The Lifeboat

Charlotte Rogan, 2012

Adrift in the Atlantic Ocean after an explosion at sea, 40 passengers from a luxury liner try to save themselves in an overcrowded lifeboat. Newly widowed Grace Winter battles the elements and her fellow survivors and remembers her husband, Henry, who set his own safety aside to ensure hers. This is a tale of survival, sacrifice and responsibility.

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How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

Charles Yu, 2010

Charles Yu, a humorous and insightful time travel technician, helps save people from themselves in Minor Universe 31. When he's not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, a nonexistent dog named Ed, and using a book titled "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" as his guide, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory.

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JA

Requiem

Frances Itani, 2011

During World War II, Canada interned citizens of Japanese descent, just as the United States did. Here, Itani recaptures history through fiction by imagining the story of young Bin Okuma and his family, who were transported from their British Columbia home to a desolate area 100 miles from the "Protected Zone" and only grudgingly given access to food, plumbing, and electricity. Fifty years later, after his wife dies, Bin returns to the area, hoping to find the father whose awful decision at the time nearly destroyed the family.

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JA

The Art Forger

B.A. Shapiro, 2012

A young artist’s world is turned upside down when she is asked to forge a copy of a Degas painting. This novel is based on the heist of thirteen works of art at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990.  The missing paintings have yet to be discovered.

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Defending Jacob

William Landay, 2012

This is a legal thriller involving a murder trial and its effect on family loyalty.  A respected assistant district attorney must deal with a charge of murder against his own fourteen year old son.

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Me Before You

Jojo Moyes, 2012

Louisa Clark leads a routine existence. When she looses her job at a cafe, she applies for and gets a job caring for Will, a recently paralyzed man. Will Traynor, suffered a spinal cord injury when hit by a motorcycle.  His frustration with quadriplegia makes the job almost unbearable for Lou. When she discovers that Will intends to end his own life, Lou makes it her mission to persuade him that life is still worth living. In the process of planning “adventures”, Lou begins to understand the extent of Will’s isolation; while Will introduces Lou to ideas outside of her small existence. The end result is a lovely novel, both nontraditional and enthralling.

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FW

The Dinner

Herman Koch, 2012

Very well written and very discussable for book groups. Two Dutch couples meet for dinner. The men are brothers.  The plot is funny and quite dramatic and easily imagined as a play. Anyone who has ever eaten in a very expensive restaurant will find the descriptions of the food and wait staff hilarious. Well reviewed, but many of the reviews give away the story, so be careful what you Google.

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MM