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WE ARE THE LIGHT

One of our recommended books is We Are the Light by Matthew Quick

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook–made into the Academy Award-winning movie starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper–a poignant and hopeful novel about a widower who takes in a grieving teenager and inspires a magical revival in their small town.

Lucas Goodgame lives in Majestic, Pennsylvania, a quaint suburb that has been torn apart by a recent tragedy. Everyone in Majestic sees Lucas as a hero–everyone, that is, except Lucas himself. Insisting that his deceased wife, Darcy, visits him every night in the form of an angel, Lucas spends his time writing letters to his former Jungian analyst,

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THE LIBERATORS

One of our recommended books is The Liberators by E.J. Koh

Daejeon, South Korea. 1980. At twenty-four, Insuk falls in love with her college classmate, Sungho, and with her father’s blessing, they marry. But then, as the military dictatorship, martial law, and nationwide protests bring the country precariously to the edge, Insuk’s father disappears.

In the wake of his disappearance, Insuk flees to California with Sungho, their son Henry, and Sungho’s overbearing mother. Adrift in a new country, Insuk grieves the loss of her past and divided homeland, only to find herself drawn into an illicit affair that sets into motion dramatic events that will echo for generations to come.

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THE VULNERABLES

One of our recommended books is The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend and What Are You Going Through brings her singular voice to a story about modern life and connection.

Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez’s ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past.

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MEET THE BENEDETTOS

One of our recommended books is Meet the Benedettos by Katie Cotugno

An A-list movie star moves to Los Angeles–next door to a family of five eligible sisters–in this irresistible novel where The Kardashians meets Pride and Prejudice, from the NYT bestselling author of Birds of California.

Every family is complicated, and the Benedettos are no exception. A few years after a reality TV show skyrocketed them to pop-culture fame, the five twentysomething sisters are living together in their parents’ crumbling McMansion, nearly broke and teetering towards rock-bottom. Lilly, the sensible second-eldest sister, is all too aware that her family is viewed as a spectacle,

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THE LONG FORM

One of our recommended books is The Long Form by Kate Briggs

From the award-winning author of the book-length essay This Little Art, a debut novel that reaches back to the start of the novel tradition and outward to the complexities of contemporary life.

Kate Brigg’s debut novel–the follow-up to her acclaimed This Little Art–is the story of a young mother, Helen, awake with her baby. Together they are moving through a morning routine that is in one sense entirely ordinary–resting, feeding, pacing. Yet in the closeness of their rented flat, such everyday acts take on epic scope, thoughts and objects made newly alive in the light of their shared attention.

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MARY AND THE BIRTH OF FRANKENSTEIN

One of our recommended books is Mary and the Birth of Frankenstein by Anne Eekhout

An intensely gripping reimagining of Mary Shelley’s youth, vividly exploring innocence, young love, gothic mystery and the roots of her literary masterpiece, Frankenstein.

Switzerland, 1816. A volcanic eruption in Indonesia envelopes the whole of Europe in ash and cloud. Amid this “year without a summer,” eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley arrive at Lake Geneva to visit Lord Byron and his companion John Polidori. Anguished by the recent loss of her child, Mary spends her days in strife. But come nightfall, the friends while away rainy wine-soaked evenings gathered around the fireplace,

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