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Recommendations based on A Patchwork Planetby 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)
The Accidental Tourist
by Anne Tyler
A travel writer who hates traveling, Macon Leary, navigates life after his son's death and his wife's departure.
Set in Baltimore, Maryland , the plot revolves around Macon Leary, a writer of travel guides whose son has been killed in a shooting at a fast-food restaurant. He and his wife Sarah, separately lost ... (Wikipedia)
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)
We Were the Mulvaneys
by Joyce Carol Oates
A family unravels after a traumatic event shatters their close-knit bond.
Michael and Corinne Mulvaney are the parents of four children: Michael Jr., Patrick, Marianne, and Judd. Living in a picture perfect farm in upstate New York , the Mulvaneys own a successful roofing ... (Wikipedia)
Pigs in Heaven
by Barbara Kingsolver
A young girl and her adoptive mother fight for their family's rights and the power of love.
Mother and adopted daughter, Taylor and Turtle Greer, are back in this spellbinding sequel about family, heartbreak and love. Six-year-old Turtle Greer witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover Dam ... (Goodreads)
The Horse Whisperer
by Nicholas Evans
A young girl and her horse are traumatized in a riding accident, and a horse trainer helps them both heal.
A forty-ton truck hurtles out of control on a snowy country road, a teenage girl on horseback in its path. In a few terrible seconds the life of a family is shattered. And a mother's quest beings - ... (Goodreads)
The Thorn Birds
by Colleen McCullough
A powerful tale of forbidden love, set in rural Australia in the early 20th century.
The story begins in New Zealand on 8 December 1915, the fourth birthday of Meghann "Meggie" Cleary who is the only daughter of Padriac ("Paddy"), an Irish farm labourer, and Fiona ("Fee"), his wife. ... (Wikipedia)
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)
The Sun Also Rises
by Ernest Hemingway
A group of expatriates in 1920s Europe, struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of WWI.
On the surface, the novel is a love story between the protagonist Jake Barnes—a man whose war wound has made him unable to have sex—and the promiscuous divorcée usually identified as Lady Brett ... (Wikipedia)
The Pelican Brief
by John Grisham
A law student's investigation into a political assassination, uncovering a deadly conspiracy.
The story begins with the assassinations of two ideologically divergent Supreme Court Justices. Both murders are committed by Khamel, the most wanted hitman in the world. Justice Rosenberg, a ... (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)
The Samurai's Garden
by Gail Tsukiyama
A young man's journey of healing in a remote Japanese village.
A 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent ... (Goodreads)
The Client
by John Grisham
A young boy is thrust into a legal battle, as he tries to protect himself and his family.
Boyd Boyette, a United States Senator from Louisiana, goes missing. Because of his vocal opposition to a proposed major toxic landfill project by a company known to be Mafia-backed, murder is ... (Wikipedia)
Morality for Beautiful Girls
by Alexander McCall Smith
A tale of adventure and morality as a young woman navigates complex relationships.
Mma Ramotswe's business, the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, has clients but needs to cut costs and increase revenue from fees. To reduce costs, she and her fiancé Mr JLB Matekoni decide to move the ... (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)
O Pioneers!
by Willa Cather
A tale of a family's struggles and triumphs, as they pioneer a new life in a changing landscape.
The book is divided into five parts, each of which has numerous chapters. On a windy January day in Hanover, Nebraska, Alexandra Bergson is with her five-year-old brother Emil, whose little kitten ... (Wikipedia)
Sophie's Choice
by William Styron
A survivor of the Holocaust is confronted with a devastating moral dilemma.
Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel, has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher McGraw-Hill and has moved into a cheap boarding house in ... (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)
Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
by Alexander McCall Smith
Isabel Dalhousie, philosopher and amateur sleuth, navigates the complexities of love and loss while solving a mystery involving a rare manuscript.
ISABEL DALHOUSIE - Book 2 Nothing captures the charm of Edinburgh like the bestselling Isabel Dalhousie series of novels featuring the insatiably curious philosopher and woman detective. Whether ... (Goodreads)
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)
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
by Carol Rifka Brunt
A young girl's journey of grief and healing as she discovers the secrets of her beloved uncle's life.
June Elbus is a 14-year-old girl living in Westchester in 1986. She is in love with her gay uncle, Finn Weiss, a fact she is scared to admit even to herself. Finn is dying of AIDS. Being a ... (Wikipedia)
The Prince of Tides
by Pat Conroy
A man's search for solace and understanding in his troubled family's past.
Tom Wingo is a middle-aged man with a wife and three young daughters who has recently lost his job as a high school English teacher and football coach. He learns that his twin sister, Savannah, has ... (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)
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)
Angle of Repose
by Wallace Stegner
A man's search for his ancestors and their stories, leading to a journey of self-discovery.
Lyman Ward narrates a century after the fact. Lyman interprets the story at times and leaves gaps that he points out at other times. Some of the disappointments of his life, including his divorce, ... (Wikipedia)
Unless
by Carol Shields
A writer's life is upended when her daughter drops out of college and becomes a panhandler. A story of love, loss, and self-discovery.
Reta Winters, 44-year-old successful author of light summertime fiction, has always considered herself happy, even blessed. That is, until her oldest daughter Norah mysteriously drops out of college ... (Goodreads)
Cold Mountain
by Charles Frazier
A Confederate soldier's homecoming journey, filled with danger and adventure.
The novel opens in a Confederate military hospital near Raleigh, North Carolina , where Inman is recovering from battle wounds during the American Civil War . The soldier is tired of fighting for a ... (Wikipedia)
The Post-Birthday World
by Lionel Shriver
A woman's choice between two men, and its consequences, explored in two parallel universes.
In this eagerly awaited new novel, Lionel Shriver, the Orange Prize-winning author of the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, delivers an imaginative and entertaining look at the ... (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)
Chesapeake
by James A. Michener
A sweeping saga of four generations of a family living in Maryland and their struggles to adapt to changing times.
The story-line, like much of Michener's work, depicts a number of characters within family groups over a long time period, richly illustrating the history of the area through these families' ... (Wikipedia)
