In our contemporary life, when any book we want to read can be quickly found and purchased with just a click of a mouse, it’s hard to remember when people had to search for specific books. This memoir, constructed entirely of letters, takes you back to those pre-Amazon days and into the life of writer Helene Hanff. What began in 1949 as a search for a collection of Hazlitt letters that was of better quality than “Barnes and Noble’s grimy, marked-up schoolboy copies” became a transatlantic friendship between the writer and Mr. Frank Doel of Marks & Co Booksellers of 84 Charing Cross Road, London. As the friendship develops it creates an image of the physicality of books-the scent, the feel of a tight binding, the leather cover, the turning of a page-that will renew your affection for books, reading, and friendship. Call Number: BG 921 Hanff

Will Lightman is coasting through his hip North London lifestyle of smug self-interest, proudly unconcerned with his rather shallow character and living off of the royalties of a popular jingle his father wrote years ago. While keeping score of his chart-topping coolness, Will devises a brilliant plan to meet vulnerable (read: desperate) single women in an effort to sustain his juvenile ego but ultimately relieve him of any form of long-term commitment or responsibility. So when he is drawn into the depressed life of Fiona and her precociously quirky twelve year-old son, Marcus, Will’s anxiety and refusal to see himself as anything but a indolent man-child comes to a head in a way that can only be About a Boy. Call Number: BG Hornby

Author Mary Lee Settle’s memoir is an unforgettable portrait, not only of her own childhood, but also the lives and fortunes of her feisty Grandmother Addie. Born in West Virginia, Addie ends up in Kentucky, and her life encompasses some of the themes of America itself: the Civil War, the pioneers’ move West, and, above all, family, Addie is a wonderful character: a Holy Roller and believer in ghosts, but also someone who interests her granddaughter in the great literature and helps to shape a future author. Settle’s account is a reminder that the past always shapes the future, and that family is always at the beginning of our story.Call Number: BG 921 Settle

Haven’t read this book since you were a kid? Then you may remember some of the lighter episodes in the book: the whitewashed fence, skipping school to play on the Mississippi River, or Becky and Tom falling in "love". But do you remember some of the book’s darker threads? Superstition, violence, racism, and poverty hover just under the surface of this book, and merit a re-reading by all adults. The fun and nostalgia are still there, but you’ll also uncover real truths about life in the America of Twain’s childhood.Call Number: BG Twain

Young Annie learns about the horrors of World War I through the suffering and stories of wounded soldiers recovering in a veterans’ hospital near her small Kansas hometown. Annie, who has lost a much loved uncle during the recent war, learns the real story of his death, and comes to a better understanding of the world outside her comfortable life. Author Rostkowski is an elementary teacher in Ogden, and this, her first novel, won multiple awards in Utah and across the nation.Call Number: BG Rostkowski

Newland Archer is a man unable to choose between the comfortable and the unknown. Set in New York’s high society at the end of the 1800’s, The Age of Innocence details the lavish lifestyle of an American “Gilded Age” and the emergence of a powerful American aristocracy. In the center of it, the calm and cultured Newland is engaged to the perfect woman: May Welland, equally cultured and rich, a true match. Nothing can go wrong, until the fascinating Countess Ellen Olenska arrives. Socially ostracized for her divorce, gossiped about and misunderstood, Countess Olenska represents freedom from social constraints and duty to self - the things Newland wants but is too timid to claim. A biting indictment of wealth and society, Wharton’s novel is also a bittersweet love story that won her the Pulitzer Prize. Call Number: BG Wharton

Anne Bronte is probably most famous for being the sister of Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre) and Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights). Instead of writing wild romantic tales (like her sisters), Anne Bronte created strong women who overcame opposition with commonsense and hard work. Her characters earned the right to be loved and, in turn, to love. Agnes Grey is based on Bronte’s personal experience as a governess, and is an ironic critique of nineteenth century English middle-class society. Call Number: BG Bronte

This classic work of political fiction won the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Intrigue, corruption, propaganda, and the nature of power are explored in the rise of the book’s flamboyant main character Willie Stark (the fictional equivalent of the highly controversial ex-governor of Louisiana Huey Long). The novel has twice been adapted for the silver screen (including the 2006 version starring Sean Penn) and inspired the author of the book Primary Colors. In addition, Robert Penn Warren is one the most decorated authors of the last century. His career culminated in 1986 when he was named the country’s first poet laureate. Call Number: BG Warren

When Woodward and Bernstein first broke the Watergate story in the The Washington Post, they made history and altered the future of America. This story behind breaking this shattering series of articles is recorded in fascinating detail by the authors, and first introduced the nation to the infamous and shadowy “Deep Throat”. A thriller, a mystery story, and an important look at politics in America. Call Number: BG 364.132 B458

Michael and Pauline fall in love at first sight and subsequently marry in the patriotic fervor following Pearl Harbor. The two quickly discover their polar-opposite personalities, and frequent fighting strains their relationship and home. After decades of marriage, both must re-examine their lives, and how this marriage of opposites has quietly effected family and friends alike. Call Number: BG Tyler

The novel opens when wheelchair bound historian Lyman Ward decides to chronicle the lives of his extraordinary grandparents and their struggles to settle the western frontier. From boom towns in Colorado to near starvation on the banks of an Idaho river, and finally quiet and near-peace in California, Lyman travels with his grandparents to discover he is connected to his family in more ways that he ever imagined. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972, and was written when Stegner himself was presented with a brief biographical history and series of letters that would inspire the creation of one of American fiction’s most memorable couples: Susan and Oliver Ward. Call Number: BG Stegner

Anil Tissera returns to her native Sri Lanka after many years. She is now a forensic anthropologist, part of an UN human rights commission sent to investigate the horrors of an ongoing civil war. Assigned to work with complex and withdrawn archeologist Sarath Diyasena, a man who loves the past more than he lives in the present, Anil is drawn deeper into the complex and devastating effects of war. Ignoring personal safety, Anil begins investigating a mysterious skeleton uncovered on a government sanctuary, and sets in motion consequences she cannot predict. Another poetic masterpiece from Michael Ondaatje, himself a native Sri Lankan, and celebrated author of The English Patient. Call Number: BG Ondaatje

An international classic, and perhaps the most honored Russian novel ever written. Anna Karenina is a nineteenth-century Russia socialite who must choose between her boring bureaucratic husband and the dashing Count Vronsky, and between becoming a social outcast or losing the love of her life. A romance that continues to enthrall readers around the world. Call Number: BG Tolstoy

Ian McEwan’s haunting novel details the devastating impact of one child’s mistake on a summer day in 1935. After observing her older sister Cecilia and the housekeeper’s son Robbie in a compromising situation she doesn’t understand, young Briony makes an accusation that will change lives. The book follows Robbie years later as he fights and suffers in World War II. Briony is now a nurse in war-torn London, more conscious of the effects her childish accusation has unleashed, and wanting to make amends to both Robbie and Cecilia. Part crime story, part romance, part history, this heartbreaking novel deserves its designation as a modern classic. Call Number: BG McEwan

First published in 1899, this beautiful, brief novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banned in America for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early example of the modern novel. Originally entitled “A Solitary Soul,” the novel serves as a portrait of twenty-eight-year-old Edna Pontellier as she searches for love outside a stifling marriage, and finds herself, in turn, awakening to the beauty in nature and herself . Author Willa Cather described its style as “exquisite,” “sensitive,” and “iridescent.” Call Number: BG Chopin

Taylor Greer leaves Kentucky to begin a new life in the West, never imagining the strange shape her journey will take. Given a 3-year-old girl by a Cherokee woman in Oklahoma, Greer decides to keep the toddler, but a pair of flat tires in Tucson forces the two to settle down and try to make a real home. The novel is a tale of freedom, friendship, love, and resourcefulness, with a light dose of wit and humor. Thousands have enjoyed Kingsolver’s charming and insightful characters. Call Number: BG Kingsolver

This biography of mathematician John Nash details both his genius (Nash would win the Nobel Prize in 1995 for his outstanding work) and his complex personal life, including a nearly lifelong struggle with schizophrenia. Nasar also reveals a fascinating, insider’s portrait of Princeton, MIT, and the Nobel selection committee. This book made a splash when it was made into an Oscar-winning film, and deserves to be read in its own right. Call Number: BG 921 Nash

How do individuals manage to have spiritual interactions with deity? That question, and perhaps some answers, is at the core of Myla Goldberg’s novel. When she wins her school spelling bee, Eliza Naumann discovers her previously-unknown talent with letters, which changes her life completely. No longer the mediocre daughter in her family, she takes her brother Aaron’s place in her father’s attentions. Saul Naumann, a cantor, has devoted his life to Jewish mysticism; he uses this knowledge as he coaches Eliza, preparing her for both upcoming spelling bees and her own route through mysticism. Eliza’s mother, Miriam, has a secret life that is, in its peculiar way, an attempt to connect with the divine. Aaron, too, keeps his actions secret. In their own painful ways, each character is looking for what Aaron describes as “the sense of absolute assurance that filled him with the idea that God was right there.” Somewhere within the search, between spelling bees and obsessive behavior, the Naumann family begins falling apart, and the ways they both do and don’t put themselves back together will leave this novel embedded in your memory. Call Number: BG Goldberg

This autobiographical account of Wright’s youth in Mississippi and Tennessee has rightfully earned a place among the classic works of American literature. Abandoned by his father and burdened by a seriously ill mother, Wright struggles with racism, poverty, and segregation, while working and learning the craft of writing. During the Great Depression he aligns himself with the Communist party until he becomes disillusioned with party weaknesses. Black Boy is a look into the mind of an intriguing and determined man who became an icon in American fiction. Call Number: BG Wright

Set in 1940s New Mexico, this is Rudolfo Anaya’s award-winning Latino coming of age novel. The work’s main character, young Antonio, is torn between the lifestyles of his father’s cowboy family and his mother’s farming relations. One side wants him on a horse; the other would have him become a priest. However, Antonio’s life changes forever when Ultima, Antonio’s aunt, comes to live with the family. Ultima, a mystical healer, teaches Antonio how to gather the knowledge that will help him become a man. Call Number: BG Anaya

A young couple leaves a baby on Lydia Blessing's estate. Skip Cuddy, the caretaker, finds the baby and decides to keep her. Secrets take center stage as the story progresses. As a result, fundamental questions like what makes a person or a life and who really makes decisions are addressed. The novel is a touching look at redemption and life’s central questions. Call Number: BG Quindlen

In this powerful story of courage, hardships, survival, and healing, a Chinese-born mother and her America-born daughter explore their past. Although tragedy has marred their lives, Tan explores three generations of women who, despite vastly different circumstances, are tied by the common bonds of heritage. Call Number: BG Tan

Wilder, the playwright of the American classic Our Town and the only person to win the Pulitzer Prize in both fiction and drama, uses the event of bridge collapse in 18th century Peru to examine the human condition through the eyes of an investigating monk. Call Number: BG Wilder

Meet Cassandra Mortmain: 17, living in a falling-down castle with her impoverished family in 1930s England, trying to learn how to write by keeping a journal. Meet her, because you’ll fall in love with this delightful, quick-witted, eccentric character. Dodie Smith’s classic novel tells Cassandra’s coming-of-age story. Initially disdainful of love, but still full of romantic ideas, she experiences an Austen-esque series of adventures with the wealthy American family who moves into the estate near the castle. Cassandra’s charisma pulls you through the novel as she discovers the type of woman she really wants to be. Call Number: BG Smith

From the opening sentence, “For the first fifteen years of our lives, Danny and I lived within five blocks of each other and neither of us knew of the other's existence.”, Potok’s magnificent story of two friends is unforgettable. When two Brooklyn boys meet through a softball game, they become fast friends, despite very different background. While Reuven comes from a Jewish family with modern, American leanings, Danny is heir-apparent to his father, a conservative Hassidic Rabbi. An exploration of fathers and sons, faith, Judaism, and a friendship that defies the odds. Call Number: BG Potok

The second most famous Christmas story ever told. Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly businessman, learns the true meaning of Christmas after he is visited by the ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future. Bah humbug! Call Number: BG Dickens

Filled with memories from his childhood in Alabama, this memoir from Truman Capote pays tribute to his distant cousin Miss Sook Faulk. Capote spent his childhood with distant relatives, but it was the old-maid cousin with whom he formed a special bond; making fruitcake, cutting their own christmas tree, and celebrating a tipsy yuletide (from the leftover moonshine-soaked fruitcake). A Christmas Memory is full of the tenderness and innocence of childhood. In addition to Capote’s rightful literary fame, some readers may recognize Capote, a childhood friend of Harper Lee, as the basis for Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird. Call Number: BG Capote

Critically acclaimed short story writer Peter Taylor writes of Southern men and women in the 1930s and 40s struggling to gain equilibrium in changing times. Filled with engaging voices and eccentric characters, Taylor’s stories were heralded by The New York Times as “rivaling Chekhov.” Call Number: BG Taylor

James McBride wrote this best selling work as a tribute to his mother, a Jewish woman who left her middleclass childhood home in Virginia to live a life of largely inner-city poverty. In the next fifty years Ruth McBride Jordan experienced two happy marriages to devoted Black men and raises twelve children. James celebrates this extraordinary woman’s love and determination while exploring his own identity, racially and culturally. Call Number: BG 921 McBride

A historical romance complicated not only by the Second World War but by lovers on opposing sides, Corelli’s Mandolin tells the story of Dr. Iannis and his daughter Pelagia who live on the idyllic Greek island of Cephalonia. When Pelagia’s fiancée Mandras, a gentle fisherman, joins the Greek partisans, it isn’t long before she begins a passionate love affair with invader Captain Antonio Corelli, the cultured mandolin-playing commander of the Italian garrison. Call Number: BG De Bernieres

When Larry and Sally Morgan, poor Westerners, move to Wisconsin to begin work at Wisconsin University during the Depression, it is the generosity of wealthy Easterner Sid, an established faculty member, and Charity, his headstrong domineering wife, which keeps them afloat. As time passes each character’s ambitions are tempered by personal choice and the unexpected trials of life. Decades later Charity reunites everyone after tragedy strikes one of the couples. The work is a touching tribute to friendship, family, and love. Call Number: BG Stegner

A murderer for a son and a prostitute for a sister – that is how Stephen Kumalo, a poor country pastor, finds his son Absalom and his sister Gertrude when he arrives in the troubled Johannesburg of the 1940s. A timeless story told in poetic prose in which dignity, love, and compassion triumph over crime, poverty, and racial injustice set in the heart of South Africa. Call Number: BG Paton

Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding suddenly awakens to the world around him in the summer of 1928 in Green Town, Illinois. His new adolescent awareness takes him on a journey of first discoveries full of magic and exuberance. A joyful read, Ray Bradbury’s first novel is about childlike innocence and living in the present. Call Number: BG Bradbury

The demand for World War II munitions forces a backwoods Kentucky family to move to inner-city Detroit. As the pressures of the city mount, the family is held together by their amazing mother Gertie Nevells. Gertie’s dream is to purchase a farm and gather her family about her. However, it takes everything this powerful and compassionate matriarch (with a passion for wood sculpting and carrying on conversations with her daughter’s imaginary playmates) has to keep the family together and live by the rural values that have guided them for generations. Call Number: BG Arnow

Fuller describes her childhood, armed with an Uzi, in Zimbabwe during the Rhodesian Civil War of the 1970s. The daughter of white settlers, Fuller’s understated observations of a harsh African existence (the family lost three children at childbirth and endured constant illness, even hunger) combines with her descriptions of an ongoing revolt for self-rule by Africans. The ensuing violent conflict is described from a child’s unique perspective. The experience of the Fuller family (including their own racism and quirks) is told without sentimentality, and this book explores the violent beauty of Africa, the strength of family life, the human capacity for brutality, and the unique nature of individual experience. Call Number: BG 968.91 F9581

Primo Levi was a Jewish-Italian chemist who survived Auschwitz. Shortly before his death in 1987, Levi wrote this, his third book on the Holocaust. Its pages examine the cultural situation that created the Jewish genocide, and springs from Levi’s belief that understanding would prevent a recurrence of these brutal times. The book’s conclusion, in which Levi published letters he received from Germans who participated in the Holocaust, has particularly captivated many readers. Call Number: BG 940.5318 L578

Ella lives on the tiny island called Nollop, off the coast of South Carolina, a “nation of letter writers” named after Nevin Nollop, who wrote the sentence that uses all the letters of the alphabet. (The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.) All is peaceful and happy on Nollop, until letters begin falling off the statue of Nevin Nollop. The island’s leaders decide that the missing Z is a sign: that letter is no longer a part of the alphabet. Public floggings, banishment from the island, and even death are the consequences of using a Z in written or oral communication. As more letters fall from the statue and are banned, the people come up with more and more ingenious use of language-while their entire society begins to fall apart. Quirky and intelligent, the novel makes great use of wordplay as it works towards Ella’s attempt to save every letter. Even Z. Call number: BG Dunn

Miles Roby: single father, cook, and all-around “nice guy” is miserable but doesn’t know it. This unlikely hero of Richard Russo’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel realizes that his hometown of Empire Falls, Maine will never recover the glory days when the powerful Whiting Family ran a textile factory that employed the entire town. But he also can’t seem to leave. These days, Miles continues to run the Empire Grill, a restaurant that just manages to hold the community together. But even this outdated diner is controlled by the powerful vestiges of the town’s past: the widowed Francine Whiting, an elderly matriarch who still owns half the town, along with the Grill itself. This novel, sometimes haunting, sometimes funny, is the story of a man’s unplanned and unexpected quest to understand his family, the town he loves despite himself, and how he managed to end up doing the only thing he never wanted to do: stay in Empire Falls for the rest of his life. Call Number: BG Russo

J.G. Ballard’s semi-autographical novel is the story of Jamie, a young boy caught in the politics of nations and the passions of war. When World War II breaks out, Jamie, a privileged and wealthy British boy living in Shanghai, is forced into one of the many concentration camps ran by the Japanese invaders to contain European and American citizens. Separated from his parents, Jamie must learn to survive and grow up in an alien world of hunger and bloody death. Befriended by the a-moral and opportunistic former ship’s steward, Jaime wills himself to survive and becomes a new kind of boy: the tough and agile Jim. This is not the typical observation of a world at war, although battles, death, and cruelty are all present. Jim remains a child: in love with airplanes even when they drop bombs, fascinated by the adults around him, willing to do mischief whenever he can. The work is one of the most unique, and disturbing, accounts of World War II. Call Number: BG Ballard

Set in the fictional British county of Wessex, famously invented by Thomas Hardy as the setting for his most important novels, Far From the Madding Crowd was Hardy’s first recognized masterpiece. It tells the story of the beautiful and passionate Bathsheba Everdene, who seems destined for happiness when she inherits her uncle’s wealthy farm. Thus equipped, Bathsheba prepares to settle down to a life of relative ease, together with her trusted shepherd Gabriel Oaks. However, Bathsheba, always unconventional, sends a teasing valentine to a wealthy neighbor saying only “Marry Me.” Shocked, he promptly falls in love and proposes. The same night, however, Bathsheba meets a dashing but unscrupulous soldier named Sergeant York, and falls in love herself. The inevitable tragedy that results from this triangle is one of the most famous in literature, and established Thomas Hardy’s reputation as one of the great chroniclers of 19th century England. Call Number: BG Hardy

After immigrating to Canada from India at the age of 23, Rohinton Mistry spent more than a decade as a bank clerk before writing and publishing the short story ‘One Sunday’ which proceeded to win first prize in the prestigious Canadian Hart House Literary Contest. A Fine Balance, Mistry’s second novel, is set in the India of 1975, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, defying a court order calling for her resignation, declares a state of emergency and imprisons the parliamentary opposition. These events serve as backdrop for an intricate tale of four ordinary people struggling to survive. Naive college student Maneck Kohlah, whose parents' general store is failing, rents a room in the house of Dina Dalal, a 40-ish widowed seamstress. Dina acquires two additional boarders: hapless but enterprising itinerant tailor Ishvar Darji and his nephew Omprakash, whose father, a village untouchable, was murdered as punishment for crossing caste boundaries. These four unlikely people begin a family of sorts, and together suffer both the corruption and promise of modern India. A bittersweet novel of politics and people. Find out why Rohinton Mistry has been short-listed for the Booker Prize an astonishing three times. Call Number: BG Mistry

Charlie Gordon has always been described as slow but with a passion for learning. When a new procedure hopes to triple his IQ, Charlie agrees to have the experimental process performed on him. The surgery and its effects change this simple, quiet man in lasting ways. The delicate prose of this touching novel moves toward a fantastic tear-jerker ending. Call Number: BG Keyes

Beau Boutan is dead, lying in the yard of the only black man in Bayonne strong enough to stand up to the racist bully. When Sherriff Mapes arrives, he finds all the old men of the quarter with 12-gauge shotguns and empty shells ready to confess. As he questions the men, they recall a litany of injustices committed by Boutan and others against themselves and their families. As each character takes a turn at narration, they relay both the anguish of racial inequity and hope for changing times. Call Number: BG Gaines

Reverend John Ames knows he is dying, and Gilead is written as a letter to his six year old son, a boy Ames realizes will never otherwise have any real record of his father. Writing in 1956 from his lifelong home of Gilead, Iowa, Ames’ story includes two world wars, the Great Depression, the death of his first wife and child, and his attempts to create a meaningful life through his writing (mostly of sermons). Ames also goes back in time to tell the story of the lifelong rivalry and misunderstandings between his own father and grandfather, an inter-generational conflict that continues to have repercussions in the present day. This is a magical novel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and an unforgettable examination of fatherhood and faith. Call Number: BG Robinson

Charles Chipping is a terrible teacher – uninspiring and unloved by his students at the (somewhat) prestigious Brookfield school for boys in England. But everything changes when he meets and marries the lovely and intelligent Katherine on a summer vacation. With some of shyness finally overcome, Chips discovers a way to begin connecting with the young men in his classes, helping them to uncover the beauty of language and history. This novel is not only a sweet and sometimes tragic life story, it is also a record of the sweeping changes in England from the Victorian Era (Mr. Chips begins teaching in 1870) through the beginning of World War II. A great record of a great teacher. Call Number: BG Hilton

In what critics and readers have deemed a universal story, Nobel Laureate Pearl Buck creates the tale of Wang Lung, a poor peasant in rural China in the early 20th century. Describing the joys and sorrows, trials and triumphs of Wang Lung’s family, Buck powerfully examines the human condition and masterfully reveals the common denominators that link the members of the human race. Call Number: BG Buck

The American reading public was shocked many of Melville’s complex psychological and political writing. As a result, many of his great works disappeared into magazine archives. When early Twentieth century critics recognized the long-dead Melville’s brilliance, readers scoured for Melville’s work. This work combines nineteen of these respected works. Two of them,“Billy Budd, Sailor” and “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” are contained in almost any anthology of American literature as two of the nation’s most revered short stories. Call Number: BG Melville

Crane’s death at 28 took one America’s most promising authors at an early age. However, tuberculosis did not take its final toll until after the author left a substantial literary contribution. A daring journalist and eloquent poet, Crane often transformed the life and death situations he witnessed into moving works of literature. This collection includes the classics “The Red Badge of Courage” and “The Blue Hotel.” Call Number: BG Crane

Booker Prize winning author Margaret Atwood tells the story of Offred, a handmaid in a post-nuclear war United States (now called the Republic of Gilead) where women are stripped of many of their rights in order to protect the sacred nature of womanhood. A chilling dystopian tale, and a modern classic. Call Number: BG Atwood

Twelve-year-old Annie loves to run. At home, her parents are having a new baby and her grandfather, once a champion runner himself, is falling into dementia. Although her best friend Max, struggling with the inevitable moods of adolescence, runs to escape the problems in his life, Annie runs for the pure pleasure. Sharon Creech’s narrative poetry uses the rhythm of Annie’s stride to illustrate her journey as she adapts to changes in her everyday life. Heartbeat is an easy, delightful read. Call Number: BG Creech

When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, few could have anticipated its potential for devastation. Pulitzer prize-winning author John Hersey recorded the stories of six Hiroshima residents shortly after the explosion and published their accounts in 1946. The book offered the world a chilling and touching perspective on the effects of nuclear weapons. The work’s timelessness has earned it the status of classic and it continues to be read over half a decade after its publication. This 1985 edition includes Hersey’s tender account of his return trip to Hiroshima to find out what happened to each of his interviewees. Call Number: BG 940.5449 H439

In the process of writing this novel, Krauss wanted to write “a book that people would take personally.” By touching on themes we all relate to personally-the fear of dying without being seen or remembered, the way grief changes a person into someone else, the persistence of love-she accomplishes just that. The eponymous The History of Love is a novel written by Leo Gursky during the beginning of World War II; he loses it, along with Alma, the woman he loved. Unbeknownst to him, the novel is published and, decades later, translated from the Spanish by thirteen-year-old Alma’s mother, who is caught up in the grief of losing her husband to cancer. Alma searches for the origin of her name while Leo searches for a way to be seen before his death; as the novel progresses the threads of all the stories work their way together into a satisfying ending, detailing along the way the power of creativity to act as a healing force. Call Number: BG Krauss

Matteo Alacran is not your everyday boy. Cloned from the DNA of a powerful leader, hatched in a petri dish and grown in the womb of a cow, he's now growing up next to a poppy field in the small cottage of Celia, the only person he's ever known. All that changes the day he makes friends with some other children, and his remarkable coming-of-age experience begins. Surrounded by danger-most people in his community despise clones-Matt comes to love El Patron, the man who he was cloned from, even as he discovers an entirely sinister plot behind his existence. This fast-paced, adventure-filled novel will keep you reading and give you plenty of material for discussion. Winner of the National Book Award in 2002, and recognized as both a Newbery and Printz honor book, Farmer's work deserves to be recognized. Call Number: BG Farmer

I Heard the Owl Call My Name is the simple yet powerful story of a young vicar sent to live with the Kwakiutl tribe in the Pacific Northwest. Unaware of his own impending death, he finds that the tribe’s ways are being eroded by an encroaching American culture. Craven’s classic story is filled with the lush landscape of the Pacific Coast and the heartbreaking alienation felt by Native Americans caught between cultures. Call Number: BG Craven

Did you know that Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was actually based on a true story? Philbrick takes you on an exciting tale of seafaring, awhale attack, survival, starvation and the eventual cannibalism of the crew. This National Book Award winner is a must read. Call Number: BG 910.9164 P534

Lahiri’s debut, a lyrical representation of life in India and among immigrants in America and Britain, earned her some of the most prestigious awards in fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize and Pen/Hemingway awards. Each story considers the interplay between culture and nationality, and how people can or can’t come together. A man fears for his family in the Pakistani Civil War, and must rely on the kindness of friends; one couple mourns for a stillborn baby while another contemplates items left behind in an old house: each story has a special beauty and resonance. Lahiri demonstrates her outstanding ability to paint human experience. Call Number: BG Lahiri

Ralph Ellison took the literary world by storm in 1952 when he published this National Book Award winning-novel. The first Black author to win the award, Ellison’s work follows the intellectual journey of a young Black man through the South and 1940’s Harlem. The novel’s provocative, brilliant prose is underscored by a subtle sense of humor. Perfect for any group that wants to explore social and psychological conditions. Call Number: BG Ellison

The novel is a Victorian classic. Having been raised as an unloved orphan in her aunt’s home, Jane Eyre finds her place as governess in Thornfield Hall. Before long Jane’s life is intertwined with the mysterious characters that make up her new home, from the dark Mr. Rochester to his odd servant Grace Pool. Eventually love and drama intertwine as Jane must attempt to understand both strange happenings in the house and the desire in her own heart. Call Number: BG Bronte

Famed historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author McCullough (author of 1776) explores the life of one of America’s founding fathers in this highly readable biography. McCullough details Adams’ early life and famed marriage to Abigail Smith, his role in shaping the new republic, his complex relationship and sometimes rivalry with Thomas Jefferson, his presidency, and his unerring sense of rightness and justice. A brilliant re-telling of an extraordinary American life. Call Number: BG 921 Adams

Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel takes the reader into the minds and hearts of the leaders of the Blue and Gray. Based on the diaries and letters of the men themselves, Shaara brings the complex characters of Lee, Longstreet, and Chamberlain alive for the battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest three days in American history. This easily accessible novel is recommended for anyone interested in the nation’s heritage. Call Number: BG Shaara

Scrutinizing themes of power, greed, loyalty and human relationships, Shakespeare’s masterful tragedy, King Lear, is as timely today as the day it was first performed. Set in pagan England, Shakespeare retells the tale of a legendary all-powerful king from England’s mysterious ancient history and chronicles the path of his tragic downfall. Call Number: BG 822.33 T3

Oliver La Farge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a thought provoking Western adventure, insightfully examining both the culture of the Navajo and the American Southwest at the turn of the 20th century. Through the turbulent relationship of two young Navajos, the traditional silversmith Laughing Boy and the American educated Slim Girl, La Farge examines loss of innocence, cultural collision, and the changing American Southwest. Call Number: BG La Farge

A terrific book by one of the finest humorists of our day; it is at turns hilarious and poignant. The work is a collection of the author’s Prairie Home Companion radio shorts. Lighthearted and full of warmth, Keillor celebrates the common events that fill our lives. Although the pieces are set in fictional Lake Woebegone, Minnesota, the stories remind us of our shared human experience. Call Number: BG Keillor

A brilliant and beautiful novel destined to become an American classic, A Lesson Before Dying explores faith, dignity and redemption. Grant Wiggins has returned to the Louisiana plantation of his youth to teach the local schoolchildren. Jefferson is a young man from the quarter, sentenced to die for a crime he did not commit. At his grandmother’s request, Grant grudgingly accepts the task of teaching Jefferson to face death as a man. In the process, Grant struggles with his own humanity and Jefferson wrestles with his ability to see beyond himself. The novel is a heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful, look at the emotional consequences of prejudice. Call Number: BG Gaines

After deciding that city life as a laundress wasn't for her, Elinore Pruitt, a young widowed mother, accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming, work that she found exceedingly more rewarding. In this delightful collection of letters, she describes these experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney. Call Number: BG 978.709 ST943

Gore Vidal's Lincoln, though not without controversy over its historical inaccuracies, provides a fascinating portrayal of the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. The novel is told almost exclusively through everyone but Lincoln’s point of view: his secretary John Hay, his political enemies Secretary of State Seward and Secretary of the Treasury Chase, a member of the group that will attempt his assassination, and his increasingly insane wife Mary Todd Lincoln. The president that emerges in Vidal’s chronicle is both mythic and achingly human. Anyone interested in the Civil War will delight in this unique retelling of the time, told from the White House instead of the battlefield. Vidal, generally acknowledged as the greatest living master of American historical fiction, tells the story of the creation of the modern United States of America. Call Number: BG Vidal

After winning the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for her non-fiction work (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek), Dillard turned her hand to fiction. The result is an intricate description of frontier life in late 19th century Puget Sound settlement. Although the novel bluntly presents the frontier’s harsh reality, Dillard’s fascinating characters (including a kleptomaniac, an Eastern socialite, and a flamboyant frontiersman) come alive under her understanding prose. The result is a novel that doesn’t hide from pain, but faces it with a contagious optimism. Call Number: BG Dillard

The book is a set of hilarious tales of an eccentric gun-toting grandmother and her two grandchildren, visiting on their annual summer hiatus from Chicago. The novel, written by the award-winning Richard Peck, is a perfect and beloved yarn for seekers of all ages. Call Number: BG Peck

Thomas Wolfe’s first novel, published in 1929, is the autobiographical Look Homeward Angel. This classic work of American fiction chronicles life in a small Southern town through the eyes of the tempestuous Gant family. Young Eugene ages from an infant to eighteen years old, while his family sinks further into dysfunction and confusion. His mother, the redoubtable Eliza, struggles with the family boarding house and chases money and real estate. Eugene’s father Oliver is her opposite, interested only in art, and taking out his frustrated dreams of sculpture on carving tombstones for the town’s dead. Still, quiet Eugene will manage to leave home for school and become the author he dreams of being. Wolfe’s ode to childhood, small towns, and the kind of dreams that both save and drown us remains a quintessential American novel. Call Number: BG Wolfe

A swashbuckling love story set in 17th century England: murder, forbidden love, lost heiresses, highway men, knighthood, and revenge weave together the tale of John Ridd and his love for a woman of an enemy clan, Lorna Doone. Call Number: BG Blackmore

When Gabriel García Márquez won the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature, the committee wrote he had been chosen “for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts.” Love in the Time of Cholera perfectly reflects García Márquez’s commitment to the fantastic and magical, and his realistic depiction of life in South America. When Florentino Ariza falls deliriously in love with Fermina Daza, a beautiful student, his love will survive more than half a century, war, marriage, and, yes, even cholera. An excellent introduction to this unique author’s unforgettable world. Call Number: BG Garcia Marquez

These ten short stories offer a poignant glimpse of people traumatized by the terrible physical and mental aftereffects of World War II. Each story is written from a pre or post war standpoint and explores the effects of poverty, the ruination of love and the dark side of human nature when people are pushed beyond their limits. Boll’s use of language makes human sorrow palpable, and he is considered one of the most important writers of the postwar period. The German author received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972. Call Number: BG Boll

An 88-year-old woman, somewhat deaf, awakens one night to the sound of music from her childhood playing loudly. The songs don’t come from any radio but play loudly and repeatedly in her head. Her ENT and psychiatrist can’t find anything wrong, but her neurologist, Dr. Oliver Sacks, eventually figures out what’s causing the music: a small stroke in the woman’s temporal lobe. That’s just one of the stories Dr. Sacks writes about in this collection of neurological case studies. Published both in medical and literary journals, Sacks’ studies present the intricacies of the human brain and its workings along with the resilience of the human spirit. Interesting, informative, and illuminating, this work will make you think about what it means to be human. Call Number: BG 616.8 Sa14

This novel, like all of Jane Austen’s work, is filled with witty dialogue and stinging social criticism. The plot revolves around the shy and sweet-tempered Fanny Price. Taken in by the Bertram’s, rich relatives, Fanny finds herself as an afterthought in the family’s busy world. Over time her compassion and ethics unveil her true worth, value recognized by two very different suitors. Confusion and love result in another magnificent Austen piece. Call Number: BG Austen

Alice Goodwin is watching her neighbor’s daughter when she accidentally drowns on their Midwestern dairy farm. Following a series of events that lead to Alice’s imprisonment, the Goodwins struggle to keep their family together during this time of suffering. Call Number: BG Hamilton

Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women is re-imagined in this novel by Brooks. In the original, the girls wait anxiously for letters from their father, off fighting in the Civil Warwhile in Brooks’ novel, we see the harsh reality of the actual life he leads. Based loosely on Alcott’s real father, March is a minister influenced by Emerson and Thoreau (both family friends) and struggles to maintain his faith and idealism in the face of racism and mercenary behavior from both sides of the conflict. His wife, Marmee, waiting at home with the girls, will uncover uncomfortable truths of her own when her husband ends sick and wounded at Washington Hospital. A unique look at what remains one of the most important periods, and books, in American history. Call Number: BG Brooks

Will plans to return to the small town of Medicine River, just outside a reservation in Alberta, Canada, simply for his mother’s funeral. His friend Harlen Bigbear (who is, according to Will, “like the prairie wind. You never knew when he was coming or when he was going to leave”) has other plans. The town needs a photographer, and Will is just the man for the job. He’s got other plans for Will, too, involving a single mother. Harlen and Will are the connecting threads in the novel’s narrative, which moves back and forth through the history of their friendship. A simple, gentle read, Medicine River will make you laugh as you consider your ideas about Native Americans. Call Number: BG King

In 1830, Rutherford Calhoun, an educated freed slave, accidentally boards a slave ship leaving New Orleans to capture the mysterious Allmuseri tribe in Africa. Aboard the ship, Calhoun witnesses the horrors of slavery while serving the tyrannical, scholarly captain and riotous crew. The expedition changes his life. The novel won the 1990 National Book Award. Call Number: BG Johnson

Dorothea Brooke longs to do something with her life to enrich humanity, but is limited by the boundaries placed on her by Victorian society. Dorothea struggles to find purpose through marriage and love in hopes of reaching her potential to do good. Call Number: BG Eliot

Connie Danforth narrates the story of her mother, Sibyl—a rural Vermont midwife, who was tried for murder for performing an emergency Caesarean section on a woman that may have still been alive. Sibyl must not only face the charges laid against her but the hostility of traditional doctors and the community. In time the truth of what really happened comes to light. Call Number: BG Bohjalion

The book is the true story of Dr. Paul Farmer, a renowned infectious-disease specialist. In his quest to diagnose and cure diseases, Farmer traveled to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Farmer dedicated his life to combating disease and poverty. Many of his ideas are considered innovative solutions to worldwide cycles of suffering. Call Number: BG 921 Farmer

Mrs. Mike is the true story of Katherine Mary O'Fallon, a young Irish girl from Boston, who marries Canadian Mountie Sergeant Mike Flannigan, who is priest, doctor and magistrate to all in the wilderness of the North Woods of Canada. Extremely popular, the novel has won the hearts of millions for its depiction of a young love’s journey to maturity. Call Number: BG Freedman

Willa Cather published her masterpiece My Antonia in 1918 to critical acclaim. Narrator Jim Burden tells the story beginning when, as a small boy, he left his life in civilized Virginia and traveled to the edge of the Nebraska frontier. Jim remembers his childhood friend - the vivacious and spirited Antonia, an immigrant child from Bohemia, and how their own lives, families, and friends were shaped by the beauty and cruelty of the Great Plains. Universal themes of death, youth, and friendship have enthralled readers for the 90 years this novel has now been in print. My Antonia captures the settling of the American frontier as no other work of fiction ever has. Call Number: BG Cather

In My Grandfather's Blessings, author Rachel Remen proves that it is possible to embrace spirituality even as a doctor continually facing the realities of life and death. Having grown up emotionally divided between the religious devoutness of her rabbi grandfather and the academic world of her parents, Remen shares with her readers the lessons she learned as she consolidated these two views and embraced healing. Call Number: BG 296.72 R282

This short story by Guy de Maupassant tells of a poor woman named Mathilde who wishes passionately for money, splendid clothes, and beautiful jewelry. When her husband receives an invitation to an important ball, Mathilde is frustrated by the fact that she has nothing to wear. She decides to ask a rich friend to loan her a diamond necklace so that she will not look out of place amid so many rich and fancy people. However, the night takes a turn for Mathilde and her husband when they suddenly realize that she has lost the necklace and must find a way to make it up to her friend. Call Number: BG Maupassant

A Catholic Trappist monk from Kentucky, Thomas Merton became recognized worldwide for his insightful view of human spirituality. Author of over fifty books and numerous essays, Merton is loved for his insight into the human condition. No Man is an Island contains sixteen of Merton’s essays on human spirituality and is recommended for anyone looking to enrich their lives. Call Number: BG 284.482 M558

In a distinctly opinionated voice, ninety-five-year-old Lucy Marsden narrates the story of her life in the novel The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. At the age of fifteen, Lucy marries a fifty-year-old Civil War captain who still suffers from war related trauma. Her story is interlaced with vignettes about her childhood, parents, and best friend, a slave named Castalia. She addresses the major issues which confronted the South of her generation including slavery, the position of women in society, and the effects of war on the United States. Call Number: BG Gurganus

They began almost immediately, just after the attack on Pearl Harbor: the people of a tiny town in Nebraska started feeding the soldiers who came through North Platte by the trainful. A small canteen sprang up at the train depot where the soldiers briefly stopped - for ten or fifteen minutes, they were treated to food, hot coffee, cake, fruit, and hospitality. The community around North Platte joined in the project, and volunteers made sure that the soldiers on every train, from 5:00 a.m. until midnight, were greeted, fed, and encouraged. "I would say that the majority of men on the battlefields knew exactly what North Platte was," one soldier explains. "They would talk about it like it was a dream." Chicago Times columnist Bob Greene explores this little-known story from World War II, showing how the kindness of strangers changed lives. This touching read will remind you of the goodness that's inherent in people and the comfort in good food and a smile. Call Number: BG 978.282 G8303

Written during the height of the Cold War, Nevil Shute’s On the Beach is a haunting reflection on the end of humanity. In the wake of a colossal nuclear war, Australia is still alive, but slowly anticipating the arrival of radioactive fallout from the Northern hemisphere. Still, life must go on much as before – babies must be cared for, people fall in love, and everyone makes their own choices about the coming end. On the Beach changed how the world thought about the threat of nuclear war, and would eventually be made into an award-winning film starring Gregory Peck: the first American movie to premiere in the Soviet Union. Call Number: BG Shute

Falsely accused of being a spy for the Germans during World War II, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov is sentenced to serve time in the Soviet gulag system. As the title indicates, the book describes a typical day experienced by Ivan in his work camp. Working in temperatures well below freezing, the inmates struggle to stay warm, dream of being released, and always seem to hunger for a scrap of bread to eat or a cigarette to smoke. In simple prose, the author (who himself served time in Stalin's labor camps before going on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature) graphically describes what it was like to try to maintain one's dignity in the face of communist oppression. Call Number: BG Solzhenitsyn

The Optimist's Daughter begins when seventy-one-year-old Judge McKelva goes to the hospital complaining of a problem with his vision. His daughter, Laurel, becomes anxious about her father's health and hurries to his side. Upon her arrival in New Orleans, Laurel must deal with her father's new wife, Fay, who contributes to Judge McKelva's lack of recovery and eventual death. As she buries her father, Laurel is forced to consider the weighty topics of life and death, in addition to the balance between the past, present, and future. Call Number: BG Welty

From 1914 to 1931, Danish aristocrat Baroness Karen Blixen owned and operated a coffee plantation in Kenya. After the plantation failed, she returned to Europe and began to write under the pen name Isak Dinesen. Out of Africa reads like a collection of stories in which she adheres to no strict chronology, gives no explanation of the facts of her life, and apologizes for nothing. Call Number: BG 967.62 D612

After years of work with Minnesota Public Radio, storyteller Leif Enger weaves together a beautiful expression of love. The novel follows a young family in a heroic trek to find their fugitive brother. Although none of the family finds what they expected, Enger blends faith and hope in a story of family, sacrifice, and religion. The writing is delightful and the story meaningful. Call Number: BG Enger

Life in the small town of Holt, Colorado, rings true in this rich, unsentimental novel that explores both the complexities of the natural world and human interaction. The novel's characters struggle with realistic problems in a compassionate ode to the beauty of imperfect humanity. A high school teacher struggles to raise his two boys and deal with his disintegrating marriage. His wife struggles with depression and the guilt she feels as she faces a future that might not include her husband and children. The boys try to understand the pain and violence that accompanies their coming of age in the world. Two brothers live a solitary existence on their ranch, feeling more comfortable with cattle than people. Eventually, the struggles of a young pregnant teenager bring their stories together and testify of the power of community and human decency. Call Number: BG Haruf

Among the greatest American novels, James’ Portrait of a Lady details the fictional Isabel Archer’s life and choices: her fight to retain intellectual freedom, and her search for fulfillment and purpose in an age when women seldom searched for any of those things. Independent and unconventional, the American-born Isabel has grown up haphazardly: left to read, think, and become what she pleases, a unique upbringing for a girl at the end of the 1800s. Unlike the majority of her compatriots, she chooses a trip to Europe and a tour of great art and countries with her wealthy aunt over an attractive marriage proposal. While in Europe, the alluring Gilbert Osmond (who seems Isabel’s perfect match), the mysterious and elegant Madame Merle, and the convent-schooled girl Pansy will all alter her life and change her dreams and desires. A fascinating portrait of one of literature’s most memorable heroines. Call Number: BG James

Who would have thought that a madman in an insane asylum would have been one of the greatest contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary? Although it sounds like fiction, the book it is a true story of the collaboration between the OED scholar James Murray and the incarcerated Dr. Minor (an American Civil War surgeon). This amazing story is both tragic and inspirational—a tribute to the human spirit. Call Number: BG 423 W7217

This quietly magnificent novel tells the story of Stevens, a Victorian butler born into the wrong era. The perfect gentlemen, Stevens is an ideal butler to his employer Lord Darlington just prior to and during World War II. But politics and people stand between Stevens and his ideals of keeping the perfect home: the Nazis are gaining power, domestic staff is harder to find, and the new housekeeper, Miss Kenton, is a strong woman who threatens Stevens’ tidy world and reined-in emotions. As Salman Rushdie comments, The Remains of the Day is “a story both beautiful and cruel.” A modern masterpiece of love and regret. Call Number: BG Ishiguro

Winner of the 2004 Scott O'Dell Award for historical fiction, A River Between Us is a masterful tale of mystery and war. 1861 brings changes for young Tilly Pruitt. The nation stands at the brink of war and the only boy in the family, Tilly’s brother Noah, wants to join the fight. That leaves Tilly with her mother and sister struggling to make ends meet. That is, until the elegant Delphine and her dark traveling companion arrive on a steamboat. Rumors fly throughout the town about the odd couple, wondering if the companion is a slave and if the beautiful Delphine could be a Southern spy. The Pruits become entangled in the suspicion when they take the pair into their home. The result is a marvelous novel about the lasting influence one person can have on another. Call Number: BG Peck

William Kemp, after losing money in cotton speculation, decides he will recoup his loss in the slave trade. The novel then traces the affect of greed, the “sacred hunger,” as it propels the ghastly triangle trade of goods for human cargo. In haunting detail, Unsworth creates the complex intersection of nineteenth-century morality and economy with devastating consequences. Call Number: BG Unsworth

Burnett’s classic is about a young girl who is anything but sweet. When the reader meets Mary, we can be forgiven for describing her as a brat. Tragedy followed by banishment to a neglected English estate does nothing to improve her character. It will take an equally unpleasant cousin, a young laborer, and a hidden garden to help restore the many unhappy characters in this novel, including Mary herself. Another childhood classic that deserves a re-reading by any adult! Call Number: BG Burnett

Ten years after the death of her mother, all14 year-old Lily Owens has left of her is a mysterious picture of a Black Madonna, with the words “Tiburon, South Carolina” written on the back. After a run-in with the law, Lily and her Black nanny Rosaleen must flee the police and Lily’s abusive father to find the answers Lily has been seeking. With the backdrop of Civil Rights transition occurring around them, the greatest change takes place in Lily and Rosaleen as they discover much more than they expected about love, friendship, and family. Call Number: BG Kidd

Taken from a moral allegory published in Latin in the fifteenth century, Porter wrote that the title of her novel symbolizes “the ship of this world on its voyage to eternity” and is an exploration of the darker side of the human condition. The novel is set in the summer of 1931, on board a cruise ship bound for Bremerhaven, Germany. The passengers, a motley crew including; a Spanish noblewoman, a drunken German lawyer, an American divorcee, a pair of Mexican Catholic priests, and a myriad of others are forever changed by their experiences on this voyage of passion, treachery and human folly. Call Number: BG Porter

Rachel Carlson was known for writing beautiful nature descriptions until this 1962 novel burst into the national scene. Its powerful scenes exposed the nation to the dangers of DDT, at the time a common form of pesticide. Relentlessly attacked by the chemical industry, Carson was vindicated as her claims stood up to scientific and political scrutiny. In the next few years the novel and the outcry it generated brought about the banning of DDT. The work remains a classic for those interested in ethical stewardship of natural resources. Call Number: BG 623.9 C23

A family reunion on a South Carolina plantation sparked Edward Ball’s interest in his family’s slave holding past. As Ball began to research, he discovered his family owned more than twenty rice plantations in South Carolina. Slaves provided the manpower to run the plantations, including some slaves brought over by successful slave trading Ball ancestor. In an attempt to understand this past, Ball traveled to Bunce Island, a fortress in Sierra Leone were captured slaves where loaded for the journey across the Atlantic, and tracked down some of the seventy-five to a hundred thousand living relatives from mixed Black and White ancestry. Ball’s work adds an interesting modern perspective regarding the effects of a shameful American institution. Call Number: BG 975.7915 B21

Smallpox was a dreaded disease in the early Eighteenth century. For example, an epidemic in Boston from 1721 to 1722 infected 6,000 of the city’s 11,000 inhabitants (about 800 died). Jennifer Carrell, a writer for Smithsonian, creates a fictional rendering of two proponents of vaccination. One, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu takes her cause all the way to King George I. The other, Dr. Zabdiel Bylston, faced public opposition in Boston for his early vaccination work, learned from local slaves. Some outraged citizens even tried to kill him when he continued to work on the disease. However, their work revolutionized medical practices and its effect continues to this day. Read about their courageous efforts in this accessible book. Call Number: BG 614.521 C232

In the small community of Merced, California, reside thousands of Hmong refugees from the highlands of Laos; among them is the Lee family, whose youngest daughter Lia suffers from severe epilepsy. Anne Fadiman attempts to shed light on Hmong culture and understand the seemingly irreconcilable differences between western medicine and the Hmong in this poignant narrative. Call Number: BG 306.461 F126

A crash-test dummy. (What happens to a body when it’s in a car crash?) A subject in an Army Ordinance Department experiment. (Just how, exactly, do bomb shells affect human flesh?) An anthropological assistant. (What happens to a body as it decomposes in, say, a block of cement?) Those are just a few examples of how a body can be useful after dying, the main thread in Mary Roach’s book. Sounds a little creepy, but Roach manages to write about all of the post-mortem possibilities with a dry sense of humor that will leave you grinning, not grossed out. Call Number: BG 611 R53

Once labeled the “Prairie Pulitzer,” The Stone Diaries outlines the life of Daisy Fletts Goodwill from conception to death. Daisy finds life, although lacking any extraordinary accomplishment, as a quest for contentment in the face of continual loss. Call Number: BG Shields

Trudi, a dwarf librarian, tells about the lives of citizens in the small German town of Burgdorf from World War I into the 1950s. In doing so, Trudi learns the secret that unites all humans—that of being different. This book is for anyone who has ever felt they don’t fit in. Call Number: BG Hegi

Written by the existentialist philosopher Albert Camus, The Stranger is one of the most widely read short novels of the 20th century. Meursault, a young Algerian, becomes involved in a petty argument between a local pimp and his girlfriend’s family. As a result, he kills a man. Meursault, who doesn’t believe in God, purpose, or an afterlife, has trouble making sense of his trial for murder. The work explores an individual’s relationship to others, social norms, and moral foundations. In doing so, the novel questions how these social influences are created and what responsibility people have to these cultural forces. Call Number: BG Camus

This Pulitzer prize-winning novel explores the psychological effect of changing class structures in Tennessee. Taylor uses his fictional protagonist, editor Philip Carver, as a starting point for this cultural collision involving Old Tennessee and the New South. Carver is drawn back to Memphis from New York by his two sisters attempt to keep their eighty-one-year-old father from marrying another woman. The novel traces the Carver family as they attempt reconciliation with each other and the past that continues to haunt them. Call Number: BG Taylor

In this sequel to Cannery Row, Steinbeck explores the lives of a group of California alcoholics, whores, and idlers as they form bonds of affection among themselves and with a biologist in post-World War II Monterey. As always, Steinbeck, one America’s great writers, treats his material with a tenderness found in few other authors. Atlantic Monthly called it a “comedy—bawdy, sentimental, and good fun.” Call Number: BG Steinbeck

This beloved work has reemerged as one of the premier books of the Twentieth Century. Hurston, relying on her background recording folk history, tells the story of Janie Crawford, an articulate African-American woman in the 1930s. The spunky and unforgettable Janie, explains her quest for identity, three marriages (one of which resulted in her being accused of murder), and a journey to her roots. Call Number: BG Hurston

Set during the 1918 flu epidemic, Maxwell captures the psychological complexity of family relations in a small Midwestern town. Elizabeth Morison is the center of life for her husband James and their two boys, Benny and Robert. Her importance, brought into focus by a sudden tragedy, is compassionately displayed through the view of each of the male figures. Maxwell’s sensitive and delicate prose is a tribute to all mothers. Call Number: BG Maxwell

Chinua Achebe’s masterpiece is considered the first masterpiece written in English by an African author. There are more than eight million copies of the novel in print worldwide. The work explores the cultural collision of Western influences and traditional Nigerian tribal practices. As the story unveils it exposes a shared humanity that transcends national boundaries. Call Number: BG Achebe

Includes Dillard’s classic memoirs A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, The Writing Life, and An American Childhood. Renowned for her lyrical writing style, and ability to make even abstract topics interesting, these are three of Dillard’s best known works. In Tinker Creek, Dillard examines nature and life in and around her Virginia residence. Her reflection on people and places is a journey of discovery for the reader. An American Childhood is a tribute to her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA and her unforgettable mother, and serves as a celebration of the joy and discovery of childhood. And finally, in The Writing Life, Dillard describes the pain and excitement of creation. Read one or all three of these brilliant books! Call Number: BG 818 D581

A terrible crime splits a Southern community along racial lines. However, Atticus Finch, a courageous white lawyer, refuses to sacrifice his principles to public demand. The consequences of his choice affect both his family and the town. This tale of courage, strength, and love is told through the insightful and charming voice of Atticus’ daughter Scout. The novel is a worldwide classic with more than 30 million copies in print. Call Number: BG Lee

With typical Virginia Woolf genius, this novel focuses on the drama of the everyday and the mysteries of time and human bonds. Woolf poignantly follows the complex lives of an English family and picks them up again after a ten year hiatus in order to explore the effects of time. Call Number: BG Woolf

Sweet, tender, endearing; realistic, compassionate, heartbreaking. There are many words to describe this novel, but they can all be condensed into just two: so good. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a classic coming-of-age novel, set in New York in the early 1900’s. Francie Nolan is eleven when the novel opens, living in Brooklyn in a tenement house. Her father is an alcoholic but her mother is a strong woman who makes sure her family is provided for. Francie is a quiet, imaginative child, passionate about learning, reading, and writing, but life doesn’t bring her the things she wants. As the story progresses you experience the heartbreaks and triumphs, ambitions and mistakes along with Francie as she, like the Tree of Heaven, flourishes in the world’s stony soil. Call Number: BG Smith

This is a simple, well-told story of the sea, and while the plot is about a steamer ship called the Nan-Shan and its encounter with a typhoon in the South China Seas, the heart of the book revolves around its main character Captain McWhirr. His lack of imagination gives him the ability to deal calmly with the crisis and bring the vessel through the typhoon. Conrad continues his tradition of exciting psychological fiction against the backdrop of the raging sea. His characters are described with elegant humor and sharp observation of human nature. Call Number: BG Conrad

Stephen Ambrose, author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, takes on the story of real-life adventurer Meriwether Lewis. Ambrose records Lewis’s friendship with Thomas Jefferson, his interaction with native tribes, the expedition’s battles with the environment and disease, their triumphant return and the aftermath of the journey. Drawing from the journals of members of the “Corps of Discovery” as well as Ambrose’s own experiences following their trail, Undaunted Courage is an entertaining, compelling, and utterly readable account of this epic in American history. Call Number: BG 973.46 AM185

“Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu.” Thus begins Ha Jin’s National Book Award-winning novel, Waiting, a tale the Chicago Tribune calls “a simple love story that transcends cultural barriers.” Seeking to divorce his wife from an arranged marriage, Lin returns to his village each summer in hopes that he will eventually be able to marry the educated, modern woman he loves. Each summer, however, his wife agrees with the divorce only to back out at the last minute. Call Number: BG Jin

Weaving from Georgia to Maine, the Appalachian Tail (AT) takes hikers through 2,100 miles of mountains and forests, the longest swath of nature in America. Bill Bryson started on the trail at its southern-most point in Georgia with the goal of hiking the entire length. Then he wrote about his adventures on the trail. A travel memoir, a commentary on small-town America, and a detailed observation of nature, man, and how they interact, A Walk in the Woods will also make you laugh. Come along on Bryson’s AT adventures to discover “the amazing complex delicacy of the woods.” Call Number: BG 917.404 B848

Mattie Rigsbee is the spunky center of this funny story. At 78, Mattie wishes for grandchildren, but her kids won’t seem to settle down and deliver the goods. Just as she’s beginning to slow down, teenage delinquent Wesley Benfield enters her life, in need of good cooking and grandmotherly affection. Despite the concern of family and friends, Wesley and Mattie forge a bond in this endearing comic novel. Call Number: BG Edgerton

This classic tale uses the playful, seemingly simple story of a group of Berkshire rabbits as a text to explore human nature. The rabbits are forced to flee when their traditional home is destroyed by development. In the course of their romping adventure, the rabbits skirt danger and become acquainted with a world of myth and culture. The book is written using the dialect and folk history of the English countryside. Published in 1972, the work has been cherished ever since. Call Number: BG Adams

Kenny Watson’s parents are fed up with his older brother Byron, who is running with the wrong crowd and developing a talent for getting in trouble. They pack up Byron, Kenny and little sister Joetta and head to Birmingham, Alabama. Instead of finding the slower pace and quiet lifestyle they had hoped for, the Watsons witness one of the most chilling events of the Civil Rights struggle. Kenny’s narration is both funny and moving as he intertwines his own story of family love and endurance with the tragic 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church. Call Number: BG Curtis

As a Creole heiress, Antoinette Cosway lives a life of leisure until she leaves the Caribbean to England. There, she mingles in high society before her marriage leads her to become the crazed Mrs. Rochester. The novel’s question is whether Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre is the victim or the villain? Read the haunting prequel from Mrs. Bertha Rochester’s point of view. Call Number: BG Rhys

Susan Cahill, author of three works of nonfiction, was asked to bring together a sampling of women writing. The result is an anthology that introduces readers to many of the finest women authors of all time. Included in its pages are two Nobel laureates and many of the most beloved Twentieth century female authors. Enjoy Edith Wharton, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, Zora Neale Hurston, Sandra Cisneros, and a host of others all collected in one book. Call Number: BG 820.8 C1197

Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Timothy Egan won the 2006 National Book Award for this harrowing account of the longest and largest environmental disaster in American history: the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression. Egan's portraits of the families who stayed behind are sobering and far less familiar than those who left for California and the West to escape the devastation. Egan interviews the surviving families to tell of towns depopulated to this day, a mother who watched her baby die of "dust pneumonia," and farmers who gathered tumbleweed as food for their cattle and, eventually, for their children. Call Number: BG 978.032 EG14