Fiction
The princess bride : S. Morgenstern's classic tale of true love and high adventure : The "good parts" version, abridged
William Goldman
FICTION Goldman, William
Fiction, Humor
In a Renaissance-era world, a young woman named Buttercup lives on a farm in the country of Florin. She abuses the farm hand Westley, calling him "farm boy" and demands that he perform chores for her. Westley's response to her demands is always "As you wish." She eventually realizes that what he is saying is, "I love you." After Buttercup realizes that she loves him and confesses her feelings, Westley goes to seek his fortune so they can marry. Buttercup later receives a letter that the Dread Pirate Roberts attacked his ship at sea. Believing Westley dead, Buttercup sinks into despair. Later she reluctantly agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck, heir to the throne of Florin.
Ariadne
Jennifer Saint
FICTION Saint Jennifer
Fiction
"Ariadne, Princess of Crete, grows up greeting the dawn from her beautiful dancing floor and listening to her nursemaid's stories of gods and heroes. But beneath her golden palace echo the ever-present hoofbeats of her brother, the Minotaur, a monster who demands blood sacrifice every year. When Theseus, Prince of Athens, arrives to vanquish the beast, Ariadne sees in his green eyes not a threat but an escape. Defying the gods, betraying her family and country, and risking everything for love, Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. But will Ariadne's decision ensure her happy ending? And what of Phaedra, the beloved younger sister she leaves behind? Hypnotic, propulsive, and utterly transporting, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne forges a new epic, outside the traditional narratives of heroism and glory that leave no room for women"--
Calling all fans of Circe and A Thousand Ships! Ariadne is another novel rooted in Greek mythology, told from the female perspective. It opens up the untold narrative of Ariadne, Princess of Crete, beginning with her role in the story of the Minotaur. Engaging tale, complex characters, all the things I like! -Becky
Station eleven : a novel
Emily St. John Mandel
FICTION Mandel Emily
Fiction
"An audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame, and ambition set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, from the author of three highly acclaimed previous novels. One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains-this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it"--
Added by Beth
Writers & lovers : a novel
Lily King
FICTION King Lily
Fiction
"Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink."--Provided by publisher.
Added by Beth
A tree grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith
FICTION Smith, Betty
Fiction
Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer. Late in the afternoon the sun slanted down into the mossy yard belonging to Francie Nolan's house, and warmed the worn wooden fence. Looking at the shafted sun, Francie had that same fine feeling that came when she recalled the poem they recited in school. This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld. The one tree in Francie's yard was neither a pine nor a hemlock. It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.
Added by Beth
American dirt
Jeanine Cummins
FICTION Cummins Jeanine
Fiction
Acapulco. Lydia Quixano Perez runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca; her wonderful husband is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is fairly comfortable. Javier browses at the store and comes up to the register with two of her favorites books. Javier is charming... and the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When her husband's tell-all profile of Javier is published, Lydia and Luca find themselves making their way north toward the United States, the only place Javier's reach doesn't extend. But what exactly are they running to? -- adapted from jacket
Added by Beth
Pride and prejudice
Jane Austen
FICTION Austen, Jane
Fiction
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice centers on the conflict between marrying for love and marrying for economic reasons. None of Mr. Bennet's five daughters can inherit his estate, so they are pressured into finding security in "good" marriages. Elizabeth Bennet, the main character, struggles with the societal pressures of marriage and resists Mr. Darcy's advances and proposals. Eventually, however, she finds that she does love him, and for that reason, she decides to marry him.
Added by Beth
Sense and sensibility
Jane Austen
FICTION Austen, Jane
Fiction
The novel follows the three Dashwood sisters as they must move with their widowed mother from the estate on which they grew up, Norland Park. Because Norland is passed down to John, the product of Mr. Dashwood's first marriage, and his young son, the four Dashwood women need to look for a new home. They have the opportunity to rent a modest home, Barton Cottage, on the property of a distant relative, Sir John Middleton. There they experience love, romance, and heartbreak
Added by Beth
Crossing to safety
Wallace Earle Stegner
FICTION Stegner, Wallace Earle
Fiction
Two young ambitious couples become friends in Madison, Wisconsin, when the two husbands begin their academic careers as professors at the University of Wisconsin in the 1930s. The novel follows their friendship through forty years of career ups-and-downs, health problems, children, successes, and failures.
Added by Beth
The Clan of the Cave Bear
Jean M Auel
FICTION Auel, Jean M.
Fiction
. A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly--she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza's way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge. Book one of the Earth's Children Series.
Added by Beth
Added by Beth