Laura Ruby

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Ohio

"Bone Gap marks Laura Ruby as one of fiction's most original voices. She is capable of moving you to tears, terrifying you on deep and dreamlike levels, and making your heart shout with happiness. This book is magic realism at its most magical." —E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars Bone Gap is the story of Roza, a beautiful girl who is taken from a quiet midwestern town and imprisoned by a mysterious man, and Finn, the only witness, who cannot forgive himself for being unable to identify her kidnapper. As we follow them through their melancholy pasts, their terrifying presents, their uncertain futures, acclaimed author Laura Ruby weaves a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, magic and mystery, regret and forgiveness—a story about how the face the world sees is never the sum of who we are.

Bone Gap

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From the author of Printz Medal winner Bone Gap comes the unforgettable story of two young women--one living, one dead--dealing with loss, desire, and the fragility of the American dream during WWII. When Frankie's mother died and her father left her and her siblings at an orphanage in Chicago, it was supposed to be only temporary--just long enough for him to get back on his feet and be able to provide for them once again. That's why Frankie's not prepared for the day that he arrives for his weekend visit with a new woman on his arm and out-of-state train tickets in his pocket. Now Frankie and her sister, Toni, are abandoned alongside so many other orphans--two young, unwanted women doing everything they can to survive. And as the embers of the Great Depression are kindled into the fires of World War II, and the shadows of injustice, poverty, and death walk the streets in broad daylight, it will be up to Frankie to find something worth holding on to in the ruins of this shattered America--every minute of every day spent wondering if the life she's able to carve out will be enough. I will admit I do not know the answer. But I will be watching, waiting to find out. That's what ghosts do.

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All

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Catherine Ostler

The Woman Who Scandalized Eighteenth-Century London

This “funny, intelligent, witty, profound” (Andrew Roberts, New York Times bestselling author) look at the stylish and scandalous Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston—a woman whose adventurous life led to an infamous bigamy trial that was bigger news in British society than the American War of Independence—provides a clear-eyed and fascinating look into the sumptuous Georgian Era. As maid of honor to the Princess of Wales, Elizabeth Chudleigh enjoyed a luxurious life in the inner circle of the Hanoverian court. With her extraordinary style and engaging wit, she both delighted and scandalized the press and public. She would later even inspire William Thackeray when he was writing his classic Vanity Fair, providing the inspiration for the alluring social climber Becky Sharp. But Elizabeth’s real story is more complex and surprising than anything out of fiction. A clandestine, candlelit wedding to the young heir to an earldom, a second marriage to a duke, a lust for diamonds, and an electrifying appearance at a masquerade ball in a gossamer dress—it’s no wonder that Elizabeth’s eventual trial was a sensation. Charged with bigamy, an accusation she vehemently fought against, Elizabeth refused to submit to public humiliation and retire quietly. Perfect for fans of The Duchess and Women of Means, this long overdue and evocative biography reappraises Elizabeth’s remarkable story, and out of the past comes an incredibly modern woman who defied society’s expectations of her.

The Duchess Countess

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Kerri Arsenault

Reckoning with What Remains

A galvanizing and powerful debut, Mill Town is an American story, a human predicament, and a moral wake-up call that asks: what are we willing to tolerate and whose lives are we willing to sacrifice for our own survival? Kerri Arsenault grew up in the rural working class town of Mexico, Maine. For over 100 years the community orbited around a paper mill that employs most townspeople, including three generations of Arsenault’s own family. Years after she moved away, Arsenault realized the price she paid for that seemingly secure childhood. The mill, while providing livelihoods for nearly everyone, also contributed to the destruction of the environment and the decline of the town’s economic, moral, and emotional health in a slow-moving catastrophe, earning the area the nickname “Cancer Valley.” In Mill Town, Arsenault undertakes an excavation of a collective past, sifting through historical archives and scientific reports, talking to family and neighbors, and examining her own childhood to present a portrait of a community that illuminates not only the ruin of her hometown and the collapse of the working-class of America, but also the hazards of both living in and leaving home, and the silences we are all afraid to violate. In exquisite prose, Arsenault explores the corruption of bodies: the human body, bodies of water, and governmental bodies, and what it’s like to come from a place you love but doesn’t always love you back.

Mill Town

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Camille Laurens

Adriana Hunter

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Novel

From the acclaimed author of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, a deeply personal and insightful account of being a girl, woman, and mother in a world that sees the feminine as less than. Born in 1959 to a middle-class family, Laurence Barraqué grows up with her sister in the northern city of Rouen. Her father is a doctor, her mother a housewife. She understands from an early age, by way of language and her parents’ example, that a girl’s place in life is inferior to a boy’s: Asked for the 1964 census whether he has any children, her father promptly responds, “No. I have two daughters.” When Laurence eventually becomes a mother herself in the nineties, she grapples with the question of what it means to be a girl, to have a girl, and what lessons she should try to pass down or undo. Masterful in her analysis of the subtle and obvious ways women are undermined by a sexist society, Camille Laurens lays out her experiences of the past forty years in this poignant, powerful book. Girl is at once intimate and sweeping in its depiction of the great challenges we face, such as equalizing the education system and transmitting feminist values to the younger generations.

Girl

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Alain De Botton

Presents a study of Marcel Proust that combines elements of literary biography, textual analysis, and self-help manual as it examines the French writer's thoughts on true love, vacations, dating, and other issues

How Proust Can Change Your Life

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Rebecca Skloot

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization and gene mapping. Includes reading-group guide. Reprint. A best-selling book.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

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María Rosa Menocal

How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain

The Ornament of the World

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Véronique Hyland

Unlocking Fashion from the New Look to Millennial Pink

In the spirit of works by Jia Tolentino and Anne Helen Peterson, a smart and incisive essay collection centered on the fashion industry--its history, its importance, why we wear what we wear, and why it matters--from Elle Magazine's fashion features director. Why does fashion hold so much power over us? Most of us care about how we dress and how we present ourselves. Style offers clues about everything from class to which in-group we belong to. Bad Feminist for fashion, Dress Code takes aim at the institutions within the fashion industry while reminding us of the importance of dress and what it means for self-presentation. Everything--from societal changes to the progress (or lack thereof) of women's rights to the hidden motivations behind what we choose to wear to align ourselves with a particular social group--can be tracked through clothing. Veronique Hyland examines thought-provoking questions such as: Why has the "French girl" persisted as our most undying archetype? What does "dressing for yourself" really mean for a woman? How should a female politician dress? Will gender-differentiated fashion go forever out of style? How has social media affected and warped our sense of self-presentation, and how are we styling ourselves expressly for it? Not everyone participates in painting, literature, or film. But there is no "opting out" of fashion. And yet, fashion is still seen as superficial and trivial, and only the finest of couture is considered as art. Hyland argues that fashion is a key that unlocks questions of power, sexuality, and class, taps into history, and sends signals to the world around us. Clothes means something--even if you're "just" wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

Dress Code

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Lauren Elkin

Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London

FINALIST FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY

A New York Times Notable Book of 2017

The flâneur is the quintessentially masculine figure of privilege and leisure who strides the capitals of the world with abandon. But it is the flâneuse who captures the imagination of the cultural critic Lauren Elkin. In her wonderfully gender-bending new book, the flâneuse is a "determined, resourceful individual keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city and the liberating possibilities of a good walk." Virginia Woolf called it "street haunting"; Holly Golightly epitomized it in Breakfast at Tiffany's; and Patti Smith did it in her own inimitable style in 1970s New York.

Part cultural meander, part memoir, Flâneuse takes us on a distinctly cosmopolitan jaunt that begins in New York, where Elkin grew up, and transports us to Paris via Venice, Tokyo, and London, all cities in which she's lived. We are shown the paths beaten by such flâneuses as the cross-dressing nineteenth-century novelist George Sand, the Parisian artist Sophie Calle, the wartime correspondent Martha Gellhorn, and the writer Jean Rhys. With tenacity and insight, Elkin creates a mosaic of what urban settings have meant to women, charting through literature, art, history, and film the sometimes exhilarating, sometimes fraught relationship that women have with the metropolis.

Called "deliciously spiky and seditious" by The Guardian, Flâneuse will inspire you to light out for the great cities yourself.

Flâneuse

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Joy McCullough

An inspiring and empowering story of strength and persistence in the aftermath of sexual assault based on the life of the seventeenth-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi.

Her mother died when she was twelve, and suddenly Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice- a life as a nun in a convent or a life grinding pigment for her father's paint.

She chose paint.

By the time she was seventeen, Artemisia did more than grind pigment. She was one of Rome's most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape Artemisia faced another terrible choice- a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost.

He will not consume

my every thought.

I am a painter.

I will paint.

I will show you

what a woman can do.

Blood Water Paint

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Ben Mezrich

The Rise of the Oligarchs--A True Story of Ambition, Wealth, Betrayal, and Murder

This book offers a gripping and shocking insight into the lives of Russia's most famous oligarchs from New York Times bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires and Bringing Down the House. 'Once upon a time in Russia' is the story of modern day Russia through the eyes of some of the most powerful and wealthy people in the world: the oligarchs. The story starts in the early 1990s with the formation of the huge oil company Sibneft owned by Roman Abramovich (with help from Boris Berezovsky), and takes the reader right through from Boris Yeltsin's resignation on New Year's Eve of the millennium, Putin's rise to power and Alexander Litvinenko's assassination to Berezkovsky's court case against Abramovich in 2011, which was the largest civil court case in British legal history. Told in an intimate narrative voice that makes you feel part of the action, but at an exhilarating pace that is typical of Mezrich, 'Once upon a time in Russia' is his most hard-hitting and pertinent work yet.

Once upon a Time in Russia

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Kristin Cashore

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

The companion to the "New York Times" bestsellers "Graceling" and "Fire." Eighteen-year-old Bitterblue, queen of Monsea, realizes her heavy responsibility and the futility of relying on advisors who surround her with lies as she tries to help her people to heal from the 35-year spell cast by her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities.

Bitterblue

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Edmund Burke

Published in 1790, two years before the start of the Terror, this work offered a remarkably prescient view of the chaos that lay ahead. It articulates a defense of property, religion, and traditional values.

Reflections on the Revolution in France

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Kali Wallace

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A darkly magical novel about a mysterious family legacy, the bonds of sisterhood, and the strange and powerful ways we are shaped by the places we call home, from the critically acclaimed author of Shallow Graves. For the first eight years of her life, an unusual apple orchard in Vermont is Sorrow Lovegood's whole world. The land has been passed down through generations of brave, resilient women, and while their offbeat habits may be ridiculed by other townspeople—especially their neighbors, the Abrams family—Sorrow and her family take pride in its odd history. Then one winter night, an unthinkable tragedy changes everything. In the aftermath, Sorrow is sent to Miami to live with her father, away from the only home she’s ever known. Now sixteen, Sorrow's memories of her life in Vermont are maddeningly hazy. She returns to the orchard for the summer, determined to learn more about her troubled childhood and the family she left eight years ago. But it soon becomes clear that some of her questions have difficult—even dangerous—answers. And there may be a price to pay for asking.

The Memory Trees

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Genevieve Valentine

"Dressed up in the thrill and sparkle of the Roaring Twenties, the classic fairy tale of 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses' has never been more engrossing or delightful. Valentine's fresh, original style and choice of setting make this a fairy tale reimagining not to be missed" (Library Journal, starred review).

Jo, the firstborn, "The General" to her eleven sisters, is the only thing the Hamilton girls have in place of a mother. She is the one who taught them how to dance, the one who gives the signal each night, as they slip out of the confines of their father's Manhattan townhouse and into the cabs that will take them to the speakeasy. Together they elude their distant and controlling father, until the day he decides to marry them all off.

The girls, meanwhile, continue to dance, from Salon Renaud to the Swan and, finally, the Kingfisher, the club they've come to call home. They dance until one night when they are caught in a raid, separated, and Jo is thrust face-to-face with someone from her past: a bootlegger named Tom whom she hasn't seen in almost ten years. Suddenly Jo must balance not only the needs of her father and eleven sisters, but her own as well.

With The Girls at the Kingfisher Club, award-winning writer Genevieve Valentine takes her superb storytelling gifts to new heights, joining the leagues of such Jazz Age depicters as Amor Towles and Paula McLain, and penning a dazzling tale about love, sisterhood, and freedom.

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club

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The Emperor in World History

A dazzling account of the men (and occasional woman) who led the world’s empires, a book that probes the essence of leadership and power through the centuries and around the world. From the rise of Sargon of Akkad, who in the third millennium BCE ruled what is now Iraq and Syria, to the collapse of the great European empires in the twentieth century, the empire has been the dominant form of power in history. Dominic Lieven’s expansive book explores strengths and failings of the human beings who held those empires together (or let them crumble). He projects the power, terror, magnificence, and confidence of imperial monarchy, tracking what they had in common as well as what made some rise to glory and others fail spectacularly, and at what price each destiny was reached. Lieven’s characters—Constantine, Chinggis Khan, Trajan, Suleyman, Hadrian, Louis XIV, Maria Theresa, Peter the Great, Queen Victoria, and dozens more—come alive with color, energy, and detail: their upbringings, their loves, their crucial spouses, their dreadful children. They illustrate how politics and government are a gruelling business: a ruler needed stamina, mental and physical toughness, and self-confidence. He or she needed the sound judgement of problems and people which is partly innate but also the product of education and experience. A good brain was essential for setting priorities, weighing conflicting advice, and matching ends to needs. A diplomatically astute marriage was often even more essential. Emperors (and the rare empresses) could be sacred symbols, warrior kings, political leaders, chief executive officers of the government machine, heads of a family, and impresarios directing the many elements of "soft power" essential to any regime’s survival. What was it like to live and work in such an extraordinary role? What qualities did it take to perform this role successfully? Lieven traces the shifting balance among these elements across eras that encompass a staggering array of events from the rise of the world’s great religions to the scientific revolution, the expansion of European empires across oceans, the great twentieth century conflicts, and the triumph of nationalism over imperialism. The rule of the emperor may be over, but Lieven shows us how we live with its poltical and cultural legacies today.

In the Shadow of the Gods

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Set in the French and Spanish courts of the eighteenth century, this novel is based on a true story about the fate of two young princesses caught in the intrigues and secrets of the moment Philippe d’Orléans, the regent of France, has a gangrenous heart—the result of a life of debauchery, alcohol, power, and flattery. One morning in 1721, he decides to marry eleven-year-old Louis XV to the daughter of Philippe V of Spain, who is only four. Orléans hopes this will tie his kingdom to Spain. But were Louis to die without begetting an heir—the likeliness of which is greatly increased by having a child bride—Orléans himself would finally be king. Orléans tosses his own daughter into the bargain, the twelve-year-old Mlle de Montpensier, who will marry the Prince of Asturias, the heir to the Spanish throne. The Spanish court enthusiastically agrees and arrangements are made. The two nations trade their princesses in a grand ceremony in 1722, making bonds that should end the historical conflict. Nothing turns out as expected.

The Exchange of Princesses

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Agathe-Sidonie Laborde, Marie Antoinette's reader, recounts her memories of living at Versailles during the final days of the French revolution.

Farewell, My Queen

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From the award-winning author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty and the new story collection, Awayland.


In 1939, the families in a remote Jewish village in Romania feel the war close in on them. Their tribe has moved and escaped for thousands of years- across oceans, deserts, and mountains-but now, it seems, there is nowhere else to go. Danger is imminent in every direction, yet the territory of imagination and belief is limitless. At the suggestion of an eleven-year-old girl and a mysterious stranger who has washed up on the riverbank, the villagers decide to reinvent the world: deny any relationship with the known and start over from scratch. Destiny is unwritten. Time and history are forgotten. Jobs, husbands, a child, are reassigned. And for years, there is boundless hope. But the real world continues to unfold alongside the imagined one, eventually overtaking it, and soon our narrator-the girl, grown into a young mother-must flee her village, move from one world to the next, to find her husband and save her children, and propel them toward a real and hopeful future. A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history, No One Is Here Except All Of Us explores how we use storytelling to survive and shape our own truths. It marks the arrival of a major new literary talent.

No One Is Here Except All of Us

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Narrated from several different perspectives, tells the story of the 1956 murder of two teenaged girls in suburban Baltimore, Maryland.

Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls

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During a summer spent at Rockaway Beach in 1944, Lily's friendship with a young Hungarian refugee causes her to see the war and her own world differently. A Newbery Honor winner. Reprint. H. PW.

Lily's Crossing

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Crisis is looming for three generations of the Olyphant family. In less than a year, Henrietta has lost her husband and nearly all of her money, and is about to lose her hard-won anonymity. After a lifetime spent trying to outrun the humiliation her own book caused her, Henrietta has reluctantly agreed to a reissue of The Inseparables, the salaciously filthy and critically despised bestseller she wrote decades earlier. At the same time, her daughter, Oona, has moved back home to the house that Henrietta needs to sell. Oona is in the middle of a divorce from her husband, Spencer, a corporate-law refugee, stay-at-home dad, and unapologetic stoner. And Oona's teenage daughter, Lydia, away at boarding school, is facing an onslaught of scrutiny and shame when a nude photo of her goes viral. The trouble only gets worse: Henrietta makes an upsetting discovery about her late husband; Oona embarks on a disastrous affair; and Lydia must deal with an ex-boyfriend who is determined to wreak havoc. Over the course of a few tumultuous days, the Olyphant women must come to terms with their past and try to reimagine their future. Incisive, moving, and wickedly funny, The Inseparables examines what happens when our most carefully constructed ideas about our lives unravel, and we begin to reinvent ourselves--and our family--anew.

The Inseparables

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"In the vein of The Virgin Suicides, a dazzling debut novel about four girls inexplicably named Guinevere, all left by their parents to be raised by nuns"--

Browse by categories

Laura Ruby

Bone Gap

Laura Ruby

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All

Catherine Ostler

The Duchess Countess

Kerri Arsenault

Mill Town

Camille Laurens; Adriana Hunter

Girl

Alain De Botton

How Proust Can Change Your Life

Rebecca Skloot

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

María Rosa Menocal

The Ornament of the World

Véronique Hyland

Dress Code

Lauren Elkin

Flâneuse

Joy McCullough

Blood Water Paint

Ben Mezrich

Once upon a Time in Russia

Kristin Cashore

Bitterblue

Edmund Burke

Reflections on the Revolution in France

Kali Wallace

The Memory Trees

Genevieve Valentine

The Girls at the Kingfisher Club

Dominic Lieven

In the Shadow of the Gods

Chantal Thomas

The Exchange of Princesses

Chantal Thomas

Farewell, My Queen

Ramona Ausubel

No One Is Here Except All of Us

Mary Downing Hahn

Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls

Patricia Reilly Giff

Lily's Crossing

Stuart Nadler

The Inseparables

Sarah Domet

The Guineveres

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