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24 Hours, by Greg Iles
24 HOURS-that's how long it takes a madman to pull off the perfect
crime. He's done it before. He'll do it again. And no one can stop
him-until he picks the wrong family to terrorize.
The Agüero Sisters, by Cristina Garcia
An elegantly written novel that investigates the several natures of identity—personal, familial, and even national—tells the story of two sisters who grew up in Cuba and then were separated for 30 years when one emigrated to the United States.
All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy
The tragic tale of John Grady Cole’s coming of age in Texas and Mexico fifty years ago, this title won the National Book Award in 1992.
All is Vanity,
by Christina Schwarz
At once darkly comedic and moving, this witty exploration of female
friendship, envy, and misguided ambition by the author of the
number-one bestseller Drowning Ruth, deliciously satirizes the desire
to shine in the world. In All is Vanity, Margaret and Letty, best
friends since childhood and now living on opposite coasts, reach their
mid-thirties and begin to chafe at their sense that they are not where
they ought to be in life. Margaret, driven and overconfident, decides
the best way to rectify this is to quit her job and whip out a
literary tour de force. Frustrated almost immediately and humiliated
at every turn, Margaret turns to Letty for support. But as Letty, a
stay-at-home mother of four, begins to feel pressured to make a good
showing in the upper-middle-class Los Angeles society into which her
husband's new job has thrust her, Margaret sees a plot unfolding
that's better than anything she could make up. Desperate to finish her
book and against her better nature, she pushes Letty to take greater
and greater risks, and secretly steals her friend's stories as fast as
she can live them. Hungry for the world's regard, Margaret rashly
sacrifices one of the things most precious to her, until the novel's
suspenseful conclusion shows her the terrible consequences of her
betrayal.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by
Michael Chabon
It is New York City in 1939. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat to date: smuggling himself out of Nazi-occupied Prague. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a collaborator to create the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book. Out of their fantasies, fears, and dreams, Joe and Sammy weave the legend of that unforgettable champion the Escapist. As the shadow of Hitler falls across Europe and the world, the Golden Age of comic books has begun.
Amy and Isabelle, Elizabeth Strout
Exploring the complex relationship of a mother and her teenage daughter, the novel places the characters in the larger context of their New England community in the 1960s.
Andrew Bierce and the Queen of Spades, by Oakley Hall
Tom Redmond, printer's assistant and would-be journalist for a satirical weekly, joins editor Ambrose Bierce in investigating a series of brutal prostitute murders in 1880s San Francisco.
Angry
Housewives Eating Bon Bons,
by Lorna Landvik
The Freesia Court Book Club, renamed Angry Housewives Eating
Bon-Bons is the story of a group of women and their acceptance
of one another just as they are, faults and all. Landvik has crafted a
beautiful portrait of female friendship through the years.
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver.
Codi Nodine goes back to Grace, Arizona to confront her past and face her ailing, distant father. What the finds is a town threatened by a silent environmental catastrophe, some startling clues to her own identity, and a man whose view of the world could change the course of her life. Blending flashbacks, dreams, and Native American legends, Animal Dreams is a suspenseful love story and a moving exploration of life's largest commitments.
At Home in Mitford, by Jan Karon
The first in a series of novels, this heartwarming book introduces readers to a small charming North Carolina town and its equally charming inhabitants. This book is filled with the mysteries and miracles of everyday life and rich, provincial humor.
The
Architect, by Keith Ablow
West Crosse, educated at Yale, member of the ultra-elite Order of
Skull and Bones, is a stunningly brilliant, strikingly handsome
architect with a love of ideal beauty and commitment to achieving it
at any cost. But his clients don't know his dark side: Crosse can't
stop at designing their dwellings. He needs to make their lives more
perfect too, even if it means reshaping the structure of their
families, even if the final design takes years to achieve - murdering
an abusive spouse, a toxic lover, a predatory business partner, or an
unwanted child. As Crosse is about to embark on the masterwork
of his creative life, the FBI puts forensic psychiatrist Dr. Frank
Clevenger on the case, and the ultimate cat-and-mouse game begins.
Clevenger's investigation will lead him toward still-open murder cases
around the nation, into the darkest corners of a madman's soul, and
face-to-face with his own demons.
Atonement, by
Ian McEwan
In this rich novel by the author of the Booker Prize-winning novel
"Amsterdam, " a young girl unwittingly tells a tale that
turns her family upside down. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its
depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class,
"Atonement" is at its center a profound--and profoundly
moving--exploration of shame and forgiveness, of atonement and the
difficulty of absolution.
Balzac and the
Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai
Sijie, translated by Ina Rilke
An enchanting literary
debut-already an international best-seller. At the height of Mao's
infamous Cultural Revolution, two boys are among hundreds of thousands
exiled to the countryside for "re-education." The narrator
and his best friend, Luo, guilty of being the sons of doctors, find
themselves in a remote village where, among the peasants of Phoenix
mountain, they are made to cart buckets of excrement up and down
precipitous winding paths. Their meager distractions include a
violin-as well as, before long, the beautiful daughter of the local
tailor. But it is when the two discover a hidden stash of Western
classics in Chinese translation that their re-education takes its most
surprising turn. While ingeniously concealing their forbidden
treasure, the boys find transit to worlds they had thought lost
forever. And after listening to their dangerously seductive retellings
of Balzac, even the Little Seamstress will be forever transformed.
Bangkok
8, by
John Burdett
Under a Bangkok bridge, inside a bolted-shut Mercedes: a murder
by snake - a charismatic African American Marine sergeant killed by a
methamphetamine-stoked python and a swarm of stoned cobras. Two cops - the only two in the city not on the take - arrive too
late. Minutes later, only one is alive: Sonchai Jitpleecheep - a
devout Buddhist, equally versed in the sacred and the profane - son of
a long-gone Vietnam War G.I. and a Thai bar girl whose subsequent
international clientele contributed richly to Sonchai's
sophistication. Now, his partner dead, Sonchai is doubly
compelled to find the murderer, to maneuver through the world he knows
all to well - illicit drugs, prostitution, infinite corruption - and
into a realm he has never before encountered: the moneyed underbelly
of the city, where desire rules and the human body is no less
custom-designable than a raw hunk of jade. And where Sonchai tracks
the killer - and a predator of an even more sinister variety.
Beach Music
by Pat Conroy
An American expatriate in Rome finds the past continues to haunt him as he attempts to flee the memories of his wife's suicide, only to find himself searching out a family secret which holds a clue to solace.
Before You
Know Kindness, by Christopher Bohjalian
For ten summers, the Seton family - ”all three generations” - met
at their country home in New England to spend a week together playing
tennis, badminton, and golf, and savoring gin and tonics on the
wraparound porch to celebrate the end of the season. In the eleventh
summer, everything changed. A hunting rifle with a single cartridge
left in the chamber wound up in exactly the wrong hands at exactly the
wrong time, and led to a nightmarish accident that put to the test the
values that unite the family and the convictions that just may pull it
apart. Before You Know Kindness is a family saga that is timely in its
examination of some of the most important issues of our era, and
timeless in its exploration of the strange and unexpected places where
we find love.
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
From the bestselling author of "The Magician's Assistant"
comes a marvelous novel of love, opera, and terrorism set in South
America. Two couples, complete opposites, fall in love; sexual
identities become confused; and a horrific imprisonment is transformed
into an unexpected heaven on earth.
Beyond Recognition, by Ridley Pearson
Seattle Police Sergeant Lou Boldt battles a scholar-arsonist who vaporizes his victims in hotter-than-hot house fires. Equally dangerous is the smoldering romance between Boldt, who's drifting away from his wife, and a police department psychologist.
Big Stone Gap, Adriana Trigiani
A thirty-five year old self-proclaimed spinster pharmacist learns after her mother dies that the circumstances surrounding her birth were hidden from her. Amid two marriage proposals, a mine accident, a visit by Elizabeth Taylor to the town, town gossips, mean elderly relatives, and cruel cheerleaders’ tricks, she handles the trauma with surprising grace.
Birds of a
Feather, by Jacqueline Winspear
Maisie Dobbs is back and this time
she has been hired to find a wealthy grocery magnate's missing
daughter. The case is complicated by the violent deaths of three of
the heiress' friends. Maisie discovers that the answers lie in the
unforgettable agony of The Great War.
Black Jack Point,
by Jeff Abbott
When the bodies of
his missing friends are found buried at Black Jack Point, Texas judge
Whit Mosley sets out to find the killers, plunging into a perilous
world in which his only ally, police detective Claudia Salazar, is
kidnapped.
Blackberry Winter: My Earliest Years, by Margaret Mead
The autobiography of a pioneer, this is Margaret Mead's story of her life as a young adult and as an anthropologist. She came to represent the new woman by combining motherhood and career.
Blind Assassin by
Margaret Atwood
A multi-layered love story and mystery involving two sisters, one who perishes at the beginning of the story, while the other sister initially seems unaffected by her death.
Blue Bottle Club by Penelope J. Stokes
Four girls, four dreams and four futures sealed in a cobalt blue bottle in the wake of the depression in 1929. Sixty-five years later, local news reporter Brendan Delaney stumbles upon the bottle, discovering the most meaningful story of her career and
possibly the meaning missing from her own life.
Bound Feet and Western Dress: A Memoir
by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang
"In China, a woman is nothing." Thus begins this harrowing dual memoir that braids the story of Chinese-American Pang-Mei's own search for identity with the dramatic tale of her great-aunt, Chang Yuyi, born at the turn of the century in tradition-bound China. Pang-Mei captivates the reader as she tells the story of Yuyi's battle with her mother to stop the painful foot-binding process, the first in a series of rebellions that marked her extraordinary life.
Cabinet of
Curiosities, by Douglas
Preston and Lincoln Child
In downtown Manhattan, a gruesome discovery has just been made--an
underground charnel house containing the bones of dozens of murder
victims. Research reveals that a serial killer was at work in New
York's notorious Five Points neighborhood in the 1880s, bent on
prolonging his lifespan by any means. When a newspaper story on the
old murders appears to ignite a new series of horrifyingly similar
killings, panic overtakes New York City. Now, FBI agent Pendergast,
journalist Bill Smithback, and archaeologist Nora Kelly join forces to
protect themselves from a vicious killer--before they become the next
victims.
The
Captain's Wife
by Douglass Kelley
This epic historical novel follows the true story of one remarkable
heroine, Mary Patten, who found herself in one of the most dangerous
straits of sea in the Western Hemisphere, Cape Horn, with a ship of
mutinous sailors to command and a deathly sick husband, her captain,
to care for.
Chocolat, by Joanne Harris
An enchanting novel about a small French town turned upside down by the arrival of a bewitching chocolate confectioner, Vianne Rocher, and her spirited young daughter, the book was described as "an amazement of riches" by The New York Times.
Clay’s Quilt, by Silas House
After his mother is killed, four-year-old Clay Sizemore finds himself alone in a small Appalachian mining town. He slowly learns to lean on its residents as family, and together, they help Clay fashion a quilt of a life from what treasured pieces surround him.
The Coffee Trader by David Liss
In 1659 Amsterdam fortunes are won and lost in an instant. Miguel Lienzo knows this only too well. Once among the city's most envied merchants, he has lost everything and must find a way to restore his wealth and reputation.
Cold Day in Paradise, by Steve Hamilton
On a bitter cold night in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, ex-Detroit cop Alex McKnight answers a cry for help from wealthy Edwin Fulton--only to find the man--a compulsive gambler who had gone to meet with a bookmaker--in his motel room with his throat cut.
Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns (plus set in YA Downtown)
A timeless, funny, splendid novel about romance and adolescence, and how people lived and died in a small Southern town at the turn of the century.
The Colony
of Unrequited Dreams, by Wayne Johnston
Newfoundland is the setting for
this story of how fate brings together a witty school boy who pursues
socialist dreams and a popular newspaper columnist who writes about
the history of the continent.
Confessions of a
Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
In this all-too-true debut novel,
Kinsella chronicles one woman's hilarious efforts to overcome her
expensive--if stylish--addiction to shopping. The author has
brilliantly tapped into our collective consumer conscience to deliver
a tale of our times and a heroine who grows stronger every time she
weakens.
Confessions
of an Ugly Stepsister, by Gregory Maguire, translated
by Bill Sanderson
Is this new land a place where
magics really happen? From Gregory Maguire, the acclaimed author of
Wicked, comes his much-anticipated second novel, a brilliant and
provocative retelling of the timeless Cinderella tale. In the lives of
children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human
beings.... When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for
human beings to turn into rats.... We all have heard the story of
Cinderella, the beautiful child cast out to slave among the ashes. But
what of her stepsisters, the homely pair exiled into ignominy by the
fame of their lovely sibling? What fate befell those untouched by
beauty . . . and what curses accompanied Cinderella's exquisite looks?
Extreme beauty is an affliction. Set against the rich backdrop of
seventeenth-century Holland, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells
the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from
the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice,
and ambition. Iris's path quickly becomes intertwined with that of
Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to
become her sister. Clara was the prettiest child, but was her life the
prettiest tale? While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family
hearth, burning all memories of her past, Iris seeks out the shadowy
secrets of her new household--and the treacherous truth of her former
life.
Cordelia Underwood: On the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath
League, by Van Reid
In the summer of 1896 in Portland, Maine, 23-year-old Cordelia Underwood finds, in the newly discovered sea chest of her late uncle, the mysterious deed to a large parcel of land. In a parallel plot line, the large-hearted Mr. Walton, who never hears of an excursion he isn't eager to join, finds he attracts a trio of hapless friends, the exuberant founders of the Moosepath League
Corelli's Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
This novel, set on the idyllic Greek island of Cephallonia, follows the lives of its inhabitants from the peaceful days before World War II through the Italian occupation of the island into the present.
The Corpse Had
a Familiar Face, by Edna
Buchanan
Buchanan, who won
a Pulitzer Prize in 1986, has been the police reporter for the Miami
Herald for 16 years and has covered some 5000 murder cases.
This is her classic collection of true stories, as witnessed
and reported by Buchanan herself, from cold-blooded murder, to
violence in the heat of passion, to the everyday insanity of the city
streets.
Crazy Ladies by Michael Lee West
From Tennessee to New Orleans, from San Francisco to a remote Southwestern
desert ranch, this poignant story is told in the women's voices of four generations of
one special family. The characters resonate love and laughter, pain and redemption.
Living large and hanging tough, they teach us to be wise.
The Dante Club: A
Novel, by Matthew Pearl
A New York Times Bestseller. Words can bleed. In
1865 Boston, the literary geniuses of the Dante Club-poets and Harvard
professors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and
James Russell Lowell, along with publisher J. T. Fields-are finishing
America's first translation of The Divine Comedy and preparing to
unveil Dante's remarkable visions to the New World. The powerful
Boston Brahmins at Harvard College are fighting to keep Dante in
obscurity, believing that the infiltration of foreign superstitions
into American minds will prove as corrupting as the immigrants
arriving at Boston Harbor. The members of the Dante Club fight to keep
a sacred literary cause alive, but their plans fall apart when a
series of murders erupts through Boston and Cambridge. Only this small
group of scholars realizes that the gruesome killings are modeled on
the descriptions of Hell's punishments from Dante's Inferno. With the
lives of the Boston elite and Dante's literary future in America at
stake, the Dante Club members must find the killer before the
authorities discover their secret. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and an
outcast police officer named Nicholas Rey, the first black member of
the Boston police department, must place their careers on the line to
end the terror. Together, they discover that the source of the murders
lies closer to home than they ever could have imagined.
Dark-Adapted Eye, by Barbara Vine
When Faith Severn's aunt was hanged for murder, the reason behind her dark deed died with her. For 30 years, the family hid the truth--until a journalist prompts Faith to peer back to the day when her aunt took knife in hand and entered a child's nursery.
Dead Man’s Island, by Carolyn Hart
Sleuth Henrietta O'Dwyer Collins, known affectionately as Henrie O, writes novels after working 50 years as a journalist. Longtime friend Chase Prescott, multimillionaire media magnate, begs her to visit his private island near Charleston so that she can deduce which of the people there wants him dead.
Dead Sleep, by Greg Iles
Jordan Glass, a photojournalist on a well-earned vacation in Hong Kong, stumbles upon a picture of her sister in repose--a painting which depicts her not in sleep, but in death.
Dead Witch
Walking, by Kim Harrison
All the creatures of
the night gather in “the Hollows” in Cincinnati to hide, to prowl,
to party and to feed. Vampires rule the darkness in a predator-eat-predator world
rife with dangers beyond imagining—and it’s Rachel Morgan’s job
to keep that world civilized.
Denial, by Keith Ablow
In this terrifying journey into the mind of the criminally insane, Forensic pathologist Frank Clevenger has been asked to rubber-stamp the mental competence of a homeless schizophrenic who has confessed to a grisly murder. Evidence of a series of murders begins to mount, forcing Frank to confront his own demons.
Desert Heat, by J.A. Jance
Joanna Brady finds her husband, Andy, shot in the Arizona desert on the night of their tenth wedding anniversary. But this, and Andy's subsequent suspicious death in the hospital, is only the beginning of the destruction of the comfortable world of Joanna and her nine-year-old daughter, Jenny. First in the Joanna series.
Desert
Shadows: Publishing Can Be Murder,
by Betty Webb
After Scottsdale publisher Gloriana Allerton is poisoned at the annual
Southwestern Publishers' Convention and a Pima Indian friend is
accused of the murder, Lena Jones begins to investigate the seldom
talked about side of the businessùracist publishing. To her horror,
Lena finds herself rubbing elbows with extremist politicians and
members of local fascist groups. Though she becomes a target for
murder because of her investigations, an attempt against Lena Jones'
life pales in comparison to what happens when she is granted a meeting
with the Aryan Brotherhood leader at the Arizona State Prison complex.
On her way to the Death Row visiting room, a Black trustee nicknamed
Green because of his startling green eyes, looks into Lena's face. And
calls her by her mother's name. Found shot in the head at the age of
four, her memory gone, the green-eyed Lena Jones had been raised in a
series of abusive foster homes which left her emotionally and
physically scarred. For years, Lena had searched for her biological
parents with the same intensity with which she searched for killers.
But now, with a possible answer to her identity right in front of her,
Lena begins to realize that the truth may come at a very high price...
Her own life.
The Devil
in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed
America, by Erik Larson
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at
his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that
characterized America's rush toward the twentieth century. The
architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's brilliant director of
works and the builder of many of the country's most important
structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union
Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young
doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his
"World's Fair Hotel" just west of the fairgrounds-a torture
palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree
crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he
organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis
Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White
City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own
satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What
makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived,
walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
Devil’s Hawk, by Ray Sipherd
Visiting a friend's
home in Arizona to learn the truth about the death of the man's
sister, ornithologist Jonathan Wilder teams up with widowed border
patrol agent Max Montoya to investigate local smuggling operations.
Diamond Dogs by Alan Watt
Seventeen year old Neil Garvin takes his aggressions out on the football field, where he is the high school's first-string quarterback, and by being a bully. Neil brutally assaults a couple of freshmen and, later, driving without lights, he hits and kills one of the boys he had bullied. Unasked, Neil's father covers up for him as the FBI closes in. A potent story with a powerful conclusion.
Disgrace, by
J.M. Coetzee
At fifty-two, Professor David Lurie is divorced,
filled with desire, but lacking in passion. An affair with one of his
students leaves him jobless, shunned by his friends, and ridiculed by
his ex-wife. He retreats to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding,
where a brief visit becomes an extended stay as he tries to find
meaning from this one remaining relationship. David's attempts to
relate to Lucy and to a society with new racial complexities are
disrupted by an afternoon of violence that shakes all his beliefs and
threatens to destroy his daughter.
The Dive
from Clausen's Pier, by Ann Packer
A
riveting novel about loyalty and self-knowledge, and the conflict
between who we want to be to others and who we must be for ourselves.
Carrie Bell has lived in Wisconsin all her life. She's had the same
best friend, the same good relationship with her mother, the same
boyfriend, Mike, now her fiance, for as long as anyone can remember.
It's with real surprise she finds that, at age twenty-three, her life
has begun to feel suffocating. She longs for a change, an upheaval,
for a chance to begin again. That chance is granted to her, terribly,
when Mike is injured in an accident. Now Carrie has to question
everything she thought she knew about herself and the meaning of home.
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
At thirty-nine, SiddaLee Walker has escaped her Louisiana hometown to become a theatrical director, but as she gathers old letters, photos, journals, and souvenirs from the Ya-Ya sisterhood to assist in writing a play about women's friendships, she yearns to revisit her childhood.
The Dogs of
Babel, by
Carolyn Parkhurst
A poignant and beautiful debut novel explores a
man's quest to unravel the mystery of his wife's death with the help
of the only witness--their Rhodesian ridgeback, Lorelei.
Douglass' Women by Jewel Parker Rhodes
Douglass' Women reimagines the lives of an American hero, Frederick Douglass, and two women - his wife and his mistress - who loved him and lived in his shadow.
A Drink Before the War, by Dennis Lehane
This highly acclaimed first novel introduces an intrepid pair of tough Boston private investigators, Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. The duo is confronted by a cadre of powerful Boston politicos offering big money to locate a missing cleaning woman.
Dukes of Cleveland, by Les Roberts
The sixth Jacovich adventure takes Milan into the world of young artists and wannabe artists in the Coventry area of Cleveland Heights, as he searches for a man named Jeff Feldman, a man almost no one likes, a potter of mediocre talent, a con man. But it's a search that leads to too many dead bodies and some personal peril for Milan.
End of Faith:
Religion, Terror, And the Future of Reason, by
Sam Harris
In the End of Faith, Sam Harris delivers a
startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the
modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to
suspend reason in favor of religious beliefs -- even when these
beliefs inspire the worst of human atrocities.
Eureka,
by William Diehl
Two decades after a
young Thomas Culhane escaped Eureka, California, to fight in World War
I, police detective Zeke Bannon investigates a seemingly accidental
death and uncovers dark secrets from the past that could threaten
Culhane's campaign for governor of California.
Evensong by Gail Godwin
Raising profound issues of love and commitment, and examining the ever-changing landscape of family, this novel is both graceful and gripping in its story of a marriage struggling to sustain the best of itself in a volatile world.
Extreme
Denial, by David Morrell
Former American
intelligence operative and counterterrorism expert Steve Decker
struggles to find peace of mind and build a new life with Beth Dwyer,
a beautiful woman who hides horrifying secrets that will test Steve's
very being and lead him to a terrifying confrontation.
Fair and Tender
Ladies, by Lee Smith
Returning to Appalachia, Lee Smith, author of
Oral History, creates an unforgettable heroine: Ivy Rowe. From
girlhood to old age, Ivy nourishes her family with her passion,
imagination, and strength.
A False Sense of
Well Being,
by Jeanne Braselton
Braselton pens a funny, poignant debut about
loneliness in marriage, secrets and the power of confession, and the
sometimes desperate things women do to inject passion and meaning into
their lives.
Family
Matters, by
Rohinton Mistry
At once sweeping and intimate, comic and tragic,
Family Matters--by the author of A Fine
Balance--is the story of a 1990s Bombay family dealing with
their elderly patriarch, who is suffering from Parkinson's disease.
Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You by Fred Chappell
In styles ranging from ghost to detective to comic to love stories, the author of this novel cleverly interweaves tales and reminiscences told to a young man by his grandmother and mother creating an inheritance lush in language, in music and imaginative teaching.
The Feast Of Love, by Charles Baxter
The Feast of Love is an updated version of Midsummer Night's
Dream, men and women speak of and desire their ideal mates; parents seek out their lost children; adult children try to come to terms with their own parents and, in some cases, find new ones.
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city in India. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
Five Fortunes, by Beth Gutcheon
The importance of connections between women is highlighted in this story of friendship and support among a group of five women who first meet on a week-long retreat at a health spa in Arizona.
Flood, by Andrew Vachss
In this thriller, Vachss's renegade private eye teams up with a lethally gifted avenger to follow a child's murderer through the catacombs of New York, where every alley is blind and the penthouses are as dangerous as the basements.
Future Homemakers of America, by Laurie Graham
Stationed at a U.S. Air Force Base in Norfolk, England in 1952, a group of military wives are thrown together by husbands who patrol the skies keeping the Soviets at Bay. Through marriage and divorce, separations and reunions, the gang will try to hold fast to each other in a story that takes us to the heart of female friendship.
Gardens in the Dunes, by Leslie Marmon Silko
Set in the southwestern and northeastern US, England, and Europe near the end of the 19th century, the book's theme is the contrasting adaptation of a girl of the (Arizona) Sand Lizard Indian tribe and an educated, independent white woman to their respective cultures.
Ghost Walker, by Margaret Coel
The author’s second title in a series set on an Arapaho Indian reservation in Wyoming, the novel features Father John O’Malley, a priest who administers the Jesuit mission on the reservation. In the middle of a blizzard, O’Malley’s ancient Toyota breaks down, and he finds a snow-covered body in the ditch along the road. By the time he makes it back with the police, the body has disappeared.
The Giant's House, by Elizabeth McCracken
The year is 1950, and in a small town on Cape Cod twenty-six-year-old librarian Peggy Cort feels like love and life have stood her up. Until the day James Carlson Sweatt--the "over tall" eleven-year-old boy who's the talk of the town--walks into her library and changes her life forever.
Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier
Through the eyes of sixteen-year-old Griet, the world of 1660s Holland comes alive in an imagined story of the young woman who inspired one of Vermeer's most famous paintings.
Going After Cacciato, by Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien's now classic novel of Vietnam is the winner of the 1979 National Book Award. This story captures the peculiar blend of horror and hallucinatory comedy that marked this the strangest of wars. Reality and fantasy merge in this fictional account of one private's sudden discussion to lay down his rifle and begin a quixotic journey from the jungles of Indochina to the streets of Paris. Will Cacciato make it all the way? Or will he be yet another casualty of a conflict that seems to have no end? In its memorable evocation of men both fleeing and meeting the demands of the battle,
Going After Cacciato is ultimately about the forces of fear and heroism that do battle in the hearts of us all.
Gone For Good, by Mark Childress
In his fifth novel, the author gives us the wild, comic, and ultimately moving odyssey of a 1970s folk-rock star, Ben "Superman" Willis. Superman has been riding a wave of success in the years since the Beatles broke up and rock and roll wore itself out. But stardom is not what he thought it would be.
The Good Journey:
A Novel, by Micaela Gilchrist
In the tradition of such memorable bestselling
authors as Willa Cather and Edna Ferber, or such more recent successes
as Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain and Philip Kimball's Liar's
Moon,
Micaela Gilchrist has written a first-rate, romantic and deeply moving
historical novel, rich with the kind of detail that brings history to
life and peopled with the kind of larger-than-life characters that
stand out against even the brilliant, tumultuous, bloody backdrop of
the struggle for the West. Inspired by the real-life letters and
diaries of Mary Bullitt, an outspoken and strong-willed young Southern
belle whose life on the frontier is the stuff of legend and of epics,
The Good Journey is the sweeping and enthralling story of two
extraordinary people, set against a West that was still to be won.
Goodnight, Irene, by Jan Burke
When a hard-nosed Southern Californian reporter is killed in an explosion, his inquisitive protégé decides to make it her business to track down his murderer. This debut mystery novel introduces amateur sleuth Irene Kelly.
Grace by Jane Roberts Wood
The ending of World War II becomes the catalyst that drives the inhabitants of Cold Springs, Texas across boundaries that once divided
them, sending the residents to places both chaotic and astonishing.
A Gracious
Plenty: A Novel,
by Sheri Reynolds
In the lush and isolated cemetery of a small
Southern town, Finch Nobles, the narrator of this brilliantly
inventive novel, tends to the flowers and shrubs that surround the
monuments of people who were not known to her while they lived but who
in death have become her lifeline.
Guns, Germs and
Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by
Jared Diamond
In this "artful, informative, and
delightful (book)" (New York Review of Books),
Diamond offers a convincing explanation of the way the modern world
came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human
history.
The Handyman, by Carolyn See
An aspiring artist trades in his palette for a minivan full of house paints, hammers, and nails, and sets about earning a little cash as a handyman. Although he turns out to be very bad at fixing the things he's hired to fix, Bob demonstrates quite a knack for fixing the lives of the people around him.
Hanna’s Daughters, by Marianne Fredriksson
Sweeping through one hundred years of Scandinavian history, this moving novel follows three generations of Swedish women--a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter--whose lives are linked through a century of great love and great loss.
Hard Bargain, by Barbara D’Amato
When a domestic violence call turns into a murder, Chicago freelance reporter Cat Marsala finds herself faced with her toughest case yet, one that could put a friend's job--and life--on the line.
Headlong by Michael Frayn
Invited to dinner by the boorish local landowner, Martin Clay, and his art-historian wife are asked to assess three dusty paintings. Martin believes that one of the paintings is a lost work by Bruegel. So begins a hilarious trail of desperate schemes as Martin, betting all that he owns, embarks on a quest to prove his hunch, win his wife over, and separate the painting from its owner.
The Hearse You Came In On, by Tim Cockey
A clever and gripping first mystery novel features an unconventional undertaker—who also happens to be one of Baltimore's most eligible and charming bachelors
Honk and Holler Opening Soon by Billie Letts
Set in Oklahoma, this vibrant story captures a small town's prejudice and tolerance, violence and big-heartedness. It convinces us that dark clouds can really have silver linings.
Horse
Heaven, by
Jane Smiley
The universe of horse racing--passionate,
cold-hearted, pure, corrupt--is revealed in Smiley's new novel that
combines the intense feeling of her Pulitzer Prize-winning A
Thousand Acres with the wit, pace, and brightness of Moo.
House of Blues, by Julie Smith
After a prominent New Orleans restauranteur is murdered in his beautiful Garden District home, three family members suddenly vanish without a trace. Homicide Detective Skip Langdon's search for the murderer and missing heirs takes her into places where the city's dirty business is transacted, and where life is mostly madness, sadness, and badness.
How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
First published in 1939. The author captures the song of his nation of singers and made it into the story of the childhood and youth of Huw Morgan, a miner's son, in a South Wales valley.
The Ice
Maiden, by Edna Buchanan
Ten years after a
devastating unsolved crime, a young artist finds her life once again
disrupted by the same forces that sought to victimize her a decade
earlier, a situation that prompts her to team up with reporter Britt
Montero to solve the mystery.
The Informant, by James Grippando
FBI agent Victoria Santos and Miami reporter Mike Posten find their own lives in danger as they hunt for two men, a particularly nasty serial killer/mutilator and an anonymous telephone informant with a suspicious ability to predict the killer's next move. They finally come face to face on a cruise ship...
The Inn at Lake Devine, by Elinor Lipman
In 1962 Vermont, 13-year-old Natalie's mother is told that a summer resort does not accept Jews. When Natalie tries to enter the world that has excluded her, she succeeds beyond her wildest dreams through the sheerest of accidents.
Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Imbued with the sensual details of Indian culture, these stories speak with passion and wisdom to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner. Like the interpreter of the title story, Lahiri translates between the strict traditions of her ancestors and a baffling new world. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2000.
Jane and the
Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor: Being the First Jane Austen Mystery,
by Stephanie Barron
With this series opener, Barron catches the Jane
Austen popularity wave with impeccable timing--but that may be the
best that can be said of this debut. Purportedly editing Austen
manuscripts found in an old Maryland estate, Barron recounts the
suspicious death of the elderly Frederick Payne, Earl of Scargrave.
Anonymous notes accuse Isobel, Austen's friend and Payne's young
bride, and a "grey-hared Lord" of murdering the earl.
Intensifying Isobel's misery is Lord Harold Trowbridge, who badgers
the widow to sell him her estate in Barbados. Concerned for her friend
and for Fitzroy Payne, the new earl who not-so-secretly loves Isobel,
Austen undertakes snooping that leads her to a second corpse and leads
Isobel and Fitzroy to trial before the House of Lords.
Jim the Boy, by Tony Earley
A coming of age novel set in a small town in North Carolina during 1934, which focuses on 10-year-old Jim Glass. A nostalgic look at childhood during a tragic and uncertain era.
Jim Cramer's Real
Money: Sane Investing In An Insane World,
by
Jim Cramer
How do we find hot stocks without getting
burned? How do we fatten our portfolios and stay financially healthy?
Former hedge-fund manager and longtime Wall Street commentator Jim
Cramer explains how to invest wisely in chaotic times, and he does so
in plain English in a style that is as much fun as investing is-or
should be, when it's done right.
Killing Floor, by Lee Child
A former military cop hunts down his brother's killers in this searing tale of revenge and honor. The sleepy, forgotten town of Margrave, Georgia, hasn't seen a crime in decades, but within the span of three days it witnesses crimes that leave everyone stunned.
Kit's Law by Donna Morrissey
This beautiful debut novel, set in a remote Newfoundland village in the 1950?s, is told in the voice of Kit Pitman, a 12-year-old who lives with her retarded mother, Josie, and Grandmother, Lizzy. When Lizzy suddenly dies a powerfully wrenching story ensues.
The Known
World, by
Edward P. Jones
Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker,
and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual
mentor - William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful man in antebellum
Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes
proprietor of his own plantation - as well as of his own slaves.
Ladder of Years, by Anne
Tyler
Delia Grinstead simply walks away from her overgrown family one day. She feels that her family doesn't really need her, and so one day while at the beach she goes for a walk and just keeps going. As the story unfolds, you feel sorry for the family somewhat, but you can't help but hope that Delia will make it on her own. She has taken such a bold, brave step, you want to see how far she can go.
The Ladies of Covington Send Their Love, by Joan Medlicott
Circumstance has brought three disparate women of "a certain age" to a Pennsylvania boardinghouse where three square meals and a sagging bed is the most any of them can look forward to. But friendship will take them on a startling journey to a rundown North Carolina farmhouse where the unexpected suddenly seems not only welcome, but delightfully promising
Lamb in Love, by Carrie Brown
Fifty-five year old Norris Lamb discovers love for the very first time when he sees Vida Stephen one summer night.
The Last Sin Eater, by Francine Rivers
Set in Appalachia in the 1850s, The Last Sin Eater is the story of a community committed to its myth of a human "sin eater," who absolves the dead of their sins, and the ten-year-old child who shows them the truth of Jesus.
The Law of
Similars: A Novel, by Christopher A. Bohjalian
From the best-selling author of Midwives comes a
startlingly powerful story of three people whose lives are irrevocably
changed by illness, healing, and love. Two years after his wife's
sudden, accidental death, a Vermont deputy state prosecutor, Leland
Fowler, finds that the stress of raising their small daughter alone
has left him with a chronic sore throat. Desperate to rid himself of a
malady that has somehow managed to elude conventional medicine, Leland
turns to homeopath Carissa Lake--who cures both his sore throat and
the aching loneliness at the root of his symptoms. Just days after
Leland realizes he has fallen in love with the first woman who has
mattered to him since his wife, one of Carissa's asthma patients falls
into an allergy-induced coma. When Carissa comes under investigation,
straight-arrow Leland is faced with a moral and ethical dilemma of
enormous proportions.
Leap of
Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life, by Queen
Noor
Sharing a personal perspective on the past three decades of world
history, Queen Noor talks frankly of the many challenges of her life
as wife and partner to the monarch, providing an intimate portrait of
the late King and a moving account of their public role.
Leaving
Cheyenne, by Larry McMurtry
An unforgettable tale of a love triangle that spans a generation, of a
friendship that endures from dusty wagons to private planes, and of a
rancher's legacy that sprawls beyond memories and land.
Liars' Club, by Mary Karr
Mary Karr looks back at her upbringing in a swampy East Texas refinery town with a volatile, defiantly loving family. She recalls her painter mother, seven times married, whose outlaw spirit could tip into psychosis; a fist swinging father who spun tales with his cronies - dubbed the
Liars' Club; and a neighborhood rape when she was eight. An inheritance was squandered, endless bottles emptied, and guns leveled at the deserving and undeserving.
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
Planning to move the family owned zoo from India to Canada, Pi's father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth").
Line of Vision, by David Ellis
Investment banker Marty Kalish is in love with a married woman. When the woman's husband is murdered, Marty is a suspect. He was at the scene of the crime, he had a motive, and he manipulated the evidence to hide his guilt. Marty has even confessed. Yet what is Marty really confessing to? What really happened on the night of the murder?
The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler
Why did Terry Lennox--drunken war hero, victim of Nazism, apparent wife killer--commit suicide? Chandler's most ambitious blend of genre sleuthing and serious fiction
Loose Lips by Rita Mae Brown
In the picturesque town of Runnymede, everyone knows everyone else's business, and the madcap antics of the battling Hunsenmeir sisters keep the whole town agog.
The Love Letter by Cathleen Schine
Helen who owns a tiny bookstore in an idyllic seaside town has a fulfilling life. But then an anonymous love letter arrives in her mail. Written by an unknown lover to a mysterious beloved, the letter becomes Helen's obsession.
Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich
The first book in Louise Erdrich's Native American series, which also
includes The Beet Queen, Tracks, and The Bingo
Palace, Love Medicine
tells the story of two families--the Kashpaws and the Lamartines.
The Map of Love, by Ahdaf Soueif
At either end of the 20th century, two women fall in love with men outside their familiar worlds. In 1901, Anna Winterbourne finds herself enraptured with Egypt and with Sharif Pasha al-Baroudi. Nearly 100 years later, Isabel Parkman, Anna and Sharif's descendent, is in love with a gifted and difficult Egyptian-American conductor with his own passionate politics.
Merchant of Menace, by Jill Churchill
'Tis the season to be jolly, and Jane Jeffery is racing to finish her holiday preparations before the arrival of her teenage kids and no less than two moms - her late husband's and the disapproving mater of her significant other, Det. Mel VanDyne. What Jane is not ready for is the arrival of Santa Claus, who turns out to be a muckraking TV reporter who meets an early demise.
Middle Passage, by Charles Richard
Johnson
It is 1830. Rutherford Calhoun, a newly treed slave and irrepressible
rogue, is desperate to escape unscrupulous bill collectors and an
impending marriage to a priggish schoolteacher. He jumps aboard the
first boat leaving New Orleans, the Republic, a slave ship en route to
collect members of a legendary African tribe, the Allmuseri. Thus
begins a daring voyage of horror and self-discovery. Peopled with
vivid and unforgettable characters, nimble in its interplay of comedy
and serious ideas, this dazzling modern classic is a perfect blend of
the picaresque tale, historical romance, sea yarn, slave narrative,
and philosophical novel.
The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint: a Novel,
by Brady Udall
With the inventive acuity of John Irving, this riveting picaresque
novel chronicles the hopes and heartbreaks of Edgar Presley Mint. The
trials of Edgar, half Apache and mostly orphaned, begin on an Arizona
reservation at the age of seven, when the mailman's jeep accidentally
runs over his head. Shunted from the hospital to a school for
delinquents to a Mormon foster family, comedy, pain, and trouble
accompany Edgar through a string of larger-than-life experiences.
Through it all, readers will root for this irresistible innocent who
never truly loses heart, and whose quest for the mailman leads him to
an unexpected home.
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind, by
Ann B. Ross
After the unexpected death of her husband of 44 years, Julia Springer is more than just a grieving widow, she's a rich one. She's also a woman on the verge of finding
herself freed at last from her husband's sheltering. But just when she thinks she's got her new life under control, an unexpected visitor arrives with news that would send anyone, let alone a proper Southern lady, into a tailspin.
Mitigating Circumstances, by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg
Lily Forrester, a district attorney in Southern California, is an ambitious woman with a deteriorating marriage. Her life becomes a nightmare when both she and her daughter are brutally attacked.
Motherkind: a Novel, by Jayne Anne
Phillips
Kate--whose care for her terminally ill mother coincides with the
birth of her first child and the early months of a young
marriage--must in a single year come to terms with the pairing of
radiant beginnings and profound loss.
Motherless
Brooklyn, by Jonathan
Lethem
Lionel Essrog has
always respected Frank Minna, who helped him out when he was young,
and when Frank is found dead, Lionel and his friends, the Minna Men,
scour the streets of Brooklyn in search of the killer.
Motion to Suppress, by Perri O’Shaughnessy
Attorney Nina Reilly loses her job, her marriage and her pride all in the same week. She leaves San Francisco for Lake Tahoe, taking a case that changes everything Nina believes about the law--and herself.
Mr. Wroe's Virgins,
by Jane Roger
When God told Prophet John Wroe to comfort himself with seven virgins, his
congregation gave him its daughters. So begins this provocative and immensely
powerful novel, set in nineteenth-century England and based on actual events.
Jane Rogers chronicles the nine months these women spend together until accusations of
indecency and the trial that follows bring Wroe's household to its dramatic end.
Murder, With Peacocks, by Dana Andrews
While trying to manage being the maid of honor in three weddings, Meg Langslow finds herself in the midst of a mystery when her former sister-in-law's soon-to-be stepfather is found dead.
My Family and Other Animals
by Gerald Malcolm Durrell
Basking in the sunshine on the Greek Island of Corfu, Gerald Durrell evocatively chronicles his five-year stint as an adventurous boy on the island along with his "family and other animals.
Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane
When Jimmy Marcus's daughter is found murdered, Sean Devine is assigned the case. The investigation leads him on a collision course with the girl's grieving father—a man with a dark past eager to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave Boyle, a man who hides monstrous secrets beneath a bland façade, secrets his pregnant wife is only beginning to suspect.
Nobody's Fool by Richard
Russo
An unlucky man in a deadbeat town in upstate New York, Sully must overcome numerous obstacles--a bum knee, terminal underemployment, and a not-too-helpful group of friends--as he copes with a new problem, his long-estranged son.
Nowhere Else on Earth, by Josephine Humphreys
Tensions in North Carolina at the end of the Civil War have reached a fever pitch. In a uniquely hybrid community, Scots and Lumbee Indians have lived together for generations, but with Union invasion imminent, ancient resentments have resurfaced. The narrator of this historical romance/morality tale is 16-year-old Rhoda Strong, who looks back 30 years later.
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall-Smith
Immediately upon opening her detective agency, Precious Ramotswe is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. But the case that lands her in trouble is that of a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witch doctors.
On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, by Kaye Gibbons
In the year 1900--on the afternoon she suspects might be the last in her long, eventful life--Emma Garnet Tate Lowell sets down on paper her own personal history. She recalls her life on the plantation, her marriage to a Boston surgeon, her survival of the Civil War, and the terrible secret that shaped her father's life.
One False
Move, by Alex Kava
Mother-and-son-con-artists Melanie and Charlie team up with a fearless
ex-con who has recently gotten away with murder to pull off the
ultimate heist. But during the robbery, everything goes wrong,
innocent people die, and the threesome winds up on the run with
nothing left to lose.
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, by Jim Fergus
An American western with a most unusual twist, this is an imaginative fictional account of the participation of May Dodd and others in the controversial "Brides for Indians" program, a clandestine U.S. government sponsored program intended to instruct "savages" in the ways of civilization and to assimilate the Indians into white culture through the offspring of these unions.
Open and Shut,
by David Rosenfelt
With the help of
his lover, P.I. Laurie Collins, defense attorney Andy Carpenter
discovers a startling link between his father's death, a death row
inmate, and the three most powerful men in New Jersey, exposing a
deadly political conspiracy.
Out to Pasture But Not Over the Hill by Effie Leland Wilder
Anyone who thinks that retirement is rocking chair and Medicare is in for a surprise when they meet the folks at Fair Acres Home. This charming book whose author is an octogenerian, stars Hattie McNair, a journal-keeper and eavesdropper extraordinaire.
Hattie's humor and indomitable spirit make this book an amusing and heartwarming look at the often-avoided topic of aging.
Out of Sight, by T.J. MacGregor
While on vacation in the Florida Everglades, the Townsend family stumbles upon a strange deserted village, built entirely on stilts, where they make a horrifying discovery that plunges them into a deadly game of survival.
A Patchwork Planet, by Anne Tyler
Barnaby Gaitlin, an appealing 30-year-old loser, is actually a kind-hearted man struggling to find his place in the world. This gentle comedy explores how people interact with their families, as they fall in love and as they age.
Perfect Husband, by Lisa Gardner
Jim Beckett was everything Tess had ever dreamed of... But two years after Tess married him, she helped put him behind bars for savagely murdering ten women. Even locked up in a maximum security prison, he vowed to make her pay. Now the cunning killer has
escaped. . .
The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason
In 1886 a shy, middle-aged piano tuner named Edgar Drake receives an
unusual commission from the British War Office: to travel to the
remote jungles of northeast Burma and there repair a rare piano
belonging to an eccentric army surgeon who has proven mysteriously
indispensable to the imperial design.
Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation, by John Phillip Santos
In this beautifully written memoir, an award-winning writer weaves together dream fragments, family remembrances, and Chicano mythology, reaching back into time and place to blend the soul of one Mexican family with the history of an entire people.
Plainsong, by Kent Haruf
This story of family and romance, tribulation and tenacity is set on the High Plains east of Denver. In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether.
The Protector, by David Morrell
Biochemist Daniel Prescott creates a drug that is supposed to help stop addiction, but instead is rumored to provide an incredibly addictive rush by stimulating the body producing adrenaline. Fearing that undesirables will harm him to get at his creation, Daniel hires Global Protective Services, a security firm not squeamish about crossing legal barriers.
Quilter's Apprentice Jennifer Chiaverini
In this skillfully crafted book, the author weaves a heartwarming story of wisdom involving family, friendship, and sisterhood. It shows how to create a life as you would a quilt with time, love, and patience, piercing the miscellaneous and mismatched scraps into a beautiful whole.
The Red
Scream, by Mary Willis
Walker
Texas reporter
Molly Cates, whose book describes the horrifying career of serial
killer Louie Bronk, realizes, shortly before Louie's execution, that
he may be innocent and that her life is in danger.
The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoil of ancient womanhood - the world of the red tent.
The Saving Graces, by Patricia Gaffney
This poignant tale of friendship among four charming women who call themselves the
Saving Graces was such a hot seller it went back to press ten times. Sometimes called the northern equivalent of
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand
Seabiscuit was an unlikely champion: a roughhewn, undersized horse with a sad little tail and knees that wouldn't straighten all the way. But, thanks to the efforts of three men, Seabiscuit became one of the most spectacular performers in sports history.
The Secret Life of Bees, by
Sue Monk Kidd
Lily Owen's life has been shaped by dark memories of her mother's death years earlier. In 1964, fourteen year old Lily and her black "stand-in mother" leave their home in Georgia and head to Tiburon, South Carolina -- a town that holds the secret of her mother's past.
The Shell Seekers, by Rosamund Pilcher
This English family saga recounts the passions, tragedies, and secrets of Penelope Keeling as she tries to decide the fate of a valuable painting her father symbolically based on her unconventional life.
Shipping News, by Annie Proulx
Set in a fishing town in Newfoundland, this is a tale about a third-rate newspaperman and the women in his life — an elderly aunt and two young daughters — who undergo striking changes when they decide to resettle in their ancestral coastal home.
A Short History of Nearly
Everything, by Bill Bryson
Popular writer Bryson turns from geographical to temporal realms to
summarize what has happened from the time of the Big Bang to now,
especially as it pertains to items of local interest, such as the
solar system, earth, life, and humans.
Silent Joe, by T. Jefferson Parker
With the horrible remnants of a childhood tragedy forever visible across his otherwise handsome face, Joe Trona is scarred in more ways than one. Rescued from an orphanage by Will Trona, a charismatic Orange County politican who sensed his dark potential, Joe is swept into the maelstrom of power and intimidation that surrounds his adoptive father's illustrious career. Serving as Will's right-hand man, Joe is trained to protect and defend his father's territory - but can't save the powerful man from his enemies. Will Trona is murdered, and Joe will stop at nothing to find out who did
it. Looking for clues as he sifts through the remains of his father's life - his girlfriends, acquaintances, deals, and enemies - Joe comes to realize how many secrets Will Trona possessed, and how many people he had the power to harm. But two leads keep rising to the surface: a little girl who was kidnapped by her mentally disturbed brother, and two rival gangs who seem to have joined forces. As Joe deepens his investigation - and is forced to confront the painful events of his troubled childhood - these two seemingly disconnected threads will intersect.
Sister of My Heart, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
From the award-winning author of Mistress of Spices comes the bestselling novel about the bond between two cousins born in India and the family secrets and romantic jealousies that threaten to tear them apart.
Smilla’s Sense of Snow, by Peter Hoeg
Living in Copenhagen, childless, part-Eskimo Smilla Qaavigaaq Jaspersen has only one real friend--her six-year-old neighbor Isaiah. When he's killed in a fall, Smilla doesn't believe it's an accident and decides to investigate--even though the police warn against it.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,
by Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a brilliantly relistic
journey back to an era of Chinese history that is as deeply moving as
it is sorrowful. With the period detail and deep resonance of Memoirs
of a Geisha, this lyrical and emotionally charged novel delves
into one of the most mysterious of human relationships: female
friendships.
The Songcatcher by Sharyn McCrumb
A captivating story unfolds as a song is passed down through the generations, carrying a
family's descendents through the settling of the American frontier, the Civil War, the coming of the railroads and into modern times. The haunting melody provides both solace in the present and a link to the past.
The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell
This novel tells the story of a charismatic Jesuit priest and linguist, Emilio
Sandoz, who leads an ill-fated twenty-first-century scientific mission to a newly discovered extraterrestrial culture.
Special Circumstances, by Sheldon Siegel
Meet Mike Daley, an ex-priest, ex-public defender, and as of yesterday, ex-partner in one of San Francisco's most prestigious law firms. Today, he's setting up his own practice on the wrong side of town when his best friend and former colleague is charged with a brutal double murder. Daley is instantly catapulted into a high-profile investigation of the prestigious law firm that just booted him.
Stone Kiss, by Faye Kellerman
LAPD lieutenant Peter Decker and his wife, Rina Lazarus, rush to New York when one of Peter's relatives is killed and another goes missing, and they find themselves in the seedier areas of the city, where their survival is placed in the hands of a vengeful lone wolf.
Storming Heaven, by Kyle Mills
Exiled to the rural environs of the Arizona bureau office, maverick FBI agent Mark Beamon is called off the golf course to investigate what initially seems to be the murder of a couple by their disappeared teenaged daughter.
Strong Poison, by Dorothy Sayers
When her fiance is murdered, mystery novelist Harriet Vane becomes the chief suspect due to her expert knowledge on poison, but Lord Peter Wimsey, prompted by his love for Harriet, vows to clear her name.
A Sudden
Country, by
Karen Fisher
Fisher builds a grand, mesmerizing novel on the
bare chronicle left by her ancestor Emma Ruth Ross Slavin, who was 11
when her family joined the 1847 Oregon migration. Emma's mother, Lucy
Mitchell, is a widow, remarried despite her grief for her first
husband and resenting the decision of her second husband, Israel
Mitchell, to emigrate. James McLaren is a Scottish trapper for the
Hudson Bay Company, uneasy both with the emigrants and with the Native
Americans, whose fate is bound up with his own. When McLaren loses his
children to smallpox and his Nez Perce wife to another trapper, he
tracks the trapper to Lucy Mitchell's wagon train. Lucy and McLaren's
charged encounter opens her up to the land and him to his own need for
roots as he signs on to guide her little band on their trek from the
Iowa banks of the Missouri to the Columbia River in Oregon.
Tell No One, by Harlan Coben
Every day for eight years, Dr. David Beck has relived the horror of what happened to his wife. Now a message has appeared on his computer using a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the idea that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive.
Thale’s Folly, by Dorothy Gilman
New York City novelist Andrew Thale tackles an odd assignment - to check out an old family property in western Massachusetts, neglected since Aunt Harriet Thale's death years ago. Much odder still is what he finds. Far from being deserted,
Thale's Folly is fully inhabited - by a quartet of charming squatters
These Is My Words, by Nancy Turner
A rip-roaring yarn--the diary as page-turner--is based on Tucson author Turner's great-grandmother's diary. Covering 20 years in the life of a woman in the Arizona Territories at the end of the last century, it’s an all-time favorite of one of the library’s book groups.
Tishomingo
Blues, by Elmore Leonard
High-diving hipster
Dennis Lenahan gets mixed up with the wrong people when he witnesses
the Dixie Mafia carry out a murder. Throw in a slick con man from
Detroit, a crooked sheriff and other oddballs to many plot twists that
climax at a Civil War reenactment in true Leonard style.
To
Darkness And to Death, by Julia
Spencer-Fleming
Saturday, November 14, 5:00 A.M. In the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill, an old lumberman
sits in the dark with his gun across his knees. Not far away, an
unemployed logger sleeps off his bender from the night before. The
owner of the town's last paper mill tosses in his bed. And a young
woman, one of three heirs to the 250,000-acre Great Camp, wakes alone
in darkness, bound and gagged. Chief of Police Russ Van
Alstyne wants nothing more than a quiet day of hunting in the
mountains on his fiftieth birthday. His wife needs to have the town's
new luxury resort ready for its gala opening night. The Reverend Clare
Fergusson expects to spend the day getting St. Alban's Church ready
for the bishop's annual visit. Her long-distance suitor from New York
expects some answers about their relationship during his weekend in
town. In Millers Kill, where everyone knows everyone and
all are part of an interconnected web of blood or acquaintance, one
person's troubles have a way of ensnaring others. What begins as a
simple case of a woman lost in the woods leads to a tangle of revenge,
blackmail, assault, kidnapping, and murder. As the hours tick by, Russ
and Clare struggle to make sense of their town's plunge into chaos -
and their own chaotic emotions. Something terrible waits
in the ice-rimed mountains cradling Millers Kill. Something that won't
be content with just one death - or two.
The Tortilla Curtain, by T. Coraghessan Boyle
The author of East Is East replays the tragicomic meeting of representatives from two different cultures with nothing in common. This book calmly grabs hold with an unexpected suspense.
Tracking Time, by Leslie Glass
When a young doctor disappears while jogging in Central Park, the traditional crime motives -- sex, money, and power -- do not seem to apply. NYPD Detective Sergeant April April brings in the city's top canine tracking unit, but instead of finding the doctor, the dogs turn up the murdered body of the only known witness to the abduction -- further complicating the case.
Tulip Fever, by Deborah Moggach
Young Sophia, married to elderly Cornelius Sandvoort, falls in love with the painter commissioned to paint their portrait. In order to flee Amsterdam together, the lovers gamble their limited resources on the latest craze of tulip speculation.
Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil
Shock and the World Economy, by Matthew R. Simmons
Twilight in the Desert looks behind the curtain to reveal a Saudi oil
and production industry that could soon approach a serious,
irreversible decline. In this exhaustively researched book, veteran
oil industry analyst Matthew Simmons draws on his own three-plus
decades of insider experience and more than 200 independently produced
reports about Saudi petroleum resources and production operations.
What he uncovers is a story about Saudi Arabia's troubled oil
industry, not to mention its political and societal instability, which
differs sharply from the globally accepted Saudi version.
The Unbidden Truth, by Kate Wilhelm
From the author of Malice Prepense comes her newest
thriller featuring lawyer Barbara Holloway.
Under the Color of Law,
by Michael McGarrity
Before newly installed police chief Kevin Kerney can discover who murdered a U.S. ambassador's estranged wife, the FBI takes over the investigation, and soon witnesses vanish and the case is neatly solved, but Kerney is convinced that he is in the midst of an intelligence cover-up riddled with devious government agents and must race against time to uncover the truth.
Undertaker’s Widow, by Phillip Margolin
An obsessively ethical judge is assigned to the trial of a flamboyant senator accused of conspiring to murder her husband. In spite of his honorable intentions, the judge makes all the wrong moves, and ends up mired in a maze of deadly deceit.
Until Proven Guilty, by J.A.Jance
The little girl was only five, much too young to die. She could have been J.P. Beaumont's kid, and the determined Seattle homicide detective won't rest until her killer pays dearly. But the hunt is leading Beaumont into a murky world of religious fanaticism, and toward a perilous obsession all his own.
Up from Orchard Street, by Eleanor
Widmer
In the tradition of Like Water for Chocolate and A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn, this exhilarating novel centered around a memorable
immigrant family brings to vibrant life the soul and spirit of New
York’s legendary Lower East Side.
Voodoo Season, byJewell Parker Rhodes
This is the story of Marie Levant, a great-great granddaughter of
Marie Laveau and a medical doctor compelled by unseen forces to
relocate from Chicago to her family's native home. This is New
Orleans, where the slave-holding past merges with the twenty-first
century, a place where women of color are still being abused, raped,
and - even more horrifying - rendered "un-dead," zombie-like
Sleeping Beauties. The Quadroon Balls of yesterday are a present
reality and only Marie Levant can untangle the medical mystery."
"A smart modern-day heroine, unafraid of her sexuality, Marie
Levant extends the Laveau legacy of spiritual empowerment, prophetic
vision, and voodoo possession.
Waiting, by Ha Jin
Award-winning author Ha Jin draws on his intimate knowledge of contemporary China to create a story about Lin Kong, a doctor living in two worlds, struggling with the conflicting claims of two utterly different women as he moves through the political minefields of a society designed to regulate his every step.
Walking Across Egypt, by Clyde Edgerton
Mattie Rigsbee is an independent, strong-minded senior citizen who might just be slowing a bit. When young delinquent Wesley Benfield drops into her life, he is an even less likely companion than her stray dog. But once Mattie starts taking in strays, there is no stopping her.
The Weight of Water, Anita Shreve
A century after two women were murdered in a fit of passion on a small island off the coast of New Hampshire, another woman goes to the island to shoot a photo essay about the crime--and finds herself gripped by uncontrollable passions of her own.
Welcome to the World Baby Girl!, by Fannie Flagg
This engaging story revolves around Dena Nordstrom, a rising network TV anchorwoman in '70s Manhattan, who has a future full of promise, a present rich with complications, and a past clouded by mystery.
Wicked: The Life and Times of the
Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire
Wicked is a richly woven tale that takes us to the other, darker side
of the rainbow as novelist Gregory Maguire chronicles the Wicked Witch
of the West's odyssey through the complex world of Oz -- where people
call you wicked if you tell the truth. Years before Dorothy and her
dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz.
This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin -- no easy burden
in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not
strong enough to explain or to overcome the natural disasters of flood
and famine. But Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters the
university in Shiz, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz'
most promising young citizens. Elphaba's Oz is no utopia. The Wizard's
secret police are everywhere. Animals -- those creatures with voices,
souls and minds -- are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and
wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals -- even
it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her
single chance at romance. Even wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find
herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even
make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas. In Wicked, Gregory
Maguire has taken the largely unknown world of Oz and populated it
with the power of his own imagination. Fast-paced, fantastically real
and supremely entertaining, this is a novel of vision and re-vision.
Oz never will be the same again.
Windy City, by Hugh Holton
Margo and Neil DeWitt seem like any other fun-loving, superrich couple until Chicago Police Commander Larry Cole sees through their fluent charade. While investigating the death of a fellow officer, Cole stumbles across a pattern of killings that leads him to discover the
DeWitts' gruesome hobby--murdering people using methods from their favorite mystery novels.
Winter & Night, by S.J. Rozan
When his nephew Greg is arrested in New York City and then escapes, Bill Smith, along with his partner Lydia Chin, sets out to find Greg and arrives in a small New Jersey town, where he is confronted by dark secrets, both the town's and his own.
Winter of Our Discontent, by John Steinbeck
Ethan Hawley, a descendant of proud New England sea captains, works as a clerk in the grocery store owned by an Italian immigrant. His wife is restless; his teenaged children are troubled and discontented, hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards.
Wisdom of the Bones, by Christopher Hyde
Based
on real child mutilation murders and extensive historical research,
this grim procedural takes place over the course of five days in
November 1963. A killer whose M.O. includes kidnapping, raping,
flaying and dissecting his young victims before piecing them back
together like puppets, has resurfaced, but his rampage threatens to go
unchecked after John Kennedy is assassinated. The only detective on
the Dallas police force who isn't preoccupied with the assassination
is Ray Duval, who happens to be dying from congestive heart failure.
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