Title: Recommended American Lit
1Recommended American Lit
2Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
- Cut off from the hospital and rescue squad by an
ice storm, midwife Sibyl Danforth makes the
decision to perform a cesarean section on a
patient she believes has died of a stroke during
labor, but when her assistant tells police the
mother was alive during the surgery, Sibyl and
the entire community are drawn into a gripping
trial.
3Getting Inby James Boylan
- Desperately trying to hide their low SAT scores,
underdeveloped vocabularies, and shocking dearth
of extracurricular activities, four high school
seniors and their three chaperones take to the
road in a Winnebago to attend interviews at nine
prestigious New England colleges.
4Crazy in Alabamaby Mark Childress
- P.J. recalls the summer of 65, when his small
Alabama town was filled with racial strife over
the building of a new swimming pool.
5Shampoo Planetby Douglas Coupland
- In this story of two worlds colliding, those of
1960s parents and their 1990s offspring, Tyler
Johnson, raised in a hippie commune, is an
ambitious twenty-year-old Reagan youth, living in
a decaying northwest city and aspiring to a
career with the corporation whose offices his
mother once firebombed.
6Dangerous Lives of Altar Boysby Chris Fuhrman
- In the early 1970s, five boys get into a series
of humorous adventures while attending a Catholic
school.
7Roanokeby Sonia Levitin
- A fictionalized account of the disappearance of
a group of early American settlers who moved to
Roanoke Island and were never seen or heard from
again.
8Postcards To Father Abrahamby Catherine Lewis
- Meghan deals with a series of tragedies in her
life in the course of only two years her mother
is killed in an accident, her brother is sent to
Vietnam and returns a much different person, she
is kicked out of school, and she gets cancer in
her leg and must have it amputated. Despite these
difficulties, Meghan maintains a sense of humor
and is able to bounce back from her hardships by
writing letters to her idol, Abraham Lincoln, and
by maintaining friendships with her nurses.
9Bad Haircut Stories of the Seventiesby Tom
Perrotta
- A series of short stories follow Buddy through
his growing up years, as he struggles to deal
with family, sex, and race relations in a variety
of funny situations.
10Slave Dayby Rob Thomas
- Eight individuals are affected very differently
during the course of a single day at an Austin,
Texas high school where students are sold as
slaves to one another for a fund raiser.
11If You Come Softlyby Jacqueline Woodson
- Two teensa Jewish girl and a black boytry to
maintain secrecy about their relationship to
avoid criticism from the families and classmates.
12The Brothers Kby David James Duncan
- Story of the Chance family living in the Pacific
Northwest in the early '60s embattled over the
ideals represented by baseball and religion. The
family is thrown into turmoil by the Vietnam War
and when their father's baseball career is
disrupted by a mill accident.
13A Prayer for Owen Meanyby John Irving
- Tells the story of Owen Meany who believes he is
God's instrument and his friendship with John
Wheelwright beginning at age eleven when Owen
hits a foul ball that kills John's mother during
a Little League game in 1953.
14The Bean Treesby Barbara Kingsolver
- Taylor, a poor Kentuckian, makes her way west
with an abandoned baby girl and stops in Tucson.
There she finds friends and discovers resources
in apparently empty places.
15Icy Sparks by Gwyn Rubio
- Icy Sparks struggles to come-of-age in Kentucky
while dealing with her Tourette's Syndrome. She
meets an elderly woman, also an outcast in their
small community, and the two form a bond that
helps them transcend the mistreatment they
receive at the hands of others in town.
16A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher
- Trader James MacLaren sets out to find his Nez
Perce wife who has deserted him and encounters
Lucy Mitchell and her family who convince
MacLaren to lead them through the western
wilderness.
17Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson
- Based on the true life story of the author's
great-grandmother, the novel follows Hattie
Brooks, age 16, as she travels alone to Eastern
Montana to prove up a land claim left to her by
her late uncle. Through the course of a year, she
plows and seeds over 400 acres, builds a 480-post
fence, raises chickens, learns to cook, sew,
clean, and manage money, deals with prejudice
towards her best friends, who are German
immigrants, and accomplishes an entirely
different set of achievements than most 16 year
olds today face. It doesn't necessarily make her
better or more admirable, but it definitely makes
her different.
18The Memory of Runningby Ron McLarty
- Smithy Ide is 43, overweight, addicted to
alcohol and cigarettes, and spends his days
working at a toy factory where hes responsible
for making sure the arms on a soldier doll are
attached correctly. Hes unhappy with his life,
but seems powerless to change it until a series
of tragedies occur that lead to his
transformation. - Smithys parents are injured in a car crash and
then die within days of each other, and soon
afterward, he learns that his older sister,
Bethany, has turned up dead in an L.A. morgue. In
an impulse decision, Smithy picks up his old
bicycle and begins pedaling across the country to
identify and claim Bethanys body. - As he travels across the country, Smithys
encounters with a series of people who need his
help, as well as his examination of the past and
a resurrected relationship with an old neighbor
cause him to reconsider himself and regain a self
of worth and purpose.
19Lost and Foundby Carolyn Parkhurst
- In LOST AND FOUND, pairs compete in a worldwide
scavenger hunt and tell their stories in first
person. - We follow a mother-daughter team as they
struggle with the race and their own divisive
secret a married couple whose relationship may
be an elaborate masquerade two former television
actors trying to make a comeback, and a bunch of
others with equally compelling backstories. As
the novel progresses, were led into each pairs
past and watch as the competition forces them to
confront what theyve left behind, and
additionally, their own definitions of reality. - As intriguing as the characters stories are,
equally compelling is what Parkhurst reveals
about reality televisionprimarily how much of it
is planned, scripted, and carefully edited to
create images and stories that will hook viewers,
even at the expense of the truth. If youre a fan
of Survivor, Big Brother, The Amazing Race, or
any of the other shows that purport to show what
happens to real people in extraordinary, unusual
circumstances, youll enjoy LOST AND FOUND.
20The Miracle Life of Edgar Mintby Brady Udall
- Edgar Mints miracle life begins when, after
being run over by a postal truck, he not only
survives, but is relatively unharmed. His only
apparent disability is his inability to write
with is hands, but a typewriter is provided for
him, and he begins his to type the story of his
misfortunes and adventures. - After emerging from a coma, Edgar is abandoned
by his mother and grandmother, and lives for
awhile at St. Divines hospital in Arizona, In
the hospital, Edgar is befriended by an older
man, Art Crozier, who has lost his wife and two
daughters in a horrific auto accident and is need
of someone to care for. It is also at St.
Divines that Edgar encounters Barry Pinkley, a
strange and somewhat sinister man who seems to
want something from Edgar and lurks at the
sidelines of his life, appearing occasionally to
interfere. - Edgar is later taken in by a distant relative
who is the caretaker at Willie Sherman, a
boarding school for Indian Children, and he
endures years of bullying and persecution before
finally escaping into a dysfunctional Mormon
family, who adopts him and with whom he lives
until their ultimate collapse. It is while he
lives with the Mormons that Edgar begins to
investigate his history. Edgar knows that the
mailman who ran over him has lived for years
believing that he killed Edgar, and he is
determined to relieve the man of that burden.
With the help of his friend Art Crozier, Edgar
sets off to find the mailman and fulfill his own
destiny.
21American Fujiby Sara Backer
- Gaby, a young American woman living and working
in Japan, finds herself selling "fantasy
funerals" to wealthy Japanese families when she
is fired from her university job. Her life is
further complicated by mystery when she is called
up to aid Alex, an American man who has come to
Japan to investigate the mysterious circumstances
surrounding his only son's death. Reluctant to
assist at first, Gaby soon becomes embroiled in
Alex's quest to discover what really happen to
his son and together, the two of them face the
sometimes impenetrable Japanese culture and
discover a shocking truth about the fate that can
endanger foreigners.
22House of Sand and Fogby Andre Dubus, III
- An unlikely premise makes for one of the finest,
most literary stories of suspense I have read. A
young woman is mistakenly evicted from her home
and her house is sold to an Iranian immigrant in
an auction before she can prevent it. With the
help of a renegade sheriff's deputy, she launches
a battle to win back her home. But the new owner
also feels he has every right--legal and
moral--to own the house. A page-turner that ends
surprisingly. This book has caused more
discussion among my friends than any other I have
read recently. Find out why!
23The Secret Life of Beesby Sue Monk Kidd
- Lily has always felt responsible for her
mother's death, but when an explosive argument
with her abusive father indicates that she may,
in fact, hhave killed, she decides to run away.
She takes with her the family's black
housekeeper, Rosaleen, who has just had a
confrontation with three racists in town after
attempting to register to vote, and is being held
in the town jail. The two escape to Tiburon,
South Carolina, after Lily finds what she
considers to be a clue from her dead mother. In
Tiburon, they find three African-American sisters
living together and raising bees for honey. The
women take Lily and Rosaleen in, and Lily soons
learns much about beekeepping, friendship, and
herself as she grows closer to the sister and is
eventually able to confront the truth about
herself and her mother and the past.
24A Theory of Relativityby Jacquelyn Mitchard
- When Gordon McKennas sister, Georgia, and her
husband, Ray, die in a car crash, he is certain
he will be able to take on the responsibility of
raising her one year old daughter, Keefer, as he
and his parents believe Georgia would have
wished. The in-laws, howeverwealthy
southernershave other plans, however, and a
legal battle for the right to raise the girl
ensues. -
- The in-lawsRays parentsshow no mercy in their
quest to raise their sons daughter as their own.
They know that Gordon was adopted, and therefore
not technically a blood relative of Georgia and
Keefers, and they use this information in their
custody battle, citing language in the law that
refers to blood relations. -
- Readers who enjoy legal thrillers and family
dramas will be pleased by this taut, emotional
combination of the two genres.
25The Man Who Ate the 747by Ben Sherwood
- J.J. Smith, a records-confirmer for the Book of
Records, travels to Superior, Nebraska, where a
man has reportedly been eating a 747 to prove his
love for a woman. Wally Chubb has a specially
constructed grinder that allows him to demolish
small pieces of the airplane and consume them
with his food.hopefully to catch the attention
and win the love of Willa Wyatt, whom he has
loved since they were both children. -
- J.J. persuades Wally to go public with his
pursuit and hopefully win a spot in the Book of
Records, but the ensuing publicity has some
disastrous results, and J.J., who has long been
interested only in records and numbers,
unexpectedly finds love visiting this small
community. A funny, light read about small town
America and the power of love.
26The Reappearance of Sam Webberby Jonathan Scott
Fuqua
- In THE REAPPEARANCE OF SAM WEBBER by Jonathan
Scott Fuqua, eleven-year-old Sam Webber and his
mother move to a poorer section of Baltimore
after being abandoned by Sam's father. The two
struggle to make enough money to live, and Sam
grieves his father. At school, he is bullied by
larger kids and unhappy until he is befriended by
the elderly black custodian, Greely, who protects
and cares for Sam to make up for his own mistakes
with his children decades earlier. Other adults
buoy Sam--his mother, her friends Junie and
Ditch, his mother's boyfriend, Howard, and the
waitress, Rose, who has known Sam for years. All
of them help Sam see his own strengths and help
his grow and experience happiness despite the
absence of his father in this well-written,
entertaining story.