“Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization, and gene mapping.”
Robin’s Note: This is a gripping bestseller for a reason: while the summary here emphasizes the scientific side…

“Chronicles American music, news, politics, art, publishing, and sports during 1969, from Woodstock to the Manson family and Richard Nixon’s presidency to the gay rights movement.”
Robin’s Note: Kirkpatrick is a free-wheeling writer, and this look at the end of the decade is both far-ranging and not too serious.  He addresses some grim moments (the Zodiac Killer, for example)…

“An award-winning black journalist takes a pilgrimage through the sites and landmarks of the civil rights movement as he journeys to key locales that served as a backdrop to important events of the 1960s, journeying around the country to pay tribute to the people, organizations, and events that transformed America.”
Robin’s Note: For anyone interested in the 1960s and…

“An autobiographical journey of discovery gathers together fragments of memory, experience, and family history in order to understand the meaning of his parents’ legacy and his own heritage.”
Robin’s Note: Michael Ondaatje is famous for writing the novel The English Patient, bu this is his memoir of childhood and his own family’s quirks and secrets.  As with all of…

“A novelization based on a nineteenth-century sex scandal traces how the downfall of Henry Ward Beecher divided the nation and severed the loving relationship between his sisters, author Harriet Beecher Stowe and suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker.”
Robin’s Note: For anyone interested in American culture and history.  It’s part history, part gossip, and part biographical portrait.  The conflict of appearances…

“January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles…

“Detached from the rest of the country on the eve of World War I, the tuberculosis-stricken residents of an Adirondack lakeside sanatorium are housed in accordance with their economic status and languish in their isolation before an enterprising patient initiates a weekly discussion group.”
Robin’s Note: Angela Barrett is well known for compelling historical fiction, often paired with investigations…

“Three generations of a family struggle with loyalty, commitment, and identity when Camilla Dickinson is confronted by her granddaughter, Raffi, with the news that her father has hinted that Camilla is not really her grandmother.”
Robin’s Note: Another read-alike for Irving, L’Engle’s adult works are often eclipsed by her reputation as a writer for children.  That is a shame:…

“In 1940, innocent young John Milk accepts a job as an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, an Indiana University zoologist studying human sexuality, and takes part, along with his wife, in sexual experiments that become ever more uninhibited.”
Robin’s Note: T. Coraghessan Boyle is an author highly recommend as a read-alike for John Irving given his evocative characters, settings,…