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The Temptation to Be Happy

Lorenzo Marone · back to the book

What’s in it

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24 books with the same feel

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En man som heter Ove

Fredrik Backman · 346 pages

Elderly ProtagonistNeighborsWidowed ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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Mężczyzna imieniem Ove

Fredrick Backman · 352 pages

Elderly ProtagonistNeighborsWidowed ProtagonistCharacter-Driven
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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

Elderly ProtagonistWidowed ProtagonistNeighborsCharacter-Driven
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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

Elderly ProtagonistWidowed ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Beginner's Goodbye

Anne Tyler · 209 pages

"Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances--in their house, on the roadway, in the market. Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outs

Widowed ProtagonistElderly ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Woman Next Door

Yewande Omotoso · 288 pages

"Hortensia James and Marion Agostino are neighbors. One is black, the other white. Both are successful women with impressive careers. Both have recently been widowed, and are living with questions, disappointments, and secrets that have brought them shame. And each has something that the woman next door deeply desires. Sworn enemies, the two share a hedge and a deliberate hostility, which they mai

Elderly ProtagonistWidowed ProtagonistNeighborsCharacter-Driven
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The New Neighbor

Leah Stewart · 288 pages

"Ninety-year-old Margaret Riley is content hiding from the world. Stoic and independent, she rarely leaves the Tennessee mountaintop where she lives, finding comfort in the mystery novels that keep her company, that is, until she spots a woman who's moved into the long-empty house across the pond. Jennifer Young is also looking to hide. On the run from her old life, she and her four-year-old son M

NeighborsElderly ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Song of Hartgrove Hall

Natasha Solomons · 400 pages

"A captivating novel that evokes the author's New York Times bestseller The House at Tyneford Natasha Solomons's breathtaking new novel has it all: a love triangle, family obligations, and rediscovering joy in the face of grief, all set against the alluring backdrop of an English country estate perfect for fans of Downton Abbey It's a terrible thing to covet your brother's girl New Year's Eve, Dor

Widowed ProtagonistElderly ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenFirst Person Narrator
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An Available Man

Hilma Wolitzer · 285 pages

"In this tender and funny novel, award-winning author Hilma Wolitzer mines the unpredictable fallout of suddenly becoming single later in life, and the chaos and joys of falling in love the second time around. When Edward Schuyler, a modest and bookish sixty-two-year-old science teacher, is widowed, he finds himself ambushed by female attention. There are plenty of unattached women around, but a h

Elderly ProtagonistWidowed ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Widower's Tale

Julia Glass · 402 pages

Enjoying an active but lonely rural life, seventy-year-old Percy allows a progressive preschool to move into his barn and transform his quiet home into a lively, youthful community that compels him to reexamine the choices he made after his wife's death.

Elderly ProtagonistWidowed ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Rules for Old Men Waiting

Peter R. Pouncey · 240 pages

Elderly ProtagonistWidowed ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Shell Seekers

Rosamunde Pilcher · 582 pages

The Shell Seekers is a novel of connection: of one family, and of the passions and heartbreak that have held them together for three generations. The Shell Seekers is filled with real people--mothers and daughters, husband and lovers--inspired with real values. The Shell Seekers centers on Penelope Keeling--a woman you'll always remember in world you'll never forget. The Shell Seekers is a magical

Elderly ProtagonistWidowed ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenContemporary Fiction
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When the Light Goes

Larry McMurtry · 208 pages

Widower Duane Moore returns to west Texas, where he finds the family oil business significantly altered by new personnel, evolving family dynamics, and his own perspective changes.

Widowed ProtagonistElderly ProtagonistLiterary FictionContemporary Fiction
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Mr Wigg

Inga Simpson · 300 pages

It's the summer of 1971, not far from the stone-fruit capital of New South Wales, where Mr Wigg lives on what is left of his family farm. Mrs Wigg has been gone a few years now and he thinks about her every day. He misses his daughter, too, and wonders when he ll see her again. He spends his time working in the orchard, cooking and preserving his produce and, when it's on, watching the cricket. It

Elderly ProtagonistWidowed ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

Elizabeth Taylor · 224 pages

"On a rainy Sunday afternoon in January the recently widowed Mrs. Palfrey moves to the Claremont Hotel in South Kensington. "If it's not nice, I needn't stay," she promises herself, as she settles into this haven for the genteel and the decayed. "Three elderly widows and one old man who seemed to dislike female company and seldom got any other kind" serve for her fellow residents, and there is the

Elderly ProtagonistWidowed ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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All the Broken Places

John Boyne · 400 pages

Elderly ProtagonistNeighborsCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Reading List

Sara Nisha Adams · 368 pages

Widowed ProtagonistElderly ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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La tregua

Mario Benedetti · 184 pages

'Perhaps that moment had been exceptional, but still, I felt alive. That pressure on my chest means being alive.' Forty-nine, with a kind face, no serious ailments (apart from varicose veins on his ankles), a good salary and three moody children, widowed accountant Martin Santome is about to retire. He assumes he'll take up gardening, or the guitar, or whatever retired people do. What he least exp

Widowed ProtagonistElderly ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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Out of Sorts

Aurelie Valognes

Elderly ProtagonistNeighborsCharacter-DrivenContemporary Fiction
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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.

Elderly ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenFirst Person NarratorLiterary Fiction
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These Silent Woods

Kimi Cunningham Grant · 288 pages

A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant's These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense. No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world. For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that's exactly

NeighborsCharacter-DrivenLiterary FictionContemporary Fiction
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How to Read a Book

Monica Wood · 280 pages

Widowed ProtagonistElderly ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary Fiction
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The Brooklyn Follies

Paul Auster · 320 pages

Nathan Glass has come to Brooklyn to die. Divorced, estranged from his only daughter, the retired life insurance salesman seeks only solitude and anonymity. Then Nathan finds his long-lost nephew, Tom Wood, working in a local bookstore - a far cry from the brilliant academic career he'd begun when Nathan saw him last. Tom's boss is the charismatic Harry Brightman, whom fate has also brought to the

Elderly ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenLiterary FictionContemporary Fiction
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The Reading List

Adams Sara Nisha

Widowed ProtagonistElderly ProtagonistCharacter-DrivenContemporary Fiction

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