Friendship/Love/Family Relationships
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Set among the first families and old order of New York, this is the story of Newland Archer, a young man who
falls impossibly in love with the cousin of his fiancée. This sumptuous novel shows wealth and illicit passion,
cultural rigidity and the advent of modern open-mindedness. It is a welcome window into the world of old New
York.
Anna Karenina--Tolstoy
Although married to a powerful government official, the beautiful Anna falls in love with another man. In a
shocking transgression of the code of nineteenth-century Russian society, Anna leaves her husband and son to
live with her lover.
Atonement by Ian McEwan Ex Libris Selection
A novel of great scope, Atonement takes in the intrigue of a jealous little sister, a tragic love affair, the human
costs of World War II, and the power of forgiveness.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
Ex Libris selection
A “little gem of a book” set in China during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, this is the story of
two teenage boys who are sent to live in a peasant village for “re-education.” They discover a hidden stash of
Western literary classics in Chinese translation and use the stories of Balzac to capture the attention of the
beautiful daughter of the local tailor.
Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen
Ex Libris selection
A woman and her young son, victims of domestic violence, are forced to flee their home and assume new
identities while always fearing that their abusive husband /father may find them.
The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
Ex Libris selection
A new novel by Tan about mothers and daughters and family secrets, this one poignantly touches on the
mother’s developing Alzheimer’s and the daughter’s attempts to deal with that and with her own personal life.
As a critic says, it is “a book to read, to cherish, to remember.”
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
This book is an autobiographical account of the life of a fictional female contemporary artist. Through funny
and sometimes poignant childhood memories and flashbacks to moments in the main character’s middle and
early adulthood, the reader learns what it might take to become an artistic force.
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
This chilling tale involves a corrupt teacher, an insidious underground society, and one teenage boy who
attempts to stand up to them.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
In a series of letters to God and her sister Nettie, Celie reveals why she is a survivor. A contemporary classic,
this novel focuses on the tensions between men and women as well as blacks and whites.
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
This is the story of twin boys who come of age as their native Ethiopia is embroiled in political upheaval.
When passion for the same woman pulls them apart, one travels to America, where he finds work as a medical
intern in a woefully inadequate New York City hospital. Readers will be absorbed in the plot twists that lead
the protagonist to confront his past: his estranged brother and the father who had abandoned his family years
before.
A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
Little does Torvald know that his seemingly naïve and capricious little wife has been harboring a dark secret
since the early days of their marriage. Considered controversial in its day, this drama reveals much about
gender roles and social inequities in the late nineteenth century.
Emma by Jane Austen
A young woman of wealth and social status, Emma can be admired for her wit, generosity, and compassion.
However, her propensity for playing matchmaker creates a series of sometimes serious, sometimes comic
complications.
The English Teacher by R. K. Narayan
Written by an Indian author who is widely read at our new sister school in Hyderabad, this is a story of a
teacher who has a change of heart about the meaning of teaching after he suffers a personal tragedy.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
This follow-up to Foer's extremely good and incredibly successful Everything Is Illuminated (2002) stars one
Oskar Schell, a nine-year-old amateur inventor and Shakespearean actor. But Oskar's boots, as he likes to say,
are very heavy--his father, whom he worshiped, perished in the World Trade Center on 9/11. In his dad's closet
a year later, Oskar finds a key in mysteriously labeled "Black." So he goes searching after the lock it opens,
visiting (alphabetically) everyone listed in the phone book with the surname Black.
The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter
This first novel by a Yale law professor has been described as “a first-rate legal thriller” and a “stunning” work
of literature. It is dense with subplots that provide an inside view of Washington politics and the privileged
upper-crust of Northeast African-American society.
Eagle Blue by Michael D’Orso
This is the story of a small-town Alaskan basketball team which gained distinction for winning six regional
championships in a row. View a winning season and championship tournament from the perspective of the
players, their families, and their coach as they follow their dreams across the frozen tundra in the near-total
darkness of an Alaskan winter.
Girl with the Pearl Earring
by Tracy Chevalier
Ex Libris selection
History and fiction merge in this novel about artistic vision and coming-of-age. The heroine is sixteen-year-old
Griet, whose life is transformed by her brief encounter with genius artist Johannes Vermeer—even as she is
immortalized on canvas.
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Told from the perspective of a lonely man who just wants to be remembered and a teenage girl, this is a story
about misunderstanding, love, broken friendships, and a manuscript that survives the Holocaust. See how
Krauss weaves together the stories of these two very different lives.
The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
When Olivia, nearly six, becomes the ward of Kwan, her adult half-sister from China, Kwan whispers secrets
about ghosts. Olivia only pretends to believe Kwan’s stories. Thirty years pass, and Olivia is about to divorce
her husband, Simon, after a lengthy marriage. She is certain he has never given up his love for a former
girlfriend who died years before. Kwan and her ghosts believe otherwise, and they provide ceaseless advice
and pleas to reconsider. In the Chinese village where Kwan grew up, Olivia confronts the tangible evidence of
what she has always presumed to be her sister’s ghostly fantasies: that only through your hundred secret senses
can you know that love endures.
Ironweed by William Kennedy
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, William Kennedy presents somewhat unsavory characters--street people--in
a compassionate, even edifying fashion. Although the setting is 1938 Albany, New York, these characters
could be the homeless of Dallas. While Francis, an ex-ballplayer, and Helen, a once-promising singer, at times
raise themselves above their mean environment, one cannot readily view them in heroic terms. Perhaps our
empathy and awe are over their survival--their ironweed toughness--rather than their losses and gains.
Island beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende
Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarite is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the
white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tete finds solace in the
traditional rhythms of African drums and in the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves. When twenty-yearold Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it's with powdered wigs in his baggage and dreams of financial
success in his mind. But running his father's plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. It will be eight years
before he brings home a bride—but marriage, too, proves more difficult than he imagined. And Valmorain remains
dependent on the services of his teenaged slave. Spanning four decades, Island beneath the Sea is the moving story of the
intertwined lives of Tete and Valmorain and of one woman's determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity
though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruelest of circumstances. (Publisher’s synopsis)
The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
This best seller by the author of The Joy Luck Club is told in first person by Tan’s mother. It is the story of her
life in China during World War II and of her difficulties in settling in the U.S. She incorporates Chinese
history, customs, morals, and beliefs that give the book authenticity and credibility.
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Set in Manchester County, Virginia, twenty years before the Civil War began, Edward P. Jones's debut novel is
a masterpiece of overlapping plot lines, time shifts, and heartbreaking details of life under slavery.
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
(Ex Libris Selection)
A novel of sweeping scope, The Lacuna is the coming-of-age story of Harrison Shepherd, a young man whose
family circumstances take him from an unloving home near Washington, DC, to the coastal jungle of Mexico to
Mexico City, where he eventually obtains a job as plaster mixer for the famed painter Diego Rivera. Lovers of
historical fiction will appreciate the ways that Kingsolver weaves Harrison’s own story as a budding--and then
wildly popular--novelist with the stories of historical figures (most notably, Rivera, his wife Frida Kahlo, and
Russian leader Leon Trotsky) and important historical events of the early twentieth century.
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Set in the late nineteenth century, Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. The
drive represents for everybody involved not only a daring, even foolhardy adventure, but part of the American
Dream -- the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life. A love story, an adventure, an
American epic, the book embraces the entire West--legend and fact, heroes and outlaws, prostitutes and ladies,
Indians and settlers.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Set in an unnamed Caribbean seaport, this is a remarkable story of the different kinds of love that we experience
at different ages and in different kinds of relationships. While the many subplots and Marquez’s fantastical style
may provide a challenge for some readers, the journey is well worth the effort.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
A beautiful and restless young woman rebels against the confines of a tiresome marriage by engaging in a series
of passionate affairs with other men. Deemed scandalous in its day, the novel explores the harsh consequences
of self-delusion, misplaced ideals, and betrayal.
The Map of Love by Ahdaf Souief
A massive family saga, this story draws its readers into two moments in the complex, troubled history of
modern Egypt. It is a subtle and reflective tale of love that suggests that relations between individuals CAN
make a difference.
Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)
Idealistic and intellectual, Dorothea Brooke nevertheless finds herself in a disastrous marriage to a man she had
mistaken as her soul mate. The idealistic Tertius Lydgate makes an equally ill-suited match with the haughty
Rosamund. Regarded as one of the masterpieces of British literature, the novel provides the modern reader with
an insider’s view of nineteenth-century marriage and social conventions.
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
On a beautiful tropical island shattered by war, an eccentric white teacher draws native students into the world
of Charles Dickens’s Pip, the young protagonist of Great Expectations. Intrigued by Pip’s mysterious
encounters with quirky characters, his hopeless infatuation with a beautiful but haughty young woman, and his
rise from rags to riches, the teacher’s most precocious student soon finds Pip’s life a way to cope with the
tragedies of her own life.
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri explores the struggle to bridge the chasms between cultures and generations in this story of a family who
leave their tradition-laden life in Calcutta to embark on a new life in America.
On Agate Hill by Lee Smith
In 1872, thirteen-year-old Molly Petree deals with a post-war world gone awry by keeping a diary, which is
discovered during a historic renovation in 2003. The novel is a story of love, betrayal, motherhood, and a
murder trial seen through the eyes of a young self-described “spitfire.”
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
In 1957 with the publication of On the Road, Jack Kerouac became a celebrity and a spokesman for the “Beat
Generation,” youth who were dissatisfied with the middle-class values and conformity of the 1950s. Looking
for extraordinary experiences, the narrator of this picaresque novel sets out to hitchhike across the country.
Kerouac parallels romantic aspirations -- his American dream -- to the realism of the road.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
It is rare that a novel emerges and is instantly given the status of myth. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the
story of the Buenida family, but the novel is more than a family chronicle. There is an element of mystical
timelessness and the beauty of the land that belongs to its setting in Colombia. The New York Times said of this
work, “You emerge from this marvelous novel as if from a dream, the mind on fire. . . .”
The Opposite of Fate by Amy Tan
This collection of memories and reflections shows a surprisingly funny, sometimes outrageous Amy Tan as she
shares anecdotes about her Chinese relatives, her role as a rock singer for the Rock Bottom Remainders, and her
take on the Cliff Notes of her novels.
Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
This memoir, first published in 1937, examines the author’s life on a coffee plantation in Kenya during the last
years of the British empire. The work is noted for its melancholic and elegiac style.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
This story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his
family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. It is a beautifully written story of one family’s tragic
undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. In a compelling
exploration of religion, conscience, imperialist arrogance, and the many paths to redemption, Barbara
Kingsolver has written her most remarkable book yet.
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Owen Meany is distinctly different from everyone else in the world. The first noteworthy thing he does in his
life is to kill his best friend’s mother by hitting her with a fly ball during a baseball game. The two boys are
bound forever. Owen, undersized and possessing an enormous, strange voice, is the reason why his best friend
believes in God. This is one of John Irving’s strangest and most powerful works.
The Rug Merchant by Meg Mullins
When a lonely rug merchant in New York finds out that his wife back in Iran is leaving him, he despairs.
However when a young woman named Stella enters his store, he finds an unexpected source of love and
understanding.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
This is the story of a young boy grieving for his dead mother and his father, a book seller who introduces him to
the book cemetery.
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Ex Libris selection
Written by the 1994 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 1983 National Book Award for Fiction, The
Shipping News is set in Newfoundland, where Mrs. Proulx lives. It is the story of a newspaperman, age 36, who
has to take over the raising of his two daughters when their mother meets a violent end. He takes a job writing
the shipping news for a local newspaper, and his job and his life grow as he confronts the forces of nature and
society. This book has elements of tragedy, comedy, and magic that will captivate the reader.
The Space between Us by Thrity Umrigar
Sera, an upper-class Parsi woman, takes her faithful servant Bhima very much for granted. While Sera has
generously agreed to fund a college education for Bhima’s granddaughter, she nevertheless relegates Bhima to
second-class status, barring her from even using Sera’s drinking glasses. When the granddaughter’s pregnancy
shatters Bhima’s dreams for a promising future, the two older women begin to view their own relationship in a
whole new light.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Ann Fadiman
When a little Laotian-American girl is diagnosed with epilepsy, her parents, believing that spirits are at work,
refuse conventional medical treatment. With great sensitivity and respect for both the American and Hmong
cultures, Fadiman explores the human costs of culture clash.
Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr
Two Americans, the only foreigners in Ibarra, Mexico, live among people who both respect and misunderstand
them. Gradually, the villagers--at first enigmas to the Evertons--come to teach them much about life and the
relentless tide of fate.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Streetcar, for which Williams won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947, was one of the most admired plays of its time and
continues as a masterpiece of modern American theater. This harsh story of neurosis, love, and abuse is
appropriately set in the heat of New Orleans.
A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
Peter Taylor’s title accurately describes its straightforward plot: spinster sisters summon their middle-aged
brother home in order to save the family pride and fortune. As Taylor explores the dynamics of this rather
ordinary family, the son (and the reader) gradually obtain understanding about why families evolve as they do.
This Boy’s Life: A Memoir by Tobias Wolff
Wolff’s memoir focuses on a boy’s rocky maturation with a peripatetic mother and an estranged father during
the 1950s. His mother's remarriage ends their wandering, but Toby's fresh start becomes a fight for identity and
self -respect against the unrelenting dominance of his stepfather. How Toby overcomes bad decisions and bad
luck makes for engaging reading.
Waiting by Ha Jin
This is the story of Lin Kong, an officer and doctor living in China during the mid-1960s. The young Kong had
followed the wishes of his parents, dutifully entering into an arranged marriage and having a daughter. When
circumstances dictated by the Communist party require him to live apart from his family for long periods of
time, Kong falls in love with a nursing student in the hospital where he works. After waiting eighteen years to
obtain a divorce from his wife, Kong finds the love of his life within reach. Will the reality of his beloved
match the dream of waiting?
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
George and Martha, a middle-age couple, drink and quarrel one evening in the company of a younger couple.
This play, published and produced in 1962, focuses on a long, painful night of games and confrontations from
which the secrets of all four characters surface.