Tayari Jones

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New York

A Novel

A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR * TIME * BUSTLE * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS * AMAZON.COM OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION LONGLISTED FOR THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION “A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.” —Barack Obama “Haunting . . . Beautifully written.” —The New York Times Book Review “Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable.” —USA Today “A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class.” —People “Compelling.” —The Washington Post “Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant.” —Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.

An American Marriage (Oprah's Book Club)

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Steve Toltz

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A daring, brilliant new novel from Man Booker Prize finalist Steve Toltz, for fans of Dave Eggers, Martin Amis, and David Foster Wallace: a fearlessly funny, outrageously inventive dark comedy about two lifelong friends.

Liam is a struggling writer and a failing cop. Aldo, his best friend and muse, is a haplessly criminal entrepreneur with an uncanny knack for disaster. As Aldo's luck worsens, Liam is inspired to base his next book on his best friend's exponential misfortunes and hopeless quest to win back his one great love: his ex-wife, Stella. What begins as an attempt to make sense of Aldo's mishaps spirals into a profound story of faith and friendship.

With the same originality and buoyancy that catapulted his first novel, A Fraction of the Whole, onto prize lists around the world--including shortlists for the Man Booker Prize and the Guardian First Book Award--Steve Toltz has created a rousing, hysterically funny but unapologetically dark satire about fate, faith, friendship, and the artist's obligation to his muse. Sharp, witty, kinetic, and utterly engrossing, Quicksand is a subversive portrait of twenty-first-century society in all its hypocrisy and absurdity.

Quicksand

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Jennifer duBois

FINALIST FOR THE PEN/HEMINGWAY PRIZE FOR DEBUT FICTION In Jennifer duBois’s mesmerizing and exquisitely rendered debut novel, a long-lost letter links two disparate characters, each searching for meaning against seemingly insurmountable odds. With uncommon perception and wit, duBois explores the power of memory, the depths of human courage, and the endurance of love. NAMED BY THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION AS A 5 UNDER 35 AUTHOR • WINNER OF THE CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD GOLD MEDAL FOR FIRST FICTION • WINNER OF THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY O: THE OPRAH MAGAZINE “Astonishingly beautiful and brainy . . . [a] stunning novel.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “I can’t remember reading another novel—at least not recently—that’s both incredibly intelligent and also emotionally engaging.”—Nancy Pearl, NPR In St. Petersburg, Russia, world chess champion Aleksandr Bezetov begins a quixotic quest: He launches a dissident presidential campaign against Vladimir Putin. He knows he will not win—and that he is risking his life in the process—but a deeper conviction propels him forward. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, thirty-year-old English lecturer Irina Ellison struggles for a sense of purpose. Irina is certain she has inherited Huntington’s disease—the same cruel illness that ended her father’s life. When Irina finds an old, photocopied letter her father wrote to the young Aleksandr Bezetov, she makes a fateful decision. Her father asked the chess prodigy a profound question—How does one proceed in a lost cause?—but never received an adequate reply. Leaving everything behind, Irina travels to Russia to find Bezetov and get an answer for her father, and for herself. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Salon • BookPage Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. Praise for A Partial History of Lost Causes “A thrilling debut . . . [Jennifer] DuBois writes with haunting richness and fierce intelligence. . . . Full of bravado, insight, and clarity.”—Elle “DuBois is precise and unsentimental. . . . She moves with a magician’s control between points of view, continents, histories, and sympathies.”—The New Yorker “A real page-turner . . . a psychological thriller of great nuance and complexity.”—The Dallas Morning News “Terrific . . . In urgent fashion, duBois deftly evokes Russia’s political and social metamorphosis over the past thirty years through the prism of this particular and moving relationship.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Hilarious and heartbreaking and a triumph of the imagination.”—Gary Shteyngart

A Partial History of Lost Causes

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Gabriel García Márquez

Set on the Caribbean coast of South America, this love story brings together Fermina Daza, her distinguished husband, and a man who has secretly loved her for more than fifty years.

Love in the Time of Cholera

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Joseph Heller

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

'Never Has a Book Been Laughed and Wept Over So Many Times'

Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary. At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to some one dangerously sane -- a masterpiece of our time.

Catch-22

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Jack London

Moon-Face

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Pamela Schoenewaldt





"The people as real as your own family, and the tale realistic enough to be any American's."

--Nancy E. Turner, author of These is My Words

 

A moving, powerful, and evocative debut novel, When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt heralds the arrival of superb new voice in American fiction. A tale rich in color, character, and vivid historical detail, it chronicles the tumultuous life journey of a young immigrant seamstress, as she travels from her isolated Italian mountain village through the dark  corners of late nineteenth century America. A historical novel that readers of Geraldine Brooks, Nancy Turner, Frances de Pontes Peebles, and Debra Dean will most certainly cherish, When We Were Strangers will live in the mind and the heart long after its last page is turned.

When We Were Strangers

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Michael Faudet

Dirty Pretty Things is the international bestseller by Michael Faudet. A finalist in the 2015 Goodreads Readers Choice Awards, his whimsical and often erotic writing has already captured the hearts and minds of literally thousands of readers from around the world. He paints vivid pictures with intricate words and explores the compelling themes of love, loss, relationships, and sex. All beautifully captured in poetry, prose, quotes, and little short stories. Michael lives in a house by the sea in New Zealand with his girlfriend, international bestselling author, Lang Leav.

Dirty Pretty Things

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Charles Frazier

At the age of twelve, an orphan named Will Cooper is given a horse, a key, and a map and is sent on a journey through the uncharted wilderness of the Cherokee Nation. Will is a bound boy, obliged to run a remote Indian trading post. As he fulfills his lonesome duty, Will finds a father in Bear, a Cherokee chief, and is adopted by him and his people, developing relationships that ultimately forge Will’s character. All the while, his love of Claire, the enigmatic and captivating charge of volatile and powerful Featherstone, will forever rule Will’s heart. In a voice filled with both humor and yearning, Will tells of a lifelong search for home, the hunger for fortune and adventure, the rebuilding of a trampled culture, and above all an enduring pursuit of passion. Named ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR by Los Angeles Times Book Review, Chicago Tribune, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch “A literary journey of magnitude . . . Thirteen Moons belongs to the ages.” –Los Angeles Times “A boisterous, confident novel that draws from the epic tradition: It tips its hat to Don Quixote as well as Twain and Melville, and it boldly sets out to capture a broad swatch of America’s story in the mid-nineteenth century.” –The Boston Globe “Frazier works on an epic scale, but his genius is in the details–he has a scholar’s command of the physical realities of early America and a novelist’s gift for bringing them to life.” –Time “A powerhouse second act . . . a brilliant success.” –The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “Compulsively readable . . . a fitting successor to Cold Mountain.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Magical . . . fascinating and moving . . . You will find much to admire and savor in Thirteen Moons.” –USA Today “Genius.” –Time “Mesmerizing . . . a bountiful literary panorama . . . The history that Frazier hauntingly unwinds through Will is as melodic as it is melancholy, but the sublime love story is the narrative’s true heart.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Brimming with vivid, adventurous incident.” –Raleigh News & Observer “Reading a Frazier novel is like listening to a fine symphony. . . . Take the time to savor Frazier’s work, to take in each thought, to relish the turn of phrase or the imagery of a craftsman.” –The Denver Post “[Four stars] . . . Commanding . . . Frazier’s faithful will not be disappointed.” –People “Superbly entertaining.” –Richmond Times-Dispatch “Fascinating . . . vivid and alive.” –Newsweek

Thirteen Moons

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Junot Díaz

Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of the best books of 2007 according to: The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, People, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Salon, Baltimore City Paper, The Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, New York Public Library, and many more... Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Oscar is a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd who—from the New Jersey home he shares with his old world mother and rebellious sister—dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien and, most of all, finding love. But Oscar may never get what he wants. Blame the fukú—a curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, following them on their epic journey from Santo Domingo to the USA. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao opens our eyes to an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and explores the endless human capacity to persevere—and risk it all—in the name of love.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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Maggie Shipstead

Purchased at a library sale (has minor library covering damage) 

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE - A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK - The unforgettable story of a daredevil female aviator determined to chart her own course in life, at any cost--Great Circle "soars and dips with dizzying flair ... an expansive story that covers more than a century and seems to encapsulate the whole wide world" (Boston Globe). "A masterpiece ... One of the best books I've ever read." --J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Friends and Strangers After being rescued as infants from a sinking ocean liner in 1914, Marian and Jamie Graves are raised by their dissolute uncle in Missoula, Montana. There--after encountering a pair of barnstorming pilots passing through town in beat-up biplanes--Marian commences her lifelong love affair with flight. At fourteen she drops out of school and finds an unexpected and dangerous patron in a wealthy bootlegger who provides a plane and subsidizes her lessons, an arrangement that will haunt her for the rest of her life, even as it allows her to fulfill her destiny: circumnavigating the globe by flying over the North and South Poles. A century later, Hadley Baxter is cast to play Marian in a film that centers on Marian's disappearance in Antarctica. Vibrant, canny, disgusted with the claustrophobia of Hollywood, Hadley is eager to redefine herself after a romantic film franchise has imprisoned her in the grip of cult celebrity. Her immersion into the character of Marian unfolds, thrillingly, alongside Marian's own story, as the two women's fates--and their hunger for self-determination in vastly different geographies and times--collide. Epic and emotional, meticulously researched and gloriously told, Great Circle is a monumental work of art, and a tremendous leap forward for the prodigiously gifted Maggie Shipstead.

Great Circle

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Navidad Thélamour

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A timely and powerful novel about what it means to navigate hidden status lines and what it means to step over them that is at once a family saga, a glimpse behind the veil of a broken marriage, and a quest for the new-age American Dream while exploring the treacherous fault lines of American culture. The Dessommes family has had their share of troubles -- as rival siblings Vince and Jillian can attest -- but as Vince prepares to step into his birthright as CEO of the family's holdings, the repercussions of this looming shift in power and a cascade of events bring together a diverse cast of characters: Vince's wife, Delaney, a would-be social worker who unwittingly gave up her chance at a career for a ritzy marriage she never really wanted; her best friend, Aaliyah, who still believes in the American Dream, even though her trials with corporate climbing make it more and more difficult to put faith in; Micah, a social and corporate climber who has everything Aaliyah is trying to attain but still reaches for more - possibly to their detriment; Nigel, a former classmate of Vince who's confounded by the extravagant world Vince travels in and tries to resist the unrelenting pull it has on his life; Paige, the prodigal daughter of a Dessommes family friend whose reputation precedes her; and Jillian, the abdicated social princess of their circle who has a little problem with razor blades and haunting memories from her past that never seem to go away. As the characters - deeply divided by race and class lines - collide, their lives weave together and touch each other poignantly. Set in the American South and with chapter titles inspired by popular Southern sayings, here you'll find an ode to a culture and an exploration of "the other Americans," the little-known subculture of elitist African Americans whose high society and centuries-old social prejudices are rarely explored. Walking the lines of cultural fissures and boundaries, The Other Americans is a family saga of this lineage's unspoken past and the way that sisterhood can pull us back from the brink of self-destruction...or push us to it. Cutting deep into the fabric of family ties and the scars of their upbringings, the Dessommes family is forced to confront its secrets as they learn what happens when class lines clash inside of a crucible of decades-old allegiances and social prejudices -- and of how far we'll go to harm ourselves...and others. What unfolds is a stunning portrait of the heart and core of an American family in a story that is as page-turning as it is significant.

The Other Americans

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Jessamine Chan

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance. Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough. Until Frida has a very bad day. The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good. A searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.

The School for Good Mothers

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Kim Edwards

A #1 New York Times bestseller by Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is a brilliantly crafted novel of parallel lives, familial secrets, and the redemptive power of love Kim Edwards’s stunning novel begins on a winter night in 1964 in Lexington, Kentucky, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy, but the doctor immediately recognizes that his daughter has Down syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse, Caroline, to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this beautifully told story that unfolds over a quarter of a century—in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by the fateful decision made that winter night long ago. A family drama, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter explores every mother's silent fear: What would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? It is also an astonishing tale of love and how the mysterious ties that hold a family together help us survive the heartache that occurs when long-buried secrets are finally uncovered.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

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Anthony Doerr

A "novel about children on the cusp of adulthood in a broken world who find resilience, hope, and story ... [They] are trying to figure out the world around them, and to survive. In the besieged city of Constantinople in 1453, in a public library in Lakeport, Idaho, today, and on a spaceship bound for a distant exoplanet decades from now, an ancient text provides solace and the most profound human connection to characters in peril"--

Cloud Cuckoo Land

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Laura Dave

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

"When her husband of a year disappears, Hannah quickly learns he is not who he said he was and is left to sort out the truth with just one ally- her husband's teenage daughter, who hates her"--

The Last Thing He Told Me

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Brit Bennett

It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, 17-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance - and the subsequent cover-up - will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth

The Mothers

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Ha Jin

Stories

A new collection of twelve short stories captures the daily lives and experiences of Chinese women and men who struggle to deal with the influx of Western influence into a society that attempts to control their every thought and move. By the author of Waiting. Reprint. 60,000 first printing.

The Bridegroom

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Emma Donoghue

A retired New York professor's life is thrown into chaos when he takes a young great-nephew to the French Riviera, in hopes of uncovering his own mother's wartime secrets in the next masterpiece from New York Times bestselling author Emma Donoghue. Noah Selvaggio is a retired chemistry professor and widower living on the Upper West Side, but born in the South of France. He is days away from his first visit back to Nice since he was a child, bringing with him a handful of puzzling photos he's discovered from his mother's wartime years. But he receives a call from social services: Noah is the closest available relative of an eleven-year-old great-nephew he's never met, who urgently needs someone to look after him. Out of a feeling of obligation, Noah agrees to take Michael along on his trip. Much has changed in this famously charming seaside mecca, still haunted by memories of the Nazi occupation. The unlikely duo, suffering from jet lag and culture shock, bicker about everything from steak frites to screen time. But Noah gradually comes to appreciate the boy's truculent wit, and Michael's ease with tech and sharp eye help Noah unearth troubling details about their family's past. Both come to grasp the risks people in all eras have run for their loved ones, and find they are more akin than they knew. Written with all the tenderness and psychological intensity that made Room an international bestseller, Akin is a funny, heart-wrenching tale of an old man and a boy, born two generations apart, who unpick their painful story and start to write a new one together.

Akin

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Ash Davidson

A mother and midwife inadvertently threatens the fortunes and livelihoods of her family and their neighbors after noticing an increase in local miscarriages and believes it's caused by the pesticides used by the Sanderson Timber Company, her husband's employer.

Damnation Spring

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Grimm Grimm Brothers

Jakob Grimm

Wilhelm Grimm

Deanna McFadden

Arthur Pober

Retells classic German versions of "Rapunzel," "Cinderella," "Rumpelstiltskin," "The Brave Little Tailor," and other tales.

Classic Starts®: Grimm's Fairy Tales

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Jesse Andrews

The book that inspired the hit film! Sundance U.S. Dramatic Audience Award Sundance Grand Jury Prize This is the funniest book you'll ever read about death. It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. But on the first day of his senior year, Greg Gaines thinks he's figured it out. The answer to the basic existential question: How is it possible to exist in a place that sucks so bad? His strategy: remain at the periphery at all times. Keep an insanely low profile. Make mediocre films with the one person who is even sort of his friend, Earl. This plan works for exactly eight hours. Then Greg's mom forces him to become friends with a girl who has cancer. This brings about the destruction of Greg's entire life. Praise for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl STARRED REVIEW "One need only look at the chapter titles ("Let's Just Get This Embarrassing Chapter Out of the Way") to know that this is one funny book." -Booklist, starred review STARRED REVIEW "A frequently hysterical confessional...Debut novelist Andrews succeeds brilliantly in painting a portrait of a kid whose responses to emotional duress are entirely believable and sympathetic, however fiercely he professes his essential crappiness as a human being. Though this novel begs inevitable thematic comparisons to John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (2011), it stands on its own in inventiveness, humor and heart." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review "It is sure to be popular with many boys, including reluctant readers, and will not require much selling on the part of the librarian." -VOYA "Mr. Andrews' often hilarious teen dialogue is utterly convincing, and his characters are compelling. Greg's random sense of humor, terrible self-esteem and general lack of self-awareness all ring true. Like many YA authors, Mr. Andrews blends humor and pathos with true skill, but he steers clear of tricky resolutions and overt life lessons, favoring incremental understanding and growth." -Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Awards Capitol Choices 2013 - Noteworthy Titles for Children and Teens Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) Choices 2013 list - Young Adult Fiction YALSA 2013 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers YALSA 2013 Best Fiction for Young Adults YALSA 2014 Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

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