Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
A Novel
by Helen Garner
If you liked The Spare Room, try these:
by Ann Packer
Published Sep 2026
Read ReviewsThe bestselling, beloved author returns with her first novel in over a decade, an intimate and profoundly moving look at a long marriage and the ways in which a startling request can change a couple's understanding of who they are, together and apart.
by Catherine Newman
Published Nov 2023
Read ReviewsFor lovers of Meg Wolitzer, Maria Semple, and Jenny Offill comes this raucous, poignant celebration of life, love, and friendship at its imperfect and radiant best.
by Lloyd Jones
Published Mar 2016
Read ReviewsPaint Your Wife is a colorful, sensual novel, brimming with rich stories and even richer characters.
by Julie Kibler
Published Jan 2014
Read ReviewsCalling Me Home by Julie Kibler is a soaring debut interweaving the story of a heartbreaking, forbidden love in 1930s Kentucky with an unlikely modern-day friendship.
by Emily Chenoweth
Published Jun 2011
Read ReviewsIn a single week, a family leaves behind its past and a daughter awakens to the future in Emily Chenoweths intimate and beautifully crafted debut novel.
by David Shields, Bradford Morrow
Published Feb 2011
Read ReviewsWhat is death and how does it touch upon life? Twenty writers look for answers.
by Jenny Downham
Published May 2009
Read ReviewsThe story of Tessa, a young teenage girl who has only months to live ... a brilliantly crafted novel, heartbreaking yet life-affirming.
by Sarah Hannah
Published Oct 2007
Read ReviewsSarah Hannah follows her critically acclaimed first volume of poetry, Longing Distance, with Inflorescence, a compelling memoir-in-verse for her mother, Boston Expressionist painter Renee Rothbein, and their intense relationship in which they struggle with Rothbeins mental illness and eventual death from cancer.
by Joan Didion
Published Feb 2007
Read Reviews'An act of consummate literary bravery, a writer known for her clarity allowing us to watch her mind as it becomes clouded with grief.'
by Lolly Winston
Published Apr 2005
Read ReviewsFilled with laugh-out-loud humor, struggles, triumphs, and plenty of midnight trips to the fridge, Good Grief is a funny, wise, and heartbreakingly poignant novel from one of fiction's freshest and most exciting new voices.
by Jodi Picoult
Published Feb 2005
Read ReviewsThe emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness.
by Barbara Delinsky
Published May 2003
Read ReviewsPractical, warm, funny, reassuring, supportive, personal... the contributors reveal how they faced the fear of breast cancer and came through their ordeal ready to get on with life and love, career and family -- and how you can too.
by Nancy H. Dahm
Published Jan 2001
Read ReviewsIf you or someone you love has cancer, this book is for you. It is a thought provoking, inspirational, and powerful paradigm on how to live with the many challenges confronted by cancer patients and their families.
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.