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Recommendations based on Shuggie Bainby Douglas Stuart
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
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 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)
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)
Girl, Woman, Other
by Bernardine Evaristo
A novel-in-verse that follows the interconnected lives of twelve British women of color.
Joint Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2019 Teeming with life and crackling with energy — a love song to modern Britain and black womanhood Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve ... (Goodreads)
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
An exploration of memory and its impact on the present, looking at the choices we make in life.
By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be ... (Goodreads)
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)
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 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)
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 Nix
by Nathan Hill
A middle-aged man's quest to discover the truth about his mother and his own identity.
The Nix is an American epic novel in 10 parts that follows community college professor of English, Samuel Andresen-Anderson who is struggling to find meaning in his life in the years following his ... (Wikipedia)
Burnt Sugar
by Avni Doshi
A daughter's complex relationship with her mother, who is suffering from memory loss. A story of love, resentment, and the search for identity.
In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her loveless marriage to join an ashram, endured a brief stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents), and spent years chasing after a ... (Goodreads)
On Chesil Beach
by Ian McEwan
A young couple's journey through a difficult, yet passionate, wedding night.
In July 1962, Edward Mayhew, a graduate student of history, and Florence Ponting, a violinist of a string quartet, have just been married and are spending their honeymoon in a small hotel on the ... (Wikipedia)
Freedom
by Jonathan Franzen
A family saga revealing the struggles of a divided nation, and the power of love to heal.
The novel opens with a brief look at the Berglund family during their time living in St. Paul, Minnesota , from the perspective of their nosy neighbors. The Berglunds are portrayed as an ideal ... (Wikipedia)
Stoner
by John Williams
An academic's life of quiet desperation, finding solace in literature.
William Stoner is born on a small farm in 1891. After high school, the county agent advises he go to agriculture school. Stoner enrolls in the University of Missouri , where all agriculture students ... (Wikipedia)
The Girls
by Emma Cline
An exploration of the dark side of teenagehood, as a young girl is drawn into a cult.
Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their ... (Goodreads)
Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson
A woman lives multiple lives, reflecting on choices and consequences and the power of love.
The novel has an unusual structure, repeatedly looping back in time to describe alternative possible lives for its central character, Ursula Todd, who is born on 11 February 1910 to an ... (Wikipedia)
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
Exploration of the timeless struggle between good and evil, set against a backdrop of a family saga.
In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas ... (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)
Bring Up the Bodies
by Hilary Mantel
A gripping historical drama recounting the downfall of Anne Boleyn during the reign of Henry VIII.
Bring Up the Bodies follows closely upon the events of Wolf Hall . The King and Cromwell —now Master Secretary to the King's Privy Council—are guests of the Seymour family at Wolf Hall. The King ... (Wikipedia)
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)
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
by Anthony Marra
An exploration of the aftermath of a civil war, and the power of human connection.
A brilliant debut novel that brings to life an abandoned hospital where a tough-minded doctor decides to harbor a hunted young girl, with powerful consequences. In the final days of December 2004, in ... (Goodreads)
His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae
by Graeme Macrae Burnet
Historical fiction on a haunting trial of a young man accused of a triple murder.
Man Booker Prize Finalist., LA Times, Book Prize Finalist., New York Times, Editor’s Choice. American Booksellers Association National Indie Bestseller! Named on “Best Book” lists by, Newsweek,, ... (Barnes & Noble)
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)
Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghese
A sweeping journey of two twin brothers and their search for identity, belonging and family.
The story is told by the protagonist, Marion Stone. He and his conjoined twin Shiva are born at Mission Hospital (called "Missing" in accordance with the local pronunciation), Addis Ababa , in ... (Wikipedia)
Norwegian Wood
by Haruki Murakami
A young man's journey of love and loss set against the backdrop of the 1960s.
Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of ... (Goodreads)
A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
A Russian aristocrat's life of imprisonment in a grand hotel, discovering the beauty of life in confinement.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel With his breakout debut novel, ... (Goodreads)
Burial Rites
by Hannah Kent
A woman awaits her execution in 19th-century Iceland, reliving her story of hardship, loss and faith.
Burial Rites tells the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, a servant in northern Iceland who was condemned to death after the murder of two men, one of whom was her employer, and became the last woman put ... (Wikipedia)
The Good People
by Hannah Kent
A suspenseful tale of superstition and secrets in a rural Irish village.
From the bestselling author of the multi-award-winning, Burial Rites, County Kerry, Ireland, 1825., The fires on the hills smouldered orange as the women left, pockets charged with ashes to guard ... (Goodreads)
The Heart's Invisible Furies
by John Boyne
A man's life journey spanning seven decades and three continents, searching for love and acceptance.
Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast ... (Goodreads)
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)
