Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo
Russo touches on the themes of his earlier works including the bond between fathers and sons, economic desperation of small-town business and lifelong feuds and friendships. This book follows 3 best friends who grew up in upstate Thomaston, NY over 50 years and captures some of the essential mysteries of life, including the unanticipated moments of childhood that will forever define one's adulthood. A rich multilayered portrait of small town life with unforgettable dialogue that is so natural, funny, and touching that it may, perhaps, be the best of Russo's many gifts.

You may also enjoy: Other books by Richard Russo; Rampage by Susan Taylor Chehak

Clarissa Putman of Tribes Hill by John Vrooman
Sir John Johnson (son of Sir William) fell in love with Clarissa. She was not of his social stature. That didn't stop them from being together unofficially. He ended up marrying someone his father approved of, but it still makes for great local lore.

You may also enjoy: Fire Along the Sky by Robert Moss; Into The Wilderness by Sara Donati

Eighty Years and More by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
This autobiography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton is in many ways also the story of the women's rights movement in the 19th century. Stanton vividly describes the momentous occasion of organizing the Seneca Falls Convention in the summer of 1848; the preparation and delivery (by Susan B. Anthony) of the Woman's Declaration of Rights at the national centennial celebration in Philadelphia in 1876; her views on theology, marriage, and divorce; and her reminiscences of Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and other leading feminists.

You may also enjoy: Carrie Chapman Catt: A public life by Jacqueline Van Voris; Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in her own words by Lynn Sherr

Falling Man by Don DeLillo
This National Book Award Winner's searing opening pages follow lawyer Keith Neudecker, who has just emerged from the World Trade Center, as he makes his way up the street, fighting raining debris and "seismic tides of smoke." It's not until he's almost there that he realizes where he's heading--the apartment of his ex-wife and son. Over the succeeding months, we are made privy to the family's reactions to that heartbreaking day.

You may also enjoy: Writing On The Wall by Lynne Schwartz; Windows On The World by Frederic Beigbeder; Usual Rules by Joyce Maynard; Absent Friends by S. J. Rozan; Poetry after 9/11 : an anthology of New York poets

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Reverend John Ames of Gilead, Iowa, a grandson and son of preachers, now in his seventies, writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets. Philosophical musings and a century of American history are refracted through the prism of Robinson’s exquisite and uplifting novel as she illuminates the heart of a mystic, poet, and humanist.

You may also enjoy: Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks; Roxanna Slade by Reynolds Price

March by Geraldine Brooks
As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the Civil War, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. From Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, Mr. March, who has gone off to war leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. Mr. March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through.

You may also enjoy: On Agate Hill by Lee Smith; Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig; Gilead by Marilynne Robinson; Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Thirteen-year-old Anna Fitzgerald walks into the office of lawyer Campbell Alexander and announces she wants to sue her parents for the rights to her own body. Anna was conceived after her older sister, Kate, developed a rare form of leukemia at the age of two, and has donated bone marrow and blood to her sister. Now she has been asked to donate a kidney, and she intends to refuse. Campbell is a jaded young man who nevertheless decides to take her case pro bono. Anna’s parents are shocked when they learn of her lawsuit, and her mother, a former civil defense attorney, decides to represent them. Anna refuses to budge on her position despite the fact that she clearly loves her sister and longs for her family’s happiness. As the gripping court case builds, the story takes a shocking turn. Told in alternating perspectives by the engaging, fascinating cast of characters, Picoult’s novel grabs the reader from the first page and never lets go. This is a beautiful, heartbreaking, controversial, and honest book.

You may also enjoy: Other books by Jodi Picoult; The Footprints of God by Greg Iles

North River by Pete Hamill
Dr. James Finbar Delaney lives in Greenwich Village, two blocks from the North River, and is a GP servicing the indigent poor. A wounded veteran of World War I, he is despondent that his wife, Molly, has deserted him and that his only child, Grace, has left her son, two-year-old Carlito, in his care. Numb from the war and the abandonment of his family, he saves the life of gangster friend Eddie Corso. Italian hood, Frankie Botts, is not happy and threatens Delaney. In addition, the FBI shows up looking for Grace. Soon the North River comes to symbolize Delaney's tormented life, as enemies and loved ones float in it. Hamill has crafted a beautiful novel, rich in New York City detail and ambience, that showcases the power of human goodness and how love, in its many forms, can prevail in an unfair world.

You may also enjoy: Katie's Dream by Leisha Kelly; So Many Ways To Begin by Jon MacGregor; Empire Rising by Thomas Kelly; Heir To The Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick

Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas
Rennie Stroud looks back to 1942, when she was 13, to tell a powerful coming-of-age story. That year, the U.S. government opened a Japanese internment camp outside Ellis, CO, less than a mile from where she and her family farmed sugar beets. Rennie observes the prejudice of some of the townspeople as well as her parents' strong moral code and their entanglement in the emotions of the time. Her father, Loyal, not only shows open support for the Japanese, whom he views as Americans, but offers to hire them to work on the farm. When a young girl is murdered, suspicion naturally turns to the camp, and the town is divided by fear. Dallas's strong, provocative novel is a moving examination of prejudice and fear that addresses issues of community discord, abuse, and rape. Her phrasing and language bring the 1940s to life, and she has created characters that will linger with the reader.

You may also enjoy: Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson; When The Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka; Thin Wood Walls by David Patneaude

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Death is the narrator of this powerful story of a town in Nazi Germany. He is a kindly, caring Death, overwhelmed by the souls he has to collect from people in the gas chambers, from soldiers on the battlefields, and from civilians killed in bombings. Death focuses on a young orphan, Liesl; her loving foster parents; the Jewish fugitive they are hiding; and a wild but gentle teen neighbor, Rudy, who defies the Hitler Youth and convinces Liesl to steal for fun. After Liesl learns to read, she steals books from everywhere. When she reads a book in the bomb shelter, even a Nazi woman is enthralled. Then the book thief writes her own story. More than the overt message about the power of words, it's Liesl's confrontation with horrifying cruelty and her discovery of kindness in unexpected places that tell the heartbreaking truth.

You may also enjoy: Room in the Heart by Sonia Levitin; People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks; Night by Elie Wiesel

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Ashoke Ganguli, a doctoral candidate at MIT, chose Gogol as a pet name for his and his wife's first-born because a volume of the Russian writer's work literally saved his life, but, in one of many confusions endured by the immigrant Bengali couple, Gogol ends up on the boy's birth certificate. Unaware of the dramatic story behind his unusual and, eventually, much hated name, Gogol refuses to read his namesake's work, and just before he leaves for Yale, he goes to court to change his name to Nikhil. Immensely relieved to escape his parents' stubbornly all-Bengali world, he does his best to shed his culture, losing himself in the study of architecture and passionate if rocky love affairs. But of course he will always be Gogol, just as he will always be Bengali, forever influenced by his parents' extreme caution and restraint. Lahiri's keen and zealous attention painstakingly considers the viability of transplanted traditions, the many shades of otherness, and the lifelong work of defining and accepting oneself.

You may also enjoy: Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee; The Vine of Desire by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni; How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez; The Mango Season by Amulya Malladi; Digging to America and The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
Before Henry VIII ever considered making Anne Boleyn his wife, her older sister, Mary, was his mistress. Gregory uses the perspective of this "other Boleyn girl" to reveal the rivalries and intrigues swirling through England. The sisters and their brother George were raised with one goal: to advance the Howard family's interests, especially against the Seymours. So when Mary catches the king's fancy, her family orders her to abandon the husband they had chosen. She bears Henry two children, including a son, but Anne's desire to be queen drives her with ruthless intensity, alienating family and foes. Gregory captures not only the dalliances of court but the panorama of political and religious clashes throughout Europe. She controls a complicated narrative and dozens of characters without faltering.

You may also enjoy: Catharine of Aragon trilogy by Jean Plaidy; To Dance With Kings by Rosalind Laker; The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell; The Queen of Subtleties by Suzannah Dunn; The Last Boleyn by Karen Harper

The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke
Set during the national nightmare that was Hurricane Katrina, this book tells the story of a group of small-time criminals who seem to luck into the theft of a lifetime. Unfortunately for them, their newfound goods have been taken from one of the Big Easy's scariest criminals. Dave Robicheaux is faced with the unenviable task of hunting down the thieves, more to save them from those they've wronged than for criminal prosecution. While the story is the usual well-paced, naturally unfolding drama we expect from Burke, it's quite obvious that Robicheaux takes a back-seat this time around to the problems caused by Katrina. Burke has always excelled at making Louisiana more a character than a setting, a skill he uses here to convey the true horrors of Katrina. Also, without becoming preachy, he makes no secret about his feelings regarding where the blame should be placed.

You may also enjoy: Tripwire by Lee Child; Dance at the Slaughterhouse by Lawrence Block; Other titles by James Lee Burke; Twisted by Jay Bonansinga

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
At the beginning of Water for Elephants, Jacob Jankowski is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. The story vacillates between this time in his life and the time his parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The Benzini Brothers Circus, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. The animals are mangy, underfed, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the "menagerie" and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob emerges as the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass for which he suffers royally. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and... he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August's wife. Not his best idea.

You may also enjoy: Metropolis by Elizabeth Gaffney; The White Bone by Barbara Gowdy; Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie; The Blue Moon Circus by Michael Raleigh