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The Little Friend (2002) is a Southern Gothic novel by Donna Tartt. Twelve-year-old protagonist Harriet Dufresnes, who lives in the small town of Alexandria, Mississippi, becomes obsessed with her brother Robin’s unsolved murder and her family’s mythical lost fortune and happiness. This coming-of-age novel traces Harriet’s attempts to discover and murder Robin’s killer, all while grappling with loss, revisionist history, secrets, and social tensions based on race, class, and gender.Donna Tartt became a success when... Read The Little Friend Summary

Nina George’s romance novel The Little Paris Bookshop was originally published in German in 2013 and was translated to English by Simon Pare in 2015. The story follows Jean Perdu, a bookseller, as he travels from Paris to Avignon on his floating bookstore, the Literary Apothecary. Perdu leaves Paris on a whim after receiving heartbreaking news about the death of his former lover. Perdu is joined in his travels by Max Jordan, a bestselling author... Read The Little Paris Bookshop Summary

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Set in 19th-century Jamaica during the final years of slavery and the turbulent period following emancipation, the novel is narrated by July, an elderly formerly enslaved woman who writes her life story at the urging of her son, Thomas Kinsman. Thomas, a prosperous printer in Kingston, explains in a foreword dated 1898 that he persuaded his mother to commit her tale to paper as a chapbook. Throughout the narrative, July addresses the reader directly, quarrels... Read The Long Song Summary

David Grann’s The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (2009) tells the story of Percy Harrison Fawcett’s ill-fated expedition into the Brazilian jungle. After nearly two decades spent exploring the region and gathering evidence, Fawcett concluded that a sophisticated ancient civilization, a city he called Z, lay hidden deep in the Amazonian wilderness. In 1925, while searching for Z, Fawcett disappeared along with his son Jack and Jack’s friend... Read The Lost City of Z Summary

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The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri is the tale of two brothers, Subhash and Udayan Mitra. Born and raised in a suburb of Calcutta, they are inseparable as children, but when they start at the university, their lives take a sudden turn from one another. Subhash is more reserved and obedient, whereas Udayan is more mischievous and impulsive.Udayan is not afraid to break the rules or contradict authority and becomes a member of the Naxalites—a radical... Read The Lowland Summary

The Luminaries (2013) by Eleanor Catton is historical fiction written in the style of a 19th-century serial novel. It is set during the gold rush on the South Island of New Zealand in the 1860s. A whodunit told using two overlapping timelines and extensive flashbacks, it deploys motifs of astrology to paint a detailed portrait of class, gender, and conflict on the colonial frontier. The novel won the Man Booker Prize in 2013; at the... Read The Luminaries Summary

Written by acclaimed American author Ann Patchett, The Magician’s Assistant is a piece of contemporary literature that explores life after grief, the nature of love, and the power of family dynamics. Told in two parts, one set in Los Angeles and the other in small-town Nebraska, the novel emphasizes the importance of setting and environment in the development of identity.The author of nine novels and the recipient of numerous awards, Ann Patchett is an outspoken... Read The Magician's Assistant Summary

Mitch Albom’s 2015 novel, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, blends magical realism with historical fiction to create a genre-bending work that is accessible for a wide range of audiences; however, given the complex themes of love, loss, regret, and redemption, the novel is best suited for a young adult audience and older.A personification of music, “Music,” narrates much of the novel. The novel starts at Frankie’s funeral and is interspersed with anecdotes from famous... Read The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto Summary

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Andy Weir’s debut novel, The Martian, was originally published in 2011 as serialized blog posts; after its 2014 book publication, it was a New York Times bestseller. A software engineer and son of a physicist and an electrical engineer, Weir identifies himself in the book jacket biography as a “lifelong space nerd,” and the novel is notable for staying strictly within the bounds of existing scientific understanding. Set just over two decades beyond the novel’s... Read The Martian Summary

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