Literature & Fiction

Part 1
The Book of General Ignorance
by John Mitchinson, John Lloyd
What's the name of the tallest mountain in the world? Mauna Kea, the highest point on the island of Hawaii. The inactive volcano is a modest 13,799 feet above sea level, but when measured from the seabed to its summit, it is 33,465 feet high

The Shape of a Miracle
Benjamin's Gift
by Michael Golding
With the publication of his first novel, Simple Prayers, Michael Golding was hailed as one of the most captivating new voices of his generation. Now he triumphs again with the enchanted tale of an eccentric connoisseur of beauty whose life is transformed

Carbon Dating
Ditched by Dr. Right: And Other Distress Signals from the Edge of Polite Society
by Elizabeth Warner
In witty slice-of-life vignettes and laugh-out-loud cultural riffs, Elizabeth Warner shares her divinely demented view of the world. Raised by a mild-mannered psychiatrist father and a slightly off-kilter mother, Warner opted out of the life

The Physiology of Marriage: The Musings of an Eclectic Philosopher on the Happiness and Unhappiness of Married Life
by Honoré de Balzac
Marriage is not an institution of nature. The family in the east is entirely different from the family in the west. Man is the servant of nature, and the institutions of society are grafts, not spontaneous growths of nature. Laws are made to suit manners,

Part One
True Believer
by Nicholas Sparks
As a science journalist with a regular column in Scientific American, Jeremy Marsh specializes in debunking the supernatural and has a real nose for the strange and unusual. A born skeptic, he travels to the small town of Boone Creek, North Carolina

The Holiday for the Rest of Us
Festivus
by Allen Salkin
In the ancient days when gods played their own games, and had their own celebrations, tossing lightning bolts between mountaintops, hurling great boulders - Festivus came out of that. It's a holiday that celebrates being alive at a time when it was hard

Part One
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
by Sidney Sheldon
In four cities across the world, four people die violently and mysteriously. The dead share a single crucial link: each was connected to an all-powerful environmental think tank. Two of the victims' widows-accomplished artist Diane Stevens

Go Carolina
Me Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris
Anyone who watches even the slightest amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on the door of some seemingly ordinary home or office. The door opens, and the person holding the knob is asked to identify himself.

Part Two
13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
by Jane Smiley
But I had penned a concise biography of Charles Dickens, and maybe I had learned from Dickens's life an unwanted lesson. I wrote the Dickens book because I loved Dickens, not because I felt a kinship with him, but after writing the book, it seemed to me

Part One
13 Ways of Looking at the Novel
by Jane Smiley
The end of September is a great time to have a birthday if you want to be a writer. Jane Austen might be December 16 and Shakespeare April 23 and Charles Dickens February 9, but for a sheer run of greatness, I challenge anyone to match September 23

Part 1
Sodom and Gomorrah: In Search of Lost Time, Volume 4
by Marcel Proust
M. de Charlus in society - A doctor - Characteristic face of Mme de Vaugoubert - Mme d'Arpajon, the Hubert Robert fountain, and the merriment of Grand Duke Vladimir - Mme d'Amoncourt, Mme de Citri, Mme de Saint-Euverte, etc.

A Winter Eden
Light from Heaven
by Jan Karon
The first flake landed on a blackberry bush in the creek bottom of Meadowgate Farm. In the frozen hour before dawn, others found their mark on the mossy roof of the smokehouse; in a grove of laurel by the northwest pasture

The First Kings
Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings
by Abolqasem Ferdowsi
What does the Persian poet say about the first man to seek the crown of world sovereignty? No one has any knowledge of those first days, unless he has heard tales passed down from father to son.

Part One
Daniel Isn't Talking
by Marti Leimbach
My husband saw me at a party and decided he wanted to marry me. That is what he says. I was doing an impression of myself on the back of a motorcycle with my university sweetheart, a young man who loved T. S. Eliot and Harley-Davidsons

Wrok
White Trash Etiquette
by Dr. Verne Edstrom, Esq.
Now unless you wanna spend your golden years like your grandma - living in a Pontiac in the scrap yard - decent trash knows they gotta earn so you always got money for cigs and meat. But a lot of people has a hard time figuring out what's the best career

Chapter One
Atonement
by Ian McEwan
The play, for which Briony had designed the posters, programmes and tickets, constructed the sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collection box in red crepe paper, was written by her in a two-day tempest of composition

The Great Divide
How to Be a Hollywood Star: Your Guide to Living the Fabulous Life
by Stephen P. Williams
Star Knowledge: Where to Live. Star abodes fall along a line stretching from Silver Lake, at the intersection of the 101 and 5 freeways, west to Santa Monica and up the coast to Malibu.

Edward P. Jones
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006
by Laura Furman
They caught him after he had killed the second man. The law would never connect him to the first murder. So the victim - a stocky fellow Caesar Matthews shot in a Northeast alley only two blocks from the home of the guy's parents, a man who died over

Chapter Two
The Myth of You and Me
by Leah Stewart
In February of my thirtieth year, a letter came to the house where I was living, addressed to me in my own handwriting. I didn't notice it when it arrived.