Recommendations based on Astonish Meby Maggie Shipstead

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. Seating Arrangements

    by Maggie Shipstead
    A weekend wedding on a New England island brings together a dysfunctional family and their secrets.

    Winn Van Meter is heading for his family’s retreat on the pristine New England island of Waskeke. Normally a haven of calm, for the next three days this sanctuary will be overrun by tipsy revelers as ... (Goodreads)

  2. Some Luck

    by Jane Smiley
    A saga tracing five generations of a farming family in midwestern America.

    On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different yet equally remarkable children: Frank, the brilliant, stubborn ... (Goodreads)

  3. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

    by Gabrielle Zevin
    Life of an isolated bookseller is transformed when an unexpected visitor brings unexpected joy.

    “Marvelously optimistic about the future of books and bookstores and the people who love both.”—, The Washington Post, A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his ... (Barnes & Noble)

  4. Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride & Prejudice

    by Curtis Sittenfeld
    A contemporary retelling of Jane Austen's classic novel, exploring love, family, and societal expectations in modern-day Cincinnati.

    Liz is a magazine writer in her thirties; her older sister Jane is a yoga instructor. They both live in New York City. Their father has a health scare and they return to their childhood home in ... (Wikipedia)

  5. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

    by Tom Robbins
    An eccentric story of freedom and adventure, exploring themes of identity, fate and love.

    Sissy Hankshaw, the novel's protagonist , is a woman born with enormously large thumbs who considers her mutation a gift. , The novel covers various topics, including free love , feminism , drug use ... (Wikipedia)

  6. The Glass Palace

    by Amitav Ghosh
    Epic tale of a family's journey through Burma, India, and Malaya during the British colonization.

    Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this masterly novel by Amitav Ghosh tells the story of Rajkumar, a poor boy lifted on the tides of political and social chaos, who goes on to create ... (Goodreads)

  7. 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)

  8. The Talented Mr. Ripley

    by Patricia Highsmith
    A young conman's descent into a life of crime, with deadly consequences.

    Tom Ripley is a young man struggling to make a living in New York City by whatever means necessary, including a series of small-time confidence scams . One day, he is approached by shipping magnate ... (Wikipedia)

  9. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

    by Karen Joy Fowler
    A family's secrets and a girl's quest for the truth about her own identity.

    The, New York Times, bestselling author of, The Jane Austen Book Club, introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award ... (Barnes & Noble)

  10. The Lost Girls

    by Heather Young
    A family saga that explores the disappearance of three sisters from their secluded lake house in Minnesota in 1935.

    In the summer of 1935, six-year-old Emily Evans vanishes from her family’s vacation home on a remote Minnesota lake. Her disappearance destroys her mother, who spends the rest of her life at the lake ... (Goodreads)

  11. Island Girls

    by Nancy Thayer
    Three sisters reunite on Nantucket Island to confront their past and face their future.

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER Nancy Thayer returns to her beloved Nantucket in a highly emotional, wholly entertaining tale of three sisters forced to confront the past over one event-filled summer on the ... (Goodreads)

  12. The Engagements

    by J. Courtney Sullivan
    A novel that explores the concept of marriage through the stories of four couples and the creation of the iconic De Beers diamond campaign.

    A, People Magazine, Top 10 Best Book of the Year, The bestselling author of Maine returns with an exhilarating novel about Frances Gerety, the real pioneering ad woman who coined the famous slogan “A ... (Goodreads)

  13. 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)

  14. My Sunshine Away

    by M.O. Walsh
    A coming-of-age story set in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where a teenage girl is raped and the narrator becomes a suspect.

    "It was the summer everything changed...." My Sunshine Away unfolds in a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate ... (Goodreads)

  15. What Was Mine

    by Helen Klein Ross
    A woman kidnaps a baby from a store and raises her as her own. The story follows the lives of the kidnapper, the birth mother, and the daughter.

    Simply told but deeply affecting, in the bestselling tradition of Alice McDermott and Tom Perrotta, this urgent novel unravels the heartrending yet unsentimental tale of a woman who kidnaps a baby in ... (Goodreads)

  16. Sookie Stackhouse 7-copy Boxed Set

    by Charlaine Harris
    A collection of seven books following telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse as she navigates the supernatural world of vampires, werewolves, and more in small-town Louisiana.

    The New York Times bestselling Sookie Stackhouse series, now available in one deluxe boxed set! Dead until Dark is now the HBO original series True Blood Contains: Dead until Dark, Living Dead in ... (Goodreads)

  17. Snobs

    by Julian Fellowes
    A satirical look at the British aristocracy and their obsession with social status and class. Follows the story of a middle-class woman who marries into the upper class and navigates their world.

    Edith Lavery is a middle class single woman who feels she has reached a time in her life when the only chance of riches, fame and success is to marry a rich man. Her parents, especially her mother, ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Save Me

    by Lisa Scottoline
    A mother's desperate search for her missing daughter leads to shocking revelations and dangerous consequences.

    Save Me will have readers wondering just how far they would go to save the ones they love. Lisa Scottoline is writing about real issues that resonate with real women, and the results are emotional, ... (Goodreads)

  19. Heroes of the Frontier

    by Dave Eggers
    A mother takes her two children on a road trip through Alaska, escaping her past and searching for a new beginning.

    A captivating, often hilarious novel of family, loss, wilderness, and the curse of a violent America, Dave Eggers's Heroes of the Frontier is a powerful examination of our contemporary life and a ... (Goodreads)

  20. The Family Next Door

    by Sally Hepworth
    A gripping tale of three suburban families and the secrets they keep behind closed doors.

    The Family Next Door, is Sally Hepworth at her very best: at once a deeply moving portrait of family drama and a compelling suburban mystery that will keep you hooked until the very last ... (Barnes & Noble)

  21. Lost & Found

    by Jacqueline Sheehan
    A woman grieving the loss of her husband finds solace in a dog, leading her on a journey of self-discovery and healing.

    A poignant and unforgettable tale of love, loss, and moving on . . . with the help of one not-so-little dog Rocky's husband Bob was just forty-two when she discovered him lying cold and lifeless on ... (Goodreads)

  22. The Animators

    by Kayla Rae Whitaker
    Two female animators create a hit film, but their personal lives unravel as they confront their past traumas.

    In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and ... (Goodreads)

  23. The Deerslayer

    by James Fenimore Cooper
    A tale of adventure and conflict between Native Americans and European settlers in the 18th century American frontier.

    This novel introduces Natty Bumppo as "Deerslayer": a young frontiersman in early 18th-century New York, who objects to the practice of taking scalps , on the grounds that every living thing should ... (Wikipedia)

  24. 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)

  25. The Unseen World

    by Liz Moore
    A young woman embarks on a quest to uncover the secrets of her father's past.

    Ada Sibelius is raised by David, her brilliant, eccentric, socially inept single father, who directs a computer science lab in 1980s-era Boston. Home-schooled, Ada accompanies David to work every ... (Goodreads)

  26. Unraveling Oliver

    by Liz Nugent
    A man's violent act shocks his community, and as his past is revealed, the reasons behind his actions become clearer.

    “Searing, searching, finally scorching. Think, Making a Murderer, via Patricia Highsmith: an elegant kaleidoscope novel that refines and combines multiple perspectives until its subject is brought ... (Barnes & Noble)

  27. The Middlesteins

    by Jami Attenberg
    A family struggles with the matriarch's obesity and its impact on their relationships. A poignant and humorous exploration of love, addiction, and forgiveness.

    For more than thirty years, Edie and Richard Middlestein shared a solid family life together in the suburbs of Chicago. But now things are splintering apart, for one reason, it seems: Edie's enormous ... (Barnes & Noble)

  28. 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)

  29. True Evil

    by Greg Iles
    A prosecutor uncovers a dark secret about a respected doctor, leading to a dangerous game of cat and mouse.

    Dr. Chris Shepard, a busy young doctor in Natchez, Mississippi, has never seen his new patient Alex Morse before. But the attractive young woman with the scarred face has come to Dr. Shepards office ... (Goodreads)

  30. A Shadow in Summer

    by Daniel Abraham
    A group of powerful individuals seek to control the world through the use of magical beings called andats.

    The city-state of Saraykeht dominates the Summer Cities. Its wealth is beyond measure; its port is open to all the merchants of the world, and its ruler, the Khai Saraykeht, commands forces to rival ... (Goodreads)