Best of
Adult-Fiction

1984

Panther in the Sky: A Novel Based on the Life of Tecumseh


James Alexander Thom - 1984
    Rich, colorful and bursting with excitement, this remarkable story turns James Alexander Thom's power and passion for American history to the epic story of Tecumseh's life and give us a heart-thumping novel of one man's magnificent destiny--to unite his people in the struggle to save their land and their way of life from the relentless press of the white settlers.

The Tie That Binds


Kent Haruf - 1984
    Eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough lies in a hospital bed, IV taped to the back of her hand, police officer at her door. She is charged with murder. The clues: a sack of chicken feed slit with a knife, a milky-eyed dog tied outdoors one cold afternoon. The motives: the brutal business of farming and a family code of ethics as unforgiving as the winter prairie itself.In his critically acclaimed first novel, Kent Haruf delivers the sweeping tale of a woman of the American High Plains, as told by her neighbor, Sanders Roscoe. As Roscoe shares what he knows, Edith's tragedies unfold: a childhood of pre-dawn chores, a mother's death, a violence that leaves a father dependent on his children, forever enraged. Here is the story of a woman who sacrifices her happiness in the name of family--and then, in one gesture, reclaims her freedom. Breathtaking, determinedly truthful, The Tie That Binds is a powerfully eloquent tribute to the arduous demands of rural America, and of the tenacity of the human spirit.

Cold Sassy Tree


Olive Ann Burns - 1984
    Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a widower, and she is only half his age and a Yankee to boot. As their marriage inspires a whirlwind of local gossip, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a family scandal, and that’s where his adventures begin.Cold Sassy Tree is the undeniably entertaining and extraordinarily moving account of small-town Southern life in a bygone era. Brimming with characters who are wise and loony, unimpeachably pious and deliciously irreverent, Olive Ann Burns’s classic bestseller is a timeless, funny, and resplendent treasure.

Love Medicine


Louise Erdrich - 1984
    Black humor mingles with magic, injustice bleeds into betrayal, and through it all, bonds of love and family marry the elements into a tightly woven whole that pulses with the drama of life.Filled with humor, magic, injustice and betrayal, Erdrich blends family love and loyalty in a stunning work of dramatic fiction.

Stones for Ibarra


Harriet Doerr - 1984
    They have mortgaged, sold, borrowed, left friends and country, to settle in this remote spot; their plan is to live out their lives here, connected to the place and to each other. The two Americans, the only foreigners in Ibarra, live among people who both respect and misunderstand them. And gradually the villagers--at first enigmas to the Evertons--come to teach them much about life and the relentless tide of fate.There is an alternate cover edition of this book with the same ISBN here.

Nop's Trials


Donald McCaig - 1984
    But the holiday is shattered when Nop fails to return home. Stolen by two hardened criminals who see in the young stock dog a $300 payday, Nop suffers abuse and brutality as he courageously adapts to his new life, which holds no shortage of surprises. At the same time, Lewis refuses to believe that his beloved dog is gone for good. His determination to be reunited with Nop—and Nop’s own unswerving loyalty—reveals the depth and strength of the bond that can exist between humans and dogs.

Voices in Summer


Rosamunde Pilcher - 1984
    Laura never feels as if she fits in with her husband's side of the family. When she stays with them in Cornwall to recuperate after an operation, the unseen presence of his first wife and daughter are ever present to destroy her tranquility.

The Poe Reader


Edgar Allan Poe - 1984
    This classic series of plays, novels, and stories has been adapted, in a friendly format, for students reading at a various levels.Reading Level: 4-8Interest Level: 6-12

Grandmaster


Warren Murphy - 1984
    Justin Gilead and Alexander Zharkov are two men born on the same day on opposite sides of the world who are driven by forces they cannot understand to battle against each other - for only one of them can be the Grandmaster.

A Stranger for Christmas


Carol Lynn Pearson - 1984
    One bets the other that someone will make room for them in their hearts and home.

Nos âmes la nuit


Kent Haruf - 1984
    Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis's wife. His daughter lives hours away in Colorado Springs, her son even farther away in Grand Junction, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in houses now empty of family, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with. Their brave adventures - their pleasures and their difficulties - are hugely involving and truly resonant, making Our Souls at Night the perfect final installment to this beloved writer's enduring contribution to American literature.

Our Souls at Night


Kent Haruf - 1984
    Her husband died years ago, as did his wife, and in such a small town they naturally have known of each other for decades; in fact, Addie was quite fond of Louis's wife. His daughter lives hours away in Colorado Springs, her son even farther away in Grand Junction, and Addie and Louis have long been living alone in houses now empty of family, the nights so terribly lonely, especially with no one to talk with. Their brave adventures - their pleasures and their difficulties - are hugely involving and truly resonant, making Our Souls at Night the perfect final installment to this beloved writer's enduring contribution to American literature.

Chase the Moon


Catherine Nicolson - 1984
    For years she has confided her secrets only to Harlequin, whose letters are tender, encouraging, and sustain her dreams. Then one evening she meets the man who will demand to know her as a woman. Guy de Chardonnet shows her London, Paris, Biarritz ... and the world spins wildly in his arms. But Corrie, youthful, free-spirited, and innocent, is not worldly enough to understand the mystery that is Guy, am man who is too sophisticated, too successful, too seductive to be anything but dangerous. Yet they love .... and grow even more estranged.

The Skook


J.P. Miller - 1984
    Fleeing from a motorcycle gang, alienated, middle-aged Spanish Barrman escapes into a hidden cave and finds himself entombed in an underground labyrinth inhabited by the wondrous Skook.

41 Stories


O. Henry - 1984
    Henry evokes wordplay that is dazzling, inventive, wry, and humorous. This anthology includes forty-one stories that continue to captivate generation after generation of readers, including "The Gift of the Magi", "The Furnished Room", and those which demonstrate the technical genius and wide range of O. Henry's world.

A Green Journey


Jon Hassler - 1984
    She's just retired from a career of teaching and travels to Ireland in search of the romance she never had time for. And along the way, she not only discovers people she would never have let herself know before, but learns through experience, at long last, that love is unpredictable, unstoppable, and never appears as we dream it will. From the Paperback edition.

Spies


Richard Ben Sapir - 1984
    Unrecovered detritus from the last German U-boat sunk off the coast of Rhode Island, it contains secret codes suggesting that a Nazi spy ring operated in the United States during the darkest days of World War II. If confirmed, it could prove a major embarrassment to the FBI—whose late director, J. Edgar Hoover, once assured the government there were no spies in the country—so the Bureau sends one of its best, Unit Chief Todd Oliver, to Newport to investigate.   A war that ended four decades earlier is not yet over for some in this New England naval town, as Oliver’s mission threatens to destroy the lives and relationships of the guilty and the innocent alike. Suddenly, dark, lingering shadows are everywhere, enveloping respected pillars of the community, the wealthy and powerful in their mansions on “the Avenue,” and respectable, law-abiding citizens who merely wish to forget. Even Oliver himself is not safe, as the agent’s inquiries into secret wartime espionage begin unraveling strong, sacred bonds of love, friendship, and family, tempting the dedicated operative to compromise everything he stands for in the face of a shocking murder that rocks Newport society to its core.

Almost Innocent


Sheila Bosworth - 1984
    Like the old master Henry James, Sheila Bosworth uses the chilling device of using the mirror of innocence to reflect evil. It is a lovely achievement, a superior one."-Walker Percy Clay-Lee Calvert is the love child of two people who are as beautiful as models in a magazine but whose similarity ends there. Her father, Rand, is an artist-easygoing, dreamy, principled, and chronically jobless. Her mother, Constance, is the blue-blooded, pampered, delicate but determined daughter of a state supreme court justice. How their intense passion for each other plays out against the sumptuousness and decay of 1950s New Orleans is something to which no innocent should be privy. In Sheila Bosworth's mesmerizing first novel, the era, the place, the people, of Clay-Lee's childhood all form an air as real as our own pasts, alternately dim and indelible, where everyone bears some guilt, and all are almost innocent.

The Bones of Plenty


Lois Phillips Hudson - 1984
    Through their compelling story looms a sense of a whole nation's tragedy during the Great Depression.Reviews of The Bones of Plenty: "It is possible . . .that literary historians of the future will decide that The Bones of Plenty was the farm novel of the Great Drought of the 1920s and 1930s and the Great Depression. Better than any other novel of the period with which I am familiar, Lois Phillips Hudson's story presents, with intelligence and rare understanding, the frightful disaster that closed thousands of rural banks and drove farmers off their farms, the hopes and savings of a lifetime in ruins about them."--New York Times Book Review"Hudson does a superb job of revealing the physical texture of farm life on the prairie--its sounds, smells, colors, sensations. Then she goes further, examining the spiritual texture as well. Her characters are bound to each other and to their land in a kind of harsh intimacy from which there is no relief. Weather, poverty, anger, and pride are the forces that drive them and ultimately wear them down. . . Like the best books of any era, it convinces us of its characters' enduring humanity, and surprises us, again and again, with the depth of emotion it makes us feel."--Minneapolis Star Tribune"At her best, Lois Phillips Hudson can make the American Ordeal of the 1930s so real that you can all but feel the gritty dust in your teeth."--Omaha World-Herald

Riders of the Long Road


Stephen E. Bransford - 1984
    

Eva


Ib Melchior - 1984
    . . Counter Intelligence Corp agent Woody Ward uncovers evidence that it might not have been Eva Braun on Hitler's funeral pyre. Indeed, at that very moment, Eva is being escorted along the top-secret route mapped for the escape of the Nazi elite. It is a tortuous path where disaster appears at every turn to thwart their arrival at the Italian port of Bari. Ward persuades his superiors to let him go underground and pursue Eva in an attempt to prevent her escape. The chase that ensues holds constant deadly dangers for both fugitives and pursuer, as they make their way from the eerie caves of the Harz Mountains in Germany to a startling and spectacular climax in Bari. There, a ship is waiting to carry Eva to Argentina, where she will nurture the seed of the Fourth Reich. Only CIC Agent Ward has any chance of stopping the second coming of Hitler's Third Reich!

The Medical Detectives


Berton Rouleche - 1984
    Who mans the rampart against such onslaughts?A legion of interrelated health services, professional and amateur, guard us. Linked by training, interest and technology, they gather data and share resources to disarm these diseases before they get started.This is the second of two collections that bring together the best of Berton Roueche's ANNALS OF MEDICINE narratives.Originally published in The New Yorker magazine, the stories are classics of literary and medical lore.

One Thing Leading to Another


Sylvia Townsend Warner - 1984
    Mackenzie's last hour -- I met a lady -- A widow's quilt -- Mother tongue -- Proper circumstance -- Narrative of events preceding the death of Queen Ermine -- Queen Mousie -- An improbable story -- The Duke of Orkney's Leonardo.