• "Mariette in Ecstasy" (1991) by Ron Hansen — A pitch-perfect account of a Roman Catholic nun who, in an upstate New York convent in 1906, may or may not be seeing visions.
  
• "The Russian Debutante's Handbook" (2002) by Gary Shteyngart — In this often hilarious satire, Vladimir Girshkin is a modern-day immigrant, straddling two worlds, neither victim nor striver, but riding the currents of his time wherever they take him.
  
• "Twilight of the Ice" (2003) by Harry Mark Petrakis — In mid-20th Century Chicago, Mike, one of the rough-edged men who load ice into refrigerated railroad cars, knows struggle, pain, satisfaction and love over the arc of his life.
  
• "My Father's Moon" (1989) by Elizabeth Jolley — Vera Wright, the confused, stunted nurse at the center of this unflinching novel, is a window into the dirty corners of our souls.
  
• "A Canticle for Leibowitz" (1959) by Walter M. Miller, Jr. — Amid the devastation of a nuclear war, monks painstakingly acquire, copy and save scraps of knowledge for future generations.
  
• "The Cowboy and the Cossack" (1973) by Clair Huffaker — In 1880, after an ocean voyage, 15 Texas cowboys land in Vladivostok with 500 head of cattle and prepare to escort the herd thousands of miles across Siberia. But 16 Cossacks show up and claim that's their job. Adventures ensue.
  
• "The Spook Who Sat by the Door" (1969) by Sam Greenlee — Written at the height of the Black Power movement, this still-biting satire tells of Dan Freeman who is the only black agent at the CIA and puts his training to use as a revolutionary on the streets of Chicago.
  
• "An Armful of Warm Girl" (1978) by W. M. Spackman — A wonderful title, of course. The book recounts a delicately tuned dance of romance and flirtation, elegantly and a bit ruefully.
  
• "Daybreak _ 2250 A.D." (1952) by Andre Norton — This adventure tells of a mutant boy in a post-nuclear world who, shunned by his clan, must find his way and himself in a dangerous, unknown world.
  
• "Manual Labor" (1974) by Frederick Busch — Sad, poetic, moving, this is the story of a couple rebuilding an abandoned farmhouse on the Maine coast after a miscarriage.
  
• "The Cardinal" (1950) by Henry Morton Robinson — A guilty pleasure, to be sure, this clerical potboiler, the basis for the 1960 movie starring Tom Tryon, inspired a generation of would-be Catholic priests.
  

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