America Is Not the Heart


Elaine Castillo - 2018
    Her uncle, Pol, who has offered her a fresh start and a place to stay in the Bay Area, knows not to ask about her past. And his younger wife, Paz, has learned enough about the might and secrecy of the De Vera family to keep her head down. Only their daughter, Roni, asks Hero why her hands seem to constantly ache.Illuminating the violent political history of the Philippines in the 1980s and 1990s and the insular immigrant communities that spring up in the suburban United States with an uncanny ear for the unspoken intimacies and pain that get buried by the duties of everyday life and family ritual, Castillo delivers a powerful, increasingly relevant novel about the promise of the American dream and the unshakable power of the past. In a voice as immediate and startling as those of Junot Díaz and NoViolet Bulawayo, America Is Not the Heart is a sprawling, soulful telenovela of a debut novel. With exuberance, muscularity, and tenderness, here is a family saga; an origin story; a romance; a narrative of two nations and the people who leave home to grasp at another, sometimes turning back.

Aapan Sare Arjun


V.P. Kale - 1997
    He started interpreting human life with the reference to Geeta & its philosophy.

Martin Marten


Brian Doyle - 2015
    He is entering high school, adulthood on the horizon not far off in distance, and contemplating a future away from his mother, father, and his precocious younger sister. And Dave is not the only one approaching adulthood and its freedoms on Wy'east that summer. Martin, a pine marten (a small animal of the deep woods, of the otter/mink family), is leaving his own mother and siblings and setting off on his own as well. As Martin and Dave's paths cross on forest trails and rocky mountaintops, they—and we—witness the full, unknowable breadth and vast sweep of life, and the awe-inspiring interconnectedness of the world and its many inhabitants, human and otherwise. Martin Marten is a coming-of-age tale like no other, told in Brian Doyle's joyous, rollicking style.

Unchained: One Woman, One Bike, One Dream... One World


Rubina Soorty - 2019
    She is daunted by busy dangerous roads, wild animals and the possibility of getting lost. And yet in 2013, completely unprepared and unsure if she can make it to London 60 miles away, she sets off around-the-world with her bicycle, Percy, and her mother's ashes.Unchained is a deeply personal travelogue about an around-the-world bicycle tour and the journey within. The story gradually unfolds as she crosses beautiful but unfamiliar lands with a fully loaded bicycle whilst struggling with the recent loss of her mother and her feelings of love.Ruby's journey, that takes her cycling across 5 continents, is a story about the ups and downs of the road, the highs and lows of life, trusts and betrayals, the loving kindness of nameless strangers, and a slow realisation of our deep connection with nature and the oneness of humanity. But above all, it is a tale of love.

Still Alice


Lisa Genova - 2007
    D in neuroscience from Harvard University. Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what's it's like to literally lose your mind...

The White Bone


Barbara Gowdy - 1999
    

Shoeless Joe


W.P. Kinsella - 1982
    What follows is a rich, nostalgic look at one of our most cherished national pastimes and a remarkable story about fathers and sons, love and family, and the inimitable joy of finding your way home.

Kisses From Nimbus: From SAS to MI6 An Autobiography


P.J. 'Red' Riley - 2017
    His is the story the establishment doesn’t want you to read.br>Captain P. J. “Red” Riley is an ex-SAS soldier who served for eighteen years as an MI6 agent. Riley escaped internment in Chile during the Falklands war during an audacious top-secret attempt to attack the Argentinian mainland. He was imprisoned in the darkness of the Sierra Leonean jungle, and withstood heavy fire in war-torn Beirut and Syria. In 2015, he was arrested for murder but all charges were later dropped. In this searing memoir, Riley reveals the brutal realities of his service, and the truth behind the newspaper headlines featuring some of the most significant events in recent British history. His account provides startling new evidence on the Iraq war, what Tony Blair really knew about Saddam Hussain’s weapons of mass destruction before the allied invasion, and questions the British government’s alleged involvement in the death of Princess Diana. Chaotic, darkly humorous and at times heart-wrenchingly sad, Kisses From Nimbus charts the harrowing real-life experiences of a soldier and spy in the name of Queen and country.

A Sister's Tears


Meg Hutchinson - 2009
    . . may the devil tek him! Her knows his temper, felt his fist many a time. And there be others as knows, women he's paid to keep silent about the blows they've suffered, for it tek more'n a roll in bed to satisfy Fenton Gilmore. Emma Lawrence has reason to fear the base cruelty of the man she must call uncle. She and her sister Rachel had been taken into the Gilmore household on the death of their parents and have known nothing but unkindness at the hands of Fenton and his wife. And now Rachel is dead, brutally raped and strangled, and Emma must dry her tears and flee if she is to escape the same fate. Emma falls in with two other orphans, and Timothy and Lily become as dear to her as her own departed sister. But Fenton Gilmore does not give up so easily. His evil ambition is to own a brothel and Emma is vital to his perverted plan.

The Godfrey Diary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn: (Expanded, Annotated)


Edward Settle Godfrey - 2014
    Godfrey was a central figure in the Reno-Benteen defense over the 25th and 26th of June, 1876. He kept a diary of the Yellowstone Expedition against the Sioux from May 17 to September 24.The diary reveals anecdotes and observations of General Custer's mood and behavior before the fight on June 25th, as well as the desperate story of survival experienced by the battalions under Reno and Benteen. It also contains fascinating details about how the cavalry moved, camped, and relaxed during the days leading up to the fight.In 1892, (then Captain) Godfrey wrote what became a very famous and widely-read article for Century Magazine about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Both of these documents are cited by most serious Custer books..

Tailhooker: Pre-Flight to Vietnam


Willard G. Dellicker - 2015
    Tailhookers who wear the US Navy Wings of Gold are renowned as the most skilled pilots in the Aviation community. This book tells the story of a twenty year-old drafted into military service during the Vietnam War, then applying to enter US Navy pilot training. His historically accurate story begins with highlights of his Navy flight training to his assignment as an A-4 Skyhawk pilot in VA-22 The Fighting Redcocks. The book chronicles facts about the frustrating air war in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970 through Lt. Dellicker's three tours as an Attack pilot and LSO. Intertwined with the war stories and close calls is a love story of two young people who met, became engaged in two weeks, and endured 18 months of war-time separation. Now, after 45 years of marriage this story was written for their kids and grandkids as an accurate historical account of the Vietnam War, True Love, and Faith in God.

The Fledglings


Max Hennessy - 2020
    Face to face. One machine against another.It was shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. Martin Falconer and his friend, Frank, were anxious to ‘get into the scrap’ as soon as possible, their youth blinding them to the real danger of it all.Geoffrey, Martin’s elder brother, knew that it wasn’t a game. He had fought in the trenches, been wounded and had seen friends die.For Geoffrey the R.F.C. offered an opportunity to escape the mud and horror of the Front, while for Martin and Frank it was the chance to be in at the start of a totally different kind of fighting. They were to be pioneers.A scintillating, full-throttle thriller of the First World War, perfect for fans of W. E. Johns, Derek Robinson and Geoffrey Wellum.

Hornblower and His Majesty


C.S. Forester - 1940
    For his first command after escaping from France, Hornblower is given charge of the royal yacht - and he soon requires all his skill and instinct to prevent disaster!

The Right Stuff


Tom Wolfe - 1979
    Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and in 1979--the year the book appeared--Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his subjects that captivated Wolfe. In his foreword, he notes that as late as 1970, almost one in four career Navy pilots died in accidents. "The Right Stuff," he explains, "became a story of why men were willing--willing?--delighted!--to take on such odds in this, an era literary people had long since characterized as the age of the anti-hero." Wolfe's roots in New Journalism were intertwined with the nonfiction novel that Truman Capote had pioneered with In Cold Blood. As Capote did, Wolfe tells his story from a limited omniscient perspective, dropping into the lives of his "characters" as each in turn becomes a major player in the space program. After an opening chapter on the terror of being a test pilot's wife, the story cuts back to the late 1940s, when Americans were first attempting to break the sound barrier. Test pilots, we discover, are people who live fast lives with dangerous machines, not all of them airborne. Chuck Yeager was certainly among the fastest, and his determination to push through Mach 1--a feat that some had predicted would cause the destruction of any aircraft--makes him the book's guiding spirit. Yet soon the focus shifts to the seven initial astronauts. Wolfe traces Alan Shepard's suborbital flight and Gus Grissom's embarrassing panic on the high seas (making the controversial claim that Grissom flooded his Liberty capsule by blowing the escape hatch too soon). The author also produces an admiring portrait of John Glenn's apple-pie heroism and selfless dedication. By the time Wolfe concludes with a return to Yeager and his late-career exploits, the narrative's epic proportions and literary merits are secure. Certainly The Right Stuff is the best, the funniest, and the most vivid book ever written about America's manned space program. --Patrick O'Kelley

Ross Poldark


Winston Graham - 1945
    But instead, he discovers that his father has died, his home is overrun by livestock and drunken servants, and Elizabeth, having believed Ross dead, is now engaged to his cousin. Ross must start over, building a completely new path for his life, one that takes him in exciting and unexpected directions....Thus begins an intricately plotted story spanning loves, lives, and generations. The Poldark series is the masterwork of Winston Graham, who evoked the period and people like only he could, and created a world of rich and poor, loss and love, that listeners will not soon forget.