Stefan Kanfer

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Michigan

The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball

As a movie actress Lucille Ball was, in her own words, "queen of the B-pluses." But on the small screen she was a superstar-arguably the funniest and most enduring in the history of TV. In this exemplary biography, Stefan Kanfer explores the roots of Lucy's genius and places it in the context of her conflicted and sometimes bitter personal life.

Ball of Fire gives us Lucy in all her contradictions. Here is the beauty who became a master of knock-down slapstick; the control freak whose comic alter ego thrived on chaos, the worshipful TV housewife whose real marriage ended in public disaster. Here, too, is an intimate view of the dawn of television and of the America that embraced it. Charming, informative, touching. and laugh-out-loud funny, this is the book Lucy's fans have been waiting for.

Ball of Fire

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Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

The cat who could read backwards

The cat who sniffed glue

Jane Harper

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

"After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke's steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn't tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead"--Amazon.com.

The Dry

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Laini Taylor

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

An instant New York Times bestseller and Michael L. Printz honor book! Eleven best of lists including an NPR Best Book, a Goodreads Best YA Fantasy and Science Fiction Nominee, and more! From National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor comes an epic fantasy about a mythic lost city and its dark past. The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around--and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old, he's been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the form of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever. What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? And who is the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo's dreams? In this sweeping and breathtaking novel by National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor, author of the New York Times bestselling Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy, the shadow of the past is as real as the ghosts who haunt the citadel of murdered gods. Fall into a mythical world of dread and wonder, moths and nightmares, love and carnage. The answers await in Weep.

Strange the Dreamer

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Jesmyn Ward

"A searing and profound Southern odyssey through Mississippi's past and present"--

Sing, Unburied, Sing

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Rebecca Makkai

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE WINNER ALA CARNEGIE MEDAL WINNER THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD WINNER Soon to Be a Major Television Event, optioned by Amy Poehler “A page turner . . . An absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis.” —The New York Times Book Review A dazzling novel of friendship and redemption in the face of tragedy and loss set in 1980s Chicago and contemporary Paris In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico’s funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico’s little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster. Named a Best Book of 2018 by The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzfeed, The Seattle Times, Bustle, Newsday, AM New York, BookPage, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Lit Hub, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, New York Public Library and Chicago Public Library

The Great Believers

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Libba Bray

After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma Doyle returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world. Reprint.

A Great and Terrible Beauty

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Amy Tan

Struggling to regain her voice and express her true feelings to her husband, ghostwriter Ruth Young discovers that her inability to speak closely parallels the story of her mother LuLing's early life in China.

The Bonesetter's Daughter

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Paula Deen

Sherry Suib Cohen

It Ain't All about the Cookin'

Do you know the real Paula Deen? You may think you know the butter-loving, finger-licking, joke-cracking queen of melt-in-your-mouth Southern cuisine. You may have even visited The Lady & Sons to taste for yourself the down-home delicacies that made her famous and even heard some version of her Cinderella story (a single mom with two teenage sons started a brown-bag lunch business with $200 and wound up with a thriving restaurant, a fairy-tale second marriage, and wildly popular television shows), but you have never heard the intimate details of her often bumpy road to fame and fortune. Courageously honest, downright inspiring, and just a little bit saucy, Paula shares the highs and lows of her life in the inimitable charming and irreverent style that you know from her television shows and personal appearances. She talks about long childhood summers spent in a bathing suit and roller skates and hard years living in the back of her father's gas station; a buzzing high school social life of sleepovers, parties, cheerleading, and boys; and a difficult marriage. The death of her beloved parents precipitated a debilitating agoraphobia that crippled her for years. But even when the going got tough, Paula never lost the good grace and sense of humor that would eventually help carry her to success and stardom. Of course, you can't get by on charm alone: as Paula has learned, you need plenty of willpower, hard work, and, above all, the love and support of family and friends to finance, sustain, and run a successful restaurant. In each chapter, Paula shares new recipes: there's serious comfort food like her momma's Chocolate-Dippy Doughnuts, Courage Chili for when you know life's going to get tough, Sexy Oxtails for seducing that special someone, and the recipe for her new mother-in-law's Banana Nut Delight Cake that Paula finally got just right. And you'll love the never-before-seen photos of her family. In this memoir, Paula Deen speaks as frankly and intimately as few women in the public eye have ever dared. Whether she's telling tales of good times or bad, her story is proof that the old-fashioned American dream is alive and kicking, and there still is such a thing as a real-life happy ending.

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Beatriz Williams

“The Summer Wives is an exquisitely rendered novel that tackles two of my favorite topics: love and money. The glorious setting and drama are enriched by Williams’s signature vintage touch. It’s at the top of my picks for the beach this summer.” —Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Perfect Couple New York Times bestselling author Beatriz Williams brings us the blockbuster novel of the season—an electrifying postwar fable of love, class, power, and redemption set among the inhabitants of an island off the New England coast . . . In the summer of 1951, Miranda Schuyler arrives on elite, secretive Winthrop Island as a schoolgirl from the margins of high society, still reeling from the loss of her father in the Second World War. When her beautiful mother marries Hugh Fisher, whose summer house on Winthrop overlooks the famous lighthouse, Miranda’s catapulted into a heady new world of pedigrees and cocktails, status and swimming pools. Isobel Fisher, Miranda’s new stepsister—all long legs and world-weary bravado, engaged to a wealthy Island scion—is eager to draw Miranda into the arcane customs of Winthrop society. But beneath the island’s patrician surface, there are really two clans: the summer families with their steadfast ways and quiet obsessions, and the working class of Portuguese fishermen and domestic workers who earn their living on the water and in the laundries of the summer houses. Uneasy among Isobel’s privileged friends, Miranda finds herself drawn to Joseph Vargas, whose father keeps the lighthouse with his mysterious wife. In summer, Joseph helps his father in the lobster boats, but in the autumn he returns to Brown University, where he’s determined to make something of himself. Since childhood, Joseph’s enjoyed an intense, complex friendship with Isobel Fisher, and as the summer winds to its end, Miranda’s caught in a catastrophe that will shatter Winthrop’s hard-won tranquility and banish Miranda from the island for nearly two decades. Now, in the landmark summer of 1969, Miranda returns at last, as a renowned Shakespearean actress hiding a terrible heartbreak. On its surface, the Island remains the same—determined to keep the outside world from its shores, fiercely loyal to those who belong. But the formerly powerful Fisher family is a shadow of itself, and Joseph Vargas has recently escaped the prison where he was incarcerated for the murder of Miranda’s stepfather eighteen years earlier. What’s more, Miranda herself is no longer a naïve teenager, and she begins a fierce, inexorable quest for justice for the man she once loved . . . even if it means uncovering every last one of the secrets that bind together the families of Winthrop Island.

The Summer Wives

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Steven Rowley

"This is a story about that special someone: the one you trust, the one you can't live without. For Ted Flask, that someone special is his aging companion Lily, who happens to be a dog. [The book] reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all"--Dust jacket flap.

Lily and the Octopus

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Kathryn Stockett

The #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the Academy Award-winning film—a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who’s always taken orders quietly, but lately she’s unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She’s full of ambition, but without a husband, she’s considered a failure. Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town...

The Help

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Cynthia Hand

Brodi Ashton

Jodi Meadows

Move over, Charlotte Brontë. The authors of the New York Times bestselling My Lady Jane are back with an irreverent spin on Jane Eyre—a tale of mischief, romance, and supernatural mayhem perfect for fans of The Princess Bride or A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. You may think you know the story. Penniless orphan Jane Eyre begins a new life as a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she meets one dark, brooding Mr. Rochester—and, Reader, she marries him. Or does she? Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions in this stand-alone follow-up to My Lady Jane, which was called “an utter delight” (ALA Booklist, starred review), and “an uproarious historical fantasy that’s not to be missed” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

My Plain Jane

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The cat who saw red

Charlotte McConaghy

From the author of the beloved national bestseller Migrations, a pulse-pounding new novel about a woman who will do anything to save the wolves of Scotland, and her twin sister Inti Flynn has never believed in the story of the big bad wolf. She knows the truth: it is men who are the real monsters. Inti arrives in the Scottish Highlands to lead a team of scientists tasked with reintroducing wolves into the wild, fiercely determined that nothing will distract her. But at home in her new cottage, where her traumatized twin sister Aggie barely leaves her bed, Inti can’t help but remember the painful secrets that drove them out of Alaska. As the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti settles into the rhythms of her new life. She begins to let her guard down, making friends and even opening herself up to the possibility of romance. Her fragile peace is shattered when a farmer is mauled to death, and Inti can feel the town turning against her. Unable to believe her wolves could be responsible, Inti makes a reckless decision to protect them. But if the wolves didn’t make the kill, then who did? And will they strike again? Fiercely beautiful and propulsive, Once There Were Wolves is the unforgettable story of a woman desperate to save the creatures she loves, and, perhaps, save herself and her sister along the way—if she isn’t consumed by a wild that was once her refuge.

Once There Were Wolves

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Tatiana de Rosnay

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Hoping to put a generations-old secret behind him, Nicholas Duhamel becomes a successful writer and pens a novel that makes him famous before he is forced to reexamine his family's disturbing past. By the best-selling author of Sarah's Key. 150,000 first printing.

The Other Story

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Maria Duenas

When her longtime marriage abruptly ends in the wake of her husband's infidelity, Madrid college professor Blanca Perea struggles to rebuild her own life by researching that of an enigmatic Spanish writer who died decades earlier. By the best-selling author of The Time in Between. 75,000 first printing.

The Heart Has Its Reasons

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Sigmund Brouwer

Set in Charleston, the novel introduces Nick Barret. He is drawn home by a mysterious note about the mother who abandoned him. Past secrets emerge to meet present danger. Along the way, Nick comes face-to-face with the God he has always denied. Sharply defined characters and vivid settings will engage and appeal to both men and women. Remarkable storytelling with uncommon intrigue.

Out of the Shadows

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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. The novel is set against one of the most dramatic political chronicles of the twentieth century: the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium, the murder of its first elected prime minister, the CIA coup to install his replacement, and the insidious progress of a world economic order that robs the fledgling African nation of its autonomy. Against this backdrop, Orleanna Price reconstructs the story of her evangelist husband's part in the Western assault on Africa, a tale indelibly darkened by her own losses and unanswerable questions about her own culpability. Also narrating the story, by turns, are her four daughters—the self-centered, teenaged Rachel; shrewd adolescent twins Leah and Adah; and Ruth May, a prescient five-year-old. These sharply observant girls, who arrive in the Congo with racial preconceptions forged in 1950s Georgia, will be marked in surprisingly different ways by their father's intractable mission, and by Africa itself. Ultimately each must strike her own separate path to salvation. Their passionately intertwined stories become a compelling exploration of moral risk and personal responsibility. Dancing between the dark comedy of human failings and the breathtaking possibilities of human hope, The Poisonwood Bible possesses all that has distinguished Barbara Kingsolver's previous work, and extends this beloved writer's vision to an entirely new level. Taking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel establishes Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.

The Poisonwood Bible

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Amanda Foody

Indulge your vices in the City of Sin, where a sinister street war is brewing and fame is the deadliest killer of them all... On the quest to find her missing mother, prim and proper Enne Salta became reluctant allies with Levi Glaisyer, the city's most famous con man. Saving his life in the Shadow Game forced Enne to assume the identity of Seance, a mysterious underworld figure. Now, with the Chancellor of the Republic dead and bounties on both their heads, she and Levi must play a dangerous game of crime and politics...with the very fate of New Reynes at stake. Thirsting for his freedom and the chance to build an empire, Levi enters an unlikely partnership with the estranged son of mafia donna Vianca Augustine. Meanwhile, Enne remains trapped by Vianca's binding oath, playing the roles of both darling lady and cunning street lord, unsure which side of herself reflects the truth. As Enne and Levi walk a path of unimaginable wealth and opportunity, new relationships and deadly secrets could quickly lead them into ruin. And when unforeseen players enter the game, they must each make an impossible choice: To sacrifice everything they've earned in order to survive... Or die as legends.

King of Fools

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"Enne Salta was raised as a proper young lady, and no lady would willingly visit New Reynes, the so-called City of Sin. But when her mother goes missing, Enne must leave her finishing school--and her reputation--behind to follow her mother's trail to the city where no one survives uncorrupted."--Jacket flap.

Ace of Shades

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Robert Jones, Jr.

Finalist for the National Book Award Instant New York Times Bestseller "May this book cast its spell on all of us, restore to us some memory of our most warrior and softest selves." —The New York Times Book Review “A new kind of epic...A grand achievement...While The Prophets' dreamy realism recalls the work of Toni Morrison...its penetrating focus on social dynamics stands out more singularly.” —Entertainment Weekly A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man—a fellow slave—seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony. With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr., fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating slave master to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries—of ancestors and future generations to come—culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets fearlessly reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.

The Prophets

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Margaret Wrinkle

In this luminous debut, Margaret Wrinkle takes us on an unforgettable journey across continents and through time, from the burgeoning American South to West Africa and deep into the ancestral stories that reside in the soul. Wash introduces a remarkable new voice in American literature.

In early 1800s Tennessee, two men find themselves locked in an intimate power struggle. Richardson, a troubled Revolutionary War veteran, has spent his life fighting not only for his country but also for wealth and status. When the pressures of westward expansion and debt threaten to destroy everything he's built, he sets Washington, a young man he owns, to work as his breeding sire. Wash, the first member of his family to be born into slavery, struggles to hold onto his only solace: the spirituality inherited from his shamanic mother. As he navigates the treacherous currents of his position, despair and disease lead him to a potent healer named Pallas. Their tender love unfolds against this turbulent backdrop while she inspires him to forge a new understanding of his heritage and his place in it. Once Richardson and Wash find themselves at a crossroads, all three lives are pushed to the brink.

Browse by categories

Stefan Kanfer

Ball of Fire

Lillian Jackson Braun

The cat who could read backwards

Lillian jackson braun

The cat who sniffed glue

Jane Harper

The Dry

Laini Taylor

Strange the Dreamer

Jesmyn Ward

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Rebecca Makkai

The Great Believers

Libba Bray

A Great and Terrible Beauty

Amy Tan

The Bonesetter's Daughter

Paula Deen; Sherry Suib Cohen

Paula Deen

Beatriz Williams

The Summer Wives

Steven Rowley

Lily and the Octopus

Kathryn Stockett

The Help

Cynthia Hand; Brodi Ashton; Jodi Meadows

My Plain Jane

Lilian jackson braun

The cat who saw red

Charlotte McConaghy

Once There Were Wolves

Tatiana de Rosnay

The Other Story

Maria Duenas

The Heart Has Its Reasons

Sigmund Brouwer

Out of the Shadows

Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible

Amanda Foody

King of Fools

Amanda Foody

Ace of Shades

Robert Jones, Jr.

The Prophets

Margaret Wrinkle

Wash

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