Bel Canto by Ann Patchett Written with the most exquisite prose, Patchett’s vibrant and haunting portrayal of the beauty, love and life found within the unimaginable world of a hostage situation leaves you breathless.
If ever you want to read a book that expands the way you see the world, to know that impossibly there is beauty even in the most desperate of situations than click the book to the left to learn more.
..
.
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck There is a simplicity to Steinbeck’s writing that belies its vivid depth and texture. Grapes of Wrath is an epic tale of loss and hope, rich with American history and emotion. A book whose red earth you can feel sifting through your fingers, whose hunger lingers in your belly, whose characters feel more real than life.
If you want to delve into the rich fabric of this classic American tale than click the book to the right to learn more.
.
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi There is a guilty pleasure for the reader who is reading a book about someone else who loves to read. A kinship across boundaries of all space and time. Nafisi weaves her tale between reality and literature, the two inextricably intertwined, and produces something both beautiful and tragic.
.
If you are curious about life in Iran, if you love history and literature than click the book to the left to learn more.
.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman Sometimes fiction has the
power to
change you, to change how you view the world. This is one of those books, because quietly tucked inside of the surrealist fantasy lurks a history of immigration in the great melting pot that is America, and that melting pot brings together the many Gods of the world.
.
For those who may be wondering what happens when worlds collide click the book to the right to learn more.
.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Powerful. A breathtaking fiction set inside of the very real war torn Afghanistan. Story and fact so artfully woven that it is hard to know where one ends and the other begins. Hosseini spills open a world not available to most of us and shows us the beauty and the blood, the despair and the hope, and he does it in a voice so compelling that you cannot put this book down.
For an incredible view into the rich history of Afghanistan set against a story of love, friendship, betrayal, and hope click the book to the left to learn more.
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
“Over and over again, this is an examination of the ways in which many broken pieces come together to make a new whole. In exquisite imagery, Marra tends carefully to the twisted strands of grace and tragedy....Everything in A Constellation of Vital Phenomena...is dignified with a hoping, aching heartbeat.”
—Ramona Ausubel, San Francisco Chronicle
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
"The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind....Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."—Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
"A profoundly moving novel, and an honest and true one. It cuts right to the heart of life...If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn you will deny yourself a rich experience...It is a poignant and deeply understanding story of childhood and family relationships
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa
To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it,
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Pearl S. Buck’s timeless masterpiece, the Pulitzer Prize–winning story of a farmer’s journey through China in the 1920s
The Good Earth …is Buck’s classic story of Wang Lung, a Chinese peasant farmer, and his wife, O-lan, a former slave. With luck and hard work, the couple’s fortunes improve over the years: They are blessed
Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
The saga of how the lives of the inventor of wireless and of Britain’s second most famous murderer (after Jack the Ripper) intersected during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Spellbinding epic set in twelfth-century England. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of the lives entwined in the building of the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known-and a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother.
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history....Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of-a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's
A Light in August by William Faulkner
a novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, features some of Faulkner’s most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
"A vibrant, sumptuous novel...triumphant...a beautifully written tale that mirrors the elegance of the painting that inspired it."—The Wall Street Journal
