Literary Life

From Garth Stein, author of the beloved bestseller The Art of Racing in the Rain—now a major motion picture! The New York Times bestselling “witty, atmospheric” (People) story of a once powerful American family, and the price that must be paid by the heirs as they struggle for redemption...

Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife charts the lives and times of four medieval women writers—Marie de France, a poet; Julian of Norwich, a mystic and anchoress; Christine de Pizan, a widow and court writer; and Margery Kempe, a no-good wife—who all bucked convention and forged their own paths. Largely forgotten by modern readers, these women have an astonishing amount to teach us about love, marriage, motherhood, friendship, and earning a living.

Midwestern movie house owner Virgil Wander is "cruising along at medium altitude" when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Virgil survives, but his language and memory are altered, and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help of a cast of affable and curious locals. Into this community returns a shimmering prodigal son who may hold the key to reviving their town.

George Washington Hayduke III was last seen clinging to a rock face in the wilds of Utah as an armed posse hunted him down for his eco-radicalist crimes. Now he is back with a fiery need for vengeance. In this sequel to the enormously popular and entertaining The Monkey Wrench Gang, Hayduke teams up with his old pals Doc Sarvis, Seldom Seen Smith, and Bonnie Abbzug in a battle against the world's biggest earth-moving machine.

The first thing every listener will want to know is whether Anne Shirley appears in these stories of Avonlea and Spencervale. She certainly does. As a matter of fact, page one starts off in this manner: "Anne Shirley was curled up on the window seat of Theodora Dix's sitting room one Saturday evening, looking dreamily afar at some fair starland beyond the hills of sunset. Anne was visiting for a fortnight of her vacation."

Nine years old, Andy embarks on the trip by bus, alone for the first time. He decides it will be a rite of passage and his first step into manhood. Sometimes a handful at home, Andy was a good boy when visiting his Grandparents’ houses, and he looked forward to the little spoiling certain to come his way.

A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream—the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy New York Times Bestseller Winner of...

Glass Ferry, Kentucky, is bourbon country. Whiskey has been a way of life for generations, enabling families to provide and survive even in the darkest times. Flannery Butler's daddy, Beauregard "Honey Bee" Butler, entrusted her with his recipes before he passed on, swearing her to secrecy. But Flannery is harboring other secrets too, about her twin sister Patsy, older by eight minutes and pretty in a way Flannery knows she'll never be. Then comes the prom night when Patsy - wearing a yellow chiffon dress and the family pearls - disappears along with her date.

In Dorothy Whipple's High Wages, a determined young woman makes her way in the world against the looming backdrop of World War I. High Wages is more than a tale of savvy entrepreneurship: Jane’s thoughts, feelings, adventures and disappointments in love and friendship are all laid bare. Jane...

Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in Damascus. His final wish, conveyed to his youngest son, Bolbol, is to be buried in the family plot in their ancestral village of Anabiya. Though Abdel was hardly an ideal father, and though Bolbol is estranged from his siblings, this conscientious son persuades his older brother Hussein and his sister Fatima to accompany him and the body to Anabiya, which is - after all - only a two-hour drive from Damascus. There's only one problem: Their country is a war zone.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, Eligible tackles gender, class, courtship, and family as Curtis Sittenfeld reaffirms herself as one of the most dazzling authors writing today. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE TIMES (UK) This version...

Before Stinkville, Alice didn't think albinism - or the blindness that goes with it - was a big deal. Sure, she uses a magnifier to read books. And a cane keeps her from bruising her hips on tables. Putting on sunscreen and always wearing a hat are just part of life. But life has always been like this for Alice. Until Stinkville.

It was hell's season, and the air smelled of burning children.... With “one of the most arresting first sentences in contemporary writing” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), Robert McCammon unfurls his visionary masterpiece of survival, redemption, and the astonishing transformations love...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A big sweeping novel of friendship and marriage” (The Washington Post) by the celebrated author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini Leopold Bloom King has been raised in a family shattered—and shadowed—by tragedy. Lonely and adrift, he...

This lush and suspenseful Good Morning America Book Club pick “will have you glued to every page” (HuffPost) as it follows a woman to Nigeria to uncover what happened to her missing estranged niece…no matter the cost. Previously published as The Nigerwife. Nicole Oruwari has the perfect...

May 24, 1941: Alexeï Berg, a classical pianist, is set to perform his first solo concert in Moscow. But just before his début, his parents - his father a renowned playwright, and his mother a famed opera singer - are exposed for their political indiscretions and held under arrest. With World War II on the brink, and fearing that his own entrapment is not far behind, Alexeï flees to the countryside, assumes the identity of a Soviet soldier, and falls dangerously in love with a general officer's daughter. What follows is a two-decades-long journey through war and peace, love and betrayal, art and artifice - a rare ensemble in the making of the music of a life.

Twice in her life, college counselor Gayla Oliver fell in love at first sight. The first time was with Brian - a lean, longhaired, British bass player. Marriage followed quickly, then twins, and gradually their bohemian lifestyle gave way to busy careers in New York. Gayla's second love affair is with New Bern, Connecticut. Like Brian, the laid-back town is charming without trying too hard. It's the ideal place to buy a second home and reignite the spark in their 26-year marriage. Not that Gayla is worried. At least, not until she finds a discarded memo in which Brian admits to a past affair....

From the award-winning author of Mistress of Spices, the best-selling novel about the extraordinary bond between two women, and the family secrets and romantic jealousies that threaten to tear them apart.

In 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends. Nainoa’s family, struggling amidst the collapse of the sugarcane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favor from ancient Hawaiian gods - a belief that appears validated after he exhibits puzzling new abilities.

As America collapses in the chaos of war, pollution, and bankruptcy, two sisters pool their resources to survive alone in the hills above San Francisco. Although dwindling food and increasing isolation threaten them, they soon find a more immediate danger standing at their door. When a young man arrives, his friendship offers tantalizing fulfillment, but his love threatens to divide the sisters.