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Summaries of 9,831 books.

  1. Murder Must Advertise

    Dorothy L. Sayers

    ★ 4.2 (19k) average on GoodreadsHistorical Fiction

    Undercover as a copywriter, Lord Peter Wimsey enters the 1930s London advertising world, facing catapults, cocaine, and cricket to find the killer who pushed a colleague down a staircase.

  2. A Gate at the Stairs

    Lorrie Moore

    ★ 3.2 (19k) average on GoodreadsFiction

    After 9/11, a naive college student nannying for a mysterious family learns about love, loss, and racial identity in a small American town.

  3. The Monsters of Templeton

    Lauren Groff

    ★ 3.6 (19k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction
  4. Salt

    Nayyirah Waheed

    ★ 4.3 (19k) average on GoodreadsNon-Fiction

    Nayyirah Waheed's 'Salt' is a stark, minimalist poetry collection that reveals the truths of Black womanhood, identity, and resilience through short, strong verses.

  5. Herzog

    Saul Bellow

    ★ 3.8 (19k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    Plagued by academic and marital ruin, Moses Herzog desperately scribbles unsent letters, a modern Job wrestling with his own spectacular failures and the absurdities of the age, all while clinging to a defiant, if crumbling, sense of self.

  6. Songs of Willow Frost

    Jamie Ford

    ★ 3.7 (19k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    A determined Chinese-American orphan escapes 1930s Seattle to chase a film star he believes is his mother, uncovering a complex past.

  7. The Last Question

    Isaac Asimov

    ★ 4.6 (19k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    From humanity's first steps into the cosmos to the universe's heat death, a persistent question about reversing entropy drives the evolution of intelligence.

  8. Infamous

    Sherrilyn Kenyon

    ★ 4.3 (19k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    Teenage Nick Gautier must master dating, driving, and his growing dark powers to save the world, or destroy it, as those who want him dead, including his own father, try to seal his destiny.

  9. A Kiss in Time

    Alex Flinn

    ★ 3.8 (19k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    A rebellious modern teen accidentally awakens a 17th-century princess with a kiss, sending them on a chaotic adventure across time, dodging royal anger, and navigating a 316-year age gap.

  10. Diamonds are Forever

    Ian Fleming

    ★ 3.6 (19k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    James Bond goes undercover to expose a diamond-smuggling operation, uncovering a criminal network and a plot that threatens more than just precious gems.

  11. Furyborn

    Claire Legrand

    ★ 3.8 (19k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    A prophecy foretells two queens, one of light and one of blood. Their intertwined lives, centuries apart, will either save their war-torn world from an ancient evil or doom it to darkness.

  12. The Peripheral

    William Gibson

    ★ 3.9 (19k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    In a future where past and present collide, a small-town gamer stumbles into a murder in a virtual London, unknowingly intertwining her fate with a publicist seventy years in the future, as both their realities unravel with dangerous consequences.

  13. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

    Mary Wollstonecraft

    ★ 3.9 (19k) average on GoodreadsPolitics

    Mary Wollstonecraft, the audacious mother of modern feminism, ignited the spark of female independence in a world alive with the rights of man. She demanded equal education and professional identity over docile decorum.

  14. Bluets

    Maggie Nelson

    ★ 4.3 (19k) average on GoodreadsBiography

    Maggie Nelson explores love, loss, and seeing through the color blue, turning it into a way to think about desire, suffering, and truth.

  15. A Son of the Circus

    John Irving

    ★ 3.6 (19k) average on GoodreadsLiterary Fiction

    An Indian film star, an American missionary, and a group of eccentrics, including separated twins and a dwarf chauffeur, head for a showdown with a serial killer in a story of fate and dark comedy.

  16. Iron Lake

    William Kent Krueger

    ★ 3.9 (19k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    Former sheriff Cork O'Connor battles a Minnesota blizzard and his own past to solve murders and disappearances, uncovering a conspiracy at the heart of his snowy hometown.

  17. Time and Again

    Jack Finney

    ★ 4.0 (19k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    An advertising artist in a covert government operation travels to 1882 New York City to investigate a mysterious death, only to fall in love and face the impossible choice between his present and a meticulously recreated past.

  18. Spook Country

    William Gibson

    ★ 3.7 (19k) average on GoodreadsThriller

    A journalist, an information specialist, a high-end junkie, and a military navigation troubleshooter find their lives linked in a conspiracy where information is manipulated, and the line between real and digital blurs.

  19. On the Shortness of Life

    Seneca

    ★ 4.2 (19k) average on GoodreadsPsychology

    Seneca's Stoic wisdom urges us to live in the present, explaining that life is not short, but often wasted through distraction.

  20. The Road to Serfdom

    Friedrich A. Hayek

    ★ 4.2 (19k) average on GoodreadsBusiness

    Hayek's 1944 book warns that government economic control, even with good intentions, leads to totalitarianism, like Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

  21. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

    Joan Aiken

    ★ 4.1 (19k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    Orphaned cousins Bonnie and Sylvia must outwit their wicked governess, Miss Slighcarp, and her accomplice to reclaim their ancestral home, Willoughby Chase, while fending off literal wolves and the harsh realities of a Victorian-era orphanage.

  22. Master of the Senate

    Robert A. Caro

    ★ 4.4 (19k) average on GoodreadsPolitics

    Lyndon B. Johnson's rise in the United States Senate, where his charm and legislative skill broke gridlock to pass Civil Rights legislation, changed American politics forever.

  23. Loser

    Jerry Spinelli

    ★ 3.7 (19k) average on GoodreadsChildren's

    Donald Zinkoff, a boy who doesn't notice his own quirks, shows that genuine individuality and a joyful spirit can make an ordinary 'loser' into an unexpected hero.

  24. Airman

    Eoin Colfer

    ★ 4.1 (19k) average on GoodreadsFantasy

    Framed for treason and left to rot in an island prison, a young inventor in the 1890s must literally build his dreams of flight into a desperate escape to clear his name and save his kingdom.

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