Sally Cabot Gunning

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Pennsylvania

A Novel

Married for twenty years to Edward Berry, Lyddie is used to the trials of being a whaler's wife in the Cape Cod village of Satucket, Massachusetts—running their house herself during her husband's long absences at sea, living with the daily uncertainty that Edward will simply not return. And when her worst fear is realized, she finds herself doubly cursed. She is overwhelmed by grief, and her property and rights are now legally in the hands of her nearest male relative: her daughter's overbearing husband, whom Lyddie cannot abide. Lyddie decides to challenge both law and custom for control of her destiny, but she soon discovers the price of her bold "war" for personal freedom to be heartbreakingly dear. Includes the fascinating "story behind the story" of The Widow's War, a map of colonial Brewster, and a driving tour of the village of Satucket.

The Widow's War

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Ijeoma Oluo

In this New York Times bestseller, Ijeoma Oluo explores the complex reality of today's racial landscape--from white privilege and police brutality to systemic discrimination and the Black Lives Matter movement--offering straightforward clarity that readers need to contribute to the dismantling of the racial divide. In So You Want to Talk About Race, Editor at Large of The Establishment Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word. Perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between people of color and white Americans struggling with race complexities, Oluo answers the questions readers don't dare ask, and explains the concepts that continue to elude everyday Americans. Oluo is an exceptional writer with a rare ability to be straightforward, funny, and effective in her coverage of sensitive, hyper-charged issues in America. Her messages are passionate but finely tuned and crystalize ideas that would otherwise be vague by empowering them with aha-moment clarity. Her writing brings to mind voices like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Roxane Gay, Jessica Valenti in Full Frontal Feminism, and a young Gloria Naylor, particularly in Naylor's seminal essay "The Meaning of a Word."

So You Want to Talk about Race

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Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train

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Gill Paul

A Novel of Dorothy Parker and Her Friends

It's a 1920s version of Sex and the City, as Dorothy Parker--one of the wittiest women who ever wielded a pen--and her three friends navigate life, love, and careers in New York City. Perfect for fans of Fiona Davis, Beatriz Williams, and Renée Rosen.

NEW YORK CITY 1921: The war is over, fashions are daring, and bootleg liquor is abundant. Here four extraordinary women form a bridge group that grows into a firm friendship.

Dorothy Parker: renowned wit, member of the Algonquin Round Table, and more fragile than she seems. Jane Grant: first female reporter for the New York Times, and determined to launch a new magazine she calls The New Yorker. Winifred Lenihan: beautiful and talented Broadway actress, a casting-couch target. And Peggy Leech: magazine assistant by day, brilliant novelist by night. 

Their romances flourish and falter while their goals sometimes seem impossible to reach and their friendship deepens against the backdrop of turbulent New York City, where new speakeasies open and close, jazz music flows through the air, and bathtub gin fills their glasses. 

They gossip, they comfort each other, and they offer support through the setbacks. But their biggest challenge is keeping their dear friend Dottie safe from herself.

In this brilliant new novel from the bestselling and acclaimed author of Jackie and Maria and The Secret Wife, readers will fall right into Jazz Age New York and into the inner lives of these groundbreaking, influential women.

The Manhattan Girls

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Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees

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Susan Wiggs

Escape to beautiful Bella Vista for a heartwarming story of sisters, new beginnings and hidden family secrets.

Isabel Johansen, a celebrated chef from sun-drenched Sonoma, California, is transforming her childhood home into a destination cooking school. Bella Vista's rambling hacienda, with its working apple orchards, bountiful gardens and beehives, is the idyllic venue for Isabel's project...and the perfect place for her to forget the past.

As Isabel eagerly prepares Bella Vista for its first major event, she never expected her perfectly ordered plans to go awry. But that's exactly what happens when war-torn journalist Cormac O'Neill arrives to write her grandfather's biography, including his role in the Danish Resistance during WWII. For Isabel, finding new love just might mean confronting some buried secrets of her own.

Master storyteller Susan Wiggs expertly crafts a tale of love, sacrifice and the unbreakable bonds of family--a story that will capture hearts from start to finish.

Author of The Lost and Found Bookshop

The Beekeeper's Ball

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The despair and triumph of America’s first great army is conveyed in scenes as powerful as any Shaara has written, a story told from the points of view of some of the most memorable characters in American history. There is George Washington, the charismatic leader who held his army together to achieve an unlikely victory; Charles Cornwallis, the no-nonsense British general, more than a match for his colonial counterpart; Nathaniel Greene, who rose from obscurity to become the finest battlefield commander in Washington’s army; The Marquis de Lafayette, the young Frenchman who brought a soldier’s passion to America; and Benjamin Franklin, a brilliant man of science and philosophy who became the finest statesman of his day.

A Novel of the American Revolution 

The Glorious Cause

Josie Silver

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "The perfect book to get lost in this holiday season . . . Josie Silver's characters sneak their way into your heart and stay."--Jill Santopolo, author of The Light We Lost "Get ready to be swept up in a whirlwind romance. It absolutely charmed me."--Reese Witherspoon (A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick) Two people. Ten chances. One unforgettable love story. Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic...and then her bus drives away. Certain they're fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn't find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they "reunite" at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It's Jack, the man from the bus. It would be. What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.

One Day in December

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Philippa Gregory

#1 New York Times bestselling author and “queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory weaves a spellbinding tale of a young woman with the ability to see the future in an era when destiny was anything but clear. Winter, 1553. Pursued by the Inquisition, Hannah Green, a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl, is forced to flee with her father from their home in Spain. But Hannah is no ordinary refugee; she has the gift of “Sight,” the ability to foresee the future, priceless in the troubled times of the Tudor court. Hannah is adopted by the glamorous Robert Dudley, the charismatic son of King Edward’s protector, who brings her to court as a “holy fool” for Queen Mary and, ultimately, Queen Elizabeth. Hired as a fool but working as a spy; promised in wedlock but in love with her master; endangered by the laws against heresy, treason, and witchcraft, Hannah must choose between the safe life of a commoner and the dangerous intrigues of the royal family that are inextricably bound up with her own yearnings and desires. Teeming with vibrant period detail and peopled by characters seamlessly woven into the sweeping tapestry of history, The Queen’s Fool is a rich and emotionally resonant gem from a masterful storyteller.

The Queen's Fool

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Ben Rawlence

Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp

Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize
Named a Best of Book of the Year by The Economist and Foreign Affairs
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist

The Dadaab refugee camp is many things: to the charity workers, it's a humanitarian crisis; to the Kenyan government, a "nursery for terrorists"; to the Western media, a dangerous no-go area. But to its half a million residents, it's their last resort.

Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya where only thorn bushes grow, Dadaab is a city like no other. Its buildings are made from mud, sticks, or plastic. Its entire economy is grey. And its citizens survive on rations and luck. Over the course of four years, Ben Rawlence became a firsthand witness to a strange and desperate place, getting to know many of those who had come seeking sanctuary. Among them are Guled, a former child soldier who lives for football; Nisho, who scrapes an existence by pushing a wheelbarrow and dreaming of riches; Tawane, the indomitable youth leader; and Kheyro, a student whose future hangs upon her education.

In City of Thorns, Rawlence interweaves the stories of nine individuals to show what life is like in the camp, sketching the wider political forces that keep the refugees trapped. Lucid, vivid, and illuminating, City of Thorns is an urgent human story with deep international repercussions, brought to life through the people who call Dabaab home.

City of Thorns

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Discover a groundbreaking work of utopian fiction in Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. Written in 1888, this classic novel presents a vivid and optimistic vision of the future where economic and social inequalities have been eliminated. Julian West, a young Bostonian, falls into a hypnotic sleep and awakens in the year 2000 to find a dramatically changed world.

Looking Backward: 2000-1887

The #1 New York Times bestseller from “the queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) Philippa Gregory is a rich, compelling novel of love, sex, ambition, and intrigue surrounding the Tudor court of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the infamous Boleyn family. When Mary Boleyn comes to court as an innocent girl of fourteen, she catches the eye of the handsome and charming Henry VIII. Dazzled by the king, Mary falls in love with both her golden prince and her growing role as unofficial queen. However, she soon realizes just how much she is a pawn in her family’s ambitious plots as the king’s interest begins to wane, and soon she is forced to step aside for her best friend and rival: her sister, Anne. With her own destiny suddenly unknown, Mary realizes that she must defy her family and take fate into her own hands. With more than one million copies in print and adapted for the big screen, The Other Boleyn Girl is a riveting historical drama. It brings to light a woman of extraordinary determination and desire who lived at the heart of the most exciting and glamorous court in Europe, and survived a treacherous political landscape by following her heart.

The Other Boleyn Girl

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Jim Fergus

The Journals of May Dodd

Based on an actual historical event but told through fictional diaries, this is the story of May Dodd--a remarkable woman who, in 1875, travels through the American West to marry the chief of the Cheyenne Nation.

One Thousand White Women begins with May Dodd's journey into an unknown world. Having been committed to an insane asylum by her blue-blood family for the crime of loving a man beneath her station, May finds that her only hope for freedom and redemption is to participate in a secret government program whereby women from "civilized" society become the brides of Cheyenne warriors. What follows is a series of breathtaking adventures--May's brief, passionate romance with the gallant young army captain John Bourke; her marriage to the great chief Little Wolf; and her conflict of being caught between loving two men and living two completely different lives.

"Fergus portrays the perceptions and emotions of women...with tremendous insight and sensitivity."--Booklist

"A superb tale of sorrow, suspense, exultation, and triumph." --Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump

One Thousand White Women

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Daisy Goodwin

"Anyone sufferingDownton Abbey withdrawal symptoms (who isn't?) will find an instant tonic in Daisy Goodwin'sThe American Heiress. The story of Cora Cash, an American heiress in the 1890s who bags an English duke, this is a deliciously evocative first novel that lingers in the mind."--Allison Pearson, New York Timesbestselling author ofI Don't Know How She Does It andI Think I Love You

Be careful what you wish for. Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, asshe must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage.

Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora's story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James.

"For daughters of the new American billionaires of the 19th century, it was the ultimate deal: marriage to a cash-strapped British Aristocrat in return for a title and social status. But money didn't always buy them happiness." --Daisy Goodwin inThe Daily Mail

One ofLibrary Journal's Best Historical Fiction Books of 2011

The American Heiress

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Maria Semple

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic. To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence--creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

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Creases on cover. Yellowing of pages. Marginal handwritten notes. Printed 1970.  

James Joyce's coming-of-age story, a tour de force of style and technique

The first, shortest, and most approachable of James Joyce’s novels, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays the Dublin upbringing of Stephen Dedalus, from his youthful days at Clongowes Wood College to his radical questioning of all convention. In doing so, it provides an oblique self-portrait of the young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, the novel subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental in its hero’s quest to create his own character, his own language, life, and art: “to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and “queen of royal fiction” (USA TODAY) comes a riveting and scandalous love triangle between a young woman on the brink of greatness, a young man whose ambition far exceeds his means, and the wife who cannot forgive them. In the autumn of 1558, church bells across England ring out the joyous news that Elizabeth I is the new queen, yet one woman hears the tidings with utter dread. She is Amy Dudley, wife of Sir Robert, and she knows that Elizabeth’s ambitious leap to the throne will draw her husband back to the center of the glamorous Tudor court, where he was born to be. Elizabeth’s excited triumph is short-lived. She has inherited a bankrupt country where treason is rampant and foreign war a certainty. Her faithful advisors warns her that she will survive only if she marries a strong prince to govern the rebellious country, but the one man Elizabeth desires is her childhood friend, the ambitious Robert Dudley. As the young couple falls back in love, a question hangs in the air: can he really set aside his wife and marry the queen? When Amy is found dead, Elizabeth and Dudley are suddenly plunged into a struggle for survival.

The Virgin's Lover

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Printed in 1965. 

Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midlands town, in 1829 to 1832, it follows distinct, intersecting stories with many characters. Issues include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Leavened with comic elements, Middlemarch approaches significant historical events in a realist mode: the 1832 Reform Act, early railways, and the accession of King William IV. It looks at medicine of the time and reactionary views in a settled community facing unwelcome change.

Middlemarch

Walter Moers

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

The epic adventures of a twenty-seven-lived seagoing bear from the fantasy world of Zamonia, featuring events from his first thirteen-and-a-half lives, which involve such figures as the Spiderwitch and the Troglotroll.

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear

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Mindy Kaling

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

(And Other Concerns)

Kaling shares her observations, fears, and opinions about a wide-ranging list of the topics she thinks about the most. From her favorite types of guys to life in the "The Office" writers' room, her book is full of personal stories and laugh-out-loud philosophies.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

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Pip Williams

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK FOR MAY '22! * "Delightful . . . [a] captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded."--The New York Times Book Review

"A marvelous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress."--Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of People of the Book

Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means "slave girl," begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.

As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women's and common folks' experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.

Set during the height of the women's suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.

WINNER OF THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARD

The Dictionary of Lost Words

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Daniel Godfrey

In the race to control renewable power, an energy giant stumbles on a controversial technology: the ability to transport matter from the deep past. Their biggest secret is New Pompeii, a replica city filled with Romans, pulled through time just before the volcanic eruption.

Nick Houghton doesn't know why he's been chosen to be the company's historical advisor. He's just excited to be there. Until he starts to wonder what happened to his predecessor. Until he realizes that the company has more secrets than even the conspiracy theorists suspect. 

Until he realizes that they have underestimated their captives...

New Pompeii

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Chris Cleave

Presents a tale of a precarious friendship between an illegal Nigerian refugee and a recent widow from suburban London, a story told from the alternating and disparate perspectives of both women.

Little Bee

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Clare Mackintosh

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Now in paperback--the next blockbuster thriller for those who loved The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl... "a finely-crafted novel with a killer twist" (Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train). On a rainy afternoon, a mother's life is shattered as her son slips from her grip and runs into the street . . . I Let You Go follows Jenna Gray as she moves to a ramshackle cottage on the remote Welsh coast, trying to escape the memory of the car accident that plays again and again in her mind and desperate to heal from the loss of her child and the rest of her painful past. At the same time, the novel tracks the pair of Bristol police investigators trying to get to the bottom of this hit-and-run. As they chase down one hopeless lead after another, they find themselves as drawn to each other as they are to the frustrating, twist-filled case before them.

Browse by categories

Sally Cabot Gunning

The Widow's War

Ijeoma Oluo

So You Want to Talk about Race

Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train

Gill Paul

The Manhattan Girls

Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees

Susan Wiggs

The Beekeeper's Ball

Jeff Shaara

The Glorious Cause

Josie Silver

One Day in December

Philippa Gregory

The Queen's Fool

Ben Rawlence

City of Thorns

Edward Bellamy

Looking Backward: 2000-1887

Philippa Gregory

The Other Boleyn Girl

Jim Fergus

One Thousand White Women

Daisy Goodwin

The American Heiress

Maria Semple

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Philippa Gregory

The Virgin's Lover

George Elliot

Middlemarch

Walter Moers

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear

Mindy Kaling

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Pip Williams

The Dictionary of Lost Words

Daniel Godfrey

New Pompeii

Chris Cleave

Little Bee

Clare Mackintosh

I Let You Go

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