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List: 2023 Reading Challenge: Song Lyrics in the Title


A photo of Wade in the Water

Wade in the Water

This novel of female power and vulnerability, race, and class explores the unlikely friendship between a precocious black girl and a mysterious white woman in a small Mississippi town in the early 1980s.

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A photo of We Could Be Heroes

We Could Be Heroes

An extraordinary and emotional adventure about unlikely friends and the power of choosing who you want to be... Jamie woke up in an empty apartment with no memory and only a few clues to his identity, but with the ability to read and erase other people's memories - a power he uses to hold up banks to buy coffee, cat food and books. Zoe is also searching for her past, and using her abilities of speed and strength... to deliver fast food. And she'll occasionally put on a cool suit and beat up bad guys, if she feels like it. When the archrivals meet in a memory-loss support group, they realize the only way to reveal their hidden pasts might be through each other. As they uncover an ongoing threat, suddenly much more is at stake than their fragile friendship. With countless people at risk, Zoe and Jamie will have to recognize that sometimes being a hero starts with trusting someone else - and yourself.

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A photo of Would I Lie to You?

Would I Lie to You?

At the school gates, Faiza fits in. It took a few years, but now the snobbish mothers who mistook her for the nanny treat her as one of their own. She's learned to crack their subtle codes, speak their language of handbags and haircuts and discreet silver watches. You'd never guess, at the glamorous kids' parties and the leisurely coffee mornings, that Faiza's childhood was spent following her parents round the Tooting Cash'n'Carry. When her husband Tom loses his job in finance, he stays calm. Something will come along, and in the meantime, they can live off their savings. But Faiza starts to unravel. Raising the perfect family comes at a cost -- and the money Tom put aside has gone. When Tom's redundancy package ends, Faiza will have to tell him she's spent it all. Unless she doesn't... It only takes a second to lie to Tom. Now Faiza has six weeks to find $75,000 before her lie spirals out of control. If anyone can do it, Faiza can: she's had to fight for what she has, and she'll fight to keep it. But as the clock ticks down, and Faiza desperately tries to put things right, she has to ask herself: how much more should she sacrifice to protect her family?

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A photo of You Sexy Thing

You Sexy Thing

TwiceFar Station is at the edge of the Known Universe, and that's just how Niko Larsen, a former admiral in the grand army of the Holy Hive Mind, likes it. Retired and finally free of the continual war of conquest, Niko and the remnants of her former unit are content to spend the rest of their days working at the restaurant they built together, the Last Chance. But some wars can't ever be escaped, and unlike the Holy Hive mind, some enemies aren't content to let old soldiers go. Niko and her crew are forced onto a sentient ship that is convinced it is being stolen, and must survive the machinations of a sadistic pirate king if tthey even hope to keep the dream of the Last Chance alive.

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A photo of Devil in a Blue Dress

Devil in a Blue Dress

In a Los Angeles bar, "Easy" Rawlins, a black war veteran just fired from his job, wonders how he'll pay his mortgage. DeWitt Albright, a quietly vicious white man, walks in and offers Easy good money if he'll find Daphne Monet.

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A photo of Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty

Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty

Sisters Peyton and Skye--one the co-anchor of a hit morning show, the other a stay-at-home mom in the New York suburbs--seem to have everything, until an Ivy League college admissions sting involving Peyton's husband threatens all they have worked for.

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A photo of She's Come Undone

She's Come Undone

Thirteen-year-old Dolores Price "spends most of her time eating and in front of the TV, but changes her attitude when she enters womanhood at 257 pounds."

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A photo of All the Lonely People

All the Lonely People

Life is waiting to happen to Hubert Bird. But first he has to open his front door and let it in. In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship, and fulfilment. But he's lying. The truth is day after day drags by without him seeing a single soul. Until he receives some good news -- good news that in one way turns out to be the worst news ever, news that will force him out again, into a world he has long since turned his back on. Now Hubert faces a seemingly impossible task: to make his real life resemble his fake life before the truth comes out. Along the way Hubert stumbles across a second chance at love, renews a cherished friendship, and finds himself roped into an audacious community scheme that seeks to end loneliness once and for all . . . Life is certainly beginning to happen to Hubert Bird. But with the origin of his earlier isolation always lurking in the shadows, will he ever get to live the life he's pretended to have for so long?

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A photo of Harlem Shuffle

Harlem Shuffle

To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture, making a life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger and bigger all the time. See, cash is tight, especially with all those installment plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace at the furniture store, Ray doesn't see the need to ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who also doesn't ask questions. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa -- the "Waldorf of Harlem" -- and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do, after all. Now Ray has to cater to a new clientéle, one made up of shady cops on the take, vicious minions of the local crime lord, and numerous other Harlem lowlifes. Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he starts to see the truth about who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? Harlem Shuffle is driven by an ingeniously intricate plot that plays out in a beautifully recreated Harlem of the early 1960s. It's a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. But mostly, it's a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

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A photo of All Creatures Great and Small

All Creatures Great and Small

Herriot, a veterinarian, returns to his rural home after World War II and finds it difficult adjusting to peacetime. Through the support of his wife and partners, he begins to overcome his problems and rediscover the joy in veterinary medicine.

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A photo of Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

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A photo of Go Tell It On the Mountain

Go Tell It On the Mountain

Describes a day in the life of several members of a Harlem fundamentalist church. The saga of three generations of people is related through flashbacks.

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A photo of Summer of '69

Summer of '69

Welcome to the most tumultuous summer of the twentieth century. It's 1969, and for the Levin family, the times they are a-changing. Every year the children have looked forward to spending the summer at their grandmother's historic home in downtown Nantucket. But like so much else in America, nothing is the same: Blair, the oldest sister, is marooned in Boston, pregnant with twins and unable to travel. Middle sister Kirby, caught up in the thrilling vortex of civil rights protests and determined to be independent, takes a summer job on Martha's Vineyard. Only-son Tiger is an infantry soldier, recently deployed to Vietnam. And thirteen-year-old Jessie suddenly feels like an only child, marooned in the house with her out-of-touch grandmother and her worried mother, while each of them hides a troubling secret. As the summer heats up, Ted Kennedy sinks a car in Chappaquiddick, man flies to the moon, and Jessie and her family experience their own dramatic upheavals along with the rest of the country.

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A photo of Owner of a Lonely Heart

Owner of a Lonely Heart

From the author of How to Save a Life comes a heartfelt story of two people finding the courage to choose love, no matter how hard it may be. Gemma thought she had her future all mapped out--a wonderful husband, a cute apartment, plans to start a family. But just months after her wedding, illness took her husband from her. And now she's trying to think up new dreams, when all she really wants are her old ones back. Across town, Dan's also rethinking his life. He's about to meet his twelve-year-old daughter, Casey, for the very first time. She's tracked him down because she needs a place to stay for the summer while she receives treatment for a brain tumor at the city hospital, and Dan is terrified he won't be up to the task of caring for her--after all, he's spent his entire life only having to look out for himself. But when fate--with the help of Gemma's scruffy terrier, Bear--brings these three strangers together one hot July morning, cracks begin to appear in the walls they've each built to protect themselves. And soon it becomes clear that this summer could change everything. Will Gemma, Dan, and Casey be brave enough to let love in and build a new life together? Or will they let fear keep everything they've ever wanted just out of reach?

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A photo of Love the One You're With

Love the One You're With

A chance encounter forces one woman to question her decisions, her marriage, and herself.

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A photo of Let Me Be the One

Let Me Be the One

While preparing for her big art show in San Francisco, Vicki Bennett asks her longtime friend, Ryan Sullivan, to pose as her boyfriend to keep a judge's unwanted advances at bay, but when their pretend relationship becomes all-too real, they both must make some difficult decisions.

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A photo of She's Not There

She's Not There

A lifetime ago, every year Carole Shipley looked forward to her wedding anniversary. But then a celebratory trip to Mexico for the occasion with her husband and friends ended in the unsolved kidnapping of her infant daughter, Samantha. Now, fifteen years after that horrific time, divorced and isolated, Carole is forced to relive the kidnapping by reporters who call every year on the anniversary of Samantha's disappearance. However, this year when the phone rings, Carole hears the sweet voice of a girl claiming to be her long-lost daughter. Plunged back into the world of heartbreak, suspicion and questions that led the case to run cold so many years ago, Carole doesn't know what or who to believe. But when she starts to figure it out, she finds the answers dangerously close to home.

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A photo of One For the Money

One For the Money

Out of work and out of money, Stephanie Plum lands a job as bounty hunter and her first prey is, guess who? None other than Joe Morelli, the macho pig who deflowered her in high school and bragged on the lavatory wall of Mario's Sub Shop. Now a cop, he is wanted for murder. The intriguing thing is she still rather fancies him and even more intriguing is that he will save her life.

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A photo of Under the Boardwalk

Under the Boardwalk

When her troublemaking twin, Zoe, goes missing after an antic backfires, Ariana is mistaken for Zoe and rescued from a bullet by handsome stranger Quinn, who harbors secrets that complicate his resolve to protect her.

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A photo of Heart-Shaped Box

Heart-Shaped Box

A collector of obscure and macabre artifacts, unscrupulous metal band musician Judas Coyne is unable to resist purchasing a ghost over the Internet, which turns out to be the vengeful spirit of his late girlfriend's stepfather.

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A photo of Eleanor Rigby

Eleanor Rigby

Liz Dunn has little to keep her going until a strange young man named Jeremy arrives in her life, upsetting her routine and triggering events that take Liz around the world, into danger, and for the first time, within reach of happiness.

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A photo of Time After Time

Time After Time

On a clear December morning in 1937, at the famous gold clock in Grand Central Terminal, Joe Reynolds, a hardworking railroad man from Queens, meets a vibrant young woman who seems mysteriously out of place. Nora Lansing is a Manhattan socialite whose flapper clothing, pearl earrings, and talk of the Roaring Twenties don't seem to match the bleak mood of Depression-era New York. Captivated by Nora from her first electric touch, Joe despairs when he tries to walk her home and she disappears. Finding her again--and again--will become the focus of his love and his life. Nora, an aspiring artist and fiercely independent, is shocked to find she's somehow been trapped, her presence in the terminal governed by rules she cannot fathom. It isn't until she meets Joe that she begins to understand the effect that time is having on her, and the possible connections to the workings of Grand Central and the astrological phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge. As thousands of visitors pass under the famous celestial blue ceiling each day, Joe and Nora create a life unlike any they could have imagined. With infinite love in a finite space, they take full advantage of the "Terminal City" within a city, dining at the Oyster Bar, visiting the Whispering Gallery, and making a home at the Biltmore Hotel. But when the construction of another historic landmark threatens their future, Nora and Joe are forced to test the limits of freedom and love. Delving into Grand Central's rich past, Lisa Grunwald crafts a masterful historical novel about a love affair that defies age, class, place, and even time.

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A photo of Brown-Eyed Girl

Brown-Eyed Girl

Wedding planner Avery Crosslin may be a rising star in Houston society, but she doesn't believe in love--at least not for herself. When she meets wealthy bachelor Joe Travis and mistakes him for a wedding photographer, she has no intention of letting him sweep her off her feet. But Joe is a man who goes after what he wants, and Avery can't resist the temptation of a sexy southern charmer and a hot summer evening. After a one night stand, however, Avery is determined to keep it from happening again. A man like Joe can only mean trouble for a woman like her, and she can't afford distractions. She's been hired to plan the wedding of the year-a make-or-break event. But complications start piling up fast, putting the wedding in jeopardy, especially when shocking secrets of the bride come to light. And as Joe makes it clear that he's not going to give up easily, Avery is forced to confront the insecurities and beliefs that stem from a past she would do anything to forget. The situation reaches a breaking point, and Avery faces the toughest choice of her life. Only by putting her career on the line and risking everything-including her well-guarded heart-will she find out what matters most.

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A photo of Rise and Shine

Rise and Shine

A novel about two sisters, the true meaning of success, and the qualities in life that matter most. It's an otherwise ordinary Monday when Meghan Fitzmaurice's perfect life hits a wall. A household name as the host of the country's highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break--but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike. In an instant, it's the end of an era, not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan's long shadow. The effect of Meghan's on-air truth telling reverberates through both their lives, affecting Meghan's son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget's perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself. They may be different, but the Fitzmaurice sisters share a deep connection that helps them challenge the world when faced with disgrace.

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