Fiction
A tree grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith
FICTION Smith, Betty
Fiction
Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer. Late in the afternoon the sun slanted down into the mossy yard belonging to Francie Nolan's house, and warmed the worn wooden fence. Looking at the shafted sun, Francie had that same fine feeling that came when she recalled the poem they recited in school. This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld. The one tree in Francie's yard was neither a pine nor a hemlock. It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.
American dirt
Jeanine Cummins
FICTION Cummins Jeanine
Fiction
Acapulco. Lydia Quixano Perez runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca; her wonderful husband is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is fairly comfortable. Javier browses at the store and comes up to the register with two of her favorites books. Javier is charming... and the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When her husband's tell-all profile of Javier is published, Lydia and Luca find themselves making their way north toward the United States, the only place Javier's reach doesn't extend. But what exactly are they running to? -- adapted from jacket
Added by Beth
Pride and prejudice
Jane Austen
FICTION Austen, Jane
Fiction
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice centers on the conflict between marrying for love and marrying for economic reasons. None of Mr. Bennet's five daughters can inherit his estate, so they are pressured into finding security in "good" marriages. Elizabeth Bennet, the main character, struggles with the societal pressures of marriage and resists Mr. Darcy's advances and proposals. Eventually, however, she finds that she does love him, and for that reason, she decides to marry him.
Added by Beth
Sense and sensibility
Jane Austen
FICTION Austen, Jane
Fiction
The novel follows the three Dashwood sisters as they must move with their widowed mother from the estate on which they grew up, Norland Park. Because Norland is passed down to John, the product of Mr. Dashwood's first marriage, and his young son, the four Dashwood women need to look for a new home. They have the opportunity to rent a modest home, Barton Cottage, on the property of a distant relative, Sir John Middleton. There they experience love, romance, and heartbreak
Added by Beth
Crossing to safety
Wallace Earle Stegner
FICTION Stegner, Wallace Earle
Fiction
Two young ambitious couples become friends in Madison, Wisconsin, when the two husbands begin their academic careers as professors at the University of Wisconsin in the 1930s. The novel follows their friendship through forty years of career ups-and-downs, health problems, children, successes, and failures.
Added by Beth
The Clan of the Cave Bear
Jean M Auel
FICTION Auel, Jean M.
Fiction
. A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly--she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza's way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge. Book one of the Earth's Children Series.
Added by Beth
My Antonia
Willa Cather
FICTION Cather, Willa
Fiction
Through Jim Burden's endearing, smitten voice, we revisit the remarkable vicissitudes of immigrant life in the Nebraska heartland, with all its insistent bonds. Guiding the way are some of literature's most beguiling characters: the Russian brothers plagued by memories of a fateful sleigh ride, Antonia's desperately homesick father and self-indulgent mother, and the coy Lena Lingard. Holding the pastoral society's heart, of course, is the bewitching, free-spirited Antonia.
Added by Beth
A man called Ove : a novel
Fredrik Backman
FICTION Backman, Fredrik
Fiction
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon; the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him 'the bitter neighbour from hell'. But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.
Added by Beth
Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry
FICTION McMurtry, Larry
Fiction
A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize— winning classic, Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America. Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember
Added by Beth
Added by Beth