Catalog Search Results
Literary Reference Center
Novels, short stories, poems, plot summaries and synopses, and literary criticism. Research guides, lesson plans, and citation tools support student learning.
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
"The acclaimed, bestselling author--winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize--tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
"It all begins with a hot air balloon trip and three bottles of champagne. Centenarian Allan Karlsson and Julius are ready for some spectacular views, but they're not expecting to land in the sea and be rescued by a North Korean ship, and they could never have imagined that the captain of the ship would be harbouring a suitcase full of contraband uranium, on a nuclear weapons mission for Kim Jong-un. Soon Allan and Julius are at the centre of a complex...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, Eligible tackles gender, class, courtship, and family as Curtis Sittenfeld reaffirms herself as one of the most dazzling authors writing today.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE TIMES (UK)
This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met...
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE TIMES (UK)
This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves--lines from...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Adult - National Library Week
Books About Libraries/Librarians (Adult)
National Library Week
More Lists...
Books About Libraries/Librarians (Adult)
National Library Week
More Lists...
Description
A librarian's discovery of a mysterious book sparks the journey of a lifetime in the delightful new novel from the international bestselling author of The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people--though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she's invisible. All of that changes...
Author
Series
Neapolitan novels volume 1
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through...
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
From one of America's most beloved contemporary novelists, a delicious and witty story about love under house arrest Jane Morgan is a valued member of her law firm--or was, until a prudish neighbor, binoculars poised, observes her having sex on the roof of her NYC apartment building. Police are summoned, and a punishing judge sentences her to six months of home confinement. With Jane now jobless and rootless, trapped at home, life looks bleak. Yes,...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
2023 Best Adult Fiction & Nonfiction (SCPL)
Best Books of 2023 - Adult
Best of 2023 - Fiction
More Lists...
Best Books of 2023 - Adult
Best of 2023 - Fiction
More Lists...
Formats
Description
"The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under--but rather than face the music, he's spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
2024 Summer Reading: Studio (Creative Mysteries)
Best Non Fiction of 2023
Best of 2023 (WPL-ADULT)
More Lists...
Best Non Fiction of 2023
Best of 2023 (WPL-ADULT)
More Lists...
Description
"From the legendary music producer, a savant at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book, many years in the making, that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us. "I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be." -Rick Rubin. Many famed music producers, however brilliant, become known for a particular sound which...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Formats
Description
From the author of the acclaimed In My Dreams I Hold a Knife comes a pitch-black thriller about a woman determined to destroy a powerful cult and avenge the deaths of the women taken in by it, no matter the cost. While in college in upstate New York, Shay Evans and her best friends met a captivating man who seduced them with a web of lies about the way the world works, bringing them under his thrall. By senior year, Shay and her friend Laurel were...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
"Bob Comet is a retired librarian, isolated but not lonely, living out his quiet days in a mint-colored house in Oregon, surrounded by his books and small comforts. One morning, out on his daily walk, he performs an act of kindness that brings him into contact with a nearby senior center, where he soon begins volunteering. Here, as a community of peers and friends gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from...
12) Mr. Splitfoot
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"A contemporary gothic from an author in the company of Kelly Link and Aimee Bender, Mr. Splitfoot tracks two women in two times as they march toward a mysterious reckoning. Ruth and Nat are orphans, packed into a house full of abandoned children run by a religious fanatic. To entertain their siblings, they channel the dead. Decades later, Ruth's niece, Cora, finds herself accidentally pregnant. After years of absence, Aunt Ruth appears, mute and...
Author
Language
English
Description
Henrietta and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen is an illustrator, works nearby, and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder. When they meet the neighbors next door, she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband's office shelf: a sports trophy exactly like one that went missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. Hen has long had been obsessed with...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Formats
Description
An evocative drama about a woman caught leading a double life after one husband murders the other, and the true-crime writer who becomes obsessed with telling her story--this masterful work of literary suspense marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer. In 1985, Dolores "Lore" Rivera marries Andres Russo in Mexico City, even though she is already married to Fabian Rivera in Laredo, Texas, and they share twin sons. Through her career as an international...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
"Clara Kelley is not who they think she is. She's not the experienced Irish maid who was hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nowhere to go and nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, and pretending to be her just might get Clara some money to send back home. If she can keep up the ruse, that is. Serving as a lady's maid in the household of Andrew Carnegie...
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
Every day Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others.
Author
Language
English
Appears on these lists
Description
"Theo Benton decides to move to the United States to finally finish her novel, and she is soon drawn into a literary labyrinth where identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of sales and readership. When her mentor and lover is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. But when the prime suspect turns out to be her older brother, Gus, Theo does what is necessary to protect him-to save him....
Author
Language
English
Description
Abigail Baskin never thought she'd fall in love with a millionaire. Then she met Bruce Lamb. He's a good guy, stable, level-headed, and kind. But right before the wedding, Abigail has a moment of uncertainty. The drunken one-night stand from her bachelorette weekend, the sexy guy who wouldn't give her his real name, didn't really mean anything she keeps telling herself. She puts the incident out of her mind, and now believes she wants to be with Bruce...