What I Loved

Siri Hustvedt, 2003

A retired art history professor looks back at his life and tells the story of a 25 year long friendship. This memorable novel about friendship, love, family and property is set against a backdrop of the New York art scene.

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MM

Benny & Shrimp

Katarina Mazetti, 2009

Shrimp, a librarian and young widow, meets Benny, an overworked milk farmer. In spite of their differences, they can't escape the powerful attraction between them. This humorous and very readable book, was translated from the Swedish.

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LM

Amagansett

Mark Mills, 2004

Set in the Long Island town of Amagansett in the 1940's, this first novel is a tense murder mystery set amongst two social classes, the working class fishermen and the summer socialites.

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MC

Commencement

J. Courtney Sullivan, 2009

This is a coming-of-age tale of four young women who meet in their first year at Smith College in the late 1990's. Sullivan captures the intensity of college friendships and first loves while exploring the complicated and contradictory landscape facing young women today.

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Alentejo Blue

Monica Ali, 2006

Loosely connected by the same location, a small village in the Alentejo region of Portugal, the nine stories "weave a tapestry of human frailty". Masterfully told by the award winning author of Brick Lane.

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IZ

Witch of Portobello

Paulo Coelho, 2007

This fable from Coelho, a sage, mystic and a masterful narrator, is told from multiple points of view. It's a story of Athena, a spiritually complex woman, whose "gifts"separate her from other human beings.

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IZ

The Cradle

Patrick Somerville, 2009

This is a riveting, fast-moving story about the meaning of family and its power to heal. The book contains believable, likeable characters and interesting plot turns. This is a page turner!

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JS

Shanghai Girls

Lisa See, 2009

This beautifully written historical novel traces the lives of two sisters from Shanghai as they fight their way to Los Angeles in the late 1930's encountering problems as immigrants and subjected to discrimination.

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MC

Hello Goodbye

Emily Chenoweth, 2009

This is a heartbreaking debut novel about friendship, loyalty and growing up. It traces a dying woman's final family summer vacation in New Hampshire's White Mountains after her daughter's first year of college. Also available in large type.

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JS

Sweeping Up Glass

Carolyn Wall, 2008

With similarities to To Kill A Mockingbird as well as a fresh narrative voice, this debut novel is haunting and absorbing. Part literary character study and part thriller, it is the story of a lonely, proud and impoverished general store owner in rural Kentucky. Available also in large type.

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JS

Broken For You

Stephanie Kallos, 2004

This powerful tale, set in present day Seattle, explores familial problems, secrets and redemption. It is peopled by lovably imperfect and eccentric characters. Two women with broken hearts, spirits and bodies connect and explore the risks and rewards of human connection. It is ultimately a work of repair and redemption.

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MC

The Spies of Warsaw

Alan Furst, 2008

A French aristocrat working as a military attache at the French Embassy in Warsaw in 1937, tries to gather information for Poland and France regarding German moves. This compelling thriller, filled with historical details, is a behind-the-scenes look at French spies trying to convince French politicians to open their eyes. Furst is a master of historical spy fiction.

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LM

Shadow and Light

Jonathan Rabb, 2009

A high profile suicide at one of the most prominent German film studios seems highly suspicious. In the course of the investigation conducted by the chief police inspector, Nikolai Hoffner, the reader gets glimpses of the shadowy world of drugs, prostitution and murder. The story developes against the background of rising Nazism.

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IZ

Tim & Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White

Tim Reid and Tom Dreesan, 2008

This is a dual biography of the first and only interracial American comedy team. Reid and Dreesan overcame the stigmas of poverty and prejudice and dared to address the controversial, discriminatory realities of the 1960s.

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JA

The Commoner

John Burnham Schwartz, 2008

This first person fictional narrative is based on the life of the empress of Japan. Although her father was a successful businessman, her rank in society was as a commoner when she married the then crown prince. Schwartz's reconstruction of the life of this character reveals the reality of entering a sealed world of the Japanese imperial household and being forced to suppress and even surrender one's own identity.

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JA

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Jamie Ford, 2009

Belongings left behind by deported Japanese families in Seattle during World War II, trigger a Chinese American's cherished memories of a Japanese girl he was in love with. Themes include the innocence of first love, the cruelty of racism, and the blindness of patriotism. Appropriate for adults and young adults.

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IZ

The Believers

Zoe Heller, 2009

A dysfunctional New York family struggles to find its place in a quickly changing world. Joel Litvinoff, a famous civil rights lawyer, and his acerbic wife, Audrey, have spent their many years together as political protesters, raising their children with the same radical social consciousness. When Joel suffers a stroke, the family, never a peaceful unit to begin with, loses what little cohesion it had. Heller writes about the pain involved in testing one's beliefs and the possibility of growth in the process.

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MC

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

Sijie Dai, 2001

Two young Chinese men are ordered to the countryside for re-education as a result of their parents' political designation as "class enemies." After discovering a wealth of forbidden Western books, life on the hillside takes a brighter turn. The book is enchanting, written with the rhythm of a fable. Dai Sijie is himself a survivor of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

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MC

Pictures at an Exhibition

Sara Houghteling, 2009

Set in France during World War II, this is a debut novel about a young man trying to recover his father's art collection looted by the Nazis. "Written with tense drama and a historian's eye for detail, Houghteling's novel draws on the real-life stories of France's preeminent art-dealing families."

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IZ

The Weight of Heaven

Thrity Umrigar, 2009

An American couple takes advantage of a work-related move to India to try and heal after the death of their young son, but are unprepared for their growing attachment with their housekeepers' son. The author explores the effects of grief on a relationship and the many facets of culture clash.

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MC