Thankful Childe-Lucknow. Turned out with red corkscrew hair, one eye brown, the other green, and gifted with the power to hear the voices of the departed, B. Thankful is cast aside by the town, and lives an isolated upbringing in the woods with Big G, Little G, and Daddy.Tragedy, followed by the discovery of a long-forgotten paint-by-number picture of the Last Supper, thrusts B. Thankful from the safety of everything she has ever known.Beyond the boundary of her sheltered life, B. Thankful discovers the world's hard edges as well as its beauty. More importantly, with the help of a cast of quirky and tenderhearted souls (both earthly and heavenly), she discovers why God made her special.

    This comprehensive study guide also features "The Story Behind the Story" which details the conditions under which All the Pretty Horses was written. This title also includes a short biography on Cormac McCarthy and a descriptive list of characters.

    But they are all survivors.This compelling novel follows the ripples that go out into ordinary lives, women's lives in particular, which have been scarred and changed by a shared experience, all connected by the same hospital clinic in a small Northern town. This is a novel about what it means to live in the shadow of disease and with its scars, whether mental and physical, looking back over one's shoulder while trying to go forward. You can trip up or, if you're careful, you might make it . . .

    A thrilling story of endurance and survival.

    It is a story full of truths and revelations, transcending its fictional bounds to become something so real and so finely wrought that it will simply astonish. Jack Riggs has created an emotional testament to the myriad shades of the human condition.It is the late 1960s in the small North Carolina mill town of Ellenton. Twelve-year-old Raybert Williams and his best friend Palmer Conroy live in cramped homes in a working-class neighborhood, but they use the vast outdoors as their personal playground. Yet hardships are never far away. Raybert’s father disappears for days at a time, only to come home broken and battered. Raybert’s mother is a loving woman who battles her own demons while struggling to keep it all together. Palmer’s family life offers no better refuge for the adventure-seeking boys.But Raybert and Palmer have each other. And in that glorious friendship, they are significantly blessed. They dream together of space flight and moonwalks. They construct a bike jump to rival Evel Knievel’s–and they’ll run it once they work up the courage. Knievel tempted fate and won, taking a leap over twenty buses on faith alone, soaring high and landing safely, even after many crashes and broken bones. Palmer and Raybert have their own plan that, once executed, will take them all the way to the ocean, landing them intact and together on the other side of freedom.Through the scrim of adolescence and poverty, Jack Riggs offers a glimpse of universal human foibles and singular moments of transcendence. Fiercely honest and beautifully narrated, When the Finch Rises flashes like the sharp rim of the eclipsed moon on the night when Raybert and Palmer’s fate is finally revealed.From the Hardcover edition.

    It will cost him his marriage, his girlfriend, and maybe his life.An impoverished taxi driver and his wife find a gun in the cab. From this point on, all their lives are tied to the trigger.In this tender and brutal portrait of Zimbabwe, the betrayals and conspiracies of the corrupt world are nothing compared to those of marriage.

    When massive warehouses surrounded by metal fencing seem to go up overnight, local businesses are bought out, and more than 6,000 families establish residence in a community named Kingdom Come, the FBI begins to suspect cult activity. Agent Ben Atkins is sent to investigate, and though he does sense something major happening, he is not convinced it is sinister. In fact, as he moves in for a closer look, he begins to wonder if those on the inside of Kingdom Come are working to keep evil out. But time is running short for him to discover the truth, as unexpected enemies-law enforcement agencies, media groups, and even the church hierarchy-threaten the community's existence.

    until he gets a call from his missing sister! It takes him on a journey where he meets a young hooker, hillbillies, truckers, and a crazy church. He also meets someone he never knew: himself.

    This time, he’s in Cairo – bang in the middle of the Arab Spring. ‘The only story in the world’ according to his editor. But it isn’t – there’s another story, more significant and potentially more dangerous, and if no one else is willing to tell it . . . then Carver will, whatever the consequences.William Carver spots the Arab Spring early, aided by one of the infamous ‘Listeners’ at the BBC monitoring station in Caversham. He and his producer Patrick chase the story across North Africa before arriving in Egypt where the battle between the corrupt old order and the new will be both bloody and potentially definitive.Meanwhile, in Eritrea, two brothers begin to make their way up from the Horn of Africa and across the continent, desperate to find a better life in Europe. The horrors they endure at the hands of people traffickers and others along the way test their endurance and humanity to its limit. Over a few tumultuous months, these two stories come together to prove inextricably linked.Carver knows this story is a complex one; the world is watching, but in the age of Facebook, Twitter and rolling news, its attention span is increasingly short. And if everyone is a reporter, then who can you believe?

    Of his most recent novel, "The Rest of the Earth," Annie Proulx remarked that "Henderson writes some of the most evocative and transcendently beautiful prose in contemporary American literature." Set primarily in Wyoming, Henderson's new novel is the chronicle of six generations of a family, viewed through the lens of one woman's very long life. Augusta "Gussie" Locke is born in Minnesota in 1903. As a teenager she moves west with her mother to Colorado and then runs away from home. A one-night stand with a traveling soldier leaves her pregnant, and with her daughter, Anne, she eventually finds a life in Wyoming running supplies to oil and mineral crews in the Great Basin Divide. Through the years, Gussie keeps moving, abandoning people and places, being abandoned herself; Anne runs away just as her mother had, never to be seen again. Settling in the Wind River Range, Augusta, alone again, builds a new life until, years later, her grandson and great-granddaughter seek to discover the woman behind the family myth. Spanning the twentieth century, Augusta's extraordinary trials and tribulations play out themes of love and loss, redemption and reconciliation. Redolent with myth, humor, strange landscapes, and stark reality, "Augusta Locke" is an indelible portrait of a woman who through great spirit and toughness of character blazes her own trail.

    Traversing 2,500 miles of the toughest terrain on the planet in a twenty-five year-old Land Rover, they faced repeated challenges, from kleptocracy and fire ants to non-existent roads and intense suspicion from local people. Through imagination and teamwork -- including building rafts and bridges, conducting makeshift surgery in the jungle and playing tribal politics -- they got through. But the Congo is raw, and the journey took an unexpected psychological toll on them all. Crossing the Congo is an offbeat travelogue, a story of friendship and what it takes to complete a great journey against tremendous odds, and an intimate look into one of the world's least-developed and most fragile states, told with humor and sensitivity.

    Claire Westin has spent her adult life being a wife, mother, and college professor. The last thing she expects as she nears retirement status is to have a whole new career open before her. Her husband, Jim, has spent his life growing his chain of grocery stores. He has a grand plan to restore an old Dodge Charger...someday when he retires. Someday soon, he hopes. If his son Drew would only agree to take over the family business. Drew, however, has plans of his own. And Claire is busy climbing the ladder of her new career. She can't bear the thought that she might have to say "no" to the exciting new opportunities she's pursuing and simply sit around and watch her husband tinker on an old car. What happens when plans collide? When dreams don't materialize? How do you know when your work is done? Or is it ever? On a Someday asks the big questions of life...and tries to answer them. ..".A CBA novelist to watch." -Publishers Weekly

    In this comic novel a band of hacker-geeks load state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, including working eyes, ears, spy software, and a smart mouth, into a bunch of old Furby dolls, re-christened Grumbies, network them together, sell millions, become rich and famous and make enemies/allies of Mossad, the CIA, Google, Microsoft, IRS, Goldman Sachs, the guys from Google, and Steve Jobs.

    His father, a deputy sheriff, has been murdered by the unknown "Highway 41 Killer." His mom has unraveled. And a goon named Larry Buskin has been pummeling Minnow behind Neenah High.Minnow finds support in the company of his roguish grandfather, his loyal pal Mark, and beautiful Opal Parsons, who has her own worries as the first African American student in their school. When the sheriff seems in no hurry to solve the murder, Minnow must seek justice by partnering with unlikely allies and discovering his own courage.

    Now, with his fiction inspiring devotees of the die around the world, Rhinehart has written The Book of the Die--a bible and manual for the dice life. Rhinehart asks: If you're bored, why not roll the dice and--whether it's a change of locale, wardrobe, or career--be liberated by chance? The Book of the Die is both an invaluable companion for anyone who has ever thought about letting chance call the shots and more than just amusing read for the curious.