A massive earthquake brings together a young American man and a Kurdish Muslim girl in a forbidden love affair.

• Pocketful of Names
  By Joe Coomer
  
  Hannah Weed moves from New York to a small island in Maine she has inherited from her uncle. She is enjoying her solitude until unwelcome guests start showing up.

   

• Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking
  By Aoibheann Sweeney
  
  Miranda Donnal has grown up on a small island in Maine being mostly ignored by her father who spends his time translating Ovid's Metamorphoses. After graduating from high school, her father convinces her to take a job with his old friends in New York.

  Besides the similar setting of small islands in Maine, these books both look at the feelings of isolation their characters experience.
   

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• On the Road with Charles Kuralt
  by Charles Kuralt
  Charles Kuralt took to the highways, where he met the little-known and the famous, and shared them with the rest of us. This heartwarming book reminds us again of some of the extraordinary people he met over the years in words and photographs.
   
• Travels with Charley in Search of America
  by John Steinbeck
  At age 58 John Steinbeck and his venerable standard poodle, Charley, set out on a journey across America in a camper. For three months these companions traveled the nation, meeting friends, strangers, relatives and immersing themselves in the fabric of the country as it was at that time.

Both of these titles give us a verbal picture of what it is like to travel the back roads of America. Charles Kuralt and John Steinbeck felt the need to get out and see America, and Americans, and then report back to us about the wonders of our country. Enjoy traveling with them this summer, again, and then possibly investigate some newer armchair travel books such as Cross Country by Robert Sullivan or Lapping America by Claude Clayton Smith, or Riding with Rilke by Edward Bishop. Happy Traveling!
 

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• The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane is a classic story of a young soldier who goes off to the Civil War full of dreams of performing heroic deeds in battle. Written in 1895, Stephan Crane showed the world the sadder, psychologically painful, aspects of war. Crane's young soldier, Henry Fleming, runs and hides from his first battle, only to find the courage inside of himself to go back to fight shoulder to shoulder with his comrades.
   
• Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage - The Graphic Novel adapted by Wayne Vansant is a new graphic novel adaptation of this profoundly moving story of Henry Fleming, the young soldier, and the American Civil War. Artist Vansant does a fine job of capturing Henry's uncertainty and fear, and faithfully introduces the plot, characters and primary themes of The Red Badge of Courage.
  
  Additional titles you can compare at Escondido Public Library include Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein The Graphic Novel adapted by Gary Reed and Illustrated by Frazer Irving, or Black Beauty by Anna Sewell and Anna Sewell's Black Beauty The Graphic Novel adapted by June Brigman and Roy Richardson.
   

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• The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier
• The Pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardner
  
  Both of these titles explore the life of two African American men who started at the bottom and worked their way to the top. Sidney Poitier, in his own words, explores the nature of sacrifice and commitment, price and humility, rage and forgiveness, and paying the price for artistic integrity. Chris Gardner chronicles his long, painful, ultimately rewarding journey from inner-city Milwaukee to the pinnacle of Wall Street. Read them together and enjoy the triumph of the human spirit.

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• Chocolat by Joanne Harris
• Blessed Are The Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch
  
  Besides the focus on a food, both novels have a "whiff" of magic, from the magic of coincidence to the magic of attraction induced by chocolate and cheese, respectively. Devour these (calorie-free!) books and you'll be redefining sin and finding more joy in your life.

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• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
• The Trees by Conrad Richter
  
  These two titles will provide the reader with a rich, detailed look at what it was like to be a pioneer in the wild American West. Lonesome Dove is about a group of retired Texas Rangers on a cattle drive to a new life. The Trees is about a family of youngsters who have to fend for themselves and make a new life for their family against great odds on the frontier.

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• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
  
  Explore the themes of guilt and redemption in both these critically acclaimed recent novels.

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• Howard's End by E.M. Forster
• On Beauty by Zadie Smith
  
  On Beauty is Howard's End for the 21st century, taking the original story and adding race and gender struggles to the narrative.

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• The Stand by Stephen King
• Watership Down by Richard Adams

These books deal with survivors of ruined civilizations.  Other common themes include the struggle to survive and the war between good and evil.

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• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• Banishing Verona by Margot Livesey
  
  The main character in The Curious Incident is autistic while one of the main characters in Banishing Verona has Asperger's Syndrome.  See the world through their eyes.

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• The Death of Mr. Love by Indra Sinha
• The Black Englishman by Carolyn Slaughter
• Both books deal with affairs between Indian men and married Englishwomen in India during the time of the British Raj.  Explore the themes of imperialism, racism, and class. 

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• The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
• Dr. Franklin's Island by Ann Halam
  
  Dr. Franklin's Island takes Wells classic novel and goes a step beyond in our new world of genetic engineering by making humans become animals.  Halam challenges Wells' idea of animal nature versus human nature. 

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• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall
  
  In her 2001 novel, Alice Randall tells Mitchell's classic tale from the perspectives of the slaves, Mammy and Tara.  Read both these books to get a fuller view of what life was like for everyone on a Southern plantation during the Civil War.

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• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
• My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
  
  Both of these novels explore the idea of humans existing merely to be organ donors.  While Picoult's novel is about a girl born to donate organs to her sister, Ishiguro's novel is more science fiction about a group of human clones existing to eradicate illness from the non-clone population.