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THERE THERE

One of our recommended books for 2019 is There There by Tommy Orange

Tommy Orange’s shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to each other in ways they may not yet realize. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, utterly contemporary and always unforgettable.

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SWEDE HOLLOW

One of our recommended books for 2019 is Swede Hollow by Ola Larsmo

When the Klar family leaves Sweden for New York in 1897, they take with them a terrible secret and a longing for a new life. Their dream of starting over is nearly crushed at the outset, until an unexpected gift allows them to make one more desperate move, this time to the Midwest and a place called Swede Hollow.

Their new home is a cluster of shacks on the edge of St. Paul, Minnesota inhabited by other immigrants. The men hire on as day laborers or work at the nearby brewery, and the women clean houses or work in factories.

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THE STORYTELLER

One of our recommended books for 2019 is The Storyteller by Pierre Jarawan

Samir leaves the safety and comfort of his family’s adopted home in Germany for volatile Beirut in an attempt to find his missing father. His only clues are an old photo and the bedtime stories his father used to tell him. The Storyteller follows Samir’s search for Brahim, the father whose heart was always yearning for his homeland, Lebanon.

In this moving and gripping novel about family secrets, love, and friendship, Pierre Jarawan does for Lebanon what Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner did for Afghanistan. He pulls away the curtain of grim facts and figures to reveal the intimate story of an exiled family torn apart by civil war and guilt.

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THE ROSIE RESULT

One of our recommended books for 2019 is The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion

In The Rosie Project, the first book in the trilogy, Don Tillman gives a lecture on Asperger’s Syndrome. This sets up the premise that Don has autistic traits but doesn’t recognize them in himself. By the end of The Rosie Result, though, both Don and his son Hudson identify as autistic.

If the storylines in The Rosie Result center on Don’s challenges in trying to parent a son who shares many similarities with him, the novel’s main theme is labeling and identity. The book directly questions many people’s assumptions about autism.

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SAINT X

One of our recommended books for 2020 is Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin

Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister, Alison, disappears on the last night of their family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison’s body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men—employees at the resort—are arrested. Years later, Claire is living and working in New York City when a brief but fateful encounter brings her together with Clive Richardson, one of the men originally suspected of murdering her sister.

As Claire doggedly shadows Clive, hoping to gain his trust, waiting for the slip that will uncover the truth,

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THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR

With vivid writing and immediately absorbing characters, Ellen Marie Wiseman weaves a powerful tale of upheaval, resilience and hope amidst the tragic 1918 influenza – the pandemic that went on to infect one-third of the world’s population…

In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia’s overcrowded slums and the anti-immigrant sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S. Army. But as her city celebrates the end of war, an even more urgent threat arrives: the Spanish flu. Funeral crepe and quarantine signs appear on doors as victims drop dead in the streets and desperate survivors wear white masks to ward off illness.

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