2016 VinelandMeet Willa Knox, a woman who stands braced against an upended world that seems to hold no mercy for her shattered life and family - or the crumbling house that contains her.1871 VinelandThatcher Greenwood, the new science teacher, is a fervent advocate of the work of Charles Darwin, and he is keen to communicate his ideas to his students. But those in power in Thatcher's small town have no desire for a new world order. Thatcher and his teachings are not welcome.Both Willa and Thatcher resist the prevailing logic. Both are asked to pay a high price for their courage. But both also find inspiration — and an unlikely kindred spirit — in Mary Treat, a scientist, adventurer and anachronism. A testament to both the resilience and persistent myopia of the human condition, Unsheltered explores the foundations we build in life, spanning time and place to give us all a clearer look at those around us, and perhaps... Views: 46
Tandi Reese and her sister, Gina, have always been bound by complicated ties. Amid the rubble of a difficult childhood lie memories of huddling beneath beds and behind sofas while parental wars raged. Sisterhood was safety . . . once. But now? Faced with legal papers for a fraud she didn’t commit, Tandi suspects that her sister has done something unthinkable. With Tandi’s wedding just around the corner, a trip to the North Carolina Tidewater for a reckoning with Gina was not part of the plan. But unraveling lies from truth will require confronting strained sibling bonds and uncovering a dark family secret that could free Tandi from her past or stain her future forever. Views: 46
Gordon Korman's classic, bestselling series celebrates its 35th anniversary!Macdonald Hall's ivy-covered buildings have housed and educated many fine young Canadians. But Bruno Walton and Boots O'Neal are far from being fine young Canadians. The roommates and best friends are nothing but trouble! Together they've snuck out after lights-out, swapped flags, kidnapped mascots . . . and that's only the beginning.Macdonald Hall is under attack. Where once tradition and freedom of speech ruled the campus, now there is a dress code (ties even), psychological tests for all students, and surprise dorm inspections — all brought to Macdonald Hall in the name of progress by Mr. Wizzle. Are the students of the Hall going to stand for it? Not on your life . . . Mr. Wizzle doesn't stand a chance against the Committee. Wizzle must go!Join two of Gordon Korman's most memorable characters in seven side-splitting, rip-roaring adventures! Macdonald Hall is the... Views: 46
Synopsis River Knight was looking forward to a peaceful vacation in the mountains with her two best friends, Jo and Star, sisters of the heart. When she travels up into the mountains of North Carolina to the cabin Star has rented for them she is shocked when she finds the two sisters being abducted. Following them, she discovers their abductors are anything but human. Sneaking aboard the shuttle in an attempt to rescue them she finds herself on an unplanned vacation to the stars. In a desperate attempt to save Jo and Star, River makes a deal with a group of other aliens who had also been captured – she’ll release them if they promise to return the three girls to their home. Torak Ja Kel Coradon, Leader of the House of Kassis and next ruler of the Kassis Galaxy, has other plans when he sees the blue-eyed warrior woman. He plans on claiming her for himself and the only home he has plans on her returning too is his. The three women are believed to be the Prophesized warriors sent to join forces to bring peace to the House of Kassis. Worlds collide when the male dominated world meets three circus performers who use their talents to fight for those they love. When an assassin threatens Torak’s life, River has to show him even a circus performer can be a warrior when challenged. The biggest challenge is to Torak’s mind as he discovers women from other galaxies are more than they seem. Can their love overcome the chasm of a few million light years or will an assassin end it all? Views: 46
The collected nonfiction of the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Ironweed: "A great pleasure to read no matter what the subject" (Library Journal). When William Kennedy arrives in Barcelona, his guidebook recommends taking the trolley around town—but the trolleys haven't run in the city for years. He's on his way to interview the novelist Gabriel García Márquez when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees something impossible: a yellow trolley running down the street. Márquez, however, is not surprised; like all great writers of both fiction and nonfiction, he knows that impossible things happen every day. A remarkable collection from one of America's greatest authors, Riding the Yellow Trolley Car features work from all stages of Kennedy's career. Through each piece runs the thread that ties together his greatest works: a love and deep understanding of his hometown, the city of Albany, New York,... Views: 46
Amazon.com ReviewIn the troubled years following the Civil War, the spirit of a murdered child haunts the Ohio home of a former slave. This angry, destructive ghost breaks mirrors, leaves its fingerprints in cake icing, and generally makes life difficult for Sethe and her family; nevertheless, the woman finds the haunting oddly comforting for the spirit is that of her own dead baby, never named, thought of only as Beloved. A dead child, a runaway slave, a terrible secret--these are the central concerns of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved. Morrison, a Nobel laureate, has written many fine novels, including Beloved is arguably her best. To modern readers, antebellum slavery is a subject so familiar that it is almost impossible to render its horrors in a way that seems neither clichéd nor melodramatic. Rapes, beatings, murders, and mutilations are recounted here, but they belong to characters so precisely drawn that the tragedy remains individual, terrifying to us because it is terrifying to the sufferer. And Morrison is master of the telling detail: in the bit, for example, a punishing piece of headgear used to discipline recalcitrant slaves, she manages to encapsulate all of slavery's many cruelties into one apt symbol--a device that deprives its wearer of speech. "Days after it was taken out, goose fat was rubbed on the corners of the mouth but nothing to soothe the tongue or take the wildness out of the eye." Most importantly, the language here, while often lyrical, is never overheated. Even as she recalls the cruelties visited upon her while a slave, Sethe is evocative without being overemotional: "Add my husband to it, watching, above me in the loft--hiding close by--the one place he thought no one would look for him, looking down on what I couldn't look at at all. And not stopping them--looking and letting it happen.... And if he was that broken then, then he is also and certainly dead now." Even the supernatural is treated as an ordinary fact of life: "Not a house in the country ain't packed to its rafters with some dead Negro's grief. We lucky this ghost is a baby," comments Sethe's mother-in-law. Beloved is a dense, complex novel that yields up its secrets one by one. As Morrison takes us deeper into Sethe's history and her memories, the horrifying circumstances of her baby's death start to make terrible sense. And as past meets present in the shape of a mysterious young woman about the same age as Sethe's daughter would have been, the narrative builds inexorably to its powerful, painful conclusion. Beloved may well be the defining novel of slavery in America, the one that all others will be measured by. --Alix WilberFrom Publishers WeeklyMixed with the lyric beauty of the writing, the fury in Morrison's (Song of Solomonp latest book is almost palpable. Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, this haunting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath traces the life of a young woman, Sethe, who has kept a terrible memory at bay only by shutting down part of her mind. Juxtaposed with searing descriptions of brutality, gradually revealed in flashbacks, are equally harrowing scenes in which fantasy takes flesh, a device Morrison handles with consummate skill. The narrative concerns Sethe's former life as a slave on Sweet Home Farm, her escape with her children to what seems a safe haven and the tragic events that ensue. The death of Sethe's infant daughter Beloved is the incident on which the plot hinges, and it is obvious to the reader that the sensuous young woman who mysteriously appears one day is Beloved's spirit, come back to claim Sethe's love. Sethe's surviving daughter, Denver, immediately grasps the significance of Beloved's return and so does Paul Dno period after D, another escapee from Sweet Home; but Sethe herself resists comprehension, and, as a result, a certain loss of tension affects the latter part of the narrative. But this is a small flaw in a novel full of insights, both piercing and tender, with distinctive, memorable characters, flowing prose that conveys speech patterns with musical intensity and a brilliantly conceived story. As a record of white brutality mitigated by rare acts of decency and compassion, and as a testament to the courageous lives of a tormented people, this novel is a milestone in the chronicling of the black experience in America. It is Morrison writing at the height of her considerable powers, and it should not be missed. BOMC main selection. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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