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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 J. 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

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