TransAtlantic, Colum McCann Three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history. Beginning with Irish housemaid Lily Duggan, who crosses paths with Frederick Douglass, the novel follows her daughter and granddaughter, Emily and Lottie, and culminates in the present-day story of Hannah Carson, in whom all the hopes and failures of previous generations live on. From the loughs of Ireland to the flatlands of Missouri and the windswept coast of Newfoundland, their journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. They each learn that even the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory.
Tinkers, Paul Harding (2010 Pulitzer Prize) An old man lies dying. As time collapses into memory, he travels deep into his past where he is reunited with his father and relives the wonder and pain of his impoverished New England youth. At once heartbreaking and life affirming, Tinkers is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the fierce beauty of nature. (Recommended by Sarah Macdonald)
Middlesex, Jeffery Eugenides The Pulitzer Prize-winning story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American family who travel from a tiny village. Calliope is not like other girls and must 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. (Recommended by Sarah Macdonald, synopsis from Powells.com)
The English Teacher, Lily King When Vida Belou suddenly marries a kindly widower and moves in to become stepmother to his three children, the prescribed life she had constructed for herself and son collapses. As her known world vanishes, her son takes control and moves them both to a place where they can begin again. (Recommended by Sarah Macdonald, synopsis from Powells.com)
Breath, Eyes and Memory, Edwidge Danticat At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti--to the women who first reared her. (Recommended by Lorry)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer Recommended by Seth: "This book brings a combination of honest storytelling, impactful writing and clever pictures to tell the story of one boy's attempt to connect one more time to his father who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. It is both sad and uplifting without the burden of being political. A must read for anyone who is interested in finding new styles of writing and storytelling."
Brother, I'm Dying, Edwidge Danticat When the author was only four years old, her parents emigrated from Haiti to New York in search of a better life, leaving their daughter in the care of her uncle Joseph. A peaceful pastor in Port-au-Prince, Joseph raised Edwidge with the love and devotion of a father, despite facing many hardships in politically turbulent Haiti. It wasn't until she was 12 years old that Edwidge was finally reunited with her parents and forced to confront the inevitably complex emotions.
Freedom, Jonathan Franzen From the National Book Award-winning author of The Corrections comes a darkly comedic novel about family. Franzen's intensely realized characters struggle to learn how to live in an ever-confusing world — one with the temptations and burdens of liberty, the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, and the heavy weight of empire. (Recommended by Sarah Macdonald, review from Powells.com)
The Good Thief, Hannah Tinti. Growing up in a New England orphanage unaware of his family and of how he had lost his left hand as an infant, twelve-year-old Ren is terrified of the future, until a young man shows up claiming to be his long-lost brother, with whom he embarks on an adventure-filled odyssey of scam artists, petty criminals, and resurrection men.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel, David Wroblewski A tale reminiscent of "Hamlet" that also celebrates the alliance between humans and dogs follows speech-disabled Wisconsin youth Edgar, who bonds with three yearling canines and struggles to prove that his sinister uncle is responsible for his father's death.
Red at the Bone, Jacqueline Woodson "An unexpected teenage pregnancy pulls together two families from different social classes, and exposes the private hopes, disappointments, and longings that can bind or divide us from each other," (Overdrive) (Recommended by Emily and Cassie)