Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.
When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull,
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London: the week before Christmas, 2007. Over seven days we follow the lives of seven major characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on reality TV and genetically altered pot; and a Tube train driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop.
With daring skill and savage humor,
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Now that popular household advice columnist Delia Bennet is dying from cancer, she’s compiled the ultimate to-do list: plan her daughter’s future wedding, fill the freezer with her family’s favorite meals- perhaps even do some matchmaking for her husband. But just as Delia comes to terms with the impossibility of ever tying every loose thread together in her too-short time, an unexpected visitor helps her believe in her life’s worth in a way no list ever could…
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Suzie Gilbert once struggled to find her calling. But when she took a job working at the animal hospital near her home in New York’s Hudson Valley, her passion was born. She began bringing abused and unwanted parrots home and volunteering at a local raptor rehabilitation center.
Then came the ultimate commitment to her cause: turning her home into Flyaway, Inc., a nonprofit wild bird rehabilitation center. Gilbert chronicles the years of her chaotic household-cum-bird-hospital with delightful wit, recounting the confusion that ensued as her husband and two young children struggled to live in a house where parrots shrieked Motown songs,
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Before there was the Baby-Sitters Club, there were four girls named Kristy Thomas, Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi, and Stacey McGill. As they start the summer before seventh grade (also before they start the BSC), each of them is on the cusp of a big change. Kristy is still hung up on hoping that her father will return to her family. Mary Anne has to prove to her father that she’s no longer a little girl who needs hundreds of rules. Claudia is navigating her first major crush on a boy. And Stacey is leaving her entire New York City life behind…in order to find new friends in Stoneybrook,
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The beautiful Victorian house that Amy Masterson decides to rent, fully furnished, is more than just a place to start over with her young daughter. When Amy learns that the three-story house on Sugar Plum Lane belonged to her great-grandmother, Eleanor Rucker, who Amy’s mother had been searching for until her recent death, she hopes she can find a window into the past her mother never found.
As Amy settles into Fairbrook, she’s stunned to learn that Ellie Rucker still lives on Sugar Plum Lane, cared for by Amy’s neighbor, Maria. But Ellie’s mind is failing rapidly, her memories fading with each passing day.
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