National Network for Equitable Library Service

The first complete collection of Shakespeare's plays was almost never printed. Only the machinations of several wealthy donors and publishers brought it into existence, and even then it was practically unnoticed. Many of the original 750 copies of Shakespeare's First Folio were gone before the turn of the 18th century. But a hundred years later, the greatest plays in English were rediscovered, revamped, and re-publicized, beginning the long and surprising process that secured the legacy of Shakespeare.

In this brilliant debut novel by Helen Weinzweig, the award-winning author of Basic Black With Pearls, a wedding reception becomes a gothic dream in which the bride, groom, family, and guests struggle with private obsessions, guilty fantasies of sex and power, and the constant failure of love. The bride is not all she seems and there is something ambiguous about the groom - and about everyone else at the surreal and strangely moving wedding. Like a piece of music, Passing Ceremony is composed of brief, suggestive fragments that grow into a tightly integrated whole.

"I live here alone in a garage, together with a laptop computer and an old hand grenade. It's pretty cozy." Herra BjOrnsson is at the beginning of the end of her life. Oh, she has two weeks left, maybe three-she has booked her cremation appointment, at a crispy 1,000 degrees, so it won't be long. But until then she has her cigarettes, a World War II-era weapon, some Facebook friends, and her memories to sustain her. And what a life this remarkable eighty-year-old narrator has led.

"Jessica Keener has written a gorgeous, lyrical, and sweeping novel about the tangled web of past and present. Suspenseful, perceptive, fast-paced, and ultimately restorative." -Susan Henderson, author of Up from the Blue Budapest: gorgeous city of secrets, with ties to a shadowy, bloody past. It is to this enigmatic European capital that a young American couple, Annie and Will, move from Boston with their infant son shortly after the fall of the Communist regime.

A dazzling debut about family, home, and grief, The Floating World takes readers into the heart of Hurricane Katrina with the story of the Boisdores, whose roots stretch back nearly to the foundation of New Orleans. Though the storm is fast approaching the Louisiana coast, Cora, the family's fragile elder daughter, refuses to leave the city, forcing her parents, Joe Boisdore, an artist descended from a freed slave who became one of the city's preeminent furniture makers, and his white "Uptown" wife, Dr.

"Lauren Grodstein breaks your heart, then miraculously pieces it back together so it's bigger-and stronger-than before."-Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You How can a woman learn to let go of the people she loves the most' Karen Neulander, a successful New York political consultant and single mother, has always been fiercely protective of her son, Jacob, now six.

"A glorious treat awaits you at the literary table of Donia Bijan."-Adriana Trigiani Set against the backdrop of Iran's rich, turbulent history, this exquisite debut novel is a powerful story of food, family, and a bittersweet homecoming. When we first meet Noor, she is living in San Francisco, missing her beloved father, Zod, in Iran. Now, dragging her stubborn teenage daughter, Lily, with her, she returns to Tehran and to Cafe Leila, the restaurant her family has been running for three generations.

"...masterful use of language...Weiss' novel is a great suggestion for fans of the Big Stone Gap books, by Adriana Trigiani, and Mitford series, by Jan Karon."-Booklist, STARRED Review He's gonna be sorry he ever messed with me and Loretta Lynn Sadie Blue has been a wife for fifteen days. That's long enough to know she should have never hitched herself to Roy Tupkin, even with the baby. Sadie is desperate to make her own mark on the world, but in remote Appalachia, a ticket out of town is hard to come by, and hope often gets stomped out.

"A brilliant debut."-CHARLES BAXTER, author of The Soul Thief and There's Something I Want You to Do The suspense creeps in and takes hold in seven stories about troubled characters grappling with rare illnesses, menacing chance encounters, sexual awakening, impending natural disasters, and New Age cults. Within these pages, the everyday meets the uncanny as two high school friends go out for one unforgettable night. A boy, haunted by dreams of a catastrophic flood, becomes swept up in an encephalitis epidemic. A hypochondriac awaits her diagnosis at a Caribbean health resort.

A place: the Traymore Rooms, downtown Montreal, an old walk-up. Those who live there and drink at the nearby caf' form the heart of Traymorean society. Their number includes: Eggy, red-faced, West Virginian, a veteran of Korea; Eleanor R (not Eleanor Roosevelt); Dubois, French Canadian, optimist; Moonface, waitress-cum-Latin-scholar and sexpot inexpert; and, most recently, our hero Calhoun. A draft dodger and poetical type. For a time all is life-as-usual: Calhoun argues with Eggy and Dubois, eats Eleanor's cobblers, gossips of Moonface, muses on Virgil and the current President.