If you Liked 'In the Unlikely Event' - Books, Movies, & More

A Spool of Blue Thread
by Anne Tyler

The changing needs of aging parents impact a family gathering during which Abby Whitshank relates how her husband and she fell in love during the summer of 1959 and shared decades of marriage impacted by children and long-held secrets.

Lark and Termite
by Jayne Anne Phillips

Set against the backdrop of the Korean War in the 1950s, a multi-layered novel about family, the power of loss and love, the repercussions of war, old secrets, and the bonds that unite and sustain personal relationships focuses on a single family--Lark, her brother Termite, their mother Lola, their aunt Nonie, and Termite's soldier father, Robert Leavitt.

Before You Know Kindness
by Chris Bohjalian

After a decade of spending the delightful summer week at their country house in New Hampshire, the members of the extended Seton family are confronted by a terrible accident when a partially loaded hunting rifle in the wrong hands leads to tragedy, testing the values, convictions, and relationships that hold the family together.

Abide With Me
by Elizabeth Strout

In the wake of the tragic death of his beautiful and independent young wife, Reverend Tyler Caskey, a New England minister, struggles to hold together his own life, his family, and his town, while dealing with his personal anger, grief, and loss of faith. By the author of Amy and Isabelle.

Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson

As the Reverend John Ames approaches the hour of his own death, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable secrets about the family of preachers.

Early Warning
by Jane Smiley

Follows the Langdon family from the author's best-selling novelSome Luck as they navigate the ups and downs of mid-century America. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres.

The Blondes
by Emily Schultz

Discovering that she is pregnant by her married professor, grad student Hazel struggles through a pregnancy against a backdrop of an apocalyptic illness that is transforming blondes from all walks of life into rabid killers.

The Age of Miracles
by Karen Thompson Walker

A painstakingly researched debut imagines the coming-of-age story of young Julia, whose world is thrown into upheaval when it is discovered that the Earth's rotation has suddenly begun to slow, posing a catastrophic threat to all life.