National Network for Equitable Library Service

Feeling adrift after ending a relationship, Julius, a young Nigerian doctor living in New York, takes long walks through the city while listening to the stories of fellow immigrants until a shattering truth is revealed.

Following her discovery selling oranges outside of Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, Ellen "Nell" Gwyn leaves behind a life of poverty to become a theatre star. Soon she is mistress to the libertine King Charles II. And though their love is true, gossip-mongers and court politics threaten to tear their romance apart.

Stone Barrington receives a rather unexpected phone call from Arrington Calder, the ex-girlfriend with whom he has a son. Arrington's much older husband, the actor Vance Calder, has just died, leaving her a fortune in Centurion Studio stock. Arrington has plans for the money and asks Stone to represent her in the sale of the company. But when he arrives at her home in Bel-Air to finalize the deal, things take a nasty turn.

Italo Calvino's beloved cosmicomics cross planets and traverse galaxies, speed up time or slow it down to the particles of an instant. Through the eyes of an ageless guide named Qfwfq, Calvino explores natural phenomena and tells the story of the origins of the universe. Poignant, fantastical, and wise, these thirty-four dazzling stories - collected here in one definitive anthology - relate complex scientific and mathematical concepts to our everyday world. They are an indelible (and unfailingly delightful) literary achievement.

In "Evil Eye," we meet Mariana, the young fourth wife of a prominent intellectual. When her husband's brazen first wife visits one night, Mariana learns a terrible secret that could be a harbinger of doom for her marriage and very soul. In "So Near, Anytime, Always," shy teenager Lizbeth meets Desmond, a charming boy who offers this introverted girl the first sparks of young romance. Yet just as their relationship begins to blossom, Lizbeth realizes that beneath Desmond's perfect facade lies a dark soul that could wreak havoc on Lizbeth and her loved ones.

Dinah Whitcomb seemingly has everything. A loving and successful husband, and a smart, precocious young son named Robbie. Then one day, their worlds are shattered when Dinah is attacked and Robbie is abducted from a mall parking lot.

A stained-glass artist struggles over his masterpiece for a castle in Southern Missouri and learns through great loss what his true subject will be. A schoolteacher searches for her missing son, her only clue a mysterious, paint-smeared stencil he left behind. And an orphaned young man and his former high school football coach set out to kidnap the coach's daughter from Los Angeles and bring her back to East Texas.

This collection gathers eight popular Louis L'Amour stories, performed by a star-studded cast. Willie Nelson reads several, one is read by Charles Dean, and another is fully dramatized by Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and the late Waylon Jennings, who together were known as The Highwaymen.

In 1988, a catastrophic episode of teen violence shatters a suburban community. Hey Nostradamus! follows the aftermath in various voices across two decades: the teenage victims whose ordinary preoccupations with sex and spirituality will never evolve past that moment; the parents whose exposure to their children's underground world threatens their deepest convictions; and those who come to know the survivors only later in life, unable to fully realize what really transpired. Hey Nostradamus! wrestles with religion and nihilism, sorrow and acceptance.

Charlie Ashanti is the son of two scientists who are kidnapped as the result of a dramatic discovery they've made (the cure for asthma, which is rampant in this near-future world). Ten-year-old Charlie decides to go in search of them, and uses his ability to speak Cat (which he's had ever since he was scratched by a leopard as a baby) to gain helpful information. The local cats of London point him in the right direction and even deliver messages from him to his parents and back.