The Weight of Him

Ancient Light

John Banville · 256 pages

An actor in the twilight of his career reflects on a poignant first love affair at the age of fifteen with his best friend's mother and inexplicably lands a role opposite a famous but fragile actress who helps him come to an astonishing realization.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Rachel Joyce · 355 pages

Harold Fry has recently retired and now, he doesn't do very much. Even mowing the lawn, like his wife Maureen tells him to do, seems too much work for him. When, one day, he recieves a lettre in a pink envelope, this lazyness changes. In it, his collegue from long time ago, Queenie Hennessy, tells him she is going to die soon from a cancer in a hospice at the other end of England. Harold, at first

The River Is Waiting

Wally Lamb · 451 pages

Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness

Hikikomori and the Rental Sister

Jeff Backhaus · 246 pages

Estranged from the husband who cloistered himself in his bedroom three years earlier after a devastating tragedy, Silke hires a young Japanese woman to draw him back into the world by establishing a deeply intimate relationship with him.

Little Earthquakes

Jennifer Weiner · 417 pages

A chef, an event planner, and a basketball player's wife find their marriages and careers in Philadelphia challenged by new motherhood, difficult schedules, and infidelity.

The World According to Garp

John Irving · 568 pages

The Weight of Heaven

Thrity Umrigar · 365 pages

When Frank and Ellie Benton lose their only child, seven-year-old Benny, to a sudden illness, the perfect life they had built is shattered. Filled with wrenching memories, their Ann Arbor home becomes unbearable, and their marriage founders. But an unexpected job half a world away offers them an opportunity to start again. Life in Girbaug, India, holds promise—and peril—when Frank befriends Ramesh

A Map of the World

Jane Hamilton · 402 pages

In the tradition of The Good Mother by Sue Miller and Before and After by Rosellen Brown, A Map of the World is the riveting story of how a single mistake can forever change the lives of everyone involved - in ways that are beyond imagination. One unremarkable June morning, Alice Goodwin is, as usual, trying to keep in check both her temper and her tendency to blame herself for her family's sho

All the Little Live Things

Wallace Stegner · 345 pages

An Eastern couple retire to California in search of peace after the death of their wayward son, only to have their paradise shattered by painful reminders of the past.

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Shelby Van Pelt · 368 pages

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night cleaner shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. Ever since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat over thirty years ago keeping busy has helped her cope. One night she meets Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium who sees everything, but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his hum

Nineteen Minutes

Jodi Picoult · 586 pages

The startling and poignant story of the aftermath of a tragic high school shooting, from the bestselling author of My Sister's Keeper and The Pact.'Picoult makes us ponder the ambiguous relationships between love and lying, legality and morality; the strange ways repressed memories leak into the present.' Los Angeles TimesIntricately textured and rich with psychological and social insight, Jodi Pi

Did You Ever Have a Family

Bill Clegg · 298 pages

"On the eve of her daughter's wedding, June Reid's life is completely devastated when a shocking disaster takes the lives of her daughter, her daughter's fiancé, her ex-husband, and her boyfriend, Luke--her entire family, all gone in a moment. And June is the only survivor. Alone and directionless, June drives across the country, away from her small Connecticut town. In her wake, a community emerg

Somewhere Inside of Happy

Anna McPartlin · 387 pages

'And just like that my boy was gone.' Maisie Brennan is standing on a podium on the twentieth anniversary of the death of her son, trying to find the first breath that will help her start talking to a room full of strangers. A daunting task at the best of times, but she's also menopausal and one hot flush away from totally losing it. But as Maisie begins her story, she soon relaxes and word by wor

You Came Back

Christopher Coake · 424 pages

Mark Fife is contacted by a strange woman who tells him she is living in his old house, the house where his son, Brendan, died, and she's convinced it's haunted by Brendan's ghost. As he flirts with the idea of trying to contact his son, he begins to endanger the relationships that matter in his life now.

The One-in-a-Million Boy

Monica Wood · 336 pages

Guitarist Quinn Porter chases gigs on the road, largely absent to his twice-ex-wife Belle and their odd, Guinness recordsobsessed son. When the boy dies suddenly, Quinn seeks forgiveness by completing the requirements for his son's unfinished Boy Scout badge. For seven Saturdays he does yard work for Ona Vitkus, the wily 104-year-old Lithuanian immigrant the boy had visited weekly. Despite himself

Night Film

Marisha Pessl · 624 pages

Ashley Cordova is dead. Scott McGrath, a veteran investigative journalist wants to know why. The reason why the death of this beautiful, young woman has piqued his interest so much is because of who her father is. He is Stanislas Cordova, the world famous director of strange cult/horror films that hasn't been seen publicly in over thirty years. The last time McGrath got involved with Cordova he lo

Through the Night

Stig Saeterbakken

The Sword of Kaigen

M.L. Wang · 651 pages

Olive Juice

T.J. Klune · 121 pages

It begins with a message that David cannot I want to see you. He agrees, and on a cold winter’s night, David and Phillip will come together to sift through the wreckage of the memory of a life no longer lived. David is burdened, carrying with him the heavy guilt of the past six years upon his shoulders. Phillip offers redemption.

Say Nice Things About Detroit

Scott Lasser · 280 pages

Reservation Road

John Burnham Schwartz · 300 pages

At the close of a beautiful summer day near the quiet Connecticut town where they live, the Learner family - Ethan and Grace, their children, Josh and Emma - stop at a gas station on their way home from a concert. Josh Learner, lost in a ten-year-old's private world, is standing at the edge of the road when a car comes racing around the bend. He is hit and instantly killed. The car speeds away. F

Red Hook Road

Ayelet Waldman · 343 pages

After John Tetherly and Becca Copaken die in a freak car accident an hour after their wedding, their families are left to bridge stark class and cultural divides, and eventually forge deep-rooted bonds thanks to the twin deities of love and music. Becca's family is well off, from New York, and summers in Red Hook, Maine, a small coastal town where John's blue-collar single mother, Jane, cleans hou

Enon

Paul Harding · 256 pages

A grieving Charlie Crosby, grandson of Tinkers protagonist George Washington Crosby, attempts to come to terms with the death of his daughter Kate and the subsequent dissolution of his marriage.

The Song Is You

Arthur Phillips · 254 pages

Julian Donahue is in love with his iPod.Each song that shuffles through "that greatest of all human inventions" triggers a memory. There are songs for the girls from when he was single; there's the one for the day he met his wife-to-be, and another for the day his son was born. But when his family falls apart, even music loses its hold on him, and he has nothing.Until one snowy night in Brooklyn,