A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan tracks the passage of time in the lives of individuals in the rock music industry. The chapters defy conventional temporal and narrative chronologies, and each one is a self-contained episode in an unfolding network of stories, spanning six decades from the 1970s to the 2020s. The novel employs various narrative formats, such as the short story, the magazine article, and the graphic slide presentation. The variety... Read A Visit from the Goon Squad Summary

Etaf Rum’s debut novel, A Woman Is No Man, was originally published in 2019. According to Rum, the novel, a work of historical fiction, relies heavily on autobiographical details. In fact, Rum’s life so closely parallels her characters’ lives that the narrative effectively blurs the line between fiction and memoir.Switching between past and present, the novel tells the intergenerational story of Isra, a Palestinian immigrant living in Brooklyn, and her daughter Deya, growing up in... Read A Woman Is No Man Summary

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Amy Chua’s memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), depicts Chua’s experience raising two American daughters according to Chinese cultural standards. Chua is a Yale law professor specializing in globalization and ethnic conflict. She is also a second-generation Chinese American, and her husband is Jewish. Chua’s strict approach is influenced by the parenting methods used by her own parents, which clash with those of her husband. Chua’s memoir was a New York Times bestseller... Read Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother Summary

Written by Fredrik Backman in 2017, Beartown is the first of a trilogy and is followed by the similarly hockey-themed novels, Us Against You (2017) and The Winners (2021). All three novels are set in the town of the same name, and Beartown focuses on the local junior hockey team, the in-game success or failure of which deeply impacts the economy of the town as a whole. As the town's intense focus on the sport... Read Beartown Summary

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Becoming is a memoir by Michelle Obama, the former First Lady of the United States from 2008-2016, originally published in 2018. In addition to describing her time in the White House, Obama details her upbringing, her education, her work in community outreach, and her relationship with former president Barack Obama, all of which contribute to the process of becoming the woman she is today. Becoming was the bestselling book of the year in 2018 and... Read Becoming Summary

A 2017 New York Times bestseller, Lisa Wingate’s Before We Were Yours is a haunting and compelling work of historical fiction told in polyvocal form with two alternating principle voices narrating a story of complex family history. From chapter to chapter, the book goes back and forth between present day South Carolina (in settings of Southern power and prestige) and Tennessee in the late 1930s and early 1940s (in settings of squalor and abuse). In... Read Before We Were Yours Summary

Beggars in Spain is a science fiction novel published in 1993 by Nancy Kress. It is a continuation of Kress’s 1991 novella of the same name. Set in a dystopian future in which genetic modification allows parents to give birth to children with pre-selected traits, the book's plot revolves around the emergence of highly intelligent, highly accomplished "Sleepless" individuals who are bred so that they do not require sleep.Plot SummaryThe novel is divided into four... Read Beggars in Spain Summary

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (2012) is a nonfiction book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Katherine Boo. The book follows residents of a Mumbai slum called Annawadi. Boo, an American investigative journalist, was inspired to write the book by frequent visits to Mumbai with her husband, who is from the area. She spent several years among Annawadi’s residents, from 2007 to 2011, and the book recounts their struggles and... Read Behind the Beautiful Forevers Summary

Ann Patchett’s 2001 novel, Bel Canto, tells the alternately life-affirming and heart-wrenching story of a disparate group of people who are taken hostage in the Vice Presidential mansion of an unnamed South American country. The group has gathered to celebrate the birthday of Mr. Hosokawa, a Japanese businessman and passionate opera lover. Mr. Hosokawa has requested that Roxanne Coss, a renowned soprano from America, sing at his party. She is captivating, but at the end... Read Bel Canto Summary

Beneath a Scarlet Sky (2017) is a coming-of-age historical fiction novel by Mark Sullivan. It follows Pino Lella, a 17-year-old Milanese boy, as he navigates the dangers of Nazi-occupied Italy during World War II. The novel is largely based on the real-life account of Pino Lella, who was an old man by the time he decided to share his story. While writing, Sullivan drew upon Pino’s memories, research from war archives, and interviews with Holocaust... Read Beneath a Scarlet Sky Summary

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Published in 2014, Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies is a work of contemporary fiction set in the Pirriwee Peninsula, located in the Northern Beaches area of Sydney, Australia. Through the perspective of multiple characters, Big Little Lies addresses subjects including bullying, lying, parenting, friendship, and domestic violence. Big Little Lies was adapted into an award-winning television drama of the same name.  Plot Summary The first chapter foreshadows a school trivia night gone awry. The details of... Read Big Little Lies Summary

Bird Box is a 2014 post-apocalyptic, dystopian horror novel by Josh Malerman. The story follows a woman’s struggle to protect two children in a world where people are driven to violence by unseen monsters, touching on such themes as paranoia, raising children to deal with an uncertain future, and the dangers of exceptionalism. Bird Box won a Michigan Notable Book Award and was also nominated for the James Herbert Award as well as the Bram... Read Bird Box Summary

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