National Network for Equitable Library Service

"Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature." -Michael Chabon "One of our finest writers." -Jonathan Lethem "One of our most intriguing fiction writers." -O, The Oprah Magazine "Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons." -New Yorker Jerzy Kosinski was a great enigma of post-World War II literature. When he exploded onto the American literary scene in 1965 with his best-selling novel The Painted Bird, he was revered as a Holocaust survivor and refugee from the world hidden behind the Soviet Iron Curtain.

From remote Australian settlements to the snows of Siberia, from Colorado to Cumbria, restless teenagers, middle-aged civil servants, and Quaker spinsters traverse expanses of solitude to reveal the secrets of the human heart. Spare, precise, and charged with a prickly wit, the stories in Carys Davies's sparkling second collection remind us how little we know of the lives of others.

This family saga that travels through time-from modern Toronto to Depression-era Kentucky-and explores how the ghosts of the past shape our history. Every family has its stories: joys and losses, hopes and regrets. For the family that populates these three novels, the secrets forgotten with the passing of years become suddenly accessible, as journeys through time unite loved ones across the decades. Shadow of Ashland: Leo Nolan's mother shows him a rose just before she dies-and claims it was given to her by her brother, who disappeared fifty years earlier.

This New York Times-bestselling novel of a troubled family in 1960s Vermont is "teeming with incident and characters, often foolish, even nasty, but always alive" (The New Yorker). It is the summer of 1960 in Atkinson, Vermont. With no help from her alcoholic ex-husband, Marie Fermoyle is raising three children on the edge of poverty. Her seventeen-year-old daughter, Alice, is becoming emotionally involved with a local priest in a staunchly Catholic town that disapproves of Marie's divorce.

Abandoned by his wife, a man tries to protect his family during the Great Depression, in this "powerful" novel by the bestselling author of Songs in Ordinary Time (Publishers Weekly). During the Great Depression, rural Vermont suffers along with the rest of the country, and Henry Talcott, with only occasional work as a butcher, is reduced to moving into a tent on the edge of Black Pond with his two children. Their beautiful but unreliable mother has left them, and Henry is devastated by her desertion. He hasn't told Thomas or Margaret why she left-or if she will return.

Jehannette, an illiterate peasant girl of seventeen, hears voices that tell her she must help the Dauphin become king. But this proves hard to accomplish in 15th century France as the British occupy parts of the country, including Rheims where the crowning must take place. Jehannette must first convince the Dauphin of her mission and then help lead his army to push back the occupiers.

When Grace married the handsome and worldly Captain Leo Waterhouse in Australia during the middle of the Second World War, she never doubted that she had married a hero and he would come back to her unscathed. But Leo never returns from a commando raid on Japanese ships in the Singapore Harbour, leaving Grace a widow, like so many, to shoulder the pain and regret of losing her husband. Sixty years later, Grace is still bitter and perplexed by the tragic death of the love of her life when the true story of the abortive mission comes to light.

An epic masterwork about the trials of a man of "science" in a Kafkaesque realm of persecution and paranoia from a World Fantasy Award-winning author. The Well-Built City is a hellish place of unrelenting nightmare, ruled with cruelty, oppression, and terror by the inscrutable madman Drachton Below. In his multiple-award-winning, New York Times Notable trilogy, Jeffrey Ford creates a dystopia that chronicles the hubris, downfall, and damnation of a highly placed functionary responsible for determining who will live or die according to their facial structure.

Now in one volume: The complete historical romance saga-from the Scottish Highlands to the Court of Versailles-by an international-bestselling author. The Macdonald Romances collection brings together two Scottish tales of passion, intrigue, and love by Evelyn Anthony. Clandara: It's unthinkable-but beautiful, headstrong Katharine Fraser has fallen in love with the eldest son of her father's longtime enemy. Notorious nobleman James Macdonald of Dundrenan is ready to sacrifice all for the woman he loves.

A young girl follows Joan of Arc into battle in this gripping historical novel. Having grown up in the quiet French village of Domremy, eleven-year-old Gabrielle can't resist the promise of experiencing something new. So when her friend Jeannette d'Arc claims to have been chosen by God to restore the French king to the throne and end the war that has raged too long, Gabrielle joins her on her crusade. Disguised as a boy, young Gabrielle uses her skills as a healer to help those fighting for the cause.