As her mother always said, nothing happens by coincidence . . . Meet Rainey Valentine: thirty-five, twice divorced, a woman with broken dreams but irrepressible hope. When her mother dies, she inherits a truck, an old barrel-racing mare named Lulu and a lifetime supply of Mary Kay...  more

As her mother always said, nothing happens by coincidence . . . Meet Rainey Valentine: thirty-five, twice divorced, a woman with broken dreams but irrepressible hope. When her mother dies, she inherits a truck, an old barrel-racing mare named Lulu and a lifetime supply of Mary Kay cosmetics. So taking a page from her mother's life, Rainey packs it all up and heads off, leaving Valentine, Oklahoma, in her rearview mirror. Then, somewhere outside Abilene, she finds him. Dazed and wandering after a car accident, Harry Furneaux is a man as lost as she is. With nowhere else to go, he joins Rainey on her travels. But when their journey leads them back to Valentine, Harry and Rainey find an unexpected new direction . . . Straight out of the heartland of the South, Lost Highways is a novel to gently rock the heart and soul . . . the story of a woman traveling too long on an endless stretch of lonesome road who finds her way home at last.

This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The...  more

This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the habit of running out on the people who needed him most. But at the center of this soaring memoir is Bragg's mother, who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes and picked other people's cotton so that her children wouldn't have to live on welfare alone. Evoking these lives--and the country that shaped and nourished them--with artistry, honesty, and compassion, Rick Bragg brings home the love and suffering that lie at the heart of every family. The result is unforgettable.

In an Alabama town in the early 1950s, during the last polio summer, 10-year-old Tabitha Rutland, a tomboy with a passion for Roy Rogers, seeks adventure with her best friend Maudie May. As they meddle with the local bootlegger, row out on the Tennessee River to land the biggest catfish ever,...  more

In an Alabama town in the early 1950s, during the last polio summer, 10-year-old Tabitha Rutland, a tomboy with a passion for Roy Rogers, seeks adventure with her best friend Maudie May. As they meddle with the local bootlegger, row out on the Tennessee River to land the biggest catfish ever, and snoop into the town's darkest secrets, Tab sets out to be a hero -- and comes of age in an unforgettable confrontation with human frailty, racial injustice, and the healing power of love.

Nothing ever happened in tiny Morning Shade, Arkansas. That is, until now. . . . The whole town is ablaze with the news of a break-in. But a burglar who just rearranges furniture and replaces old lamps with new ones? That's what town watchdog Hargus Conley and his feisty elderly sidekick, Stella...  more

Nothing ever happened in tiny Morning Shade, Arkansas. That is, until now. . . . The whole town is ablaze with the news of a break-in. But a burglar who just rearranges furniture and replaces old lamps with new ones? That's what town watchdog Hargus Conley and his feisty elderly sidekick, Stella Diamond, can't figure out. And for frustrated author Maude Diamond, it's better material than she could ever have come up with on her own.

Wally Lamb's two previous novels, She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, struck a chord with readers. They responded to the intensely introspective nature of the books, and to their lively narrative styles and biting humor. One critic called Wally Lamb a "modern-day Dostoyevsky," whose...  more

Wally Lamb's two previous novels, She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, struck a chord with readers. They responded to the intensely introspective nature of the books, and to their lively narrative styles and biting humor. One critic called Wally Lamb a "modern-day Dostoyevsky," whose characters struggle not only with their respective pasts, but with a "mocking, sadistic God" in whom they don't believe but to whom they turn, nevertheless, in times of trouble (New York Times). In The Hour I First Believed, Lamb travels well beyond his earlier work and embodies in his fiction myth, psychology, family history stretching back many generations, and the questions of faith that lie at the heart of everyday life. The result is an extraordinary tour de force, at once a meditation on the human condition and an unflinching yet compassionate evocation of character. When forty-seven-year-old high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife, Maureen, a school nurse, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, Caelum returns home to Three Rivers, Connecticut, to be with his aunt who has just had a stroke. But Maureen finds herself in the school library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed, as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated, murderous rampage. Miraculously she survives, but at a cost: she is unable to recover from the trauma. Caelum and Maureen flee Colorado and return to an illusion of safety at the Quirk family farm in Three Rivers. But the effects of chaos are not so easily put right, and further tragedy ensues. While Maureen fights to regain her sanity, Caelum discovers a cache of old diaries, letters, and newspaper clippings in an upstairs bedroom of his family's house. The colorful and intriguing story they recount spans five generations of Quirk family ancestors, from the Civil War era to Caelum's own troubled childhood. Piece by piece, Caelum reconstructs the lives of the women and men whose legacy he bears. Unimaginable secrets emerge; long-buried fear, anger, guilt, and grief rise to the surface. As Caelum grapples with unexpected and confounding revelations from the past, he also struggles to fashion a future out of the ashes of tragedy. His personal quest for meaning and faith becomes a mythic journey that is at the same time quintessentially contemporary -- and American. The Hour I First Believed is a profound and heart-rending work of fiction. Wally Lamb proves himself a virtuoso storyteller, assembling a variety of voices and an ensemble of characters rich enough to evoke all of humanity.

On the road to the Monster Mile at Dover International Speedway, NASCAR fan and ex-cop Glad Wycznewski is expecting nothing more than speed on the raceway, a cold beer in his hand, and love in the RV with his beautiful wife, Ruby. So when Glad finds a strange man in his bed wearing his...  more

On the road to the Monster Mile at Dover International Speedway, NASCAR fan and ex-cop Glad Wycznewski is expecting nothing more than speed on the raceway, a cold beer in his hand, and love in the RV with his beautiful wife, Ruby. So when Glad finds a strange man in his bed wearing his favorite PJs, he's ready to get pretty upset. But who can be angry with a wife like Ruby? Her sweet compassion and melt-your-heart blue eyes diffuse his anger when she tells him the sleeping man is just a weary hitchhiker with his bedraggled cat. But things only get stranger -- twins switching identities, brothers committing suicide, and rumors that 20 million in cash is missing. Glad rather enjoys the smell of gasoline over breakfast, but Ruby's strong will and big heart have her wrenching the French toast right out of his mouth so they can get to the bottom of things. She is seeking the truth and nothing is going to stop her.

Josie Prescott+s friends thought she was nuts when she left her high-paying New York auction house job to live on the beautiful New Hampshire coast. Truth is, Josie wondered herself-nevermind that her peripheral involvement in a high profile price-fixing scandal made the idea of a new start...  more

Josie Prescott+s friends thought she was nuts when she left her high-paying New York auction house job to live on the beautiful New Hampshire coast. Truth is, Josie wondered herself-nevermind that her peripheral involvement in a high profile price-fixing scandal made the idea of a new start enticing.And things are looking up-that is, until she gets mixed up in murder, and the eligible but emotionally distant local police chief pegs her as a suspect. Josie suddenly has a lot to lose, and no desire to leave her new life-and the possibility of a little romance-behind. So she sets out to find the killer. After all, Josie is grateful for her second chance...even with a killer on the loose.

Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships -- but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language. Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language...  more

Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships -- but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language. Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but animals she gets -- especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans... until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what’s really going on inside. When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and “liberating” the apes, John’s human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he’ll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest -- and unlikeliest -- phenomenon in the history of modern media. Millions of fans are glued to their screens watching the apes order greasy take-out, have generous amounts of sex, and sign for Isabel to come get them. Now, to save her family of apes from this parody of human life, Isabel must connect with her own kind, including John, a green-haired vegan, and a retired porn star with her own agenda.  

Now, from the award-winning author of Love Medicine,  comes a vibrant tale of abandonment and sexual obsession, jealousy and unstinting love. On a spring morning in 1932, young Karl and Mary Adare arrive by boxcar in Argus, North Dakota. Orphaned in a most peculiar way, Karl and Mary look...  more

Now, from the award-winning author of Love Medicine,  comes a vibrant tale of abandonment and sexual obsession, jealousy and unstinting love. On a spring morning in 1932, young Karl and Mary Adare arrive by boxcar in Argus, North Dakota. Orphaned in a most peculiar way, Karl and Mary look for refuge to their mother's sister Fritzie, who with her husband, Pete, runs a butcher shop. So begins an exhilerating 40-year saga brimming with unforgettable characters: Ordinary Mary, who causes a miracle ; seductive Karl, who lacks Mary's gift for survival; Sita, their lovely, disturbed, ambitious cousin; Wallace Pfef, a town leader bearing a lonely secret; Celestine James, a mixed-blood Chippewa; and her daughter, Dot. Theirs is a story grounded in the tenacity of relationships, the magic of natural events and the unending mystery of the human condition.

Two sisters who shared everything. One unforgivable moment. And a second chance…There’s something to talk about in every chapter of Elizabeth Joy Arnold’s poignant, insightful debut novel—the perfect summer read for all those who loved Elisabeth Robinson’s The True...  more

Two sisters who shared everything. One unforgivable moment. And a second chance…There’s something to talk about in every chapter of Elizabeth Joy Arnold’s poignant, insightful debut novel—the perfect summer read for all those who loved Elisabeth Robinson’s The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters, Judy Blume’s Summer Sisters, and Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper.Once, Kerry and Eve Barnard did everything together: sailing the Block Island harbor with their father, listening to their neighbor Justin’s magical fairy tales, and all the while longing for their absent mother. They were twin girls arm in arm, secrets entwined between two hearts. Until the summer of their seventeenth birthday, when their extraordinary bond was shattered. And thirteen years later, it will take all the courage they can summon to put the pieces back together—at a time when it matters most.…

  Two complete novels The Traveling Kind     Charley Collins could use a hired hand around her Idaho ranch -- but is six-foot-something, too-handsome-for-his-boots Shad Russell the right man for the job? Charley’s about to find out that when it comes to...  more

  Two complete novels The Traveling Kind     Charley Collins could use a hired hand around her Idaho ranch -- but is six-foot-something, too-handsome-for-his-boots Shad Russell the right man for the job? Charley’s about to find out that when it comes to women, the rangy cowboy has an ace up his blue denim sleeve: Shad’s kisses are hotter than wildfire...       Dakota Dreaming Edie Gibbs knew she was taking a big chance when she bought a South Dakota ranch... complete with tumbledown fences and a barn that looks like a meteor hit it. The pretty young widow and single mom is determined to make her own way in the world. And if sexy Will Maddock, the owner of the neighboring Diamond D ranch, intends to get in her way, he’d better step aside...  

Gwen (nee Katz) Silver heard the brisket at her uncle's Jewish deli, Murray the Pastrami Swami -- the only one of its kind in Nashville, Tennessee -- was -to die for.  But she didn't realize that meant literally. When Gwen learns she's inherited Murray's, the native New...  more

Gwen (nee Katz) Silver heard the brisket at her uncle's Jewish deli, Murray the Pastrami Swami -- the only one of its kind in Nashville, Tennessee -- was -to die for.  But she didn't realize that meant literally. When Gwen learns she's inherited Murray's, the native New Yorker leaves her chaotic career and messy divorce behind to start over in Nashville. But the venture seems doomed from the start. Murray's taken his recipes and secret list of food suppliers to the grave with him, and ruthless real estate developer Royce Sinclair will stop at nothing to try and sandwich Murray's into his already overstuffed portfolio. Then, on Kosher Karaoke Night, longtime customer Buster Sergeant bites into his brisket -- and bites the dust. The coroner says food poisoning, but Gwen's not convinced. Now, with the help of hunky police detective Beau McClintock,  -- Nashville Katz -- as Gwen is quickly nicknamed -- will find herself adding 'private investigator'  to her resume --  and a new love to her life.

From the bestselling author of Generation X and Microserfs, a smart, funny, fast-paced mystery with a heartfelt American romance at its core.Susan is a former child-beauty-pageant contender. John is a hard-living movie producer. She walks away from a plane crash without so much as a scratch. He...  more

From the bestselling author of Generation X and Microserfs, a smart, funny, fast-paced mystery with a heartfelt American romance at its core.Susan is a former child-beauty-pageant contender. John is a hard-living movie producer. She walks away from a plane crash without so much as a scratch. He comes away from a near-death experience with a unique, vivid plan.Susan refuses to spend one more day peddling herself for cheesy TV sitcom parts and takes advantage of a very weird situation to disappear. John turns his back on a hedonistic life making blockbuster action flicks. Shedding their self-made identities, each sets out on an uncharted course across the Gap-clogged, strip-mall landscape of California, searching for the thing--Love--that neither has ever really known, but that they now think they just might, actually, desperately want.Assisting Susan and John are a blackmailing pageant mom, a pair of suburban eggheads, a rust-belt refugee, and a salad bar of other twentieth-century Americans who all share the dream of one day taking center stage. In Miss Wyoming, Douglas Coupland has combined the literary and the popular in a sparkling and witty caper that quietly resonates into the eternal.

A beguiling departure for Kingsolver, who generally tackles social themes with trenchantly serious messages, this sentimental but honest novel exhibits a talent for fiction lighter in mood and tone than The Poisonwood Bible and her previous works. There is also a new emphasis on the natural...  more

A beguiling departure for Kingsolver, who generally tackles social themes with trenchantly serious messages, this sentimental but honest novel exhibits a talent for fiction lighter in mood and tone than The Poisonwood Bible and her previous works. There is also a new emphasis on the natural world, described in sensuous language and precise detail. But Kingsolver continues to take on timely issues, here focusing on the ecological damage caused by herbicides, ethical questions about raising tobacco, and the endangered condition of subsistence farming. A corner of southern Appalachia serves as the setting for the stories of three intertwined lives, and alternating chapters with recurring names signal which of the three protagonists is taking center stage. Each character suffers because his or her way of looking at the world seems incompatible with that of loved ones. In the chapters called "Predator," forest ranger Deanna Wolfe is a 40-plus wildlife biologist and staunch defender of coyotes, which have recently extended their range into Appalachia. Wyoming rancher Eddie Bondo also invades her territory, on a bounty hunt to kill the same nest of coyotes that Deanna is protecting. Their passionate but seemingly ill-fated affair takes place in summertime and mirrors "the eroticism of fecund woods" and "the season of extravagant procreation." Meanwhile, in the chapters called "Moth Love," newly married entomologist Lusa Maluf Landowski is left a widow on her husband's farm with five envious sisters-in-law, crushing debtsDand a desperate and brilliant idea. Crusty old farmer Garnett Walker ("Old Chestnuts") learns to respect his archenemy, who crusades for organic farming and opposes Garnett's use of pesticides. If Kingsolver is sometimes too blatant in creating diametrically opposed characters and paradoxical inconsistencies, readers will be seduced by her effortless prose, her subtle use of Appalachian patois. They'll also respond to the sympathy with which she reflects the difficult lives of people struggling on the hard edge of poverty while tied intimately to the natural world and engaged an elemental search for dignity and human connection. -- Publishers Weekly

In search of "the best America there ever was," bestselling author and syndicated columnist Bob Greene finds it in a small Nebraska town few people pass through today -- a town where Greene discovers the echoes of the most touching love story imaginable: a love story between a country...  more

In search of "the best America there ever was," bestselling author and syndicated columnist Bob Greene finds it in a small Nebraska town few people pass through today -- a town where Greene discovers the echoes of the most touching love story imaginable: a love story between a country and its sons. North Platte, Nebraska, is as isolated as a small town can be, a solitary outpost in the vast mid-Western plains, hours from the state's urban centers of Omaha and Lincoln. But from Christmas Day 1941 to the end of World War II, a miracle happened there. During the war, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte on troop trains, en route to their ultimate destinations in Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town, wanting to offer the servicemen warmth and support, transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen -- a place where soldiers could enjoy coffee, music, home-cooked food, magazines, and convivial, friendly conversation during a stopover that lasted only a few minutes. It was a haven for a never-ending stream of weary, homesick military personnel that provided them with the encouragement they needed to help them through the difficult times ahead. Every day of the year, every day of the war, the Canteen -- staffed and funded entirely by local volunteers -- was open from 5 A.M. until the last troop train of the day pulled away after midnight. Astonishingly, this remote plains community of only twelve thousand people provided welcoming words, friendship, and baskets of food and treats to more than six million GIs by the time the war ended. In this poignant and heartwarming eyewitness history, based on interviews with North Platte residents and the GIs who once passed through, Bob Greene unearths and reveals a classic, lost-in-the-mists-of-time American story of a grateful country honoring its brave and dedicated sons.

1929 in Elkins, West Virginia, when murder, mayhem, the KKK, castration, anti-semitism, and adultery all collided.

This is a story of the greatest love, ever.  An outlandish claim, outrageous perhaps, but trust me--And so begin the enchanting, unforgettable tale of J. J. Smith, Keeper of the Records for The Book of Records, an ordinary man searching for the extraordinary.  J.J. has...  more

This is a story of the greatest love, ever.  An outlandish claim, outrageous perhaps, but trust me--And so begin the enchanting, unforgettable tale of J. J. Smith, Keeper of the Records for The Book of Records, an ordinary man searching for the extraordinary.  J.J. has clocked the world's longest continuous kiss, 30 hours and 45 minutes.  He has verified the lengthiest single unbroken apple peel, 172 feet and 4 inches.  He has measured the farthest flight of a champagne cork from an untreated, unheated bottle 177 feet 9 inches.  He has tasted the world's largest menu item, whole-roasted Bedouin camel.But in all his adventure from Australia to Zanzibar, J.J. has never witnessed great love until he comes upon a tiny windswept town in the heartland of America, where folks still talk about family, faith, and crops.  Here, where he last expects it, J.J. discovers a world record attempt like no other: Piece by piece, a farmer is eating a Boeing 747 to prove his love for a woman.In this vast landscape of cornfields and lightning storms, J.J. is doubly astounded to be struck by love from the same woman, Willa Wyatt of the honey eyes and wild blond hair.  It is a feeling beyond measure, throwing J.J.'s carefully ordered world upside down, proving that hears, like world records, can be broken, and the greatest wonders in life can not be qualified.Richly romantic, whimsical, and uplifting, The Man Who Ate the 747 is a flight of fancy from start to finish.  It stretches imagination, bends physics and biology, but believe it just a little and you may find yourself reaching for your own records, the kind that really count.  Written with tenderness, originality, and insight, filled with old-fashioned warmth and newfangled humor, it is an extraordinary novel, a found treasure that marks the emergence of a major storytelling tale.From the Hardcover edition.