In this riveting novel, bestselling author John Darnton transports us to Victorian England and around the world to reveal the secrets of a legendary nineteenth-century figure. What led Darwin to the theory of evolution? Why did he wait twenty-two years to write On the Origin of Species? The story shifts among Darwin’s adventures as he sails around the world on the Beagle, his daughter Lizzie’s journals recording his subsequent ailments and strange behavior, and the research of present-day anthropologist Hugh Kellem and Darwin scholar Beth Dulicmer, whose obsession with Darwin (and with each other) drives them beyond the accepted boundaries of scholarly research.
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“At about three thirty a.m on June 22, 1986, someone entered, through an unlocked sliding-glass door, my father’s house on the outskirts of the central California farming town where he had grown up. The intruder took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed my father as he lay sleeping next to his third wife.”
So begins Rachel Howard’s memoir about her father’s unsolved murder, which happened when she was just ten years old. But from the start The Lost Night is about something much deeper and more complex than justice. Writing more than 15 years after her father’s bizarre death,
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Sitting beneath a tree in ancient Bethlehem, Osnath, niece of the prophet Samuel, examines a dusty scrap of parchment she found hidden in her relative’s scroll room. Scrawled on the decaying page is an intriguing message addressed to Ruth the Moabite—great-grandmother of David, the future king of Israel. Compelled to discover the truth about Ruth’s life, Osnath begins searching for the identity of Ruth’s nameless lover and the secret that is still cloaked behind his anonymity. But as she digs deeper into the past, she finds her inquiries blocked by David’s brother Eliab. What is the long-buried truth he fears will come to light?
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Whale Season is a literary murder mystery in the tradition of Tom Robbins, about the quintessentially weird heart of Florida where sunburn is the only thing you can be sure of. Set in Whale Harbor, a town that has no whales, it is the story of Leon Pettit, an RV Salesman who once loved a one-ton alligator, but has a lot of trouble with non lizard-like women. One Christmas Eve, Leon is visited by a man who thinks he’s Jesus and claims to be looking for a game of poker. But, as usual, things are not quite what they seem.
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In this charming novel about the eccentricities and passions of booksellers and collectors, a captivating young Australian woman takes a job at a vast, chaotic emporium of used and rare books in New York City and finds herself caught up in the search for a lost Melville manuscript.
Eighteen years old and completely alone, Rosemary arrives in New York from Tasmania with little more than her love of books and an eagerness to explore the city she’s read so much about. She begins her memorable search for independence with appealing enthusiasm, and the moment she steps into the Arcade bookstore,
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The Innocent Man unfolds with the taut suspense, intriguing characters, and vivid scenes that have made John Grisham one of the most widely read novelists in America. But this time, he’s reporting on actual events–and a courtroom drama that results in a real-life nightmare for all the wrong people. Sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, Ron Williamson experienced a flagrant miscarriage of justice so regrettably common in criminal prosecutions across the country. His story will leave you hungering for answers; whether you read it with a group of friends or as part of a forum,
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