If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed walking into a library or bookstore, you’re not alone! According to Forbes, hundreds of thousands of books are published annually… while the average adult American reads only 12 books a year. Here are some titles you may have missed over the years that we think are worth a look!
Originally published in Swedish in 2009, this laugh-out-loud account of a centenarian’s ‘escape’ from his nursing home and his ensuing antics is reminiscent of Forrest Gump. Can’t get enough of the protagonist? Follow up with the sequel, the Accidental Further Adventures of the 100-Year-Old Man.
Sarajevo is under siege. As mortars fall and snipers stalk the city’s abandoned buildings, a cellist sits at his window playing Albinoni’s Adagio. Then a bomb kills twenty-two people in the street below. For the next twenty-two days he will carry his cello into the cratered street below and play the Adagio in memory of the dead.
Daniel has spent centuries falling in love with the same girl. Life after life, crossing continents and dynasties, he and Sophia (despite her changing name and form) have been drawn together-and he remembers it all. Ultimately, they must come to understand what stands in the way of their love if they are ever to spend a lifetime together.
Loosely based on former first lady Laura Bush’s life, this gorgeously written novel weaves class, wealth, race, and the exigencies of fate into a brilliant and tragic tapestry.
Faina, a child of the woods, somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.
In this hilarious mystery series debut, Heather Wells is a former pop star-turned-assistant dorm director at a NY college when a dead body shows up on campus. Cabot, known for the Princess Diaries, proves her mystery writing chops with all 5 of Heather Wells’ tales.
A gritty but tender novel about family and poverty in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. This book is award winning, but honestly, I just don’t hear enough people in my life talk about Jesmyn Ward and how great she is… so she’s on list!