"Make me think" Books
These are books that leave you thinking about them after you finish reading them. Please add your favorites to this list and vote for the ones that you like. Comments are welcomed!
List created by ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) on Jul 6, 2010
List Votes: 82 Books: 394 Contributors: 65 Watchers: 251 List Type: Open
1
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus -- three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of... more
Book Votes: 113
2
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Giver (Giver, Bk 1) by Lois Lowry
Jonas's world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear of pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the community. When Jonas turns 12 he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true... more
Book Votes: 106
3
|
Sherry G. (Shervivor) - |
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace... more
Book Votes: 105
4
|
Gail P. (TinkerPirate) - |
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
This powerful first novel tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, the privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces.... more
Book Votes: 98
5
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Handmaid's Tale (Handmaid's Tale, Bk 1) by Margaret Atwood
In the world of the near future, who will control women's bodies?
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to... more
Book Votes: 93
6
|
Gail P. (TinkerPirate) - |
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
Book Votes: 86
7
| Kelly R. C. (kellyrenee1979) |
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic... more
Book Votes: 76
8
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Animal Farm by George Orwell
A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned--a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that... more
Book Votes: 75
9
| Jane (mahbaar) |
Night by Elie Wiesel & Marion Wiesel (Translator)
"Night" is Elie Wiesel's masterpiece, a candid, horrific, and deeply poignant autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. This new translation by Marion Wiesel, Elie's wife and frequent translator, presents this seminal memoir in the language and spirit truest... more
Book Votes: 73
10
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 68
11
| Elizabeth W. (pandagirl) |
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank & B.M. Mooyaart-Doubleday (Tr...
Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last year of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic -- a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit.
In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old... more
Book Votes: 67
12
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 66
13
| Pam C. (PamC) |
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
"Intense Emotional Impact...Indelibly Affecting...A Lavishly Gifted Writer" -- The New York Times Book Review
Life wasn't easy for Celie. But she knew how to survive, needing little to get by.
Then her husband's lover, a flamboyant blues singer, barreled into her world and gave Celie the... more
Book Votes: 60
14
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher's... more
Book Votes: 60
15
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Pi Patel, a God-loving boy and the son of a zookeeper, had a fervent love of stories and practices not only within his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family and their zoo animals emigrate from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship. Alas,... more
Book Votes: 57
16
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
My Sisters Keeper by Jodi Picoult
"A major decision about me is being made, and no one's bothered to ask the one person who most deserves it to speak her opinion." The only reason Anna was born was to donate her cord blood cells to her older sister. And though Anna is not sick, she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has... more
Book Votes: 54
17
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish... more
Book Votes: 52
18
| Janis B. |
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden... more
Book Votes: 52
19
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Shack by William P. Young
Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious... more
Book Votes: 51
20
| Jane (mahbaar) |
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Lily is haunted by memories–of who she once was, and of a person, long gone, who defined her existence. She has nothing but time now, as she recounts the tale of Snow Flower, and asks the gods for forgiveness.
In nineteenth-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and... more
Book Votes: 50
21
| Janis B. |
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost... more
Book Votes: 50
22
| Kelly R. C. (kellyrenee1979) |
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
Book Votes: 47
23
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
A Child Called 'It': One Child's Courage to Survive by Dave Pelzer
This book chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games--games that left... more
Book Votes: 44
24
| Brie S. (espagnolisme) |
She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
A best-seller and New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Shes Come Undone whisks you on a wild journey through life with an unforgettable heroine, both heartbreaking and comical. In award-winning author Wally Lambs remarkable coming-of-age odyssey, a lonely girl satisfies her cravings for love... more
Book Votes: 42
25
|
Gail P. (TinkerPirate) - |
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a... more
Book Votes: 42
26
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
When The Grapes of Wrath first appeared in 1939, it electrified an America still recovering from the Great Depression. Driven from their Oklahoma farm by the encroachment of large agricultural interests, the Joad family sets out, like generations before them, to the promised land of... more
Book Votes: 40
27
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand's greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex.
Set in a near-future... more
Book Votes: 40
28
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink & Carol Brown Janeway (Translator)
When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover -- then she inexplicably disappears. When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he... more
Book Votes: 38
29
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver.... more
Book Votes: 37
30
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of a China that was -- now in a Contemporary Classics edition.
Though more than sixty years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer Prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. "I... more
Book Votes: 37
31
| Elaine F. |
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse & Hilda Rosner (Translator)
This classic novel of self-discovery has inspired generations of seekers. With parallels to the enlightenment of the Buddha, Hesse's SIDDHARTHA is the story of a young Brahmn's quest for the ultimate reality. His quest takes him from the extremes of indulgent sensuality to the rigors of... more
Book Votes: 35
32
|
Connie A. (jazzysmom) - |
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's... more
Book Votes: 35
33
| Ronnie G. (frenchgiant) |
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
In this classic novel of the 1960's, Ken Kesey's hero is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a boisterous, brawling, fun-loving rebel who swaggers into the world of a mental hospital and takes over. A lusty, life-affirming fighter, McMurphy rallies the other patients around him by challenging the... more
Book Votes: 34
34
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
One of the first questions people ask about The Things They Carried is this: Is it a novel, or a collection of short stories? The title page refers to the book simply as "a work of fiction," defying the conscientious reader's need to categorize this masterpiece. It is both: a collection of... more
Book Votes: 33
35
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening... more
Book Votes: 32
36
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Their Eyes Were Watching God (P.S.) by Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is a luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern black woman in the 1930s whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to seventy years.
This... more
Book Votes: 32
37
| Ronnie G. (frenchgiant) |
The Bell Jar (Modern Classics) by Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under--maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely... more
Book Votes: 32
38
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Catch-22 (Catch-22, Bk 1) by Joseph Heller
Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary.
At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes... more
Book Votes: 31
39
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The setting is the rolling hills and meadows of England. The time is now -- or tomorrow -- or always. WATERSHIP DOWN is a saga of the maverick band who set out, against all odds, on a quest for a new home, a better society. The heroes of this tale are animals -- wild rabbits. Their behavior is... more
Book Votes: 31
40
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired... more
Book Votes: 31
41
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
In the Deep South of the 1950s, journalist John Howard Griffin decided to cross the color line. Using medication that darkened his skin to deep brown, he exchanged his privileged life as a Southern white man for the disenfranchised world of an unemployed black man. His audacious, still... more
Book Votes: 30
42
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream by Paulo Coelho & Alan R. Clark...
An Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist, all of whom point Santiago in the direction of his quest. No... more
Book Votes: 29
43
| Janis B. |
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
Book Votes: 29
44
| Janis B. |
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and... more
Book Votes: 29
45
| Jeff V. (vincent) |
His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass)...
Now, for the first time, the HIS DARK MATERIALS Trilogy is available in a trade paperback edition. All three books in the His Dark Materials trilogy-- THE GOLDEN COMPASS, THE SUBTLE KNIFE, and THE AMBER SPYGLASS--are available in a new complete boxed set featuring the trade paperbacks. New... more
Book Votes: 28
46
| Kelly R. C. (kellyrenee1979) |
The Millennium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fir...
Stieg Larsson?s Millennium Trilogy is now available in a complete hardcover set.All across America, readers are talking about Stieg Larsson?s best-selling novels, set in Sweden and featuring Lisbeth Salander??one of the most original and memorable heroines to surface in a recent thriller? (The... more
Book Votes: 27
47
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 27
48
| Terri E. (stocktonmalonefan) - |
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch & Jeffrey Zaslow
A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance?... more
Book Votes: 27
49
| DARYL D. (bookworm-51) |
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes 'unstuck in time' after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of... more
Book Votes: 27
50
| Jeff V. (vincent) |
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The narrator of Kazuo Ishiguro's sixth novel is a woman named Kathy H., a graduate of an experimental English boarding school called Hailsham who, many years later, becomes curious about the true nature of the place. Along with Tommy, one of her two best friends from those days, Kathy does some... more
Book Votes: 26
51
|
Patty P. (Patouie) - |
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy has created a huge, brash thunderstorm of a novel, stinging with honesty and resounding with drama.
Spanning forty years, this is the story of turbulent Tom Wingo, his gifted and troubled twin sister, Savannah, and the dark and violent past of the extraordinary family to which... more
Book Votes: 26
52
| Janis B. |
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
At once brutal and tender, despairing and rashly hopeful, spare of language and profoundly moving, this work is a fierce and haunting meditation on the tenuous divide between civilization and savagery, and the essential, sometimes terrifying power of filial love.
Book Votes: 26
53
| DARYL D. (bookworm-51) |
Outlander (Outlander, Bk 1) by Diana Gabaldon
Unrivaled storytelling... unforgettable characters... rich historical detail... these are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon's work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured millions of readers.
Here is the story that started it all,... more
Book Votes: 26
54
|
Patty P. (Patouie) - |
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Three stories are told: a young Southerner wants to become a writer; a turbulent love-hate affair between a brilliant Jew and a beautiful Polish woman; and of an awful wound in that woman's past--one that impels both Sophie and Nathan toward destruction.
Book Votes: 25
55
| DARYL D. (bookworm-51) |
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair?s muckraking masterpiece The Jungle centers on Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant working in Chicago?s infamous Packingtown. Instead of finding the American Dream, Rudkus and his family inhabit a brutal, soul-crushing urban jungle dominated by greedy bosses, pitiless con-men,... more
Book Votes: 25
56
|
Janessa M. - |
1984 by George Orwell
1984 has come and gone, but George Orwell's prophetic, nightmarish vision in 1949 of the world we were becoming is timelier than ever. 1984 is still the great modern classic of "Negative Utopia"--a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is... more
Book Votes: 24
57
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
An alluring tour de force: a brilliant debut novel told with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism as the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.?? Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the... more
Book Votes: 24
58
| Kelly R. C. (kellyrenee1979) |
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Alice Howland is proud of the life she worked so hard to build. At fifty years old, she's a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a world-renowned expert in linguistics with a successful husband and three grown children. When she becomes increasingly disoriented and forgetful, a... more
Book Votes: 23
59
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Pay It Forward is a wondrous and moving novel about Trevor McKinney, a twelve-year-old boy in a small California town who accepts the challenge that his teacher gives his class, a chance to earn extra credit by coming up with a plan to change the world for the better -- and to put that plan into... more
Book Votes: 23
60
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect... more
Book Votes: 23
61
| DARYL D. (bookworm-51) |
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
A story of Howard Roark, an intransigent young architect whose genius and integrity will not be compromised. His ideas work against conventional standard result. He's also in an explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him.
Book Votes: 22
62
|
JaNeil K. (KaneJ) - |
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
Berlin 1942
When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence... more
Book Votes: 22
63
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Released from prison, Shadow finds his world turned upside down. His wife has been killed; a mysterious stranger offers him a job. But Mr. Wednesday, who knows more about Shadow than is possible, warns that a storm is coming -- a battle for the very soul of America . . . and they are in its... more
Book Votes: 20
64
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 20
65
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde's story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is one of his most popular works. Written in Wilde's characteristically dazzling manner, full of stinging epigrams and shrewd observations, the tale of Dorian Gray's moral disintegration caused... more
Book Votes: 19
66
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
In the opening pages of Jamie Ford's stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery:... more
Book Votes: 19
67
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
The Hot Zone : A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston
A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic... more
Book Votes: 19
68
| Ralph W. |
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is a masterpiece that is at once an enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished American in all its savagery, solitude, and splendor.
Sorely wounded and... more
Book Votes: 19
69
|
Theresa W. (theresa2002) - |
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON made its first appearance as a short story which was rapidly and widely anthologized, and translated internationally. It received further acclaim as a memorable television drama, and as a motion picture production. Now, full-bodies and richly-peopled, FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON... more
Book Votes: 19
70
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
"As far as I was concerned, the French could be cold or even openly hostile. They could burn my flag or pelt me with stones, but if there were taxidermied kittens to be had then I would go and bring them back to this, the greatest country on earth." David Sedaris's new collection, Me Talk... more
Book Votes: 18
71
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
An estranged mother and daughter reunite to confront their family’s role in World War II... For fifty years, Anna Schlemmer refused to talk about her life in Germany during World War II. Her daughter, Trudy, was only three when she and her mother were liberated by an American soldier and... more
Book Votes: 18
72
|
Connie A. (jazzysmom) - |
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
In Alias Grace, bestselling author Margaret Atwood has written her most captivating, disturbing, and ultimately satisfying work since The Handmaid's Tale. She takes us back in time and into the life of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century.
Grace Marks... more
Book Votes: 18
73
| Rebecca G. |
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
"Elegant and powerful...an unusual and volatile...literary thriller." --Washington Post Book WorldIn this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in... more
Book Votes: 17
74
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver & Steven L....
Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver describes her family's adventure as they move to a farm in southern Appalachia and realign their lives with the local food chain.
When Kingsolver and her family move from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia, they take on a new challenge: to spend a... more
Book Votes: 16
75
| Ronnie G. (frenchgiant) |
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon & Lucia Graves (Translator)
Barcelona, 1945 -- just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer,... more
Book Votes: 16
76
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
With the publication of this book, Capote permanently ripped through the barrier separating crime reportage from serious literature. As he reconstructs the 1959 murder of a Kansas farm family and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, Capote generates... more
Book Votes: 16
77
| Mar |
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Set in an unnamed Caribbean seaport, Garcia Marquez's extraordinary Love in the Time of Cholera (1988) relates one of literature's most remarkable stories of unrequited love.
Florentino Ariza has never forgotten his first love. He has waited nearly a lifetime in silence, since his... more
Book Votes: 16
78
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The author of The Virgin Suicides won a Pulitzer Prize for this long-awaited second novel. In it, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a Grosse Pointe girls' school in 1974, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively... more
Book Votes: 16
79
| Mar |
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
In the novel, Siddhartha, a young man, leaves his family for a contemplative life, then, restless, discards it for one of the flesh. He conceives a son, but bored and sickened by lust and greed, moves on again. Near despair, Sidddhartha comes to a river where he hears a unique sound. This sound... more
Book Votes: 16
80
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 16
81
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Essay by Virginia Woolf, published in 1929. The work was based on two lectures given by the author in 1928 at Newnham College and Girton College, Cambridge. Woolf addressed the status of women, and women artists in particular, in this famous essay which asserts that a woman must have money and a... more
Book Votes: 15
82
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years -- except Biff, the Messiah's best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story... more
Book Votes: 15
83
| Kelly R. C. (kellyrenee1979) |
Shanghai Girls (May and Pearl, Bk 1) by Lisa See
In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father's prosperous rickshaw... more
Book Votes: 15
84
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende & Magda Bogin (Translator)
Here, in an astonishing debut by a gifted storyteller, is the magnificent saga of proud and passionate men and women and the turbulent times through which they suffer and triumph. They are the Truebas. And theirs is a world you will not want to leave, and one you will not forget.
Esteban --... more
Book Votes: 15
85
| DARYL D. (bookworm-51) |
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco & William Weaver (Translator)
There's a murderer loose in the Abbey. Enter the labyrinth. Unravel the mystery. You will never look at death... or life in quite to same way again.
Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and an English Brother, William of Baskerville, is sent to investigate. His... more
Book Votes: 15
86
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Clay Jenkins returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers 13 cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier.
On tape, Hannah explains that there are thirteen... more
Book Votes: 15
87
|
Janessa M. - |
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
In TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, sportswriter and best-selling author Mitch Albom chronicles his weekly conversations with his former college professor and mentor, Morrie Schwartz, in the months before the Brandeis University sociologist succumbed to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's... more
Book Votes: 15
88
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
Schindler's List is a remarkable work of fiction based on the true story of German industrialist and war profiteer, Oskar Schindler, who, confronted with the horror of the extermination camps, gambled his life and fortune to rescue 1,300 Jews from the gas chambers. Working with the... more
Book Votes: 15
89
| catsandroses |
Room by Emma Donoghue
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.
Room is home to... more
Book Votes: 15
90
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family.
Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is... more
Book Votes: 14
91
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Gathering Blue (Giver, Bk 2) by Lois Lowry
Kira, an orphan with a twisted leg, lives in a world where the weak are cast aside. She fears for her future until she is spared by the all-powerful Council of Guardians. Kira is a gifted weaver and is given a task that no other community member can do. While her talent keeps her alive and... more
Book Votes: 14
92
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
The Jarrets are a typical American family. Calvin is a determined, successful provider and Beth an organized, efficient wife. They had two sons, Conrad and Buck, but now they have one. In this memorable, moving novel, Judith Guest takes the reader into their lives to share their... more
Book Votes: 14
93
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Cry, the Beloved Country is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s. The book is written with such keen empathy and understanding that to read it is to share fully in... more
Book Votes: 14
94
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and th...
A dangerous, homeless drifter who grew up picking cotton in virtual slavery.An upscale art dealer accustomed to the world of Armani and Chanel. A gutsy woman with a stubborn dream. A story so incredible no novelist would dare dream it.
It begins outside a burning plantation hut in Louisiana... more
Book Votes: 14
95
|
Cassie S. (cassie86) - |
Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult
When Charlotte and Sean O'Keefe's daughter, Willow, is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, they are devastated -- she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to make ends meet to cover Willow's medical expenses, Charlotte thinks she... more
Book Votes: 14
96
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hailed by Henry James as "the finest piece of imaginative writing yet put forth in the country," Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter reaches to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early... more
Book Votes: 14
97
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb
When high school teacher Caelum Quirk and his wife, Maureen, a school nurse, move to Littleton, Colorado, they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999, while Caelum is away, Maureen finds herself in the library at Columbine, cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed.... more
Book Votes: 13
98
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
The Space Between Us, Thrity Umrigar's poignant novel about a wealthy woman and her downtrodden servant, offers a revealing look at class and gender roles in modern day Bombay. Alternatively told through the eyes of Sera, a Parsi widow whose pregnant daughter and son-in-law share her elegant... more
Book Votes: 13
99
|
Patty P. (Patouie) - |
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
Stones from the River is a daring, dramatic and complex novel of life in Germany. It is set in Burgdorf, a small fictional German town, between 1915 and 1951. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, a Zwerg -- the German word for dwarf woman. As a dwarf she is set apart, the outsider whose physical... more
Book Votes: 13
100
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Cane River by Lalita Tademy
Lalita Tademy was a corporate vice president at a Fortune 500 company when she decided to give notice and embark upon an odyssey to uncover her family's past. Through her exhaustive research, she would find herself transported back to the early 1800s, to an isolated, close-knit rural community... more
Book Votes: 13
101
| Sarah S. |
Little Bee (aka The Other Hand) by Chris Cleave
Worlds collide when Little Bee, a Nigerian girl orphaned by violence, meets Sarah, a dissatisfied British professional away on holiday. The story is extremely funny, but the African beach scene is horrific. The story starts there, but the book doesn't. And it's what happens... more
Book Votes: 13
102
|
Shannon R. (alien12) - |
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Critically acclaimed when it was first published, Tuck Everlasting has become a much-loved, well-studied modern-day classic. This anniversary edition features an in-depth interview conducted by Betsy Hearne in which Natalie Babbitt takes a look at Tuck Everlasting twenty-five years later.
Book Votes: 13
103
|
Janessa M. - |
The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery & Richard Howard (Translator)
An aviator whose plane is forced down in the Sahara Desert encounters a little prince from a small planet who relates his adventures in seeking the secret of what is important in life.
Book Votes: 13
104
| Paula L. (charlatan) |
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
Book Votes: 12
105
|
ayame92 - |
Brave New World (P.S.) by Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley's tour de force, Brave New World is a darkly satiric vision of a "utopian" future—where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for... more
Book Votes: 12
106
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte & Michael Mason
Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead and subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the... more
Book Votes: 12
107
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
In this humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils, C. S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better understanding of what it means to live a faithful life.
Book Votes: 12
108
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors, Bk 1) by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Miranda'’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun?
As summer... more
Book Votes: 11
109
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry
Eva never really wanted to be a mother-and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two... more
Book Votes: 11
110
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle
A young widow raising two boys, Sarah Laden is struggling to keep her family together. But when a shocking revelation rips apart the family of her closest friend, Sarah finds herself welcoming yet another troubled young boy into her already tumultuous life.
Jordan, a quiet, reclusive... more
Book Votes: 11
111
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Moloka'i (Moloka'i, Bk 1) by Alan Brennert
Rachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl, dreams of visiting far-off lands like her father, a merchant seaman. Then one day a rose-colored mark appears on her skin, and those dreams are stolen from her. Taken from her home and family, Rachel is sent to Kalaupapa, the quarantined... more
Book Votes: 11
112
|
lyndon - |
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Metamorphosis is a short story written by author Franz Kafka. Originally published in 1915, The Metamorphosis is considered to be the most famous of Kafka's works. It is the story of a traveling salesman, named Gregor Samsa, who while trying to find himself transforms into a monstrous... more
Book Votes: 11
113
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
The extraordinary story of a man's quest for truth. It will change the way you think and feel about your life. "The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called 'yourself.'"
Book Votes: 11
114
| Alexandra J. (knihomolsashka) |
The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
NO ONE COULD REACH HER Twelve-year-old Helen Keller lived in a prison of silence and darkness. Born deaf, blind, and mute, with no way to express herself or comprehend those around her, she flew into primal rages against anyone who tried to help her, fighting tooth and nail with a strength born... more
Book Votes: 11
115
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
The Green Mile by Stephen King
Read this history-making serial novel -- from cliffhanger to cliffhanger -- in its entirety. When it first appeared, one volume per month, Stephen King's The Green Mile was an unprecedented publishing triumph: all six volumes ended up on the New York Times bestseller list -- simultaneously --... more
Book Votes: 11
116
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Love Walked In (Love Walked In, Bk 1) by Marisa de los Santos
When Martin Grace enters the hip Philadelphia coffee shop Cornelia Brown manages, her life changes forever. But little does she know that her newfound love is only the harbinger of greater changes to come. Meanwhile, across town, Clare Hobbs -- eleven years old and abandoned by her erratic... more
Book Votes: 10
117
| Paula L. (charlatan) |
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
This is the long-awaited first novel from one of the most original and memorable writers working today.
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and... more
Book Votes: 10
118
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
Cat's Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world... more
Book Votes: 10
119
| Ralph W. |
The Road Less Traveled : A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual G...
Hailed by the Washington Post as "a spontaneous act of generosity," The Road Less Traveled has already given more than two million grateful readers an inspirational framework for achieving profound personal growth and satisfaction. Now Dr. Peck, a practicing psychiatrist, reads from his... more
Book Votes: 10
120
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens & Richard Maxwell
After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English... more
Book Votes: 10
121
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe’s modern American satire tells the story of Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street “Master of the Universe” who has it all — a Park Avenue apartment, a job that brings wealth, power and prestige, a beautiful wife, an even more beautiful mistress. Suddenly, one wrong turn... more
Book Votes: 9
122
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Southern India 1969. Here, armed only with the invincible innocence of children, Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family: their lonely, lovely mother, who loves by night the same man her children adore by day...their blind... more
Book Votes: 9
123
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
A first novel set in St. Elizabeth's, a Kentucky home for unwed mothers run by nuns. Rose Clinton turns up there, pregnant but by no means unwed, and fleeing from her life by means of a series of lies. She learns to cook from elderly Sister Evangeline, and ends up marrying Son, the handyman, who... more
Book Votes: 9
124
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
Next by Michael Crichton
Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There's a new genetic cure for drug... more
Book Votes: 9
125
| John S. (bullroarertook) |
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
In his journal, John Steinbeck called 'East of Eden' "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and... more
Book Votes: 9
126
| Margaret T. (megt) |
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten-year-old girl, is taken with her parents by the French police as they go door to door arresting Jewish families in the middle of the night. Desperate to protect her younger brother, Sarah locks him in a bedroom cupboard -- their secret hiding place -- and promises... more
Book Votes: 9
127
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
A young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing; one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover--these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by... more
Book Votes: 8
128
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Sold by Patricia McCormick
Lakshmi, 13, knows nothing about the world beyond her village shack in the Himalayas of Nepal, and when her family loses the little it has in a monsoon, she grabs a chance to work as a maid in the city so she can send money back home. What she doesn't know is that her stepfather has sold her... more
Book Votes: 8
129
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 8
130
|
Patty P. (Patouie) - |
Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft by Thor Heyerdahl & F. H. Lyon (Translator)
Kon-Tiki is the record of an astonishing adventure -- a journey of 4,300 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean by raft.
Intrigued by Polynesian folklore, biologist Thor Heyerdahl suspected that the South Sea Islands had been settled by an ancient race from thousands of miles to the east,... more
Book Votes: 8
131
| DARYL D. (bookworm-51) |
The Agony and the Ecstasy : A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone
Celebrating the 500th anniversary of Michelangelo's David, New American Library releases a special edition of Irving Stone's classic biographical novel-in which both the artist and the man are brought to life in full. A masterpiece in its own right, this novel offers a compelling portrait of... more
Book Votes: 8
132
|
Janessa M. - |
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules... people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves... people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they’ll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher... more
Book Votes: 8
133
| catsandroses |
Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Greenville County, South Carolina, a wild, lush place, is home to the Boatwright family -- rough-hewn men who drink hard and shoot up each other's trucks, and indomitable women who marry young and age all too quickly. At the heart of this astonishing novel is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known... more
Book Votes: 8
134
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira
The Civil War offers a 20-year-old midwife who dreams of becoming a doctor the medical experience she craves, plus hard work and heartbreak, in this rich debut that takes readers from a small upstate New York doctor's office to a Union hospital overflowing with the wounded and... more
Book Votes: 7
135
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
Winner of the Booker Prize.
In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes, part Maori, part European, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family. One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor -- a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to... more
Book Votes: 7
136
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue
In 1920s New Orleans, Raziela Nolan is in the throes of a magnificent love affair when she dies in a tragic accident. She narrates the story of her lost love, as well as the relationship of the couple whose house she haunts more than 75 years later. The couple's trials compel Razi to slowly... more
Book Votes: 7
137
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Girls by Lori Lansens
Meet Rose and Ruby: sisters, best friends, confidantes, and conjoined twins.
Since their birth, Rose and Ruby Darlen have been known simply as "the girls." They make friends, fall in love, have jobs, love their parents, and follow their dreams. But the Darlens are special. Now nearing their... more
Book Votes: 7
138
|
Patty P. (Patouie) - |
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
Book Votes: 7
139
| Erin C. (erinculver) |
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy
In the last months of the Nazi occupation of Poland, two children are left by their father and stepmother to find safety in a dense forest. Because their real names will reveal their Jewishness, they are renamed "Hansel" and "Gretel." They wander in the woods until they are taken in by Magda, an... more
Book Votes: 7
140
| Erin C. (erinculver) |
State of Fear by Michael Crichton
The undisputed master of the techno-thriller has written his most riveting -- and entertaining -- book yet. Once again Michael Crichton gives us his trademark combination of page-turning suspense, cutting-edge technology, and extraordinary research. State of Fear is a superb blend of... more
Book Votes: 7
141
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
Ahab's Wife : Or, The Star-gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund
A rich epic, drawn from the classic Moby Dick, chronicles the life of Una Spenser, wife of the immortal Captain Ahab, from her Kentucky childhood, through her adventures disguised as a whaling ship cabin boy, to her various marriages.
Book Votes: 7
142
| Ralph W. |
Hiroshima by John Hersey
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city. This book tells what happened on that day, told through the memoirs of survivors.
Book Votes: 7
143
| Ralph W. |
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
With more than 300,000 copies sold, Chuck Palahniuk's brilliant first novel and cult classic is being reissued with a new Introduction by the author
An underground classic since its first publication in 1996, Fight Club is widely recognized as one of the most original and provocative novels... more
Book Votes: 7
144
|
Cassie S. (cassie86) - |
Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult
For the second time in her marriage, Mariah White catches her husband with another woman, and Faith, their seven-year-old daughter, witnesses every painful minute. In the aftermath of a sudden divorce, Mariah struggles with depression and Faith seeks solace in a new friend -- a friend who may or... more
Book Votes: 7
145
| Jeff V. (vincent) |
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous 47-year-old Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing... more
Book Votes: 6
146
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2005 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction 2004 National Book Critics Circle Winner In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young... more
Book Votes: 6
147
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Saint Maybe (Large Print) by Anne Tyler
On a quiet street in Baltimore in 1965, seventeen-year-old Ian Bedloe lives with his family in an "ideal, apple-pie household," enjoying the comfort of family traditions and indulging in all the usual dreams of the future. Until one night, when Ian's stinging words to his brother... more
Book Votes: 6
148
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Testimony by Anita Shreve
There are dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, the needs and fears that drive ordinary men and women into intolerable dilemmas, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions... At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break.... more
Book Votes: 6
149
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson & Anne Born (Translator)
In this quiet but compelling novel, Trond Sander, a widower nearing seventy, moves to a bare house in remote eastern Norway, seeking the life of quiet contemplation that he has always longed for. A chance encounter with a neighbor -- the brother, as it happens, of his childhood friend Jon --... more
Book Votes: 6
150
| Ronnie G. (frenchgiant) |
Blindness by Jose Saramago & Giovanni Pontiero (Translator)
A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven... more
Book Votes: 6
151
| Ronnie G. (frenchgiant) |
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
THE CORRECTIONS is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century-a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes.
After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity... more
Book Votes: 6
152
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 6
153
|
Michelle N. (mnorth) - |
Einstein's Dreams (Vintage Contemporaries) by Alan Lightman
A modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, when he worked in a patent office in Switzerland. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible... more
Book Votes: 6
154
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
When college sophomore Laurel Estabrook is attacked while riding her bike through Vermont's back roads, her life is forever changed. Formerly outgoing, Laurel withdraws into her photography and begins working at a homeless shelter. There she meets Bobbie Crocker, a man with a history of mental... more
Book Votes: 6
155
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza &am...
Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the... more
Book Votes: 6
156
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is... more
Book Votes: 6
157
| Ralph W. |
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one... more
Book Votes: 6
158
| Ralph W. |
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Henry Townsend, a black farmer, bootmaker, and former slave, has a fondness for Paradise Lost and an unusual mentor -- William Robbins, perhaps the most powerful man in antebellum Virginia's Manchester County. Under Robbins's tutelage, Henry becomes proprietor of his own plantation -- as well as... more
Book Votes: 6
159
|
Cassie S. (cassie86) - |
Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
Shay Bourne--New Hampshire's first death row prisoner in 69 years--has only one last request: to donate his heart, post-execution, to the sister of his victim, who is looking for a transplant. Bourne says it's the only way he can redeem himself ... but with lethal injection as his form of... more
Book Votes: 6
160
| Kathy F. |
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
On the windswept, fossil-strewn beaches of the English coast, poor and uneducated Mary Anning learns that she has a unique gift: "the eye" to spot fossils no one else can see. When she uncovers an unusual fossilized skeleton in the cliffs near her home, she sets the religious community... more
Book Votes: 6
161
| Alexandra J. (knihomolsashka) |
Perfume : The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
The Story of a Murderer is a 1985 literary historical cross-genre novel (originally published in German as Das Parfum) by German writer Patrick Suskind. The novel explores the sense of scent, and its relationship with the emotional meaning that scents may carry. Above all this is a story of... more
Book Votes: 6
162
| Brie S. (espagnolisme) |
One by Richard Bach
I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?
Book Votes: 5
163
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Next Thing On My List by Jill Smolinski
June Parker's life is meandering along until a freak car accident leaves Marissa, her 24-year-old passenger, dead and June wracked with guilt. June discovers a list Marissa had been keeping of 25 things she wanted to do by the time she turned 25. After a run-in with Marissa's brother, June... more
Book Votes: 5
164
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
A Gathering of Old Men (Vintage Contemporaries) by Ernest J. Gaines
Set on a Louisiana sugarcane plantation in the 1970s, A Gathering of Old Men is a powerful depiction of racial tensions arising over the death of a Cajun farmer at the hands of a black man. "Poignant, powerful, earthy...a novel of Southern racial confrontation in which a group of elderly black... more
Book Votes: 5
165
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Book of Lost Things (Book of Lost Things, Bk 1) by John Connolly
High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother. He is angry and alone, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness, and as he takes refuge in his imagination, he finds that reality and fantasy have... more
Book Votes: 5
166
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
All the Numbers by Judy Merrill Larsen
"How much do you love me?" Daniel asked his mother.
"I love you all the numbers."
What begins as a sunny August afternoon on a bucolic lake turns into a tragedy when a Jet Ski swerves fatally close to shore. It's a day Ellen Banks could never have prepared for ... a day no mother should... more
Book Votes: 5
167
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an... more
Book Votes: 5
168
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz
At the close of a beautiful summer day near the quiet Connecticut town where they live, the Learner family -- Ethan and Grace, their children, Josh and Emma -- stop at a gas station on their way home from a concert. Josh Learner, lost in a 10-year-old's private world, is standing at the edge of... more
Book Votes: 5
169
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens
When 5-year old Sharla Cody is dumped on the doorstep of Addy Shadd, a 70-year old woman living in a trailer park, Addy does not know how completely her life is about to change. She's hardly used to company and the troubled Sharla is not the sweet, beautiful angel she had envisioned.... more
Book Votes: 5
170
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin
In a small town square of a sleepy Georgia town, seven-year-old Annie sits at her lemonade stand, raising money for her own heart transplant. At a nearby store, Reese flips through the newspaper, thinking about the latest boat he's restoring. As a beat-up bread truck careens around the corner, a... more
Book Votes: 5
171
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
New York City is subsumed in arctic winds, dark nights, and white lights, its life unfolds, for it is an extraordinary hive of the imagination, the greatest house ever built, and nothing exists that can check its vitality. One night in winter, Peter Lake, orphan and master-mechanic, attempts to... more
Book Votes: 5
172
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 5
173
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Shelter Me by Juliette Fay
Four months after her husband's death, Janie LaMarche remains undone by grief and anger. Her mourning is disrupted, however, by the unexpected arrival of a builder with a contract to add a porch onto her house. Stunned, Janie realizes the porch was meant to be a surprise from her husband?now his... more
Book Votes: 5
174
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart
When Cameron was fifteen, she and Sonia were best friends -- so close it seemed nothing would ever come between them. Now Cameron is a twenty-nine-year-old research assistant with no meaningful ties to anyone except her aging boss, noted historian Oliver Doucet.
Nearly a decade after the... more
Book Votes: 5
175
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
Jordan won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Mudbound, her first novel. The prize was founded by Barbara Kingsolver to reward books of conscience, social responsibility, and literary merit. In addition to meeting all of the above qualifications, Jordan has written a story filled with characters... more
Book Votes: 5
176
| Janis B. |
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
This luminous story begins in the present day, when a professor invites a colleague to his home to see a painting that he has kept secret for decades. The professor swears it is a Vermeer--but why has he hidden this important work for so long? The reasons unfold in a series of events that trace... more
Book Votes: 5
177
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham
In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A's, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory.
Six years later he was back, his dreams... more
Book Votes: 5
178
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky & David Magarshack (Translator)
This novel was Dostoyevsky's last and finest work, telling the story of the four Karamazov brothers--each with his own distinct personality and desires. Driven by intense, uncontrollable emotions of rage and revenge, they all become involved in the brutal murder of their despicable... more
Book Votes: 5
179
| Rosemary G. (trinket7) |
Dune (Dune Chronicles, Bk 1) by Frank Herbert
Set in the far future amidst a sprawling feudal interstellar empire where planetary dynasties are controlled by noble houses that owe an allegiance to the imperial House Corrino, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides (the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides and heir of House Atreides) as... more
Book Votes: 5
180
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata Diallo thinks only of freedom—and of the knowledge she needs to get home.
Sold to an indigo trader who recognizes her intelligence, Aminata is torn from her husband and child and thrown into the chaos of the... more
Book Votes: 4
181
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Murderer's Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers
Lulu and Merry’s childhood was never ideal, but on the day before Lulu’s tenth birthday their father drives them into a nightmare. He’s always hungered for the love of the girl’s self-obsessed mother; after she throws him out, their troubles turn deadly.
Lulu’s... more
Book Votes: 4
182
|
Connie A. (jazzysmom) - |
The Box: Uncanny Stories by Richard Matheson
What if every time you pushed a button you received $50,000...but someone you didn't know died? Would you still push the button? How many times?
"Button, Button", which inspired a memorable Twilight Zone episode, is just one of a dozen unforgettable tales in this new... more
Book Votes: 4
183
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 4
184
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
The author of The Things They Carried offers a riveting novel of love and mystery. When long-hidden secrets about the atrocities he committed in Vietnam come to light, a candidate for the U.S. Senate retreats with his wife to a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota. Within days of their arrival,... more
Book Votes: 4
185
|
Patty P. (Patouie) - |
Animals in Translation : Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior by T...
I don't know if people will ever be able to talk to animals the way Doctor Doolittle could, or whether animals will be able to talk back. Maybe science will have something to say about that. But I do know people can learn to "talk" to animals, and to hear what animals have to say, better than... more
Book Votes: 4
186
|
Patty P. (Patouie) - |
'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!' Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. ...
In this phenomenal national bestseller, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard P. Feynman recounts in his inimitable voice his adventures trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek, painting a naked female toreador, accompanying a... more
Book Votes: 4
187
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice
Having completed the two cycles of legend to which she has devoted her career so far, Anne Rice gives us now her most thoughtful and powerful book, a novel about the childhood of Christ the Lord based on the gospels and on the most respected New Testament scholarship.
The book?s power derives... more
Book Votes: 4
188
|
Shannon R. (alien12) - |
Stargirl (Stargirl, Bk 1) by Jerry Spinelli
Stargirl. From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High, the hallways hum with the murmur of "Stargirl, Stargirl." She captures Leo Borlock's heart with just one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. At first. Then... more
Book Votes: 4
189
| Ralph W. |
Portrait in Sepia (Daughter of Fortune, Bk 2) by Isabel Allende & Margaret Sayers...
Recounted in the voice of a young woman in search of her roots, Portrait in Sepia is a novel about memory and family secrets. Aurora del Valle suffers a brutal trauma that shapes her character and erases from her mind all recollection of the first five years of her life. Raised by her ambitious... more
Book Votes: 4
190
| Ralph W. |
Love Medicine (Love Medicine, Bk 1) by Louise Erdrich
The first of Louise Erdrich’s polysymphonic novels set in North Dakota – a fictional landscape that, in Erdrich’s hands, has become iconic – Love Medicine is the story of three generations of Ojibwe families. Set against the tumultuous politics of the reservation,the... more
Book Votes: 4
191
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri & John Ciardi (Translator)
Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise-the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation.
Book Votes: 4
192
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet, is one of the most beloved classics of our time. Published in 1923, it has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the American editions alone have sold more than nine million copies.
The Prophet is a collection of poetic essays... more
Book Votes: 4
193
| catsandroses |
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
The Mulvaneys are blessed by all that makes life sweet... a hardworking father, a loving mother, three fine sons, and a bright, pretty daughter. They are confident in their love for each other and their position in the rural community of Mt. Ephraim, New York. But something happens on... more
Book Votes: 4
194
|
Will H. (whami) - |
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko. Emiko is the Windup Girl,... more
Book Votes: 3
195
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Buffalo Soldier by Chris Bohjalian
With his trademark emotional heft and storytelling skill, bestselling author Chris Bohjalian presents this resonant novel about the formation of an unconventional family -- the ties that bind it, and the strains that pull it apart. Two years after their twin daughters died in a flash flood,... more
Book Votes: 3
196
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard
12-year-old Veronica Swan's idyllic life in a close-knit Mormon community is shattered when her two younger sisters are brutally murdered. Although her parents find the strength to forgive the deranged killer, Scott Early, Veronica cannot do the same. Years later, she sets out alone to avenge... more
Book Votes: 3
197
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood by Sy Montgomery
“Christopher Hogwood came home on my lap in a shoebox. He was a creature who would prove in many ways to be more human than I am.”–from The Good Good PigA naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own among wild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always... more
Book Votes: 3
198
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Ruby Lennox begins narrating her own life at the moment of her conception, and from there takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of a girl determined to learn more about her family and the secrets it keeps.
Book Votes: 3
199
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell
In the middle of tending to the everyday business at her vintage-clothing shop and sidestepping her married boyfriend’s attempts at commitment, Iris Lockhart receives a stunning phone call: Her great-aunt Esme, whom she never knew existed, is being released from Cauldstone... more
Book Votes: 3
200
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Bright Forever by Lee Martin
On an evening like any other, nine-year-old Katie Mackey, daughter of the most affluent family in a small town on the plains of Indiana, sets out on her bicycle to return some library books.
This simple act is at the heart of The Bright Forever, a suspenseful, deeply affecting novel about the... more
Book Votes: 3
201
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Out of the Night That Covers Me by Pat Cunningham Devoto
An orphaned white boy and an eccentric black man forge an unlikely friendship in the segregated world of 1950s Alabama. The boy, John, whose beloved mother has died, now faces a loveless future with his alcoholic uncle on a sharecropper's farm in the Alabama Black Belt-an abusive life he soon... more
Book Votes: 3
202
| DARYL D. (bookworm-51) |
We the Living by Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand said of her first novel, We the Living: "It is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write. The plot is invented, the background is not ... The specific events of Kira's life were not mine; her ideas, her convictions, her values, were and are."
First published in... more
Book Votes: 3
203
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Pleasure Was Mine by Tommy Hays
Prate Marshbanks proposed to his future wife on a muggy July night at Pete's Drive-in back in '52. "She said yes to me between bites of a slaw burger all-the-way." A college graduate and daughter of a prominent lawyer, Irene was an unlikely match for Prate, a high school dropout. He lived his... more
Book Votes: 3
204
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Unaccustomed Earth: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
From the internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand.
In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully... more
Book Votes: 3
205
|
Shannon R. (alien12) - |
Love, Stargirl (Stargirl, Bk 2) by Jerry Spinelli
LOVE, STARGIRL picks up a year after Stargirl ends and reveals the new life of the beloved character who moved away so suddenly at the end of Stargirl. The novel takes the form of "the world's longest letter," in diary form, going from date to date through a little more than a... more
Book Votes: 3
206
|
Shannon R. (alien12) - |
Many Waters (Time, Bk 4) by Madeleine L'Engle
Meg Murry, now in college, time travels with her twin brothers, Sandy and Dennys, to a desert oasis that is embroiled in war.
Book Votes: 3
207
|
Cassie S. (cassie86) - |
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood
Marian has a problem. A willing member of the consumer society in which she lives, she suddenly finds herself identifying with the things being consumed. She can cope with her tidy-minded fiancé, Peter, who likes shooting rabbits. She can cope with her job in market research, and the antics... more
Book Votes: 3
208
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
My lady, Fiammetta Bianchini, was plucking her eyebrows and biting color into her lips when the unthinkable happened and the Holy Roman Emperor's army blew a hole in the wall of God's eternal city, letting in a flood of half-starved, half-crazed troops bent on pillage and punishment.
Thus... more
Book Votes: 3
209
|
JaNeil K. (KaneJ) - |
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
Is it possible to grow up while getting younger?Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It’s quiet and peaceful. You can’t get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere’s museums. Need to talk... more
Book Votes: 3
210
|
SUSAN S. (susieqmillsacoustics) - |
The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall
What would you do to inherit a billion dollars? Would you be willing to change your life? Jason Stevens is about to find out in Jim Stovall's The Ultimate Gift. Red Stevens has died, and the older members of his family receive their millions with greedy anticipation. But a different fate awaits... more
Book Votes: 3
211
| John S. (bullroarertook) |
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered one of the most accomplished, powerful, and enduring classics of modern speculative fiction, Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz is a true landmark of twentieth-century literature -- a chilling and... more
Book Votes: 3
212
| John S. (bullroarertook) |
The Killer Angels (Civil War, Bk 2) by Michael Shaara
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than... more
Book Votes: 3
213
| John S. (bullroarertook) |
Giants in the Earth (Giants in the Earth, Bk 1) by Ole Edvart Rolvaag
The classic story of a Norwegian pioneer family's struggles with the land and the elements of the Dakota Territory as they try to make a new life in America.
Book Votes: 3
214
| Dw P. (squarespot) |
Dexter in the dark by Lindsay & Jeff
Dexter Morgan, Miami PD blood-apolatter analyst, is accustomed to seeing evil deeds- he occasionally enjoys committing them himself. Guided by His Dark Passenger- the voice that helps stalk his prey- he lives his outwardly normal life according to one simple rule: he kills only vey bad people.
Book Votes: 3
215
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed.
Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, knew about the... more
Book Votes: 3
216
| Cheryl H. |
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
An American classic, the moving story set in the 1900's, about a young girl's coming of age at the turn of the century, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their parents, Irish immigrants who have settled in the... more
Book Votes: 3
217
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Defending Jacob by William Landay
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob. But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town,... more
Book Votes: 3
218
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Safely Home by Randy Alcorn
Fans of Randy Alcorn will applaud this soul-stirring story of two college friends who reconnect after twenty years. Ben Fielding is living life apart from God in comfortable corporate America. He hits upon a perfect plan: he will make his company millions of dollars by using Chinese labor to... more
Book Votes: 2
219
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Adam by Ted Dekker
Tackling near-death experiences and demon possession, NY Times best-selling author Ted Dekker delivers a riveting thriller of sin and salvation.
FBI behavioral psychologist Daniel Clark has been made famous by his arguments that religion is one of society's greatest antagonists. What Daniel... more
Book Votes: 2
220
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
A Place Where the Sea Remembers by Sandra Benitez
In A Place Where the Sea Remembers, Sandra Benitez invites us into a mesmerizing world filled with, love and betrayal, tragedy and hope. This rich and bewitching story is a bittersweet portrait of the people in Santiago, a Mexican village by the sea. Chayo, the flower seller, and her husband... more
Book Votes: 2
221
|
Gail P. (TinkerPirate) - |
The Expected One (Magdalene Line, Bk 1) by Kathleen McGowan
When journalist Maureen Paschal begins the research for a new book, she has no idea that she is stepping into an ancient mystery so secret, so revolutionary, that thousands of people have killed and died for it.
Two thousand years ago, Mary Magdalene hid a set of scrolls in the French... more
Book Votes: 2
222
|
Gail P. (TinkerPirate) - |
The Book of Love by Kathleen McGowan
Maureen Paschal thought she might rest and work on her book after discovering the gospel written by Mary Magdalene that revealed Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. The truth of their story rocked the world and made Maureen a target of those who did not like her discovery and a heroine to... more
Book Votes: 2
223
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Listener by Taylor Caldwell
Who was the Mysterious Listener? And what strange power did he offer to fifteen people on a desperate quest?
John Godfrey, retired lawyer in a large Midwestern city, erects a beautiful marble sanctum as a monument to his late wife. Inside, behind an electronic screen that hides him from each... more
Book Votes: 2
224
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Winter's Bone: A Novel by Daniel Woodrell
Ree Dolly's father has skipped bail on charges that he ran a crystal meth lab, and the Dollys will lose their house if he doesn't show up for his next court date. With two young brothers depending on her, 16-year-old Ree knows she has to bring her father back, dead or alive. Living in the harsh... more
Book Votes: 2
225
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Unless (P.S.) by Carol Shields
Forty-four-year-old Reta Winters, wife, mother, writer, and translator, is living a happy life until one of her three daughters drops out of university to sit on a downtown street corner silent and cross-legged with a begging bowl in her lap and a placard round her neck that says... more
Book Votes: 2
226
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Elizabeth Street by Laurie Fabiano
In Elizabeth Street, Laurie Fabiano tells a remarkable, and previously unheard, story of the Italian immigrant experience at the start of the twentieth century. With stories culled from her own family history, Fabiano paints an entrancing portrait of Giovanna Costa, who, reeling from personal... more
Book Votes: 2
227
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Under This Unbroken Sky (Larger Print) by Shandi Mitchell
Evocative and compelling, rich in imagination and atmosphere, Under This Unbroken Sky is a beautifully wrought debut from a gifted new novelist.
Spring 1938. After nearly two years in prison for the crime of stealing his own grain, Ukrainian immigrant Teodor Mykolayenko is a free man. While... more
Book Votes: 2
228
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey
THE YELLOW HOUSE delves into the passion and politics of Northern Ireland at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Eileen O'Neill's family is torn apart by religious intolerance and secrets from the past. Determined to reclaim her ancestral home and reunite her family, Eileen begins... more
Book Votes: 2
229
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Girl In Translation by Jean Kwok
Introducing a fresh, exciting Chinese-American voice, an inspiring debut about an immigrant girl forced to choose between two worlds and two futures. When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl... more
Book Votes: 2
230
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin
Winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for his radiant novel in stories, Mary and O’Neil, Justin Cronin has already been hailed as a writer of astonishing gifts. Now Cronin’s new novel, The Summer Guest, fulfills that promise—and more. With a rare combination of emotional insight,... more
Book Votes: 2
231
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Case Histories (Jackson Brodie, Bk 1) by Kate Atkinson
A triumphant new novel from award-winner Kate Atkinson: a breathtaking story of families divided, love lost and found, and the mysteries of fate. Includes reading group guide with author interview and discussion questions.
Case One: Olivia Land, youngest and most beloved of the Land girls,... more
Book Votes: 2
232
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
The Death of the Heart is perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's best-known book. As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen reveals herself as a masterful novelist who combines a sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining... more
Book Votes: 2
233
| Ronnie G. (frenchgiant) |
Memoir from Antproof Case by Mark Helprin
From Mark Helprin, acclaimed author of A Soldier of the Great War and A Winter's Tale, comes a miraculous song of the twentieth century.In a mountain garden in Brazil, an old American is writing his memoirs, placing the pages carefully in his antproof case. As he reminisces we learn he was a... more
Book Votes: 2
234
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
Alex Cross's Trial (Alex Cross, Bk 15) by James Patterson & Richard DiLallo
Separated by time
From his grandmother, Alex Cross has heard the story of his great uncle Abraham and his struggles for survival in the era of the Ku Klux Klan. Now, Alex passes the family tale along to his own children in a novel he's written--a novel called Trial.
Connected by... more
Book Votes: 2
235
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston & Mario Spezi
In the tradition of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City, Douglas Preston weaves a captivating account of crime and punishment in the lush hills of Florence, Italy.
Douglas Preston fulfilled a lifelong dream when he moved... more
Book Votes: 2
236
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana by Anne Rice
Anne Rice's second book in her hugely ambitious and courageous life of Christ begins during his last winter before his baptism in the Jordan and concludes with the miracle at Cana.
It is a novel in which we see Jesus--he is called Yeshua bar Joseph--during a winter of no rain, endless dust,... more
Book Votes: 2
237
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Burden of Desire (Harvest Book) by Robert MacNeil
The disastrous 1917 explosion of a munitions ship in Halifax Harbor, Nova Scotia, forms the backdrop to this “rich, abundantly humane love story” (Chicago Tribune)-”a powerful piece of work” (Washington Post Book World) that marks an “auspicious fiction debut for an... more
Book Votes: 2
238
| Ralph W. |
What do you say after you say hello by Berne & Eric
A great sequel to the book Games People Play
Book Votes: 2
239
| Ralph W. |
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
On one level, An American Tragedy is the story of the corruption and destruction of one man, Clyde Griffiths, who forfeits his life in desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, the novel represents a massive portrayal of the society whose values both shape... more
Book Votes: 2
240
| Cristina H. (gamermom77) |
Unwind (Unwind, Bk 1) by Neal Shusterman
In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them
Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's... more
Book Votes: 2
241
| Krista K. (Krista0521) |
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
This beautiful and sad first novel, recently adapted for a major motion picture, tells of a band of teenage sleuths who piece together the story of a twenty-year old family tragedy begun by the youngest daughter’s spectacular demise by self-defenstration, which inaugurates “the year... more
Book Votes: 2
242
| John S. (bullroarertook) |
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
I, Claudius is written in the form of Tiberius Claudius Nero's autobiography and is one of the classics of modern fiction, the best fictional reconstruction of Rome ever written.
Book Votes: 2
243
|
Jennifer G. (Simons-Mom) - |
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
Book Votes: 2
244
|
Elizabeth S. (flooblover) - |
Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan
Setiawan's debut novel spans 30 years in this heartfelt magical-realist story of two rival families living in a mystical world that transcends both time and place. Meridia is a lonely child; a mysterious incident when she was an infant has torn apart her parents, leaving them sharing nothing... more
Book Votes: 2
245
| Janis B. |
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
A stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he... more
Book Votes: 2
246
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley
When we think of the Dark Ages, we often think of a dim, primitive society where people struggled just to stay alive, with no room for spirituality or philosophy. The cool, clear, gemlike precision of Horsley's (Crazy Woman) new novel tells another tale.
Gwynneve is born into a world... more
Book Votes: 1
247
| Jeff V. (vincent) |
Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of Segregation in America by James W. Loewen
The explosive story of racial exclusion in the north, from the American Book Award-winning author of Lies My Teacher Told Me. 'Whites have nicknames for many sundown towns: from "Colonial Whites" for Colonial Heights, near Richmond, Virginia, across the country to "Lily White Lynwood" outside... more
Book Votes: 1
248
|
Karen E. (thebakerswife) - |
Benighted by Kit Whitfield
Published as "Bareback" in the UK, and "Benighted" in the US.
Biology is destiny.
For those born feet-first, life is normal. Civil rights are enshrined in law, the world is a comfortable place, and every full moon night, you lock yourself in a secure room to fur up in peace. But for those... more
Book Votes: 1
249
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The English Wife (Next) by Doreen Roberts
The death of Marjorie Maitland's husband reveals secrets -- among them a cottage in England he owned and allowed a woman to live in rent-free. Despite being left with less money than she expected, Marjorie decides to visit England, sell the property and, most of all, find out what this woman... more
Book Votes: 1
250
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Jantsen's Gift: A True Story of Grief, Rescue, and Grace by Pam Cope
Nine years ago, Pam Cope owned a cozy hair salon in the tiny town of Neosho, Missouri, and her life revolved around her son's baseball games, her daughter's dance lessons, and family trips to places like Disney World. She had never been out of the country, nor had she any desire to travel far... more
Book Votes: 1
251
| Alma H. (almahudso) |
Checkered Fences by Alma Hudson
Checkered Fences is not only a novel of remarkable insight, but a tribute to our world?s changing social and political climate. Author Alma Hudson writes with extraordinary vision and clarity, bringing racial issues to the forefront with delicate balance and thoughtful compassion. It?s the late... more
Book Votes: 1
252
| Pam C. (PamC) |
The Gate To Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
For all those who enjoyed THE HANDMAID'S TALE comes a captivating novel set in a frightening future. Human civilization has evolved into a dual society where walls enclose the peaceful women and keep the warrior men out, and yet there is a gate between them for those who dream.
Book Votes: 1
253
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan
Set against the translucent beauty of France in summer, Bonjour Tristesse is a bittersweet tale narrated by Cécile, a seventeen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood, whose meddling in her father's love life leads to tragic consequences.Freed from boarding school, Cécile lives in... more
Book Votes: 1
254
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
About Schmidt by Louis Begley
Proud, traditional, and impeccably organized, Albert Schmidt is a button-down lawyer of the old school.??But now, after years of carefulmanagement, his life is slowly unraveling.??His beloved wife has recently died.??He stumbles--or is he being pushed?--into early retirement.??And his daughter,... more
Book Votes: 1
255
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Still Life by Joy Fielding
New York Times bestselling author Joy Fielding delivers a riveting tale of suspense about a young woman caught in a nightmare somewhere between life and death.
Beautiful, happily married, and the owner of a successful interior design business, Casey Marshall couldn't be more content with... more
Book Votes: 1
256
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The View from Garden City by Carolyn Baugh
Meet the women of Garden City:
Huda, who waited desperately for the man she loved until she could wait no longer
Karima, who found her husband in a collapsing post-war world
Afkar, who paid a dreadful price for her freedom
Selwa, who suffered through the deaths of her... more
Book Votes: 1
257
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Far Above Rubies by Cynthia Polansky
Based on a true story, a Dutch woman is caught in the nightmare of Hitler's regime when she voluntarily accompanies her six stepdaughters to Auschwitz. What transpires during and after the war exemplifies a rare courage in an extraordinary heroine.
Book Votes: 1
258
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen
Deep in the mist-shrouded forests of the Pacific Northwest is a small mill town called Commonwealth, conceived as a haven for workers weary of exploitation. For Philip Worthy, the adopted son of the town’s founder, it is a haven in another sense–as the first place in his life... more
Book Votes: 1
259
|
Connie A. (jazzysmom) - |
Until We Meet Again: a True Story of Love and Survival in the Holocaust by Michael Ko...
1942. A Small town in Poland. Two Jewish families fell to hiding places, hoping to evade deportation by the Nazis. At the last moment, 17-year-old Manya makes the heart-wrenching decision to leave her family and join her sweetheart, Meyer, also 17, with his family. For three long years, Manya... more
Book Votes: 1
260
|
Connie A. (jazzysmom) - |
Saints at the River by Ron Rash
A major new Southern voice emerges in this novel about a town divided by the aftermath of a tragic accident--and the woman caught in the middle
When a twelve-year-old girl drowns in the Tamassee River and her body is trapped in a deep eddy, the people of the small South Carolina town that... more
Book Votes: 1
261
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier
A few years after its liberation from French colonialist rule, Haiti experienced a period of unsurpassed brutality, horror, and superstition under the reign of the black King Henri-Christophe. Through the eyes of the ancient slave Ti-Noel, The Kingdom of This World records the destruction of the... more
Book Votes: 1
262
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Whole World Over by Julia Glass
From the author of the beloved novel Three Junes comes a rich and commanding story about the accidents, both grand and small, that determine our choices in love and marriage. Greenie Duquette, openhearted yet stubborn, devotes most of her passionate attention to her Greenwich Village bakery and... more
Book Votes: 1
263
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman
In a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman weaves a web of tales, all set in Blackbird House. This small farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod is a place that is as bewitching and alive as the characters we meet: Violet, a brilliant girl who is in love with books and with a... more
Book Votes: 1
264
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell
Alice Raikes takes a train from London to Scotland to visit her family, but when she gets there she witnesses something so shocking that she insists on returning to London immediately. A few hours later, Alice is lying in a coma after an accident that may or may not have been a suicide attempt.... more
Book Votes: 1
265
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
Lively won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for this deeply moving, elegantly structured novel.
The heroine is Claudia Hampton, an unconventional historian and former war correspondent who lies in a hospital bed dying of cancer. Forced inward, Claudia moves randomly across time and... more
Book Votes: 1
266
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Sleep Toward Heaven by Amanda Eyre Ward
Sleep Toward Heaven is a luminous story of murder and desire, solitude and grace, set in Manhattan and small-town Texas.
In Gatestown, twenty-nine-year old Karen awaits her execution on Death Row. In New York, Franny, a doctor the same age, plans her wedding and tries to resist her urge to... more
Book Votes: 1
267
|
Connie A. (jazzysmom) - |
Last Wish by Betty Rollin
More than just an account of the mechanics of suicide, this bestseller in hardcover (151,000 copies in print) is the story of the love between a mother and daughter and how tragedy, transformed by courage and love, may be remembered as victory.
Book Votes: 1
268
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Any Bitter Thing by Monica Wood
After surviving a near-fatal accident, thirty-year-old Lizzy Mitchell faces a long road to recovery. She remembers little about the days she spent in and out of consciousness, save for one thing: She saw her beloved deceased uncle, Father Mike, the man who raised her in the rectory of his Maine... more
Book Votes: 1
269
| Priscilla P. (happyreedr) |
The Star-Rover by Jack London
Yet even then did I know I had been a Star-Rover . . . * He has been imprisoned in San Quentin and subjected to the tortures of the damned for a crime he cannot reveal the details of -- for he knows nothing of it! And now he is sentenced to hang! "The fools!" he rails. "As if they could... more
Book Votes: 1
270
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Summer of Two Wishes (Cedar Springs, Bk 1) by Julia London
When one wish came true, she suddenly needed a second wish -- and a second chance.
WHOSE WIFE WAS SHE?
Macy Lockhart's life shattered in a moment with the news that her husband, Finn -- serving in the military overseas -- has been killed in the line of duty. Their ardent and... more
Book Votes: 1
271
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
A Thorn in the Heart by Tim Stafford
This is a true story about a murder of a handicapped teenager.
Who would want to murder a handicapped teenager and his three friends. That's what Frank Hager, the father of one of the missing boys, wonders when he realizes his son has been missing ever since he left a local high school... more
Book Votes: 1
272
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Conversations at Curlow Creek by David Malouf
The year is 1827. In a remote hut on the high planes of New South Wales, two strangers spend the night in talk. One, Carney, an illiterate Irishman, ex-convict and bushranger, is to be hanged at dawn. The other, Adair, is the police officer who has been sent to supervise the... more
Book Votes: 1
273
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian
Haunted by the final words of a newly baptized congregation member who was subsequently murdered by her husband, the Reverend Stephen Drew abandons his pulpit to spend time with an author who writes best-selling books about angels.
Book Votes: 1
274
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Breaking Her Fall by Stephen Goodwin
Just before eleven on an ordinary summer night in Washington, D.C., Tucker Jones picks up the phone, expecting to hear that his teenage daughter, Kat, is back from the movies. But the caller is another parent, a man who tells Tucker that Kat was actually at a party-and makes a shocking... more
Book Votes: 1
275
|
Patty P. (Patouie) - |
Nelson Mandela : No Easy Walk To Freedom by Barry Denenberg
Nelson Mandela hardly needs an introduction. However, this powerful biography provides an in-depth look at the man who grew up in a rural village in South Africa under racist apartheid rule--a regime he ultimately helped overthrow. Denenberg explores the history of South Africa and its often... more
Book Votes: 1
276
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Being Dead by Jim Crace
Lying in the sand dunes of Baritone Bay are the bodies of a middle-aged couple. Celice and Joseph, in their mid-50s and married for more than 30 years, are returning to the seacoast where they met as students. Instead, they are battered to death by a thief with a chunk of granite. Their corpses... more
Book Votes: 1
277
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Forgive Me by Amanda Eyre Ward
From the acclaimed author of How to Be Lost comes a gorgeous new novel about love, memory, and motherhood.
Nadine Morgan travels the world as a journalist, covering important events, following dangerous leads, and running from anything that might tie her down. Since an assignment in Cape Town... more
Book Votes: 1
278
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Impulse (Impulse, Bk 1) by Ellen Hopkins
Sometimes you don't wake up. But if you happen to, you know things will never be the same.
Three lives, three different paths to the same destination: Aspen Springs, a psychiatric hospital for those who have attempted the ultimate act -- suicide.
Vanessa is beautiful and smart, but her... more
Book Votes: 1
279
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
American Rust by Philipp Meyer
Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, American Rust is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation--as well as the acts of friendship, loyalty, and love--that arise from its loss. From local bars to trainyards to prison, it is the story of two young... more
Book Votes: 1
280
| Sarah S. |
Finding Alice by Melody Carlson
Sliding into the Rabbit Hole… Would She Ever Return?On the surface, Alice Laxton seems no different from any other college girl: bright, inquisitive, excited about the life ahead of her. But for years, a genetic time bomb has been ticking away. Because of Alice’s near-genius... more
Book Votes: 1
281
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Esther's Pillow by Marlin Fitzwater
A startling debut novel based on a true story: A courageous young woman forces her small Kansas town to acknowledge the dark secrets of one violent night and the ugly prejudice that will tear it apart.
The year is 1911. After attending college in Wichita for two years, Margaret Chambers... more
Book Votes: 1
282
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Angel's Rest by Charles Davis
Growing up in Virginia's Allegheny Mountains, eleven-year-old Charlie York lives at the foot of an endless peak called Angel's Rest, a place his momma told him angels rested before coming down to help folks. In 1967 his town was a poor boy's paradise…until a shotgun blast killed Charlie's... more
Book Votes: 1
283
|
lyndon - |
The Fall (Penguin Modern Classics) by Albert Camus
Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a successful Parisian barrister, has come to recognize the deep-seated hypocrisy of his existence. His epigrammatic and, above all, discomforting monologue gradually saps, then undermines, the reader's own complacency.
Book Votes: 1
284
| Ralph W. |
The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho
Here Paulo Coelho details his journey across Spain along the legendaryroad of San Tiago, which pilgrims have travelled since Middle Ages. On this contemporary quest, he encounters a Chaucerian variety of mysterious guides and devilish opponents and learns to understand the nature of truth... more
Book Votes: 1
285
|
JaNeil K. (KaneJ) - |
Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
Once upon a time, I was a little girl who disappeared.Once upon a time, my name was not Alice.Once upon a time, I didn't know how lucky I was.When Alice was ten, Ray took her away from her family, her friends -- her life. She learned to give up all power, to endure all pain. She waited for the... more
Book Votes: 1
286
| Krista K. (Krista0521) |
Devil's Knot : The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt
"Free the West Memphis Three."Maybe you've heard the phrase.But do you know why their story is so alarming?Do you know the facts?The guilty verdicts handed out to three Arkansas teens in a horrific capital murder case were popular in their home state -- even upheld on appeal. But after two HBO... more
Book Votes: 1
287
| Krista K. (Krista0521) |
Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Twenty-six-year-old Wurtzel, a former critic of popular music for New York and the New Yorker, recounts in this luridly intimate memoir the 10 years of chronic, debilitating depression that preceded her treatment with Prozac in 1990. After her parents' acrimonious divorce, Wurtzel was raised by... more
Book Votes: 1
288
| Krista K. (Krista0521) |
More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Elizabeth Wurtzel published her memoir of depression, Prozac Nation, to astonishing literary acclaim. A cultural phenomenon by age twenty-six, she had fame, money, respecteverything she had always wanted except that one, true thing: happiness. For all of her professional success, Wurtzel felt... more
Book Votes: 1
289
| Krista K. (Krista0521) |
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
"She grew daring and reckless. Overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out. Where no woman had swum before."
The Awakening was particularly controversial upon publication in 1899. Although the novel was never technically banned, it was censored. Chopin's novel... more
Book Votes: 1
290
|
ayame92 - |
Seeker (Noble Warriors, Bk 1) by William Nicholson
This first novel in the Noble Warriors sequence begins when sixteen-year-old Seeker's older brother is publicly humiliated and -- with no explanation -- exiled from the Nomana, a revered order of warrior monks. Seeker refuses to believe that his beloved older brother is capable of committing... more
Book Votes: 1
291
|
ayame92 - |
Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin
Scattered among poor, desolate farms, the clans of the Uplands possess gifts. Wondrous gifts: the ability--with a glance, a gesture, a word--to summon animals, bring forth fire, move the land. Fearsome gifts: They can twist a limb, chain a mind, inflict a wasting illness. The Uplanders live in... more
Book Votes: 1
292
| Larry M. (lastdazeman) |
A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey - MP3 by Brian ...
A New Kind of Christian's conversation between a pastor and his daughter's high school science teacher reveals that wisdom for life's most pressing spiritual questions can come from the most unlikely sources. This stirring fable captures a new spirit of Christianity--where personal, daily... more
Book Votes: 1
293
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner
For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours, bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded... more
Book Votes: 1
294
| Rebecca G. |
Homer & Langley by E. L. Doctorow
Doctorow, whose literary trophy shelf has got to be overflowing by now, delivers a small but sweeping masterpiece about the infamous New York hermits, the Collyer brothers.
When WWI hits and the Spanish flu pandemic kills Homer and Langley's parents, Langley, the elder, goes to war,... more
Book Votes: 1
295
| Margaret T. (megt) |
Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
Can God's Love Save Anyone? Bestselling author Francine Rivers skillfully retells the biblical love story of Gomer and Hosea in a tale set against the exciting backdrop of the California Gold Rush. The heroine, Angel, is a young woman who was sold into prostitution as a child. Michael... more
Book Votes: 1
296
| Margaret T. (megt) |
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
Somer's life is everything she imagined it would be -- she's newly married and has started her career as a physician in San Francisco -- until she makes the devastating discovery she never will be able to have children. The same year in India, a poor mother makes the heartbreaking choice... more
Book Votes: 1
297
| Margaret T. (megt) |
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell
In the middle of tending to the everyday business at her vintage clothing shop and sidestepping her married boyfriend's attempts at commitment, Iris Lockhart receives a stunning phone call: Her great-aunt Esme, whom she never knew existed, is being released from Cauldstone Hospital -- where she... more
Book Votes: 1
298
| Janis B. |
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
Book Votes: 1
299
| Jessica S. (jess13) |
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
In the marshy mists of a village churchyard, a tiny orphan boy named Pip is suddenly terrified by a shivering, limping convict on the run. Years later, a supremely arrogant young Pip boards the coach to London where, by the grace of a... more
Book Votes: 1
300
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
Hominids (Neanderthal Parallax, Bk 1) by Robert J. Sawyer
Hominids examines two unique species of people. We are one of those species; the other is the Neanderthals of a parallel world where they became the dominant intelligence. The Neanderthal civilization has reached heights of culture and science comparable to our own, but with radically different... more
Book Votes: 1
301
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer
Calculating God is the new near-future SF thriller from the popular and award-winning Robert J. Sawyer. An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. A six-legged, two-armed alien emerges, who says, in perfect English, "Take me to a paleontologist." It seems that... more
Book Votes: 1
302
| Caitlyn H. (QuietCait) |
The Gift of Fear : Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin De Becker
A stranger in a deserted parking lot offers to help carry a woman's groceries. Is he a good Samaritan or is he after something else? A fired employee says "You'll be sorry." Will he return with a gun? After their first date, a man tells a woman it is their "destiny" to be married. What will he... more
Book Votes: 1
303
| Chuck R. |
The Circle by Dave Eggers
When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with... more
Book Votes: 1
304
| Chuck R. |
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
Book Votes: 1
305
| Chuck R. |
Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley & Ron Powers
In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima — and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island’s highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they... more
Book Votes: 1
306
| Janis B. |
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out -- with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes -- to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition... more
Book Votes: 1
307
| Janis B. |
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize — Two brothers bound by tragedy; a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past; a country torn by revolution: the Pulitzer Prize winner and #1 New York Times bestselling author gives us a powerful new novel--set in both India and America--that... more
Book Votes: 1
308
| Jeff V. (vincent) |
Losing My Faculties : A Teacher's Story by Brendan Halpin
I am just one of those rare and probably defective people who really enjoy the company of teenagers.Brendan Halpin’s It Takes a Worried Man—a memoir of how he and his family dealt with his wife’s battle against breast cancer—was praised for its can-dor, raw humor, and... more
Book Votes: 0
309
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
In a Heartbeat by Loretta Ellsworth
When a small mistake costs sixteen-year-old Eagan her life during a figure-skating competition, she leaves many things unreconciled, including her troubled relationship with her mother. From her vantage point in the afterlife, Eagan reflects back on her memories, and what she could have done... more
Book Votes: 0
310
| Alma H. (almahudso) |
The Trouble With Change by Alma Hudson
Sondra's only dream in life is to complete college and make her family proud. But when she moves into an apartment she can barely afford near the University of Southern California, her dreams start changing. After paying for school with an academic scholarship and barely surviving with very... more
Book Votes: 0
311
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Of Rice and Men : A Novel of Vietnam by Richard Galli
Spreading democracy takes more than cutting-edge military hardware. Winning the hearts and minds of a troubled nation is a special mission we give to bewildered young soldiers who can’t speak the native language, don’t know the customs, can’t tell friends from enemies,... more
Book Votes: 0
312
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters by Rabih Alameddine
Named after the "divine" Sarah Bernhardt, red-haired Sarah Nour El-Din is "wonderful, irresistibly unique, funny, and amazing," raves Amy Tan. Determined to make of her life a work of art, she tries to tell her story, sometimes casting it as a memoir, sometimes a novel, always fascinatingly... more
Book Votes: 0
313
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Kings of the Earth: A Novel by Jon Clinch
Following up Finn, his much-heralded and prize-winning debut whose voice evoked 'the mythic styles of his literary predecessors . . . William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy and Edward P. Jones' (San Francisco Chronicle), Jon Clinch returns with Kings of the Earth, a powerful... more
Book Votes: 0
314
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The End of the Alphabet by Cs Richardson
Ambrose Zephyr is a contented man. He shares a book-laden Victorian house with his loving wife, Zipper. He owns two suits, one of which he was married in. He is a courageous eater, save brussels sprouts. His knowledge of wine is vague and best defined as Napa, good; Australian, better; French,... more
Book Votes: 0
315
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Painter from Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein
Reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha, a re-imagining of the life of Pan Yuliang and her transformation from prostitute to post-Impressionist.
Down the muddy waters of the Yangtze River and into the seedy backrooms of "The Hall of Eternal Splendor," through the raucous glamour of... more
Book Votes: 0
316
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Summer We Fell Apart by Robin Antalek
The children of a once-brilliant playwright and a struggling actress, the four Haas siblings grew up in chaos—raised in an environment composed of neglect and glamour in equal measure. When their father dies, they must depend on their intense but fragile bond to remember what it means to... more
Book Votes: 0
317
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Tainted by Brooke Morgan
Holly Barrett first saw Jack Dane early one morning - tall, tan, and so heartbreakingly handsome he took her breath away. He also seemed like the last person to disrupt her quiet, uneventful days with her sensitive daughter, Katy. But the charming, enigmatic Englishman has blown into her small... more
Book Votes: 0
318
|
Connie A. (jazzysmom) - |
The Prison Angel : Mother Antonia's Journey from Beverly Hills to a Life of Service i...
The winners of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting tell the astonishing story of Mary Clarke. At the age of fifty, Clarke left her comfortable life in suburban Los Angeles to follow a spiritual calling to care for the prisoners in one of Mexico's most notorious jails. She... more
Book Votes: 0
319
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Six Mornings on Sanibel by Charles Sobczak
Six Mornings on Sanibel is a moving story for readers of all ages. Two unlikely men meet one morning at the fishing pier on Sanibel Island in Florida. Over the course of the next six mornings, they share more than just snook runs and cold Cokes. Richard Evans is an over weight, stressed out... more
Book Votes: 0
320
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Bone by Fae M. Ng
In this profoundly moving novel, Fae Myenne Ng takes readers into the hidden heart of San Francisco's Chinatown, to a world of family secrets, hidden shames, and the lost bones of a "paper father." It is a world in which two generations of the Leong family live in an uneasy tension as they try... more
Book Votes: 0
321
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson
Arthur is a precocious and inquisitive 8-year-old boy whose mother is a B-list celebrity more concerned with the state of her bank account than with her son's development. With a new baby on the way, Arthur's mother hires--or is she hired by?--an enigmatic young nanny named Missy, who takes... more
Book Votes: 0
322
|
Connie A. (jazzysmom) - |
Look Up for Yes by Julia Tavalaro & Richard Tayson
More than thirty years ago, Julia Tavalaro woke up from a coma to find herself almost completely paralyzed by two strokes that had also left her unable to speak. Suddenly, just thirty-two years old, she was a prisoner in her own body and a victim of the ignorant and cruel treatment of hospital... more
Book Votes: 0
323
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Cypress Point by Diane Chamberlain
Mara Sommers and Joelle D'Angelo have been best friends for several years. They have shared everything, including the joy over Mara's first pregnancy. But when something goes terribly wrong during the delivery, Mara is left with brain damage. Alone and grieving, Joelle turns to the only... more
Book Votes: 0
324
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni
Sebastian Prendergast lives in a geodesic dome with his eccentric grandmother, who homeschooled him in the teachings of futurist philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller. But when his grandmother has a stroke, Sebastian is forced to leave the dome and make his own way in town. Jared Whitcomb is a... more
Book Votes: 0
325
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
Winner of the 2009 Commonwealth Prize for Best Book, THE SLAP has a brilliantly simple premise that allows it to explore a host of contemporary issues.
At a crowded barbecue in the Melbourne suburbs hosted by a Greek-Australian man and his Indian wife, the host's cousin slaps a boy for... more
Book Votes: 0
326
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston
Elinor Mackey has always done the right things in the right order -- college, law school, career, marriage -- but now everything's going wrong. After two painful years of trying, Elinor has learned that she can't have children. All the doctors can tell her is that it's probably because of her... more
Book Votes: 0
327
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Watching the Tree Limbs (Maranatha, Bk 1) by Mary E. DeMuth
Nine-year-old Mara loves playing Nancy Drew with her best friend, Camilla. But then there are big mysteries that Mara's afraid to share: Who is her mother? Her father? And how can she stop the biggest criminal of all, General?
Book Votes: 0
328
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Generosity: An Enhancement by Richard Powers
When Chicagoan Russell Stone finds himself teaching a Creative Nonfiction class, he encounters a young Algerian woman with a disturbingly luminous presence. Thassadit Amzwar's blissful exuberance both entrances and puzzles the melancholic Russell. How can this refugee from perpetual terror... more
Book Votes: 0
329
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Arabian Sands (Penguin Classics) by Wilfred Thesiger
Arabian Sands is Wilfred Thesiger?s record of his extraordinary journey through the parched ?Empty Quarter? of Arabia. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Thesiger was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of Western life??the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets.? In the... more
Book Votes: 0
330
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Great Pretender by Millenia Black
ONE MAN… TWO LIVES… For over six years, Reginald Brooks has managed to pull it off. Having two families, leading two lives. Now, the pretending must stop. But how? THE GREAT PRETENDER…an electrifying tale of how one man tries to untangle his life, setting a full-fledged... more
Book Votes: 0
331
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
Sam and Henny Pollit have too many children, too little money, and too much loathing for each other. As Sam uses the children's adoration to feed his own voracious ego, Henny watches in bleak despair, knowing the bitter reality that lies just below his mad visions.
A chilling novel of... more
Book Votes: 0
332
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine
A haunting yet astonishingly hopeful story of a young Indian prostitute who uses writing and imagination to transcend her reality.
An unforgettable, deeply affecting tribute to the powers of imagination and the resilience of childhood, The Blue Notebook tells the story of Batuk, a... more
Book Votes: 0
333
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
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
Book Votes: 0
334
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden
This extraordinarily sensitive and insightful portrait of religious life centers on Philippa Talbot, a highly successful professional woman who leaves her life among the London elite to join a cloistered Benedictine community. In This House of Brede was the basis of a 1975 made-for-television... more
Book Votes: 0
335
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
But Not for Long by Michelle Wildgen
Hard-shelled, career-minded Greta is the newest and least likely member of a sustainable foods cooperative house in Madison, Wisconsin. Shortly after she joins Karin and Hal in their stately residence near campus, the husband Greta left appears on their porch, drunk, and the reason for her... more
Book Votes: 0
336
| Ronnie G. (frenchgiant) |
All the Names by Jose Saramago & Margaret Jull Costa (Translator)
Senhor José is a low-grade clerk in the city's Central Registry, where the living and the dead share the same shelf space. A middle-aged bachelor, he has no interest in anything beyond the certificates of birth, marriage, divorce, and death that are his daily routine. But one day,... more
Book Votes: 0
337
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Loving Little Egypt : A Novel (Phoenix Fiction Series) by Thomas McMahon
In the early 1920s, nearly blind physics prodigy Mourly Vold finds out how to tap into the nation's long distance telephone lines. With the help of Alexander Graham Bell, Vold tries to warn the phone companies that would-be saboteurs could do the same thing, but they ignore him. Unfortunately,... more
Book Votes: 0
338
|
Patty P. (Patouie) - |
Before the Dawn : Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade
Based on a groundbreaking synthesis of recent scientific findings, an acclaimed New York Times science reporter tells a bold and provocative new story of the history of our ancient ancestors and the evolution of human nature Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific findings-driven... more
Book Votes: 0
340
| Janis B. |
Birds in Fall by Brad Kessler
One fall night off the coast of a remote island in Nova Scotia, an airplane plummets to the sea as an innkeeper watches from the shore. Miles away in New York City, ornithologist Ana Gathreaux works in a darkened room full of sparrows, testing their migratory instincts. Soon, Ana will be bound... more
Book Votes: 0
341
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Singer's Gun by Emily St. John Mandel
Everyone Anton Waker grew up with is corrupt. His parents deal in stolen goods and his first career is a partnership venture with his cousin Aria selling forged passports and social security cards to illegal aliens. Anton longs for a less questionable way of living in the world and by his late... more
Book Votes: 0
342
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid
When Daru Shezad is fired from his banking job in Lahore, he begins a decline that plummets the length of this sharply drawn, subversive tale. Before long, he can't pay his bills, and he loses his toehold among Pakistan's cell-phone-toting elite. Daru descends into drugs and dissolution, and,... more
Book Votes: 0
343
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
He was going to lose the house and everything in it.The rare pleasure of a bath, the copper pots hanging above the kitchen island, his family-again he would lose his family. He stood inside the house and took stock. Everything in it had been taken for granted. How had that happened again? He had... more
Book Votes: 0
344
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone
Four accomplished sisters who rose from near obscurity to become the most powerful women in Europe Set against the backdrop of the turbulent thirteenth century, a time of chivalry and crusades, poetry, knights, and monarchs comes the story of the four beautiful daughters of the count of... more
Book Votes: 0
345
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir by Neely Tucker
Foreign correspondent Neely Tucker and his wife, Vita, arrived in Zimbabwe in 1997. After witnessing firsthand the devastating consequences of AIDS on the population, especially the children, the couple started volunteering at an orphanage that was desperately underfunded and short-staffed. One... more
Book Votes: 0
346
|
Jeanne G. (IlliniAlum83) - |
Lab 257 : The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory...
Nestled near the Hamptons, the fashionable summer playground of America's rich and famous, and in the shadow of New York City, lies an unimposing 840-acre island unidentified on most maps. On the few on which it can be found, Plum Island is marked red or yellow, and stamped U.S.... more
Book Votes: 0
347
|
Christina P. (christinadbp) - |
There Is Room for You by Charlotte Bacon
In a braided narrative that unites the stories of two striking women, Charlotte Bacon explores the emotional and psychological turbulence of suppressed family histories, the bravery needed to renew broken lives, and the difficulties we all have in responding to the pain of others.Anna Singer, a... more
Book Votes: 0
348
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
The Boy on the Bus by Deborah Schupack
Meg Landry expected it to be a day like any other -- her asthmatic eight-year-old son would step off the bus, home from school. But on this day, the boy on the bus is not Meg's son -- or at least doesn't appear to be. This new boy shares Charlie's copper hair, tea-brown eyes, and... more
Book Votes: 0
349
|
Shannon R. (alien12) - |
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy Emmuska
This timeless novel of intrigue and romance is the adventure of one man's defiance in the face of authority. The rulers of the French Revolution are unable to discern the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a man whose exploits are an embarrassment to the new regime. Is he an exiled French... more
Book Votes: 0
350
| Jessica K. (mosdefjess) |
Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story by Carolyn Turgeon
The True Story of Cinderella's fairy Godmother Lil is an old woman who spends her days shelving rare books in a tiny Manhattan bookstore and lonely nights at home in her apartment. But Lil has an intriguing secret. Tucked and bound behind her back are white feathery wings -- the only key to who... more
Book Votes: 0
351
|
Cassie S. (cassie86) - |
When Hope Prevails: The Personal Triumph of a Holocaust Survivor by Sam Offen
During the Nazi regime, Sam Offen suffered slave labor, ghetto confinement and concentration camp horror. More than 50 members of his immediate and extended family were killed. Despite the pain he has faced, Sam's story of survival is a testimony to triumph of the human spirit. He has shared his... more
Book Votes: 0
352
| Janis B. |
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
A novel of remarkable depth and poignancy from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.
It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University... more
Book Votes: 0
353
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
Refiner's Fire by Mark Helprin
Marshall Pearl is orphaned at birth on an immigrant ship off the coast of Palestine in 1947, then brought to americanca. His experiences take him from the Hudson River Valley, to Harvard, to sea on a British merchant ship, then finally back to his birthplace, where he serves as an Israeli... more
Book Votes: 0
354
| Ralph W. |
A Death in the Family by James Agee
Forty years after its original publication, James Agee's last novel seems, more than ever, an American classic. For in his lyrical, sorrowful account of a man's death and its impact on his family, Agee painstakingly created a small world of domestic happiness and then showed how quickly... more
Book Votes: 0
355
| Ralph W. |
Martin Eden (Penguin American Library) by Jack London
Martin Eden, Jack London’s semiautobiographical novel about a struggling young writer, is considered by many to be the author’s most mature work. Personifying London’s own dreams of education and literary fame as a young man in San Francisco, Martin Eden’s impassioned but... more
Book Votes: 0
356
| Ralph W. |
Appointment in Samarra (Vintage Open Market) by John O'Hara
A twentieth-century classic, Appointment in Samarra is the first and most widely read book by the writer Fran Leibowitz called “the real F. Scott Fitzgerald.”In December 1930, just before Christmas, the Gibbsville social circuit is electrified with parties and dances, where the music... more
Book Votes: 0
357
| Loni H. (herp-lover) |
Skin by Ted Dekker
In the tradition of Thr3e comes the most twisting, unpredictable Ted Dekker novel yet...a story of revenge with a shocking premise and numerous reversals.A radically countercultural story, Skin asks the question "what is beauty?" Far more than a philosophical question, it's a matter of life and... more
Book Votes: 0
358
| Alexandra J. (knihomolsashka) |
I Raise My Eyes to Say Yes by Ruth Sienkiewicz-Mercer & Steven B. Kaplan
Ruth Sienkiewicz-Mercer was born in 1950. She has never spoken a word; never walked, never fed herself, never combed her own hair. Trapped in a body that is functionally useless, her mind works perfectly. This is her story. Absorbing and heartbreaking, it was written with the collaboration of... more
Book Votes: 0
359
|
JaNeil K. (KaneJ) - |
The Everafter by Amy Huntley
Madison Stanton doesn't know where she is or how she got there. But she does know this?she is dead. And alone, in a vast, dark space. The only company she has in this place are luminescent objects that turn out to be all the things Maddy lost while she was alive. And soon she discovers that with... more
Book Votes: 0
360
|
ayame92 - |
The Angel's Game (Cemetery of Forgotten Books, Bk 2) by Carlos Ruiz Zafon & Lucia...
"The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that, when I opened those windows, its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets I could capture on paper and narrate to whomever cared to listen..."
In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a... more
Book Votes: 0
361
| Miriam H. (TeacherTyping) |
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
Seventh grader Holling Hoodhood isn't happy. He is sure his new teacher, Mrs. Baker, hates his guts. Holling's domineering father is obsessed with his business image and disregards his family. Throughout the school year, Holling strives to get a handle on the Shakespeare plays... more
Book Votes: 0
362
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
The Science of Fear: How the Culture of Fear Manipulates Your Brain by Daniel Gardner
A timely and entertaining psychological look at why we?re afraid and what to do about it From terror attacks to bursting real estate bubbles, from crystal meth epidemics to online sexual predators and poisonous toys from China, our list of fears seems to be exploding. Yet we are the safest and... more
Book Votes: 0
364
|
Amelia (eleven) - |
I, Iago: A Novel by Nicole Galland
From Nicole Galland, acclaimed author of The Fool's Tale, comes a marvelous evocation of a distant time and place . . . and a breathtaking reexamination of one of literature's classic villains From earliest childhood, the precocious boy called Iago had inconvenient tendencies toward honesty?a... more
Book Votes: 0
365
| Shannon G. (shae) |
Tangerine by Edward Bloor
A season with the toughest soccer team in the county gives a teen the confidence to stand up to his wicked brother. "Smart, adaptable, and anchored by a strong sense of self-worth, Paul makes a memorable protagonist in a cast of vividly drawn characters; multiple yet taut plotlines lead to a... more
Book Votes: 0
366
| Shannon G. (shae) |
Expendable (League of Peoples, Bk 1) by James Alan Gardner
Under the benevolent leadership of the League of Peoples, there is no war, little crime, and life is sacred...unless you're an Explorer. The ugly, the flawed, the misfit, the deformed, they are the unwanted, flung to the farthest corners of the galaxy to investigate hostile planets and... more
Book Votes: 0
367
| Margaret T. (megt) |
The Goats by Brock Cole & Brock Cole
Fifteenth anniversary of the classicOn the fifteenth anniversary of the publication of The Goats, Farrar, Straus and Giroux is proud to reissue a new paperback edition featuring Brock Cole’s original hardcover jacket art as well as the black-and-white pen-and-ink chapter openings.
Book Votes: 0
368
| Janis B. |
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
The unsolved murder of a farm family still haunts the white small town of Pluto, North Dakota, generations after the vengeance exacted and the distortions of fact transformed the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation.
Part Ojibwe, part white, Evelina Harp is an ambitious young girl... more
Book Votes: 0
370
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
Humans (Neanderthal Parallax) by Robert J. Sawyer
Robert J. Sawyer, the award-winning and bestselling writer, hits the peak of his powers in Humans, the second book of The Neanderthal Parallax, his trilogy about our world and parallel one in which it was the Homo sapiens who died out and the Neanderthals who became the dominant intelligent... more
Book Votes: 0
371
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
Hybrids (Neanderthal Parallax, Bk 3) by Robert J. Sawyer
In the Hugo-Award winning Hominids, Robert J. Sawyer introduced a character readers will never forget: Ponter Boddit, a Neanderthal physicist from a parallel Earth who was whisked from his reality into ours by a quantum-computing experiment gone awry -- making him the ultimate stranger in a... more
Book Votes: 0
372
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer
Robert J. Sawyer’s award-winning science fiction has garnered both popular and critical acclaim. The New York Times called Frameshift “filled to bursting with ideas, characters, and incidents.” His novels are fixtures on the Hugo and Nebula ballots. Now, his award-winning... more
Book Votes: 0
373
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer
Dr. Sarah Halifax decoded the first-ever radio transmission received from aliens. Thirty-eight years later, a second message is received and Sarah, now 87, may hold the key to deciphering this one, too ... if she lives long enough. A wealthy industrialist offers to pay for Sarah to have a... more
Book Votes: 0
374
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer
Robert J. Sawyer's Hominids, the first volume of his bestselling Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, won the 2003 Hugo Award, and its sequel, Humans, was a 2004 Hugo nominee. Now he's back with a pulse-pounding, mind-expanding standalone novel, rich with his signature philosophical and ethical... more
Book Votes: 0
375
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer
Dr. Peter Hobson's investigations into death and afterlife lead him to create three separate electronic versions of himself: one has no memory of physical existence and represents life after death; one has no knowledge of death or aging and represents immortality; and the third is left unaltered... more
Book Votes: 0
376
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
Wake (WWW, Bk 1) by Robert J. Sawyer
“One of the foremost science fiction writers of our generation”(SF Site) comes to Ace with a trilogy of the Web’s awakening.
Caitlin Decter is young, pretty, feisty, a genius at math—and blind. Still, she can surf the net with the best of them, following its complex... more
Book Votes: 0
377
| Erin A. (taechermama) |
Wonder (WWW, Bk 3) by Robert J. Sawyer
Webmind-the vast consciousness that spontaneously emerged from the infrastructure of the World Wide Web-has proven its worth to humanity by aiding in everything from curing cancer to easing international tensions. But the brass at the Pentagon see Webmind as a threat that needs to be... more
Book Votes: 0
378
| ANNA S. (SanJoseCa) |
When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde
While duck hunting one morning, childless, middle-aged Nathan McCann finds a newborn abandoned in the woods. To his shock, the child?wrapped in a sweater and wearing a tiny knitted hat?is still alive. To his wife?s shock, Nathan wants to adopt the boy?but the child?s grandmother steps in. ... more
Book Votes: 0
379
| Chuck R. |
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey
A CELEBRATION OF THE BEAUTY OF LIVING IN A HARSH AND HOSTILE LAND
Edward Abbey lived for three seasons in the desert at Moab, Utah, and what he discovered about the land before him, the world around him, and the heart that beat within, is a fascinating, sometimes raucous, always personal... more
Book Votes: 0
380
| Chuck R. |
Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer (P.S.) by James L. Swanson
The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, led Union cavalry and detectives on a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the... more
Book Votes: 0
381
| Janis B. |
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
Disgrace--set in post--apartheid Cape Town and on a remote farm in the Eastern Cape--is deft, lean, quiet, and brutal. A heartbreaking novel about a man and his daughter, Disgrace is a portrait of the new South Africa that is ultimately about grace and love.At fifty--two Professor David Lurie is... more
Book Votes: 0
382
| Janis B. |
& Sons by David Gilbert
The funeral of Charles Henry Topping on Manhattan’s Upper East Side would have been a minor affair (his two-hundred-word obit in The New York Times notwithstanding) but for the presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A. N. Dyer, whose... more
Book Votes: 0
383
| Chuck R. |
Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission by H...
A tense, powerful, grand account of one of the most daring exploits of World War II.On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected troops from the elite U.S. Army 6th Ranger Battalion slipped behind enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty miles in an attempt to rescue 513 American... more
Book Votes: 0
384
| salsadancer |
Spandau Phoenix (World War Two, Bk 2) by Greg Iles
The Spandau Diary -- what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped and sexually tormented to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi... more
Book Votes: 0
385
| salsadancer |
Black Cross (World War II, Bk 2) by Greg Iles
It is January 1944. The whole world awaits the Allied invasion of Europe. But in England, Winston Churchill has learned the Nazi scientists have developed Sarin -- a horrifying new weapon that could turn the tide for Hitler. Only a desperate gamble can avert disaster.
Two men -- a pacifist... more
Book Votes: 0
386
|
oddpelican - |
Countdown (Sixties, Bk 1) by Deborah Wiles
Franny Chapman just wants some peace. But that's hard to get when her best friend is feuding with her, her sister has disappeared, and her uncle is fighting an old war in his head. Her saintly younger brother is no help, and the cute boy across the street only complicates things. Worst of... more
Book Votes: 0
387
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
In a snow-covered village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa watches from the woods as her father is abducted in the middle of the night by Russian soldiers. Their life-long friend and neighbour, Akhmed, has also been watching, and when he finds Havaa he knows of only one person who might be able... more
Book Votes: 0
388
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
An epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master's Son follows a young man's journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and eerie spy chambers of the world's most mysterious dictatorship, North Korea.
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother -- a singer... more
Book Votes: 0
389
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich ...
On April 26, 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. Voices from Chernobyl presents personal accounts of the tragedy. Journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed hundreds of people affected by the meltdown --... more
Book Votes: 0
390
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
From the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, a powerful and important work about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a compelling account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes. — Over the last half a billion years,... more
Book Votes: 0
391
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
The Submission by Amy Waldman
A jury chooses a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack on Manhattan, only to learn that the anonymous designer is an American Muslim -- an enigmatic architect named Mohammad Khan. His selection reverberates across a divided, traumatized country and, more intimately, through... more
Book Votes: 0
392
|
Cheryl (pagebypage) - |
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 1915... more
Book Votes: 0
393
| Susan (sophiespencermom) |
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the... more
Book Votes: 0
394
| Teresa D. |
Bridge of Scarlet Leaves by Kristina McMorris
In this poignant and evocative novel by acclaimed author Kristina McMorris, a country is plunged into conflict and suspicion -- forcing a young woman to find her place in a volatile world.
Los Angeles, 1941. Violinist Maddie Kern's life seemed destined to unfold with the predictable... more
Book Votes: 0
