A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.
The Left-Handed Booksellers of London
by Garth Nix
A girl’s quest to find her father leads her to an extended family of magical fighting booksellers who police the mythical Old World of England when it intrudes on the modern world.
The Lion Women of Tehran
by Marjan Kamali
When Homa, a girl from her childhood, reappears in her privileged world, Ellie, amidst Iran’s political turmoil, joins her in pursuing their goals for meaningful futures until one earth-shattering betrayal has far-reaching consequences, altering the course of both their lives.
Sag Harbor
by Colson Whitehead
Benji, one of the only black kids at an elite prep school in Manhattan, tries desperately to fit in, but every summer, he and his brother, Reggie, escape to the East End of Sag Harbor, where a small community of African American professionals has built a world of its own.
The Boston Girl
by Anita Diamant
An unforgettable novel about family ties and values, friendship and feminism told through the eyes of a young Jewish woman growing up in Boston in the early twentieth century.
The Boys in the Boat
by Daniel James Brown
This book tells the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. It traces the story of the team that defeated elite rivals at Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics, sharing the experiences of their enigmatic coach, a visionary boat builder, and a homeless teen rower.
Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides
The breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction.
Brooklyn
by Colm Tóibín
Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.
Sandwich
by Catherine Newman
While on her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod, Rocky, sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, relives the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers, coming face-to-face with her family’s history and future and accepting she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.