Atkinson, Kate.  Case Histories.  New York : Back Bay Books, c2005. Private detective Jackson Brodie--ex-cop, ex-husband and weekend dad—takes on three cases involving past crimes that occurred in and around London .  The inevitable results of family dysfunction with random fate weaves these three stories together where the dead bodies turn out to less important than those left behind. 310 pages. (12 copies) NEW

Atwood, Margaret. Alias Grace. New York: Anchor, c1996.  A captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying look into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century.  480 pages. (15 copies)

Baxter, Charles. The Feast of Love. New York: Vintage Books, c2000.  In this engrossing novel, the author presents varying versions of events, each from the point of view of a different character.  The various tales become a luminous narrative of love in its sublime, agonizing and eternal complexity.  320 pages. (15 copies)  

Baxter, Charles.  Saul and Patsy.  New York:  Pantheon Books, c2003.  Set in a fictional small town in Michigan’s thumb, this is the story of Saul and Patsy, a young married couple, who are thrust into extraordinary circumstances. The aftermath of a tragic event and how members of the community cope with it is explored as well as Saul’s experiences with the endless demands and boundless dimensions of love.  335 pages. (8 copies)

Belfer, Lauren. City of Light. New York: Bantam Dell Publishing, c1999.  Set in 1901, headmistress of the most prestigious school, Louisa Barrett is at ease in a world of men, but nothing prepares her for a startling discovery. This first novel is a remarkable blend of murder mystery, love story, political intrigue and tragedy of manners.  512 pages. (13 copies)

Berg, Elizabeth. What We Keep. New York, Ballantine, c1999.  As Ginny Young crosses the country for a reluctant reunion with the mother she has not seen in 35 years, she reminisces on the summer when she turned 12 and her family turned inside out. A tender depiction of what it was like to grow up in the 50’s.  310 pages. (15 copies)

Burnard, Bonnie.  A Good House.  New York:  Picador USA, c1999.  Beginning in 1949 in Stonebrook, Ontario, the future of the Chambers family seems to be limitless.  But over the following fifty years, the possibilities narrow.  The untimely death of the matriarch Sylvia, remarriage of Bill and the different paths taken by the three children shape what becomes the truth of normal family life.  Winner of the 1999 Giller Prize.  320 pages. (15 copies)

Byers, Michael.  Long For This World.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, c2003.  Geneticist Dr. Henry Moss stumbles upon a possible cure for a genetic disease that causes premature aging and early death in young children.  He must make a painful choice and grapple with the possible unethical minefield he is facing as well as his changing Seattle neighborhood.  448 pages. (12 copies)

Cao, Lan. Monkey Bridge. New York: Penguin Books, c1998.  In telling two interlocked stories, Lan Cao’s narrative traverses perilously between worlds past and present. One of these is the Vietnamese version of the classic immigrant experience in America, told by a young girl and the second is a dark tale of betrayal, political intrigue, family secrets, and revenge-her mother’s tale.  260 pages. (15 copies)

Carter, Forrest. The Education of Little Tree. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, c1976. This is the story of a Cherokee boy who is raised by his grandparents in the 1930s.  228 pages. (15 copies)

Chevalier, Tracy. Girl With a Pearl Earring. New York: Penguin Putnam, c1999.
History and fiction merge in this novel about artistic vision and sensual awakening. Through the eyes of sixteen year old Griet, 1660 Holland comes alive in this portrait of the young woman who inspired one of Vermeer’s most celebrated paintings.  240 pages. (13 copies)

Cross, Donna Woolfolk. Pope Joan. New York: Ballantine, c1997.  A compelling novel about the legend of Pope Joan, a woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to rule Christianity for two years. This scholarly historical novel brings the savage ninth century vividly to life. 422 pages. (15 copies) Includes a reading group guide.

Cunningham, Michael.  The Hours.  New York:  Picador USA, 1998.  The story of a group of characters, moving through three separate but parallel stories, struggling with the conflicting claims of love, inheritance, life, death, creation and destruction.  The author draws on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story.  Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize.  240 pages. (15 copies)  

Dai, Sijie.  Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress.  New York:  Anchor, c2002.  During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, two young men meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, the two friends find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined, emphasizing the power of literature to free the mind.  192 pages. (15 copies)

De Bernieres, Louis. Corelli’s Mandolin. New York, Vintage, c1994.  Set on the idyllic Greek island of Cephallonia, this novel follows the lives of its inhabitants from the peaceful days before World War II through the Italian occupation of the island into the present. It is funny, heartbreaking, and horrifying in its fictional testimony to the change that the war exacts on the townspeople.  448 pages. (15 copies)

Gaines, Ernest J.  A Lesson Before Dying.  New York:  Vintage, c1993.  Set in a small Louisiana town in the late 1940s, Jefferson, a young black man, is falsely convicted and condemned to death.    Jefferson’s godmother convinces Grant Wiggins, a plantation teacher, to visit Jefferson and help restore his manhood and dignity before his execution.  Both men learn powerful lessons about identity, dignity and faith in this National Book Critics Circle Award winning novel.  272 pages. (15 copies)

Gibbons, Kaye. Ellen Foster. New York: Vintage, c1987.  An orphaned young girl who is moved from one foster home to another until she finds a real home and special friend.  144 pages. (10 copies)

Golden, Arthur. Memoirs of a Geisha. New York: Vintage, c1998.  Sayuri, the strikingly pretty child of an impoverished Japanese fishing family is sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Her story is a dazzling portrait of a most seductive young lady and an unparalleled look at a strange and mysterious world, which has now almost vanished.    288 pages. (14 copies)

Gregory, Philippa.  The Other Boleyn Girl.  New York:  Touchstone, c2002.  Mary Boleyn is introduced as a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamorous court in Europe and survived by following her own heart.  672 pages. (12 copies) Includes a reading group guide.

Guterson, David. Snow Falling on Cedars. New York: Vintage, c1995.  This is an evocative story of a Japanese-American man who spent time in an internment camp during World War II. Fighting the distrust and prejudice of his neighbors on a remote island in Puget Sound, he suddenly finds himself on trial for murder.  480 pages. (15 copies)

Haigh, Jennifer. Baker Towers. New York:HarperCollins, c2005.  Three generations of the Novak family live in a community that exists for coal mining.  A sudden death, the Second World War, and the changing outside world shape the lives of each family member, and the small town of Bakerton, in vivid and honest ways.  368 pages. (15 copies) 

Harris, Joanne.  Five Quarters of the Orange.  New York:  Perennial, c2001.  This is a complex and beautiful tale of misfortune, mystery and intense family relations.  Framboise, a 60-year-old French woman, returns to Le Laveuses, the village where she was a child during WWII.  Her past involvement in the war resurfaces to reveal the real truth of the events that forced her and her family to flee the village.  320 pages. (13 copies)

Hornby, Nick.  How to Be Good.  New York:  Riverhead Books, c2001.  Katie Carr, doctor, wife and mother, is deciding whether to stay with her bitter, sarcastic husband when he is suddenly transformed by faith healer DJ GoodNews into an idealistic do-gooder.  Hornby’s British style humor carries this story of a family as it wrestles with the question of how to be a good person in a modern world.  320 pages. (15 copies)

Hosseini, Khaled.  The Kite Runner.  New York:  Penguin, c2003.  Amir, the privileged young narrator of this story, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant, are inseparable as boys living in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s.  An unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted.  Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty.  400 pages. (15 copies)

House, Silas.  A Parchment of Leaves.  New York:  Ballantine, c2003.  Lovely storytelling, graceful prose, strong characters and a feel for Southern rural life combine to tell the story of a rural Kentucky family during WWI.  Young Saul Sullivan marries Vine, a Cherokee woman.  Saul’s brother Aaron quickly becomes obsessed with Vine when Saul leaves for a year to work in another county.  The wife he left behind will never be the same again.  278 pages. (15 copies) Includes a reading group guide.

Ishiguro, Kazuo.  Never Let Me Go.  New York :  Vintage, c2006.  Kathy, Tommy and Ruth are students at Hailsham, a very exclusive, very strange English private school. They are treated well in every respect, but as they grow older they come to realize that there is a secret that haunts their lives. Once they learn the secret it is already far too late for them to save themselves.   304 pages. (15 copies)

Jiles, Paulette. Enemy Women.  New York:  Perennial Press, c2003.  Set in the Missouri Ozarks during the Civil War, Jiles's story focuses on the trying times of 18-year-old heroine Adair Colley who is falsely accused of being a Confederate spy, a charge that lands her in a squalid women's prison run by a decent commandant embarrassed by his post.  336 pages. (15 copies)

Jin, Ha Waiting. New York: Vintage, c1999.  In this novel of unexpected richness and universal resonance, the demands of human longing contend with the weight of centuries of custom. Caught between conflicting claims of two very different women and trapped by a culture in which adultery ruins lives and careers, Lin has been waiting for eighteen years. This year, he promises, will be different.  320 pages. (15 copies)

Kallos, Stephanie. Broken for You. New York : Grove Press, c2004.  This is a novel of broken hearts and broken promises – and how we put things back together.  Well developed characters who were once strangers create a beautiful mosaic that will remind you of why some things must break before they can become part of something truly beautiful.  A beautiful novel of repair and redemption.  371 pages.
(12 copies)  Includes a reading group guide. NEW

Kidd, Sue Monk.  The Secret Life of Bees.  New York:  Penguin, c2003.  Lily Owens, whose entire life has been shaped around the afternoon her mother died, escapes with her “stand-in mother” Rosaleen from a small racisit South Carolina town and are taken in by a trio of eccentric black beekeepers, May, June and August.   Lily enters their mesmerizing world of bees, honey and the Black Madonna.  Loss, betrayal, guilt and forgiveness lead Lily to the one thing her heart desires most.  336 pages. (15 copies)  Includes a reading group guide.

King, Laurie.  The Beekeepers Apprentice.  New York : St. Martin ’s Press, c1994.  Chosen for the 2008 community wide Everyone’s Reading program sponsored by public libraries in Oakland and Wayne Counties , this is the first book of the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mysteries.  Full of brilliant deductions, disguises, and dangers it is original and entertaining from beginning to end.  346 pages.  (15 copies) Includes a reading group guide.  NEW

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. New York: HarperPerennial, c1998.
As told by his wife and four daughters, this is a story about a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. A suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.  576 pages. (15 copies)

Krauss, Nicole.  The History of Love.  New York :  W. W. Norton, c2005.  A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.  252 pages.  (15 copies) NEW

Landvik, Lorna.  Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons.  New York : Ballantine Books, 2003.  Convinced that there is nothing good coffee, great desserts, and fits of laughter can’t fix, five women come together to form an “unofficial”  book club they call the AWEB – Angry Wives Eating Bon Bons.  Over a period of forty years their friendship endures children, grandchildren new careers, bold beginnings and second chances as they learn the power of forgiveness, understanding, and the perfectly timed giggle.  432 pages. (15 copies)  

Lansens, Lori. The Girls. New York . Little Brown & Co. c2005.  This remarkable novel about conjoined twins is a fascinating – and sometimes heartbreaking – story of two unusual women and their struggle for acceptance and independence.  What could have been a grotesque book is instead a book about love, identity, and individuality. You will be profoundly richer for having met Rose and Ruby – The Girls. 343 pages. (15 copies) Includes a reading group guide. NEW  

Lawson, Mary.  Crow Lake .  New York :  Dial Press, c2003.  Set in northern Ontario , this story of heartbreak and hardship of the Morrison family is mirrored in the awe and beauty of the landscape.  The four children struggle to stay together after their parents die in an automobile accident, which becomes an interesting study of sibling rivalry and family dynamics.  304 pages. (15 copies)

Lightman, Alan. Einstein’s Dreams. New York: Warner Books, c1993.  MIT physicist Lightman’s gentle and haunting novel takes the form of a series of dreams about time dreamed by a young and preoccupied Albert Einstein while he was developing his theory of relativity.  179 pages. (15 copies)

Lipman, Elinor. The Inn at Lake Devine. New York: Vintage, c1998.  It’s 1962 and all across America barriers are collapsing. When Natalie Marx’s mother is refused summer accommodations in Vermont because she is Jewish, Natalie is determined to conquer this last bastion of genteel anti-Semitism. As Natalie tries to enter the world that has excluded her, this novel becomes a delightful and provocative romantic comedy full of sparkling social mischief.  253 pages. (13 copies)

Lynch, Jim. The Highest Tide. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005. In this mesmerizing, beautifully wrought first novel, we witness the dramatic sea change for both Miles and the coastline that he adores over the course of a summer, one that will culminate with the highest tide in fifty years.  272 pages. (12 copies)  

Martel, Yann.  Life of Pi.  New York:  Harvest Books, c2003.  A fable-like story about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith, 16-year-old Pi Patel recounts a harrowing journey 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.  319 pages. (15 copies)

Mason, Daniel.  The Piano Tuner.  New York : Vintage, 2002.  The year is 1886 when Edgar Drake is summoned to the British War Office and asked to tune an eccentric major’s grand piano.  As Edgar embarks on his first trip abroad, the beauty and mystery of Burma , its entrancing landscape, its customs and music and an exotic woman cast a spell that he cannot resist.  Includes a reading group guide.  312 pages. (15 copies)

McCafferty, Jane. One Heart. New York: Perennial, c1999.  A charmingly poignant tale of two sisters whose experiences often separate them but whose love for each other is deepened over a lifetime. This is a moving tale of friendship, forgiveness and redemption. 291 pages. (15 copies)

McCarthy, Cormac.  All the Pretty Horses.   New York:  Vintage, c1992.  A modern-day western of three young men whose adventures in the beautifully rugged country of Mexico where they look to live their dreams of the cowboy life change them forever.  302 pages. (15 copies)

McCracken, Elizabeth.  The Giant’s House. New York : Perennial,    It is 1950 and spinster librarian Peggy Cort’s life is changed forever when she falls in love with a younger man suffering from gigantism. Both funny and sad, this is a romance which ends with a major surprise.  290 pages. (15 copies)  

McCracken, Elizabeth.  Niagara Falls All Over Again.  New York : Random House, c2001.  The comedy team of Carter and Sharp thrive from vaudeville to Hollywood until cracks begin to appear in their complex relationship, which begins to unravel their thirty-year partnership.  Winner of the PEN/Winship Award.  308 pages. (15 copies)

McEwan, Ian.  Atonement.  New York:  Anchor Books, c2001.  One day in 1935 Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister and the son of a servant.  But her incomplete grasp of adult motives and her young imagination brings about a crime that changes all of their lives and whose repercussions follow them through World War II and through the end of the twentieth century.  Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.  368 pages. (15 copies).

Mitchard, Jacquelyn. A Theory of Relativity. New York: HarperCollins, c2001.
This is a powerful tale of a shattering custody battle for one year old Keefer Nye when her parents die in a car crash. The decision of who will raise Keefer is a test of the bonds of a close-knit family, challenging even love’s capacity to heal.  351 pages. (8 copies)

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Penguin, c1987.  Ingeniously blending allegory, fantasy, oral legend, myth and poetic song-like prose, Beloved is a powerful tale of redemption that creates life out of death, motherhood out of cruelty and forgotten history out of silence. Winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, this book is a milestone in the chronicling of the black experience in America.  260 pages. (11 copies)  

Mosher, Howard Frank. The True Account:  a Novel of the Lewis & Clark & Kinneson Expeditions.   Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, c2003.  The fictional adventures of Private True Teague Kinneson and his nephew Ti are told in this riotous tale to race Lewis and Clark to the Pacific and back.  Along the way they encounter Daniel Boone and his daughter Flame, invent baseball with the Nez Perce, and hold a high-stakes rodeo with Sacagawea’s Shoshone relatives.  352 pages. (15 copies)

O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. New York: Broadway Books, c1999.  They carried malaria tablets, love letters, dope, illustrated Bibles, each other. And, if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of the Vietnam War  that history is only now beginning to absorb.  246 pages. (15 copies)

Otsuka, Julie.  When the Emperor Was Divine.  New York:  Anchor Books, c2003.  A precise, understated novel of one Japanese family’s internment in a Utah enemy alien camp during World War II illustrates the devastation they suffer when they are taken from their Berkeley home in 1942 and forced to live in a barren camp for 3 years.  They can never find their pre-war happiness even after they try to reclaim their vandalized, stripped house in their neighborhood now full of prejudice and ill-will.  144 pages. (15 copies)

Packer, Ann.  The Dive From Clausen’s Pier.  New York:  Vintage, c2002.  Twenty-three year old Carrie Bell is faced with the moral dilemma of whether to stay with her longtime sweetheart and fiance Mike after he becomes paralyzed in a diving accident or pull herself out of a suffocating life and venture out to find herself and her true potential.  413 pages. (15 copies)

Parkhurst, Carolyn.  The Dogs of Babel.  New York:  Little, Brown and Company, c2003.  The story of a man’s quest to solve the mystery of his wife’s death with the help of the only witness:  their dog, Lorelei.  261 pages. (15 copies)  Includes a reading group guide.

Patchett, Ann. Bel Canto. New York: Perennial, 2001.  This tragicomic novel uses the language and pathos of music to explore the unexpected relationships that bloom between jungle-born revolutionaries and their sophisticated international hostages during a terrorist takeover somewhere in a third world country.  (15 copies)

Picoult, Jodi. My Sister’s Keeper. New York: Washington Square Press, c2004.   By age thirteen, Anna has undergone numerous surgeries, transfusions and injections so that her older sister Kate can fight leukemia, for Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for her sister.  But Anna makes a decision that may be unthinkable and will tear her family apart.  448 pages. (12 copies) Includes a reading group guide.

Picoult, Jodi. Plain Truth. New York: Simon & Schuster, c2000.
A shocking murder shatters a picturesque Amish community and tests the heart and soul of a laywer who defends the accused young woman. This tale moves from psychological drama to courtroom suspense and gives a fascinating depiction of Amish life.  405 pages. (14 copies) Includes a reading group guide.

Proulx, E. Annie. The Shipping News. New York: Scribner, c1994.  At thirty-six, Quoyle is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife meets her just desserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle’s struggle to reclaim his life.  337 pages. (15 copies)

Pywell, Sharon.  Everything After.  New York : Berkley Books, c2006.  Iris Sunnaret has no reason to disbelieve the official accounts of her brothers’ deaths on the same day in Vietnam until a soldier who served with them arrives on her doorstep with a horrifying revelation.  Her own research uncovers one secret after another, unraveling the picture she once had of herself, her siblings, and the “aunt” and “uncle who took care of them, and her supposedly idyllic family life.  369 pages. (15 copies)  NEW

Rash, Ron.  Saints at the River.  New York :  Picador, c2004.  When a visiting twelve-year-old girl drowns in the Tamassee River and her body is trapped, the people of the small South Carolina town are thrown into the national spotlight. The girl's parents want to attempt a rescue of the body by building a dam; environmentalists are convinced the rescue operation will cause permanent damage to the river and set a dangerous precedent.  237 pages. (15 copies)

Reisman, Nancy.  The First Desire.  New York:  Random House, c2004.  This beautifully written debut novel introduces the Cohen family and Buffalo, New York in the early part of the 20^th century.  The disappearance of Goldie is the catalyst for a sequence of events that take us from the Great Depression to the years immediately following World War II.  We meet the remaining Cohen sisters, Sadie, Celia and Jo, their mysterious brother Irving, and their father.  310 pages. (8 copies)

Richards, David Adams.  Mercy Among the Children.  New York:  Washington Square Press, c2002.  At the age of 12, having borne more suffering in his child's body than any adult should endure, Sydney Henderson vows never to harm another human soul.   He wins the respect of the beautiful Elly and the children they bear.  Respect, however, is rarely a match for fear and base human opportunism. Manipulated, attacked, and abused by a small community eager for a scapegoat, Sydney loses his job, the health of his wife, and, most importantly, the respect of his son Lyle.  371 pages. (15 copies)

Robinson, Marilynne.  Housekeeping.  New York : Picador, 1980.  Ruth and Lucille, two sisters who grew up haphazardly in a small town, struggle toward adulthood while paying the price of loss and survival. 219 pages.  219 pages. (15 copies)

Ruiz Zafon, Carlos.  The Shadow of the Wind.    New York : Penguin Books, 2004.  The year is 1945.  The place is Barcelona .  This is a coming–of-age tale of a young boy, Daniel, who through the magic of a single book, finds a purpose greater than himself and a hero in a man he’s never met.  This book is an ode to the art of reading and the perfect example of the power of a well told story.  486 pages. (14 copies) 

Rushdie, Salmon.  Shalimar the Clown.  New York :  Random House, c2005.  This is the story of Max Ophuls, his killer and his daughter — and of a fourth character, the woman who links them, whose story finally explains them all. It is an epic narrative that moves from California to Kashmir, from Nazi-occupied Europe to the world of modern terrorism.  398 pages.  (12 copies) NEW

Russell, Mary Doria.  The Sparrow. New York: Ballantine, 1996. If you had to send a group of people to a newly discovered planet to contact an unknown species, who would you chose? The motley combination of agnostics, true believers and misfits becomes the first to explore the Alpha Centuri world of Rakhat with both enlightening and disastrous results.  405 pages. (15 copies)  

Russo, Richard.  Empire Falls. New York: Vintage, 2001.  As he exposes the betrayals and self-deceptions, false hopes and genuine desires that motivate his quirky cast of characters, Russo transforms this Pulitzer Prize winning story of one town into an unforgettable exploration of the human condition.  By turns funny, poignant, satiric and shocking, Empire Falls captures humanity at its best and worst.  483 pages. (12 copies)

Russo, Richard.  Straight Man.  New York:  Vintage, 1997.  William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the reluctant chairman of the English department at a mediocre Pennsylvania college, lives through a hilarious week while coming to terms with his philandering father, the dereliction of his youthful promise and the failure of certain vital body functions.  Both compassionate and witty, Russo’s characters are true-to-life.  405 pages. (15 copies)

Salzman, Mark. The Soloist. New York: Vintage Books, c1994. Renne Sundheimer, a child prodigy with the cello, suddenly looses his gift at the age of eighteen. Renne’s life changes dramatically when he becomes a cello teacher to a meek, young cellist with great promise, and becomes a juror in a murder trial for a slain Buddhist monk. It is an eloquent and convincing portrait of a young man in transition.  284 pages. (15 copies)

See, Lisa.  Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  New York :  Random House, 2005.  Lily and Snow Flower are paired as ‘laotang’, or ‘old sames’, at the age of seven in remote Hunan county in nineteenth century China.  Their friendship begins with Snow Flower introducing herself to Lily by sending a silk fan on which she has written a poem in ‘nu shu’, a unique language that Chinese women created in order to communicate in secret.  Their friendship endures agonizing foot-binding, arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood.  But when a misunderstanding arises, their deep friendship threatens to tear apart.  Includes a reading group guide. 288 pages. (15 copies) 

Setterfield, Diane. The Thirteenth Tale. New York : Washington Square Press, c2006.  Books are reclusive author and a young biographer confront their own ghosts and become transformed by the truth. 406 pages. (15 the life blood of this rich, gothic-like story that includes ghosts, secrets, and family.  Together, a copies) Includes a reading group guide.  NEW

Sherwood, Frances. Vindication. New York : W.W. Norton, 2004.  Overflowing with the sounds, smells and scandalous mores of the eighteenth century, this electrifying novel resurrects the life and times of the trailblazing English feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft.  It is the story of a young woman who survives a brutal childhood by exposing its underlying injustices; whose unruly intelligence and unquenchable romanticism takes her from the Bedlam insane asylum to he abattoirs of the French Revolution.  429 pages. (12 copies) Includes a reading group guide.

Shields, Carol. Unless. New York : Fourth Estate, 2002. The successful and ordered life of 44 year-old Reta Winters is turned upside down when her eldest daughter drops out of college to become a panhandler on a Toronto street corner. She wears a sign around her neck that says ‘goodness’. Reta’s attempt to deal with this family crisis is told with compassion, humor and hope. 320 pages. (15 copies)

Shreve, Anita. The Pilot’s Wife. New York: Little, Brown and Co., c1999.
When Kathryn Lyons receives word that a plane flown by her husband, Jack, has exploded near the coast of Ireland, she confronts the unfathomable, one startling revelation at a time. Her search propels this taut, impassioned novel as it movingly explores the question, how well can we ever really know another person?   293 pages. (15 copies)

Smiley, Jane. A Thousand Acres. New York: Ballantine Books, c.1991. This is a powerful retelling of Shakespeare’s classic King Lear story, set on a contemporary Iowa farm.  Winner of the Pulitzer Award, it captures the grim realities of farm life and the conflicting passions brought on by the reality of a vast inheritance.  399 pages. (12 copies)  

Spragg, Mark.  An Unfinished Life.  New York:  Vintage, 2004.  An old Wyoming rancher reluctantly takes in his daughter-in-law Jean and granddaughter Griff after they flee the latest in a line of abusive men.  Griff knows nothing of the past that her mother, deceased father, and his father share.   She quickly takes to her grandfather and his crippled friend Mitch and the home she longs for.  257 pages. (15 copies)

Stegner, Wallace. Angle of Repose. New York: Penguin Books, c1992.  The unfolding drama of the American West sets the tone for this magnificent story of four generations in the life of an American family. This generational tapestry comes alive as a wheelchair-bound retired historian embarks on a monumental quest to come to know his grandparents, now long dead.  569 pages. (15 copies)

Strout, Elizabeth. Amy and Isabelle. New York: Vintage, c1998.  In a New England mill town during a summer in the