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Paired Books
Read Two Books with a Similar Theme
And the Mountains Echoed (F Hosseini)"In 1952 Afghanistan, Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and step-mother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters" / The Kabul Beauty School (305.48 Rod)
Hairdresser Deborah Rodriguez details her experiences in post-Taliban Afghanistan, discussing the opening of her beauty school and recalls the personal stories of various women who overcame obstacles to obtain an education in cosmetology.
Sold (F McCormick)
Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape. / A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
(B Beah)
Ishmael Beah describes his experiences after he was driven from his home by war in Sierra Leone and picked up by the government army at the age of thirteen, serving as a soldier for three years before being removed from fighting by UNICEF and eventually moving to the United States.
Lincoln: a Novel (F Vidal)
A historical novel recounts the events of Lincoln's presidency after his arrival in Washington, D.C. in 1861. / Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (973.7092 Goo)
Presents an overview of the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, explaining the genius of his political savvy, and describes the context in which he assigned a cadre of his fiercest rivals as his closest cabinet advisors.
The Book Thief (F Zusak)
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors. / Mixed Blessings (940.5318 Keu)
Tells of the author's youth and travails during the Nazi era in Germany.
The Paris Wife (F McClain)
Portrays the love affair and marriage between Ernest Hemingway and Hadley Mowrer from their Chicago meeting in 1920 to their lives during the Jazz Age in Paris, but as Ernest struggles to find his literary voice, Hadley tries to define her role in their relationship as wife, friend, and muse / A Moveable Feast (B Hemingway)
Sketches of the author's early life in Paris in the twenties provide nostalgic reminiscences of his first marriage and the discipline of developing his own literary craft.
Under the Wide and Starry Sky (F Horan) Author of Loving Frank - Tells the story of the unconventional love affair between Fanny Van De Grift and Robert Louis Stevenson. / The Complete Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson (F Stevenson) -
Water for Elephants (F Gruen)
Ninety-year-old Jacob Jankowski finds himself haunted by memories of his past in the circus and the freaks, exotic animals, and other people he encountered as a performer. / Topsy by Michael Daly (338.7 Dal)
The startling story of the crooked tailed elephant, P. T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison
The Killer Angels (F Shaara)
The Killer Angels details the events around four days in late June and early July, 1863, the story follows four men, Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, John Buford, and Joshua Lawrence, as they march into the field for what will become the bloodiest three days in American history. / General James Longstreet: the Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier (B Longstreet)
Details the life and military career of General James Longstreet of the Confederate Army.
The IMC also has biographies of General Robert E. Lee and the Battle of Gettysburg
Blood and Beauty: The Borgias (F Dumant) - A tale inspired by the lives of Borgia siblings Lucretia and Cesare traces the family's rise in the aftermath of Rodrigo Borgia's rise to the papacy, during which war, a terrifying sexual plague, and the family's notorious reputation forge an intimate bond between brother and sister. / The Borgias and Their Enemies (945 Hib) Traces the history of the Borgia family, discussing the family's impact on Italian history, the greed, nepotism, and corruption that plagued the family, the underhanded methods they used to obtain power, wealth, land, and titles in Renaissance Italy, and other related topics.
Pride and Prejudice (F Austen)
In early nineteenth-century England, a spirited young woman copes with the courtship of a snobbish gentleman as well as the romantic entanglements of her four sisters.
Or Any Other Jane Austen Novel / England’s Jane (B Austen)
Presents a look at the life and times of writer Jane Austen, providing information on her childhood, family life, and her accomplishments in literature. Includes illustrations.
Mrs. Dalloway (F Woolf)
In 1920s England, Clarissa Dalloway, a politician's wife in her fifties, reflects on her youth when she opted for a comfortable life rather than selecting an adventurous man who was deeply in love with her. / The Hours (F Cunningham)
Two women with very different lives are joined together at a party for an ailing poet, and together they realize that even though their lives are different, they are tied together by a common bond.
The 19th Wife (F Ebershoft)
Follows the parallel stories of Ann Eliza Young, the estranged wife of Mormon leader Brigham Young, and her campaign to end polygamy in the United States, and Jordan Scott, the son of a polygamist family in twenty-first-century Utah, who returns after years away from the fundamentalist sect to learn the truth about his father's death. / Under the Banner of Heaven (289.3 Kra)
Presents an account of the 1984 murder of Brenda Lafferty and her fifteen-month-old daughter Erica by Mormon Fundamentalists Ron and Dan Lafferty, brothers to the victims' husband and father who claim they were acting on an order directly from God, and provides insights into Mormon Fundamentalists.
The Nitrogen Murders: A Periodic Table Mystery (F Minichino)
Retired physicist Gloria Lamerino and her fiance, homicide detective Matt Gennaro, are pulled into another mystery when the groom at a friend's wedding disappears along with some top-secret research on nitrogen. / The Disappearing Spoon and other Tales of Madness, Love, and History of the World from the Periodic Table (546 Kea)
Examines the stories behind the creation of the periodic table, focusing on the history of gold, carbon, silicon, and neon.
State of Wonder (F Patchett)
Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist with a Minnesota-based pharmaceutical company, is sent to Brazil after the death of her friend and colleague, to take up his mission of finding Dr.Annick Swenson, a ruthless woman, now in her seventies, who has been conducting research among the Lakashi tribe on a reputed miracle drug, and refuses to let anything stand in her way / The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Deception in the Amazon (981.1 Gra)
Details English explorer Percy Fawcett's exploration for a lost city in the jungles of South America and relates efforts made by the author and other individuals to find out what happened to him.
Soul Catcher (F White) - Augustus Cain, a down-on-his luck veteran of the Mexican-American War, is prevailed upon by Mr. Eberly, a Virginia plantation owner, to travel north in the days before the Civil War and retrieve Rosetta, a runaway slave, and while he is successful in capturing his prey, Cain finds each mile of the journey home more difficult to make. / 12 Years a Slave (B Northup)
Solomon Northup tells about being kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South after having been a free citizen in New York during the mid-1800s.
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (F Fowler) - A fictionalized account of Southern belle Zelda Sayre and her relationship with author F. Scott Fitzgeral / Zelda Fitzgerald: a Biography (B Fitzgerald) – Meticulously researched biography which chronicles the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, discussing how she transformed from the archetypal Southern belle to the first American flapper.
The Painted Girls (F Buchanan) - In Paris, France, the Van Goethem sisters struggle for survival after the sudden death of their father, a situation that prompts young Marie's ballet training and her introduction to a genius painter. / The Girl Who Loved Camellias (B Duplessis) - Chronicles the life of Marie Duplessis, who after leaving her abusive father, settled in Paris and became a much sought after courtesan and also became the inspiration for books, plays, ballets and more.
The Great Santini (F Conroy) –Bull Meecham is all Marine, a fighter pilot, and absolute ruler of his family. Ben, his oldest son has to fight against a father who doesn't give in. / The Death of Santini: the Story of a Father and Son (B Conroy) - Pat Conroy reflects on his life, focusing on his troubled relationship with his father, Don Conroy, and how they reached a rapprochement of sorts in the years before Don's death.
The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic (F Gaynor) - Ireland, 1912, Fourteen members of a small village set sail on RMS Titanic, hoping to find a better life in America. For seventeen-year-old Maggie Murphy, the journey is bittersweet. Though her future lies in an unknown new place, her heart remains in Ireland with Séamus, the sweetheart she left behind. When disaster strikes, Maggie is one of the few passengers in steerage to survive. Waking up alone in a New York hospital, she vows never to speak of the terror and panic of that fateful night again. Chicago, 1982, Adrift after the death of her father, Grace Butler struggles to decide what comes next. When her great-grandmother Maggie shares the painful secret about Titanic that she's harbored for almost a lifetime, the revelation gives Grace new direction, and leads both her and Maggie to unexpected reunions with those they thought lost long ago. / Titanic: Legacy of the World’s Greatest Oceanline (910 TIT) - Tells the story of the Titanic, discussing its construction, appointments, and passengers; describes the reasons the supposedly unsinkable ocean liner sank; and provides photographs and information about the scientific expeditions to the wreck site and the objects that have been recovered from the ship and debris field