Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Settling in the swamps of early-nineteenth-century Ohio, the Goodenough family establish an apple orchard that begins a long family battle, and years later, as their youngest son wanders through Gold Rush California, his family's past makes an unexpected appearance.

At the Edge of the Orchard

d35f4422-84cd-4d69-b348-b7d7a564760b-1

Lucky Girls

#hardcover #fiction #botm #stephsbargainbooks #litfic #richardroper #drama #life #romance 

Smart, darkly funny, and life-affirming, How Not to Die Alone is the bighearted debut novel we all need, for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, it's a story about love, loneliness, and the importance of taking a chance when we feel we have the most to lose.

"Off-beat and winning...Gives resiliency and the triumph of the human spirit a good name." --The Wall Street Journal

All Andrew wants is to be normal. That's why his coworkers believe he has the perfect wife and two children waiting at home for him after a long day. But the truth is, his life isn't exactly as people think . . . and his little white lie is about to catch up with him. Because in all of Andrew's efforts to fit in, he's forgotten one important thing: how to really live. And maybe, it's finally time for him to start.

"Roper illuminates Andrew's interior life to reveal not what an odd duck he is, but what odd ducks we all are." --The New York Times Book Review

How Not to Die Alone

70dcafad-94b2-45fa-bddc-ea20233282f1-1

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

In The Christmas Letters, three generations of women reveal their stories of love and marriage in the letters they write to family and friends during the holidays. It's a down-home Christmas story about tradition, family, and the shared experiences of women.

Here, in a letter of her own, Lee Smith explains how she was inspired to write this celebrated epistolary novel:

Dear Friends,

Like me, you probably get Christmas letters every year. I read every word and save every letter. Because every Christmas letter is the story of a life, and what story can be more interesting than the story of our lives? Often, it is the story of an entire family. But you also have to read between the lines with Christmas letters. Sometimes, what is not said is even more important than what is on the page.

In The Christmas Letters, I have used this familiar format to illumine the lives, hopes, dreams, and disappointments of three generations of American women. Much of the story of The Christmas Letters is also told through shared recipes. As Mary, my favorite character, says, "I feel as if I have written out my life story in recipes! The Cool Whip and mushroom soup years, the hibachi and fondue period, then the quiche and crepes phase, and now it's these salsa years."

I wrote this little book for the same reason I write to my friends and relatives every holiday--Christmas letters give us a chance to remember and celebrate who we are.

With warmest greetings, Lee Smith

The Christmas Letters

1931fd26-19da-4929-902b-c556614285d9-1

Sisterland

40333b38-6bf1-434a-a248-e4cc4533fba5-1

#hardcover #ianmccewan #atonement #litfic

The Children Act

From bestselling authors, Bodie and Brock Thoene, comes this compelling portrait of an American dustbowl family. Shiloh Autumn transports readers to the Great Depression to experience Depression-era life, from possum hunts to mass migration, Penny Auctions to the Veteran's March on Washington.

Shiloh Autumn

546efbb6-ab09-4fb8-9455-8d1a0113ecad-1

#hardcover #fiction #botm #litfic #richardroper #drama #life 

#hardcover #fiction #botm #stephsbargainbooks #litfic #drama #life #richardroper 

An eye opening summer read! #fiction #love #bookclub #emotional #litfic #familystory #drama #askagainyes #marybethkeane #paperback #summerread

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A Novel

The triumphant New York Times Bestseller * The Tonight Show Summer Reads Pick * Named one of the best books of the year by People, Vogue, Parade, NPR, and Elle “This is one beautiful book. I was wowed by Keane’s writing and narrative skill—and by what she knows about trouble.” —Stephen King How much can a family forgive? Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie NYPD cops, are neighbors in the suburbs. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come. In Mary Beth Keane's extraordinary novel, a lifelong friendship and love blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next thirty years. Heartbreaking and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes is a gorgeous and generous portrait of the daily intimacies of marriage and the power of forgiveness.

Ask Again, Yes

bf99b330-2a66-49e3-acc9-673c19a67a1a-1

#paperback #fiction #love #bookclub #emotional #familystory #drama #litfic 

#hardcover #fiction #gritlit #litfic #woodrell ex library book but otherwise great condition

In 1929, Alma DeGeer Dunahew, the maid for a prominent family in Missouri, chases down justice after her younger sister is one of forty-two people killed in a mysterious explosion at a local dance hall.

The Maid's Version

24e3be2e-75d6-4651-a35e-368d8f8c5c36-1

Unsheltered

#paperback #fiction #nationalbookaward #litfic #literaryfiction

In December 2004 in a rural village in Chechnya, failed doctor Akhmed harbors the traumatized eight-year-old daughter of a man abducted by Russian forces and treats a series of wounded refugees while exploring the shared past that binds him to the child.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

8292e42e-11b3-4455-b363-6cfdc8bc3a2b-1

#hardcover #action #litfic #regional #kentucky #gritlit

A new collection of stories by the acclaimed author of Kentucky Straight, whom Tobias Wolff has deemed one of the best writers of short fiction in his--or any--generation.

Out of the Woods

888ccdd7-9531-4d46-8cec-a6d3f089c7cd-1

"With his first two novels, David Payne earned the rare combination of critical and commercial success, and established himself as one of our most gifted young novelists." "Now, in Ruin Creek, Payne travels deep into the soul of a troubled and unforgettable family and, along the way, establishes his rightful place in the legion of great Southern writers who know that we can neither escape nor recapture the past." "It is 1954 in Killdeer, North Carolina, and May Tilley, a beautiful young debutante, decides that she wants "a different life from what Mamma and Daddy had." She finds it, in spades, with Jimmy Madden, a former high school basketball hero with the dangerous combination of good looks, a smooth tongue and big, secret dreams." "Soon May finds herself pregnant, and after some serious soul-searching she and Jimmy decide to get married. But times are tough, as Jimmy enters medical school and struggles with his studies, while May adjusts to the strange new worlds of marriage and motherhood. Day-to-day life gets in the way of the couple's dreams, and they gradually realize that love and passion aren't always enough to preserve a failing marriage. Yet they stay together for more than a decade, and it is their son Joey who suffers the most as he watches his parents drift further apart. As he tries to cope with the devastation of his family life, Joey turns to his grandfather, Pa, for advice on how to move away from his troubled family and into the world of men - how to see his parents as they are, instead of how he desperately wants them to be." "Conscious at every moment of the bonds and burdens of family, David Payne has written Ruin Creek with the mature authority of a writer who knows the human heart in all its fragility and glory. No reader will come away from this novel unmoved."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Ruin Creek

8e68b804-ff68-449e-914a-3908261795f8-1

 #bookclub #litfic #popular #clubpick #bookclub #mentalhealth #contemporaryfiction #bookstagram #bookrec For similar 🔖Bookmark Journey 📚 titles, click #bookmarkjourneyfiction 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A Place at the Table

16ac8ccb-8384-4afa-925d-23536afb9dc2-1

#fiction #hardcover #stephsbargainbooks #botm #drama #life #litfic 
the book is brand new but it was given to me with some black lines in the book jacket #nonfiction 

#hardcover #fiction #botm #stephsbargainbooks #richardroper #litfic #drama 

#fiction #love #bookclub #familystory #litfic #drama #family #paperback 

#hardcover #fiction #awardwinningauthor #jesmynward #literaryfiction #litfic 

"A searing and profound Southern odyssey through Mississippi's past and present"--

Sing, Unburied, Sing

b6556e5d-d0fb-44ab-9acd-1f97969f2b23-1

#hardcover #fiction #botm #stephsbargainbooks #litfic #richardroper #drama #life 

#paperback #nighttrain #gritlit #litfic #regionallit

In 1963, at the age of 17, Dwayne Hallston discovers James Brown and wants to perform just like him. His band, the Amazing Rumblers, studies and rehearses Brown's Live at the Apollo album in the storage room of his father's shop in their small North Carolina town. Meanwhile, Dwayne's forbidden black friend Larry -- aspiring to play piano like Thelonius Monk -- apprentices to a jazz musician called the Bleeder. His mother hopes music will allow him to escape the South.

A dancing chicken and a mutual passion for music help Dwayne and Larry as they try to achieve their dreams and maintain their friendship, even while their world says both are impossible. In The Night Train, Edgerton's trademark humor reminds us of our divided national history and the way music has helped bring us together.

Tracy Chevalier

At the Edge of the Orchard

Nell Freudenberger

Lucky Girls

Richard Roper

How Not to Die Alone

Lee Smith

The Christmas Letters

Curtis Sittenfeld

Sisterland

Ian McEwan

The Children Act

Richard Roper

How Not to Die Alone

Bodie Thoene; Brock Thoene

Shiloh Autumn

Richard Roper

How Not to Die Alone

Richard Roper

How Not to Die Alone

Mary Beth Keane

Ask Again, Yes

Mary Beth Keane

Ask Again, Yes

Daniel Woodrell

The Maid's Version

Barbara Kingsolver

Unsheltered

Anthony Marra

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

Chris Offutt

Out of the Woods

David Payne

Ruin Creek

Susan Rebecca White

A Place at the Table

Richard Roper

How Not to Die Alone

Richard Roper

How Not to Die Alone

Mary Beth Keane

Ask Again, Yes

Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Richard Roper

How Not to Die Alone

Clyde Edgerton

The Night Train