Arnow, Harriette
The Dollmaker
Fiction - Arnow, is a local author whose depiction of family life between patents and children, brothers and sisters is unparalleled in modern fiction. (600 pages, 10 copies)

Atwood, Margaret
Blind Assassin
Fiction - Atwood weaves three stories together, revealing through their interplay the secrets surrounding the once rich and influential Chase family. The novel combines elements of gothic drama, romantic suspense, and science fiction fantasy in a spellbinding narrative. (521 pages, 10 copies)

Barker, Pat
Regeneration
Fiction - Booker Prize. This is the first novel in a World War I trilogy, telling the story of Siegfried Sassoon, noted poet and decorated war hero. Sassoon publicly refuses to continue serving as a British officer because he feels that the war is a senseless slaughter. He is classified “mentally unsound” and sent to a mental hospital for rehabilitation. A war novel without bullets, this story describes the battle for one man’s mind. (250 pages, 10 copies)

Battle, Lois
Florabama Ladies' Auxiliary & Sewing Circle
Fiction - "A novel of the Deep South, full of warmth, humor, and atmosphere, with characters you'd like to hijack off the page" (358 pages, 10 copies)

Belfer, Lauren
City of Light
Fiction - "A mysterious death, vibrant characters and a riveting plot will keep your eyes glued to the pages of this debut novel." -- (494 pages, 10 copies)

Berg, Elizabeth
The Year of Pleasures
Fiction - After the death of her husband, Bette Nolan moves to a small town to start anew. Determined to find pleasure in her simple daily routines, Bette gets help from unexpected sources: the ten-year-old boy next door, three wild women from her college days, a twenty-year-old struggling to find his place in the world, and a handsome man who is ready for love. (206 pages, 10 copies)

Bohjalian, Chris
Double Bind
Fiction - A psychological thriller with twists and turns that you will want to read in one sitting. It packs a twist at the end that wil leave the reader speechless! (382 pages, 10 copies)

Bohjalian, Chris A.
Midwives
Fiction - Sibyl Danforth is charged with involuntary manslaughter for the death of Charlotte Bedford. After hours of labor Charlotte seems to suffer a stroke and die. To save the unborn child, Sibyl performs a cesarean section. Bohjalian examines Sibyl's trial from the perspective of her personal notebooks and the recollections of her then teenage daughter Connie, who now is an obstetrician. (384 pages, 10 copies)

Boyne, John
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas
Fiction - Set during the Holocaust, this cautionary tale is about two boys, one the son of a commandant in Hitler's army and the other a Jew, who come face-to-face at a barbed wire fence that separates, and eventually intertwines their lives. (216 pages, 10 copies)

Bronte, Emily
Wuthering Heights
Fiction - Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before: of the intense passion between the foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and her betrayal of him. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past. (320 pages, 10 copies)

Brooks, Geraldine
Years of Wonder: A Novel of the Plague
Fiction - In 1666, a young woman comes of age during an extraordinary year of love and death. Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a " plague village" in the rugged hill country of England. (336 pages, 10 copies)

Brown, Carrie
Lamb in Love
Fiction - In the tiny English village of Hursley, Norris Lamb--postmaster, stamp collector, and church organist--spies spinster Vida Stephen dancing with glorious abandon by the mansion where she tends a young retarded man. Struck by this sight of his life-long acquaintance, Norris sets out to woo her, but his courtship fumbles before it finds its catalyst in Manford, Vida's charge for the past twenty years. Vida, unaware of Norris's passion, debates striking out in search of adventure. It is through Manford, with his strange and gentle intelligence that Norris and Vida finally come to recognize each other and themselves. (302 pages, 10 copies)

Butler, Robert Olen
Good Scent From a Strange Mountain
Fiction - Pulitzer Prize, 1993. The ordeals of refugees after the Vietnam War are described here in 15 short stories, each told with a different voice. This book demonstrates how the absurdities of American pop culture and searing memories of war uneasily coexist in the minds and hearts of each character. Blending Vietnamese folklore with American reality, Butler creates a panoramic tapestry of people struggling to find balance between tradition and assimilation. (249 pages, 10 copies)

Cather, Willa
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Fiction - In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour comes to New Mexico as the Apostolic Vicar. What he finds is a land that is legally American but culturally Mexican and Indian. For 40 years, Latour gently spreads his faith while contending with an unforgiving landscape, derelict priests and his own loneliness. (297 pages, 10 copies)

Chabon, Michael
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Fiction - Pulitzer Prize, 2001. Jewish artist Joe Kavalier escapes German-occupied Prague and ends up in New York City. Joe’s Brooklyn cousin, Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner to help him create comic books. Using their own fears and dreams they create the Escapist, the Monitor and Luna Moth, a character based on the beautiful woman tied to both men. This is an exhilarating example of the American Novel, full of romance and possibility. (639 pages, 10 copies)

Chandler, Raymond
Big Sleep
Fiction - Published in 1939, this novel introduces Philip Marlowe, the hard-boiled PI working in 1930s California. The tough talking detective has a mystery to solve involving a paralyzed millionaire, his two psychotic daughters, blackmail and murder. (231 pages, 10 copies)

Chevalier, Tracy
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Fiction - Griet is a maid in the 17th century home of Johannes Vermeer. Her duties include caring for the house and her employer’s six children. In this time of strict social order, no one expects that her intelligence and appreciation of Vermeer’s work will lead to a strong connection between the two. When Vermeer paints Griet wearing his wife’s pearl earrings, the scandal changes the maid’s life forever. (233 pages, 10 copies)

Cisneros, Sandra
Woman Hollering Creek and other Stories
Fiction - This collection of short stories gives voice to a variety of characters on both sides of the Mexican-American border. From a young girl with special secrets to the flight of a witch circling above her sleeping village, the women in these stories offer wisdom and love. (165 pages, 7 copies)

Coelho, Paul
Alchemist
Fiction - An Andalusian Shepherd boy travels from his homeland in Spain to Egypt, to search for treasure buried in the pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist. What starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treasure found within. (191 pages, 10 copies)

Cross, Donna Woolfolk
Pope Joan
Fiction - Contains Reader’s Guide. Here is story of the woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to rule Christianity as the highest power in the church. Joan assumes the identity of her dead brother to enter a monastery where she proves herself as a scholar and healer. She is drawn to Rome and enmeshed in intricate and dangerous political struggles. Eventually, Joan funds herself on the highest religious throne of the Western World. The ninth century legend of Pope Joan comes to life in this enthralling novel. (422 pages, 10 copies)

Cunningham, Michael
Hours
Fiction - Pulitzer Prize, 1999. Interwoven stories cut back and forth in time among three women: Virginia Woolf, in the midst of writing Mrs. Dalloway and contemplating suicide; Laura, a young wife and mother suffocating in the confines of her 1940s Los Angeles life; and Clarissa, who is hosting a party in present day New York for a close friend dying of AIDS. (230 pages, 10 copies)

Diamant, Anita
Red Tent
Fiction - This is the story of Dinah, biblical daughter of Jacob and Leah. First person narration describes the traditions and turmoil of ancient womanhood and the world of the red tent. Dinah is only mentioned briefly in the Book of Genesis during the stories of her father and his sons, but here she is the storyteller, revealing the ancient unity of women. (321 pages, 10 copies)

Dick, Philip K.
The Man in the High Castle
Fiction - It's America in 1962-where slavery is legal and the few surviving Jews hide anxiously under assumed names. All because some twenty years earlier America lost a war--and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan. This harrowing Hugo Award-winning novel set in a parallel universe is the work that established Dick as a legendary science fiction author. (272 pages, 10 copies)

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee
Sister of My Heart
Fiction - Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family. Her cousin Sudha is the daughter of the family black sheep. Since they were born, Sudha and Anju have been sisters of the heart. But when Sudha learns a dark family secret, that connection is shattered. Urged into arranged marriages, Sudha and Anju's lives take opposite turns. Sudha becomes a dutiful member of a rigid small-town household. Anju goes to America with her new husband and lives a life of secrets. When tragedy strikes, however, they discover they have only each other to turn to. (322 pages, 10 copies)

Doerr, Anthony
About Grace
Fiction - David Winkler is a quiet boy drawn to the volatility of weather and obsessed with snow. Sometimes he sees things before they happen—a man carrying a hatbox will be hit by a bus; Winkler will fall in love with a woman in a supermarket. When David dreams that his infant daughter will drown in a flood as he tries to save her, he comes undone. He travels thousands of miles, fleeing family, home, and the future itself, to deny the dream. On a Caribbean island, destitute, alone, and unsure if his child has survived or his wife can forgive him, David is sheltered by a couple with a daughter of their own. Ultimately it is she who will pull him back into the world, to search for the people he left behind. (398 pages, 10 copies)

Dorris, Michael
Cloud Chamber
Fiction - This novel tells the story of Rose Mannion and her descendants. Covering over a century, Rose’s legacy of love and betrayal begins in the late 1800s in Ireland, and is passed from generation to generation. It is with Rayona, a multiracial teenager, that reconciliation with the past is possible. (316 pages, 10 copies)

Doyle, Roddy
A Star Called Henry
Fiction - This is the story of Henry Smart. Henry was born at the beginning of the twentieth century, and his life story follows the evolution of modern Ireland. From his birth and childhood in Dublin to his days as a soldier during the Irish Revolution, Henry’s tale is both historic and romantic as he and Ireland change and grow together. (382 pages, 10 copies)

Durham, David Anthony
Gabriel's Story
Fiction - Fifteen-year-old Gabriel's mother marries a former slave and moves her two sons from a brownstone in Baltimore to a hovel in Kansas. Gabriel does not want the life of a homestead farmer, and joins the gang of white cowboy Marshall Hogg. Soon, however, Gabriel discovers that the charming façade Hogg presents hides a cruel, violent man. He escapes the gang, only to be pursued. This coming-of-age story is socially complex, dealing with topics such as race, morality and religion in the Old West. (296 pages, 10 copies)

Edwards, Kim
Memory Keeper's Daughter
Fiction - A griping novel, beautifully written. With amazing compassion Kim Edwards explores the impact of a family secret that challenges the limits of love and redemption. (401 pages, 10 copies)

Escandon, Maria Amparo
Esperanza’s Box of Saints
Fiction - Contains Reading Group Guide. A beautiful young widow searches for her missing child in a quest that takes her from a small Mexican village to the seedy side of Tijuana to Los Angeles. On her journey, she transforms from a deeply religious innocent into an independent, sexual, and passionately devout woman. (254 pages, 10 copies)

Euginides, Jeffrey
Middlesex
Fiction - "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smog less Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license…records my first name simply as Cal." To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic. (529 pages, 10 copies)

Fergus, Jim
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd
Fiction - In 1875, the Cheyenne offered Ulysses Grant 1,000 horses in exchange for 1,000 white women. The women were to marry the Cheyenne and improve relations between the cultures. Grant secretly recruited women from debtor's prisons, mental institutions and jails and sent them off to the Cheyenne. They were to be freed after producing offspring and a two year stay. May Dodd, institutionalized by her father for having an affair, jumps at the chance for eventual freedom. This is the account of the brides and their lives among the Cheyenne. (304 pages, 10 copies)

Fergus, Jim
The Wild Girl
Fiction - When Ned Giles is orphaned as a teenager, he heads west hoping to join the 1932 Great Apache Expedition on their search for a young boy who was kidnapped by wild Apaches. The expedition’s goal is complicated when they encounter a wild Apache girl in a Mexican jail cell, the victim of a massacre of her tribe that has left her orphaned and unwilling to eat or speak. As he and the expedition make their way through the rugged Sierra Madre Mountains, Ned’s growing feelings for the troubled girl soon force him to choose allegiances and make a decision that will haunt him forever. (332 pages, 10 copies)

Flagg, Fannie
Standing In the Rainbow
Fiction - Once again, Flagg gives readers a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle class, small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears. (560 pages, 10 copies)

Ford, Marjorie Leet
Diary of an American Au Pair
Fiction - A delightful first-person account of an American au-pair with an upper-class family in England. (341 pages, 10 copies)

Frazier, Charles
Cold Mountain
Fiction - National Book Award Winner, 1997. Based on stories from the author's family, this novel is about a wounded Civil War soldier's arduous journey home to his sweetheart. The cultured young woman waiting for him has been enduring her own difficulties, as she has been forced to learn the brutal ways of farm life. Their stories are intertwined, and when the two lovers meet again at last, they find that their worlds, and themselves, have changed radically. (449 pages, 10 copies)

Frazier, Charles
Thirteen Moons
Fiction - The author uses his sense of time and place and his lyrical pointillist prose to give the reader an arching appreciation of the Indians' plight in the late nineteenth century. Brimming with vivid, adventurous incident. Frazier's faithful will not be disappointed. (420 pages, 10 copies)

Gallagher, Nora
Changing Light
Fiction - An elegant novel and beautifully crafted love story with powerful elements of suspense set in Los Alamos in 1945. (222 pages, 10 copies)

Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
Strange Pilgrims
Fiction - Twelve short stories feature Latin American characters adrift in Europe. Nobel prize winner Garcia Marquez tells of an aging streetwalker waiting for death in Barcelona, a bereaved father coming to Rome for an audience with the Pope, a husband that loses his wife in the Parisian hospital where she is getting her cut finger treated, and many more stories of terror, nostalgia, surreal comedy and the poetry of the commonplace. (188 pages, 10 copies)

Glass, Julia
Three Junes
Fiction - National Book Award Winner. Three Junes takes place during the summers in the lives of a Scottish family. In June of 1989, Paul McLeod, the recently widowed patriarch, becomes infatuated with a young American artist while traveling through Greece. Six years later, Paul’s death reunites his sons at their childhood home. The characters’ lives collide again, in yet another June, over a Long Island dinner table. Elegantly detailed yet full of emotional suspense, often as comic as it is sad, Three Junes is about how we learn to live beyond incurable grief and betrayals of the heart and how family can offer us redemption and joy. (353 pages, 10 copies)

Goldberg, Myla
Bee Season
Fiction - The ‘slow’ child of the family, Eliza amazes everyone by winning a spelling bee. Suddenly, her father is as interested in her as her older brother, Aaron, who plans on becoming a rabbi. Her mother’s attention is turned from her law career. Eliza, who was always on the outside, is thrust into the center of attention. This change in the family dynamic sends everyone into a tailspin, and it is up to Eliza to hold them together. (274 pages, 10 copies)

Golden, Arthur
Memoirs of a Geisha
Fiction - Golden takes us into a world completely foreign to Westerners, where virgins are sold to the highest bidder, where women are trained to entice and entertain powerful men, where love is considered to be nothing but illusion. Part history, part romance, this novel is engrossing and enthralling and refuses to be forgotten. (428 pages, 10 copies)

Goodman, Carol
Seduction of Water
Fiction - Iris Greenfeder, a struggling writer,finally finds success in retelling the stories once told by her late author mother. Iris decides to write her mother's biography and returns to her childhood home only to discover the mystery surrounding her mother's death. (400 pages, 10 copies)

Greene, Graham
The End of the Affair
Fiction - In this story of adultery and religion, Maurice Bendrix is a novelist recounting the affair he had with his neighbor's wife, Sarah Miles. She ends the relationship without explanation, leaving Maurice bitter, angry, and convinced that she has left him for another man. When he meets up with her two years later, his rekindled obsession leads him to hire a detective to investigate her. (192 pages, 10 copies)

Gregory, Philippa
The Other Boleyn Girl
Fiction - The Other Boleyn Girl tells the sexual and political story of Anne Boleyn, through the eyes of her lesser known sister, Mary. Mary Boelyn enters the court of King Henry VIII at the age of 12 already married herself, and soon finds herself as the King's mistress. When Mary is off nursing her children and finding herself wanting to be further away from the court, her sister Anne quickly moves into Mary's place. Anne's struggle to become Queen is the focus of this riveting story. (572 pages, 10 copies)

Grisham, John
A Painted House
Fiction - Seven-year-old narrator Luke Chandler describes life on his family’s Arkansas cotton farm in the summer of 1952. Migrant workers and hill people come to work the fields, bringing two dangerous men with them. Throw in a beautiful young woman, an illegitimate child and a brutal murder. Added to the tale is the mystery of who is slowly, secretly painting the bare walls of the Chandler house a gleaming white. (465 pages, 10 copies)

Haddon, Mark
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Fiction - Narrated by a 15 year-old autistic savant obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, this dazzling novel weaves together an old-fashioned mystery, a contemporary coming-of-age story, and a fascinating excursion into a mind incapable of processing emotions. (240 pages, 10 copies)

Hamilton, Jane
A Map of the World
Fiction - Oprah's Book Club. Alice supports her husband Howard's dream of becoming a dairy farmer, and struggles along beside him trying to make this new life work for their family. In a moment of inattention, tragedy occurs, and Alice feels responsible for the death of a child. Following on the heels of this calamity, Alice, a school nurse, is accused of sexual harassment by one of her students, and is soon jailed awaiting trial. Family drama and courtroom suspense collide in this best seller. (240 pages, 10 copies)

Hamilton, Jane
Disobedience
Fiction - Henry Shaw, a high-school senior, is as comfortable with his family as any seventeen-year-old can be. Then Henry finds undeniable evidence that his mother is having an affair. Henry's observations, set down 10 years after the fact, are more than the "old story" of adultery. This is a novel of gentle humor and rich insights into the nature of love and the deep, mysterious bonds that hold families together. (273 pages, 10 copies)

Haruf, Kent
Plainsong
Fiction - From the unsettled lives of three people comes a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind them together. Utterly true to the rhythms and patterns of life, "Plainsong" is a heartfelt story of family and romance, tribulation, and tenacity. "A novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader"--Verlyn Klinkenborg, The New York Times Book Review. (320 pages, 10 copies)

Heinlein, Robert A.
The Door Into Summer
Fiction - Dan Davis had finally made the invention of a lifetime: a household robot that could do almost anything. In a plot to steal his business, his greedy partner and greedier fiancee tricked him into entering suspended animation for thirty years. When he awakes he makes an amazing discovery and suddenly has the means to travel back in time to get his revenge. (304 pages, 10 copies)

Hijuelos, Oscar
Mr. Ives’ Christmas
Fiction - Mr. Ives lives in Manhattan, and is a devout Catholic and a gifted artist, living a quiet life of introspection and generosity. Tragedy suddenly shakes his foundations, leaving him full of doubts about his faith. Mr. Ives comes to terms with his grief and his God in this story of religion, charity and forgiveness. (248 pages, 10 copies)

Hoffman, Alice
Blackbird House
Fiction - Novelist Hoffman weaves a 200-year log web of tales, all set in Blackbird House, a small, bewitching farm on the outer reaches of Cape Cod. Inside Blackbird House more than a dozen men and women learn how love transforms and lasts. (256 pages, 10 copies)

Hosseini, Khaled
The Kite Runner
Fiction - Privileged young narrator Amir comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy in Afghanistan, then must endure a revolution, invasion and a country's long struggle to triumph over violent forces. (384 pages, 10 copies)

Irving, John
A Widow for One Year
Fiction - In this novel of family dysfunction and the healing power of love, the reader follows the life of Ruth Cole. We meet Ruth in the summer of 1958, as she deals with the eccentricities of her mother, emotionally destroyed by the deaths of Ruth’s older brothers. Next we find Ruth in the 1990s, where she is having far more success professionally than personally. In the final segment of the story, we watch as 41-year-old Ruth is ready to fall in love for the first time. (592 pages, 10 copies)

Ishiguro, Kazuo
Never Let Me Go
Fiction - As children, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules - and teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life, and for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them so special - and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together. (288 pages, 10 copies)

Jenoff, Pam
Kommandant's Girl
Fiction - Nineteen-year-old Emma has been married only three weeks when Nazi tanks thunder into her native Poland. Her husband is forced to disappear underground, and Emma is left imprisoned in a moldering Jewish ghetto. Then she is smuggled out to Krakow where she takes on a new identity as Anna, a gentile. She soon becomes an assistant to a high-ranking Nazi official and she uses her position - compromising her safety and her marriage vows - to oppose the occupation. (395 pages, 10 copies)

Kidd, Sue Monk
The Secret Life of Bees
Fiction - In South Carolina, 1964, Lily Owens' life is shaped by the memory of her mother's death. When Lily's black "stand-in" mother insults the town's biggest racist, she and Lily flee, winding up in the care of three eccentric black beekeeping sisters. Here she learns about bees, honey and the Black Madonna. Readers Guide included, (302 pages, 14 copies)

King, Laurie
Beekeeper's Apprentice
Fiction - Sherlock Holmes meets his match in a formidable new enemy and his surprising new partner. An intelligently and imaginatively crafted novel that's also great fun. (346 pages, 10 copies)

King, Laurie
O Jerusalem
Fiction - Second in the series featuring Sherlock Holmes and his partner Mary Russell. King's impeccable research combines with her colorful, fully drawn characters to make this a memorable addition to the Holmes/Russell team. (425 pages, 10 copies)

Kingsolver, Barbara
Pigs in Heaven
Fiction - Six-year-old Turtle Greer witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover Dam that leads to the dramatic rescue of the victim. Turtle’s 15 minutes of fame have enormous consequences, as she and her mother and everyone else connected with their present and past, wind up being affected. Kingsolver presents us with a world of heartbreak and redeeming love as she explores the boundaries of family and other ties that bind us. (436 pages, 10 copies)

Kingsolver, Barbara
Prodigal Summer
Fiction - Three stories intertwine in this novel about love and nature in southern Appalachia. Over the course of a humid summer, we meet a wildlife biologist as she observes a family of coyotes, a newly widowed city girl trying to find a place for herself and an organic farmer whose awareness of nature clashes harshly with a local traditional farmer. (444 pages, 10 copies)

Kohn, Rebecca
The Gilded Chamber: A Novel of Queen Esther
Fiction - For centuries her name has been a byword for feminine beauty, guile and wisdom. Esther comes to Persia a terrified Jewish orphan betrothed to her cousin, a well-connected courtier. She finds a world racked by intrigue and unfathomable hatreds and realizes that the only way to survive is to win the heart of its king. (353 pages, 10 copies)

Kostova, Elizabeth
The Historian
Fiction - A young woman finds old papers which begin to reveal an ancient and evil plot concerning Vlad the Impaler and the legend of Dracula, which may still be continuing. The search for the truth becomes an adventure of monumental proportions, taking us from monasteries and dusty libraries to the capitals of Eastern Europe. (642 pages, 10 copies)

Lahiri, Jhumpa
Interpreter of Maladies
Fiction - Pulitzer Prize Winner. PEN/Hemingway Award Winner. Nine stories with Indian protagonists make up this debut book. Lahiri tells the stories of immigrants, expatriates and first-generation Americans, capturing the difficulties of assimilation and the pervasive feeling of being foreign. While most stories take place in the Boston area, two tales take place in India. Elegant and compassionate, this work encompasses the trials of blending ethnicities and generations. (198 pages, 10 copies)

Landvik, Lorna
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
Fiction - The women of Freesia Court are convinced that there is nothing good coffee, delectable desserts, and a strong shoulder can’t fix. Laughter is the glue that holds them together—the foundation of a book group they call AHEB (Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons). This stalwart group of friends depicts a special slice of American life, of stay-at-home days and new careers, of children and grandchildren, of bold beginnings and second chances, in which the power of forgiveness, understanding, and the perfectly timed giggle fit is the CPR that mends broken hearts and shattered dreams. (404 pages, 10 copies)

Lawson, Mary
Crow Lake
Fiction - A gorgeous, slow-burning story set in the wild terrain of northern Ontario, where heartbreak and hardship are mirrored in the landscape. A drama of family love and misunderstandings, of resentments harbored and driven underground, the story overturns expectations right to the very end. (291 pages, 10 copies)

Lee, Chang-rae
A Gesture Life
Fiction - Franklin Hata has spent his entire life trying to assimilate, regardless of the cost. In flashback, the native Korean tries to fit in with Japanese culture during the 1940s as a medical officer in the Imperial Army dealing with Korean prisoners. He also attempts environmental adaptation in postwar America, where he struggles with his relationship with his daughter and suburban melancholy. The novel describes dilemma of seeking identity and acceptance in another culture and the horrifying costs that some will pay. (356 pages, 11 copies)

Leif, Enger
Peace Like A River
Fiction - Enger tells the story of 11-year-old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy who has reason to believe in miracles. (320 pages, 10 copies)

Lent, Jeffrey
In the Fall
Fiction - In the twilight of the Civil War, Leah, an escaped slave, nurses a Union Soldier back to health and soon travels to his family farm in Vermont as his secret wife. At the eve of the Great Depression, her grandson retraces her path and finally confronts a family secret, the legacy of slavery, and the painful intricacies of race. (560 pages, 10 copies)

Lodge, David
Small World
Fiction - In this satire of the academic conference circuit, English professors from all over the globe come together in competition. In the time of the sexual revolution, before the dawn of political correctness, the bizarre cast of characters spends more time on personal relationships than on lecturing. Characters from Lodge’s previous book, Changing Places, reappear, and new faces, such as an aristocratic Italian Marxist sadist and a mysterious and beautiful conference addict. (339 pages, 10 copies)

Lynch, Jim
The Highest Tide
Fiction - Miles O’Malley is a thirteen-year-old speed-reading insomniac, obsessed with the girl next door. When he stumbles across a rare sea creature on the tidal flats one moonlit night, he becomes a national phenomenon, hailed by the press and even a local cult as a kind of prophet. Throughout the summer Miles continues to make discoveries from the sea as he navigates the equally mysterious process of growing up. (246 pages, 10 copies)

Martel, Yann
Life of Pi
Fiction - Man Booker Prize Winner. Sixteen-year-old Pi Patel and his family are emigrating from India to North America with their zoo animals when they are shipwrecked. Pi is left adrift in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra and a Bengal tiger. The tiger eats each animal in turn, until Pi is the only one left with the enormous cat. Using his skills and knowledge as the son of a zookeeper, Pi must exploit what he knows of tigers and animal behavior in order to stay dominant and alive until land can be reached. (319 pages, 10 copies)

Martin, Lynn
The Bright Forever
Fiction - On an evening like any other, nine-year-old Katie Mackey, daughter of the most affluent family in a small town on the plains of Indiana, sets out on her bicycle to return some library books. This simple act is at the heart of this deeply affecting novel about the choices people make that change their lives forever. Martin’s beautiful, clear-eyed prose builds to an extremely nuanced portrayal of the complicated give and take among people struggling to maintain their humanity in the shadow of a loss. (268 pages, 10 copies)

Maughan, Somerset
Painted Veil
Fiction - Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, it is the story of the beautiful but love-starved Kitty Fane. After her husband discovers her adulterous affair, she is forced to accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic There, separated from the comfort and security she had known, she is forced to reassess her life and learn how to love. (245 pages, 10 copies)

McCaffrey, Ann
To Ride Pegasus
Fiction - A freak accident provides scientific proof that paranormal mental abilities exist, and the world reacts with suspicion and fear. Ordinary people are afraid to coexist with the talented minority able to read minds, heal with a touch, or see the future. Harsh repression is the result of that fear. Henry Darrow and Daffyd op Owen hope for a future in which Talents, like themselves, can live peacefully among other humans. But beyond winning the public's trust, they must also stop rogue Talents like Solange, who can kill with her thoughts and Amalda, who can unite thousands in joyful harmony or turn them into a bloodthirsty mob. (243 pages, 10 copies)

McDermott, Alice
Charming Billy
Fiction - National Book Award Winner. This is the bittersweet tale of Irish Catholic Billy Lynch, a captivating alcoholic, and his extended family. This novel is a gentle homage to all the lives in Billy’s community, as they are fractured by grief, shattered by secrets and sustained by the dream of love. (243 pages, 10 copies)

McEwan, Ian
Atonement
Fiction - In 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony witnesses the flirtation between her older sister and the son of a servant. Briony's incomplete grasp of adult motivations and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will drastically alter all their lives. The repercussions of this crime carry through the World War II and on to the end of the century. This novel encompasses intense themes, love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness. Luminous, astute and lush only begin to describe this talented author's skill with the English language. (351 pages, 10 copies)

McEwan, Ian
Saturday
Fiction - The bestseller follows an ordinary man through a Saturday whose high promise gradually turns nightmarish. Henry Perowne–a neurosurgeon, urbane, privileged, deeply in love with his wife and grown-up children - plans to play a game of squash, visit his elderly mother, and cook dinner for his family. But after a minor traffic accident leads to an unsettling confrontation, Perowne must set aside his plans and summon strength greater than he knew he had in order to preserve the life that is dear to him. (289 pages, 10 copies)

McLarty, Ron
The Memory of Running
Fiction - By all accounts, especially his own, Smithson "Smithy" Ide is a loser. An overweight, friendless, chain-smoking, forty-three-year-old drunk, Smithy’s life becomes completely unhinged when he loses his parents and long-lost sister within the span of one week. Rolling down the driveway of his parents’ house in Rhode Island on his old Raleigh bicycle to escape his grief, the emotionally bereft Smithy embarks on an epic, hilarious, luminous, and extraordinary journey of discovery and redemption. (358 pages, 10 copies)

Mehan, Marsha
Pomegranate Soup
Fiction - It’s been seven years since the three Aminpour sister fled Iran to live in Ireland, a land of “crazed sheep and dizzying roads.” The announcement of their opening of the Babylon Café is something of a shock to a community reared on boiled cabbage and Guinness, but the mysterious, spicy fragrances they offer eventually work magic on their neighbors. Their idyll is broken, though, when the past they left behind in revolution-era Iran threatens to envelop their Irish Oasis. (222 pages, 10 copies)

Messud, Claire
The Emperor's Children
Fiction - A richly drawn, brilliantly observed novel of fate and fortune revolving around the intersections in the lives of three friends on the cusp of their thirties, making their way-- and not-- in New York City. In this tour de force, the celebrated author Claire Messud brings to life a city, a generation, and the way we live in this moment. (478 pages, 10 copies)

Michener, James A.
Caravans
Fiction - An American diplomat is assigned to locate an impetuous young woman who disappeared after marrying an Afghan engineer she met in college. An interesting look into the culture of Afghanistan following World War II. (438 pages, 10 copies)

Mina, Denise
Deception
Fiction - Denise Mina is an excellent crime novelist and a master of Scottish noir. A devoted husband searches for clues as his wife languishes in jail for murder. A superb, full-rounder tale and satisfying reading experience. (309 pages, 10 copies)

Mistry, Rohinton
Fine Balance
Fiction - In an unnamed city by the sea in India of 1975, four strangers are caught up in the upheaval created by the government’s declaration of a State of Emergency. A spirited widow, a young student and two native tailors are forced to share an apartment. The evolution of their relationships takes place amid violent upheaval, cruelty and corruption. (603 pages, 10 copies)

Munro, Alice
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories
Fiction - A superb new collection from a best-loved writer, these nine stories draw readers immediately into that special place known as Munro territory-- a place where an unexpected twist of events or a suddenly recaptured memory can illuminate the arc of an entire life. (336 pages, 10 copies)

Murdoch, Iris
The Bell
Fiction - A community outside of Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns, is the setting for this novel of redemption. Erring wife Dora Greenfield is the heroine, returning to her husband, Paul, as he works on a manuscript belonging to the convent. Michael Meade is the leader of the community, his desire to become a priest obscured by his homosexuality. The wise old Abbess watches over everyone, influencing events with discreet authority. This is a novel of religion, sex, good vs. evil and human frailty. (296 pages, 10 copies)

Niffenegger, Audrey
The Time Traveler's Wife
Fiction - The Time Traveler's Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare's marriage and their passionate love for each other as the story unfolds from both points of view. Clare and Henry attempt to live normal lives, pursuing familiar goals-steady jobs, good friends, children of their own. All of this is threatened by something they can neither prevent nor control, making their story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable. (546 pages, 10 copies)

O'Brein, Tim
Things They Carried
Fiction - They carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated Bibles, each other. This is an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits of the human heart and soul. (246 pages, 10 copies)

Ondaatje, Michael
Anil's Ghost
Fiction - Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by civil war. Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent to investigate a string of organized murders. What follows is a story about love, family, identity, and the quest to unlock the hidden past–a story propelled by a riveting mystery, set in the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka’s landscape and ancient civilization. (307 pages, 10 copies)

Parkhurst, Carolyn
The Dogs of Babel
Fiction - In Paul's fantastic and even perilous search for the truth about his wife's death, he abandons his everyday life to embark on a series of experiments designed to teach his dog Lorelei to communicate. Could she really give him the answers he is looking for? (264 pages, 10 copies)

Patchett, Ann
Bel Canto
Fiction - Pen/Faulkner Award Winner. Opera star Roxanne Coss is entertaining at a businessman's lavish birthday party at the home of the South American Vice President. She amazes the international crowd assembled until terrorists take the party hostage. Panicked terror gives way to the forming of unusual bonds between the hostages and their captors and between former enemies now bound by a common threat. Friendship and even love blossom despite the constant danger. (318 pages, 10 copies)

Patterson, Richard
Exile
Fiction - David Wolfe is a successful American lawyer being primed for a run for Congress. But when the phone rings and he hears the voice of Hana Arif—the Palestinian woman with whom he had a secret affair in law school—he begins a completely unexpected journey. (736 pages, 10 copies)

Picoult, Jodi
My Sister's Keeper
Fiction - This novel is about a teen who was conceived as a bone marrow match for her sister Kate, and what happens when she begins to question who she really is. (448 pages, 10 copies)

Proulx, E. Annie
Shipping News
Fiction - Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award Winner. Quoyle, a hack journalist, loses his unfaithful wife in a car accident. He decides to start a new life by moving his elderly aunt and two daughters to their ancestral home on the shores of Newfoundland. (337 pages, 10 copies)

Rosner, Elizabeth
The Speed of Light
Fiction - Julian and Paula grew up with a father shell-shocked by his years in Auschwitz. Now with both parents dead, the siblings share a house. Reclusive Julian lives with obsessive routines, hoping to fend off the sadness of his father's legacy. When Paula, an opera singer, heads to Europe, she asks her housekeeper, Sola, to watch over Julian. They develop a wary friendship that deepens when Sola confesses that she witnessed a Mexican government massacre. Meanwhile, Paula discovers a horrible secret about her father's time in Auschwitz. This is a story of grief, forgiveness and the power of bearing witness. (241 pages, 10 copies)

Roy, Arundhati
The God of Small Things
Fiction - 1997 Booker Prize winner. Twin protagonists, Rahel and her brother Esta, live in a tiny river town in Kerala, India. The children's observations of the unfolding family drama caused by the return of their English aunt and her daughter are innocently candid. Beneath the tragedies facing the family is a background of changing social mores, cultural taboos and local politics. This is a child's eye view of a larger world, reaching beyond the individual family to an entire social structure. (321 pages, 10 copies)

Salzman, Mark
Lying Awake
Fiction - Sister John has been serving God for years in a Carmelite monastery outside of Los Angeles. Recently, she has begun having waking dreams filled with visions of God and intense religious ecstasy. Her life and writings have become examples to fellow supplicants of the rewards in store for the devoted. A doctor reveals that her visions, which are followed by blinding headaches, may be the sign of illness rather than religious favor. This novel addresses questions of true faith as Sister John tries to decide if she wants to be ‘cured.’ (181 pages, 10 copies)

Sebold, Alice
The Lovely Bones
Fiction - Alice Sebold's luminous first novel--one of the most celebrated literary debuts of recent seasons--that builds out a family's grief the most hopeful and joyful of stories. (328 pages, 10 copies)

See, Lisa
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Fiction - Mystery writer See, author of The Interior (1999) and Dragon Bones (2003), takes readers to nineteenth-century China to explore a complex friendship between two women. An engrossing and completely convincing portrayal of a woman shaped by suffering forced upon her from her earliest years, and of the friendship that helps her to survive. Riveting . . . a story that informs as it charms. (258 pages, 10 copies)