If You Like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer ...
If you liked "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer, you might enjoy these titles:
"The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint" by Brady Udall The trials of Edgar, half Apache and mostly orphaned, begin on an Arizona reservation at the age of seven, when the mailman's jeep accidentally runs over his head. Shunted from the hospital to a school for delinquents to a Mormon foster family, comedy, pain, and trouble accompany Edgar through a string of larger-than-life experiences.
"Slaughterhouse Five; or The Children's Crusade" by Kurt Vonnegut "Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know."-catalog summary
"Paris Trout" by Pete Dexter
"A respected white citizen of Cotton Point, Georgia, Paris Trout is a shopkeeper, a money-lender, and a murderer of blacks. And his friends, family and foes do not realize the danger they face in a man who simply will not see his own guilt."-catalog summary
"The Tin Drum" by Gunter Grass
"The greatest German novel since the end of World War II, The Tin Drum is the autobiography of Oskar Matzerath, thirty years old, detained in a mental hospital, convicted of a murder he did not commit. On the day of his third birthday, Oskar had "declared, resolved, and determined [to] stop right there, remain as I was, stay the same size, cling to the same attire" (striped pullover and patent-leather shoes). That same day Oskar receives his first tin drum, and from then on it is the means of his expression, allowing him to draw forth memories from the past as well as judgments about the horrors, injustices, and eccentricities he observes through the long nightmare of the Nazi era. As that era ebbs bloodily away, as drum succeeds drum, Oskar participates in the German postwar economic miracle -- working variously in the black market, as an artist's model, in a troupe of traveling musicians. With the onset of affluence and fame, Oskar decides to grow a few inches, only to develop a humpback. But despite his newfound status (and stature), Oskar remains haunted by the deaths of his parents, afflicted by his responsibility for past sins -- and so assumes guilt for a murder he did not commit as an act of atonement and an opportunity to find consolation. The rhythms of Oskar's drums are intricate and insistent, and they lead us, often by way of shocking fantasies, through the dark forest of German history.
Through Oskar's piercing, outspoken voice and deformed little figure, through the imaginative distortion and exaggeration of historical experience, a pathetically hilarious yet startlingly true portrayal of the human situation comes into view."-catalog summary
"Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" by Mark Haddon "Told from the perspective of a 15-year-old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling audiobook weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions."-catalog summary
"Usual Rules" by Joyce Maynard It's a Tuesday morning in Brooklyn; a perfect September day. Wendy is heading to school, eager to make plans with her best friend, worried about how she looks, mad at her mother for not letting her visit her father in California, impatient with her little brother and with the almost too-loving concern of her jazz musician stepfather. She's out the door to catch the bus. An hour later comes the news: A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. Her mother's building. Through the eyes of thirteen-year-old Wendy, we gain entrance to the world rarely shown by those who documented the events of that one terrible day: a family's slow and terrible realization that Wendy's mother has died, and their struggle to go on with their lives in the face of crushing loss."-catalog summary
You may also enjoy works by Dave Eggers, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, Michael Chabon, Chuck Palahuik, Jonathan Lethem, Joseph Heller, William S. Burroughs, Italo Calvino, John Irving, David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs
Mary M. Buck
Reference Librarian
Porter Branch
