, Delia Grinstead has vanished without trace or reason. But for Delia, walking away from it all is an impulse that will lead her into a new, exciting, and ... (Goodreads)
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant
by Anne Tyler
A family grapple with their disappointments, as they come to terms with the past.
Pearl Tull is a rigid perfectionist. She has three children with her husband, traveling salesman Beck, who abandons the family. After Beck leaves, Pearl struggles to maintain a front as if nothing is ... (Wikipedia)
Back When We Were Grownups
by Anne Tyler
A middle-aged woman questions her life choices and identity after inheriting her deceased husband's family business.
Tyler's 15th novel, like most of her work, is set in Baltimore, Maryland . It opens with the sentence, "Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." The ... (Wikipedia)
We Are All Welcome Here
by Elizabeth Berg
A mother and daughter navigate life in a small Mississippi town, with the help of a paralyzed caregiver.
Elizabeth Berg, bestselling author of The Art of Mending and The Year of Pleasures, has a rare talent for revealing her characters' hearts and minds in a manner that makes us empathize completely. ... (Goodreads)
One True Thing
by Anna Quindlen
A woman learns about love and loss, grappling with the realities of life and death.
Ellen Gulden has a high-pressure job writing for, New York, magazine . Ellen is visiting her family home for her father's surprise birthday party. It becomes obvious that she deeply admires her ... (Wikipedia)
She's Come Undone
by Wally Lamb
A young woman's trial-filled journey to self-acceptance and self-preservation.
Dolores Price is heartbroken when her handsome, but irresponsible father, Tony, leaves their suburban home for another woman. She and her mother, Bernice, move into her uptight Catholic grandmother's ... (Wikipedia)
Animal Dreams
by Barbara Kingsolver
A woman's journey of self-discovery, grappling with family ties and environmental issues.
Animal Dreams opens with a chapter narrated in the third person from the point of view of Doc Homer. This establishes a double narrative voice, which switches between dreams and memories of the past ... (Wikipedia)
The Pilot's Wife
by Anita Shreve
A woman's journey of overcoming personal tragedy to find strength and courage.
The novel is about Kathryn Lyons, whose husband, Jack Lyons, dies in a plane crash over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Malin Head , Ireland. As she and her daughter Mattie try to cope with this ... (Wikipedia)
Body Surfing
by Anita Shreve
A woman's life is changed when she becomes involved with a family during their summer vacation. Love, loss, and self-discovery ensue.
At the age of 29, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to regain her footing once again, she has answered an ad to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do couple as they ... (Barnes & Noble)
Tears of the Giraffe
by Alexander McCall Smith
A humorous and heartwarming story of the lives of the inhabitants of a Botswana village.
Newly engaged Mma Ramotswe is not impressed with Mr JLB Matekoni's maid, Florence Pena. Unknown to him, she has been sleeping in his bed with her men friends. Obvious to Mma Ramotswe is that she does ... (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)
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)
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
by David Wroblewski
An epic tale of family and loyalty set in a rural Wisconsin landscape.
Forte's Children Edgar comes from a line of dog breeders. After buying a farm, his grandfather, John Sawtelle, rents out the farmland and starts dog breeding . He and his wife have two sons, Edgar's ... (Wikipedia)
Crow Lake
by Mary Lawson
An exploration of family, loss, and identity, in a small farming community.
The death of their parents, when Kate is 7 years old, Bo a toddler, and her brothers in their late teens, threatens the family with dispersal and seems to spell the end of their parents' dream that ... (Wikipedia)
Chocolat
by Joanne Harris
An enchanting tale of love, belonging, and the power of chocolate.
Vianne Rocher, with her daughter Anouk, come to the small French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. They are brought by "the wind" during the last days of Carnival to open a, chocolaterie, , La ... (Wikipedia)
What We Keep
by Elizabeth Berg
A mother and daughter's relationship is explored through the discovery of a long-hidden family secret.
Do you ever really know your mother, your daughter, the people in your family? In this rich and rewarding new novel by the beloved bestselling author of Talk Before Sleep and The Pull of the Moon , a ... (Goodreads)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
by Betty Smith
A coming of age story set in Brooklyn, depicting a young girl's struggles and growth.
The novel is split into five "books", each covering a different period in the characters' lives. Book One opens in 1912 and introduces 11-year-old Francie Nolan, who lives in the Williamsburg ... (Wikipedia)
Alias Grace
by Margaret Atwood
A psychological thriller that examines the true story of a 19th century Canadian murderess.
Grace Marks, the convicted murderess, has been hired out from prison to serve as a domestic servant in the home of the Governor of the penitentiary. A Committee of gentlemen and ladies from the ... (Wikipedia)
Every Last One
by Anna Quindlen
A family's search for resilience as they face tragedy and unexpected struggles.
The latest novel from Pulitzer Prize-winner Anna Quindlen In this breathtaking and beautiful novel, the #1 New York Times" bestselling author Anna Quindlen creates an unforgettable portrait of a ... (Goodreads)
Big Brother
by Lionel Shriver
A woman's obsession with her brother leads to a disturbing and destructive relationship.
For Pandora, cooking is a form of love. Alas, her husband, Fletcher, a self-employed high-end cabinetmaker, now spurns the “toxic” dishes that he’d savored through their courtship, and devotes hours ... (Goodreads)
Idaho
by Emily Ruskovich
A haunting story of a family tragedy, told through the perspectives of different characters and across different timelines.
One hot August day a family drives to a mountain clearing to collect birch wood. Jenny, the mother, is in charge of lopping any small limbs off the logs with a hatchet. Wade, the father, does the ... (Goodreads)
A Map of the World
by Jane Hamilton
A story of tragedy, resilience and redemption, revealing the fragility of life.
One unremarkable June morning, Alice Goodwin is, as usual, trying to keep in check both her temper and her tendency to blame herself for her family's shortcomings. When the Goodwins took over the ... (Goodreads)
Light on Snow
by Anita Shreve
A father and daughter find an abandoned newborn in the snow, leading to a journey of healing and self-discovery.
What makes a family? That's what twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon wonders after she and her widowed father discover a wailing abandoned baby in the snow-filled woods near their New Hampshire home. ... (Barnes & Noble)
Icy Sparks
by Gwyn Hyman Rubio
A young girl with Tourette's syndrome navigates life in rural Kentucky during the 1950s.
The story focuses on a grown-up Icy Sparks recounting her childhood and adolescence struggling with accusations of Tourette's Syndrome . The novel begins with Icy Sparks, a 10-year-old girl living in ... (Wikipedia)
Mister Pip
by Lloyd Jones
A story of hope and resilience in a war-torn region, inspired by a classic novel.
The novel is the story of a girl caught in the throes of war on the island of Bougainville. Matilda survives the war through the guidance of her devoted but strict Christian mother and her white ... (Wikipedia)
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
A small group of misfit college students uncover a sinister secret and their lives become entangled with dangerous consequences.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the ... (Goodreads)
Possessing the Secret of Joy
by Alice Walker
Tashi, a woman from an African tribe, undergoes female genital mutilation and struggles to find her identity and place in the world.
It tells the story of Tashi, an African woman and a minor character in Walker's earlier novel, The Color Purple, . Now in the US she comes from Olinka, Alice Walker's fictional African nation where ... (Wikipedia)
The Virgin Blue
by Tracy Chevalier
A Frenchwoman's search for her past intertwines with the emotions of a present-day American researcher.
Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin—two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her ... (Goodreads)
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
A haunting story of loss and resilience in the aftermath of slavery.
Beloved begins in 1873 in Cincinnati, Ohio , where the protagonist Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, has been living with her eighteen-year-old daughter Denver at 124 Bluestone Road. The book ... (Wikipedia)
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
by Jamie Ford
A touching story of the intersection of love, family, and culture during World War II.
Henry Lee, the son of Chinese parents in Seattle , Washington, is the only Asian child at his elementary school. His father makes him wear an "I Am Chinese" button so he will not be mistaken for a ... (Wikipedia)
