Things Read in 2007 Part 2

Explore Part 2 of 'Things Read in 2007,' featuring a curated list of books read that year. Discover top reads, hidden gems, and literary favorites from 2007.

Under the Banner of Heaven Cover
Book

Under the Banner of Heaven

by Jon Krakauer

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, this extraordinary work of investigative journalism takes readers inside America’s isolated Mormon Fundamentalist communities. • Now an acclaimed FX limited series streaming on HULU. “Fantastic.... Right up there with In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song.” —San Francisco Chronicle Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God; some 40,000 people still practice polygamy in these communities. At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multi-layered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.
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ID: 0143036351
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ID: 0140445226
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ID: 1594201226
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Disgrace Cover
Book

Disgrace

by J. M. Coetzee

In a novel set in post-apartheid South Africa, a fifty-two-year-old college professor who has lost his job for sleeping with a student tries to relate to his daughter, Lucy, who works with an ambitious African farmer.
On Beauty Cover
Book

On Beauty

by Zadie Smith

Struggling with a stale marriage and the misguided passions of his three adult children, long-suffering art professor Howard Belsey finds his family life thrown into turmoil by his son's engagement to the socially prominent daughter of a right-wing icon. By the author of White Teeth. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 250,000 first printing.
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ID: 0141441135
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ID: 0142001813
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ID: 1406933643
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The Lost Language of Cranes Cover
Book

The Lost Language of Cranes

by David Leavitt

David Leavitt's extraordinary first novel, now reissued in paperback, is a seminal work about family, sexual identity, home, and loss. Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip's parents are facing their own crisis: pressure from developers and the loss of their longtime home. But the real threat to this family is Philip's father's own struggle with his latent homosexuality, realized only in his Sunday afternoon visits to gay porn theaters. Philip's admission to his parents and his father's hidden life provoke changes that forever alter the landscape of their worlds.
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ID: 0486415880
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Saturday Cover
Book

Saturday

by Ian McEwan

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement follows an ordinary man through a Saturday whose high promise gradually turns nightmarish in this “dazzling [and] powerful” novel (The New York Times). Henry Perowne—a neurosurgeon, urbane, privileged, deeply in love with his wife and grown-up children—plans to play a game of squash, visit his elderly mother, and cook dinner for his family. But after a minor traffic accident leads to an unsettling confrontation, Perowne must set aside his plans and summon a strength greater than he knew he had in order to preserve the life that is dear to him. Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons, coming in September!
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ID: 0826490735
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The folding star Cover
Book

The folding star

 

No summary available.
Runaways Cover
Book

Runaways

by Brian K. Vaughan

When six young friends discover that their parents are all secretly super-powered villains, they run away together and find strength in one another to overcome their evil legacy.
The garden party, and other stories Cover
Book

The garden party, and other stories

 

No summary available.
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ID: 1929001290
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