Owen doesn't believe in accidents; he believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul is both extraordinary and terrifying. At moments a comic, self-deluded victim, but in the end the principal, tragic actor in a divine plan, Owen Meany is the most heartbreaking hero John Irving has yet created.

    Elisa Lindheim, a violinist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, is of Jewish heritage but has adopted an Aryan stage name. Thus she is able to travel and play in Germany even though a 1935 law forbade Jewish musicians to do so. Her dear friend Leah, a cellist already introduced to Thoene readers in A Daughter of Zion, and her husband Shimon must escape Austria or perish in the coming Holocaust.John Murphy, a reporter for the New York Times in Berlin and Austria, becomes linked with English politicians in a plan to overthrow Hitler. Elisa and John's mutual connections with the Jewish Underground entangle them in a web of intrigue, danger, and conspiracy that neither could have known.

    In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the savage depths of racial violence, as he delivers a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small southern town, Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and remorseless young men. The mostly white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. That is, until her black father acquires an assault rifle and takes matters into his hands.For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of sniper fire spread through the streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his client's life, and then his own.

    A well-digger and policeman in a bleak New Hampshire town, he is a former high-school star gone to beer fat, a loner with a mean streak. It is a mark of Russell Banks' artistry and understanding that Wade comes to loom in one's mind as a blue-collar American Everyman afflicted by the dark secret of the macho tradition. Told by his articulate, equally scarred younger brother, Wade's story becomes as spellbinding and inexorable as a fuse burning its way to the dynamite.

    There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious—and dangerous—asset.As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.

    In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, meet weekly to play mahjong and tell stories of what they left behind in China. United in loss and new hope for their daughters' futures, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Their daughters, who have never heard these stories, think their mothers' advice is irrelevant to their modern American lives – until their own inner crises reveal how much they've unknowingly inherited of their mothers' pasts. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.

    A sumptuous feast of a novel, it relates the bizarre history of the all-female De La Garza family. Tita, the youngest daughter of the house, has been forbidden to marry, condemned by Mexican tradition to look after her mother until she dies. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, and he is seduced by the magical food she cooks. In desperation, Pedro marries her sister Rosaura so that he can stay close to her, so that Tita and Pedro are forced to circle each other in unconsummated passion. Only a freakish chain of tragedies, bad luck and fate finally reunite them against all the odds.

    This story of a day in the life of Joe Robert Kirkman, a North Carolina mountain schoolteacher, sly prankster, country philosopher, and family man, won the hearts of readers and reviewers across the country.

    Her knapsack holds $100 US, a slingshot, a magical Burmese puppet, and the New York City, USA address of an unknown aunt. Imprisoned with six other lost travelers by Red Chinese, she vows to escape; never dreaming who will come to her aid.

    Instead, an impulsive walk on a misty Oregon beach results in the discovery of two Russian scientists on the run. From the moment she meets Nikolai and dark-eyed Seriozha, Cassandra's safe, secure existence is challenged and changed, along with her perception of what love should be. Flower of Winds is a windy walk on an Oregon deach, a terrifying chase through mist and darkness, a love story that defies barriers of tradition and time, and an experience you'll want to savor again and again.

    

    Both are remarkable, both are unmistakably Lispector.

    She was about to marry a wonderful man, her career as a lawyer was skyrocketing, and she had never been more beautiful. Then the secret she had hidden for nineteen years threatened to shatter it all.From growing up as a child of impoverished Holocaust survivors to discovering the glittering exclusive world of America's Jewish aristocracy, Jennie had learned how important family and heritage could be. Now she had to discover the values that went deeper still ... and the ties that entwine the heart with the richest love of all.

    A dozen stories deal with a heartbroken widower, hunters, farmers and truck drivers living in Minnesota.

    "It's a gift to the world, not quite a novel, not quite a collection of short stories....A precious moment in the channels of contemporary literature...very simply, a book of the heart."--San Francisco Chronicle¶"Her stories are carefully crafted magic....They joyously lull and illuminate."--Chicago Tribune

    Quitting his job as a Toronto stockbroker, Walt buys a hundred-acre farm on the edge of the Canadian Shield and determines to make a living using only two old racehorses and a single-furrow plow. In a series of letters to the editor of the local newspaper, Walt chronicles his struggles, modest successes and spectacular failures. The final crisis comes in his third year on the land, when he must decide whether to give it all up and return to the world of finance that he knows best. In this Canadian classic, Dan Needles has brought to life a marvelously evocative rural community. Walt Wingfield?s brave attempt to embrace a less complicated world constitutes the triumph of a clear-eyed spirit over human frailty and opens the door to a world lost to most.

    People like Mills & Boon, Bikini Nikki and a hunky Dream Guy named Daniel. People like our old friends Chung Kai, Mui Ee, Kok Sean and Sissy.Theirs is a story of loony turns and unexpected twists, as crazy and unpredictable as the April weather. It is a story about wild cars and mad wives, hot foods and piercing screams. It's a story that's shamelessly frank.Read it to believe it.

    Then she felt the piercing teeth and knew the truth was much, much worse. Now, wedded to the night, Angela knows only two desires--a thirst for blood and the destruction of the one who condemned her to this half-life!

    A brilliant example of the most accessible writing by the towering genius who set the standard for the Modern period of English literature, "The Dead" features the rich interior monologues for which Joyce is known-an especially rewarding experience in the audio medium. 2 cassettes.

    Johnson, Bookseller in St. Paul’s Church-YardLetters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and DenmarkLettersMaria; or The Wrongs of WomanMary: A FictionMoral Conversations and StoriesOn Poetry, and Our Relish for the Beauties of Nature

    "A novel of impressive artistry and power." The Washington PostCaught in the web of history, generations of an African-American family play out their parts on a world stage that constantly changes, protected always by the love of one another, which never will.

    Her analysis of how human communities are related to their environment opens a perspective that goes beyond overt changes in the landscape. Merchant brings to light the dense network of links between the human realm of economic regimes, social structure, and gender relations, as they are conditioned by a dominant worldview, and the ecological realm of plant and animal life. Thus we see how the integration of the Indians with their natural world was shattered by Europeans who engaged in exhaustive methods of hunting, trapping, and logging for the market and in widespread subsistence farming. The resulting colonial ecological revolution was to hold sway until roughly the time of American independence, when the onset of industrialization and increasing urbanization brought about the capitalist ecological revolution. By the late nineteenth century, Merchant argues, New England had become a society that viewed the whole ecosphere as an arena for human domination. One can see in New England a mirror of the world, she says. What took place there between 1600 and 1850 was a greatly accelerated recapitulation of the evolutionary ecological changes that had occurred in Europe over a span of 2,500 years.

    Capturing hearts across Rhode Island in his position as a late-night disc jockey, Jared Snow especially captivates Savannah, a prominent lawyer, who, despite the attraction, soon suspects that he plays a role in the kidnapping of her friend.

    They saw. They came and took what they saw.The Esker sisters are shoppers. Loving, caring, driven, merciless shoppers. Ida never "passes a store without slipping in and buying something to give away." Pola, who only buys in bulk, would have been good in foreign affairs: "If a nation acted up, Aunt Pola would buy it." And Hedy, dearest of them all, proved the whole thing was genetic. Or maybe environmental. Either way, she passed the bug of galloping consumption onto her son.Her son is Joe Reckler. Twenty-six. Yale grad. No job. No ties. Nothing to keep him from joining Mother and the aunts on a week-long shopping extravaganza disguised as a New England Autumn Leaves Tour that takes them everywhere from Bloomingdale's to L. L. Bean. But soon Joe notices a difference between himself and his mega-shopping mentors. You see, he figures you're supposed to pay.

    

    He darts into a steamy tango hall and begs one of the dancers for refuge, but his pursuer is unshakable. The German leaves with the scrap of information that had been destined for the Americans. The playboy was a spy for the Allies, known as Raven.   American polo player Charles Stewart is sent to discover who the Raven’s source was. A secret agent in a time before the CIA, he wants to be on the front lines in Europe, not in the back alleys of Buenos Aires. But the Nazis have engineered a plot to turn Argentina toward their cause—and with it, all of South America. The world’s destiny will be decided in the land of tango, and Stewart, mingling with Argentine high society, will be the one leading the dance.  War of the Raven was selected by the American Library Association as one of the 100 Best Books ever written about World War II.

    On July 3, 1942, RCAF Bomber Pilot Kingsley Brown was shot down over Holland, and so began what would prove to be a three-year incarceration in the most famous of all German prisoner of war camps, Stalag Luft 3, from which the Great Escape was launched.Brown recalls the years spent behind barbed wire with amazing good humour and generosity.

    Mark, son of a Roman statesman, witnesses the week that changed history, when Jesus stays in his own home. From that time, the young Roman is captivated. But his tumultuous spirit must be tamed. His encounter with the Savior is the saga of the early church.

    Therefore, Peter Clivedon's offer of marriage was gratefully accepted. Growing fond of him, she is shattered when she learns that he has concealed a terrible secret from her.