Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

New Jersey

A Novel 

The acclaimed National Book Award finalist--"one of the United States' finest writers," according to Joshua Ferris, "full of wit, humanity, and fearless curiosity"--now gives us a novel that will join the short list of classics about children caught up in the Holocaust.

Aron, the narrator, is an engaging if peculiar and unhappy young boy whose family is driven by the German onslaught from the Polish countryside into Warsaw and slowly battered by deprivation, disease, and persecution. He and a handful of boys and girls risk their lives by scuttling around the ghetto to smuggle and trade contraband through the quarantine walls in hopes of keeping their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters alive, hunted all the while by blackmailers and by Jewish, Polish, and German police, not to mention the Gestapo.

When his family is finally stripped away from him, Aron is rescued by Janusz Korczak, a doctor renowned throughout prewar Europe as an advocate of children's rights who, once the Nazis swept in, was put in charge of the Warsaw orphanage. Treblinka awaits them all, but does Aron manage to escape--as his mentor suspected he could--to spread word about the atrocities? 
Jim Shepard has masterfully made this child's-eye view of the darkest history mesmerizing, sometimes comic despite all odds, truly heartbreaking, and even inspiring. Anyone who hears Aron's voice will remember it forever.

The Book of Aron

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Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

Presents a tale inspired by the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, in a work that follows the doomed monarch's long imprisonment in the household of the Earl of Shrewsbury and his spying wife, Bess.

The Other Queen

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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.

All the Light We Cannot See

Diane Ackerman

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

A War Story

Documents the heroic true story of Warsaw Zoo keepers and resistance activists Jan and Antonina Zabinski who, in the aftermath of Germany's invasion of Poland, saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish citizens by smuggling them into empty cages and their home villa. Reprint. 70,000 first printing.

The Zookeeper's Wife

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Mark Helprin

An old man's magnificent tale of love and war-a recapitulation of a life and a reckoning with mortality told by one of America's most acclaimed novelists.


A Soldier of the Great War

f5eea465-803b-49f8-a5d6-37696902fc1a-1

New; never read paperback.
smoke free home

Indiana

Confused romantic Rosalind Thorne finds herself stuck in 1921 and begins a secret affair with Zelda Fitzgerald under the nose of F. Scott Fitzgerald. But Rosalind loves another woman in her time. Can she find a way back?

The Golden Girl

03cc7078-2d0a-4a23-8604-737fd102d71f-1

Pennsylvania

FINALIST FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 10 BEST BOOKS OF 2017, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE “A breathtaking novel…[that] arrives at an urgent time.” —NPR “It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the world, and gave us a road map to our future… At once terrifying and … oddly hopeful.” —Ayelet Waldman, The New York Times Book Review “Moving, audacious, and indelibly human.” —Entertainment Weekly, “A” rating A New York Times bestseller, the astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands. In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . . Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.

Exit West

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#hardcover #fiction #botm #historical #gmabookclub #family 

Florida

The Instant New York Times bestseller A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself. Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate. Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love. But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women, wives, mothers, and leaders. Their hearts expand in tandem with Red Hook and Brooklyn around them, as they push against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fight to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship. One fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested. Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.

The Family

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#hardcover #dog #childrens #hurricanekatrina #historical 

South Carolina

A Hurricane Katrina Dog's Survival Tale

Winner of the Christopher Award and Florida's Sunshine State Young Readers Award

He's endearing. He's funny. He's a survivor.

In this moving tale of adventure and triumph based on a true story, meet Hooper, the tenacious puppy who makes an incredible journey in search of home.

Here comes Hooper, one plucky, spunky dog whose warm spirit and goofy personality are irresistible. Hooper tells his own dramatic rescue tale after being left homeless in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and taking a daring trip from New Orleans to New York to meet his new family.

He tells of the terrifying force of Katrina, his trials in the shelter, and being the new dog on the block in a city far from home. As Hooper struggles to find his place, he learns to overcome his fear of water and faces down feisty squirrels as well as the resident bully and top dog in his new neighborhood.

"A heartwarming story about moving forward after trauma and loss by making space for new loved ones and new possibilities." --Kirkus

"Paley fills her gentle first novel with engaging animal characters. Readers may be similarly moved to stand up to their fears." --Publishers Weekly

Hooper Finds a Family

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Paula McLain

Louisiana

Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal bestseller The Paris Wife, now returns with her keenly anticipated new novel, transporting readers to colonial Kenya in the 1920s.Circling the Sun brings to life a fearless and captivating woman—Beryl Markham, a record-setting aviator caught up in a passionate love triangle with safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, author of the classic memoirOut of Africa. Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Her unconventional upbringing transforms Beryl into a bold young woman with a fierce love of all things wild and an inherent understanding of nature's delicate balance. But even the wild child must grow up, and when everything Beryl knows and trusts dissolves, she is catapulted into a string of disastrous relationships. Beryl forges her own path as a horse trainer, and her uncommon style attracts the eye of the Happy Valley set, a decadent, bohemian community of European expats who also live and love by their own set of rules. But it's the ruggedly charismatic Denys Finch Hatton who ultimately helps Beryl navigate the uncharted territory of her own heart. The intensity of their love reveals Beryl's truest self and her fate: to fly. Set against the majestic landscape of early-twentieth-century Africa, McLain's powerful tale reveals the extraordinary adventures of a woman before her time, the exhilaration of freedom and its cost, and the tenacity of the human spirit. Praise for Paula McLain and The Paris Wife “McLain has brought Hadley [Hemingway] to life in a novel that begins in a rush of early love. . . . A moving portrait of a woman slighted by history, a woman whose . . . story needed to be told.”—The Boston Globe “The Paris Wife creates the kind of out-of-body reading experience that dedicated book lovers yearn for, nearly as good as reading Hemingway for the first time—and it doesn't get much better than that.”—MinneapolisStar Tribune “Exquisitely evocative . . . This absorbing, illuminating book gives us an intimate view of a sympathetic and perceptive woman, the striving writer she married, the glittering and wounding Paris circle they were part of. . . . McLain reinvents the story of Hadley and Ernest's romance with the lucid grace of a practiced poet.”—The Seattle Times “A novel that's impossible to resist . . . It's all here, and it all feels real.”—People “Powerful and devastating . . . McLain pulls off a delicate balancing act, making the macho Hemingway of myth a complex and sympathetic figure.”—USA Today “A sweet love story with surprising emotional impact.”—Chicago Sun-Times

Circling the Sun

7daf7ff4-3637-4e95-b57b-37558f6ad73c-1

#hardcover #women #historical #exlibrary #biography

New York

Brief biographies emphasizing the courage of twelve women both famous and little-known in United States history.

Women of Courage

a477346b-c701-4f16-8abc-d8bfb9cc8893-1

Laura Hillenbrand

A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The incredible true story of survival and salvation that is the basis for two major motion pictures: 2014’s Unbroken and the upcoming Unbroken: Path to Redemption. On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit. Praise for Unbroken “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] one-in-a-billion story . . . designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid: It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring.”—New York “Staggering . . . mesmerizing . . . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People “A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.”—The Washington Post “Ambitious and powerful . . . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Marvelous . . . Unbroken is wonderful twice over, for the tale it tells and for the way it’s told. . . . It manages maximum velocity with no loss of subtlety.”—Newsweek “Moving and, yes, inspirational . . . [Laura] Hillenbrand’s unforgettable book . . . deserve[s] pride of place alongside the best works of literature that chart the complications and the hard-won triumphs of so-called ordinary Americans and their extraordinary time.”—Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air “Hillenbrand . . . tells [this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.”—Time “Unbroken is too much book to hope for: a hellride of a story in the grip of the one writer who can handle it.”—Christopher McDougall, author of Born to Run

Unbroken

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Helen Simonson

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A novel to cure your Downton Abbey withdrawal . . . a delightful story about nontraditional romantic relationships, class snobbery and the everybody-knows-everybody complications of living in a small community.”—The Washington Post The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love on the eve of World War I that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND NPR East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England’s brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha’s husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won’t come to anything. And Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master. When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking—and attractive—than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing. But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha’s reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war. Praise for The Summer Before the War “What begins as a study of a small-town society becomes a compelling account of war and its aftermath.”—Woman’s Day “This witty character study of how a small English town reacts to the 1914 arrival of its first female teacher offers gentle humor wrapped in a hauntingly detailed story.”—Good Housekeeping “Perfect for readers in a post–Downton Abbey slump . . . The gently teasing banter between two kindred spirits edging slowly into love is as delicately crafted as a bone-china teacup. . . . More than a high-toned romantic reverie for Anglophiles—though it serves the latter purpose, too.”—The Seattle Times

The Summer Before the War

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Joyce Hansen

Wisconsin

The Diary of Patsy - A Freed Girl

Twelve-year-old Patsy keeps a diary of the ripe but confusing time following the end of the Civil War and the granting of freedom to former slaves.

I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly

e352de1b-182c-42e1-b31c-9e5eacc4d75c-1

#hardcover #fiction #zadiesmith #culture #literaryfiction #historical #historicalfiction #blackliterature#botm #botm 

Texas

An ambitious, exuberant new novel moving from North-West London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty Two brown girls dream of being dancers but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either. Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves the old neighborhood behind, traveling the world as an assistant to a famous singer, Aimee, observing close up how the one percent live. But when Aimee develops grand philanthropic ambitions, the story moves from London to West Africa, where diaspora tourists travel back in time to find their roots, young men risk their lives to escape into a different future, the women dance just like Tracey the same twists, the same shakes and the origins of a profound inequality are not a matter of distant history, but a present dance to the music of time."

Swing Time

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Barry Denenberg

A Revolutionary War Patriot

William, a twelve-year-old orphan, writes of his experiences in pre-Revolutionary War Boston where he joins the cause of the patriots who are opposed to the British rule, in a boy-narrated companion to the Dear America series.

The Journal of William Thomas Emerson

1a80caf8-a46e-4495-8445-48dda5f2becd-1

#hardcover #americanhistory #fiction #friendship #historical #love #lovestory #romance 

Washington

For fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, The Postmistress, and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, a story of love, war, loss, and the scars they leave set during the years of World War II and its aftermath.
 
Set in a small town in Massachusetts, Next to Love follows three childhood friends, Babe, Millie, and Grace, whose lives are unmoored when their men are called to duty. And yet the changes that are thrust upon them move them in directions they never dreamed possible--while their husbands and boyfriends are enduring their own transformations. In the decades that follow, the three friends lose their innocence, struggle to raise their children, and find meaning and love in unexpected places. And as they change, so does America--from a country in which people know their place in the social hierarchy to a world in which feminism, the Civil Rights movement, and technological innovations present new possibilities--and uncertainties. And yet Babe, Millie, and Grace remain bonded by their past, even as their children grow up and away and a new society rises from the ashes of the war.
 
Beautifully crafted and unforgettable, Next to Love depicts the enduring power of love and friendship, and illuminates a transformational moment in American history.

Next to Love

89727e90-bd83-42e1-8625-924588bf5c7f-1

#hardcover #history #historical #nativeamericans

Virginia

Archaeologists Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear continue to entertain with their epic of the adventure, triumph and heartbreak of the pre-Columbian peoples who struggled to make America their home.

People of the Masks

0d64a336-54c4-4929-8ff8-99de5af150bc-1

#hardcover #historical #history #nativeamericans #algonquin #tribe

A Novel of the Algonquin Nation

"People of the Mist takes us to the Chesapeake Bay of six hundred years ago, when the unprovoked and brutal murder of a young woman on the eve of her wedding threatens to turn the entire Algonquin Nation against itself in a war that could destroy it as a people." "High Fox, the young man who had an obsessive love for Red Knot, is the prime suspect in the murder. The woman who loves him cannot believe him guilty, offering herself, body and soul, to the most powerful sorcerer in the land. He is called The Panther. He lives on an island in the middle of the bay." "Though he is feared by many as a sorcerer, The Panther is the only one with enough prestige and power to demand that his voice be heard. But as he digs deeper into the ever-thickening web of lies surrounding Red Knot's death and uncovers darker, more deeply rooted secrets, The Panther begins to fear that there may be no salvation for his people - or himself."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

People of the Mist

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#hardcover #historical #racerelations #race #humanity 

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

From the acclaimed author of the national bestseller Ahab's Wife comes an inspiring, brilliantly rendered new novel of the awakening conscience of the South and of an entire nation. Written with the same scope and emotional depth as her previous award-winning novel, Four Spirits is set in Sena Jeter Naslund's home city of Birmingham, Alabama, a city that in the 1960s was known as Bombingham. Naslund brings to life this tumultuous time, weaving together the lives of blacks and whites, civil rights advocates and racists, and the events of peaceful protest and violent repression, to create a tapestry of American social transformation. Stella Silver is an idealistic, young white college student brought up by her genteel, mannered aunts. She first witnesses the events of the freedom movement from a safe distance but, along with her friend Cat Cartwright, is soon drawn into the mounting conflagration. Stella's and Cat's lives are forever altered by their new friendships with other committed freedom fighters. A student at a black college, Christine Taylor is inspired to action by the examples of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. She courageously struggles to balance her family responsibilities, education, and work with the passions and dangers of the demonstrations. Her friend Gloria Callahan, a gifted young cellist and descendant of a runaway slave, tries to move beyond her personal shyness and family coziness to enter a wider circle, including blacks and whites, men and women, all involved with the protests. Lionel Parrish, teacher, preacher, and peddler of funeral insurance, battles his own demons of lust and self-preservation, while New York activist Jonathan Green gives up a promising career as a pianist to work for racial justice in the South. These characters all add their voices to the chorus that makes up this symphony of innocent children and the mythic elderly, the devoutly religious and the skeptical humanist, the wealthy and the poor, the city and the country. Poignant and evocative, rich in historical detail, and filled with the humanity that is the hallmark of Naslund's fiction, Four Spirits is a compelling tale that transcends tragedy and evokes redemptive triumph.

Four Spirits

9083a1e6-d2ca-4257-b342-545e440c425e-1

#hardcover #fiction #drama  #Christian #historical Library book from small church library

Tennessee

The third novel in the Galway Chronicles takes readers further into the adventure, tragedy, and romance of Kate Donovan Garrity and Joseph Burke, who are separated by a conspiracy. When Joseph is deported to the New World, Kate must fight the secret enemies who plot to kill her and destroy the village of Ballyknockanor.

Ashes of Remembrance

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Kate and Joseph struggle to survive under English rule and the horrors of the potato famine

All Rivers to the Sea

5f6e072b-0fbe-4619-bdd1-cce9e7da799c-1

Crystal Hana Kim

California

“An immersive, heartbreaking story about war, passion, and the road not taken.” — People "One of the most beautiful and moving love stories you’ll read this year." — Nylon Magazine NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2018 BY The Washington Post • The New York Post • Vulture • Real Simple • Bustle • Nylon • Thrillist • Mental Floss • Self magazine • Booklist • Refinery 29 An emotionally riveting debut novel about war, family, and forbidden love—the unforgettable saga of two ill-fated lovers in Korea and the heartbreaking choices they’re forced to make in the years surrounding the civil war that still haunts us today. When the communist-backed army from the north invades her home, sixteen-year-old Haemi Lee, along with her widowed mother and ailing brother, is forced to flee to a refugee camp along the coast. For a few hours each night, she escapes her family’s makeshift home and tragic circumstances with her childhood friend, Kyunghwan. Focused on finishing school, Kyunghwan doesn’t realize his older and wealthier cousin, Jisoo, has his sights set on the beautiful and spirited Haemi—and is determined to marry her before joining the fight. But as Haemi becomes a wife, then a mother, her decision to forsake the boy she always loved for the security of her family sets off a dramatic saga that will have profound effects for generations to come. Richly told and deeply moving, If You Leave Me is a stunning portrait of war and refugee life, a passionate and timeless romance, and a heartrending exploration of one woman’s longing for autonomy in a rapidly changing world.

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Jim Shepard

The Book of Aron

Philippa Gregory

The Other Queen

Anthony Doerr

All the Light We Cannot See

Diane Ackerman

The Zookeeper's Wife

Mark Helprin

A Soldier of the Great War

Sara Wetmore

The Golden Girl

Mohsin Hamid

Exit West

Naomi Krupitsky

The Family

Jane Paley

Hooper Finds a Family

Paula McLain

Circling the Sun

Paula McLain

Circling the Sun

Margaret Truman

Women of Courage

Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken

Helen Simonson

The Summer Before the War

Joyce Hansen

I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly

Zadie Smith

Swing Time

Barry Denenberg

The Journal of William Thomas Emerson

Ellen Feldman

Next to Love

Kathleen O'Neal Gear; W. Michael Gear

People of the Masks

Kathleen O'Neal Gear; W. Michael Gear

People of the Mist

Sena Jeter Naslund

Four Spirits

Bodie Thoene; Brock Thoene

Ashes of Remembrance

Bodie Thoene; Brock Thoene

All Rivers to the Sea

Crystal Hana Kim

If You Leave Me