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Showing 1 - 20 of 55 items
By Maggie O'Farrell. 2020
WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION"[An] exceptional winner.... It expresses something profound about the human experience that seems both…
extraordinarily current and at the same time, enduring." --Martha Lane Fox, Chair of The Women's Prize for Fiction judges TWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A PLAGUE THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.England, 1580. A young Latin tutor--penniless, bullied by a violent father--falls in love with an eccentric young woman: a wild creature who walks her family's estate with a falcon on her shoulder and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer. Agnes understands plants and potions better than she does people, but once she settles on the Henley Street in Stratford she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband. His gifts as a writer are just beginning to awaken when their beloved twins, Hamnet and Judith, are afflicted with the bubonic plague, and, devastatingly, one of them succumbs to the illness.A luminous portrait of a marriage, a shattering evocation of a family ravaged by grief and loss, and a hypnotic recreation of the story that inspired one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time, Hamnet & Judith is mesmerizing and seductive, an impossible-to-put-down novel from one of our most gifted writers.Published as Hamnet in the US and the UK.By Agnes Smedley. 1987
Marie Rogers grows up in rural America, torn between helping her family financially and furthering her own education. She eventually…
travels to San Francisco and then on to Asia, involved with the Socialist Party. Includes foreword by Alice Walker and afterword by Nancy Hoffman. Some violence and some strong language. 1929By Howard Goldblatt, Sylvia Li-chun Lin, Liu Zhenyun. 2015
Liu Yuejin, a worksite cook and a thief, has his pack with money stolen. While searching for it, he discovers…
another bag which contains a USB card detailing corruption of high officials and putting him in danger. Translated from the original 2007 Chinese edition. Violence, strong language, and some explicit descriptions of sex. 2015By Drude Krog Janson, Gerald Thorson, Orm Øverland. 2002
An authentic story of life in Minneapolis in the late nineteenth century. That ring of authenticity comes clearly from the…
mind and craft of an artist at work. For the contemporary reader, the novel provides a glimpse of an immigrant society, a culture in exile, and the immigrants' responses to the social scene. It has been sadly neglected in the history of American literature, despite its unusually forward-looking portrayal of a self-reliant, career-minded woman and its importance within America's regional and urban literary traditions. Adult. UnratedBy Rudolfo Anaya, Rudolfo A Anaya. 2004
By Charles Major. 1993
Originally published in 1908, Uncle Tom Andy Bill relates the boisterous boyhood adventures of the narrator, Thomas Andrew William Addison.…
Young Tom Addison--fighting the forest, the elements, and the ferocious animals of rural Indiana--is the quintessential hero of early twentieth-century boys' lore of action and suspense. Unrated.. For high school and adult readersBy Larry Millett. 2001
When a cunning villain sets out to destroy the Great Northern railway in America, Holmes comes face-to-face with all manner…
of frontier characters. He also becomes attentive to one woman's (and suspect's) charms. But charm gives way to terror when Holmes goes up against an arsonist called the Red DemonBy Elissa Elliott. 2009
Fictionalized account of the biblical first woman, Eve, and her family. Eve recounts her and Adam's banishment from the Garden…
of Eden. Eve's daughters Naava, Aya, and Dara describe their struggles and those of their brothers Cain, Abel, and Jacan. Some explicit descriptions of sex. 2009By Laila Halaby. 2003
Four Palestine-born female cousins experience individual problems growing up. Mawal stays in the Middle East following a traditional lifestyle. Soraya…
and Khadija, emigrés in California, are torn between cultures. Hala lives in Arizona but falls in love in Jordan. Strong language. For senior high and older readers. 2003By Rex Stout. 1997
Ancient Troy. Young warrior Idaeus, his brother killed in battle, becomes a kesten (scribe) for the king. Palace life ensnares…
him in the daily doings of royalty, secret missions, and political intrigue--while he falls in love with a slave. First serialized in All-Story Weekly. 1916By David A Adler, David A. Adler, Terry Widener. 1997
Life story of baseball's legendary "Iron Horse," who never missed a day of school as a boy nor a single…
game during his fourteen years as a New York Yankee. Depicts the courage, decency, and humility that marked his life, even during the illness that ended his baseball career in 1939. For grades 2-4By Walter Scott, Sir Walter Scott. 1995
First published in 1817. In eighteenth-century England, when the poetic Frank Osbaldistone refuses to enter the family business, he is…
banished to his uncle's home. There he learns he has falsely been named an outlaw by his corrupt cousin because they love the same woman. Jacobite outlaw Rob Roy helps Frank clear his name. Some violenceBy Doris Faber, Harold Faber. 1995
Collection of biographical sketches of thirty American writers. Subjects, who include Nobel Prize recipients, are restricted to literary figures no…
longer alive and whose major works were completed before 1960. They include Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, Langston Hughes, Tennessee Williams, and Pearl Buck. For grades 4-7 and older readersBy Peter Ackroyd. 1983
Novel in the form of a journal kept by Oscar Wilde after his release from Reading Gaol where he was…
interned for acts of homosexuality. This account of the last three months of his life depicts Wilde's ambitions, artistic intentions, and his pursuit of beauty. Some descriptions of sexBy Glenn Stout. 2006
Biography of the first African American to play for a major league baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Recounts how Jackie…
Robinson (1919-1972) broke the race barrier in 1947 when segregation dominated American sports. Depicts his talent, belief in racial equality, and strength of character. For grades 4-7. 2006By Catharine Maria Sedgwick. 1987
Set in seventeenth-century New England, Hope Leslie portrays early American life and celebrates the role of women in history. At…
the heart of the story is a cross-cultural friendship between Hope-Leslie, a spirited thinker in a repressive Puritan society and Magawisca, the passionate daughter of a Pequot chief. It challenges the conventional view of Indians, tackles interracial marriage and claims for women their rightful place in history. Adult. UnratedBy Esteban Echeverría. 2018
Edición definitiva de dos textos fundacionales de la literatura argentina (El matadero es considerado el primer cuento argentino), con prólogo…
del escritor y crítico literario Martín Kohan, y nota preliminar a cargo de Alejandra Laera. «Ella va. Toda es oídos; / sobre salvajes dormidos / va pasando; escucha, mira, / se para, apenas respira, / y vuelve de nuevo a andar. / Ella marcha, y sus miradas / vagan en torno azoradas, / cual si creyesen ilusas / en las tinieblas confusas / mil espectros divisar.»La cautiva La cautiva y El matadero ocupan un lugar fundacional en la literatura argentina. Escritos por Esteban Echeverría a fines de la década de 1830, en ellos se diseña, respectivamente, el espacio del desierto inabarcable y el de la violencia política, dos motivos que recorren la poesía y la narrativa de todo el siglo XIX. La cautiva utiliza los recursos del Romanticismo para idealizar la civilización, corporizada en la protagonista, y demonizar al indio, haciendo de la frontera la cifra del encuentro con el Otro. En cambio, el lenguaje crudo de El matadero -publicado de manera póstuma y considerado con el tiempo el primer cuento argentino- pone en escena el enfrentamiento social y, con su crítica al rosismo, inaugura el uso político de la ficción. «Para Esteban Echeverría [...] la cultura popular adquiere ese doble signo: recelo ideológico y seducción estética. No obstante, en El matadero esta cuestión asume una inflexión particular; porque la cultura popular se despliega en él bajo su forma más crispada e intensa: la de la violencia.»Del prólogo de Martín KohanBy Harriet Beecher Stowe. 2006
Harriet Beecher Stowe's second antislavery novel was written partly in response to the criticisms of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by…
both white Southerners and black abolitionists. In Dred (1856), Stowe attempts to explore the issue of slavery from an African American perspective.Through the compelling stories of Nina Gordon, the mistress of a slave plantation, and Dred, a black revolutionary, Stowe brings to life conflicting beliefs about race, the institution of slavery, and the possibilities of violent resistance. Probing the political and spiritual goals that fuel Dred's rebellion, Stowe creates a figure far different from the acquiescent Christian martyr Uncle Tom. In his introduction to the classic novel, Robert S. Levine outlines the antislavery debates in which Stowe had become deeply involved before and during her writing of Dred. Levine shows that in addition to its significance in literary history, the novel remains relevant to present-day discussions of cross-racial perspectives.By Sonita Sarker, Shashi Deshpande. 1992
This moving and exquisitely crafted novel renders visible the extraordinary endurance and grace concealed in women's everyday lives. The lives…
of three women who are "haunted by fears, secrets, and deep grief" (Washington Post) are bound together by strands of life and hope--a binding vine of love, concern, and connection that spreads across chasms of time, social class, and even death. The Baltimore Sun declared the novel, "Chekhovian . . . Deshpande's story of a woman who loses a daughter is linked to the politics of India and its tradition of patriarchy."By Rm Johnson. 1999
RM Johnson's extraordinary debut is a stirring family portrait that resonates with emotion and wit, as a father faces death…
-- and the three sons he abandoned so many years before. "Mr. Harris, I'm sorry, but you have cancer." Although devastated to learn he has just one year to live, fifty-five-year-old Julius Harris has always known that the day would come when he would pay for walking out on his wife and three children twenty years earlier. Now, with a sudden and passionate determination to make his family whole again, Julius begins trying to find a way back to his sons. Caleb, the youngest, struggling to support a son and make his way in a relentless world, couldn't care less about his own absentee father. Middle son Marcus can't abide even his father's memory, which gets in the way of his committing to the one woman who has turned his life around. And Austin, Julius' eldest child, so adores what he remembers of his father that he's following in his footsteps, abandoning his wife and children just as Julius had done. Inspired by RM Johnson's own fragile family history, The Harris Men is his poignant exploration of the increasing problem of absentee fathers -- and of the compromises made by the families they leave behind. As the Harris men grapple with their fears and their choices, Johnson gets to the very heart of what it means to be a man.