In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry’s brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father’s money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma’s research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution,
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Born to parents who fled the shtetl, Esther Lustig has led a seemingly conventional life—marriage, two children, a life in suburban Chicago. Now, at the age of eighty-five, her husband is deceased, her children have families of their own, and most of her friends are gone. Even in this diminished condition, life has its moments of richness, as well as its memorable characters. But above all there are the memories. Of better days with Marty, her husband. Of unrealized obsessions with other men.
As she moves back and forth through time, Esther attempts to come to terms with the meaning of her outwardly modest life.
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A New York Times Book Review and Washington Post Notable Book, an NPR “Great Read,” a Christian Science Monitor Best Fiction Book, and a Library Journal Top Book
Just as her father makes the wrenching decision to send her away for a chance at a better life, Claire Limyè Lanmè—Claire of the Sea Light—suddenly disappears. As the people of the Haitian seaside community of Ville Rose search for her, painful secrets, haunting memories, and startling truths are unearthed. In this stunning novel about intertwined lives, Edwidge Danticat crafts a tightly woven, breathtaking tapestry that explores the mysterious bonds we share—with the natural world and with one another.
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A Library Journal Best Indie Fiction of 2013
A Largehearted Boy Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
In the tradition of In the Time of the Butterflies and The Kite Runner, a tender, evocative novel about the years leading up to the Sri Lankan civil war.
On the day the Herath family moves in, Sal Mal Lane is still a quiet street, disturbed only by the cries of the children whose triumphs and tragedies sustain the families that live there.
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Dubbed a “John Green readalike” by School Library Journal, Let's Get Lost is a twist on the classic road trip story. Arranged as five multichapter vignettes, this road trip adventure will leave you breathless. This captivating cross-country journey begins with Leila. She’s traveling from Louisiana to Alaska in search of the Northern Lights. But this isn’t Leila’s story, not quite. This is the story of a boy named Hudson in Mississippi. And Bree, a girl who seizes every Tuesday. It’s Elliot’s, too, who’s trying to write his own story. And Sonia, who doesn’t realize hers hasn’t ended just yet.
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Dalton, North Dakota. September, 1951. It has been years since George and Margaret Blackledge lost their son James when he was thrown from a horse, and months since his widow left with their only grandson and married another man. Margaret is resolved to find and retrieve her beloved grandson Jimmy—the last of the family line, and a living embodiment of her son’s memory—while George, a retired sheriff, is none too eager to stir up trouble. Unable to sway his wife from her mission, George takes to the road with Margaret by his side, traveling through the Badlands to Gladstone, Montana.
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