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Book reviews & excerpts from exceptional books set mainly in the present day (2000-current).

Contemporary

Recommended books found: 1,768

Page 65 of 91

Print List

A Gate at the Stairs
by Lorrie Moore
Hardcover: Sep 2009
Paperback: Sep 2010

A novel on the anxiety and disconnection of post-9/11 America, on the insidiousness of racism, the blind-sidedness of war, and the recklessness thrust on others in the name of love.

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Eating Animals
by Jonathan Safran Foer
Hardcover: Nov 2009
Paperback: Sep 2010

Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits - from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth - and how...

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Arctic Chill: A Thriller
by Arnaldur Indridason
Hardcover: Sep 2009
Paperback: Sep 2010

The Reykjavik police are called on an icy January day to a garden where a body has been found: a young, dark-skinned boy is frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood. Erlendur and his team embark on their investigation and soon unearth tensions...

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The Chosen One
by Carol Lynch Williams
Hardcover: May 2009
Paperback: Aug 2010

Kyra has grown up in an isolated fundamentalist community never questioning that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters. But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-year-old uncle - who already has six ...

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The Possibilities of Sainthood
by Donna Freitas
Hardcover: Aug 2008
Paperback: Aug 2010

Antonia Lucia Labella has two secrets: at fifteen, she’s still waiting for her first kiss, and she wants to be a saint. An official one. Unfortunately, the two events Antonia’s prayed for seem equally unlikely to happen...

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Wife of the Gods: A Novel
by Kwei Quartey
Hardcover: Jul 2009
Paperback: Aug 2010

Lyrical and captivating, Kwei Quartey’s debut novel brings to life the majesty and charm of Ghana–from the capital city of Accra to a small community where long-buried secrets are about to rise to the surface.

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
by William Kamkwamba
Hardcover: Oct 2009
Paperback: Aug 2010

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is the immensely engaging and inspiring true account of an enterprising African teenager who constructed a windmill from scraps to create electricity for his entire community.

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The Lassa Ward: One Man’s Fight Against One of the World’s Deadliest Diseases
by Dr. Ross Donaldson MD, MPH
Hardcover: May 2009
Paperback: Jul 2010

Ross Donaldson is one of just a few who have ventured into dark territory of a country ravaged by war to study one of the world's most deadly diseases.More than just an adventure story, it is a portrait of the Sierra Leone people and the struggle of ...

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This Is Where I Leave You
by Jonathan Tropper
Hardcover: Aug 2009
Paperback: Jul 2010

A riotously funny, emotionally raw novel about love, marriage, divorce, family, and the ties that bind—whether we like it or not.

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Zeitoun
by Dave Eggers
Hardcover: Jul 2009
Paperback: Jun 2010

The true story of one family, caught between America’s two biggest policy disasters: the war on terror and the response to Hurricane Katrina.

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Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
by Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn
Hardcover: Sep 2009
Paperback: Jun 2010

From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era's most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world.

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The Lord of Death
by Eliot Pattison
Hardcover: Jun 2009
Paperback: Jun 2010

A government bus filled with imprisoned illegal monks has overturned. Two women in an approaching sedan have been killed. Now Shan, an exiled Chinese national and a former Beijing investigator, must find the murderer.

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Censoring an Iranian Love Story
by Shahriar Mandanipour
Hardcover: May 2009
Paperback: Jun 2010

From one of Iran’s most acclaimed and controversial contemporary writers, his first novel to appear in English—a dazzlingly inventive work of fiction that opens a revelatory window onto what it’s like to live, to love, and to be an ...

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The Magicians: A Novel
by Lev Grossman
Hardcover: Aug 2009
Paperback: May 2010

A thrilling and original coming-of-age novel for adults about a young man practicing magic in the real world.

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The Bellini Madonna: A Novel
by Elizabeth Lowry
Hardcover: Apr 2009
Paperback: May 2010

Thomas Lynch was once a brilliant young art historian. Now he is a disgraced, middle-aged art historian, overly fond of the bottle and of his fresh young students. But everything will change now that he’s on the trail of a lost masterpiece.

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In the Kitchen: A Novel
by Monica Ali
Hardcover: Jun 2009
Paperback: May 2010

Amid the fading glory of the Imperial Hotel, embattled Executive Chef Gabriel Lightfoot tries to maintain his culinary integrity in the hotel's restaurant, while managing an unruly but talented group of immigrant cooks.

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Halfway to Heaven: My White-knuckled - and Knuckleheaded - Quest for the Rocky Mountain High
by Mark Obmascik
Hardcover: May 2009
Paperback: May 2010

When Mark Obmascik's twelve-year-old son gets bitten by the climbing bug, he can't resist the opportunity for some father-son bonding. But after their first joint climb, Obmascik decides to scale all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot mountains - and to ...

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Carpentaria: A Novel
by Alexis Wright
Hardcover: Apr 2009
Paperback: Apr 2010

Hailed as a "literary sensation" by The New York Times Book Review, Carpentaria is the luminous award-winning novel by Australian Aboriginal writer and activist Alexis Wright.

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If I Stay
by Gayle Forman
Hardcover: Apr 2009
Paperback: Apr 2010

In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken ...

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Water, Stone, Heart: A Novel
by Will North
Hardcover: Apr 2009
Paperback: Apr 2010

Andrew Stratton lives in his head and not with his heart. He is capable of deep, tender emotions but is unable to express them. When his wife leaves him for another man and excoriates his cautious nature in the process, Andrew is like a house shaken...

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The reviewer of each book decides which categories it belongs in - but we're only human, mistakes happen. If you see a book that you think is in the wrong place, tell us!

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