What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Casual Vacancy
J.K. Rowling · 512 pages
When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is no
Heat & Light
Jennifer Haigh · 535 pages
Bestselling author Jennifer Haigh returns to the Pennsylvania town and the conflicting forces at its heart - hope and desperation, greed and power, big business and small-town families. Forty years ago, Bakerton coal fueled the country. Then the mines closed, and the town wore away. Now Bakerton has been granted a surprise third act: it sits squarely atop the Marcellus Shale, a massive deposit of
Empire Falls
Richard Russo · 483 pages
"Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion's widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke o
Middlemarch
George Eliot · 795 pages
Eliot’s epic of 19th century provincial social life, set in a fictitious Midlands town in the years 1830-32, has several interlocking storylines blended effortlessly together to form a fully coherent narrative. Its main themes are the status of women, social expectations and hypocrisy, religion, political reform and education. It has often been called the greatest novel in the English language.
The Beans of Egypt, Maine
Carolyn Chute · 271 pages
There are families like the Beans all over America. They live on the wrong side of town in mobile homes strung with Christmas lights all year around. The women are often pregnant, the men drunk and just out of jail, and the children too numerous to count. In the 'Beans of Egypt', Maine, we meet the God-fearing Earlene Pomerleau and experience her obsession for the whole swarming Bean tribe. Therec
The Winners
Fredrik Backman · 672 pages
'I utterly believed in the residents of Beartown, and felt ripped apart by the events in the book' JOJO MOYES WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO STAND TOGETHER? ‘It’s often said that winners write history, but there are no winners here’ This is a small story about big questions. It's a story about family, community, life. It starts with a storm - and a death. But how does it end? Two years have passed since the
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers · 334 pages
Set in 1930s Georgia, the novel centers around a deaf and mute man, John Singer. Singer has been devastated by the loss of his dear friend, Antonapoulos, who was committed to an asylum for bad behavior
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Tom Wolfe · 690 pages
Behold the Dreamers
Imbolo Mbue · 408 pages
When Jende Jonga journeys to New York City from Cameroon in 2004 on a visitors' visa in hopes of obtaining a green card, he's sure his life will only improve. After saving up enough money to bring over Jende's wife, Neni, and six-year-old son, the family moves into an apartment in Harlem. Then Jende hits the jackpot in 2007 when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a wealthy Lehman Bro
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Helen Simonson · 394 pages
You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family. Among them is Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, Major P
The Island Walkers
John Bemrose · 457 pages
For generations, the Walkers have lived on the island in a small, working class mill town beside Ontario's Attawan River. In the summer of 1965 their peace is shattered when a union organiser comes to town and Alf Walker is forced to choose between loyalty to his friends and advancement up the company ranks. His decision threatens to overwhelm not only his own life, but also his family. Through th
A Fine Balance
Rohinton Mistry · 713 pages
A Fine Balance is Rohinton Mistry's eagerly awaited second novel and follows his critically acclaimed Such a Long Journey, the book that won three prestigious literary awards in 1991. Set in India in the mid-1970s, A Fine Balance is a richly textured novel which sweeps the reader up into its special world. Large in scope, the narrative focuses on four unlikely people who come together in a flat
Half of a Yellow Sun
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · 448 pages
> With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor fu
The Milagro Beanfield War
John Nichols · 456 pages
Joe Mondragon, thirty-six, is a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, who slammed his battered pickup to a stop one day, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into an arid patch of ground. Then, illegally, he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began John Nichols' classic tale of the little guy against the big guy -- THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR.
Mercy Among the Children
David Adams Richards · 371 pages
"At the age of twelve, Sidney Henderson, in a moment of anger, pushes his friend Connie Devlin off the roof of a local church. Looking down on Connie's motionless body, Sidney believes he is dead. Let Connie live and I will never harm another soul, Sidney vows. At that moment, Connie stands up and, laughing, walks away.". "In the years that follow, the brilliant, self-educated, ever-gentle Sidney
The Story of a New Name
Elena Ferrante · 480 pages
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 Name is the second book in this series. With these books, which the New Yorker’s James Wood described as “large, captivating, amiably peopled...a beautiful and delicate tale of confluence and reversal,” F
The Slap
Christos Tsiolkas · 485 pages
*"Although this is Australian author Tsiolkas’ fourth novel, it is the first to be published in the U.S. With its raw style, liberal use of profanity and racial epithets, and laserlike focus on the travails of suburban life, it is a down-and-dirty version of Tom Perrotta’s best-selling Little Children (2004). At a barbecue in a Melbourne suburb, a man loses his temper and slaps the child of the ho
NW
Zadie Smith · 401 pages
"Four Londoners--Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan--try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their London is a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end."--From publisher's information.
Trainspotting
Irvine Welsh · 352 pages
Scottish writer Irvine Welsh's first novel, Trainspotting, is a collection of short-stories revolving around a group of friends, their drug use, and struggles in the city of Edinburgh.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez · 422 pages
Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.
Who do you think you are?
Alice Munro · 224 pages
House of Sand and Fog
Andre Dubus III · 365 pages