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Recommendations based on Sourdoughby Robin Sloan
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Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloan
A young man's exploration of an unusual bookstore, unlocking a world of secrets.
The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, but after a few days on the job, Clay ... (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)
The Underground Railroad
by Colson Whitehead
An escaped slave's daring escape to freedom, fighting against the brutality of slavery.
The story is told in the third person, focusing mainly on Cora. Scattered single chapters also focus on Cora's mother Mabel, the slavecatcher Ridgeway, a reluctant slave sympathizer named Ethel, and ... (Wikipedia)
Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
Post-apocalyptic exploration of a world drastically changed after a pandemic.
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse,, Station Eleven, tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of ... (Barnes & Noble)
Ajax Penumbra 1969
by Robin Sloan
A prequel to "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore," Ajax Penumbra travels to San Francisco to find a mysterious book.
August 1969 San Francisco. Ajax Penumbra seeks a book–the single surviving copy of the Techne Tycheon , a mysterious volume that has brought and lost great fortune for anyone who has owned it. Late ... (Goodreads)
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.
by Neal Stephenson
A science-fiction adventure, exploring the implications of time travel.
U.S. Army Major Tristan Lyons hires Dr. Melisande Stokes, a Harvard linguistics lecturer, to translate a variety of historic texts. The work is classified, to the point that Lyons cannot even reveal ... (Wikipedia)
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
An exploration of race, identity, and belonging as two Nigerian immigrants experience life in America and beyond.
Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to ... (Goodreads)
The Power
by Naomi Alderman
A world where women have the power to control electricity, and use it to fight against gender-based oppression.
In a matriarchal society, a gushing male writer writes to an influential author about his fictional account of how the matriarchy came to be. Five thousand years earlier (in our current time), men ... (Wikipedia)
The Girl Who Drank the Moon
by Kelly Barnhill
A young girl accidentally drinks moonlight and gains magical powers. She must use them to save her people from a corrupt ruler.
Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the ... (Goodreads)
State of Wonder
by Ann Patchett
A journey in the Amazon rainforest to find a missing colleague and unlock the secrets of a mysterious drug.
In a narrative replete with poison arrows, devouring snakes, scientific miracles, and spiritual transformations, "State of Wonder" presents a world of stunning surprise and danger, rich in emotional ... (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)
Delicious!
by Ruth Reichl
A food critic's exploration of the culinary world, showcasing the beauty of gourmet food.
In her bestselling memoirs Ruth Reichl has long illuminated the theme of how food defines us, and never more so than in her dazzling fiction debut about sisters, family ties, and a young woman who ... (Goodreads)
The View from Saturday
by E.L. Konigsburg
Four sixth graders and their teacher compete in a trivia contest, revealing their unique stories and bond.
How has Mrs. Olinski chosen her sixth-grade Academic Bowl team? She had a number of answers. But were any of them true? How had she really chosen Noah and Nadia and Ethan and Julian? And why did they ... (Goodreads)
Wishtree
by Katherine Applegate
An ancient oak tree tells the story of a community coming together to accept difference and promote understanding.
The, New York Times-,bestselling story of kindness, friendship, and hope. ,, Trees can't tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . . Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the ... (Barnes & Noble)
Raven Black
by Ann Cleeves
A murder mystery set on the Shetland Islands, unraveling secrets embedded in the local community.
Winner of Britain’s coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Ann Cleeves introduces a dazzling new suspense series to mystery readers.,Raven Black, begins on New Year’s Eve with a lonely outcast named ... (Goodreads)
Beartown
by Fredrik Backman
A small-town hockey team and its community grapple with the consequences of a traumatic event.
Peter Andersson, in his forties, is the general manager of the ice hockey club in Beartown, a small town located somewhere in Sweden. Peter grew up in Beartown and was a junior hockey star. He went ... (Wikipedia)
American War
by Omar El Akkad
A vivid account of a second American Civil War and its devastating consequences.
In 2074, after the passage of a bill that bans the use of fossil fuels anywhere in the United States, Mississippi , Alabama , Georgia , South Carolina and Texas secede from the Union, starting the ... (Wikipedia)
Manhattan Beach
by Jennifer Egan
A female-led story of crime, courage and sacrifice set in 1940s Brooklyn.
Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea ... (Goodreads)
The Rules of Magic
by Alice Hoffman
A family of magical siblings discovering the power of their lineage and the responsibility that comes with it.
An instant New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick from beloved author Alice Hoffman—the spellbinding prequel to Practical Magic . Find your magic. For the Owens family, love ... (Barnes & Noble)
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing
by Hank Green
A young woman becomes an overnight celebrity after discovering a mysterious statue. But fame comes at a cost.
Protagonist April May discovers a large robot sculpture in Midtown Manhattan . She and her friend Andy Skampt decide to film it and post the video online, which goes viral and makes April an ... (Wikipedia)
The Map of Salt and Stars
by Zeyn Joukhadar
A young Syrian-American girl and her family flee to Syria, retracing the journey of a 12th-century girl who mapped the stars.
It is the summer of 2011, and Nour has just lost her father to cancer. Her mother, a cartographer who creates unusual, hand-painted maps, decides to move Nour and her sisters from New York City back ... (Goodreads)
Acceptance
by Jeff VanderMeer
A journey of exploration and self-discovery, as humanity faces a mysterious alien power.
Acceptance jumps around in time and between the perspectives of several characters from the first two novels in the Southern Reach Trilogy. The Lighthouse Keeper In the years before Area X, Saul ... (Wikipedia)
Anything Is Possible
by Elizabeth Strout
An exploration of the interconnected lives of a small town's inhabitants, and the power of redemption.
Short story collection Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others. Here are two sisters: one ... (Goodreads)
The City of Brass
by S.A. Chakraborty
A daring adventure through a mythical city, discovering secrets and unleashing magical powers.
Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to ... (Goodreads)
Norse Mythology
by Neil Gaiman
Epic tales of the gods and goddesses of Norse mythology, set in a world of giants, dwarfs, and monsters.
“Remarkable.… Gaiman has provided an enchanting contemporary interpretation of the Viking ethos.”—Lisa L. Hannett, Atlantic Neil Gaiman, long inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical ... (Barnes & Noble)
Lost For Words
by Stephanie Butland
Loveday Cardew, a bookshop worker with a tragic past, finds solace in books until a mysterious poet enters her life.
You can trust a book to keep your secret . . . Loveday Cardew prefers books to people. If you look closely, you might glimpse the first lines of the novels she loves most tattooed on her skin. But ... (Goodreads)
Dead Water
by Ann Cleeves
A body is found in a small community on the Shetland Islands, and detective Jimmy Perez must unravel the secrets of the tight-knit community to solve the murder.
Ann Cleeves returns to her critically acclaimed Shetland Island series with this stunning mystery featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez, who readers will remember from Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, ... (Barnes & Noble)
The Last Colony
by John Scalzi
A group of colonists are sent to a new planet to establish a colony, but they soon find themselves caught in the middle of a political power struggle.
Retired from his fighting days, John Perry is now village ombudsman for a human colony on distant Huckleberry. With his wife, former Special Forces warrior Jane Sagan, he farms several acres, ... (Goodreads)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
by N.K. Jemisin
Yeine Darr is summoned to the city of Sky, where she must compete for the throne against two powerful cousins.
Yeine Darr was born to Kinneth Arameri, who was heir to the Arameri throne but abdicated twenty years before the start of the story to marry Yeine's father, a Darre man. Kinneth was disowned by ... (Wikipedia)
The Ghost Brigades
by John Scalzi
A thrilling sci-fi adventure about a group of super soldiers and their fight against a powerful enemy.
The Colonial Defense Forces (CDF) learn that one of their top consciousness transfer scientists, Charles Boutin, has turned traitor and sparked an unprecedented alliance between three other species ... (Wikipedia)
