Exeter Public Library's
Book Groups
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
Morning Book Group Recommendations for 2019
Morning Book Group
Recommendations for 2019
We Will Pick 10 Titles
Poetry:
Stag’s Leap is stunningly poignant sequence of poems that tells the story of a
divorce, embracing strands of love, sex, sorrow, memory, and new freedom. In this wise and intimate telling—which
carries us through the seasons when her marriage was ending—Sharon Olds opens
her heart to the reader, sharing the feeling of invisibility that comes when we
are no longer standing in love’s sight; the surprising physical bond that still
exists between a couple during parting; the loss of everything from her
husband’s smile to the set of his hip. Olds is naked before us, curious and
brave and even generous toward the man who was her mate for thirty years and
who now loves another woman. As she writes in the remarkable “Stag’s Leap,”
“When anyone escapes, my heart / leaps up. Even when it’s I who am
escaped from, / I am half on the side of the leaver.” Olds’s propulsive poetic
line and the magic of her imagery are as lively as ever, and there is a new
range to the music—sometimes headlong, sometimes contemplative and deep. Her
unsparing approach to both pain and love makes this one of the finest, most
powerful books of poetry Olds has yet given us.
Mystery:
Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime
Book! From the internationally bestselling author, a deeply researched
and atmospheric murder mystery of late Victorian-era London In the summer of 1895,
Robert Coombes (age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending
lavishly around the docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate
out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys
told neighbors they had been left home alone while their mother visited family
in Liverpool, but their aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the
brothers to open the house to her, she found the badly decomposed body of their
mother in a bedroom upstairs. Robert and Nattie were arrested for matricide and
sent for trial at the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his
mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. Nattie struck a plea and
gave evidence against his brother. The court heard testimony about Robert's
severe headaches, his fascination with violent criminals and his passion for
'penny dreadfuls', the pulp fiction of the day. He seemed to feel no remorse
for what he had done, and neither the prosecution nor the defense could find a
motive for the murder. The judge sentenced the thirteen-year-old to detention
in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet
Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert--one that
would have profoundly shocked anyone who thought they understood the Wicked
Boy. At a time of great tumult and uncertainty, Robert Coombes's case
crystallized contemporary anxieties about the education of the working classes,
the dangers of pulp fiction, and evolving theories of criminality, childhood,
and insanity. With riveting detail and rich atmosphere, Kate Summerscale
recreates this terrible crime and its aftermath, uncovering an extraordinary
story of man's capacity to overcome the past.
1920s India: Perveen Mistry, Bombay’s first female lawyer, is
investigating a suspicious will on behalf of three Muslim widows living in full
purdah when the case takes a turn toward the murderous. The author of the
Agatha and Macavity Award-winning Rei Shimura novels brings us an atmospheric
new historical mystery with a captivating heroine. Inspired in part by the
woman who made history as India’s first female attorney, The Widows of
Malabar Hill is a richly wrought story of multicultural 1920s Bombay
as well as the debut of a sharp and promising new sleuth. Perveen Mistry, the daughter of a respected
Zoroastrian family, has just joined her father’s law firm, becoming one of the
first female lawyers in India. Armed with a legal education from Oxford,
Perveen also has a tragic personal history that makes women’s legal rights
especially important to her. Mistry Law
has been appointed to execute the will of Mr. Omar Farid, a wealthy Muslim mill
owner who has left three widows behind. But as Perveen examines the paperwork,
she notices something strange: all three of the wives have signed over their
full inheritance to a charity. What will they live on? Perveen is suspicious,
especially since one of the widows has signed her form with an X—meaning she
probably couldn’t even read the document. The Farid widows live in full
purdah—in strict seclusion, never leaving the women’s quarters or speaking to
any men. Are they being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous guardian? Perveen
tries to investigate, and realizes her instincts were correct when tensions
escalate to murder. Now it is her responsibility to figure out what really
happened on Malabar Hill, and to ensure that no innocent women or children are
in further danger.
in further danger.
Biography/Autobiography:
5 Recommendations
#1 NEW
YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An unforgettable memoir about a young girl
who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a
PhD from Cambridge University. Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS
NewsHour and The New York Times. “A coming-of-age memoir reminiscent of The
Glass Castle.”—O: The Oprah Magazine. “Tara Westover is living proof
that some people are flat-out, boots-always-laced-up indomitable.”—USA
Today. “The extremity of Westover’s upbringing emerges gradually through
her telling, which only makes the telling more alluring and harrowing.”—The
New York Times Book Review. Tara Westover was seventeen the first
time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of
Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches
and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills” bag. In the summer she stewed herbs
for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged metal in
her father’s junkyard. Her father distrusted the medical establishment, so Tara
never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from
explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated
from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received
an education, and no one to intervene when an older brother became violent.
When another brother got himself into college and came back with news of the
world beyond the mountain, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. She taught
herself enough mathematics, grammar, and science to take the ACT and was
admitted to Brigham Young University. There, she studied psychology, politics,
philosophy, and history, learning for the first time about pivotal world events
like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. Her quest for knowledge
transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and
to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far,
if there was still a way home. Educated is an account of the struggle
for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty, and of the grief
that comes from severing one’s closest ties. With the acute insight that
distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age
story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the
perspective to see one’s life through new eyes, and the will to change it.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
FINALIST
- ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR The New York Times, Washington Post, The
San Francisco Chronicle, Vogue, NPR, Publishers
Weekly, BookPage A revealing and beautifully written memoir and family history from
acclaimed photographer Sally Mann. In this groundbreaking book, a unique
interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race,
mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as
almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history
that precedes her. Sorting through boxes of family papers and yellowed
photographs she finds more than she bargained for: "deceit and scandal,
alcohol, domestic abuse, car crashes, bogeymen, clandestine affairs, dearly
loved and disputed family land . . . racial complications, vast sums of money
made and lost, the return of the prodigal son, and maybe even bloody
murder." In lyrical prose and startlingly revealing photographs, she
crafts a totally original form of personal history that has the page-turning
drama of a great novel but is firmly rooted in the fertile soil of her own
life.
The first comprehensive historical
biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little
House on the Prairie books - One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the
Year - Winner of the National
Book Critics Circle Award for Biography Millions of readers of Little
House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls―the pioneer girl
who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman
who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has
never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters,
diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser―the editor of the
Library of America edition of the Little House series―masterfully fills in the
gaps in Wilder’s biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most
influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's
tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting
the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around
the books. The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are
paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But
Wilder’s real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless
struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing
nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children’s books,
recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of
homesteading―and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most
astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters. Spanning nearly a
century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder’s
dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national
mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie
Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this
day.
Nonfiction:
Astrophysics
for People in a Hurry
by Neil DeGrasse Tyson p.224
ISBN:9780393609394
Over a year on the
New York Times bestseller list and more than a million copies sold.
The essential universe, from our most celebrated and beloved astrophysicist.What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.
The essential universe, from our most celebrated and beloved astrophysicist.What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There’s no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson.But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.
Two spiritual giants. Five days. One timeless question. Nobel Peace Prize
Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived
more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression.
Despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the
most joyful people on the planet. In
April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala,
India, to celebrate His Holiness's eightieth birthday and to create what they
hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to
answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life's
inevitable suffering? They traded
intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual
practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears,
these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and
revealed how to live a life brimming with joy. This book offers us a rare opportunity to experience their astonishing
and unprecendented week together, from the first embrace to the final good-bye.
We get to listen as they explore the Nature of
True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy—from fear, stress, and anger
to grief, illness, and death. They then offer us the Eight Pillars of Joy,
which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. Throughout, they include
stories, wisdom, and science. Finally, they share their daily Joy Practices
that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. The Archbishop has never
claimed sainthood, and the Dalai Lama considers himself a simple monk. In this
unique collaboration, they offer us the reflection of real lives filled with
pain and turmoil in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level
of peace, of courage, and of joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.
A
fifty-year-old Bridge game provides an unexpected way to cross the generational
divide between a daughter and her mother. Betsy Lerner takes us on a powerfully
personal literary journey, where we learn a little about Bridge and a lot about
life. After a lifetime defining herself in contrast to her mother’s “don’t ask,
don’t tell” generation, Lerner finds herself back in her childhood home, not
five miles from the mother she spent decades avoiding. When Roz needs help
after surgery, it falls to Betsy to take care of her. She expected a week of
tense civility; what she got instead were the Bridge Ladies. Impressed by their
loyalty, she saw something her generation lacked. Facebook was great, but it
wouldn’t deliver a pot roast. Tentatively at first, Betsy becomes a regular at
her mother’s Monday Bridge club. Through her friendships with the ladies, she
is finally able to face years of misunderstandings and family tragedy, the
Bridge table becoming the common ground she and Roz never had.By turns darkly
funny and deeply moving, The Bridge Ladies is the unforgettable story of
a hard-won—but never-too-late—bond between mother and daughter.
2 Recommendations
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
FINALIST - AMAZON EDITORS' PICK FOR THE BEST BOOK OF 2017
"Disturbing and riveting...It will sear your soul." —Dave
Eggers, New York Times Book Review Shelf Awareness’s Best Book of 2017
Named a best book of the year by Wall Street Journal, GQ, Time, Newsday, Entertainment
Weekly, NPR's Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "On
Point", Vogue.com, Smithsonian, Cosmopolitan, Seattle
Times, Bloomberg, Library Journal, Paste, Book Browse
From New Yorker staff writer David Grann, #1 New
York Times best-selling author of The Lost City of Z, a
twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous
crimes in American history In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the
world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was
discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built
mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed
off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her
relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and
more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances.
In this last remnant of the Wild
West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes
like Al Spencer, the “Phantom Terror,” roamed—many of those who dared to
investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll climbed to
more than twenty-four, the FBI took up the case. It was one of the
organization’s first major homicide investigations and the bureau badly bungled
the case. In desperation, the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a
former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. White put together
an undercover team, including one of the only American Indian agents in the
bureau. The agents infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest
techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one
of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. In Killers
of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes
in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of
research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative
nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister
secrets and reversals. But more than that, it is a searing indictment of the
callousness and prejudice toward American Indians that allowed the murderers to
operate with impunity for so long. Killers of the Flower Moon is
utterly compelling, but also emotionally devastating.
A groundbreaking account of how Britain became the
base of operations for the exiled leaders of Europe in their desperate struggle
to reclaim their continent from Hitler, from the New York Times bestselling
author of Citizens of London and Those Angry Days When the Nazi
blitzkrieg rolled over continental Europe in the early days of World War II,
the city of London became a refuge for the governments and armed forces of six
occupied nations who escaped there to continue the fight. So, too, did General
Charles de Gaulle, the self-appointed representative of free
France. As the
only European democracy still holding out against Hitler, Britain became known
to occupied countries as “Last Hope Island.” Getting there, one young emigré
declared, was “like getting to heaven.” In this epic, character-driven
narrative, acclaimed historian Lynne Olson takes us back to those perilous days
when the British and their European guests joined forces to combat the
mightiest military force in history. Here we meet the courageous King Haakon of
Norway, whose distinctive “H7” monogram became a symbol of his country’s
resistance to Nazi rule, and his fiery Dutch counterpart, Queen Wilhelmina,
whose antifascist radio broadcasts rallied the spirits of her defeated people.
Here, too, is the Earl of Suffolk, a swashbuckling British aristocrat whose
rescue of two nuclear physicists from France helped make the Manhattan Project
possible. Last Hope Island also recounts some of the Europeans’
heretofore unsung exploits that helped tilt the balance against the Axis: the
crucial efforts of Polish pilots during the Battle of Britain; the vital role
played by French and Polish code breakers in cracking the Germans’ reputedly
indecipherable Enigma code; and the flood of top-secret intelligence about
German operations—gathered by spies throughout occupied Europe—that helped
ensure the success of the 1944 Allied invasion. A fascinating
companion to Citizens of London, Olson’s bestselling chronicle of the
Anglo-American alliance, Last Hope Island recalls with vivid humanity
that brief moment in time when the peoples of Europe stood together in their
effort to roll back the tide of conquest and restore order to a broken
continent.
3 Recommendations
Once in a great
while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to
fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a
book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and
bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of
Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal
scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in
America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the
War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice
system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions
to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle
of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of
the NAACP, this book is a "call to action." Called
"stunning" by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis,
"invaluable" by the Daily Kos, "explosive"
by Kirkus, and "profoundly necessary" by the Miami
Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim
Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of
conscience.
Harvey. Maria. Irma.
Sandy. Katrina. We live in a time of unprecedented hurricanes and catastrophic
weather events, a time when it is increasingly clear that climate change is
neither imagined nor distant―and that rising seas are transforming the coastline
of the United States in irrevocable ways.In this highly original work of lyrical
reportage, Elizabeth Rush guides readers through some of the places where this
change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami, and from New York
City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these
places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place. Weaving firsthand
accounts from those facing this choice―a Staten Islander who lost her father
during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a
drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped
slaves hundreds of years ago―with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists,
and other members of the communities both currently at risk and already
displaced, Rising privileges the voices of those usually kept
at the margins. At once polyphonic and precise, Rising is a
shimmering meditation on vulnerability and on vulnerable communities, both
human and more than human, and on how to let go of the places we love.
First published a half-century ago,
Rachel Carson's award-winning The Sense of Wonder remains the classic
guide to introducing children to the marvels of nature In 1955, acclaimed
conservationist Rachel Carson—author of Silent Spring—began work on an
essay that she would come to consider one of her life’s most important
projects. Her grandnephew, Roger Christie, had visited Carson that summer at
her cottage in Maine, and together they had wandered the surrounding woods and
tide pools. Teaching Roger about the natural wonders around them, Carson began
to see them anew herself, and wanted to relate that same magical feeling to
others who might hope to introduce a child to the beauty of nature. “If a child
is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder,” writes Carson, “he needs the
companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him
the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.” Now available in
paperback, The Sense of Wonder is a timeless volume that will be passed
on from generation to generation, as treasured as the memory of an
early-morning walk when the song of a whippoorwill was heard as if for the
first time. Featuring serene color photographs from renowned photographer Nick
Kelsh, “this beautifully illustrated edition makes a fine gift for new and
prospective mothers and fathers” (Gregory McNamee), and helps us all to tap
into the extraordinary power of the natural world.
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present
moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our
history when hope overcame division and fear.
Our current climate of partisan fury is not new,
and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham
Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” have repeatedly won the day.
Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including
Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the
courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early
suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa
Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings
lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in
American history. He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth
of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and
the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women’s rights;
the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of
America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts
led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson’s crusade against Jim Crow.
Each of these dramatic hours in our national life have been shaped by the
contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope
over fear—a struggle that continues even now. While the American story has not always—or even often—been heroic, we
have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In
this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, “The good news is that we have
come through such darkness before”—as, time and again, Lincoln’s better angels
have found a way to prevail.
Classics:
Originally published
in hardcover in 1972, A Day No Pigs Would Die was one of the
first young adult books, along with titles like The Outsiders and The
Chocolate War. In it, author Robert Newton Peck weaves a story of
a Vermont boyhood that is part fiction, part memoir. The result is a moving coming-of-age story that still resonates with teens today.
a Vermont boyhood that is part fiction, part memoir. The result is a moving coming-of-age story that still resonates with teens today.
From
the bestselling author of Rebecca, another classic set in beautiful and
mysterious Cornwall. Philip
Ashley's older cousin Ambrose, who raised the orphaned Philip as his own son,
has died in Rome. Philip, the heir to Ambrose's beautiful English estate, is
crushed that the man he loved died far from home. He is also suspicious. While
in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian
woman. But the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned
to paranoia and fear. Now
Rachel has arrived at Philip's newly inherited estate. Could this exquisite
woman, who seems to genuinely share Philip's grief at Ambrose's death, really
be as cruel as Philip imagined? Or is she the kind, passionate woman with whom
Ambrose fell in love? Philip struggles to answer this question, knowing
Ambrose's estate, and his own future, will be destroyed if his answer is wrong.
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther
Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but
slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws
the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity
becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience
as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing
corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a
haunting American classic.
The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts by Arthur Miller p.143 ISBN:9780142437339 Based on historical people and real events, Arthur Miller's play uses the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence unleashed by the rumors of witchcraft as a powerful parable about McCarthyism.
Set against the
frozen waste of a harsh New England winter, Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is a
tale of despair, forbidden emotions, and sexual tensions, published with an
introduction and notes by Elizabeth Ammons in Penguin Classics. Ethan Frome
works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with
his difficult, suspicious, and hypochondriac wife, Zeenie. But when Zeenie's
vivacious cousin enters their household as a 'hired girl', Ethan finds himself
obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.
In one of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton
moves this ill-starred trio toward their tragic destinies. Different in both
tone and theme from Wharton's other works, Ethan Frome has become perhaps her
most enduring and most widely read novel.
Nathaniel
Hawthorne's classic and influential gothic novel exploring concepts of guilt
and justice in the wake of the Salem Witch Trials. A gloomy New England mansion
provides the setting for this classic exploration of ancestral guilt and its
expiation through the love and goodwill of succeeding generations. Nathaniel Hawthorne drew
inspiration for this story of an immorally obtained property from the role his
forebears played in the 17th-century Salem witch trials. Built over an unquiet
grave, the House of the Seven Gables carries a dying man's curse that blights
the lives of its residents for over two centuries. Now Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon,
an iron-hearted hypocrite and intellectual heir to the mansion's unscrupulous
founder, is attempting to railroad a pair of his elderly relatives out of the
house. Only two young people stand in his way — a visiting country cousin and
an enigmatic boarder skilled in mesmerism. Hawthorne
envisioned this family drama of evil, revenge, and resolution as a microcosm of
Salem's own history as in idealistic society corrupted by greed and pride. His
enduring view of the darkness at the heart of the national soul has made The
House of the Seven Gables a landmark of American literature.
"The American
female myth."—Madelon Bedell Grown-up Meg, tomboyish Jo, timid Beth, and
precocious Amy. The four March sisters couldn't be more different. But with
their father away at war, and their mother working to support the family, they
have to rely on one another. Whether they're putting on a play, forming a
secret society, or celebrating Christmas, there's one thing they can't help
wondering: Will Father return home safely?
Our Town was first produced and published in
1938 to wide acclaim. This Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of life in the small
village of Grover's Corners, an allegorical representation of all life, has
become a classic. It is Thornton Wilder's most renowned and most frequently
performed play.
Never
more relevant than now, this national bestseller will challenge all who believe
that “it can't happen here.” “A terrific political novel . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily
plausible. . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened.” — The New
York Times Book Review In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention,
Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the
1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A.
Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding”
with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy
anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in
Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten
to destroy his small, safe corner of America–and with it, his mother, his
father, and his older brother.
“Once you start
looking for the happy things, you don’t think about the bad ones as much.” That’s the joyful way Pollyanna
sees the world: no matter what happens, she plays her “Just Be Glad” game and
finds the sunny side of any situation. But when she’s orphaned and forced to
live with her rigid Aunt Polly, will high-spirited Pollyanna succeed in melting
her Aunt’s cold heart?
Hailed by Henry
James as "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in
the country," Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter reaches
to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of
great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows
the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three
members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery,
tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed,
vengeful Chillingworth. With The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne
became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage
a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity's unending
struggle with sin, guilt and pride.
An American classic
and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is
timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire
country was losing its innocence to World War II. Set at a boys' boarding
school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate
Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of
adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome,
taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer,
like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world. Exeter Author
We need to
understand that when Thoreau sat in the dooryard of his cabin ‘from sunrise
till noon, rapt in a revery, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the
birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house,’ he was offering
counsel and example exactly suited for our perilous moment in time.” —Bill McKibben, from the
introduction First published in 1854,
Henry David Thoreau’s groundbreaking book has influenced generations of readers
and continues to inspire and inform anyone with an open mind, a love of nature,
and a longing for simplicity and contemplation. Bill McKibben provides a newly
revised introduction and helpful annotations that place Thoreau firmly in his
role as cultural and spiritual seer. This beautiful edition of Walden,
published in honor of the bicentennial of Thoreau’s birth, is more accessible
and relevant than ever in an age of technological change and ecological crisis.
Science
Fiction/Fantasy:
With four starred reviews, Tomi
Adeyemi’s West African-inspired fantasy debut conjures a world of magic and
danger, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Sabaa Tahir. They killed my
mother. They took our magic. They tried to bury us. Now we rise. Zélie Adebola
remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames,
Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But
everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless
king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without
hope.Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the
monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the
crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in
Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters.
Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her
powers and her growing feelings for an enemy. "A phenomenon." ―Entertainment Weekly “The epic
I’ve been waiting for.” ―New
York Times-bestselling author Marie Lu “You will be changed. You
will be ready to rise up and reclaim your own magic!” ―New York Times-bestselling author
Dhonielle Clayton “The next big thing in literature and film.” ―Ebony “One of the biggest
young adult fiction debut book deals of theyear.” ―Teen Vogue
J.R.R. Tolkien's classic prelude to his Lord of the
Rings trilogy featuring cover art by Caldecott Honor winning
children’s book illustrator Peter Sís, this edition of The Hobbit has been
specially formatted for young readers. Larger print size and wider margins
provide reading ease for the youngest Tolkien fans. This quality digest edition
also includes interior maps and original interior illustrations by J.R.R.
Tolkien.
Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious
life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment
is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his
doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot
to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very
dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his
journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a
frightening creature known as Gollum.
Fiction:
Now a
6-part Netflix original mini-series: in Alias Grace, the
bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale takes readers into
the life of one of the most notorious women of the nineteenth century. It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her
involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and
mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now
serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders. An
up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a
group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to
her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember.
What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories? Captivating and
disturbing, Alias Grace showcases bestselling, Booker
Prize-winning author Margaret Atwood at the peak of her powers.
Newlyweds Celestial
and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is
a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But
as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart
by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to
twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely
independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in
Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in
prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center.
After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to
Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful
look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and
separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriageis a
masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who
must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the
future.
Soon To Be a STARZ Mini-Series,
Starring Emily Watson Yvonne Carmichael sits in the witness box. The charge is murder.
Before all of this, she was happily married, a successful scientist, a mother
of two. Now she is a suspect, squirming under florescent lights and the
penetrating gaze of the alleged accomplice who is sitting across from her,
watching: a man who is also her lover. As Yvonne faces hostile questioning, she
must piece together the story of her affair with this unnamed figure who has
charmed and haunted her. It is a tale of sexual intrigue and ruthless urges―and
of danger, which has blindsided her from a seemingly innocuous angle. Here, in
the courtroom, everything hinges on one night in a dark alley called Apple Tree
Yard. Shot through with suspense and masterfully paced, Louise Doughty's novel
is "a must read . . . if you liked The Silent Wife, you'll fall
hard for Apple Tree Yard"
An enthralling novel about love, loss, secrets, friendship, and
the healing power of literature, by the bestselling author of The Knitting
Circle. Ava’s twenty-five-year marriage has fallen apart, and her two grown
children are pursuing their own lives outside of the country. Ava joins a book
group, not only for her love of reading but also out of sheer desperation for
companionship. The group’s goal throughout the year is for each member to
present the book that matters most to them. Ava rediscovers a mysterious book
from her childhood—one that helped her through the traumas of the untimely
deaths of her sister and mother. Alternating with Ava’s story is that of her
troubled daughter Maggie, who, living in Paris, descends into a destructive
relationship with an older man. Ava’s mission to find that book and its
enigmatic author takes her on a quest that unravels the secrets of her past and
offers her and Maggie the chance to remake their lives.
Stephen King's
legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her
classmates.
Carrie White may be picked on by her classmates, but she has a gift. She can move things with her mind. Doors lock. Candles fall. This is her power and her problem. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offers Carrie a chance to be a normal...until an unexpected cruelty turns her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that no one will ever forget.
Carrie White may be picked on by her classmates, but she has a gift. She can move things with her mind. Doors lock. Candles fall. This is her power and her problem. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offers Carrie a chance to be a normal...until an unexpected cruelty turns her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that no one will ever forget.
First published in
1985, The Cider House Rules is John Irving's sixth novel. Set in rural Maine in
the first half of this century, it tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch--saint
and obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in the town of St.
Cloud's, ether addict and abortionist. It is also the story of Dr. Larch's
favorite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted. Exeter Author
Like most of Richard
Russo's earlier novels, Empire Falls is a tale of blue-collar life, which
itself increasingly resembles a kind of high-wire act performed without the
benefit of any middle-class safety nets. This time, though, the author has
widened his scope, producing a comic and compelling ensemble piece. There is,
to be sure, a protagonist: fortysomething Miles Roby, proprietor of the local
greasy spoon and the recently divorced father of a teenage daughter. But Russo
sets in motion a large cast of secondary characters, drawn from every social
stratum of his depressed New England mill town. We meet his ex-wife Janine, his
father Max (another of Russo's cantankerous layabouts), and a host of Empire
Grill regulars. We're also introduced to Francine Whiting, a manipulative widow
who owns half the town--and who takes a perverse pleasure in pointing out Miles's
psychological defects. Miles does indeed have a tendency to take it on the
chin. And his role as Mr. Nice Guy thrusts him into all sorts of clashes with
his not-so-nice contemporaries, even as the reader patiently waits for him to
blow his top. It would be impossible to summarize Russo's multiple plot lines
here. Suffice it to say that he touches on love and marriage, lust and loss and
small-town economics, with more than a soupçon of class resentment stirred into
the broth. This is, in a sense, an epic of small and large frustrations:
"After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn
for their heart's impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in
defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as
polished marble." Yet Russo's comedic timing keeps the novel from
collapsing into an orgy of breast-beating, and his dialogue alone--snappy and
natural and efficiently poignant--is sufficient cause to put Empire Falls on
the map.
Enchantress of Numbers: A Novel of Ada Lovelace by Jennifer Chiaverini
p.448 ISBN:978-1101985205
The only
legitimate child of Lord Byron, the most brilliant, revered, and scandalous
of the Romantic poets, Ada was destined for fame long before her birth.
Estranged from Ada’s father, who was infamously “mad, bad, and dangerous
to know,” Ada’s mathematician mother is determined to save her only child
from her perilous Byron heritage. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe
from the nursery, Ada’s mother provides her daughter with a rigorous
education grounded in mathematics and science. Any troubling spark of
imagination—or worse yet, passion or poetry—is promptly extinguished. Or
so her mother believes. When Ada is introduced into London society as a highly
eligible young heiress, she at last discovers the intellectual and social
circles she has craved all her life. Little does she realize that her
delightful new friendship with inventor Charles
Babbage—brilliant, charming, and occasionally curmudgeonly—will shape her
destiny. Intrigued by the prototype of his first calculating machine, the
Difference Engine, and enthralled by the plans for his even more advanced
Analytical Engine, Ada resolves to help Babbage realize his extraordinary
vision, unique in her understanding of how his invention could transform
the world. All the while, she passionately studies mathematics—ignoring
skeptics who consider it an unusual, even unhealthy pursuit for a
woman—falls in love, discovers the shocking secrets behind her
parents’ estrangement, and comes to terms with the unquenchable fire of
her imagination. In Enchantress of Numbers, New York Times bestselling
author Jennifer Chiaverini unveils the passions, dreams, and insatiable
thirst for knowledge of a largely unheralded pioneer in computing—a young
woman who stepped out of her father’s shadow to achieve her own laurels
and champion the new technology that would shape the future.
A “gripping” (People)
exploration of regret, forgiveness, and freedom by the neuroscientist and New
York Timesbestselling author of Still Alice, who “writes with
humor and humanity but also with a scientist’s eye about the daily depredations
of disease, the incremental losses, the slower acceptances, the rage, the love,
the courage, and strangely enough, the joy” (Bill Roorbach, author of Life
Among Giants). An accomplished concert pianist, Richard received standing
ovations from audiences all over the world in awe of his rare combination of
emotional resonance and flawless technique. Every finger of his hands was a
finely calibrated instrument, dancing across the keys and striking each note
with exacting precision. But that was the past. Richard now has ALS, and his entire
right arm is paralyzed. His fingers are impotent, immobile, devoid of
possibility. The loss of his hand feels like a death, a loss of true love, a
divorce—his divorce. And he knows his left arm will go next. Three years ago,
Karina removed their framed wedding picture from the living room wall and hung
a mirror there instead. But she still hasn’t moved on. Karina is paralyzed by
excuses and fear, stuck in an unfulfilling life as a piano teacher, afraid to
pursue the path she abandoned as a young woman, blaming Richard and their
failed marriage for all of it. When Richard becomes increasingly paralyzed and
is no longer able to live on his own, Karina becomes his reluctant caretaker.
As Richard’s muscles, voice, and breath fade, both he and Karina try to reconcile
their past before it’s too late. “Unsparing in her depiction of the disease’s
harrowing effects, neuroscientist Genova also celebrates humanity and the
rewards of asking for, and offering, forgiveness” (People) in this
moving and powerful novel.
“A spy
novel but one that has been quietly and ingeniously deepened well beyond the
ambitions of genre . . . [it] is one of those books that you read with your
heart in your mouth, your mind fully engaged, and with a sense of desolation as
you note the dwindling number of pages left before it comes to an end.”—Chicago
Tribune. “Dunmore has always been fantastic on the complexity of people’s
motivations and the secret reasons they act as they do. This book is no
exception . . . a page turner...as much a surprising love story as it is a tale
of spies.”—New York Times Book Review It’s
London, 1960. The Cold War is at its height, and a spy may be a friend or
neighbor, colleague or lover. Two colleagues, Giles Holloway and Simon
Callington, face a terrible dilemma over a missing top-secret file. At the end
of a suburban garden, in the pouring rain, Simon’s wife, Lily, buries a
briefcase containing the file deep in the earth. She believes that in doing so
she is protecting her family. What she will learn is that no one is immune from
betrayal or the devastating consequences of exposure. A master of the literary
war novel as seen through the lens of individuals impacted by war’s effects, in
Exposure, Helen Dunmore pulls back the veneer of 1960’s London life to
reveal just how the betrayals and paranoia of the Cold War infiltrate even
families. This is a propulsive novel of forbidden love and intimate deceptions
from one of our finest writers. “Dunmore's strategy, placing a triangle of
past and present loves within a spy novel, yields an unexpected
dividend...viscerally exciting.”—New Yorker. “Much like a slick,
shape-shifting spook, Exposure is many things at once—an espionage
thriller, a forbidden-love story, an immigrant’s tale—and it assumes these
varied identities with confidence . . . a novel you won’t be able to shake.”—Entertainment
Weekly
“The book is like a salve. I think the world feels disordered right now.
The count’s refinement and genteel nature are exactly what we’re longing
for.” —Ann Patchett “How delightful that in an
era as crude as ours this finely composed novel stretches out with old-World
elegance.” —The Washington Post He can’t leave his hotel. You won’t want to. From the New York Times bestselling
author of Rules of Civility—a transporting novel about a man who is
ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an
unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house
arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin.
Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his
life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous
decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.
Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger
world of emotional discovery. Brimming
with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene
after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s
endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of
purpose. Soon
to be a major television series starring five-time Academy Award® nominee
Kenneth Branagh. “And the intrigue! . . . [A Gentleman in Moscow] is
laced with sparkling threads (they will tie up) and tokens (they will matter):
special keys, secret compartments, gold coins, vials of coveted liquid,
old-fashioned pistols, duels and scars, hidden assignations (discreet and
smoky), stolen passports, a ruby necklace, mysterious letters on elegant hotel
stationery . . . a luscious stage set, backdrop for a downright Casablanca-like
drama.” —The San Francisco Chronicle Julia’s Note: We
were unable to get this book in 2018 despite it being listed on our 2018
Calendar.
In 1903, a young
Scotswoman named Mary Mackenzie sets sail for China to marry her betrothed, a
military attaché in Peking. But soon after her arrival, Mary falls into an
adulterous affair with a young Japanese nobleman, scandalizing the British
community. Casting her out of the European community, her compatriots tear her
away from her small daughter. A woman abandoned and alone, Mary learns to
survive over forty tumultuous years in Asia, including two world wars and the
cataclysmic Tokyo earthquake of 1923.
3 Recommendations
An instant #1 New York Times bestseller!
"A TOUR DE FORCE." ―Kirkus (starred review)
Alaska, 1974. Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed. For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival. Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier. Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown. At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources. But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves. In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska―a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.
Alaska, 1974. Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed. For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival. Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier. Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown. At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources. But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves. In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska―a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.
The maestro
storyteller and reporter provocatively argues that what we think we know about
speech and human evolution is wrong. "A
whooping, joy-filled and hyperbolic raid on, of all things, the theory of
evolution." (Dwight Garner, New York Times) Tom Wolfe, whose
legend began in journalism, takes us on an eye-opening journey that is sure to
arouse widespread debate. THE KINGDOM OF SPEECH is a captivating,
paradigm-shifting argument that speech--not evolution--is responsible for
humanity's complex societies and achievements. From Alfred Russel Wallace, the
Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later
renounced it, and through the controversial work of modern-day anthropologist
Daniel Everett, who defies the current wisdom that language is hard-wired in
humans, Wolfe examines the solemn, long-faced, laugh-out-loud zig-zags of
Darwinism, old and Neo, and finds it irrelevant here in the Kingdom of Speech.
2 recommendations
Set in Kenya in the 1950s against the fading backdrop of the British
Empire, a story of self-discovery, betrayal, and an impossible love from the
author of The Fever Tree. After six years in England, Rachel has returned to
Kenya and the farm where she spent her childhood, but the beloved home she’d
longed for is much changed. Her father’s new companion—a strange, intolerant
woman—has taken over the household. The political climate in the country grows
more unsettled by the day and is approaching the boiling point. And looming
over them all is the threat of the Mau Mau, a secret society intent on uniting
the native Kenyans and overthrowing the whites. As Rachel struggles to find her place in her home and her country, she
initiates a covert relationship, one that will demand from her a gross act of
betrayal. One man knows her secret, and he has made it clear how she can buy
his silence. But she knows something of her own, something she has never told
anyone. And her knowledge brings her power.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER
PRIZE The long-awaited first novel from the author of Tenth of December:
a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham
Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and
dead, historical and invented Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year
by The Washington Post, USA Today, and Maureen Corrigan, NPR
• One of Time’s Ten Best Novels of the Year • A New
York Times Notable Book February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The
fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for
a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old
son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of
days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a
Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the
president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a
grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his
boy’s body. From
that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of
familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework
into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds
himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate,
quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional
state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts
over young Willie’s soul. Lincoln in
the Bardo is an
astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the
most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring,
generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a
testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that
really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a
kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound
question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love
must end? “A luminous feat of
generosity and humanism.”—Colson Whitehead, The New York
Times Book Review “A masterpiece.”—Zadie Smith
This breakout New
York Times bestseller from the celebrated author of Commencement and The
Engagements, introduces four unforgettable women and the abiding, often
irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each
other. For
the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken
outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. As three generations of
Kelleher women arrive at the family's beach house, each brings her own hopes
and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and pregnant, waiting for the perfect moment to
tell her imperfect boyfriend the news; Ann Marie, a Kelleher by marriage, is
channeling her domestic frustration into a dollhouse obsession and an
ill-advised crush; Kathleen, the black sheep, never wanted to set foot in the
cottage again; and Alice, the matriarch at the center of it all, would trade
every floorboard for a chance to undo the events of one night, long ago.
The International Bestseller Now a major motion picture from Netflix,
directed by Dee Rees, nominated in four categories for the Academy Awards. In Jordan's prize-winning
debut, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal. It is 1946, and
city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband's
Mississippi Delta farm—a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst
of the family's struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land.
Jamie McAllan, Laura's brother-in-law, is everything her husband is
not—charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson,
eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come
home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his
country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is
the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful
novel to its inexorable conclusion. The
men and women of each family relate their versions of events and we are drawn
into their lives as they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale. As
Kingsolver says of Hillary Jordan, "Her characters walked straight out of
1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and
love reside, leaving my heart racing. They are with me still."
Jodi Picoult tells
the story of a girl who decides to sue her parents for the rights to her own
body in this New York Times bestseller that tackles a
controversial subject with grace and explores what it means to be a good
person.
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness. Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister’s Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.
New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness. Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister’s Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.
One Thousand White
Women is the story
of May Dodd and a colorful assembly of pioneer women who, under the auspices of
the U.S. government, travel to the western prairies in 1875 to intermarry among
the Cheyenne Indians. The covert and controversial "Brides for
Indians" program, launched by the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, is
intended to help assimilate the Indians into the white man's world. Toward that
end May and her friends embark upon the adventure of their lifetime. Jim Fergus
has so vividly depicted the American West that it is as if these diaries are a
capsule in time.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST * A NEW YORK TIMES
BOOK REVIEW TOP TEN OF THE YEAR * NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF
2017 *A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017, Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER
* USA TODAY BESTSELLER, In
this gorgeous, page-turning saga, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant
family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a home
they never knew. "There could only be a few winners, and a lot
of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky
ones." In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a
crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home
in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is
pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she
accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on
his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's
powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the
generations. Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of
love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the
halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal
underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women,
devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive
against the indifferent arc of history.
Practical Magic is
vintage Hoffman. It is the story of how three generations of New England women
deal with the irresistible force of love. Sisters Sally and Gillian are as
different as night and day; Antonia and Kylie are Sally's teenage daughters.
All are caught in passion's snare in spite of their vigilance against it or
disbelief in its power. Hovering in the background are the girls'
great-aunties, Frances and Jet, who are really barely disguised witches. Using
their heritage of practical magic, that is, magic that will get you out of
trouble, each of the younger women deals with whatever love delivers, good and
bad. YAs will be charmed by Hoffman's warm, mesmerizing narrative. The book is
reminiscent in places of Gwendolyn Brooks's tiny jewel of a poem, "Sadie
and Maud," and even more of Sue Miller's poignant novel, For Love. But
even as Hoffman agrees with Brooks and Miller that "grief is
everywhere," she administers that sweet antidote, a happy ending. Her
women are possessed by love, and transformed.
John Irving’s beloved A Prayer for Owen Meany—a
coming-of-age tale that ranks among the most cherished American classics,
including To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye.
In the summer of 1953, two eleven-year-old boys—best friends—are playing in a
Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a
foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't
believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens
to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary. Exeter Author
From the New York Times-bestselling author of
A Gentleman in Moscow, a “sharply stylish” (Boston Globe) novel of a
young woman in post-Depression era New York who suddenly finds herself thrust
into high society.
On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a
second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker,
happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its
startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper
echelons of New York society—where she will have little to rely upon other than
a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve. With its sparkling depiction of
New York’s social strata, its intricate imagery and themes, and its immensely
appealing characters, Rules of Civility won the hearts of readers
and critics alike.
“At once a scholar’s homage to The Iliad and startlingly
original work of art by an incredibly talented new novelist….A book I could not
put down.”—Ann Patchett “Mary Renault lives again!” declares Emma Donoghue,
author of Room, referring to The Song of Achilles, Madeline
Miller’s thrilling, profoundly moving, and utterly unique retelling of the
legend of Achilles and the Trojan War. A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame,
and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat
that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An
action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and
executed page-turner, Miller’s monumental debut novel has already earned
resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction’s brightest lights—and
fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen
McCullough’s Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey
back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.
In the summer of
1977, Victoria Leonard’s world changes forever when Caitlin Somers chooses her
as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomes Vix into the heart of her
sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable
privilege, sweeping her away to vacations on Martha’s Vineyard, an enchanting
place where the two friends become “summer sisters.” Now, years later, Vix is
working in New York City. Caitlin is getting married on the Vineyard. And the
early magic of their long, complicated friendship has faded. But Caitlin begs
Vix to come to her wedding, to be her maid of honor. And Vix knows that she
will go—because she wants to understand what happened during that last
shattering summer. And, after all these years, she needs to know why her best
friend—her summer sister—still has the power to break her heart.
Maybe it was a
grandparent, or a teacher, or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who
understood you when you were young and searching, helped you see the world as a
more profound place, gave you sound advice to help you make your way through
it. For
Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly
twenty years ago. Maybe, like Mitch, you
lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded, and the
world seemed colder. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger
questions that still haunt you, receive wisdom for your busy life today the way
you once did when you were younger? Mitch
Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the
older man's life. Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study
every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled
relationship turned into one final “class”: lessons in how to live. Tuesdays with Morrie is
a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's
lasting gift with the world.It’s been ten years since Mitch Albom first shared
the wisdom of Morrie Schwartz with the world. Now–twelve million copies
later–in a new afterword, Mitch Albom reflects again on the meaning of Morrie’s
life lessons and the gentle, irrevocable impact of their Tuesday sessions all
those years ago. . .
From one of our most celebrated and
imaginative writers comes a spellbinding novel about deception, betrayal,
psychoanalysis, and the mysteries of the human heart. William Boyd follows his
critically acclaimed novels A Good Man in Africa, Brazzaville Beach,
and Ordinary
Thunderstorms with a razor-sharp, incandescent thriller in Waiting
for Sunrise. A provocative exploration of the line between consciousness and
reality is nested within a tense, rollercoaster plotline following as a young
English actor ensnared in a bewildering scandal with an enigmatic woman in
early twentieth-century Vienna. Sophisticated, page-turning, and unforgettable,
Boyd’s Waiting for Sunrise is a triumph of literary fiction from
one of the most powerful, thought-provoking writers working today.
NATIONAL BEST SELLER From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling
author of The English Patient: a mesmerizing new novel that
tells a dramatic story set in the decade after World War II through the lives
of a small group of unexpected characters and two teenagers whose lives are indelibly
shaped by their unwitting involvement.In a narrative as beguiling and mysterious as memory
itself--shadowed and luminous at once--we read the story of fourteen-year-old
Nathaniel, and his older sister, Rachel. In 1945, just after World War II, they
stay behind in London when their parents move to Singapore, leaving them in the
care of a mysterious figure named The Moth. They suspect he might be a
criminal, and they grow both more convinced and less concerned as they come to
know his eccentric crew of friends: men and women joined by a shared history of
unspecified service during the war, all of whom seem, in some way, determined
now to protect, and educate (in rather unusual ways) Rachel and Nathaniel. But
are they really what and who they claim to be? And what does it mean when the
siblings' mother returns after months of silence without their father,
explaining nothing, excusing nothing? A dozen years later, Nathaniel begins to
uncover all that he didn't know and understand in that time, and it is this
journey--through facts, recollection, and imagination--that he narrates in this
masterwork from one of the great writers of our time.
White Houses by Amy Bloom p.240 ISBN:9780812995664
“A novel of the secret, scandalous
love of Eleanor Roosevelt and her longtime friend and companion Lorena Hickok,
who relates the tale in her own, quite wonderful voice.”—Joyce Carol Oates Lorena Hickok
meets Eleanor Roosevelt in 1932 while reporting on Franklin Roosevelt’s first
presidential campaign. Having grown up worse than poor in South Dakota and
reinvented herself as the most prominent woman reporter in America, “Hick,” as
she’s known to her friends and admirers, is not quite instantly charmed by the
idealistic, patrician Eleanor. But then, as her connection with the future
first lady deepens into intimacy, what begins as a powerful passion matures
into a lasting love, and a life that Hick never expected to have. She moves
into the White House, where her status as “first friend” is an open secret, as
are FDR’s own lovers. After she takes a job in the Roosevelt administration,
promoting and protecting both Roosevelts, she comes to know Franklin not only
as a great president but as a complicated rival and an irresistible friend,
capable of changing lives even after his death. Through it all, even as Hick’s
bond with Eleanor is tested by forces both extraordinary and common, and as she
grows as a woman and a writer, she never loses sight of the love of her life.
From Washington, D.C. to Hyde Park, from a little white house on
Long Island to an apartment on Manhattan’s Washington Square, Amy Bloom’s new
novel moves elegantly through fascinating places and times, written in
compelling prose and with emotional depth, wit, and acuity.
Sixteen-year-old Kit Tyler is marked by suspicion and
disapproval from the moment she arrives on the unfamiliar shores of colonial
Connecticut in 1687. Alone and desperate, she has been forced to leave her
beloved home on the island of Barbados and join a family she has never met.
Torn between her quest for belonging and her desire to be true to herself, Kit
struggles to survive in a hostile place. Just when it seems she must give up,
she finds a kindred spirit. But Kit’s friendship with Hannah Tupper, believed
by the colonists to be a witch, proves more taboo than she could have imagined
and ultimately forces Kit to choose between her heart and her duty.Elizabeth
George Speare won the 1959 Newbery Medal for this portrayal of a heroine whom
readers will admire for her unwavering sense of truth as well as her infinite
capacity to love.
Hailed as a classic
of speculative fiction, Marge Piercy’s landmark novel is a transformative
vision of two futures—and what it takes to will one or the other into reality.
Harrowing and prescient, Woman on the Edge of Time speaks to a
new generation on whom these choices weigh more heavily than ever before. Connie Ramos is a Mexican
American woman living on the streets of New York. Once ambitious and proud, she
has lost her child, her husband, her dignity—and now they want to take her
sanity. After being unjustly committed to a mental institution, Connie is
contacted by an envoy from the year 2137, who shows her a time of sexual and
racial equality, environmental purity, and unprecedented self-actualization.
But Connie also bears witness to another potential outcome: a society of
grotesque exploitation in which the barrier between person and commodity has
finally been eroded. One will become our world. And Connie herself may strike
the decisive blow.
Three women, haunted by the past and the
secrets they hold. Set
at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played
host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three
widows whose lives and fates become intertwined—an affecting, shocking, and
ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times
Notable Book The Hazards of Good Breeding. Amid the ashes of Nazi
Germany’s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of
her husband’s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin
following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed July 20,
1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise
she made to her husband’s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives,
her fellow resistance widows. First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the
son of her dearest childhood friend, from a Nazi reeducation home. Together,
they make their way across the smoldering wreckage of their homeland to Berlin,
where Martin’s mother, the beautiful and naive Benita, has fallen into the
hands of occupying Red Army soldiers. Then she locates Ania, another resister’s
wife, and her two boys, now refugees languishing in one of the many camps that
house the millions displaced by the war.
As Marianne assembles this makeshift family from the ruins of her
husband’s resistance movement, she is certain their shared pain and
circumstances will hold them together. But she quickly discovers that the
black-and-white, highly principled world of her privileged past has become
infinitely more complicated, filled with secrets and dark passions that
threaten to tear them apart. Eventually, all three women must come to terms
with the choices that have defined their lives before, during, and after the
war—each with their own unique share of challenges. Written with the devastating emotional power
of The Nightingale, Sarah’s Key, and The Light Between Oceans,
Jessica Shattuck’s evocative and utterly enthralling novel offers a fresh perspective
on one of the most tumultuous periods in history. Combining piercing social
insight and vivid historical atmosphere, The Women in the Castle is a
dramatic yet nuanced portrait of war and its repercussions that explores what
it means to survive, love, and, ultimately, to forgive in the wake of
unimaginable hardship.
For readers of
Gillian Flynn and Tana French comes one of the decade’s most anticipated
debuts, to be published in thirty-six languages around the world and already in
development as a major film from Fox: a twisty, powerful Hitchcockian thriller
about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring
house. It isn’t paranoia if it’s
really happening . . . Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New
York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine
(maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying
on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a
father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out
her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to
crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare. What is real? What is imagined?
Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no
one—and nothing—is what it seems. Twisty
and powerful, ingenious and moving, The Woman in the Window is
a smart, sophisticated novel of psychological suspense that recalls the best of
Hitchcock.
Not Enough Copies in New Hampshire Library System:
Dadland by
Keggie Carew p.432 ISBN:9780802127631
Named a San Francisco Chronicle top 10 book of the year and a best book of the year by NPR’s Book Concierge, Winner of the Costa Book Award for Biography, #1 nonfiction bestseller in the UK, An Amazon Best Book of the Month in Biographies & MemoirsA poignant and engaging family memoir about a daughter who is racing to assemble her father’s story―one that includes parachuting into France and Burma for British special forces during World War II―as his mind dissolves into dementia.
Named a San Francisco Chronicle top 10 book of the year and a best book of the year by NPR’s Book Concierge, Winner of the Costa Book Award for Biography, #1 nonfiction bestseller in the UK, An Amazon Best Book of the Month in Biographies & MemoirsA poignant and engaging family memoir about a daughter who is racing to assemble her father’s story―one that includes parachuting into France and Burma for British special forces during World War II―as his mind dissolves into dementia.
In 1860, a 70 year old widow turned
landlady named Mary Emsley was found dead in her own home, killed by a blow to
the back of her head. What followed was a murder case that gripped the nation,
a veritable locked room mystery which baffled even legendary Sherlock Holmes
author, Arthur Conan Doyle. With an abundance of suspects, from
disgruntled step children concerned about their inheritance and a spurned
admirer repeatedly rejected by the widow, to a trusted employee, former police
officer and spy, the case led to a public trial dominated by surprise
revelations and shock witnesses, before culminating with one of the final
public executions at Newgate. This is the case Conan Doyle couldn’t solve and,
after confounding the best detectives for years, has finally be solved by
author Sinclair McKay. Discover 'whodunit' as the real murderer is revealed for
the first time exclusively in this captivating study of a murder case in the
nineteenth century, a story never told before.
"Beautifully played out to a
startling and valid ending... Fremlin is here to stay as a major mistress of
insight and suspense." — TheNew York Times "Fremlin puts a
keen edge on the reader's curiosity and keeps it there... the writing is so
good throughout." — TheTimes (London) Literary Supplement
"An original entertainment, with unexpected turns and fine touches."
— Kirkus Meg and Isabel were just girls when "Uncle Paul"
married their older half-sister, Mildred, and he soon vanished from their lives
upon his exposure as a bigamist and a murderer. Fifteen years later, Uncle Paul
is about to be released from prison, and all three sisters are seized with
dread at the prospect of his return. Their family holiday at the seaside village
where Mildred and Uncle Paul once honeymooned becomes the setting for a tense
drama of suspicion, betrayal, and revenge. Author Celia Fremlin received an
Edgar Award for her suspenseful debut novel, The Hours Before Dawn. Her
second thriller, Uncle Paul, evokes a similar atmosphere of menace as
the paranoia of her characters — and readers — combine to form a mood of
increasing tension. Rich in psychological insight and dark humor, the elegant,
razor-sharp quality of Fremlin's writing provides page-turning excitement.
NATIONAL
BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
BY THE SEATTLE TIMES This
groundbreaking dual biography brings to life a pioneering English feminist and
the daughter she never knew. Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley have each
been the subject of numerous biographies, yet no one has ever examined their
lives in one book—until now. In Romantic Outlaws, Charlotte Gordon
reunites the trailblazing author who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman and the Romantic visionary who gave the world Frankenstein—two
courageous women who should have shared their lives, but instead shared a
powerful literary and feminist legacy.
In 1797, less than two weeks after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft died, and a remarkable life spent pushing against the boundaries of society’s expectations for women came to an end. But another was just beginning. Wollstonecraft’s daughter Mary was to follow a similarly audacious path. Both women had passionate relationships with several men, bore children out of wedlock, and chose to live in exile outside their native country. Each in her own time fought against the injustices women faced and wrote books that changed literary history. The private lives of both Marys were nothing less than the stuff of great Romantic drama, providing fabulous material for Charlotte Gordon, an accomplished historian and a gifted storyteller. Taking readers on a vivid journey across revolutionary France and Victorian England, she seamlessly interweaves the lives of her two protagonists in alternating chapters, creating a book that reads like a richly textured historical novel. Gordon also paints unforgettable portraits of the men in their lives, including the mercurial genius Percy Shelley, the unbridled libertine Lord Byron, and the brilliant radical William Godwin. “Brave, passionate, and visionary, they broke almost every rule there was to break,” Gordon writes of Wollstonecraft and Shelley. A truly revelatory biography, Romantic Outlaws reveals the defiant, creative lives of this daring mother-daughter pair who refused to be confined by the rigid conventions of their era.
In 1797, less than two weeks after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft died, and a remarkable life spent pushing against the boundaries of society’s expectations for women came to an end. But another was just beginning. Wollstonecraft’s daughter Mary was to follow a similarly audacious path. Both women had passionate relationships with several men, bore children out of wedlock, and chose to live in exile outside their native country. Each in her own time fought against the injustices women faced and wrote books that changed literary history. The private lives of both Marys were nothing less than the stuff of great Romantic drama, providing fabulous material for Charlotte Gordon, an accomplished historian and a gifted storyteller. Taking readers on a vivid journey across revolutionary France and Victorian England, she seamlessly interweaves the lives of her two protagonists in alternating chapters, creating a book that reads like a richly textured historical novel. Gordon also paints unforgettable portraits of the men in their lives, including the mercurial genius Percy Shelley, the unbridled libertine Lord Byron, and the brilliant radical William Godwin. “Brave, passionate, and visionary, they broke almost every rule there was to break,” Gordon writes of Wollstonecraft and Shelley. A truly revelatory biography, Romantic Outlaws reveals the defiant, creative lives of this daring mother-daughter pair who refused to be confined by the rigid conventions of their era.
A New York
Times bestseller A New York Times Notable Book A Washington
Post Notable Book A Publishers
Weekly Book of the Year As seen on CBS This Morning, NPR's Fresh Air,
and People Magazine A New York Times Book
Review Editor's Choice A Publishers Weekly Best Book
of the Year A Library Journal Nonfiction Pick of
September The New York Times bestseller about a young black man's
journey from violence and despair to the threshold of stardom. "A
beautiful tribute to the power of good teachers."--Terry Gross, Fresh
Air "One of the most inspiring stories I've
come across in a long time."--Pamela Paul, New York Times Book Review Ryan
Speedo Green had a tough upbringing in southeastern Virginia: his family lived
in a trailer park and later a bullet-riddled house across the street from drug
dealers. His father was absent; his mother was volatile and abusive. At the age
of twelve, Ryan was sent to Virginia's juvenile facility of last resort. He was
placed in solitary confinement. He was uncontrollable, uncontainable, with
little hope for the future. In 2011, at the age of twenty-four, Ryan won
a nationwide competition hosted by New York's Metropolitan Opera, beating out
1,200 other talented singers. Today, he is a rising star performing major roles
at the Met and Europe's most prestigious opera houses. SING FOR YOUR LIFE
chronicles Ryan's suspenseful, racially charged and artistically intricate
journey from solitary confinement to stardom. Daniel Bergner takes readers on
Ryan's path toward redemption, introducing us to a cast of memorable
characters--including the two teachers from his childhood who redirect his rage
into music, and his long-lost father who finally reappears to hear Ryan sing.
Bergner illuminates all that it takes--technically, creatively--to find and
foster the beauty of the human voice. And Sing for Your Life sheds
unique light on the enduring and complex realities of race in America.
Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living
in a post-racial society, that the election of the first Black president
spelled the doom of racism. In fact, racist thought is alive and well in
America--more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning
historian Ibram X. Kendi argues in Stamped from the Beginning, if
we have any hope of grappling with this stark reality, we must first understand
how racist ideas were developed, disseminated, and enshrined in American
society. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles
the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the
course of American history. Stamped from the Beginning uses
the life stories of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into
the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and
between racists and antiracists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas
Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar
W.E.B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how
and why some of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have
challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America. Contrary to popular
conceptions, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Instead, they
were devised and honed by some of the most brilliant minds of each era. These
intellectuals used their brilliance to justify and rationalize deeply
entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial disparities in
everything from wealth to health. And while racist ideas are easily produced
and easily consumed, they can also be discredited. In shedding much-needed
light on the murky history of racist ideas, Stamped from the
Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose them--and in the process,
gives us reason to hope.
A classic tale that has enchanted millions of
readers worldwide, Mrs. Mike brings
the fierce, stunning landscape of the Great North to life—and masterfully evokes the tender,
touching moments that bring a man and a woman together forever. Recently arrived in
Calgary, Alberta after a long, hard journey from Boston, sixteen-year-old
Katherine Mary O’Fallon never imagined that she could lose her heart so easily—or so completely. Standing over six
feet tall, with “eyes so blue you could swim in them,” Mike Flannigan is a
well-respected sergeant in the Canadian Mounted Police—and a man of great courage, kindness, and humor. Together, he and
his beloved Kathy manage to live a good, honest life in this harsh, unforgiving
land—and find strength in a love
as beautiful and compelling as the wilderness around them…
In this long-awaited sequel to the
“unforgettable” (Boston Herald)
bestseller Mrs. Mike, Benedict and Nancy Freedman paint a portrait of the World
War II era—as seen through the eyes of a young Cree woman on her own for the
very first time…When her dear friend O Be Joyful died in a flu epidemic, Mrs.
Mike Flanigan opened her home—and heart—to her orphaned child, Kathy Forquet.
Over the years, young Kathy delighted in the Flanigans’ love—and suffered the
pain of her schoolmates’ prejudice. But as the terrors of World War II drew
closer to home, Kathy decided to leave her familiar home and do her part by
going to a nursing school in Montreal. There her life fills with drama and
excitement as she meets two very different men—a Native American who helps her
understand her lost heritage, and a wounded Austrian soldier who shares
fascinating stories of his exotic, embattled homeland. And as she learns about herself
and the world beyond her hometown, she tries to find the elusive prize she has
sought for so long: the meaning of true joy… Richly detailed and emotionally
powerful, The Search for Joyfulis
the inspiring story of a young woman’s courageous search for fulfillment—and
the long-awaited new novel by the authors of the beloved Mrs. Mike, praised
by Library Journal as
“a book the reader will be unable to put down until the last page is read.”
The beloved real-life story of a woman in the Alaskan wilderness, the
children she taught, and the man she loved. “From the time I’d been a girl, I’d been thrilled with
the idea of living on a frontier. So when I was offered the job of teaching
school in a gold-mining settlement called Chicken, I accepted right away.”
Anne Hobbs was only nineteen in 1927, when she
came to harsh and beautiful Alaska. Running a ramshackle schoolhouse would
expose her to more than just the elements. After she allowed Native American
children into her class and fell in love with a half-Inuit man, she would learn
the meanings of prejudice and perseverance, irrational hatred and unconditional
love. “People get as mean as the weather,” she discovered, but they were also
capable of great good. As told to
reporter Robert Specht, her true story has captivated generations of readers.
Now this repackaged edition is available to inspire many more.
Winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the
Governor General's Literary Award
Finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction "A powerfully expansive novel…Thien writes with the mastery of a conductor." ―New York Times Book Review “In a single year, my father left us twice. The first time, to end his marriage, and the second, when he took his own life. I was ten years old.” Master storyteller Madeleine Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations―those who lived through Mao’s Cultural Revolution and their children, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square. At the center of this epic story are two young women, Marie and Ai-Ming. Through their relationship Marie strives to piece together the tale of her fractured family in present-day Vancouver, seeking answers in the fragile layers of their collective story. Her quest will unveil how Kai, her enigmatic father, a talented pianist, and Ai-Ming’s father, the shy and brilliant composer, Sparrow, along with the violin prodigy Zhuli were forced to reimagine their artistic and private selves during China’s political campaigns and how their fates reverberate through the years with lasting consequences. With maturity and sophistication, humor and beauty, Thien has crafted a novel that is at once intimate and grandly political, rooted in the details of life inside China yet transcendent in its universality.
Finalist for the Man Booker Prize and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction "A powerfully expansive novel…Thien writes with the mastery of a conductor." ―New York Times Book Review “In a single year, my father left us twice. The first time, to end his marriage, and the second, when he took his own life. I was ten years old.” Master storyteller Madeleine Thien takes us inside an extended family in China, showing us the lives of two successive generations―those who lived through Mao’s Cultural Revolution and their children, who became the students protesting in Tiananmen Square. At the center of this epic story are two young women, Marie and Ai-Ming. Through their relationship Marie strives to piece together the tale of her fractured family in present-day Vancouver, seeking answers in the fragile layers of their collective story. Her quest will unveil how Kai, her enigmatic father, a talented pianist, and Ai-Ming’s father, the shy and brilliant composer, Sparrow, along with the violin prodigy Zhuli were forced to reimagine their artistic and private selves during China’s political campaigns and how their fates reverberate through the years with lasting consequences. With maturity and sophistication, humor and beauty, Thien has crafted a novel that is at once intimate and grandly political, rooted in the details of life inside China yet transcendent in its universality.
It’s 1945
and Miklós is looking for a wife. The fact that he has six months left to live
doesn’t discourage him — he isn’t one to let small problems like that stand in
the way, especially not after he’s survived a concentration camp. Currently
marooned in an all-male sanatorium in Sweden, and desperate to get out, he
acquires the names of the 117 Hungarian women also recovering in Sweden and
writes each of them a letter in his beautiful cursive hand. Luckily for him,
Lili decides to write back.
Drawn from the real-life letters of Péter Gárdos’s parents, and reminiscent of the film Life Is Beautiful,Fever at Dawn is a vibrant, ribald, and unforgettable tale, showing the death-defying power of the human will to live and to love.
Drawn from the real-life letters of Péter Gárdos’s parents, and reminiscent of the film Life Is Beautiful,Fever at Dawn is a vibrant, ribald, and unforgettable tale, showing the death-defying power of the human will to live and to love.
Jane
Gardam, author of the Old Filth Trilogy, delivers another modern classic
in The Flight of the Maidens. With her characteristic wit, Gardam
captures a moment in time for three young women on the cusp of adulthood. With
keen perception the novel charts the course of this trio as they boldly face
their uncertain futures. It is Yorkshire, 1946. The end of the war has changed
the world again, and emboldened by this new dawning Hetty Fallows, Una Vane,
and Lisolette Klein seize the opportunities with enthusiasm. Hetty, desperate to
escape the grasp of her critical mother, books a solo holiday to the Lake
District under the pretext of completing her Oxford summer coursework. Una, the
daughter of a disconcertingly cheery hairdresser, entertains a romantically
inclined young man from the wrong side of the tracks and the left-side of
politics. Meanwhile, Lisolette Klein, the mysterious Jewish refugee from
Germany, leaves the Quaker family who had rescued her, to test herself in
London. Although strikingly different from one another, these young women share
the common goal of adventure and release from their middle class surroundings
through romance and education. Gardam demonstrates her talent for creating
fully realized characters in these venturesome, intelligent young women whose
stories are told with delight and understanding. This reissue of The Flight
of the Maidens will appeal to a wide range of adult and young adult
readers.
On
May 27th, 1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart met a flirtatious little starling in a
Viennese shop who sang an improvised version of the theme from his Piano
Concerto no. 17 in G major. Sensing a kindred spirit in the plucky young bird,
Mozart bought him and took him home to be a family pet. For three years, the
starling lived with Mozart, influencing his work and serving as his companion,
distraction, consolation, and muse. Two centuries later, starlings are reviled
by even the most compassionate conservationists. A nonnative, invasive species,
they invade sensitive habitats, outcompete local birds for nest sites and food,
and decimate crops. A seasoned birder and naturalist, Lyanda Lynn Haupt is well
versed in the difficult and often strained relationships these birds have with
other species and the environment. But after rescuing a baby starling of her
own, Haupt found herself enchanted by the same intelligence and playful spirit
that had so charmed her favorite composer. In Mozart's Starling, Haupt
explores the unlikely and remarkable bond between one of history's most
cherished composers and one of earth's most common birds. The intertwined
stories of Mozart's beloved pet and Haupt's own starling provide an unexpected
window into human-animal friendships, music, the secret world of starlings, and
the nature of creative inspiration. A blend of natural history, biography, and
memoir, Mozart's Starling is a tour de force that awakens a surprising
new awareness of our place in the world.
Muses and editors, saviors and
publishers: the women behind the greatest works in Russian literature. A Wall
Street Journal Best Book of the Year Many readers are aware that
writers such as Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Lawrence used their marriages for
literary inspiration. In Russian literary marriages these women did not resent
taking a secondary position, although to call their position secondary
underscores the vital role these women played in the creation of some of the
greatest literary works in history. From Sofia Tolstoy to Vera Nabokov and
Elena Mandelshtam and Natalya Solzhenitsyn, these women ranged from
stenographers and typists to editors, researchers, translators, and even
publishers. Living under restrictive regimes, many of these women battled
censorship and preserved the writers’ illicit archives, often risking their own
lives to do so. They established a tradition all their own, unmatched in the
West.
Epigenetics can
potentially revolutionize our understanding of the structure and behavior of
biological life on Earth. It explains why mapping an organism's genetic code is
not enough to determine how it develops or acts and shows how nurture combines
with nature to engineer biological diversity. Surveying the twenty-year history
of the field while also highlighting its latest findings and innovations, this
volume provides a readily understandable introduction to the foundations of
epigenetics. Nessa
Carey, a leading epigenetics researcher, connects the field's arguments to such
diverse phenomena as how ants and queen bees control their colonies; why tortoiseshell
cats are always female; why some plants need cold weather before they can
flower; and how our bodies age and develop disease. Reaching beyond biology,
epigenetics now informs work on drug addiction, the long-term effects of
famine, and the physical and psychological consequences of childhood trauma.
Carey concludes with a discussion of the future directions for this research
and its ability to improve human health and well-being.
This landmark of
interfaith dialogue will inspire readers of all faiths. In The Good Heart,
The Dalai Lama provides an extraordinary Buddhist perspective on the teachings
of Jesus. His Holiness comments on well-known passages from the four Christian
Gospels, including the Sermon on the Mount, the parable of the mustard seed,
the Resurrection, and others. Drawing parallels between Jesus and the Buddha —
and the rich traditions from which they hail — the Dalai Lama delivers a
profound affirmation of the sacred in all religions. Readers will be uplifted
by the exploration of each tradition’s endless merits and the common humanity
they share.
Its landscaped ground, chosen by Frederick
Law Olmsted and dotted with Tudor mansions, could belong to a New England prep
school. There are no fences, no guards, no locked gates. But McLean Hospital is
a mental institution-one of the most famous, most elite, and once most
luxurious in America. McLean "alumni" include Olmsted himself, Robert
Lowell, Sylvia Plath, James Taylor and Ray Charles, as well as (more secretly)
other notables from among the rich and famous. In its "golden age,"
McLean provided as genteel an environment for the treatment of mental illness
as one could imagine. But the golden age is over, and a downsized, downscale
McLean-despite its affiliation with Harvard University-is struggling to stay
afloat. Gracefully Insane, by Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam,
is a fascinating and emotional biography of McLean Hospital from its founding
in 1817 through today. It is filled with stories about patients and doctors:
the Ralph Waldo Emerson protégé whose brilliance disappeared along with his
madness; Anne Sexton's poetry seminar, and many more. The story of McLean is
also the story of the hopes and failures of psychology and psychotherapy; of
the evolution of attitudes about mental illness, of approaches to treatment,
and of the economic pressures that are making McLean-and other institutions
like it-relics of a bygone age. This is a compelling and often oddly poignant
reading for fans of books like Plath's The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen's
Girl, Interrupted (both inspired by their author's stays at McLean) and
for anyone interested in the history of medicine or psychotherapy, or the
social history of New England.
Long-listed for the National Book
Award - Finalist, Current
Interest Category, Los Angeles Times Book Prizes - One of The New York Times Book Review's 10
Best Books of 2017 - Short-listed
for the Inaugural Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice
In recent years, America’s criminal justice system has become the subject of an
increasingly urgent debate. Critics have assailed the rise of mass incarceration,
emphasizing its disproportionate impact on people of color. As James Forman,
Jr., points out, however, the war on crime that began in the 1970s was
supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers.
In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand why. Forman
shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police
chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent
black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal
prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were
being undermined by lawlessness―and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures,
including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of
skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they
believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have
devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods. A former
D.C. public defender, Forman tells riveting stories of politicians, community
activists, police officers, defendants, and crime victims. He writes with
compassion about individuals trapped in terrible dilemmas―from the men and
women he represented in court to officials struggling to respond to a public
safety emergency. Locking Up Our Own enriches our
understanding of why our society became so punitive and offers important
lessons to anyone concerned about the future of race and the criminal justice
system in this country.
Never underestimate the underdog.In the fall of 1973, the Greek oil shipping magnate Aristotle
Onassis, husband of President John F. Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy
Onassis, and arguably the richest man in the world, proposed to build an oil
refinery on the narrow New Hampshire coast, in the town of Durham. At the time,
it would have cost $600 million to build and was expected to generate 400,000
barrels of oil per day, making it the largest oil refinery in the world. The
project was vigorously supported by the governor, Meldrim Thomson, and by
William Loeb, the notorious publisher of the only statewide newspaper,
the Manchester Union Leader.
But three women vehemently opposed the
project―Nancy Sandberg, the town leader who founded and headed Save Our Shores;
Dudley Dudley, the freshman state rep who took the fight to the state
legislature; and Phyllis Bennett, the publisher of the local newspaper that
alerted the public to Onassis’ secret acquisition of the land. Small
Town, Big Oil is the story of how the residents of Durham, led by
these three women, out-organized, out-witted, and out-maneuvered the governor,
the media, and the Onassis cartel to hand the powerful Greek billionaire the
most humiliating defeat of his business career, and spare the New Hampshire
seacoast from becoming an industrial wasteland.
“Czerski’s quest to enhance humanity’s
everyday scientific literacy is timely and imperative.”―Science Storm in a Teacup is Helen Czerski’s lively, entertaining, and richly informed
introduction to the world of physics. Czerski provides the tools to alter the way
we see everything around us by linking ordinary objects and occurrences, like
popcorn popping, coffee stains, and fridge magnets, to big ideas like climate
change, the energy crisis, or innovative medical testing. She provides answers
to vexing questions: How do ducks keep their feet warm when walking on ice? Why
does it take so long for ketchup to come out of a bottle? Why does milk, when
added to tea, look like billowing storm clouds? In an engaging voice at once
warm and witty, Czerski shares her stunning breadth of knowledge to lift the
veil of familiarity from the ordinary.
For fans of A Street Cat Named Bob
and Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World, Strays
is a compelling true story of a man who rescues a stray, injured cat and how
they save each other. Homeless, alcoholic, and depressed, Michael King lives in
a UPS loading bay on the wrong side of the tracks in Portland, Oregon. One
rainy night, he stumbles upon a hurt, starving, scruffy cat and takes her in.
Nursing her back to health, he names her Tabor and she becomes a bit of a
celebrity in southeast Portland. When winter comes, they travel from Oregon to
the beaches of California to the high plains of Montana, surviving blizzards
and bears, angry steers and rainstorms. Along the way, people are drawn to the
spirited, beautiful cat and moved to help Michael, who cuts a striking figure
with Tabor riding high on his backpack or walking on a leash. Tabor comforts
Michael when he’s down, giving Michael someone to love and care for, and
inspiring him to get sober and to come to terms with his past family traumas
and grief over the death of his life partner. As they make their way across the
West Coast, the pair become inseparable, healing the scars of each other’s
troubled pasts. But when Michael takes Tabor to a veterinarian in Montana, he
discovers that Tabor has an identification chip and an owner in Portland who
has never given up hope of finding his beloved cat, Michael makes the difficult
choice to return to Portland and reunite Tabor with her owner. Now Michael must
create a new purpose in his life after Tabor. The authentic tale of an
adventurous and charismatic cat and her compassionate human admirers, Strays
proves the healing power of love and the profound bond between humans and
animals.
The
dramatic story of the Flint water crisis, told “with the gripping intrigue of a
Grisham thriller” (O: The Oprah Magazine)—an inspiring tale of
scientific resistance by a relentless physician who stood up to power.
Flint was already a troubled city in 2014 when the state of Michigan—in the name of austerity—shifted the source of its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Soon after, citizens began complaining about the water that flowed from their taps—but officials rebuffed them, insisting that the water was fine. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at the city’s public hospital, took state officials at their word and encouraged the parents and children in her care to continue drinking the water—after all, it was American tap water, blessed with the state’s seal of approval. But a conversation at a cookout with an old friend, leaked documents from a rogue environmental inspector, and the activism of a concerned mother raised red flags about lead—a neurotoxin whose irreversible effects fall most heavily on children. Even as circumstantial evidence mounted and protests grew, Dr. Mona knew that the only thing that could stop the lead poisoning was undeniable proof—and that to get it, she’d have to enter the fight of her life.What the Eyes Don’t See is the inspiring story of how Dr. Mona—accompanied by an idiosyncratic team of researchers, parents, friends, and community leaders—proved that Flint’s kids were exposed to lead and then fought her own government and a brutal backlash to expose that truth to the world. Paced like a scientific thriller, this book shows how misguided austerity policies, the withdrawal of democratic government, and callous bureaucratic indifference placed an entire city at risk. And at the center of the story is Dr. Mona herself—an immigrant, doctor, scientist, and mother whose family’s activist roots inspired her pursuit of justice. What the Eyes Don’t See is a riveting, beautifully rendered account of a shameful disaster that became a tale of hope, the story of a city on the ropes that came together to fight for justice, self-determination, and the right to build a better world for their—and all of our—children.
Flint was already a troubled city in 2014 when the state of Michigan—in the name of austerity—shifted the source of its water supply from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Soon after, citizens began complaining about the water that flowed from their taps—but officials rebuffed them, insisting that the water was fine. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at the city’s public hospital, took state officials at their word and encouraged the parents and children in her care to continue drinking the water—after all, it was American tap water, blessed with the state’s seal of approval. But a conversation at a cookout with an old friend, leaked documents from a rogue environmental inspector, and the activism of a concerned mother raised red flags about lead—a neurotoxin whose irreversible effects fall most heavily on children. Even as circumstantial evidence mounted and protests grew, Dr. Mona knew that the only thing that could stop the lead poisoning was undeniable proof—and that to get it, she’d have to enter the fight of her life.What the Eyes Don’t See is the inspiring story of how Dr. Mona—accompanied by an idiosyncratic team of researchers, parents, friends, and community leaders—proved that Flint’s kids were exposed to lead and then fought her own government and a brutal backlash to expose that truth to the world. Paced like a scientific thriller, this book shows how misguided austerity policies, the withdrawal of democratic government, and callous bureaucratic indifference placed an entire city at risk. And at the center of the story is Dr. Mona herself—an immigrant, doctor, scientist, and mother whose family’s activist roots inspired her pursuit of justice. What the Eyes Don’t See is a riveting, beautifully rendered account of a shameful disaster that became a tale of hope, the story of a city on the ropes that came together to fight for justice, self-determination, and the right to build a better world for their—and all of our—children.
Ruth Hilton is an orphaned young seamstress who catches the eye
of a gentleman, Henry Bellingham, who is captivated by her simplicity and
beauty. When she loses her job and home, he offers her comfort and shelter,
only to cruelly desert her soon after. Nearly dead with grief and shame, Ruth
is offered the chance of a new life among people who give her love and respect,
even though they are at first unaware of her secret - an illegitimate child.
When Henry enters her life again, however, Ruth must make the impossible choice
between social acceptance and personal pride. In writing Ruth, Elizabeth
Gaskell daringly confronted prevailing views about sin and illegitimacy with
her compassionate and honest portrait of a 'fallen woman'.
A New York Times Book Review
Notable Book In Louise Doughty's Black Water, John Harper is in
hiding in a remote hut on a tropical island. As he lies awake at night,
listening to the rain on the roof, he believes his life may be in danger. But
he is less afraid of what is going to happen than of what he’s already done. In
a local town, he meets Rita, a woman with her own tragic history. They begin an
affair, but can they offer each other redemption? Or do the ghosts of the past
always catch up with us in the end? Moving across three continents and several
decades, Black Water explores some of the darkest events of recent
history through the story of one troubled man.
Frey, Ovie, Juniper, and Runa are the Boneless Mercies―girls
hired to kill quickly, quietly, and mercifully. But Frey is weary of the death
trade and, having been raised on the heroic sagas of her people, dreams of a
bigger life. When she hears of an unstoppable monster ravaging a nearby town,
Frey decides this is the Mercies' one chance out. The fame and fortune of bringing
down such a beast would ensure a new future for all the Mercies. In fact, her
actions may change the story arc of women everywhere. Full of fierce girls,
bloodlust, tenuous alliances, and unapologetic quests for glory, this elegantly
spun tale challenges the power of storytelling―and who gets to be the
storyteller. Perfect for fans of Maggie Stiefvater, V.E. Schwab, and Heidi
Heilig.
Dana, a modern black woman, is
celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched
abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South.
Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been
summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave
quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous
until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a
chance to begin.
Winner, 1986 IRA Children's Book
Award; 1985 Golden Kite Honor Book in Fiction; Best Books for Young Adults,
American Library Association. Louisa loves the solitude of the Nebraska prairie
and feels secure with her loving pioneer family.She idolizes the doctor's wife,
Emmeline, who comes from New York City. But Emmeline cannot adjust to the harsh
pioneer existence, especially the loneliness, and finally goes mad. 1986 Best
Books for Young Adults (ALA)Best of the 80's (BL)1986 Boston Globe'Horn Book
Award Honor Book for Fiction1986 Children's Book Award (IRA)1985 Golden Kite
Award Honor Book for Fiction (SCBW)1986 Judy Lopez Children's Book Award1985
Golden Spur Award (Western Writers of America)1986 Best Books for Teens (NY
Public Library)1985 Western Heritage Award1986 Society of Midland Authors Award.
With the subtlety of Ian McEwan and the pathos of Kazuo
Ishiguro, a wise, compassionate novel about age, loss, and moving forward. As
he moves toward old age, David Cross finds himself living an unexpected new
life. Having lost his wife, Nancy, to illness, and retired from his job as a
prominent television news anchor, David is working out in the gym and becoming
very thin. His children, Ed and Lucy, embarking on careers and lives on their
own, suspect him of being on the lookout for a new woman. He cannot tell them
that he is, in some ways, happier than he was before Nancy died. As Ed and his
dancer wife, Rosalie, struggle to conceive a child and Lucy seeks refuge from a
chaotic ex-boyfriend, all of them are now forced to face their lives without
the woman who was the center of the family. With their personal lives spinning
out of control, they each must find a way to hold firm. And when David goes to
see his estranged brother deep in the African desert, he will come to an
unexpected, meaningful, and life-affirming epiphany. Filled with rich
characterization, warm humor, and shocking surprises, To Heaven by Water is
a masterwork of great subtlety, a moving novel from a keen observer of life as
we live it now.
19th century Italy. Bianca arrives at
a beautiful villa in the countryside outside Milan. A gifted young
watercolorist, she has been commissioned to illustrate the plants in the
magnificent grounds. Bianca settles in, invited into the heart of the family by
the eccentric poet Don Titta, his five children, his elegant and delicate wife
and controlling mother. As the seasons pass, Bianca develops her art, and
attracts many admirers. She develops a special affection for one housemaid,
who, she is intrigued to learn, has mysterious origins. But as Bianca's
determination to unlock the secrets of the villa grows, she little notices the
dangers that lie all around her. Who is the mysterious woman she has glimpsed
in the gardens? What could Don Titta and his friends be whispering about so
furtively? And while Bianca watches so carefully for clues, who is watching
her? In The Watercolourist, set against the intoxicating background of
an Italy on the cusp of change, a young woman's naive curiosity will take her
into the territory of hidden secrets, of untold truth and of love.
“Jeremy Gavron’s quest to find his mother has produced a groundbreaking
book and moving portrait of a spirited young woman—a ‘captive wife’—who refused
to accept the social constraints of her time. Unforgettable.”—Tina Brown. London, 1965: A brilliant young woman has just gassed herself to
death, leaving behind a note, two young sons, and a soon-to-be-published book.
A promising academic and feminist at the dawn of modern feminism, no one had
imagined Hannah Gavron might take her own life. Forty years later, her son
Jeremy attempts to solve both this mystery of his mother’s death and the
mystery of the mother he never had the chance to know. From the fragments of
life she left behind, he ultimately uncovers not only Hannah’s struggle to carve
out her place in a man’s world; he examines the constrictions on every
ambitious woman in the mid-20th century.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)