#hardcover #china #shanghai #debut #brilliant #family #generational #westtoeast

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Minnesota

Named one of "60 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2018"by Huffington Post Set in modern Shanghai, a debut by a Chinese-American writer about a prodigal son whose unexpected return forces his newly wealthy family to confront painful secrets and unfulfilled promises. After years of chasing the American dream, the Zhen family has moved back to China. Settling into a luxurious serviced apartment in Shanghai, Wei, Lina and their daughter, Karen, join an elite community of Chinese-born, Western-educated professionals who have returned to a radically transformed city. One morning, in the eighth tower of Lanson Suites, Lina discovers that a childhood keepsake, an ivory bracelet, has gone missing. The incident contributes to a wave of unease that has begun to settle throughout the Zhen household. Wei, a marketing strategist, bows under the guilt of not having engaged in nobler work. Meanwhile, Lina, lonely in her new life of leisure, assumes the modern moniker tai tai-a housewife who does no housework at all. She spends her days haunted by the circumstances surrounding her arranged marriage to Wei and her lingering feelings for his brother, Qiang. Lina and Wei take pains to hide their anxieties, but their housekeeper, Sunny, a hardworking woman with secrets of her own, bears witness to their struggles. When Qiang reappears in Shanghai after decades on the run with a local gang, the family must finally come to terms with the past. From a silk-producing village in rural China, up the corporate ladder in suburban America, and back again to the post-Maoist nouveau riche of modern Shanghai, WHAT WE WERE PROMISED explores the question of what we owe to our country, our families and ourselves.

What We Were Promised

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#hardcover #historicalfiction #idaho #Finland #Norway #generational #saga #UofWpress #hardscrabble #womensfiction

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

As a child, Solveig Torvik heard stories of a lost, mysterious great-grandfather who left Finland for America to make his fortune - leaving Torvik's great-grandmother and his unborn daughter behind. As a reporter, Torvik determined to discover the fate of the man who followed his dreams to Oregon. She uncovered not only the story of one man, but also the saga of an entire family. In Nikolai's Fortune, a tale of Scandinavian women, the journalist turns fact into fiction and shares the tales of her ancestors as she imagines they would have told them.

Nikolai's Fortune is a heartbreaking, multigenerational epic, chronicling family secrets and sufferings against the backdrop of Scandinavian history and culture. Blending memoir and historical fiction, grandmother, mother, and daughter each share their own story: Kaisa, of her mother's love for Nikolai and her own 500-mile trek at the age of twelve from impoverished Finland across the snowy mountains of Lapland; Berit, of child slavery and an obsession with seeking out her grandfather's fortune for her mother; and Hannah, the voice of Torvik, of her childhood during the Nazi occupation of Norway and her family's emigration to Idaho.

Through detailed historical research into census, church, and weather records, as well as academic and museum sources, Torvik recaptures a dramatic story nearly lost to memory and inherits something worth more than a fortune in riches - a sense of her family history, ethnic background, and the generations of remarkable women who came before her.

Norwegian-born Solveig Torvik was a reporter, editor, and columnist at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for thirty years. She was also a reporter for United Press International in Salt Lake City and for the San Francisco Chronicle, and an editor at the San Jose Mercury News.

Nikolai's Fortune

feac19ab-860e-475a-8e48-9fc26a44bc60-1

Emma Donoghue

Tennessee

A retired New York professor's life is thrown into chaos when he takes a young great-nephew to the French Riviera, in hopes of uncovering his own mother's wartime secrets in the next masterpiece from New York Times bestselling author Emma Donoghue. Noah Selvaggio is a retired chemistry professor and widower living on the Upper West Side, but born in the South of France. He is days away from his first visit back to Nice since he was a child, bringing with him a handful of puzzling photos he's discovered from his mother's wartime years. But he receives a call from social services: Noah is the closest available relative of an eleven-year-old great-nephew he's never met, who urgently needs someone to look after him. Out of a feeling of obligation, Noah agrees to take Michael along on his trip. Much has changed in this famously charming seaside mecca, still haunted by memories of the Nazi occupation. The unlikely duo, suffering from jet lag and culture shock, bicker about everything from steak frites to screen time. But Noah gradually comes to appreciate the boy's truculent wit, and Michael's ease with tech and sharp eye help Noah unearth troubling details about their family's past. Both come to grasp the risks people in all eras have run for their loved ones, and find they are more akin than they knew. Written with all the tenderness and psychological intensity that made Room an international bestseller, Akin is a funny, heart-wrenching tale of an old man and a boy, born two generations apart, who unpick their painful story and start to write a new one together.

Akin (New)

a5cf5274-df9b-4172-b182-7e1e5612299a-1

Nawaaz Ahmed

Michigan

A Novel

Working as a political activist in the early days of the Obama presidency, Seema still struggles with her father's long-ago decision to exile her from the family after she came out as lesbian, forcing her to construct a new life in the West. Now, nine months pregnant and estranged from the father of her unborn son, Seema seeks reconciliation with the family that once renounced her.

Radiant Fugitives *First Edition*

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#hardcover #skilgenerationalrelationships #family #emmadonoghue #akin #generational #nazi #fiction 

Florida

Akin

Judy Blume

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New York

In her highly anticipated new novel, Judy Blume, the New York Times # 1 best-selling author of Summer Sisters and of young adult classics such as Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, creates a richly textured and moving story of three generations of families, friends and strangers, whose lives are profoundly changed by unexpected events. In 1987, Miri Ammerman returns to her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, to attend a commemoration of the worst year of her life. Thirty-five years earlier, when Miri was fifteen, and in love for the first time, a succession of airplanes fell from the sky, leaving a community reeling. Against this backdrop of actual events that Blume experienced in the early 1950s, when airline travel was new and exciting and everyone dreamed of going somewhere, she paints a vivid portrait of a particular time and place--Nat King Cole singing "Unforgettable," Elizabeth Taylor haircuts, young (and not-so-young) love, explosive friendships, A-bomb hysteria, rumors of Communist threat. And a young journalist who makes his name reporting tragedy. Through it all, one generation reminds another that life goes on. In the Unlikely Event is vintage Judy Blume, with all the hallmarks of Judy Blume's unparalleled storytelling, and full of memorable characters who cope with loss, remember the good times and, finally, wonder at the joy that keeps them going. Early reviewers have already weighed in: "Like many family stories, this one is not without its life-changing secrets and surprises. There is no surprise that the book is smoothly written, and its story compelling. The setting--the early 1950s--is especially well realized through period references and incidents." --Booklist (starred review) and "In Blume's latest adult novel . . . young and old alike must learn to come to terms with technological disaster and social change. Her novel is characteristically accessible, frequently charming and always deeply human." --Publishers Weekly

In the Unlikely Event

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Jhumpa Lahiri

The Lowland

413ad8f8-093f-4533-b146-0471c05a3d69-1

Ex-library book. Plastic covering dust jacket. Ex-library sticker on front cover and binding. Ex-library card/stamp on front endpapers. Deckled edges. Smoke-free home
#hardcover #fiction #funny #yayasinbloom #yayas #divinesecrets #divinesecretsoftheyayasisterhood #humor #womensfiction #women #generational #rebeccawells

New Hampshire

Ya-Yas #3

Looks back to the years of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood's origins in Thornton, Louisiana, during which Vivi, Teensy, Caro, and Necie endure crises of faith, lapses in parenting, brushes with alcoholism, and glimpses into racial bigotry.

Ya-Yas in Bloom

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Kent Haruf

Washington

From the unsettled lives of a small-town teacher struggling to raise two boys alone in the face of their mother's retreat from life, a pregnant teenage girl with nowhere to go, and two elderly bachelor farmers emerges a new vision of life and family as their diverse destinies intertwine. 200,000 first printing.

Plainsong

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A. S. King

Missouri

Five white teenage cousins who are struggling with the failures and racial ignorance of their dysfunctional parents and their wealthy grandparents, reunite for Easter.

b1bc00a8-4802-4489-b83b-631f5f58e29a

Excellent like new condition as shown! Thank you for shopping my bookstore! 😃📚

Oregon

A Split-Time Romance

Launching a brand-new series, Kristy Cambron explores the collision of past and present as she discovers the ruins of a French castle, long lost to history.

The Lost Castle

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Maisy Card

Iowa

*An Entertainment Weekly, Millions, and LitHub Most-Anticipated Book of 2020 pick* *A Rumpus and Electric Literature Most-Anticipated Debut of 2020 pick* *A Ms. Magazine Top Feminist Book Coming Out in 2020* *A BookRiot Best Book Club Pick of 2020* *A Celadon Books Most-Anticipated Novel of 2020* *A Lily Top Book to Read by Women in 2020 Selection* *A Buzz Magazine Top New Book of the New Decade* *A She Reads Most-Anticipated Historical Fiction Pick of 2020* A transporting debut novel that reveals the ways in which a Jamaican family forms and fractures over generations, in the tradition of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Stanford Solomon has a shocking, thirty-year-old secret. And it’s about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley, a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead. These Ghosts Are Family revolves around the consequences of Abel’s decision and tells the story of the Paisley family from colonial Jamaica to present day Harlem. There is Vera, whose widowhood forced her into the role of single mother. There are two daughters and a granddaughter who have never known they are related. And there are others, like the house boy who loved Vera, whose lives might have taken different courses if not for Abel Paisley’s actions. These Ghosts Are Family explores the ways each character wrestles with their ghosts and struggles to forge independent identities outside of the family and their trauma. The result is an engrossing portrait of a family and individuals caught in the sweep of history, slavery, migration, and the more personal dramas of infidelity, lost love, and regret. This electric and luminous family saga announces the arrival of a new American talent.

These Ghosts Are Family

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New condition never read.  No damage to spine pages or dust jacket.  No writing inside or out. Slight sticker recipe on the back

West Virginia

Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture in this powerful debut—a heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue, courage, and betrayal that will resonate with women from all backgrounds, giving voice to the silenced and agency to the oppressed. "Where I come from, we’ve learned to silence ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence will save us. Where I come from, we keep these stories to ourselves. To tell them to the outside world is unheard of—dangerous, the ultimate shame.” Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Over the course of a week, the naïve and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married, and is soon living in Brooklyn. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children—four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear. Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra’s oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda’s insistence, though her only desire is to go to college. Deya can’t help but wonder if her options would have been different had her parents survived the car crash that killed them when Deya was only eight. But her grandmother is firm on the matter: the only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man. But fate has a will of its own, and soon Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family—knowledge that will force her to question everything she thought she knew about her parents, the past, and her own future. Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is a story of culture and honor, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. It is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world, and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.

A Woman Is No Man

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Massachusetts

Kentucky

#hardcover #akin #emmadonoghue #mystery #family #fiction #generational #ww2 #histfic #france 

Pennsylvania

Aanchal Malhotra

FOR FANS OF ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE, A LUSH, SWEEPING LOVE STORY ABOUT A HINDU PERFUMER AND A MUSLIM CALLIGRAPHER, SET AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF PARTITION

"Monumental...A far-reaching love story." --NPR (A Best Book of the Year)

"Mesmerizing." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Exquisite." --Library Journal (starred review)
"Majestic." --Booklist (starred review)

On a January morning in 1938, Samir Vij first locks eyes with Firdaus Khan through the rows of perfume bottles in his family's ittar shop in Lahore. Over the years that follow, the perfumer's apprentice and calligrapher's apprentice fall in love with their ancient crafts and with each other, dreaming of the life they will one day share. But as the struggle for Indian independence gathers force, their beloved city is ravaged by Partition. Suddenly, they find themselves on opposite sides: Samir, a Hindu, becomes Indian and Firdaus, a Muslim, becomes Pakistani, their love now forbidden. Severed from one another, Samir and Firdaus make a series of fateful decisions that will change the course of their lives forever. As their paths spiral away from each other, they must each decide how much of the past they are willing to let go, and what it will cost them.

Lush, sensuous, and deeply romantic, The Book of Everlasting Things is the story of two lovers and two nations, split apart by forces beyond their control, yet bound by love and memory. Filled with exquisite descriptions of perfume and calligraphy, spanning continents and generations, Aanchal Malhotra's debut novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

The Book of Everlasting Things

a11ed6fa-8daf-4bd3-8c27-48c1400d9c62-1

Terri-Lynne DeFino

New Jersey





"Varina Palladino's Jersey Italian Love Story is fun and funny, wonderfully exuberant, and incredibly wise. These endearing characters--their voices and stories-- will be with me for a long time to come. I didn't want to say good-bye." -Jill McCorkle, New York Times bestselling author of Hieroglyphics

An utterly delightful and surprising family drama--think Moonstruck and My Big Fat Greek Wedding set in New Jersey--about a boisterous, complicated Italian family determined to help their widowed mother find a new boyfriend. 

Lively widow Varina Palladino has lived in the same house in Wyldale, New Jersey, her entire life. The town might be slightly stuck in the 1960s, when small businesses thrived and most residents were Italian, but its population is getting younger and the Palladinos are embracing the change. What Varina's not embracing, much to her ninety-two-year-old mother's dismay, is dating. Running Palladino's Italian Specialties grocery, caring for her mother, and keeping her large, loud Jersey Italian family from killing one another takes up all of Varina's energy anyway.

Sylvia Spini worries about her daughter Varina being left all alone when she dies. Sylvia knows what it is to be old and alone, so when her granddaughter, Donatella, comes to her with an ill-conceived plan to find Varina a man, Sylvia dives in. The three men of the family--Dante, Tommy, and Paulie--are each secretly plotting their own big life changes, which will throw everyone for a loop.

Three generations of Paladinos butt heads and break one another's hearts as they wrestle with their own Jersey Italian love stories in this hilarious and life-affirming ode to love and family.

Varina Palladino's Jersey Italian Love Story

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Book is in good condition with no markings or tears and dust jacket intact

Maryland

Purchased as “Used-Like New.” Read once for book club. 

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Lucy Tan

What We Were Promised

Solveig Torvik

Nikolai's Fortune

Emma Donoghue

Akin (New)

Nawaaz Ahmed

Radiant Fugitives *First Edition*

Emma Donoghue

Akin

Judy Blume

In the Unlikely Event

Jhumpa Lahiri

The Lowland

Rebecca Wells

Ya-Yas in Bloom

Kent Haruf

Plainsong

A. S. King

Dig

Emma Donoghue

Akin

Kristy Cambron

The Lost Castle

Maisy Card

These Ghosts Are Family

Emma Donoghue

Akin

Etaf Rum

A Woman Is No Man

Jhumpa Lahiri

The Lowland

A. S. King

Dig

Emma Donoghue

Akin

A. S. King

Dig

Emma Donoghue

Akin

Aanchal Malhotra

The Book of Everlasting Things

Terri-Lynne DeFino

Varina Palladino's Jersey Italian Love Story

Maisy Card

These Ghosts Are Family

A. S. King

Dig

Radiant Fugitives First Edition