The Wooden Nickel


William Carpenter - 2002
    He can identify every car in town from the sound of its engine, but his world is changing faster then he can fathom. His wife has become an artist, selling sea-glass sculptures to tourists. His daughter is bound for college, while his son has turned angry and lawless. Lucky's own heart is failing him, too. An operation has kept it ticking, but he can't run the boat alone any more. As the spring lobster season opens, the only deckhand Lucky can find to help load his traps is Ronette, the not-quite-divorced wife of the local lobster wholesaler. When the two make it out to the fishing grounds, someone else's buoys are bobbing in his ancestral waters. Before he knows it, Lucky is in a lobster war and has abandoned all the rules: family, health, finance, even the rules of the sea that have guided him throughout his life. As waves of trouble turn into a flood tide, Lucky's pride propels him into an epic confrontation with his enemies and a rogue whale -- a battle his unreliable heart may not survive. The Wooden Nickel is a classic story of a man raging against a changing world, full of pathos and comedy. It is a remarkable novel by a writer with a powerful, distinct, and original voice.

To Kill a Mocking Bird (A BookCaps Study Guide)


BookCaps - 2011
    The perfect companion to Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," this study guide contains a chapter by chapter analysis of the book, a summary of the plot, and a guide to major characters and themes.BookCap Study Guides do not contain text from the actual book, and are not meant to be purchased as alternatives to reading the book.

Hundred Miles to Nowhere: An Unlikely Love Story


Elisa Korenne - 2017
    But never more engagingly told than in HUNDRED MILES TO NOWHERE" --Will Weaver, author of Sweet Land and The Last HunterA singer-songwriter moves from New York City to rural Minnesota for love, and finds somewhere, and someone, in the middle of nowhere. When Elisa Korenne took a month's break from New York City to be the resident singer-songwriter in middle-of-nowhere Minnesota, she didn't intend to stay. Then she fell in love with the local outdoorsman/insurance guy. One cross-country romance later, Elisa gave up subways, theater, City Bakery cookies, and her Brooklyn apartment to become the 1,153rd resident of New York Mills, a rural town ninety miles from the nearest metropolitan area, Fargo. She had to resort to moonshine to stay sane.The barista knew her weekend plans before she did. The postmaster set up gigs for her behind her back. Chris expected her to eat roadkill for dinner. And you wouldn't believe the uproar when the Finnish Lutherans in town learned she was Jewish. Despite a gun-toting Millenialist neighbor and the furnace dying at twenty-six below, Elisa moved to Minnesota and married Chris anyway. Then a tornado threatens to destroy the home she had finally made for herself.Hundred Miles to Nowhere is A Year in Provence for the Prairie Home Companion crowd, or Coop for fans of indie music.

William Faulkner: The Sound and the Fury and as I Lay Dying: Essays, Articles, Reviews


Nicolas Tredell - 2000
    By the end of the Second World War, however, the reputation of both novels had grown and Faulkner's great fictional creation, Yoknapatawpha County, had become as much a part of America as any real area of the Mississippi landscape. This "Guide" explores the wealth of critical material generated by these two exceptional works of modernist fiction. From the initially mixed critical responses to the novels in the early 1930s, the "Guide" follows the enormous growth of interest in Faulkner's work across six decades. New writings shaped by a range of critical theories are discussed, offering the reader a clear view of the place now given to one of America's most innovative and influential novelists.

The Moments


Natalie Winter - 2019
    Moments that make us who we are. But what if they don't unfold the way they're supposed to...?What if you get on the wrong bus, or don't speak to the right person at a party, or stay in a job that isn't for you? Will you miss your one chance at happiness? Or will happiness find you eventually, when the moment is right?Meet Matthew and Myrtle. They have never really felt like they fitted - in life or with anyone else. But they are meant to be together - if only they can find each other.A powerful and emotional story about missed chances, interwoven lives and the moments that define us.

Running Down Red Dog Road


Rita Wendell - 2013
    Follow the author as she takes you on a personal journey disclosing a hard-scrabble life in the coal camps nestled in the beautiful mountains of West Virginia.

The Watershed Years


Russell Rowland - 2007
    "The Watershed Years" takes place immediately after World War II following the lives of the Arbuckles, a ranching family on the vast plains of eastern Montana.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles


John Escott - 2005
    Tess Durbeyfield leaves home on the first of her fateful journeys, and meets the ruthless Alec d'Urberville. Thomas Hardy's impassioned story tells of hope and disappointment, rejection and enduring love.

The God of Sno Cone Blue


Marcia Coffey Turnquist - 2014
    Medallion.Story summary: Something is odd about Grace. She has mismatched eyes, one dark and one light. She thinks she's seen God. When her mother dies, she begins to get letters from her, as if from the grave. The letters tell of her mother's life before she married Grace's father, in time, confessing fiercely guarded family secrets. "I wasn't always a Preacher's Wife... I made mistakes along the way."Looking back, as a middle-aged woman, Grace relives those transformative years, coming of age in the 1960s as the daughter of The Reverend Thad Carsten and his much-younger wife, Sharon. When they move to a new neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, Sharon is healthy and Grace takes turmoil in stride: a new school, her backward neighbors, the simmering Vietnam War and political unrest. On the whole, life is sublime-until Sharon gets sick and dies. Then Grace's world turns upside down.Days after Sharon is gone, the letters to her daughter start coming, delivered mysteriously in the dark of night. Grace finds them-addressed to her-and devours every word, desperate to figure out who's delivering them. As she struggles with questions of loss and faith, she begins to butt heads with the preacher, increasingly focused on the mysterious messenger and her mother's letters. The handwritten pages arrive periodically as Grace matures, fostering a strange mother daughter relationship.Early on, the letters offer motherly advice, but increasingly they shift their focus to Sharon's early teens, eventually confessing a forbidden young adult romance. By then, Grace is desperate for the rest of the story, searching everywhere for her mother's writings, until finally there's a breakthrough. When she reads the last of the letters-and an astonishing truth-she embarks on a journey that changes her life and perspective forever.What did Sharon confess in the last letter to her daughter? How does it affect their unusual mother daughter relationship? As Grace runs away to trace her mother's past and teenage romance, what will she find?With its elements of romance and mystery, The God of Sno Cone Blue, sometimes searched as "Snow" Cone Blue is best described as contemporary women's fiction, though its strong central male character also appeals to men. The novel's storyline and mother daughter relationship are fitting Inspirational Fiction, and its passion and coming of age tale are appropriate for teenagers and young adults.* USA Today Bestselling Author Linda Needham on this inspirational fiction story: "The God of Sno Cone Blue is a joyous celebration of a young girl's journey to womanhood. Grace is a modern match for Tom Sawyer, with a grand spirit and enough spunk to weather the heartache of losing her mother at a tender age. Along the way, she gains the wisdom to recognize the breadth of her mother's love through a series of posthumous, sometimes shocking letters delivered in the years that follow. With a driving style and a colorful cast of eccentric characters, author Marcia Coffey Turnquist fiercely delivers equal parts laughter, sorrow and the kind of joy that will stay with you long after you've finished the book."*Author Rod Gramer on this novel fraught with family secrets: "Marcia has created a compelling character in Grace, one whose great personal loss is redeemed by a great personal discovery."*Portland Society Page editor Elisa Klein on the story's mystery and romance: "Surprises abound and the twists and turns kept me flipping pages late into the night as I curled up in my favorite chair to drink it all in."*Award-winning artist D.K. Lubarsky on this coming of age novel: "A masterful storyteller, Turnquist takes you on a magical journey of discovery in this poignant tale of innocence and growing up. The God of Sno Cone Blue is a delightful read."

Grow Old With Me


Melinda Evaul - 2010
    Benjamin Pruitt plans to repair the town’s buildings before retiring to a solitary life. Sarah Campbell longs for freedom since her long task as caregiver has ended.Can Benjamin and Sarah piece the tattered remnants of their lives into a beautiful design to warm their waning years?Melinda Evaul and her husband enjoy traveling the back roads of North Carolina and Tennessee where rural culture and history are preserved through a unique art form—Quilt Barn Squares.Come follow her adventures along the Quilt Trails of America in this series of novels.

Once Removed


Mako Yoshikawa - 2003
    It has been many long years since Claudia last saw her Japanese-American stepsister. Once upon a time, Claudia’s Jewish father fell in love with Rei’s Japanese mother and abandoned his family to be with her. Though Claudia resented this new family her father so readily embraced, from the moment she and Rei met, the two girls formed a bond not even their parents understood. Their long-standing joke is that they are mirror reflections of each other--though in truth they are striking opposites. Claudia is blond and large-boned; Rei is dark-haired and thin, with distinct Asian features.Now in their early thirties, Claudia and Rei have found a way back into each other’s troubled life. As impulsively affectionate as ever, Rei has come to Boston to recuperate from a potentially life-threatening illness, while the typically cautious Claudia has found herself replicating the behavior of her step-mother by falling in love with a married man. As they come together, the two women realize they must strike a balance between the friendship they long to recover and the secrets they have learned to keep. And they discover that despite the distance that has grown between them, their bond is as strong as ever--and could help them repair the other wounded relationships in their lives. Lyrical, evocative, and richly imagined, Once Removed is an exceptional tale of two families, two cultures, and the connection between two women that survives the betrayals of those around them. Taking us from the exotic Japan of the 1940s and ’50s, to the verdant English countryside, to the urban streets of Boston, Mako Yoshikawa is a gifted storyteller who has firmly established her place in contemporary fiction. From the Hardcover edition.

The Scarlet Ibis: Poems


Susan Hahn - 2007
    The resonance of this image grows through each section of the book as Hahn skillfully employs theme and variation, counterpoint and mirroring techniques. The ibis first appears as part of an illusion, the disappearing object in a magician’s trick, which then evokes the greatest disappearing act of all—death—where there are no tricks to bring about a reappearance. The rich complexity multiplies as the second section focuses on a disappearing lady and a dramatic final section brings together the bird and the lady in their common plight—both caged by their mortality, their assigned time and role.  All of the illusions fall away during this brilliant denouement as the two voices share a dialogue on the power of metaphor as the very essence of poetry. bird trick iv It’s all about disappearance. About a bird in a cagewith a mirror, a simple twiston the handle at the sidethat makes it come and go at the magician’s insistence. It’s all about innocence.It’s all about acceptance.It’s all about compliance.It’s all about deference.It’s all about silence. It’s all about disappearance.

Take One / Take Two


Karen Kingsbury - 2012
    With millions of investors dollars on the line, everything starts to fall apart and they realize they may be in over their heads. Is it possible to beat the odds and make a movie unlike anything ever done before? Or, will they lose everything in the process? the second book in the Above the Line series finds independent filmmakers Chase Ryan and Keith Ellison at the center of Hollywood wheeling and dealing. The two friends discover that all that glitters is not gold---and that success in Tinsel Town could cost them everything---their relationships as well as their ideals."

Harper Lee's to Kill a Mockingbird


Donald F. Roden - 1997
    NOTES ABOUT To Kill a MockingbirdNOT the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Fault in Our Stars: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack


Hal Leonard Corporation - 2014
    All 16 songs from the soundtrack for this 2014 breakout blockbuster movie based on a novel by John Green, in arrangements for piano, voice and guitar. Includes Ed Sheeran's "All of the Stars," "Boom Clap" by Charli XCX, plus: All I Want * Let Me In * Not About Angels * Oblivion * Strange Things Will Happen * Tee Shirt * Without Words * and more. Includes four pages of color art from the film.