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1491 Written by Charles C. Mann 1491 is a groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492, and a necessary book for understanding the long, remarkable story of the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere. Traditionally, Americans have... Read More The 7 Stages of Motherhood Written by Ann Pleshette Murphy Being a mother is exhilarating and exhausting, a balancing act in which expectations clash with reality and well-laid plans give way to spur-of-the-moment improvisations. From the moment the small “bundle of joy” arrives home to the day a young adult takes... Read More 72 Hour Hold Written by Bebe Moore Campbell When Keri Whitmore’s daughter, Trina, a straight-A student headed for a prestigious university, suddenly turns impulsive, needy, and irrational, leaving home at all hours to hook up with drug dealers, Keri is bewildered and frightened. A psychiatrist tells Keri that Trina... Read More Abide With Me Written by E. Lynn Harris The life Raymond long dreamed about has become a reality. He is living openly and happily with Trent, a successful architect, in Seattle, and his high-powered legal career has earned him a nomination for a federal judgeship. On the other side... Read More The Abortionist's Daughter Written by Elisabeth Hyde Two weeks before Christmas, Diana Duprey, an outspoken abortion doctor, is found floating in her pool, a bruise the size of a golf ball visible through her dark curls. A national figure, Diana inspired passion and ignited tempers, never more so... Read More Above the Thunder Written by Renee Manfredi Devastated by the loss of her beloved husband and numb over the callous disappearance of her drug-addicted daughter, Anna has buried her grief in her medical work and wants nothing more than to be left blissfully alone. Yet when her son-in-law... Read More Absalom, Absalom! Written by William Faulkner When he completed Absalom, Absalom! in May 1936, Faulkner said, "I think it's the best novel yet written by an American." He described it as "the story of a man who wanted a son through pride, and got too many of... Read More The Accidental Written by Ali Smith Unhappily ensconced in a substandard summer cottage in Norfolk, England, the Smart family is in a fragile, volatile condition. Eve Smart, author of the bestselling Genuine Articles, a series of semifictional accounts of historical figures, is suffering from writer’s block. Her... Read More Acts of Faith Written by Philip Caputo Sudan is in the midst of an endless civil war between Muslim Arabs in the north and Christian and pagan blacks in the south. The fundamentalist Islamic government has imposed a blockade on humanitarian aid in the south, barring UN agencies... Read More Adam and Eve and Pinch Me Written by Ruth Rendell Ali and Nino Written by Kurban Said In the Transcaucasian town of Baku on the eve of World War I, Ali Khan Shirvanshir and forty other Muslim, Armenian, Polish, Russian, and Sectarian students are asked by their Russian geography professor whether they wish to belong to "progressive Europe... Read More Alias Grace Written by Margaret Atwood In Alias Grace, bestselling author Margaret Atwood has written her most captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying work since The Handmaid's Tale. She takes us back in time and into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth... Read More All Over but the Shoutin' Written by Rick Bragg Rick Bragg was born in the pinewoods of Alabama to a mean-tempered, hard-drinking father and a strong-willed, loving mother, who struggled to protect her sons from the effects of poverty and ignorance that had constricted her own life. After years of... Read More All the Pretty Horses Written by Cormac McCarthy At once a Western, a picaresque adventure, and a coming-of-age novel, suspenseful, wryly funny, and elegiac, All the Pretty Horses is the story of John Grady Cole, the last of a long line of west Texas ranchers. Upon his grandfather's death... Read More Almost a Woman Written by Esmeralda Santiago At the age of thirteen Esmeralda must leave the familiarity, warmth, and vibrancy of Puerto Rico to live in a three-room apartment in Brooklyn shared by ten family members. Challenged by language barriers, cultural stereotypes, and her strict and fiercely protective... Read More Altered States Written by Anita Brookner Alan Sherwood considers himself rather a dull man, absorbed in the familiar routine of his law practice, his modest social life, and visits to his widowed mother. But then he encounters Sarah Miller and his orderly life is thrown into frightening... Read More The Amalgamation Polka Written by Stephen Wright Wright seems to have written this book with an eye on James Joyce’s dictum that “history is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake.” In this case the history is America’s, and the nightmare slavery and the ideology of... Read More American Pastoral Written by Philip Roth Seymour "Swede" Levov comes of age just after World War II, in a thriving and triumphant America. A legendary high school athlete, the diligent and successful inheritor of his father's glove factory, the proprietor of an eighteenth-century stone house in the... Read More Amsterdam Written by Ian McEwan "When it comes to being reasonable, they rather go over the top." Though this character in Amsterdam is referring specifically to the Dutch people, going over the top is something McEwan does well. Lucky for readers, he vaults high and makes his... Read More Amy and Isabelle Written by Elizabeth Strout In the small New England town of Shirley Falls, the arrival of Isabelle Goodrow and her infant daughter, Amy, stirs a bit of curiosity. Declaring she is a widow simply in search of a place to earn a living, Isabelle is... Read More An American Story Written by Debra Dickerson The daughter of sharecroppers who migrated north during the Great Migration of blacks in the first half of the twentieth century, Dickerson grew up in a strict Southern Baptist family. Her father was a former Marine who lived by his hatred... Read More Anil's Ghost Written by Michael Ondaatje Anil Tissera is a forensic anthropologist who returns to Sri Lanka, the island of her birth, after fifteen years in the West. As a member of an international human rights organization, her task is to investigate possible "extrajudicial executions" by the... Read More Any Human Heart Written by William Boyd Here is the “riotous and disorganized reality” of Mountstuart’s eighty-five years in all their extraordinary, tragic, and humorous aspects. In his journals he recounts his boyhood in Montevideo, Uruguay; his college years during the 1920s at Oxford, where he published his... Read More Any Way the Wind Blows Written by E. Lynn Harris Basil Henderson, the good-looking, bisexual sports agent who left his wife-to-be at the altar in Harris’s previous book, Not a Day Goes By, is back and “ripe for another ride on the rough-and-ready freeway of love” [p. 15]. He’s on the... Read More Anywhere but Here Written by Mona Simpson Mona Simpson's ambitious first novel Anywhere But Here became a national bestseller upon its publication in 1987. It traces the difficult childhood and coming-of-age of Ann August, the daughter of a woman whose quest for the American dream moves the two... Read More April in Paris Written by Michael Wallner What happens when a young translator for the Nazi SS in occupied Paris decides he wants to spend his off-hours blending in with the locals, gives himself a French identity, and falls in love with a beautiful resistance fighter? This intriguing... Read More Arabian Nights and Days Written by Naguib Mahfouz Arranged Marriage Written by Chitra Divakaruni Divakaruni's exquisitely wrought debut collection of stories chronicles the assimilation--and rebellion--that Indian-born girls and women in America undergo as they balance old treasured beliefs and surprising new desires. For the young girls and women brought to life in these stories, the... Read More The Art of the Personal Essay Written by Phillip Lopate For more than four hundred years, the personal essay has been one of the richest and most vibrant of all literary forms. Distinguished from the detached formal essay by its friendly, conversational tone, its loose structure, and its drive toward candor... Read More Arthur and George Written by Julian Barnes Julian Barnes brings his unparalleled narrative and investigative skills to the story of two men born in Britain in the late nineteenth century. Arthur, the son of an improvident father and an intelligent, capable Scottish mother, trains as an eye doctor... Read More Articles of War Written by Nick Arvin Exploring the actions and consciousness of a single ordinary soldier as he navigates the violence of World War II, Articles of War gives readers an unflinching look at what war demands of the young men who are thrust into the hell... Read More As I Lay Dying Written by William Faulkner Faulkner drafted As I Lay Dying in six weeks while he was working the night shift at a power plant. He later said, "I set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force. Before I ever put pen to paper and set down... Read More Asylum Written by Patrick McGrath Stella Raphael, a cultured and elegant but restless young woman, lives with her husband, Max, a forensic psychiatrist, and their small son, Charlie, at a high-security mental hospital in rural England. Isolated from the urban excitement she craves, Stella is unhappy... Read More Atonement Written by Ian McEwan The novel opens on a sweltering summer day in 1935 at the Tallis family’s mansion in the Surrey countryside. Thirteen-year-old Briony has written a play in honor of the visit of her adored older brother Leon; other guests include her three... Read More Atonement (MTI) Written by Ian McEwan The novel opens on a sweltering summer day in 1935 at the Tallis family’s mansion in the Surrey countryside. Thirteen-year-old Briony has written a play in honor of the visit of her adored older brother Leon; other guests include her three... Read More The Attack Written by Yasmina Khadra Translated by John Cullen Dr. Amin Jaafari is an Arab-Israeli surgeon at a hospital in Tel Aviv. As an admired and respected member of his community, he has carved a space for himself and his wife, Sihem, at the crossroads of two troubled societies. Jaafari’s... Read More Autobiography of Red Written by Anne Carson Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate... Read More The Autograph Man Written by Zadie Smith When twelve-year old Alex Li-Tandem meets Joseph Klein at a wrestling match in London, he couldn’t have possibly predicted that their conversation about collecting autographs would change the course of his life. Alex grows up to be an Autograph Man, making... Read More Ava's Man Written by Rick Bragg “Since I never really had a grandfather,” Bragg writes in the prologue, “I decided to make me one. . . . I built him up from dirt level, using half-forgotten sayings, half-remembered stories and a few yellowed, brittle, black-and-white photographs that... Read More The Avengers Written by Rich Cohen In 1944, a band of Jewish guerrillas emerged from the Baltic forest to join the Russian army in its attack on Vilna, the capital of Lithuania. They called themselves the Avengers, and were led by a charismatic young poet named Abba... Read More Babel Tower Written by A.S. Byatt It is 1964, and Frederica, a fiercely intellectual young woman, realizes that her marriage has become a prison. Her husband, Nigel Reiver, is determinedly philistine, resentful of her brain and her interests outside the home; Frederica's slightest efforts at independence provoke... Read More Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress Written by Dai Sijie In 1971, as Mao’s Cultural Revolution swept over China, shutting down universities and banishing “reactionary intellectuals” to the countryside, two teenage boys are sent to live on the remote and unforgiving mountain known as Phoenix in the Sky. Even though the... Read More The Banyan Tree Written by Christopher Nolan Covering the eighty-plus years of the life of Minnie O'Brien, The Banyan Tree is a rich saga of rural Ireland in the twentieth century. In distinctly layered prose that has been compared to that of James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, and... Read More The Beauty of the Husband Written by Anne Carson In this powerful and moving portrait of a doomed marriage, Carson introduces the tango as a poetic form and revisits John Keats's claim that "beauty is truth, truth beauty," in a moving and often wryly amusing exploration of how people become... Read More Bee Season Written by Myla Goldberg Like most families, the Naumanns have settled comfortably into a routine, each member playing an accepted role in the day-to-day family drama. Saul, a cantor who devotes himself to the study of Jewish mysticism, is the family anchor, preparing the meals... Read More Before the Frost Written by Henning Mankell Fans of Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series have two reasons to rejoice at the appearance of his new novel, Before the Frost. Kurt Wallander is back, as good as ever, and now he is joined by his daughter Linda, who has... Read More Before You Know Kindness Written by Chris Bohjalian The Beginning and the End Written by Naguib Mahfouz Beyond Belief Written by Elaine Pagels In Beyond Belief, Elaine Pagels, one of the world’s most esteemed scholars of religion, takes readers back to the beginning of Christianity. In light of the Nag Hammadi texts, suppressed by the Church in 367 A.D. and discovered in Egypt in... Read More The Big Girls Written by Susanna Moore Susanna Moore's The Big Girls takes readers inside the Sloatsburg Correctional Institution. More particularly, it takes readers into the minds of Louise Forrest, a staff psychiatrist, and Helen, an inmate serving a life sentence for the murder of her two small... Read More The Biographer's Tale Written by A.S. Byatt The Biographer's Tale is the story of Phineas G. Nanson, a disenchanted graduate student who, yearning for reality, decides to abandon his arcane studies in postmodern literary theory and write a biography, for what could be more concrete than a biography... Read More Birds Without Wings Written by Louis de Bernières Set on the eve of World War I, Birds Without Wings tells the story of Eskibahçe, a charming and vibrant ethnically mixed town in present-day Turkey, and how it is irrevocably changed by the ravages of nationalism, war, and religious fervor... Read More Birdsong Written by Sebastian Faulks In 1910 a young Englishman, Stephen Wraysford, goes to Picardy, France, to learn the textile business. While there he plunges into a love affair with the young wife of his host, a passion so imperative and consuming that it changes him... Read More The Black Book Written by Orhan Pamuk In Istanbul, a lawyer called Galip comes home from work to find his beloved wife Rüya—who is also his first cousin—missing. She has taken no suitcases, and she has left a brief note that doesn’t say where she’s gone or why... Read More Black Dogs Written by Ian McEwan "I am uncertain whether our civilization at this turn of the millennium is cursed by too much or too little belief, whether people like Bernard and June cause the trouble, or people like me." Two young Communist Party members, June and Bernard... Read More The Blind Assassin Written by Margaret Atwood Iris Chase Griffen is nearing the end of her life and is determined to set down her version of the stories and scandals that have long swirled around her and her family. In a narrative that spans the twentieth century, Iris... Read More Blood and Thunder Written by Hampton Sides In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a... Read More Blue Shoes and Happiness Written by Alexander McCall Smith With Blue Shoes and Happiness, Alexander McCall Smith returns to Botswana, where the offices of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency are firmly ensconced at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Precious Ramotswe is sharing the space with her assistant, Grace Makutsi. With... Read More Bodily Harm Written by Margaret Atwood A powerfully and brilliantly crafted novel, Bodily Harm is the story of Rennie Wilford, a young journalist whose life has begun to shatter around the edges. Rennie flies to the Caribbean to recuperate, and on the tiny island of St. Antoine... Read More The Body Project Written by Joan Jacobs Brumberg The Body Projectwill interest a wide variety of readers. Mothers and daughters of all ages will find it fascinating. Mothers and fathers of adolescent girls can use it to begin a dialogue with their daughters about sensitive issues, including puberty, menstruation... Read More Bold Spirit Written by Linda Lawrence Hunt Helga Estby was born in Norway in 1860, emigrated with her mother to Michigan in 1871, became pregnant out of wedlock at age fifteen, was a pioneer homesteader on the prairies of Minnesota by age sixteen, gave birth to many children... Read More The Book of Revelation Written by Rupert Thomson Set in Amsterdam, The Book of Revelation is both a crime novel and an extended, complex, and often disturbing exploration of sexual abuse and its aftermath. When the unnamed narrator, a highly successful English dancer/choreographer, goes out to buy a pack... Read More The Book of Ruth Written by Jane Hamilton "I learned, slowly, that if you don't look at the world with perfect vision, you're bound to get yourself cooked." Having come within an inch of her life, Ruth Dahl is determined to take a good look at it—and to figure... Read More Bound Feet & Western Dress Written by Pang-Mei Chang The Brambles Written by Eliza Minot In her first novel, The Tiny One, Eliza Minot explored the world of a precocious eight year-old as she struggles to make sense of the sudden death of her mother. Now, in The Brambles, Minot extends her range to portray an... Read More Breaking Clean Written by Judy Blunt At eighteen, Blunt married a neighboring rancher twelve years her senior and for nearly thirteen years she followed the rules of that world. She gave birth to three children and tended to their needs and her husband’s expectations, took on the... Read More Breath, Eyes, Memory Written by Edwidge Danticat Danticat's heroine is Sophie Caco, who has spent a happy childhood in rural Haiti with her grandmother and her beloved aunt Atie, who raised her as her own child. Sophie's mother, Martine, lives in New York City and supports the family... Read More The Bridegroom Written by Ha Jin With these tales—three of which have been selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories—he returns to Muji City, the same provincial city in northern China that was the setting of his National Book Award-winning novel Waiting. The stories take... Read More The Brief History of the Dead Written by Kevin Brockmeier Kevin Brockmeier’s ambitious new novel takes readers deep into the Antarctic wilderness, to a future where the human race is devastated by a deadly virus and to a city of the dead— whose denizens will exist there only as long as... Read More A Brief History of the Flood Written by Jean Harfenist Lillian Anderson is a strong-minded, backwoods-Minnesota girl, well-versed in the basics of survival. She can find air to breathe under a capsized boat, drive in a blizzard, or capture a wild duck. As part of a large struggling family, she tiptoes... Read More The Buffalo Soldier Written by Chris Bohjalian Two years after her nine-year-old daughters are killed in a raging flood, Laura Sheldon is beginning to emerge from her cocoon of grief. She has returned to her job at the Humane Society, teaches Sunday school classes, and spends time in... Read More The Burn Journals Written by Brent Runyon To fourteen-year-old Brent Runyon, life has become a haze of small failures. He hates himself for liking the same girl his best friend likes. His recent suicide attempts–sliced wrists, handfuls of pills, hangings–have left him very much alive and feeling stupid... Read More Burning Marguerite Written by Elizabeth Inness-Brown Waking to the chill of a snow-cloaked morning, carpenter James Jack Wright finds ninety-four-year-old Marguerite Deo lying dead in the woods outside his cabin. As he confronts the mystery of her death—why would Marguerite, his “Tante” since his infancy, walk out... Read More By the Lake Written by John McGahern Joe Ruttledge and his wife Kate have left their jobs in London to live on a farm in Ireland, near where Joe was born. In doing so, they enter into a community in which people know each other’s ways intimately, but... Read More The Cadence of Grass Written by Thomas McGuane This is the story of the Whitelaws, a family whose values are as far-flung as the territory they helped settle, and whose most recent generations have pioneered the landscape of dysfunction. The patriarch, Sunny Jim, exerts his perverse control even posthumously... Read More Caprice and Rondo Written by Dorothy Dunnett Winter 1474 finds Nicholas exiled in the frozen port of Danzig, Poland. His Machiavellian exploits in Scotland have cost him friends and family--not to mention countless riches. As the ice melts, temptations arise. Will he assist the Muslim Prince Uzum Hasan... Read More Caramelo Written by Sandra Cisneros Born the seventh child and only daughter to Zoila and Inocencio Reyes, Celaya Reyes spends her childhood traveling back and forth between her family’s home in Chicago to her father’s birth home in Mexico City, Mexico. Celaya’s intimidating paternal grandmother, adored... Read More Caramelo Written by Sandra Cisneros Translated by Liliana Valenzuela Born the seventh child and only daughter to Zoila and Inocencio Reyes, Celaya Reyes spends her childhood traveling back and forth between her family’s home in Chicago to her father’s birth home in Mexico City, Mexico. Celaya’s intimidating paternal grandmother, adored... Read More Casa Rossa Written by Francesca Marciano Set against the political turmoil of the twentieth century, it portrays the fantasies and the hopes, true and false, that the women carry with them as they journey from the starkly beautiful landscape of southern Italy to the glamorous, trend-setting Rome... Read More Cast of Shadows Written by Kevin Guilfoile Davis Moore is a fertility doctor in Chicago specializing in reproductive cloning, a controversial and closely regulated new practice, when his seventeen-year-old daughter is brutally raped and murdered. The case is investigated but never solved. Months later, Moore retrieves her belongings... Read More Cat's Eye Written by Margaret Atwood Considered to be her most autobiographical work, Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood's critically acclaimed seventh novel, is the story of Elaine Risley, the daughter of a forest entomologist and controversial artist in her fifties who returns to Toronto for a retrospective of... Read More Charlotte Gray Written by Sebastian Faulks Charlotte Gray revolves around a young Scottish woman's war-time odyssey as she becomes involved with an RAF pilot whose plane is lost over France during World War II. Charlotte contrives to go to France herself by working in the resistance and... Read More Checkmate Written by Dorothy Dunnett Sixth in the legendary Lymond Chronicles Francis Crawford returns to France to lead an army against England. But even as the soldier-scholar succeeds brilliantly on the battlefield, his haunted past becomes a subject of intense interest to forces in both the French... Read More Children of the Alley Written by Naguib Mahfouz The Children's War Written by Monique Charlesworth It is the spring of 1939, and Germany has become a ticking time bomb for anyone of Jewish heritage. Desperate to find a temporary haven for her daughter Ilse, Lore Lindemann sends the teenager to Morocco, where she will live with... Read More Cities of the Plain Written by Cormac McCarthy The time is the early 1950s, the place the Border country of New Mexico. Nearby, in Alamogordo, the nuclear tests that resulted in the first hydrogen bomb have recently been conducted. The cowboy and his horse are a thing of the... Read More A Civil Action Written by Jonathan Harr Two of the nation's largest corporations stand accused of causing the deaths of children. In Woburn, Massachusetts, several young children have been stricken with leukemia and one of the mothers, suspecting that their drinking water was polluted with industrial waste, initiates... Read More Class Action Written by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler When Lois Jenson went to work at Eveleth Mines in 1975, she saw her new job as a lifesaver–a way to bring herself, and her young son, out of minimum-wage poverty. But she soon discovered that the comfortable paychecks came with... Read More Clearcut Written by Nina Shengold Set in the rugged Pacific Northwest in the 1970s, Clearcut is the story of Earley Ritter, who at twenty-nine ekes out a living on the margins of the lumber industry, and two college-age kids who unexpectedly cross his path. After a... Read More The Clearing Written by Tim Gautreaux The Clearing is set deep in the Louisiana swamp in 1923, in the isolated town of Nimbus, a place hard to get to and even harder to get out of alive. Nimbus is a raw place, filled with snakes, alligators, hard-fighting... Read More The Colony of Unrequited Dreams Written by Wayne Johnston The two meet as children in school and grow to realize that their lives are irreversibly intertwined, bound together by a secret they don't know they share. Smallwood, always on the make, torn between love of country and fear of failure... Read More The Color of a Dog Running Away Written by Richard Gwyn Lucas, a musician and translator, comes home one day to find a cryptic postcard on his doorstep. This postcard sets in motion a series of bizarre, seemingly interconnected events, leading Lucas and his girlfriend, Nuria, to be kidnapped by a religious... Read More Colors of the Mountain Written by Da Chen The youngest of five children, Da Chen was born in 1962 in the small village of Yellow Stone. His family, once one of the most respected in the village, loses everything under the brutal policies of the Cultural Revolution. His grandfather... Read More Coming Through Slaughter Written by Michael Ondaatje First published in 1976, Coming Through Slaughter is one of the best loved of Michael Ondaatje's novels. At the turn of the century, the Storyville district of New Orleans had some 2000 prostitutes, 70 professional gamblers, and 3 piano players. But... Read More Confederates in the Attic Written by Tony Horwitz Tony Horwitz returns home from reporting on foreign war zones to discover a different conflict raging on his own doorstep. Though the Civil War ended in 1865, it remains very much aflame in the hearts and minds of Americans, Southerners in... Read More Confess, Fletch Written by Gregory Mcdonald With Confess, Fletch, the second novel to appear in the Fletch series, Gregory Mcdonald puts his relentlessly inquisitive hero smack-dab in the middle of a multimillion-dollar art heist and the murder of a beautiful young woman. Just a few hours after... Read More The Confessions of Nat Turner Written by William Styron In rich and evocative language, Styron relates the life of Turner, a brilliant, enraged slave: his plantation childhood in Tidewater Virginia, his abrupt expulsion from the plantation as it comes apart during the depression of the 1820s, and the series of... Read More The Confessions Written by St. Augustine Preface by Patricia Hampl Augustine has had the most enduring theological influence on Christianity in the West to the present day. The first true autobiography in Western literature, Confessions is a wondrously candid account by Augustine of his sins, errors, and moral failings and temptations... Read More Consuming Kids Written by Susan Linn Enticing ads on prime-time television, special promotions with McDonald’s and other fast-food outlets, and corporate symbols and slogans on T-shirts, caps, backpacks, and more–they’re all part of our children’s everyday world. Once dominated by a few entertainment and toy companies, the... Read More Corelli's Mandolin Written by Louis de Bernières De Bernieres's story takes place on Cephallonia, a small Greek island that is still, in the years before World War II, touched with all the magic of Greek legend, and suffused with a light that is "as though straight from the... Read More The Crazed Written by Ha Jin In this luminous new novel, the author of the National Book Award-winning Waiting deepens his portrait of Chinese society while exploring the perennial conflicts between convention and individualism, integrity and pragmatism, loyalty and betrayal. Professor Yang, a respected teacher of literature... Read More The Crossing Written by Cormac McCarthy On the day that Billy Parham leaves his father's house to trap a wolf that has been preying on the herds, he crosses from the time we measure with calendars into an older, immeasurable dream-time--and into a world in which the... Read More Cuando Era Puertorriquena Written by Esmeralda Santiago Santiago describes herself and her family with affection and sadness. She sees the beauty as well as the poverty in the Puerto Rican countryside where she spent her childhood, and she writes of her hardworking mother, her errant, romantic father, and... Read More The Cure for Death by Lightning Written by Gail Anderson-Dargatz Beth is fourteen years old when her world begins to spin out of control. Her father, badly shaken by an eerie encounter with a savage bear, has become violent and unpredictable, and the family is shunned by all but Bertha Moses... Read More The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Written by Mark Haddon Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. Although gifted... Read More The Da Vinci Code Written by Dan Brown While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. Solving the enigmatic riddle, Langdon... Read More Daisy Bates in the Desert Written by Julia Blackburn For twenty-five years Julia Blackburn was fascinated by the haunting figure of Daisy Bates, an Englishwoman who emigrated to Australia in the early part of the century, was briefly married to the famous Breaker Morant, and returned to England to marry... Read More Dancing After Hours Written by Andre Dubus In illuminating issues of love and loss, desire and fear, many of these stories focus upon women characters: Catherine, who discovers her husband is having an affair; Rusty, who is dealing with the aftermath of a horrific shark attack during a... Read More Daniel Isn't Talking Written by Marti Leimbach A Note from the Author Daniel Isn’t Talking is a novel about a woman who discovers her young son is autistic. It is taken in part from my own life as I went through a similar experience five years ago, when my... Read More The Dark Room Written by Rachel Seiffert The Darwin Conspiracy Written by John Darnton Charles Darwin cracked the world open with an idea so powerful that our society is still fighting over it. But why did he wait twenty-two years between the time he first conceived of the theory of evolution and actually published it?... Read More Dead Man Walking Written by Helen Prejean One day in 1982 the Prison Coalition of Louisiana asked Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who lived and worked among the poor of New Orleans, to correspond with a death-row inmate-- a convicted killer of two teenagers. As she got... Read More Dear Exile Written by Hilary Liftin and Kate Montgomery Newly married and full of a desire to make the world a better place, Kate Montgomery and her husband, Dave, travel to Kenya where, after three months of language training and cultural studies, they move to various villages to teach high school. Their temporary... Read More The Dearly Departed Written by Elinor Lipman With her latest work, Elinor Lipman expertly serves up her usual delicious dish of entertainment. When the story opens, the not-so-sunny Sunny Batten has just received news that causes her to be even more morose than usual: her mother, Margaret Batten... Read More Delirium Written by Laura Restrepo Aguilar, a literature professor reduced to selling dog food after losing his job at the university, returns from a short trip to find his wife, Agustina, transformed into “someone terrified and terrifying, a being I barely recognized” [p. 1]. The daughter... Read More The Desert Fathers Written by Helen Waddell Preface by Basil Pennington By the end of the fifth century, a pattern had emerged among early Christian communities in Egypt and the Middle East of men and women leaving their cities, towns, and villages to seek God through radical self-abnegation and solitude. These men... Read More Desire of the Everlasting Hills Written by Thomas Cahill "A stunning success." —The New York Times Book Review The questions, discussion topics, and author biography that follow are intended to enhance your group's reading and discussion of Thomas Cahill's Desire of the Everlasting Hills. Jewish or Christian, believer or atheist, most... Read More The Devil in the White City Written by Erik Larson In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson takes readers into a richly complex moment in American history, a moment that would draw together the best and worst of the Gilded Age, the grandeur and triumph of the human imagination... Read More The Dew Breaker Written by Edwidge Danticat A book that asks hard questions about truth, deception, responsibility, and redemption, The Dew Breaker is a powerful exploration of the way history, both personal and political, affects those who are swept up in its sometimes violent path. As the book... Read More The Diagnosis Written by Alan Lightman Alan Lightman, author of the widely acclaimed Einstein's Dreams, portrays a man caught in the grip of a mysterious affliction that affects his ability to function and undermines his most basic assumptions about the world. Bill Chalmers, a junior executive at... Read More Diary Written by Chuck Palahniuk Diary is the eerie tale told by Misty Marie Wilmot, a waitress in a hotel, as her husband lies in a coma after a suicide attempt. Once she was an art student dreaming of creativity and freedom, but she hasn’t painted... Read More The Diary of a Young Girl Written by Anne Frank Edited by Otto M. Frank and Mirjam Pressler Translated by Susan Massotty Anne Frank's story succeeds because it is a personal story that enables individuals to understand one of the watershed events of our time, and because it communicates what can happen when hate and intolerance prevail. The essence of Anne Frank's message... Read More The Diary of an American Au Pair Written by Marjorie Leet Ford After losing her advertising job in San Francisco and canceling her wedding (though not her engagement) to an overprotective artist, Melissa heads off to a new job as au pair to the family of a member of Parliament. She harbors grand... Read More Disobedience Written by Jane Hamilton When seventeen-year-old Henry Shaw inadvertently logs onto his mother's e-mail account, he discovers a secret that turns his previously stable sense of his family--and of himself--inside out. Mrs. Shaw is having an affair with Richard Polloco, a Ukrainian violin maker whose... Read More The Disorderly Knights Written by Dorothy Dunnett Through machinations in England and abroad, Lymond is dispatched to Malta to assist the Knights Hospitallers in the island's defense against Turkish corsairs. But he shortly discovers that the greatest threat to the knights lies within their own ranks. One of... Read More The Dive From Clausen's Pier Written by Ann Packer Carrie Bell and Mike Mayer have been a couple forever; dating at fourteen and engaged after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, they have settled into a comfortable relationship. However, Carrie is beginning to struggle with feelings of doubt about... Read More Divisadero Written by Michael Ondaatje Anna, Claire, and Coop grow up together on a ranch near Petaluma, California, at a time when people still hunt for gold residue in nearby rivers. Anna is her father's natural child; Claire is her adopted sister, whose mother, like Anna's... Read More The Double Bind Written by Chris Bohjalian When Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bicycle through Vermont's back roads, her life is forever changed. Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography, spending all her free time at a homeless shelter. There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man... Read More The Dying Animal Written by Philip Roth “A man,” says David Kepesh, “wouldn’t have two-thirds of the problems he has if he didn’t venture off to get fucked. It’s sex that disorders our normally ordered lives” [p. 33]. And no life was more ordered than Kepesh’s. Unmarried, unobligated... Read More The Edible Woman Written by Margaret Atwood The Edible Woman is the first published novel by Margaret Atwood. Rich in metaphor, deliciously comic, and glittering with insight, the story chronicles the fantastic and dramatic ego disintegration of Marian McAlprin, who seems at first to be a perfectly conventional... Read More An Eighth of August Written by Dawn Turner Trice An Eighth of August Built by the first generation of liberated slaves and named in honor of the legend that Halley's Comet landed there, the town of Halley's Landing, Illinois, celebrates the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation every August 8th with the... Read More Elements of Style Written by Wendy Wasserstein The Upper East Side urban gentry are all in a tizzy. Not only must they worry about who will be seated beside whom at the next big dinner party and when the next shipment of Birkin bags arrives, now they have... Read More Elizabeth and Mary Written by Jane Dunn Elizabeth I of England and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, have fascinated biographers and readers for more than four centuries. Even before they gained their respective thrones, their lives were relentlessly observed and commented upon; as queens, they battled deep-seated... Read More Ella Minnow Pea Written by Mark Dunn In Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn transports readers to the imaginary island of Nollop, named for Nevin Nollop, inventor of the pangram (a sentence using all letters of the alphabet) “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” It is... Read More Ellen Foster Written by Kaye Gibbons "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy," [p. 1] says eleven-year-old Ellen. Thus the young narrator begins her life-story, in the process painting an extraordinary self-portrait: Ellen is a child whose courage and humor win... Read More Embers |