Fiction
Tempting Fate by Jane Green. “I'm a sucker for Jane Green books. I can't help it. Woman in her 40s, married, meets hot dude in his 30s, tech millionaire. Will they? Won't they?”
Tender is the Night
Tepper Isn't Going Out by Calvin Trillin. "A short and witty novel about parking spaces in NYC."
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simpson—“very charming main character that will make you think about every quirky but kind person you might meet. There is a heart behind them.” “A brilliant yet socially challenged professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife).” “A brilliant, autistic-spectrum professor with no self-awareness or social skills sets out to find a wife using a detailed survey. Of course, in the process of his research he meets Rosie, who meets very few of his criteria, but teaches him that love does not follow rules.” “lovely, funny, poignant book about a professor with Aspberger's (although somewhat unaware he has it) and how he tries to find love and companionship...it sticks with you long after you've read it...One reviewer wrote "Touching and laugh-out-loud funny -- think The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time meets Silver Linings Playbook " “New Zealand-based Professor on the spectrum creates questionnaire to find a wife. Ends up meeting someone who meets none of the criteria, but for whom he develops what he can only assume are feelings. He becomes obsessed with her quest to find her birth father. A quick read (did it in a two days off and on), and a sweet story."
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston. “It takes a few chapters to read smoothly because of the strong southern dialect, but is a powerful, moving story with a window into another world and a strong female characters.”
These Is My Words – The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901 by Nancy E Turner. “Action packed novel which chronicles life of Sarah Prine in the late 1800s. Page turner!”
They Eat Puppies, Don't They? by Christopher Buckley. “Hilarious and outrageous, another tale of lobbyists in DC who go to outrageous lengths for their PR causes.”
The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin. "The main character, a 7th grader, loses her best friend to drowning."
Things will be Different by Maria Semple. “While not as hilarious as her earlier book “Where did you go Bernadette”, this book is charming and funny story of a middle aged wife and mom dealing with the hilarious and touching reality of her life”.
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. “A young teen commits suicide and then mails audio tapes posthumously to people who must listen to her tell the reasons and why they were responsible for her death.Harrowing and heartbreaking teen lit that has been assigned as required reading in many schools.” Comments from a young adult: "I first read this book when I was 13 (yes, I have read it multiple times) and it is still one of my favorites. Written in the perspective of Clay Jensen, a friendly and unassuming boy who finds himself put on a list consisting mostly of liars, thieves, perves, and jerks who all somehow played a role in Hannah's suicide, it is riveting as Clay learns about how small incidents and rumors contributed to the death of his late classmate/crush while simultaneously waiting for his name to come up in a tape that will tell him what he did to push Hannah to take her own life. Normally, I'm not a fan of 'teen angst' type books and I find myself having a tough love sort of attitude towards the characters, but this book is realistic and does not focus on Hannah's pain and suffering the whole time, but rather on little things that eventually snowballed into deep depression. Since the book doesn't spend a lot of time actually describing her misery, it makes the book much more bearable and relatable. It gives great insight to how much seemingly harmless actions can affect someone and also tells how to identify signs of suicidal behavior (i.e. withdrawals from family and friends, significant changes in appearance, verbal hints, etc). Overall, it was interesting, compelling, and I couldn't put it down. In terms of length, word choice, etc it was fairly easy, but because of the overall theme of suicide and depression, the sexual content, and the small (but still relevant) portions containing underage drug and alcohol use, I would not reccommend this to anyone under the age of 13. Otherwise, this book is informative, emotional, and powerful while still being a page-turner."
Thirty Girls by Susan Minot. "Parallel stories about a mass kidnapping by the LRA in Uganda and a young American girl traveling in Africa. A very harsh and timely story about the kidnappings softened by the story of the young woman."
Those Who Wish Me Dead by Michael Kortyt. “Thriller, mystery in the mid West.”
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. “Mitchell can take spit globules, gout, puss, blood letting, beatings, anal exploratories, overall bad hygiene, and organized rape and turn it into poetry. I'll admit that the idea of a historical novel set in a 1799 Dutch trading post off the coast of Japan didn't readily appeal to me. And the dialect of the first section (something like garbled cockney that Mitchell calls ‘bygonese’ in an interview in the back of the book) was a little difficult to process at first. Give it time and let yourself absorb Mitchell's deliberate language and vivid imagery. You are in the hands of a master storyteller. A Thousand Autumns pulls in elements of romance, action, political thriller and high seas adventure. His characters are varied and complex - even minor characters have multi-dimensions that add depth to the story. By the end of the book I was fully invested, cheering and mourning the various outcomes of each character's fate.”
Three Junes “It is about a family in England with three sons and it chronicles their lives. It is not high brow lit; I would put it in the mid brow category.” [side note: I struggled with this book, but I think most people I know really liked it.]
The Tiger's Wife: A Novel by Tea Obrecht. “It's the story of a young female doctor who grows up in a Balkan country, the impact of war, and her relationship with her grandfather. Parts of the book are allegorical. Not the easiest read, but very well written.”
The Tilted World by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly. “Southern novel set in 1927, during the historic flood of the Mississippi River.” From Amazon: “ In 1927, as rains swell the Mississippi, the river threatens to burst its banks and engulf everything in its path, including the tiny hamlet of Hobnob, where federal agents Ted Ingersoll and Ham Johnson arrive to investigate the disappearance of two fellow agents—and find a baby boy abandoned in the middle of a crime scene. Ingersoll finds a home for the infant with local woman Dixie Clay Holliver, unaware that she's the best bootlegger in the county and has many tender and consequential secrets of her own. The Tilted World is an extraordinary tale of murder and moonshine, sandbagging and saboteurs, and a man and a woman who find unexpected love.”
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Huge bestseller in the early 00s. From Amazon: "A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant." They made a movie out of it with Rachel McAdams.
The Time Tutor by Bee Ridgway. "Ridgway is a literature professor at Bryn Mawr and the book is chock-full of witty literary references. The Time Tutor is a prequel novella to the River of No Return (also reviewed on this list). It fills in some of the back story of the secondary characters. Which, of course, meant I had to go back and read RONR again!"
Tiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams. From the bestselling author of Secret Life of Violet Grant, Overseas and One Hundred Summers. This title will be released June 23. From Amazon: "In the summer of 1966, Christina Hardcastle—'Tiny' to her illustrious family—stands on the brink of a breathtaking future. Of the three Schuyler sisters, she’s the one raised to marry a man destined for leadership, and with her elegance and impeccable style, she presents a perfect camera-ready image in the dawning age of television politics. Together she and her husband, Frank, make the ultimate power couple: intelligent, rich, and impossibly attractive. It seems nothing can stop Frank from rising to national office, and he’s got his sights set on a senate seat in November.
"But as the season gets underway at the family estate on Cape Cod, three unwelcome visitors appear in Tiny’s perfect life: her volatile sister Pepper, an envelope containing incriminating photograph, and the intimidating figure of Frank’s cousin Vietnam-war hero Caspian, who knows more about Tiny’s rich inner life than anyone else. As she struggles to maintain the glossy façade on which the Hardcastle family’s ambitions are built, Tiny begins to suspect that Frank is hiding a reckless entanglement of his own…one that may unravel both her own ordered life and her husband’s promising career."
To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal. “This book came out a few years ago but I just discovered it. It’s a beautifully written novel about a woman in her forties who seems to have everything she wanted – a good marriage, successful career – but she can’t stop thinking about her first love when she was a teenager who she gave up along with life in a small town for the urban life she has now. The novel bounces between her memories of being young, of her first love and her growing dissatisfaction with her seemingly perfect life. It’s a gorgeous poignant novel about memories, regrets, marriage, and love. The perspectives on small town life are also lovely, reminiscent of Richard Russo.”