Outbreak


Joshua C. Chadd - 2017
    Returning to town, they learn first-hand, the dead are coming back to life with a taste for flesh. With their parents in Nebraska they must embark on a journey to rescue them as they set into motion their zombie apocalypse plan. But they'll see not all is fun and games as they realize it is nothing like they imagined it would be.Can they make it in time to save their parents from a fate worse than death?Emmett Wolfe has been preparing for this day for years, but still cannot believe it is happening. An infection unlike any other has begun to spread across America and the world as he knows it is coming to an end. He must rescue his daughter and ex-wife and transport them to a safe location.But nowhere is safe anymore...

The Sound of Things Falling


Juan Gabriel Vásquez - 2011
    In this gorgeously wrought, award-winning novel, Vásquez confronts the history of his home country, Colombia.In the city of Bogotá, Antonio Yammara reads an article about a hippo that had escaped from a derelict zoo once owned by legendary Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The article transports Antonio back to when the war between Escobar’s Medellín cartel and government forces played out violently in Colombia’s streets and in the skies above.Back then, Antonio witnessed a friend’s murder, an event that haunts him still. As he investigates, he discovers the many ways in which his own life and his friend’s family have been shaped by his country’s recent violent past. His journey leads him all the way back to the 1960s and a world on the brink of change: a time before narco-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare.Vásquez is “one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature,” according to Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Sound of Things Falling is his most personal, most contemporary novel to date, a masterpiece that takes his writing—and will take his literary star—even higher.*Winner of the 2014 International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award

Let Go and Let God


Sandra Becker - 2015
    Samuel’s biggest fear is to see Ruth marrying an Englischer. Ruth goes off to meet her aunt and everything seems to go well. But only for a while. When Samuel comes to know that Ruth is attracted to an Englischer, his worst fears come true. How will Samuel respond to Ruth’s infatuation? Will Ruth see the light and choose her family over a stranger? Or will she be swept away by the Englischer’s charms? Let Go and Let God is a sweet clean Amish Romance that weaves together family values, personal choices and above all, God's own designs for our lives. Start reading from here. CHAPTER 1: “I am so excited!” Ruth exclaimed. “I know. I am happy for you, dear Schweschder,” Mary replied. Ruth looked at her sister Mary and smiled. It was a beautiful morning in Lancaster County. The family had just finished breakfast, and Ruth and Mary were in the kitchen cleaning the dishes. The biggest part of their morning routine was already done. Ruth had woken up at dawn, collected the eggs, milked the cow, and then turned it out to pasture. While Ruth cared for the animals, Mary had gathered vegetables and helped her mother with the breakfast. “You will follow me soon enough,” Ruth said. Mary was a year younger than Ruth, and the two of them were very close. A few days before, Ruth had celebrated her fifteenth birthday, and she knew that it meant the advent of rumspringa. Most of her friends had looked forward to this as a time to be more social with boys of their age, but Ruth was more excited about the fact that it was also an opportunity to finally become a member of the church. Rumspringa was a time when teenage boys and girls were allowed a bit more freedom as they began to court and made a formal decision about whether to join the church and agree to live their lives in accordance with the rules of the Ordnung, the Amish community order. Ruth had seen some of her friends spend rumspringa at home, while others had gone to stay with relatives while they pondered their decision. In most cases, her friends had already made their decision, and they therefore used most of their time during rumspringa observing adults, learning from them, and emulating their behavior and values. Ruth was already learning from her mother the habits and work ethic of a respectable Amish lady. She had a deep faith in God and she knew that this would be her chance to prove her devotion to God. The dishes were soon done, and Ruth wiped her hands with a cloth. Mary had a dreamy look in her eyes. “Mudder told me that next year it will be my turn for rumspringa. I would love to go to the singings and spend more time with the boys.” Ruth smiled. She had felt the same way. She had watched from the aisles as her friends had become church members and started participating in the choir. She patted her sister on the cheek and said, “Sure. We will have a lot of fun together once you complete your rumspringa. Mudder will also give you a new dress next year.” “That would be wunderbaar. Will you be going to Ant Sadie’s haus?” “Yes. Father sent her a letter. She said that she would be delighted to see me again. It’s been quite a while since we visited her, not since Mr. Schwartz’s wedding.

The Letter Left to Me


Joseph McElroy - 1988
    Powerful and moving when the boy first opens the envelope, his father's sober woprds warn him against life's daily distractions. 'The Letter Left To Me' is alive with the creative force of a young man struggling to make sense of himself and the people around him. In a style deceptively simple and direct, McElroy has again extended his range. The result is an American classic.

Home Land


Sam Lipsyte - 2004
    Then there is the appalling, yet utterly lovable, Lewis Miner, class of '89---a.k.a Teabag---who did not pan out. Home Land is his confession in all its bitter, lovelorn glory.

Thank You for Smoking


Christopher Buckley - 1994
    In the neo-puritanical nineties, it's a challenge to defend the rights of smokers and a privilege to promote their liberty. Sure, it hurts a little when you're compared to Nazi war criminals, but Nick says he's just doing what it takes to pay the mortgage and put his son through Washington's elite private school St. Euthanasius. He can handle the pressure from the antismoking zealots, but he is less certain about his new boss, BR, who questions whether Nick is worth $150,000 a year to fight a losing war. Under pressure to produce results, Nick goes on a PR offensive. But his heightened notoriety makes him a target for someone who wants to prove just how hazardous smoking can be. If Nick isn't careful, he's going to be stubbed out.

The Last Summer of Reason


Tahar Djaout - 1999
    The belief that no work of beauty created by humans should rival the wonders of their god is slowly consuming society, and the art once treasured is now despised. Boualem resists the new regime with quiet determination, using the shop and his personal history as weapons against puritanical forces. Readers are taken into the lush depths of the bookseller's dreams, the memories of his now empty family life, and his passion for literature, then yanked back into the terror and drudgery of his daily routine by the vandalism, assaults, and death warrants that afflict him."Books have been the compost in which Boualem's life ripened, to the point where his bookish hands and his carnal hands, his paper body and his body of flesh and blood very often overlap and mingle. In the end Boualem himself didn't see a clear distinction any more. He has met so many characters in books, he has come in contact with so many destinies that his own life would be nothing without them."Marketing plans for "The Last Summer of Reason":A percentage of proceeds go to ABFFE. Joint promotions with ABFFE and member stores, including highlight in "Bookselling This Week," Galley mailing & BookSense Galley Program participation National advertising Co-op availableTahar Djaout was considered one of the most promising writers of his generation, and was a firm believer in democracy. Djaout's murder wasattributed to the Islamic Salvation Front, who reported that he was killed because he "wielded a fearsome pen." He is the author of eleven books, including the novel "Les vigiles," which won the Prix Mediterrane.

What the Living Do: Poems


Marie Howe - 1997
    What the Living Do reflects "a new form of confessional poetry, one shared to some degree by other women poets such as Sharon Olds and Jane Kenyon. Unlike the earlier confessional poetry of Plath, Lowell, Sexton et al., Howe's writing is not so much a moan or a shriek as a song. It is a genuinely feminine form . . . a poetry of intimacy, witness, honesty, and relation" (Boston Globe).

Flings


Justin Taylor - 2014
    A widowed insomniac is roused from malaise when an alligator appears in her backyard. A group of college friends try to stay close after graduation, but are drawn away from-and back toward-each other by the choices they make. A boy's friendship with a pair of identical twins undergoes a strange and tragic evolution over the course of adolescence. A promising academic and her fiancée attempt to finish their dissertations, but struggle with writer's block, a nasty secret, and their own expert knowledge of Freud.From an East Village rooftop to a cabin in Tennessee, from the Florida suburbs to Hong Kong, Taylor covers a vast emotional and geographic landscape while ushering us into an abiding intimacy with his characters. Flings is a commanding work of fiction that captures the contemporary search for identity, connection, and a place to call home.

The Clock Winder


Anne Tyler - 1972
    Pamela Emerson lives a lonely new widowhood outside of Baltimore, with only a house full of ticking clocks for company. Then she hires eccentric Elizabeth Abbott as a handyman and both discover that parts don't have to be a perfect match to work.

Together Apart


Natalie K. Martin - 2014
    But Sarah has a secret - and she's willing to sacrifice everything to keep it. Going through a break-up is hard enough but having to live together afterwards is even worse, especially when it's a break-up neither person wants. For Adam, there are only three ways to deal with it: sex, drugs and alcohol. For Sarah, its keeping her distance and closely guarding the lengths she's gone to in order to keep her secret safe for the past fifteen years. And she succeeds until Adam finds a box of her teenage diaries. Against a backdrop of lies, secrecy, passion and teenage rebellion, the delicate threads holding Sarah's secret begin to unravel and when her first love is brutally murdered, her past and present collide in a way that makes it impossible to keep them apart. Adam thought he knew everything about Sarah. He was wrong. Romantic, intense and heart-breaking, Together Apart is a contemporary love story exploring what it really means to love and be loved. "I was hooked from page one ..." HarperCollins Authonomy Editor #1 read and Editor's Desk Winner on HarperCollins' Authonomy

Big Machine


Victor LaValle - 2009
    Until one day a letter appears, summoning him to the frozen woods of Vermont. There, Ricky is inducted into a band of paranormal investigators comprised of former addicts and petty criminals, all of whom had at some point in their wasted lives heard The Voice: a mysterious murmur on the wind, a disembodied shout, or a whisper in an empty room that may or may not be from God.Evoking the disorienting wonder of writers like Haruki Murakami and Kevin Brockmeier, but driven by Victor LaValle’s perfectly pitched comic sensibility, Big Machine is a mind-rattling literary adventure about sex, race, and the eternal struggle between faith and doubt.

Story of My Life


Jay McInerney - 1988
    Alison Poole, twenty going on 40,000, is a budding actress already fatally well versed in hopping the clubs, shopping Chanel falling in and out of lust, and abusing other people's credit cards. As Alison races toward emotional breakdown, McInerney gives us a hilarious yet oddly touching portrait of a postmodern Holly Golightly coming to terms with a world in which everything is permitted and nothing really matters.

Ladies' Man


Richard Price - 1978
    Now, unattached and unemployed, can he stop the downward spiral of his life?

Diamonds and Cole


Micheal Maxwell - 2013
    In the past, Cole a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, worked for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time Magazine. Now, he’s returned to the paper where he started his career, The Chicago Sentinel. Instead of writing the big stories, he’s doing the work of a rookie reporter. His “big story of the day” is a cat caught in a tree. During its rescue, the cat’s owner takes her Good Samaritan neighbor hostage. Cole witnesses something so disturbing it reawakens the journalist’s desire to write again.Returning to the paper, Cole finds a desperate message asking for help from Ellie, one that got away. The one that has continually haunted his life. Cole drops everything and flies to California. He must find what would make her so desperate, she would call him after so many years. Cole finds her terminally ill, and abandoned by her husband. He discovers while Ellie was heavily medicated, she mistakenly signed a Power of Attorney. Now her estranged daughter Erin’s inheritance, won’t go to her, but her abusive step-father. Cole vows to find the girl and right the situation.The path to keeping his word is blocked at every turn by the husband who abandoned her, his shady real estate deals, violent con men, street thugs and the lure of a fortune in diamonds that unite them. The anger, sorrow, and crippling guilt of twenty years fires Cole's drive to keep a promise, that in the end, will heal and return the soul to the great journalist.Beaten, bloody but determined, Cole Sage conquers greed and hatred with a strength that only love, and a will as hard as diamond, can achieve.