Book List - Best of My Reading-Hist Fiction and Beyond

1

Ahab's Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund

"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be... more

"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. Ahab's Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahab's Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship. Ahab's Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph. "Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. Ahab's Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahab's Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship. Ahab's Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph."Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last." This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature--along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab. Ahab's Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahab's Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory. After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship. Ahab's Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph.

2

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Ken Follett had long been a staple of the bestseller lists for his novels of intrigue and espionage. Then came The Pillars of the Earth, a grand novel of epic storytelling that readers and critics quickly hailed as his crowning achievement. Now, The Pillars of the Earth is available for the... more

3

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Voyager (Outlander, Bk 3) by Diana Gabaldon

No description available.

4

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

March by Geraldine Brooks

As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the war, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. Riveting and elegant as it is meticulously... more

5

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

World Without End (Pillars of the Earth, Bk 2) by Ken Follett

In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. Critics were overwhelmed and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel. World... more

In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. Critics were overwhelmed and readers everywhere hoped for a sequel. World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroad of new ideas -- about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race -- the Black Death. Three years in the writing, and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without End breathes new life into the epic historical novel and once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft. On the day after Halloween, in the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. They are a thief, a bully, a boy genius and a girl who wants to be a doctor. In the forest they see two men killed. As adults, their lives will be braided together by ambition, love, greed and revenge. They will see prosperity and famine, plague and war. One boy will travel the world but come home in the end; the other will be a powerful, corrupt nobleman. One girl will defy the might of the medieval church; the other will pursue an impossible love. And always they will live under the long shadow of the unexplained killing they witnessed on that fateful childhood day. Ken Follett's masterful epic "The Pillars of the Earth" enchanted millions of readers with its compelling drama of war, passion and family conflict set around the building of a cathedral. Now "World Without End" takes readers back to medieval Kingsbridge two centuries later, as the men, women and children of the city once again grapple with the devastating sweep of historical change.

6

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus

Allan Gurganus's Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and readers alike fell in love with the voice of ninety-nine-year-old Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heroines in American literature. Lucy married at... more

7

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Robinson Crusoe (Barnes Noble Classics Series) (BN Classics Mass Market) by Daniel D...

Widely regarded as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is one of the most popular and influential adventure stories of all time. This classic tale of shipwreck and survival on an uninhabited island was an instant success when first published in 1719 and has inspired... more

8

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Here Be Dragons (Welsh Princes, Bk 1) by Sharon Kay Penman

Thirteenth-century Wales is a divided country, ever at the mercy of England's ruthless, power-hungry King John. Then Llewelyn, Prince of North Wales, secures an uneasy truce with England by marrying the English king's beloved, illegitimate daughter, Joanna. Reluctant to wed her... more

9

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Eleni by Nicholas Gage

In 1948, as civil war ravaged Greece, children were abducted and sent to communist "camps" inside the Iron Curtain. Eleni Gatzoyiannis, forty-one, defied the traditions of her small village and the terror of the communist insurgents to arrange for the escape of her three daughters and... more

10

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Angle of Repose (Contemporary American Fiction) by Wallace Stegner

Wallace Stegner's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a story of discovery--personal, historical, and geographical. Confined to a wheelchair, retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to write his grandparents' remarkable story, chronicling their days spent carving civilization into the surface of... more

11

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Reckoning (Welsh Princes, Bk 3) by Sharon Kay Penman

A dazzling novel of two powerful monarchs in medieval England and Wales. "NEVER FORGET, LLEWELYN, THAT THE WORLD'S GREATEST FOOL IS A WELSHMAN WHO TRUSTS AN ENGLISH KING." His father's words haunted the Prince of Wales, five years after his ally Simon de Montfort had... more

12

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth.

13

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

A sweeping, emotionally riveting first novel - an enthralling family saga of Africa and America, doctors and patients, exile and home. Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis... more

14

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War by William Manchester

This emotional and honest novel recounts a young man's experiences during World War II and digs deep into what he and his fellow soldiers lived through during those dark times. The nightmares began for William Manchester 23 years after WW II. In his dreams he lived with the recurring... more

15

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

A new Outlander novel — the seventh — from #1 National Bestselling author Diana Gabaldon.Readers have been waiting with bated breath for the seventh volume in bestselling author Diana Gabaldon’s epic Outlander saga — a masterpiece of historical fiction featuring Jamie and Claire, from... more

16

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander, Bk 6) by Diana Gabaldon

The year is 1772, and on the eve of the American Revolution, the long fuse of rebellion has already been lit. Men lie dead in the streets of Boston, and in the backwoods of North Carolina, isolated cabins burn in the forest. With chaos brewing, the governor calls upon Jamie Fraser to unite... more

17

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

drums of autumn by diana gabaldon

No description available.

18

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

the fiery cross by diana gabaldon

part1 tapes 1 to 14

19

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it's Janine,... more

20

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

From the author of Outlander... a magnificent epic that once again sweeps us back in time to the drama and passion of 18th-century Scotland... For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland's majestic mist-shrouded... more

21

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Set in South Carolina in 1964, "The Secret Life of Bees" tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's... more

22

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins

This poetic novel, by the acclaimed author of John Dollar, describes America at the brink of the Atomic Age. In the years between the two world wars, the future held more promise than peril, but there was evidence of things unseen that would transfigure our unquestioned trust in a safe future.... more

23

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

This is a book that is spellbounding about the history of the prison, Andersonville. The author researched the information for this book for 25 years. "The future historian who shall undertake to write an unbiased story of the War between the States will be compelled to weigh in the scales of... more

24

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

City of Glory (Old New York, Bk 2) by Beverly Swerling

Set against the dramatic backdrop of America's second war for independence, Beverly Swerling's gripping and intricately plotted sequel to the much-loved City of Dreams plunges deep into the crowded streets of old New York. Poised between the Manhattan woods and the sea that is her... more

25

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo

Lucy is sixty years old and has spent his entire life in Thomaston, New York. Like his late, beloved father, Lucy is an optimist, though he’s had plenty of reasons not to be -- chief among them his mother, still indomitably alive. Yet it was her shrewdness, combined with that Lynch... more

26

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Redemption by Leon Uris

Master storyteller Leon Uris, internationally acclaimed author of such bestsellers as Exodus, Topaz, QBVII, Trinity, the Haj and Mitla Pass, continues the epic story of the Irish struggle for freedom in Redemption. A dramatic saga set against the backdrop of growing unrest in Ireland and a world... more

27

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Trinity by Leon Uris

The "terrible beauty" that is Ireland comes alive in this mighty epic that re-creates that Emerald's Isle's fierce struggle for independence. Trinity is a saga of glories and defeats, triumphs and tragedies, lived by a young Catholic rebel and the beautiful and valiant Protestant girl who defied... more

28

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy

In a stunning tour-de-force, Marge Piercy has woven a tapestry of World War II, of six women and four men, who fought and died, worked and worried, and moved through the dizzying days of the war. A compelling chronicle of humans in conflict with inhuman events, GONE TO SOLIDERS is an... more

29

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

HANTA YO by RUTH BEEBE HILL

FROM THE BACK COVER,"YOU BECOME A MEMBER OF THE MAHTO BAND IN THEIR SEASONAL MIGRATIONS AT THE TURN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. YOU GALLOP WITH THE WARRIORS TRIUMPHANTLY JOURNEYING HOME WITH SCALPS, HORSES AND CAPTIVE WOMEN. YOU JOIN IN CEREMONIES OF GRIEF AND JOY WHERE WOMEN TRILL, MEN DANCE,... more

30

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins

The Shadow Catcher dramatically inhabits the space where past and present intersect, seamlessly interweaving narratives from two different eras: the first fraught passion between turn-of-the-twentieth-century icon Edward Curtis (1868-1952) and his muse-wife, Clara; and a twenty-first-century... more

31

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Washington Goes to War by David Brinkley

Though it is today the hub of international affairs and government, Washington, D.C. was once little more than a small Southern town that happened to host our nationally elected officials. Award-winning journalist David Brinkley remembers what it was like--how Washington awoke from its slumber... more

32

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

Much of what we know and feel about the First World War we owe to Vera Brittain’s elegiac yet unsparing book, which set a standard for memoirists from Martha Gellhorn to Lillian Hellman. Abandoning her studies at Oxford in 1915 to enlist as a nurse in the armed services, Brittain served ... more

33

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Thomas Jefferson : An Intimate History by Fawn M. Brodie

An ambitious, perceptive portrayal of a complex man, this best-selling biography broke new ground in its exploration of Jefferson's inner life. Here for the first time we meet Jefferson as a man of feeling and passion. With a novelist's skill and meticulous scholarship, Fawn M. Brodie shows... more

34

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Anya by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer

Anya Karinsky's beautiful life seemed like one long and perfect dream that would spin on forever.But her wonderful world of dances, travel, medical school, and her beloved family ended one day late in the summer of 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland. The bombs that leveled her Warsaw home that day... more

35

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Chesapeake by James A. Michener

The central scene of Michener's historical novel is that section of Maryland's Eastern shore, hardly more than 10 miles square. To this point come the founders of families that will dominate the story.

36

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Breaking of Eggs by Jim Powell

A debut novel unwinds the tangle of twentieth-century history with wit, humor, and humanity 61-year-old Feliks is a naturalized Frenchman, a displaced Pole and former Communist-and a curmudgeon-who has made his living writing a yearly travel guide to the countries behind the Iron Curtain.... more

37

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Covenant by James A. Michener

Adventurers, scoundrels and missionaries. The best and worst of two continents carve an empire out of the vast wilderness that is to become South Africa. For hundreds of years, their rivalries and passions spill across the land. From the first Afrikaners to the powerful Zulu nation, and the... more

38

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Ava's Man (Large Print) by Rick Bragg

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of All Over But the Shoutin' continues his personal history of the Deep South with an evocation of his mother's childhood in the Appalachian foothills during the Great Depression, and the magnificent story of the man who raised... more

39

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg

A haunting memoir about growing up dirt-poor in the Alabama hills--and about moving on but never really being able to leave.The extraordinary gifts for evocation and insight and the stunning talent for story- telling that earned Rick Bragg a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1996 are here... more

40

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Poland by James Michener

photo of James Michener

41

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Texas (Volumes 1 & 2) by James Michener

Michener's combination of mammoth research, history and fiction exudes all the color, courage, villainy, violence and independent spirit expected from the Lone Star state. The book's organizing principle is a governor's task force created to study the state. It is composed of stereotypical... more

42

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Centennial by JAMES MICHENER

Centennial, by James Mitchner. Hardcover.

43

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Source by James Michener

No description available.

44

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Longings of Women by Marge Piercy

"Every new novel by Marge Piercy is cause for celebration. THE LONGINGS OF WOMEN is a rich tapestsry filled with passion and rage and real love, a book that gets under your skin and stays with you long after the last page has been turned."ALICE HOFFMANLeila Landsman, an academic, is married to a... more

45

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Sacajawea (Lewis & Clark Expedition) by Anna L. Waldo

Clad in a doeskin, alone and unafraid, she stood straight and proud before the onrushing forces of America's destiny: Sacajawea, child of a Shoshoni chief, lone woman on Lewis and Clark's historic trek -- beautiful spear of a dying nation. She knew many men, walked many miles. From... more

46

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Jack Absolute (Jack Absolute, Bk 1) by C. C. Humphreys

In 1777, Jack Absolute is famous ...as the dashing lover in Sheridan's famous comedy THE RIVALS. However, this notoriety comes as something of a shock to the REAL Jack Absolute when he disembarks at Portsmouth after four months at sea, and seven years in India...Thus we meet the dashing Mister... more

47

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Gates of Rome (Emperor, Book 1) by Conn Iggulden

Rarely, if ever, does a new writer dazzle us with such a vivid imagination and storytelling, flawlessly capturing the essence of a land, a people, a legend. Conn Iggulden is just such a writer, bringing to vivid life one of the most fascinating eras in human history. In a true masterpiece of... more

Rarely, if ever, does a new writer dazzle us with such a vivid imagination and storytelling, flawlessly capturing the essence of a land, a people, a legend. Conn Iggulden is just such a writer, bringing to vivid life one of the most fascinating eras in human history. In a true masterpiece of historical fiction, Iggulden takes us on a breathtaking journey through ancient Rome, sweeping us into a realm of tyrants and slaves, of dark intrigues and seething passions. What emerges is both a grand romantic tale of coming-of-age in the Roman Empire and a vibrant portrait of the early years of a man who would become the most powerful ruler on earth: Julius Caesar.On the lush Italian peninsula, a new empire is taking shape. At its heart is the city of Rome, a place of glory and decadence, beauty and bloodshed. Against this vivid backdrop, two boys are growing to manhood, dreaming of battles, fame, and glory in service of the mightiest empire the world has ever known. One is the son of a senator, a boy of privilege and ambition to whom much has been given and from whom much is expected. The other is a bastard child, a boy of strength and cunning, whose love for his adoptive family–and his adoptive brother–will be the most powerful force in his life.As young Gaius and Marcus are trained in the art of combat–under the tutelage of one of Rome’s most fearsome gladiators–Rome itself is being rocked by the art of treachery and ambition, caught in a tug-of-war as two rival generals, Marius and Sulla, push the empire toward civil war. For Marcus, a bloody campaign in Greece will become a young soldier’s proving ground. For Gaius, the equally deadly infighting of the Roman Senate will be the battlefield where he hones his courage and skill. And for both, the love of an extraordinary slave girl will be an honor each will covet but only one will win.The two friends are forced to walk different paths, and by the time they meet again everything will have changed. Both will have known love, loss, and violence. And the land where they were once innocent will be thrust into the grip of bitter conflict–a conflict that will set Roman against Roman...and put their friendship to the ultimate test. Brilliantly interweaving history and adventure, Conn Iggulden conjures a stunning array of contrasts–from the bloody stench of a battlefield to the opulence of the greatest city in history, from the tenderness of a lover to the treachery of an assassin. Superbly rendered, grippingly told, Emperor, The Gates of Rome is a work of vaulting imagination from a powerful new voice in historical fiction.From the Hardcover edition.

48

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Peace Like A River by Leif Enger

When Israel Finch and Tommy Basca, the town bullies, break into the home of school caretaker Jeremiah Land, wielding a baseball bat and looking for trouble, they find more of it than even they expected. For seventeen-year-old Davey is sitting up in bed waiting for them with a Winchester rifle.... more

When Israel Finch and Tommy Basca, the town bullies, break into the home of school caretaker Jeremiah Land, wielding a baseball bat and looking for trouble, they find more of it than even they expected. For seventeen-year-old Davey is sitting up in bed waiting for them with a Winchester rifle. His younger brother Reuben has seen their father perform miracles, but Jeremiah now seems as powerless to prevent Davey from being arrested for manslaughter, as he has always been to ease Reuben's daily spungy struggle to breathe. Nor does brave and brilliant nine-year-old Swede, obsessed as she is with the legends of the wild west, have the strength to spring Davey from jail. Yet Davey does manage to break out. He steals a horse, and disappears. His family feels his absence so sorely, the three of them just pile into their old Plymouth, towing a brand new 1963 Airstream trailer, and set out on a quest to find him. And they follow the outlaw west, right into the cold, wild and empty Dakota Badlands. Set in the 1960s on the edge of the Great Plains, PEACE LIKE A RIVER is that rare thing, a contemporary novel with an epic dimension. Told in the touching voice of an asthmatic eleven-year-old boy, it revels in the legends of the West, resonates with a soul-expanding sense of place, and vibrates with the possibility of magic in the everyday world. Above all, it shows how family, love, and faith can stand up to the most terrifying of enemies, the most tragic of fates. -------------------------------------- Dead for 10 minutes before his father orders him to breathe in the name of the living God, Reuben Land is living proof that the world is full of miracles. But it's the impassioned honesty of his quiet, measured narrative voice that gives weight and truth to the fantastic elements of this engrossing tale. From the vantage point of adulthood, Reuben tells how his father rescued his brother Davy's girlfriend from two attackers, how that led to Davy being jailed for murder and how, once Davy escapes and heads south for the Badlands of North Dakota, 12-year-old Reuben, his younger sister Swede and their janitor father light out after him. But the FBI is following Davy as well, and Reuben has a part to play in the finale of that chase, just as he had a part to play in his brother's trial. It's the kind of story that used to be material for ballads, and Enger twines in numerous references to the Old West, chiefly through the rhymed poetry Swede writes about a hero called Sunny Sundown. That the story is set in the early '60s in Minnesota gives it an archetypal feel, evoking a time when the possibility of getting lost in the country still existed. Enger has created a world of signs, where dead crows fall in a snowstorm and vagrants lie curled up in fields, in which everything is significant, everything has weight and comprehension is always fleeting. This is a stunning debut novel, one that sneaks up on you like a whisper and warms you like a quilt in a North Dakota winter, a novel about faith, miracles and family that is, ultimately, miraculous.

49

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

1776 by David McCullough

In this stirring book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence--when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed... more

In this stirring book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence--when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper. Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known. Here also is the Revolution as experienced by American Loyalists, Hessian mercenaries, politicians, preachers, traitors, spies, men and women of all kinds caught in the paths of war. At the center of the drama, with Washington, are two young American patriots, who, at first, knew no more of war than what they had read in books--Nathanael Greene, a Quaker who was made a general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five year old bookseller who had the preposterous idea of hauling the guns of Fort Ticonderoga overland to Boston in the dead of winter. But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost--Washington, who had never before led an army in battle. The book begins in London on October 26, 1775, when His Majesty King George III went before Parliament to declare America in rebellion and to affirm his resolve to crush it. From there the story moves to the Siege of Boston and its astonishing outcome, then to New York, where British ships and British troops appear in numbers never imagined and the newly proclaimed Continental Army confronts the enemy for the first time. David McCullough's vivid rendering of the Battle of Brooklyn and the daring American escape that followed is a part of the book few readers will ever forget. As the crucial weeks pass, defeat follows defeat, and in the long retreat across New Jersey, all hope seems gone, until Washington launches the "brilliant stroke" that will change history. The darkest hours of that tumultuous year were as dark as any Americans have known. Especially in our own tumultuous time, 1776 is powerful testimony to how much is owed to a rare few in that brave founding epoch, and what a miracle it was that things turned out as they did. Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough's 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.

50

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

John Adams by David McCullough

In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second president of the... more

51

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Ordeal by Hunger: The Story of the Donner Party by George R. Stewart

The tragedy of the Donner party constitutes one of the most amazing stories of the American West. In 1846 eighty-seven people -- men, women, and children -- set out for California, persuaded to attempt a new overland route. After struggling across the desert, losing many oxen, and nearly dying... more

52

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60 by ...

Well researched non-fiction book (hard to find) about the westward migration. I learned SO MUCH they never taught in school--very different than the tv versions of the migration. Very very interesting

53

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Borderland : A Novel of Texas by Edwin Shrake

In the bestselling tradition of Larry McMurtry, a sweeping novel that tells the tale of how mighty Texas was born -- now available in paperback. In this epic novel set in 1839, author Edwin Shrake, himself a Texan, presents a portrait of Texas as it was, a borderland between civilization and... more

54

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng

In August 1966 a group of Red Guards ransacked the home of Nien Cheng. Her background made her an obvious target for the fanatics of the Cultural Revolution: educated in London, the widow of an official of Chiang Kai-shek's regime, and an employee of Shell Oil, Nien Cheng enjoyed comforts... more

55

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

In 1886, a shy, middle-aged piano tuner named Edgar Drake receives an unusual commission from the British War Office: to travel to the remote jungles of northeast Burma and there repair a rare piano belonging to an eccentric army surgeon who has proven mysteriously indispensable to the imperial... more

56

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War by T. J. Stiles

In this brilliant biography T. J. Stiles offers a new understanding of the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Although he has often been portrayed as a Robin Hood of the old west, in this ground-breaking work Stiles places James within the context of the bloody conflicts of the Civil War to reveal a... more

57

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust B...

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan's critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a... more

58

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Cruel World: The Children of Europe in the Nazi Web by Lynn H. Nicholas

In this riveting, powerful narrative, Lynn Nicholas shows how children under the Nazis became mere objects available for use in the service of the totalitarian state. Nicholas recounts the euthanasia and eugenic selection, racist indoctrination, kidnapping and “Germanization,” mass... more

59

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness. Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life... more

60

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher's precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America. In Argus, North Dakota, he... more

61

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

These is My Words by Nancy Turner

In a compelling fiction debut, Nancy E. Turner's unforgettable These Is My Words melds the sweeping adventures and dramatic landscapes of Lonesome Dove with the heartfelt emotional saga of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. Inspired by the author's original family memoirs, this... more

In a compelling fiction debut, Nancy E. Turner's unforgettable These Is My Words melds the sweeping adventures and dramatic landscapes of Lonesome Dove with the heartfelt emotional saga of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. Inspired by the author's original family memoirs, this absorbing story introduces us to the questing, indomitable Sarah Prine, one of the most memorable women ever to survive and prevail in the Arizona Territory of the late 1800s. As a child, a fiery young woman, and finally a caring mother, Sarah forges a life as full and as fascinating as our deepest needs, our most secret hopes and our grandest dreams. She rides Indian-style and shoots with deadly aim, greedily devours a treasure trove of leatherbound books, downs fire, flood, Comanche raids and other mortal perils with the unique courage that forged the character of the American West. Rich in authentic details of daily life and etched with striking character portraits of very different pioneer families, this action-packed novel is also the story of a powerful, enduring love between Sarah and the dashing cavalry officer Captain Jack Elliot. Neither the vast distances traveled nor the harsh and killing terrains could quench the passion between them, and the loss and loneliness both suffer only strengthen their need for each other. While their love grows, the heartbreak and wonder of the frontier experience unfold in scene after scene: a wagon-train Sunday spent roasting quail on spits as Indians close in to attack; Sarah's silent encounter with an Indian brave, in which he shows her his way of respect; a dreadful discovery by a stream that changes Sarah forever; the hazards of a visit to Phoenix, a town as hot as the devil's frying pan; Sarah's joy in building a real home, sketching out rooms and wraparound porches. Sarah's incredible story leads us into a vanished world that comes vividly to life again, while her struggles with work and home, love and responsibility resonate with those every woman faces today. These Is My Words is a passionate celebration of a remarkable life, exhilarating and gripping from the first page to the last.

62

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Sarah's Quilt (Sarah Agnes Prine, Bk 2) by Nancy E. Turner

In These Is My Words, Sarah Agnes Prine told the spellbinding story of an extraordinary pioneer woman and her struggle to make a home in the Arizona Territories. Now, in this mesmerizing sequel, a three-year drought has made Sarah desperate for water. And just when it seems that life... more

63

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg

Here is Fannie Flagg's high-spirited and unabashedly sentimental first novel, the precursor to the bestselling Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.Taken from the pages of Daisy Fay Harper's journal, this is a coming of age story set in rural Mississippi that is by turns hilarious and... more

64

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, Bk 15) by Elizabeth George

In her most eagerly anticipated novel yet, Elizabeth George brings back Scotland Yard's Thomas Lynley to investigate a ruthless crime. After the senseless murder of his wife, Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley retreated to Cornwall, where he has spent six solitary weeks hiking the... more

65

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, Bk 12) by Elizabeth George

A shocking murder calls forensic scientist Simon St. James and his wife, Deborah, to an isolated island in the English Channel. An old friend of Deborah’s, China River, stands accused of killing the island’s wealthiest benefactor, Guy Brouard. Forced as a child to flee the Nazis in... more

66

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Playing for the Ashes (Inspector Lynley, Bk 7) by Elizabeth George

"The story begins with my father, actually, and the fact that I'm the one who's answerable for his death. It was not my first crime, as you will see, but it is the one my mother couldn't forgive." In her astonishing New York Times bestseller, acclaimed... more

67

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Great Deliverance (Inspector Lynley, Bk 1) by Elizabeth George

To this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders. Now... more

68

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Missing Joseph (Inspector Lynley, Bk 6) by Elizabeth George

Deborah and Simon St. James have taken a holiday in the winter landscape of Lancastershire, hoping to heal the growing rift in their marriage. But in the barren countryside awaits bleak news: The vicar of Wimslough, the man they had come to see, is dead -- a victim of accidental poisoning.... more

69

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Into the Wilderness (Wilderness, Bk 1) by Sara Donati

The story of a forbidden affair between an unconventional Englishwoman and an American frontiersman. It is December of 1792. Elizabeth Middleton leaves her comfortable English estate to join her family in a remote New York mountain village. It is a place unlike any she has ever... more

70

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Fire Along the Sky (Wilderness, Bk 4) by Sara Donati

Donati continues the saga of the valiant Bonner family, last seen in 2002's Lake in the Clouds, in this sprawling, slow-to-start epic starring four formidable women. It's 1812, and Elizabeth Bonner--teacher, crusader and second wife of hunter/trapper/farmer Nathaniel--is still living... more

71

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Lake in the Clouds (Wilderness, Bk 3) by Sara Donati

In her extraordinary novels Into the Wilderness and Dawn on a Distant Shore, award-winning writer Sara Donati deftly captured the vast, untamed wilderness of late-eighteenth-century New York and the trials and triumphs of the Bonner family. Now Donati takes on a new and often overlooked chapter... more

In her extraordinary novels Into the Wilderness and Dawn on a Distant Shore, award-winning writer Sara Donati deftly captured the vast, untamed wilderness of late-eighteenth-century New York and the trials and triumphs of the Bonner family. Now Donati takes on a new and often overlooked chapter in our nation’s past -- and in the life of the spirited Bonners -- as their oldest daughter, the brave and beautiful Hannah, comes of age with a challenge that will change her forever. Masterfully told, this passionate story is a moving tribute to a resilient, adventurous family and a people poised at the brink of a new century. It is the spring of 1802, and the village of Paradise is still reeling from the typhoid epidemic of the previous summer. Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner have lost their two-year-old son, Hannah’s half brother Robbie, but they struggle on as always: the men in the forests, the twins Lily and Daniel in Elizabeth’s school, and Hannah as a doctor in training, apprenticed to Richard Todd. Hannah is descended from healers on both sides--one Scots grandmother and one Mohawk--and her reputation as a skilled healer in her own right is growing. After a long night spent attending to a birth, Elizabeth and Hannah encounter an escaped slave hiding on the mountain. She calls herself Selah Voyager, and she is looking for Curiosity Freeman -- a former slave herself, one of the village’s wisest women and Elizabeth’s closest friend. The Bonners take Selah, desperately ill, to Lake in the Clouds to care for her, and with that simple act they are drawn into the secret life that Curiosity and Galileo Freeman and their grown children have been leading for almost ten years. The Bonners will do what they must to protect the Freemans, just as Hannah will protect her patient, who presents more than one kind of challenge. For a bounty hunter is afoot -- Hannah’s childhood friend and first love, Liam Kirby. While Elizabeth and Nathaniel undertake a treacherous journey through the endless forests to bring Selah to safety in the north, Hannah embarks on a very different journey to New-York City, with two goals: to learn the secrets of vaccination against smallpox, a disease that threatens Paradise, and to find out what she can about Liam’s immediate past and what caused him to change so drastically from the boy she once loved. The obstacles she faces as a woman and a Mohawk make her confront questions long avoided about her place in the world. Those questions follow her back to Paradise, where she finds that the medical miracle she brings with her will not cure prejudice or superstition, nor can it solve the problem of slavery. No sooner have the Bonners begun to rebound from their losses -- old and new -- than they find themselves confronted by more than one old enemy in a battle that will test the strength of their love for one another. Hannah faces the decision she has always dreaded: will she make a life for herself in a white world, or among her mother’s people?

72

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Endless Forest by Sara Donati

No description available.

73

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Into the Wilderness (Wilderness Saga 1) by Sara Donati

This beautifully wrought, passionate novel of early America is a masterpiece of romantic fiction - and the debut of a remarkable new author. Not since Diana Gabaldon has an author captured a time and a place and a love affair with so much mastery. From the opening page, the reader is transported... more

74

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, Bk 1) by Tana French

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing... more

75

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Boy's Life by Robert McCammon

Zephyr, Alabama, is an idyllic hometown for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson -- a place where monsters swim the river deep and friends are forever. Then, one cold spring morning, Cory and his father witness a car plunge into a lake -- and a desperate rescue attempt brings his father face-to-face... more

76

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Where Rivers Change Direction by Mark Spragg

"I knew the horses as I knew my family...When I was separated from them I felt wrong in the world. When I was separated from them I took no comfort in the sound of the creek. I felt chilled without the heat of them. In the short lulls between rides I leaned against the corrals, watching them... more

77

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan by Beverly Swerling

In 1661, Lucas Turner, a barber surgeon, and his sister, Sally, an apothecary, stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven weeks at sea. Bound to each other by blood and necessity, they aim to make a fresh start in the rough and rowdy Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam; soon lust, betrayal,... more

78

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

City of Thieves by David Benioff

Author and screenwriter Benioff follows up The 25th Hour with this hard-to-put-down novel based on his grandfather's stories about surviving WWII in Russia. Having elected to stay in Leningrad during the siege, 17-year-old Lev Beniov is caught looting a German paratrooper's corpse.... more

79

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

1939, Nazi Germany - The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of... more

80

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald

The Piper family is steeped in secrets, lies, and unspoken truths... At the eye of the storm is one secret that threatens to shake their lives and maybe even destroy them. Set on the stormy Cape Breton Island off Nova Scotia, this multigenerational saga chronicles the lives of four sisters.... more

81

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd

A bestseller in England, this bittersweet story of love and betrayal in the Far East is the source of the Masterpiece Theatre miniseries. In 1903, a young Scotswoman named Mary Mackenzie sets sail for China to marry her betrothed, a military attach? in Peking. But soon after her arrival, Mary... more

82

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

With heart-wrenching power and suspense, the bestselling author of "The Kite Runner" shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival.

83

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Likeness by Tana French

Six months after the events of In the Woods, Detective Cassie Maddox is still trying to recover. She's transferred out of the murder squad and started a relationship with Detective Sam O'Neill, but she's too badly shaken to make a commitment to him or to her career. Then Sam calls her to the... more

84

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Leeway Cottage by Beth Gutcheon

Gutcheon revisits Dundee, Maine, to create a Cinderella story with a different ending. Sydney Brant grows up in wealth and privilege, the apple of her father's eye. When he dies, she is left with her overbearing mother, who is impossible to please. Sydney escapes to Manhattan to be a singer,... more

85

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Niccolo Rising : The House of Niccolo by Dorothy Dunnett

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents The House of Niccol� series. The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe.... more

86

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

To Lie with Lions (House of Niccolo, Bk 6) by Dorothy Dunnett

The sixth volume in the popular The House of Niccolo series, this vivid novel of the 15th century centers on Nicholas vander Poele who, in 1471, is acclaimed by all the great courts of Europe, but whose personal life is tumultuous. He and his passionate rival--his wife--embark on a deadly... more

87

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Caprice and Rondo (The House of Niccolo, 7) by Dorothy Dunnett

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents The House of Niccolò series. The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of... more

88

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Unicorn Hunt (The House of Niccolo, Bk 5) by Dorothy Dunnett

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents The House of Niccolo series. The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of... more

89

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Field of Swords (Emperor, Bk 3) by Conn Iggulden

With his acclaimed Emperor novels, author Conn Iggulden brings a dazzling world to life–the rich, complex world of ancient Rome as seen through the eyes of one extraordinary man: Julius Caesar. Now Iggulden returns to the story of Julius Caesar and a realm that stretches from the sands of... more

With his acclaimed Emperor novels, author Conn Iggulden brings a dazzling world to life–the rich, complex world of ancient Rome as seen through the eyes of one extraordinary man: Julius Caesar. Now Iggulden returns to the story of Julius Caesar and a realm that stretches from the sands of North Africa to the coast of Britain. Against this magnificent backdrop, Caesar, his first victories under his belt and a series of key alliances in place, makes his move toward power and glory–and commands his famous legions on one of history’s bloodiest and most daring military campaigns. It is the heart of the first century B.C. For Julius Caesar, the time has come to enter the treacherous political battleground that has become Rome. Having proved his valor in the slaves’ revolt, Caesar is strengthened by the love and vision of a beautiful older woman, and by the sword of his loyal friend, Marcus Brutus. And when he is appointed to a new position of power, Caesar manages to do what none of the other great figures of his time could: capture the hearts of the Roman people themselves. Crushing a rebellion, bringing order to the teeming city, Caesar then makes the move that will change history. He leaves Rome for the foothills of the Alps. And with an army made in his own image, he begins a daring charge through Gaul, across the English Channel, and to the wilds of tribal Britain. Here, in a series of cataclysmic clashes, the legend of Julius Caesar will be forged. And while Caesar and Brutus pit their lives–and those of their men–against the armies of the wilderness, their political adversaries in Rome grow at once more fearful and more formidable. So when the fighting at the dominion’s edge is over, the greatest danger to Julius Caesar will await him on the Tiber–with a man who wants Rome himself. From the clash of armies to the heat of a woman’s seduction, from the thunder of battle to the orgies of pleasure and plunder that follow in a warrior’s wake, Emperor: The Field of Swords captures in riveting detail a world being shaped by a brilliant civilization. And in this extraordinary novel, the fate of Rome is being driven by the ambitions of a single man. A man with an unmatched genius for power.

90

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Gods of War (Emperor, Bk 4) by Conn Iggulden

The year is 53 B.C. Fresh from victory in Gaul, Julius Caesar leads battle-hardened legions across the Rubicon river–threatening Rome herself. Even the master strategist Pompey is caught unprepared by the strike, and forced to abandon his city. The armies of Rome will face each other at... more

91

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Death of Kings (Emperor, Book 2) by Conn Iggulden

The acclaimed author of Emperor: The Gates of Rome returns to the extraordinary life of Julius Caesar in a new novel that takes us further down the path to glory . . . as Caesar comes into his own as a man, warrior, senator, husband, and leader.In a sparsely settles region of North Africa, a... more

92

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Gates of Rome (Emperor) by Conn Iggulden

Rarely, if ever, does a new writer dazzle us with such a vivid imagination and storytelling, flawlessly capturing the essence of a land, a people, a legend. Conn Iggulden is just such a writer, bringing to vivid life one of the most fascinating eras in human history. In a true masterpiece of... more

Rarely, if ever, does a new writer dazzle us with such a vivid imagination and storytelling, flawlessly capturing the essence of a land, a people, a legend. Conn Iggulden is just such a writer, bringing to vivid life one of the most fascinating eras in human history. In a true masterpiece of historical fiction, Iggulden takes us on a breathtaking journey through ancient Rome, sweeping us into a realm of tyrants and slaves, of dark intrigues and seething passions. What emerges is both a grand romantic tale of coming-of-age in the Roman Empire and a vibrant portrait of the early years of a man who would become the most powerful ruler on earth: Julius Caesar.On the lush Italian peninsula, a new empire is taking shape. At its heart is the city of Rome, a place of glory and decadence, beauty and bloodshed. Against this vivid backdrop, two boys are growing to manhood, dreaming of battles, fame, and glory in service of the mightiest empire the world has ever known. One is the son of a senator, a boy of privilege and ambition to whom much has been given and from whom much is expected. The other is a bastard child, a boy of strength and cunning, whose love for his adoptive family–and his adoptive brother–will be the most powerful force in his life.As young Gaius and Marcus are trained in the art of combat–under the tutelage of one of Rome’s most fearsome gladiators–Rome itself is being rocked by the art of treachery and ambition, caught in a tug-of-war as two rival generals, Marius and Sulla, push the empire toward civil war. For Marcus, a bloody campaign in Greece will become a young soldier’s proving ground. For Gaius, the equally deadly infighting of the Roman Senate will be the battlefield where he hones his courage and skill. And for both, the love of an extraordinary slave girl will be an honor each will covet but only one will win.The two friends are forced to walk different paths, and by the time they meet again everything will have changed. Both will have known love, loss, and violence. And the land where they were once innocent will be thrust into the grip of bitter conflict–a conflict that will set Roman against Roman...and put their friendship to the ultimate test. Brilliantly interweaving history and adventure, Conn Iggulden conjures a stunning array of contrasts–from the bloody stench of a battlefield to the opulence of the greatest city in history, from the tenderness of a lover to the treachery of an assassin. Superbly rendered, grippingly told, Emperor, The Gates of Rome is a work of vaulting imagination from a powerful new voice in historical fiction.From the Hardcover edition.

93

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Death of Kings: A Novel of Julius Caesar (Emperor, Bk 2) by Conn Iggulden

The acclaimed author of Emperor: The Gates of Rome returns to the extraordinary life of Julius Caesar in a new novel that takes us further down the path to glory... as Caesar comes into his own as a man, warrior, senator, husband, leader. In a sparsely settled region of North Africa, a band... more

94

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Losing Julia by Jonathan Hull

In a world torn apart by war, one man would search a lifetime to find what he once lost: a woman named Julia....Patrick Delaney was just a boy when he marched off to war in 1918. But on the stark battlefields of France, amid the horror and the chaos, Patrick forged a bond that would shape the... more

95

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

My Dream of You by Nuala O'Faolain

What gives a life meaning? How is love found? Nuala O’Faolain, noted Irish Times columnist, took on these questions with striking intimacy and candor in her bestselling and acclaimed memoir, Are You Somebody? Hailed as "a beautiful exploration of human loneliness and happiness, of... more

What gives a life meaning? How is love found? Nuala O’Faolain, noted Irish Times columnist, took on these questions with striking intimacy and candor in her bestselling and acclaimed memoir, Are You Somebody? Hailed as "a beautiful exploration of human loneliness and happiness, of contentment and longing" (Alice McDermott, The Washington Post), the book struck a chord with legions of readers on both sides of the Atlantic and became a #1 New York Times bestseller. My Dream of You followed her memoir’s path, hitting bestseller lists around the world and confirming O’Faolain’s remarkable gifts as a writer. Set in Ireland and spanning a century and a half, My Dream of You unfolds the compelling stories of two women and their quests for passion, connection, and fulfillment. On the brink of fifty, Kathleen de Burca is looking back at her life and asking questions about her choices. A globetrotting staff writer for the London-based TravelWrite syndicate for more than twenty years, she is used to living and loving on the run. Since the age of twenty-three, when she betrayed her first meaningful intimate relationship, she has had a steady succession of brief encounters, which have become less satisfying and more humiliating with each passing year. After a quick round of blows culminating with the sudden death of her cherished colleague and closest friend, Kathleen decides to leave her job and rethink her life. Intrigued by a divorce case dating back to the days of the Potato Famine, she decides to try her hand at writing about it. The case, called "The Talbot Affair," detailed the clandestine liaison lasting three years between the wife of a British landlord and an Irish servant in Ireland in the 1850s. After a bitter thirty-year absence, Kathleen returns to Ireland, the land of her troubled childhood and turbulent heritage, in search of answers to her questions about desire and lasting love. A contemporary story wrapped around an actual event, both equally gripping, My Dream of You is rich in timeless and relevant truths about adversity and human nature, passion and true love. Having created two complex, deeply feeling women at the mercy of their times and circumstances, and forced to make difficult choices, Nuala O’Faolain proves she is as gifted and powerful a weaver of fiction as she is an observer and chronicler of real life

96

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the... more

97

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier

This magnificent novel by one of America's finest writers is the epic of one man's remarkable journey, set in nineteenth-century America against the background of a vanishing people and a rich way of life. At the age of twelve, under the Wind moon, Will is given a horse, a key, and a... more

98

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Three Junes by Julia Glass

In this captivating debut novel, Julia Glass depicts the life and loves of the McLeod family during three crucial summers spanning a decade. Paul McLeod, patriarch of a Scottish family and a retired newspaper editor and proprietor, is on a package tour of Greece after the death of his wife. The... more

99

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Turning Angel (Penn Cage, Bk 2) by Greg Iles

After winning the most dangerous case of his career, prosecutor Penn Cage decides to remain in his Southern hometown to raise his young daughter in a safe haven. But nowhere is truly safe--not from long-buried secrets, or murder..When the nude body of prep school student Kate Townsend is found... more

100

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Ursula, Under by Ingrid Hill

Once in a while, a first-time novelist dares to write bravely and big. Ingrid Hill has done just that with her breathtaking first novel. In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a dangerous rescue effort draws the ears and eyes of the entire country. When a two-year-old girl falls down a mine shaft... more

101

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Water and the Blood by Nancy E. Turner

I turned and faced the road we'd come down, my face hard and set. The kids moved on without me. I could still see a slight glow and the murky, gray smoke reaching above the trees, where it spread to the south....When I thought they were out of earshot, I took a deep breath. "You lied to me," I... more

102

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Folly (Folly Island, Bk 1) by Laurie R. King

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR WORST FEARS AREN’T ALL IN YOUR MIND? Rae Newborn is a woman on the edge: on the edge of sanity, on the edge of tragedy, and now on the edge of the world. She has moved to an island at the far reaches of the continent to restore the house of an equally haunted... more

103

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

Mesmerizing from the beginning to the final, breathtaking end, The Bronze Horseman brings alive the story of two indomitable, heroic spirits and their great love that triumphs over the devastation of a country at war. Leningrad, 1941: the European war seems far away in this city of fallen... more

104

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

"Memorable...A book profound in its vision of humanity, of religion, and of art."THE WALL STREET JOURNALHere is the original, deeply moving story of Asher Lev, the religious boy with an overwhelming need to draw, to paint, to render the world he knows and the pain he feels, on canvas for... more

105

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Vanishing Point by Mary Sharratt

In the tradition of Philippa Gregory's smart, transporting fiction comes this tale of two independent, spirited sisters. Bright and inquisitive, Hannah Powers was raised by a father who treated her as if she were his son. While her beautiful and reckless sister, May, pushes the limits of... more

106

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Tender Bar: A Memoir by J. R. Moehringer

A moving, vividly-told memoir, full of heart, drama, and exquisite comic timing, about a boy striving to become a man and his romance with a bar. J.R. Moehringer grew up listening for a voice: It was the sound of his missing father, a disc jockey who disappeared before J.R. spoke his first... more

107

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

When we first meet Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. As she looks down from this strange new place, she tells us, in the fresh and spirited voice of a fourteen-year-old girl, a tale that is both haunting and full of hope. In the weeks following her death, Susie watches life on Earth... more

108

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

City of Dreams: A Novel of Early Manhattan by Beverly Swerling

Rich with unforgettable characters and history, intricately plotted and utterly absorbing, City of Dreams is a stirring saga of early Manhattan and the beginnings of medical science told by a master storyteller. In 1661, Lucas Turner and his sister, Sally, stagger off a small wooden ship after... more

109

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks

In 1894 Carrie McGavock is an old woman, an old woman who has only her former slave to keep her company...along with the almost 1,500 soldiers buried in her backyard. Years ago, rather than let someone plow over the field where these young men had been buried, Carrie dug them up and buried them... more

110

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed Amer...

The 1893 Chicago World's Fair is the setting for this true account of two very different men: the celebrated architect Daniel H. Burnham who designed and supervised the construction of the "White City" around which the fair was built, and H.H. Holmes (born Herman Webster Mudgett),... more

111

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Katherine by Anya Seton

This classic romance novel tells the true story of the love affair that changed history—that of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the ancestors of most of the British royal family. Set in the vibrant 14th century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features... more

112

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig

"Can’t cook but doesn’t bite." So begins the ad offering the services of an "A-1 housekeeper" that draws the attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. And so also begins the unforgettable season that deposits the noncooking, nonbiting, ever-whistling Rose Llewellyn... more

113

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time. The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving... more

114

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Voyage : A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) by Philip Caputo

In the tradition of great seafaring adventures, The Voyage is an intricately plotted, superbly detailed, and gripping story of adventure and courage. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Caputo has written a timeless novel about the dangerous reverberating effects of long held family secrets.On... more

115

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

During the last days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, three young women, members of a conservative, pious Catholic family, who had become committed to the revolutionary overthrow of the regime, were ambushed and assassinated as they drove back from visiting their jailed... more

116

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

An irrepressibly funny new novel set in early nineteenth-century America. Olivier—an improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocqueville—is an aristocrat born just after the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English engraver. Their lives are joined when... more

117

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Coral Thief: A Novel by Rebecca Stott

Paris, 1815. Napoleon has just surrendered at Waterloo and is on his way to the island of St. Helena to begin his exile. Meanwhile, Daniel Connor, a young medical student from Edinburgh, has just arrived in Paris to study anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes–only to realize that his letters... more

118

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

In 1874 the great Cheyenne chief, Little Wolf, had an idea to help his people assimilate into the new white culture. He asked President Ulysses S. Grant for "the gift of 1000 white women as wives." Since all children born in the Cheyenne culture become members of their mother's... more

119

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Wolf Hall (Wolf Hall, Bk 1) by Hilary Mantel

In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII?s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king's favor and ascend to the heights of political power England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil... more

120

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (Hornblower, Bk 6) by C.S. Forester

C.S. Forester's sixth novel about Horatio Hornblower covers the early years of the English naval hero's life. "The King's latest bad bargain" grows from a pale, seasick youth into a brave, selfless leader in an adventure that ends with capture by the Spanish and a mission that gains him respect... more

121

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Crossing to Safety has, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing the lives, loves, and aspirations of two couples who move between Vermont and Wisconsin, it is a work of quiet majesty, deep... more

122

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Gentlemen and Players (Malbry, Bk 1) by Joanne Harris

Audere, agere, auferre. To dare, to strive, to conquer. For generations, elite young men have attended St. Oswald’s School for Boys, groomed for success by the likes of Roy Straitley, the eccentric classics teacher who has been a revered fixture for more than 30 years. But this year,... more

123

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Forever by Pete Hamill

This widely praised bestseller is the magical, epic tale of an extraordinary man who arrives in New York in 1740 and remains...forever. Through the eyes of young Cormac O'Connor--granted immortality as long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan--we watch New York grow from a tiny... more

124

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton

First published in 1958 and set in the early 17th century, this bestselling novel?and follow-up to Katherine?follows Elizabeth Winthrop, a courageous Puritan woman who finds herself at odds with her heritage and surroundings. A real historical figure, Elizabeth married into the family of... more

125

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Liars' Club : A Memoir by Mary Karr

When it was published in 1995, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, as well as bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly... more

126

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner

The novel that confirmed Wallace Stegner's position as an important American writer is based on his own family history. Bo and Elsa Mason and their two sons set out to conquer the West, pursuing the American dream of wealth and success -- the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

127

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Bells: A Novel by Richard Harvell

I grew up as the son of a man who could not possibly have been my father. Though there was never any doubt that my seed had come from another man, Moses Froben, Lo Svizzero, called me “son.” And I called him “father.” On the rare occasions when someone dared to ask for... more

I grew up as the son of a man who could not possibly have been my father. Though there was never any doubt that my seed had come from another man, Moses Froben, Lo Svizzero, called me “son.” And I called him “father.” On the rare occasions when someone dared to ask for clarification, he simply laughed as though the questioner were obtuse. “Of course he’s not my son!” he would say. “Don’t be ridiculous.”�But whenever I myself gained the courage to ask him further of our past, he just looked sadly at me. “Please, Nicolai,” he would say after a moment, as though we had made a pact I had forgotten. With time, I came to understand I would never know the secrets of my birth, for my father was the only one who knew these secrets, and he would take them to his grave.�The celebrated opera singer Lo Svizzero was born in a belfry high in the Swiss Alps where his mother served as the keeper of the loudest and most beautiful bells in the land. Shaped by the bells’ glorious music, as a boy he possessed an extraordinary gift for sound. But when his preternatural hearing was discovered?along with its power to expose the sins of the church?young Moses Froben was cast out of his village with only his ears to guide him in a world fraught with danger. �Rescued from certain death by two traveling monks, he finds refuge at the vast and powerful Abbey of St. Gall. There, his ears lead him through the ancient stone hallways and past the monks’ cells into the choir, where he aches to join the singers in their strange and enchanting song. Suddenly Moses knows his true gift, his purpose. Like his mother’s bells, he rings with sound and soon, he becomes the prot�g� of the Abbey’s brilliant yet repulsive choirmaster, Ulrich. �But it is this gift that will cause Moses’ greatest misfortune: determined to preserve his brilliant pupil’s voice, Ulrich has Moses castrated. Now a young man, he will forever sing with the exquisite voice of an angel?a musico?yet castration is an abomination in the Swiss Confederation, and so he must hide his shameful condition from his friends and even from the girl he has come to love. When his saviors are exiled and his beloved leaves St. Gall for an arranged marriage in Vienna, he decides he can deny the truth no longer and he follows her?to sumptuous Vienna, to the former monks who saved his life, to an apprenticeship at one of Europe’s greatest theaters, and to the premiere of one of history’s most beloved operas. �In this confessional letter to his son, Moses recounts how his gift for sound led him on an astonishing journey to Europe’s celebrated opera houses and reveals the secret that has long shadowed his fame: How did Moses Froben, world renowned musico, come to raise a son who by all rights he never could have sired? �Like the voice of Lo Svizzero, The Bells is a sublime debut novel that rings with passion, courage, and beauty.From the Hardcover edition.

128

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

When Margaret Lea opened the door to the past, what she confronted was her destiny. All children mythologize their birth... So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter's collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for... more

129

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery & Alison Anderson (Translator)

We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Rena', the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television.... more

130

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Through a Glass Darkly by Karleen Koen

Sparkles with all of the passion, extravagance and scandal of a grand and glorious era… As opulent and passionate as the 18th century it celebrates, Through a Glass Darkly will sweep you away to the splendors of a lost era. From aristocrats to scoundrels, its rich, vivid characters... more

131

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, Hans--a banker originally from the Netherlands--finds himself marooned among the strange occupants of the Chelsea Hotel after his English wife and son return to London. Alone and untethered, feeling lost in the country he had come... more

132

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle

When her older sister runs away to marry a rodeo cowboy, Alice Winston is left to bear the brunt of her family's troubles -- a depressed, bedridden mother; a reticent, overworked father; and a run-down horse ranch. As the hottest summer in fifteen years unfolds and bills pile up, Alice is... more

133

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton--the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families--feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato... more

134

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Wine-Dark Sea (Aubrey / Maturin, Bk 16) by Patrick O'Brian

At the outset of this adventure, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin pursue a heavy American privateer through the Great South Sea. Their ship, the Surprise, is now also a privateer, the better to escape diplomatic complications from Stephen's mission, which is to ignite the revolutionary tinder... more

135

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

In the Fall by Jeffrey Lent

Compared by critics to William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, Jeffrey Lent's In the Fall is the most stunning debut to come along in years. Ambitious in scope and passionately executed, this epic novel is the rarest of things: a truly moving, emotionally honest, and intellectually satisfying... more

136

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Broken Harbor (Dublin Murder Squad, Bk 4) by Tana French

Mick "Scorcher" Kennedy, the brash cop from Tana French’s bestselling Faithful Place, plays by the book and plays hard. That’s what’s made him the Murder squad’s top detective -- and that’s what puts the biggest case of the year into his hands. On one... more

137

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner

In the tradition of Jack London, Seth Kantner presents an Alaska far removed from majestic cliches of exotic travelogues and picture postcards. Kantner’s vivid and poetic prose lets readers experience Cutuk Hawcly’s life on the Alaskan plains through the character’s own... more

138

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of... more

139

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Gracelin O'Malley (Gracelin O'Malley, Bk 1) by Ann Moore

Nineteenth century Ireland comes vividly to life in what Publishers Weekly calls the "finely wrought tale" of Gracelin O'Malley; her brilliant, crippled brother Sean; and their childhood friend, Morgan McDonagh, the reluctant hero of a revolution. Marriage to English landlord... more

140

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

"The reader is left with the haunting sensation that perhaps the good a man does can live after him--especially in the hands of a dedicated historian." SAN DIEGO UNION In this stirring historical novel, Sharon Kay Penman redeems Richard III from his villainous role in history as the hulking,... more

141

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about... more

142

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, a woman living on a reservation in North Dakota is attacked. The details of the crime are slow to surface as Geraldine Coutts is traumatized and reluctant to relive or reveal what happened, either to the police or to her husband, Bazil, and thirteen-year-old... more

143

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Night Birds by Thomas Maltman

"We all set our sights on the Great American Novel. . . . [Thomas Maltman] comes impressively close to laying his hands on the grail."-Madison Smartt Bell, The Boston Globe"Maltman's prose and pacing flow from an expert hand. . . . His gaze is unflinching and balanced. . . . And while there is... more

144

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

Paris, 1937. Andras Lévi, a Hungarian-Jewish architecture student, arrives from Budapest with a scholarship, a single suitcase, and a mysterious letter he has promised to deliver to C. Morgenstern on the rue de Sauvigne. As he falls into a complicated relationship with the letter's... more

145

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss

In the winter of 1917, nineteen-year-old Martha Lessen saddles her horses and heads for a remote county in eastern Oregon, looking for work "gentling" wild horses. She chances on a rancher, George Bliss, who is willing to hire her on. Many of his regular hands are off fighting the war,... more

146

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hille...

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... more

147

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.... more

148

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. However, it did open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all... more

149

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Mink River by Brian Doyle

Like Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, Brian Doyle's stunning fiction debut brings a town to life through the jumbled lives and braided stories of its people. In a small fictional town on the Oregon coast there are love affairs and almost-love-affairs,... more

150

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Sparrow (Sparrow, Bk 1) by Mary Doria Russell

In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly... more

151

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

A novel on the anxiety and disconnection of post-9/11 America, on the insidiousness of racism, the blind-sidedness of war, and the recklessness thrust on others in the name of love. As the United States begins gearing up for war in the Middle East, twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, the... more

152

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

Crow Lake is that rare find, a first novel so quietly assured, so emotionally pitch perfect, you know from the opening page that this is the real thing–a literary experience in which to lose yourself, by an author of immense talent. Here is a gorgeous, slow-burning story set in the... more

153

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris

In her bestselling and critically acclaimed novel Chocolat, Joanne Harris told a lush story of the conflicts between pleasure and repression. Now she delivers her most complex and sophisticated work yet, an unforgettable tale of mothers and daughters, of the past and the present, of resisting... more

154

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer

How much do we owe the people we love? Is it a sign of strength or weakness to walk away from someone in need? These questions lie at the heart of Ann Packer's intimate and emotionally thrilling new novel, which has won its author comparisons with Jane Hamilton and Sue Miller. At the age of... more

155

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Forever War by Dexter Filkins

From the front lines of the battle against Islamic fundamentalism, a searing, unforgettable book that captures the human essence of the greatest conflict of our time. Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, the prizewinning New York Times correspondent whose work was hailed by David Halberstam as... more

156

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Sudden Country by Karen Fisher

James MacLaren, once a resourceful and ambitious Hudson’s Bay Company trader, has renounced his aspirations for a quiet family life in the Bitterroot wilderness. Yet his life is overturned in the winter of 1846, when his Nez Perce wife deserts him and his children die of smallpox. In the... more

157

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't... more

158

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot & Linda Coverdale (Translator)

In January 1917, five wounded French soldiers, hands bound before them, are brought to the front at Picardy by their own troops. Forced to climb from the trenches onto the narrow strip of no-man's-land that separates the French and German armies, they are left to die in the cross fire. Their... more

159

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Fresh from a brief stay at a psychiatric hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment. She must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely... more

160

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Road Ends by Mary Lawson

He listened as their voices faded into the rumble of the falls. He was thinking about the lynx. The way it had looked at him, acknowledging his existence, then passing out of his life like smoke. . . It was the first thing—the only thing—that had managed, if only for a moment, to... more

161

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system,... more

162

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, Bk 1...

A MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. AN ABANDONED ORPHANAGE. A STRANGE COLLECTION OF VERY PECULIAR PHOTOGRAPHS. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As the story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the... more

163

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels

Anne Michaels’ spellbinding d�but novel has quickly become one of the most beloved and talked-about books of the decade. As a young boy during the Second World War, Jakob Beer is rescued from the mud in Poland by an unlikely saviour, the scientist Athos Roussos, and he is taken to Greece,... more

164

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Bee Season by Myla Goldberg

Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her autodidact father, Saul, absorbed in his study of Jewish mysticism; her brother, Aaron, the vessel of his father's spiritual ambitions; and her brilliant but distant lawyer-mom, Miriam.... more

165

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Maybe the Moon by Armistead Maupin

Maybe the Moon, Armistead Maupin's first novel since ending his bestselling Tales of the City series, is the audaciously original chronicle of Cadence Roth -- Hollywood actress, singer, iconoclast and former Guiness Book record holder as the world's shortest woman. All of 31 inches... more

166

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Into the Forest by Jean Hegland

Set in the near-future, Into the Forest is a powerfully imagined novel that focuses on the relationship between two teenage sisters living alone in their Northern California forest home.Over 30 miles from the nearest town, and several miles away from their nearest neighbor, Nell and Eva struggle... more

167

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe

Set in the second half of the nineteenth century, in the American and Canadian West and in Victorian England, The Last Crossing is a sweeping tale of interwoven lives and stories Charles and Addington Gaunt must find their brother Simon, who has gone missing in the wilds of the American West.... more

168

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

In this epic, critically-acclaimed and Pulitzer Prize-winning tour de force, Adam Johnson provides a riveting portrait of a world rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost... more

169

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

City of Light by Lauren Belfer

City of LightThe year is 1901. Buffalo, New York, is poised for glory. With its booming industry and newly electrified streets, Buffalo is a model for the century just beginning. Louisa Barrett has made this dazzling city her home. Headmistress of Buffalo’s most prestigious school, Louisa... more

170

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie

Originally published more than fifty years ago, THE BIG SKY is the first of A. B. Guthrie, Jr.'s, epic adventure novels of America's vast frontier. THE BIG SKY introduces Boone Caudill, Jim Deakins, and Dick Summers, three of the most memorable characters in Western American... more

171

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

It's Malaya, 1949. After studying law at Cambrige and time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals, Yun Ling Teoh, herself the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she grew up as a child.... more

172

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Meaning of Night (Meaning of Night, Bk 1) by Michael Cox

"After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper." So begins the extraordinary story of Edward Glyver -- booklover, scholar, and murderer. As a young boy, Glyver always believed he was destined for greatness. A chance discovery convinces him that... more

173

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Other Woman's House (aka Lasting Damage) (Culver Valley Crime, Bk 6) by Sophie Ha...

It's past midnight, but Connie Bowskill can't sleep. To pass the time, she logs on to a real estate website in search of a particular house, one she is obsessed with for reasons she's too scared to even admit to herself. As she clicks through the virtual tour, she comes across a... more

174

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Keep by Jennifer Egan

Two cousins reunite twenty years after a childhood prank gone wrong changed their lives and sent them on their separate ways. "Cousin Howie," the formerly uncool, strange, and pasty ("he looked like a guy the sun wouldn't touch") cousin has become a blond, tan, and... more

175

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart

In Rochester, New York, a seventy-five-year-old artist, Austin Fraser, is creating a new series of paintings recalling the details of his life and of the lives of those individuals who have affected him--his peculiar mother, a young Canadian soldier and china painter, a First World War nurse,... more

176

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart

In 1867 a good-natured Bavarian priest, is sent by God and mad King Ludwig to the wilds of North America. Soon the backwoods are transformed into a parish and the settlers into a congregation, and Joseph Becker, a woodcarver, meets his future wife. Several decades later, Joseph Becker teaches... more

177

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Vintage) by Richard Flanagan

Long-listed for the Man Booker Prize August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma Death Railway, Australian surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his affair with his uncle?s young wife two years earlier. His life is a daily struggle to save the men under his command from... more

178

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

A self-absorbed scholar and a young girl crisscross America by car, flitting through college towns where they endure ill-advised sexual encounters, heartache and a potent dose of popular culture. Studded with ingenious wordplay and recondite allusions, their story veers between highbrow comedy... more

179

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson

From the author of the beloved #1 national bestseller Crow Lake comes an exceptional new novel of jealously, rivalry and the dangerous power of obsession.Two brothers, Arthur and Jake Dunn, are the sons of a farmer in the mid-1930s, when life is tough and another world war is looming. Arthur is... more

From the author of the beloved #1 national bestseller Crow Lake comes an exceptional new novel of jealously, rivalry and the dangerous power of obsession.Two brothers, Arthur and Jake Dunn, are the sons of a farmer in the mid-1930s, when life is tough and another world war is looming. Arthur is reticent, solid, dutiful and set to inherit the farm and his father’s character; Jake is younger, attractive, mercurial and dangerous to know – the family misfit. When a beautiful young woman comes into the community, the fragile balance of sibling rivalry tips over the edge.Then there is Ian, the family’s next generation, and far too sure he knows the difference between right and wrong. By now it is the fifties, and the world has changed – a little, but not enough. These two generations in the small town of Struan, Ontario, are tragically interlocked, linked by fate and community but separated by a war which devours its young men – its unimaginable horror reaching right into the heart of this remote corner of an empire. With her astonishing ability to turn the ratchet of tension slowly and delicately, Lawson builds their story to a shocking climax. Taut with apprehension, surprising us with moments of tenderness and humour, The Other Side of the Bridge is a compelling, humane and vividly evoked novel with an irresistible emotional undertow.Arthur found himself staring down at the knife embedded in his foot. There was a surreal split second before the blood started to well up and then up it came, dark and thick as syrup. Arthur looked at Jake and saw that he was staring at the knife. His expression was one of surprise, and this was something that Arthur wondered about later too. Was Jake surprised because he had never considered the possibility that he might be a less than perfect shot? Did he have that much confidence in himself, that little self-doubt? Or was he merely surprised at how easy it was to give in to an impulse, and carry through the thought which lay in your mind? Simply to do whatever you wanted to do, and damn the consequences.–from The Other Side of the BridgeFrom the Hardcover edition.

180

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Call: A Novel by Yannick Murphy

The daily rhythm of a veterinarian's family in rural New England is shaken when a hunting accident leaves their eldest son in a coma. With the lives of his loved ones unhinged, the veterinarian struggles to maintain stability while searching for the man responsible. But in the midst of their... more

181

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard

Welcome to the world of a grown-up Timothy Cratchit, as created by the astonishing imagination of author Louis Bayard. Mr. Timothy Cratchit has just buried his father. He's also struggling to bury his past as a cripple and shed his financial ties to his benevolent "Uncle" Ebenezer by losing... more

182

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Glass of Time by Michael Cox

Building on his haunting, superbly written debut, The Meaning of Night, Michael Cox returns to a story of murder, love, and revenge in Victorian England. The Glass of Time is a vividly imagined study of seduction, betrayal, and friendship between two powerful women bound together by the past. .

183

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Harvest by Jim Crace

A remote English village wakes on the morning after harvest, looking forward to enjoying a hard-earned day of rest and feasting. But two mysterious columns of smoke mar the sky, raising alarm and suspicion. The first column of smoke comes from the edge of the village land, sent as a signal by... more

184

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60 by ...

This book explores the phenomenon that sent a quarter of a million antebellum pioneers westward, focusing on the interactions between them.

185

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Telling the Bees by Peggy Hesketh

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER A lifelong beekeeper, Albert Honig is deeply acquainted with the ways and workings of the hives. He knows that bees dislike wool clothing and foul language; that the sweetest honey is made from the blooms of eucalyptus; and that bees are at their gentlest in a... more

186

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Girl in the Spider's Web (Millennium, Bk 4) by David Lagercrantz & George Gou...

A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series. The troubled genius hacker and crusading journalist thrilled the world in 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo', 'The Girl Who Played with Fire', and 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's... more

187

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Terror by Dan Simmons

The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of finding the Northwest Passage. When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. But... more

188

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Above by Isla Morley

I am a secret no one is able to tell. Blythe Hallowell is sixteen when she is abducted by a survivalist and locked away in an abandoned missile silo in Eudora, Kansas. At first, she focuses frantically on finding a way out, until the harrowing truth of her new existence settles in -- the... more

189

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Monstrous Regiment of Women (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes, Bk 2) by Laurie R. K...

A Monstrous Regiment of Women continues Mary Russell's adventures as a worthy student of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and as an ever more skilled sleuth in her own right. Looking for respite in London after a stupefying visit from relatives, Mary encounters a friend from... more

190

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Saving the World by Julia Alvarez

Alma, the narrator of Saving the World, discovers a small historical footnote while doing research for a novel: In 1803, a Spanish doctor crossed the Atlantic with twenty-two orphan boys—live carriers of the smallpox vaccine—to inoculate the population of Spain's American colonies.... more

191

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Crow Road by Iain Banks

"It was the day my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium, listening to my Uncle Hamish quietly snoring in harmony to Bach?s Mass in B Minor, and I reflected that it always seemed to be death that drew me back to Gallanach."So begins Iain Banks? The Crow Road, the tale of Prentice McHoan... more

192

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

By the Iowa Sea: A Memoir by Joe Blair

This vivid memoir about the heartbreaks and ecstasies of marriage, fatherhood, and small-town Midwestern life is ?so raw and true you?ll gasp? (O, The Oprah Magazine).After his first cross-country motorcycle trip, Joe Blair believed he had discovered his true calling. He would travel. He would... more

193

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Gamache, Bk 5) by Louise Penny

When Chief Inspector Gamache arrives in picturesque Three Pines, he steps into a village in chaos. A man has been found bludgeoned to death, and there is no sign of a weapon, a motive or even the dead man's name. As Gamache and his colleagues start to dig under the skin of this peaceful... more

194

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Code Name Verity (Code Name Verity, Bk 1) by Elizabeth Wein

Oct. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun. When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she... more

195

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Circling the Sun: A Novel by Paula McLain

Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Paris Wife, takes readers into the glamorous and decadent circle of British expats living in Kenya in the 1920s. Circling the Sun tells the story of the beautiful young horse trainer, adventurer, and aviator Beryl Markham, from... more

196

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilke...

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From... more

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.�With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.

197

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Last Bus to Wisdom: A Novel by Ivan Doig

In the spirit of The Bartender?s Tale, a lively and poignant coming-of-age story about a boy and his great-uncle on a cross-country odyssey. � Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Doig?s beloved Two Medicine Country of the Montana... more

198

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Girls by Lori Lansens

?We?ve been called many things: freaks, horrors, monsters, devils, witches, retards, wonders, marvels. To most, we?re a curiosity. In small-town Leaford, where we live and work, we?re just ?The Girls.?? Rose and Ruby Darlen are closer than most twin sisters. Indeed, they have spent their... more

?We?ve been called many things: freaks, horrors, monsters, devils, witches, retards, wonders, marvels. To most, we?re a curiosity. In small-town Leaford, where we live and work, we?re just ?The Girls.?? Rose and Ruby Darlen are closer than most twin sisters. Indeed, they have spent their twenty-nine years on earth joined at the head. Given that they share a web of essential veins, there is no possibility that they can be separated in their lifetime. Born in a small town in the midst of a tornado, the sisters are abandoned by their frightened teenaged mother and create a circus-like stir in the medical community. The attending nurse, however, sees their true beauty and decides to adopt them. Aunt Lovey is a warm-hearted, no-nonsense woman married to a gentle immigrant butcher, Uncle Stash. The middle-aged couple moves to a farm where the girls ? ?not hidden but unseen? ? can live as normal a life as possible. For identical twins, Rose and Ruby are remarkably different both on the inside and out. Ruby has a beautiful face whereas Rose?s features are, in her own words, ?misshapen and frankly grotesque.? And whereas Rose?s body is fully formed, Ruby?s bottom half is dwarfish ? with her tiny thighs resting on Rose?s hip, she must be carried around like a small child or doll. The differences in their tastes are no less distinct. A poet and avid reader, Rose is also huge sports fan. Ruby, on the other hand, would sooner watch television than crack open a book ? that is, anything but sports. They are rarely ready for bed at the same time and whereas Rose loves spicy food, Ruby has a ?disturbing fondness for eggs.? On the eve of their thirtieth birthday, Rose sets out to write her autobiography. But because their lives have been so closely shared, Ruby insists on contributing the occasional chapter. And so, as Rose types away on her laptop, the technophobic Ruby scribbles longhand on a yellow legal pad. They?ve established one rule for their co-writing venture: neither is allowed to see what the other has written. Together, they tell the story of their lives as the world?s oldest surviving craniopagus twins ? the literary Rose and straight-talking Ruby often seeing the same event in wildly different ways. Despite their extreme medical condition, the sisters express emotional truths that every reader will identify with: on losing a loved one, the hard lessons of compromise, the first stirrings of sexual desire, the pain of abandonment, and the transcendent power of love. Rose and Ruby Darlen of Baldoon County, Ontario, are two of the most extraordinary and unforgettable characters to spring into our literature. As Kirkus Reviews puts it, ?The novel's power lies in the wonderful narrative voices of Rose and Ruby. Lansens has created a richly nuanced, totally believable sibling relationship... An unsentimental, heartwarming page-turner.? The National Post writes: ?Lansens?s beautiful writing is so detailed that it is often easy to forget that the material is not based on a true story. She captures what it would be like never to sleep, bathe, go for a walk, or meet friends on your own.?

199

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

In 1883, Thaniel Steepleton returns to his tiny flat to find a gold pocketwatch on his pillow. When the watch saves Thaniel's life in a blast that destroys Scotland Yard, he goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori - a kind, lonely Japanese immigrant. Meanwhile, Grace Carrow is sneaking into... more

200

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A House in the Sky: A Memoir by Amanda Lindhout & Sara Corbett

The dramatic and redemptive memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world?s most beautiful and remote places, its most imperiled and perilous countries, and then into fifteen months of harrowing captivity?an exquisitely written story of courage, resilience, and grace As a child,... more

201

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

What Angels Fear (Sebastian St. Cyr, Bk 1) by C. S. Harris

It's 1811, and the threat of revolution haunts the upper classes of King George III's England. Then a beautiful young woman is found savagely murdered on the altar steps of an ancient church near Westminster Abbey. A dueling pistol found at the scene and the damning testimony of a... more

202

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Book Borrower by Alice Mattison

On the first page of The Book Borrower, Toby Ruben and Deborah Laidlaw meet in 1975 in a New York City playground, where the two women are looking after their babies. Deborah lends Toby a book, Trolley Girl,--a memoir about a long ago trolley strike and three Jewish sisters, one a fiery... more

203

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Himself by Jess Kidd

Having been abandoned at an orphanage as a baby, Mahony assumed all his life that his mother wanted nothing to do with him. That is, until one night in 1976 while drinking a pint at a Dublin pub, he receives an anonymous note implying that she may have been forced to give him up. Determined to... more

204

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont

A powerful first novel about life and death, friendship and love, as one young man must navigate the depths of his emotions. JASON PROSPER grew up in the elite world of Manhattan penthouses, Maine summer estates, old-boy prep schools, and exclusive sailing clubs. A smart, athletic teenager,... more

205

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

All the Little Live Things by Wallace Stegner

Award-winning and bestselling author Wallace Stegner takes on the hippy generation in a novel of "crackling vividness."--The New York Times Book Review. A bearded young cultist invades the lives of a retired literary agent and his wife after the death of their wayward son.

206

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon

This novel works so well on so many levels that it’s certain to appeal to a broad audience. With a practiced hand, McMahon, author of the best-selling The Alchemist’s Daughter (2006), physically and psychologically entrenches her characters in the mid-nineteenth century, providing... more

207

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Good German by Joseph Kanon

The bestselling author of Los Alamos returns to 1945. Hitler has been defeated, and Berlin is divided into zones of occupation. Jake Geismar, an American correspondent who spent time in the city before the war, has returned to write about the Allied triumph while pursuing a more personal quest:... more

208

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Crow Trap (Vera Stanhope, Bk 1) by Ann Cleeves

Three very different women come together to complete an environmental survey on the Northumberland countryside. Three women who, in some way or another, know the meaning of betrayal.... For team leader Rachael Lambert the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a... more

209

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Other Alexander (The Bow of Heaven, Book I) by Andrew Levkoff

2012 Readers Favorite Silver Award, Historical Fiction 2011 eLit Book Awards Gold Award, Historical Fiction In the greatest, foulest city in the world, love, mayhem and betrayal await the slave, Alexandros. Given as a gift to the richest man in Rome, he soon discovers that intrigue and murder... more

210

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

My Name Is Resolute by Nancy E. Turner

The year is 1729, and Resolute Talbot and her siblings are captured by pirates, taken from their family in Jamaica, and brought to the New World. Resolute and her sister are sold into slavery in colonial New England and taught the trade of spinning and weaving. When Resolute finds herself... more

211

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Heart of the Beast by Joyce Weatherford

Twenty-eight-year-old Iris Steele has just inherited her family's ranch in northeast Oregon. It is the ranch where she grew up herding cattle and harvesting wheat, and where her brother and father both died. It is also, it turns out, land that the Nez Percé Indians now claim is... more

212

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Land Girls by Angela Huth

With the country's men at war, it falls to the land girls to pitch in and do their bit...Stella arrives at Hallows Farm in her Rayon stockings, having just waved goodbye to the love of life - naval officer Philip. Agatha has just graduated from Cambridge; life on the Farm is certainly going to... more

213

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes

Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the... more

214

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Martian by andy weir

martian, the by weir, andy

215

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Many Lives & Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. (Josephine B., Bk 1) by Sandra Gullan...

In this first of three books inspired by the life of Josephine Bonaparte, Sandra Gulland has created a novel of immense and magical proportions. We meet Josephine in the exotic and lush Martinique, where an old island woman predicts that one day she will be queen. The journey from the remote... more

216

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

A unique and sweeping debut novel of an American female combat photographer in the Vietnam War, as she captures the wrenching chaos and finds herself torn between the love of two men. On a stifling day in 1975, the North Vietnamese army is poised to roll into Saigon. As the fall... more

217

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Peachtree Road by Anne Rivers Siddons

Lucy Bondurant Chastain Venable and her now reclusive cousin Sheppard Gibbs Bondurant III, have been confidants ever since Lucy came to live with Shep's family. These two and their town has been through much over the years, and whether they can survive it together still remains to be... more

218

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them-in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul-they come to form a bond... more

219

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton

No description available.

220

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks

In 1894 Carrie McGavock is an old woman, an old woman who has only her former slave to keep her companyalong with the almost 1,500 soldiers buried in her backyard. Years ago, rather than let someone plow over the field where these young men had been buried, Carrie dug them up and buried them in... more

221

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

1947. In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the... more

222

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Genghis: Birth of an Empire (Conqueror, Bk 1) by Conn Iggulden

He was born Temujin, the son of a khan, raised in a clan of hunters migrating across the rugged steppe. Temujin’s young life was shaped by a series of brutal acts: the betrayal of his father by a neighboring tribe and the abandonment of his entire family, cruelly left to die on the harsh... more

223

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Genghis: Bones of the Hills (Conqueror, Bk 3) by Conn Iggulden

From Conn Iggulden, #1 bestselling author of six historical epics and coauthor of the international sensation The Dangerous Book for Boys, comes a magnificent new work of fiction. Here, the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan, stalked by enemies seen and unseen and plagued by a divided family, leads a... more

224

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Bookman's Tale by Charlie Lovett

Hay-on-Wye, 1995. Peter Byerly isn’t sure what drew him into this particular bookshop. Nine months earlier, the death of his beloved wife, Amanda, had left him shattered. The young antiquarian bookseller relocated from North Carolina to the English countryside, hoping to rediscover the joy... more

225

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Broken Shore (Broken Shore, Bk 1) by Peter Temple

Shaken by a recent scrape with death, big-city detective Joe Cashin is posted to a quiet town on the Australian coast. But soon the whole community is thrown into unrest by the murder of a local philanthropist, a man with some very disturbing secrets. The Broken Shore is a brilliantly... more

226

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Coffee Trader by David Liss

On the world’s first commodities exchange, fortunes are won and lost in an instant. Miguel Lienzo, a sharp-witted trader in the city’s close-knit community of Portuguese Jews, knows this only too well. Once among the city’s most envied merchants, Miguel has lost everything in a... more

227

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Criminal Seduction by Darian North

A man and woman who never should have met... a brutal murder that defies comprehension... an eccentric life veiled in layer upon layer of secrets... a maze of mystery and passion that unfolds with terrifying speed... all ignite in this stunning novel.

228

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Did You Ever Have A Family by Bill Clegg

On the eve of her daughter’s wedding, June Reid’s life is upended when a shocking disaster takes the lives of her daughter, her daughter’s fiancé, her ex-husband, and her boyfriend, Luke—her entire family, all gone in a moment. June is the only survivor. Alone... more

229

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars by Andrew X. Pham

Once wealthy landowners, Thong Van Pham?s family was shattered by the tumultuous events of the twentieth century: the festering French occupation of Indochina, the Japanese invasion during World War II, and the Vietnam War.Told in dazzling chapters that alternate between events in the past and... more

230

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Fall of Light by Niall Williams

Beginning in Ireland in the early years of the 19th century, the four Foley brothers flee across the country with their father and the large telescope he has stolen. Soon forced apart by the violence of the Irish wilderness, the potato famine, and the promise of America, the brothers find... more

231

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Fires in the Dark : A Novel by Louise Doughty

Fires In the Dark reveals the highly secretive and misunderstood world of the coppersmith gypsies. In 1927, when prosperity still reigns in Central Europe, Yenko is born to two Coppersmith Gypsies. His parents, Josef and Anna, are nomads who raise their son during the relative calm of the Great... more

232

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee

The riveting story of a Japanese immigrant who leads a proper, decorous life in a New York suburb. As his life slowly unravels, he is transported back to his days as a medic in the Japanese army in World War II, and his obsessive love of a young comfort woman.

233

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Gold Bug Variations by Richard Powers

A national bestseller, voted by Time as the #1 novel of 1991, selected as one of the "Best Books of 1991" by Publishers Weekly, and nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award -- a magnificent story that probes the meaning of love, science, music, and art, by the brilliant... more

234

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Six years after the phenomenal success of The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger has returned with a spectacularly compelling and haunting second novel set in and around Highgate Cemetery in London. When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves her London apartment to her twin... more

235

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch

One moonlit night, thirteen-year-old Miles O’Malley slips out of his house, packs up his kayak and goes exploring on the flats of Puget Sound. But what begins as an ordinary hunt for starfish, snails, and clams is soon transformed by an astonishing sight: a beached giant squid. As the... more

236

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Human Stain by Philip Roth

It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth... more

237

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Hundred And One Days by Asne Seierstad

From the best-selling author of The Bookseller of Kabul, an intimate look at the daily lives of women, children, and other noncombatants under siege in Baghdad For one hundred and one days Asne Seierstad worked as a reporter in Baghdad. Always in search of a story far less obvious than the... more

238

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Instruments of the Night by Thomas H. Cook

On a humid summer evening in 1963, following a hard day's work in the field, twelve-year-old Paul Graves came home to a nightmare. Snatched by a stranger, strapped to a chair in a sweltering farmhouse, he watched in horror as the man orchestrated the slow, deliberate, night-long brutalization... more

239

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Jack Absolute (Jack Absolute, Bk 1) by C. C. Humphreys

In 1777 Jack Absolute, the charming lover in Sheridan's comedy The Rivals, is famous throughout London. However, this notoriety comes as something of a shock to the real Jack Absolute when he arrives in England after four months at sea. But there's barely time for outrage before he finds himself... more

240

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Light on Snow by Anita Shreve

Already taking its place alongside The Pilot's Wife and The Last Time They Met as one of Anita Shreve's most widely popular and bestselling novels, LIGHT ON SNOW recounts the aftermath of a startling discovery: a 12-year-old girl and her widowed father find an abandoned baby in the snow-filled... more

241

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Long Walk : The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz

"I hope The Long Walk will remain as a memorial to all those who live and die for freedom, and for all those who for many reasons could not speak for themselves."--Slavomir RawiczIn 1941, the author and six other fellow prisoners escaped a Soviet labor camp in Yakutsk--a camp where enduring... more

242

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Niccolo Rising (House of Niccolo, Bk 1) by Dorothy Dunnett

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents The House of Niccolo series.The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe.... more

243

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel by Neil Gaiman

A brilliantly imaginative and poignant fairy tale from the modern master of wonder and terror, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is Neil Gaiman?s first new novel for adults since his #1 New York Times bestseller Anansi Boys.This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival, and memory... more

244

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, Bk 12) by Elizabeth George

An isolated beach on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel is the scene of the murder of Guy Brouard, one of Guernsey’s wealthiest inhabitants and its main benefactor. Forced as a child to flee the Nazis in Paris, Brouard was engaged in his latest project when he died: a museum in... more

245

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Queen's Fool (Plantagenet and Tudor, Bk 12) by Philippa Gregory

A young woman caught in the rivalry between Queen Mary and her half sister, Elizabeth, must find her true destiny amid treason, poisonous rivalries, loss of faith, and unrequited love. It is winter, 1553. Pursued by the Inquisition, Hannah Green, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, is forced to... more

246

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Regeneration (Regeneration, Bk 1) by Pat Barker

In 1917 Seigfried Sasson, noted poet and decorated war hero, publicly refused to continue serving as a British officer in World War I. His reason: The war was a senseless slaughter. He was officially classified "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital. There a... more

247

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Road Ends: A Novel by Mary Lawson

On a perfect August morning in 1967, above a river just outside a small town in the north of Canada, a young man meets his death. And so begins the unravelling of his best friend Tom's already precarious family. Eighteen months on, and the town of Struan is in the grip of winter. Still reeling... more

248

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Stranger in the Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher

Howard Frank Mosher has earned both critical acclaim and a wide readership for his vivid historical portraits of northern New England residents in his fictional Kingdom County, Vermont. A Stranger in the Kingdom tells the unforgettable story of a brutal murder in a small town and the devastating... more

249

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Traitor to Memory (Inspector Lynley, Bk 11) by Elizabeth George

When Eugenie Davies is killed by a driver on a quiet London street, her death is clearly no accident. Someone struck her with a car and then deliberately ran over her body before driving off, leaving nothing behind but questions. What brought Eugenie Davies to London on a rainy autumn... more

250

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Two Years Before the Mast : A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea by Richard Henry Dana...

Tracing an awe-inspiring oceanic route from Boston, around Cape Horn, to the California coast, Two Years Before the Mast is both a riveting story of adventure and the most eloquent, insightful account we have of life at sea in the early nineteenth century. Richard Henry Dana is only nineteen... more

251

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

When Will There Be Good News? (Jackson Brodie, Bk 3) by Kate Atkinson

On a hot summer day, Joanna Mason's family slowly wanders home along a country lane. A moment later, Joanna's life is changed forever... On a dark night thirty years later, ex-detective Jackson Brodie finds himself on a train that is both crowded and late. Lost in his thoughts,... more

252

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

While I Was Gone by Sue Miller

Having moved on with her life after a friend was brutally murdered, Jo Becker is now married with a grown family, but when an old housemate moves into the neighborhood, Jo rekindles a relationship that takes her back to the past and threatens her future.

253

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Who Buries the Dead (Sebastian St. Cyr, Bk 10) by C.S. Harris

The grisly murder of a West Indies slave owner and the reappearance of a dangerous enemy from Sebastian St. Cyr’s past combine to put C. S. Harris’s “troubled but compelling antihero” (Booklist) to the ultimate test in this taut, thrilling mystery. London,... more

254

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

When four graduates from a small Massachusetts college move to New York to make their way, they’re broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry... more

255

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding unnecessary human contact, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with... more

256

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Catch of Consequence (Makepeace Hedley, Bk 1) by Diana Norman

Makepeace Burke, fishing one early morning in Boston Harbor, finds herself rescuing an English aristocrat who's been set on by a Patriot mob and dumped in the harbor to drown. Though Makepeace is a staunch Patriot herself and scorns the Englishman, the mob soon turns on her because of her... more

257

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Beartown (Beartown, Bk 1) by Fredrik Backman & Neil Smith (Translator)

A small forest town with a big dream and the price required to make it come true... By the lake in Beartown is an old ice rink, and in that ice rink Kevin, Amat, Benji, and the rest of the town’s junior ice hockey team are about to compete in the national semi-finals and they actually have... more

258

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

North River by Pete Hamill

It is 1934, and New York City is in the icy grip of the Great Depression. With enormous compassion, Dr. James Delaney tends to his hurt, sick, and poor neighbors, who include gangsters, day laborers, prostitutes, and housewives. If they can't pay, he treats them anyway. But in his own life,... more

259

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Falls the Shadow (Welsh Princes, Bk 2) by Sharon Kay Penman

This is Simon de Montfort's story -- and the story of King Henry III, as weak and changeable as Montfort was brash and unbending. It is a saga of two opposing wills that would later clash in a storm of violence and betrayal, a story straight from the pages of history that brings the world of... more

260

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Reckoning (Welsh Princes, Bk 3) by Sharon Kay Penman

This book completes the splendid sequence of novels on the struggle between the independent Welsh Princes and the growing English strength which began with "Here be Dragons", continued with "Falls the Shadow" and is now completed with "The Reckoning". The major... more

261

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande

In this inspirational and unflinchingly honest memoir, acclaimed author Reyna Grande describes her childhood torn between the United States and Mexico, and shines a light on the experiences, fears, and hopes of those who choose to make the harrowing journey across the border. Reyna Grande... more

262

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Virgil Wander by Leif Enger

The first novel in ten years from award-winning, bestselling author Leif Enger, Virgil Wander is a sweeping story of new beginnings that follows the inhabitants of a Midwestern town in their quest to revive its flagging heart. Small town cinema owner Virgil Wander is ?cruising along at medium... more

263

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud

It is 1914, and Thomas Maggs, the son of the local publican, lives with his parents and sister in a village on the Suffolk coast. He is the youngest child, and the only son surviving. Life is quiet - shaped by the seasons, fishing and farming, the summer visitors, and the girls who come down... more

264

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin

On his, last long walk, septuagenarian war hero, deserter,and professor Alessandro Giuliani shares his past with an illiterate young factory worker -- spinning a remarkable tale of heart-stopping escapes, of loves unrequited and won, of madmen, dwarfs, and mafiosi. But overshadowing all is... more

265

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Land Remembered by Patrick D. Smith

In this best-selling novel, now accessible to young readers, Patrick Smith tells the story of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family who battle the hardships of the frontier to rise from a dirt-poor Cracker life to the wealth and standing of real estate tycoons. The story opens in... more

266

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

How Green Was My Valley is Richard Llewellyn's bestselling -- and timeless -- classic, as well as the basis of a beloved film. As Huw Morgan is about to leave home forever, he reminisces about the golden days of his youth when South Wales still prospered, when coal dust had not yet blackened... more

267

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Paris in the Present Tense: A Novel by Mark Helprin

The magnificent new novel by the gifted, singular #1 New York Times bestselling author of Winter?s Tale and A Soldier of the Great WarMark Helprin?s powerful, rapturous new novel is set in a present-day Paris caught between violent unrest and its well-known, inescapable glories.... more

268

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz, affectionately called Big Angel, has summoned his entire clan for one last legendary birthday party. But as the party approaches, his mother, nearly one hundred, dies, transforming the weekend into a farewell doubleheader.... more

269

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

Cyril Avery is not a real Avery -- or at least, that's what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn't a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if... more

270

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Over the Edge of the World : Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (P.S...

Ferdinand Magellan's daring circumnavigation of the globe in the sixteenth century was a three-year odyssey filled with sex, violence, and amazing adventure. Now in Over the Edge of the World, prize-winning biographer and journalist Laurence Bergreen entwines a variety of candid, firsthand... more

271

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Sanctuary Line by Jane Urquhart

From the #1 national bestselling author of Away, The Stone Carvers, and A Map of Glass, Sanctuary Line is the eagerly anticipated new novel by Jane Urquhart. Set in the present day on a farm at the shores of Lake Erie, Jane Urquhart's stunning new novel weaves elements from the... more

272

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Falling by T. J. Newman

You just boarded a flight to New York. There are one hundred and forty-three other passengers onboard. What you don’t know is that thirty minutes before the flight your pilot’s family was kidnapped. For his family to live, everyone on your plane must die. The only way the... more

273

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Master of the Delta by Thomas H. Cook

In 1954 Mississippi, Jack Branch returns to his father’s Delta estate, Great Oaks, to perform an act of noblesse oblige: teaching at the local high school.While conducting a class on evil throughout history, Jack is shocked to discover that his unassuming student Eddie is the son of the... more

274

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Searcher (Cal Hooper, Bk 1) by Tana French

Retired detective Cal Hooper moves to a remote village in rural Ireland. His plans are to fix up the dilapidated cottage he's bought, to walk the mountains, to put his old police instincts to bed forever. Then a local boy appeals to him for help. His brother is missing, and no one in the... more

275

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Catfish and Mandala : A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietna...

Winner of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book PrizeA New York Times Notable Book of the YearWinner of the Whiting Writers' AwardA Seattle Post-Intelligencer Best Book of the YearCatfish and Mandala is the story of an American odyssey—a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to... more

276

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

A tale about an orphan's life-changing adventure traveling down America's great rivers during the Great Depression, seeking both a place to call home and a sense of purpose in a world sinking into despair. "Ask me, God's right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky,... more

277

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam

"What if your sophomore effort is a masterpiece? Lam's hugely impressive first novel . . . has all the markings. It is a project he has nurtured since his teens--the epic story of his own people, ground almost to oblivion on the bloody geopolitical fulcrum of the Vietnam War--and the result is... more

278

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Way the Crow Flies (P.S.) by Ann-Marie MacDonald

The optimism of the early sixties, infused with the excitement of the space race and the menace of the Cold War, is filtered through the rich imagination of high-spirited, eight-year-old Madeleine, who welcomes her family's posting to a quiet Air Force base near the Canadian border. Secure... more

279

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Project Hail Mary by Unknown Author

No description available.

280

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in an elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the... more

281

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Paris in the Present Tense: A Novel by Mark Helprin

The ?enchanting, passionate, and uplifting? (Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal, ?Best New Fiction?) new novel by the gifted, singular #1 New York Times bestselling author of Winter?s Tale and A Soldier of the Great WarMark Helprin?s powerful, rapturous new novel is set in a present-day Paris caught... more

282

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Bow of Heaven: Book I: The Other Alexander by Andrew Levkoff

"The Other Alexander" is the first book in the epic trilogy "The Bow of Heaven." Alexander, a young Greek philosophy student, is wrenched from a life unlived and forced to submit to the will of an empire - as a slave of Rome. To endure this world without choice, to recapture even a shred of the... more

283

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Blood of Eagles, A Novel of Ancient Rome: Book III of The Bow of Heaven (Volume 3) by...

Alexandros, slave to the richest man in Rome, has escaped the worst death the ancient world could devise. Swept away into the desert, forced to abandon his wife, he is wanted on both sides of the Euphrates. Now, the war he could not prevent is upon him. The world?s two greatest empires, Rome and... more

284

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

A Mixture of Madness: A Mixture of Madness: Book II of The Bow of Heaven (Volume 2) b...

"No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness." - Aristotle At 19, they chained Alexandros to the monstrous tail of a victorious Roman army marching home; just one more morsel among thousands for a city always hungry for another helping of slaves. 30 years later, he rides at the head... more

285

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Paradise Alley by Kevin Baker

At the height of the Civil War, word spreads through the poorest quarters of New York City that a military draft is about to be implemented -- a draft from which any rich man's son can buy an exemption. The outrage this inspires escalates into the worst urban conflagration in American... more

286

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Who Slays the Wicked (Sebastian St. Cyr, Bk 14) by C. S. Harris

When the handsome but dissolute young gentleman Lord Ashworth is found brutally murdered, Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is called in by Bow Street magistrate Sir Henry Lovejoy to help catch the killer. Just seven months before, Sebastian had suspected Ashworth of aiding one of his longtime... more

287

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne

From the author of The Absolutist, a propulsive novel of the Russian Revolution and the fate of the Romanovs. � Part love story, part historical epic, part tragedy, The House of Special Purpose illuminates an empire at the end of its reign. Eighty-year-old Georgy Jachmenev is haunted by his... more

288

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark

The masterful story of a lifelong friendship between two very different women with shared histories and buried secrets, tested in the twilight of their lives, set across the arc of the 20th century. Celebrated children’s book author Agnes Lee is determined to secure her legacy -- to... more

289

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Oh, God, Where Are You by Abie Abraham

No description available.

290

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Complete Midshipman Bolitho (The Bolitho Novels) by Alexander Kent

Three novels in one! Sixteen-year-old Richard Bolitho joins the British Royal Navy as a young midshipman. Follow his adventures as he undergoes a severe initiation into the dangerous world of the great sailing warships! 1. Richard Bolitho: Midshipman 1772: a young Richard Bolitho joins the... more

291

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Signal-Close Action (Richard Bolitho Novels/Alexander Kent, No 12) by Alexander Kent

The year is 1798. Commodore Richard Bolitho is sent to the Mediterranean where Napoleon's naval forces are massing, preparing to annex Egypt. When Bolitho places his squadron between the Nile and the entire French fleet, the fate of his men and the freedom of his nation hang on the decisions... more

292

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami

In these pages, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America: Mustafa al-Zamori, called Estebanico. The slave of a Spanish conquistador, Estebanico sails for the Americas with his master, Dorantes, as part of a danger-laden expedition to Florida. Within a... more

293

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The Oceans and the Stars: A Sea Story, A War Story, A Love Story (A Novel) by Mark He...

No description available.

294

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Meet Elizabeth Zott: a one-of-a-kind scientist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the star of a beloved TV cooking show. Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an... more

295

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his... more

296

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

Beach Music by Pat Conroy

Pat Conroy is without doubt America's favorite storyteller, a writer who portrays the anguished truth of the human heart and the painful secrets of families in richly lyrical prose and unforgettable narratives. Now, in Beach Music, he tells of the dark memories that haunt generations, in a story... more

297

Cameron-Ashley H. (BigGreenChair)

The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng

From the bestselling author of The Garden of Evening Mists, a spellbinding novel about love and betrayal, colonialism and revolution, storytelling and redemption. The year is 1921. Lesley Hamlyn and her husband, Robert, a lawyer and war veteran, are living at Cassowary... more

Book List - Best of My Reading-Hist Fiction and Beyond

List Comments

Loading...