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50 Book ChallengeApril 2015 |
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The age of innocence
by Edith Wharton
Presents classic works of literature with a clean, modern aesthetic, including foil stamping on a heat-burnished cover, a smaller trim size and specially designed endpapers. Original.
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All the light we cannot see : a novel
by Anthony Doerr
A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with their respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast. By the award-winning author of About Grace.
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Americanah : a novel
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Separated by respective ambitions after falling in love in occupied Nigeria, beautiful Ifemelu experiences triumph and defeat in America while exploring new concepts of race, while Obinze endures an undocumented status in London until the pair is reunited in their homeland 15 years later, where they face the toughest decisions of their lives. By the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun.
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And the mountains echoed
by Khaled Hosseini
The best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns presents a story inspired by human love, how people take care of one another and how choices resonate through subsequent generations.
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The bishop's wife
by Mette Ivie Harrison
Inspired by a true crime, a Mormon mother of five investigates the missing wife of a fellow parishioner as she becomes increasingly unsettled by the patriarchal structure and secrecy of their church.
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Blood, Bones & Butter : The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef
by Gabrielle Hamilton
The chef of New York's East Village Prune restaurant presents an unflinching account of her search for meaning and purpose in the food-central rural New Jersey home of her youth, marked by a first chicken kill, an international backpacking tour and the opening of a first restaurant. 50,000 first printing.
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The book thief
by Markus Zusak
Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors
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Dark places
by Gillian Flynn
After witnessing the murder of her mother and sisters, seven-year-old Libby Day testifies against her brother Ben, but twenty-five years later she tries to profit from her tragic history and admit that her story might not have been accurate
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A dog's life : the autobiography of a stray
by Ann M. Martin
Squirrel, a stray puppy, tells her life story, from her nurturing mother and brother to making her own way in the world, facing busy highways, changing seasons, and humans both gentle and brutal. Reprint.
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Fifth Business : Library Edition
by Robertson Davies
A retiring Canadian history professor reveals the true nature of his eerie, mystical influence on those around him. Read by Marc Vietor.
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The golden bowl
by Henry James
Maggie Verver, an American heiress, and her widowed father Adam, lead a life of wealth and refinement in London. They are both getting married: Maggie to Prince Amerigo, and Adam to the beautiful but penniless Charlotte Stant, a friend of his daughter. But both father and daughter are unaware that their new conquests share a secret.
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The golem and the jinni : a novel
by Helene Wecker
Combining elements of Jewish and Arab folk mythology, this stunning debut novel tells the story of two supernatural creatures, Chava, a golem brought to life by a disgraced rabbi, and Ahmad, a jinni made of fire, who form an unlikely friendship on the streets of New York until a fateful choice changes everything. (fantasy). Simultaneous.
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The Hired Man
by Aminatta Forna
A British woman and her two children move into a small Croatian village after the War of Independence and befriend a local handyman who helps shield them from the locals' hostilities towards strangers. 20,000 first printing.
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The house of mirth
by Edith Wharton
A satire of New York society at the turn of the century follows Lily Bart, who is torn between the pressure to marry a wealthy husband and the desire to be true to herself
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I feel bad about my neck : and other thoughts on being a woman
by Nora Ephron
A new collection of witty essays by the author of Wallflower at the Orgy offers a hilarious look at the ups and downs of being a woman of a certain age, discussing the tribulations of maintenance and trying to stop the clock, menopause, empty nests, her experiences of being a White House intern during the JFK years, and more. Reprint. 300,000 first printing.
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Kill My Mother : a graphic novel
by Jules Feiffer
The lives of five women from two different families are forever linked and altered by a drunk private eye during the Depression in this first noir graphic novel from the award-winning author, playwright, cartoonist and illustrator.
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Letters from Skye : a novel
by Jessica Brockmole
A sweeping love story told in letters spans two world wars and follows the correspondence between a water-phobic poet on the Scottish Isle of Skye and an American volunteer ambulance driver for the French Army, an affair that is discovered years later when the poet disappears.
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Lisette's list : a novel
by Susan Vreeland
Exiled young Parisian Lisette Roux cares for her husband's ailing grandfather in Provence during the Vichy regime and rediscovers love through the master works of Cezanne, Pissarro, Chagall, and Picasso
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Look homeward, angel : a story of the buried life
by Thomas Wolfe
A Southern family with a great appetite for living is dominated by the father until an older son, Eugene, is able to free himself from his rural North Carolina hometown to seek the challenges of an Ivy League education and big city life. Reissue. 75,000 first printing.
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Losing our way : an intimate portrait of a troubled America
by Bob Herbert
Profiles struggling Americans—which the author sees as casualties of decades of government policies that have produced underemployment, inequality and pointless wars—and offers a ringing call to arms to restore justice and the American dream.
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The love you make : an insider's story of the Beatles
by Peter Brown
A close friend and business manager for the legendary group portrays the personal lives of the members of the Beatles, from their youth in Liverpool to their rise to success in the world of pop music to the death of John Lennon in 1980. Reprint.
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The magic of ordinary days
by Ann Howard Creel
Near the end of World War II, pregnant Olivia Dunne is forced into marriage and banished to a remote Colorado farm, where she develops a relationship with her new husband and with two Japanese-American sisters living in a nearby internment camp. Reprint.
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Missoula : rape and the justice system in a college town
by Jon Krakauer
Chronicles the experiences of several women in Missoula, Montana, who claimed to be raped by University of Montana football players, highlighting the inequities of the law in regard to rape allegations and the treatment of rape victims and perpetrators
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Mockingbird : a portrait of Harper Lee
by Charles J. Shields
Furnishes an in-depth, meticulously researched portrait of the enigmatic woman behind the creation of To Kill a Mockingbird, describing the life and literary career of Harper Lee, her struggle to create her famed novel, and her contributions to the work of her lifelong friend Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Reprint. 100,000 first printing.
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The mockingbird next door : life with Harper Lee
by Marja Mills
Describes the story of a journalist who befriended the notoriously quiet and private author of To Kill a Mockingbird, eventually moving in next door to the writer and her sister and becoming part of their life in Alabama.
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Norwegian Wood
by Haruki Murakami
The tragic death of their best friend has a profound influence on the passionate relationship between Toru, a serious young college student in Tokyo, and Naoko, an introspective, beauty, as Toru finds himself drawn to an independent, sexually liberated young woman. Original. 50,000 first printing.
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The opposite of loneliness : essays and stories
by Marina Keegan
This hope-filled posthumous collection of essays and stories from the talented young Yale graduate who died tragically five days after graduation details the struggle that we all face as we figure out what we want to be and how we can positively impact the world.
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Orphan train
by Christina Baker Kline
Close to aging out of the foster care system, Molly Ayer takes a position helping an elderly woman named Vivian and discovers that they are more alike than different as she helps Vivian solve a mystery from her past
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Outlander : a novel
by Diana Gabaldon
Hurtled back through time more than two hundred years to Scotland in 1743, Claire Randall finds herself in the midst of an world torn apart by violence, pestilence, and revolution, and haunted by her feelings for a young soldier
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The Paris architect : a novel
by Charles Belfoure
A Parisian architect is paid handsomely to devise secret hiding spaces for Jews in his Nazi-occupied country but struggles with risking his life for a cause he is ambivalent towards, until a personal failure brings home their suffering.
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The pillars of the earth
by Ken Follett
Set in twelfth-century England, this epic of kings and peasants juxtaposes the building of a magnificent church with the violence and treachery that often characterized the Middle Ages. Reissue.
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The promise of Stardust
by Priscille Sibley
After an accident leaves his wife Elle brain dead, Matt Beaulieu, resolving to take her off life support, changes his mind when the doctors discover that she is pregnant—a decision that results in a controversial legal battle with Elle's family. Original. 100,000 first printing.
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Rapture practice : a true story about growing up gay in an evangelical family
by Aaron Hartzler
Describes the author's coming of age in a fervently religious household that believed Jesus' return to Earth to take the faithful to heaven was imminent, recounting how his growing doubts, earthly ties, and the sacrifices required by his faith prompted his transformation from conflicted do-gooder to full-fledged teen rebel
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Red Joan
by Jennie Rooney
A historical novel questions the black-and-white morality of wartime society and is inspired by the true story of Melita Norwood, an 87-year-old woman who was unmasked in 1999 as the KGB's longest serving spy in Britain. Original.
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The signature of all things
by Elizabeth Gilbert
The best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love traces the multi-generational saga of the Whittaker family, whose progenitor makes a fortune in the quinine trade before his daughter, a gifted botanist, researches the mysteries of evolution while falling in love with an utopian artist against a backdrop of the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
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Still Alice
by Lisa Genova
Feeling at the top of her game when she is suddenly diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease, Harvard psychologist Alice Howland struggles to find meaning and purpose in her life as her concept of self gradually slips away
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A sudden light
by Garth Stein
A 14-year-old boy's efforts to save his parents' troubled marriage and uphold his dementia-afflicted grandfather's final wishes are shaped by a ghost who cannot rest until past debts are paid. By the best-selling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain. 300,000 first printing.
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Tangled vines : a novel : A Novel
by Kay Bratt
During China's Cultural Revolution, Benfu survived the cruel years, but he did not emerge unscathed. The Scavenger's Daughters is the story of Benfu and his beloved wife Calli, chronicling their attempts to build a life in the turmoil and aftermath of Maoist China. At the heart of their struggle lies the pain of losing their only child. To fill the terrible hole in their lives, they take in abandoned girls; the unwanted "weeds" as their own, lovingly caring for them as flowers in a garden
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Travelling to infinity : my life with Stephen
by Jane Hawking
The wife of the reknowned British physicist describes their courtship and marriage, her years caring for his physical needs, his rise to prominence as a scientist and world celebrity, their bitter divorce, and later reconciliation
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We are not ourselves : a novel
by Matthew Thomas
Raised by her Irish immigrant parents in a 1940s Queens apartment where alcohol and company combine in mercurial ways, Eileen marries an unambitious scientist with whom she endures an increasingly psychologically dark family life. A first novel.
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Wolf hall
by Hilary Mantel
Assuming the power recently lost by the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell counsels a mercurial Henry VIII on the latter's efforts to marry Anne Boleyn against the wishes of Rome and many of his people, a successful endeavor that comes with a dangerous price. (historical fiction).
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