Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
10 best books like Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (Helen Simonson): The Handmaid's Tale, The Underground Railroad, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, State of Wonder, Beartown, The Commoner, Caleb's Crossing, The Postmistress, The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant,...
| Author | Colson Whitehead |
| ISBN | 0385542364 |
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad,...
| Author | J.K. Rowling |
| ISBN | 0545010225 |
Harry Potter is leaving Privet Drive for the last time. But as he climbs into the sidecar of Hagrid’s motorbike and they take to the skies, he knows Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters will not be far behind.
The protective charm that has kept him safe until now is broken. But the Dark Lord is breathing...
| Author | Maria Semple |
| ISBN | 0316204277 |
Bernadette Fox has vanished.
When her daughter Bee claims a family trip to Antarctica as a reward for perfect grades, Bernadette, a fiercely intelligent shut-in, throws herself into preparations for the trip. But worn down by years of trying to live the Seattle life she never wanted, Ms. Fox...
| Author | Ann Patchett |
| ISBN | 0062049801 |
As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle. Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working...
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove returns with a dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the...
| Author | John Burnham Schwartz |
| ISBN | 0385515715 |
It is 1959 when Haruko, a young woman of good family, marries the Crown Prince of Japan, the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne. She is the first non-aristocratic woman to enter the longest-running, almost hermetically sealed, and mysterious monarchy in the world. Met with cruelty and suspicion by the...
| Author | Geraldine Brooks |
| ISBN | 0670021040 |
A richly imagined new novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller, People of the Book.
Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha's Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard...
| Author | Sarah Blake |
| ISBN | 0143145444 |
There are tons of great stories set during WWII. This is not one of them. It's not even much of a story, it just sort of meanders and then peters out. The main characters aren't much more than plot devices or symbols; in fact, the only people worth caring about are the mostly nameless refugees fleeing the...
| Author | Julia Stuart |
| ISBN | 0385533284 |
Brimming with charm and whimsy, this exquisite novel set in the Tower of London has the transportive qualities and delightful magic of the contemporary classics Chocolat and Amélie.
Balthazar Jones has lived in the Tower of London with his loving wife, Hebe, and his 120-year-old pet tortoise...
| Author | Farahad Zama |
| ISBN | 0399155589 |
Alexander McCall Smith meets Jane Austen in this delightfully charming Indian novel about finding love.
What does an Indian man with a wealth of common sense do when his retirement becomes too monotonous for him to stand? Open a marriage bureau of course!
With a steady stream of clients...
| Author | Debra Dean |
| ISBN | 0060825316 |
Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. And while the elderly Russian woman cannot hold on to fresh memories—the details of her grown children's lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchild—her distant past is preserved: vivid images that rise unbidden of...
| Author | Nicholas Drayson |
| ISBN | 0547152582 |
For the past three years, Mr. Malik has been secretly in love with Rose Mbikwa, a woman who leads the weekly bird walks sponsored by the East African Ornithological Society. Just as Malik is getting up the nerve to invite Rose to the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball (the premier social occasion of the Kenyan calendar),...
| Author | Ivan Doig |
| ISBN | 0151012377 |
"Can't cook but doesn't bite." So begins the newspaper ad offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition" that draws the hungry attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. And so begins the unforgettable season that deposits the noncooking, nonbiting,...
In a historic farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling is settling happily into retirement: reading novels, watching old movies, and swimming naked in his pond. His routines are disrupted, however, when he is persuaded to let a locally beloved preschool take over his barn. As Percy...
| Author | Natasha Solomons |
| ISBN | 0316077585 |
At the outset of World War II, Jack Rosenblum, his wife Sadie, and their baby daughter escape Berlin, bound for London. They are greeted with a pamphlet instructing immigrants how to act like "the English." Jack acquires Saville Row suits and a Jaguar. He buys his marmalade from Fortnum & Mason and...
| Author | Elizabeth Speller |
| ISBN | 0547511698 |
London, 1920. In the aftermath of the Great War and a devastating family tragedy, Laurence Bartram has turned his back on the world. But with a well-timed letter, an old flame manages to draw him back in. Mary Emmett’s brother John—like Laurence, an officer during the war—has apparently killed...
| Author | Lisa Grunwald |
| ISBN | 1400063000 |
Filled with unforgettable characters, settings, and action, The Irresistible Henry House portrays the cultural tumult of the mid-twentieth century even as it explores the inner tumult of a young man trying to transcend a damaged childhood.
It is the middle of the twentieth century, and...
| Author | Jane Gardam |
| ISBN | 1933372893 |
The New York Times called Sir Edward Feathers one of the most memorable characters in modern literature. A lyrical novel that recalls his fully lived life, Old Filth has been acclaimed as Jane Gardam's masterpiece, a book where life and art merge. And now that beautiful, haunting novel has been joined...
In this charming follow-up to Miss Buncle's Book, readers will follow Barbara Buncle's journey into married life in a new town filled with fascinating neighbors...who may become the subjects of Barbara's next novel! Miss Buncle may have settled down, but she's already discovered that married life...
| Author | Penelope Lively |
| ISBN | 0670038563 |
The Booker Prize-winning author's first novel since The Photograph is a sweeping saga of three generations of women, their lives, and loves
A chance meeting in St. James's Park begins young Lorna and Matt's intense relationship. Wholly in love, they leave London for a cottage in a rural Somerset...
| Author | Alexander McCall Smith |
A second merry romp with the Corduroy Mansions characters. McCall Smith's books are such gentle reads that I kind of feel like I'm floating in a warm tub of quirky humanity. I especially like the occasional splashy observation about life that he throws in. This time William French, failed Master of Wines,...
