Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

A Fancy Affair Bridal Salon Forest Hills, Queens "Did you know that one of your hips is higher than the other?" the seamstress asked me in a totally conversational tone. "I didn't," I said. "I never knew that. But I'm glad you told me." The seamstress had the decency to look embarrassed. She ducked her head back down and continued pinning. Perhaps that had been the reason why Blind Dates One,... (more)

Lucy's Launderette (Red Dress Ink)

by Betsy Burke

Love. Betrayal. Forgiveness. Redemption. And Fabric Softener. Lucy Madison's life is spinning out of control. After her grandfather crashes his motorcycle for the last time, this frustrated artist is left picking up the pieces (not to mention holding the ashes). But fulfilling his dying wish of befriending his pregnant girlfriend turns out to be even less than she expected. Add to that the return of her,... (more)

How to Talk to a Widower

by Jonathan Tropper

"Beautifully crafted", "Fantastically funny." "Compulsively readable." Jonathan Tropper has earned wild acclaim—-and comparisons to Nick Hornby and Tom Perrotta—for his biting humor and insightful portrayals of families in crisis and men behaving badly. Now the acclaimed author of The Book of Joe and Everything Changes tackles love, lust, and lost in the suburbs—in a stunning novel that is by turns heartfelt... (more)

The Year of Fog

by Michelle Richmond

Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby Mason—photographer, fiancée soon-to-be-stepmother—looks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child’s disappearance, and of one woman’s unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love—all made... (more)

Confessions of an Ex-Girlfriend

by Lynda Curnyn

Ex-Girlfriend Emma Carter has a lot on her mind. Her boyfriend got a life -- in L.A. Her hairdresser found God. And that extra ten pounds of "relationship flab" she acquired while falling in love with a commitmentphobe has just put her out of the running for new romance -- or so she thinks. But before Emma can get on with her life, she's got to face a few startling truths about being single in New York City . . . ... (more)

London Is the Best City in America

by Laura Dave

Emmy Everett is reluctantly heading home to New York for her brother Josh’s wedding. She has spent the last three years in a fishing town in Rhode Island and, having little to show for it, she doesn’t particularly want to answer the questions she is sure to face about her (ex)-fiancé, her (questionable) career choices, her (unknown) future. But she is still shocked when her typically resolute brother... (more)

No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a Sixtieth Year

No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a Sixtieth Year

by Virginia Ironside

A delightful novel about letting go of youth and embracing the sassy curmudgeon within Don’t harass her about parasailing or taking Italian language courses. Forget about suggesting she join a gym. Marie Sharp may be a little creaky in the bones as she heads toward the big 6-0, but she’s fine with it. She would rather do without all the moving-to-Florida-bicycling-across- Mongolia-for-the-hell-of-it... (more)

Spellman: Book 1

The Spellman Files: A Novel

by Lisa Lutz

Meet Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, private investigator. This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations.... (more)

The Next Thing on My List: A Novel

by Jill Smolinski

Meet June Parker. She works for L.A. Rideshare, adores her rent-stabilized apartment in Santa Monica, and struggles with losing a few pesky pounds. But June’s life is about to change. After a dark turn of events involving Weight Watchers, a chili recipe, and a car accident in which her passenger, Marissa, dies, June finds herself in possession of a list Marissa has written, “20 Things to Do By My 25th Birthday.”... (more)

20th Century Ghosts

by Joe Hill

Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945. . . . Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. . . . Francis is unhappy. Francis was human... (more)

Certain Girls

by Jennifer Weiner

Readers fell in love with Cannie Shapiro, the smart, sharp-tongued, bighearted heroine of Good in Bed who found her happy ending after her mother came out of the closet, her father fell out of her life, and her ex-boyfriend started chronicling their ex-sex life in the pages of a national magazine. Now Cannie's back. After her debut novel -- a fictionalized (and highly sexualized) version of her life -- became an... (more)

Last Night at the Lobster

by Stewart O'Nan

Stewart O’Nan has been called “the bard of the working class” and has now crafted a frank and funny yet emotionally resonant tale set within a vivid workaday world seldom seen in contemporary fiction. Perched in the far corner of a run-down New England mall, The Red Lobster hasn’t been making its numbers and headquarters has pulled the plug. But manager Manny DeLeon still needs to navigate a tricky last shift.... (more)

Summer People: A Novel

by Brian Groh

Nathan Empson has just accepted the most unusual summer job of his life. In exchange for serving as a "caretaker for Ellen Broderick, the eccentric matriarch of an exclusive coastal community, he'll earn a generous paycheck and gain access to one of the last bastions of old New England wealth. But not everyone in town is welcoming—or even civil. And while he discovers companionship with a philosophical, ex-punk... (more)

The Crime Writer

by Gregg Andrew Hurwitz

A crime writer finds himself entangled in his own gruesome mystery in this fast-paced psychological thriller Drew Danner, a crime novelist with a house off L.A.’s storied Mulholland Drive, awakens in a hospital bed with a scar on his head and no memory of being found convulsing over his ex- fiancée’s body the previous night. He was discovered holding a knife, her blood beneath his nails. He himself... (more)

The Monsters of Templeton

by Lauren Groff

"The day I returned to Templeton steeped in disgrace, the fifty-foot corpse of a monster surfaced in Lake Glimmerglass." So begins The Monsters of Templeton , a novel spanning two centuries: part a contemporary story of a girl's search for her father, part historical novel, and part ghost story, this spellbinding novel is at its core a tale of how one town holds the secrets of a family. In the wake... (more)

The Somnambulist

by Jonathan Barnes

Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. Needless to say, I doubt you'll believe a word of it. Once the toast of good society in Victoria's England, the extraordinary conjurer Edward Moon no longer commands the respect or inspires the awe that he did in earlier times. Despite having previously unraveled more than sixty perplexing criminal puzzles (to the delight of a grateful London... (more)

Stephanie Plum: Book 16

Plum Lucky

by Janet Evanovich

Looking to get lucky? Stephanie Plum is back between-the-numbers and she’s looking to get lucky in an Atlantic City hotel room, in a Winnebago, and with a brown-eyed stud who has stolen her heart. Stephanie Plum has a way of attracting danger, lunatics, oddballs, bad luck . . . and mystery men. And no one is more mysterious than the unmentionable Diesel. He’s back and hot on the trail of a little man in green... (more)

Rhett Butler's People

by Donald McCaig

Fully authorized by the Margaret Mitchell estate , Rhett Butler’s People is the astonishing and long-awaited novel that parallels the Great American Novel, Gone With The Wind . Twelve years in the making, the publication of Rhett Butler’s People marks a major and historic cultural event. Through the storytelling mastery of award-winning writer Donald McCaig, the life and times of the dashing Rhett Butler... (more)

The Adultery Club

by Tess Stimson

Nicholas Lyon is the perfect husband—a handsome divorce attorney who dotes on his wife and family. Sara Kaplan is the perfect seductress—a vivacious young lawyer tired of being single. And Malinche Lyon is the perfect wife—a still-beautiful cookbook writer and mother to three darling daughters. Now, in this smart, wickedly sexy novel, Nick, Sara, and Malinche are all about to join… The Adultery Club Suddenly... (more)

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