National Network for Equitable Library Service

A Japanese yuppie plunges into chaos after he discovers a snapshot depicting a unique crossbreed of sheep.

According to Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego, the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur on February 13, 2001, at 2:27 p.m. It will be the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience: Should it go on expanding indefinitely, or collapse and make another great big BANG' For its own cosmic reasons, it decides to back up a decade to 1991, giving the world a 10-year case of deja vu, making everybody and everything do exactly what they'd done during the past decade, for good or ill, a second time.

In a land where vicious dictators crush dreams and lives on a whim, Haitian people have only faith and hope to sustain them. Perhaps it is the faith that a tiny, leaky boat packed with refugees will successfulyly navigate the ocean and reach Florida. Or perhaps it is the macbre hope that a daughter will find her mother's body in a mass grave, so she can wrap it in a homemade patchwork quilt.

A young Kentucky miner grows up in the Appalachian Mountains, where he's torn between his family and the lure of the city.

Family is power. The Original Vampire family swore it to each other a thousand years ago. They pledged to remain together always and forever. But even when you're immortal, promises are hard to keep. Klaus, Elijah and Rebekah Mikaelson had won it all, only to lose it again by 1788. Control of New Orleans is split between the vampires and the werewolves, much to Klaus's displeasure. In a dangerous attempt to reclaim his home, Klaus decides to build a vampire army to take out the werewolves once and for all. If he can't have love, then he'll settle for power.

The three novels that make up this trilogy have long been recognized as masterpieces of 20th-century literature, and Galsworthy as one of its leading exponents. But don't let that be the reason you put off listening to this wonderful work. There are passion and lust in these pages, high art and low comedy, and unthinking violence that ride alongside ever-correct manners. Scandal, tragedy, despair, rape, accidental death, marriage, remarriage and a healthy leavening of births all unfold against a rolling backdrop of a world war.

After earning a graduate degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, Tracy Chevalier was immediately recognized for her literary talent. In Girl with a Pearl Earring, she recreates the 17th-century world of Johannes Vermeer. This haunting work of historical fiction received rave reviews in publications as diverse as The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The Christian Science Monitor. In 1664, sixteen-year-old Griet enters the Vermeer household as a servant. Daughter of a Delft tile maker, she has a natural eye for color and design.

Molloy is less a novel than a set of two monologues narrated by Molloy and his pursuer Moran. In the first section, while consumed with the search of his mother, Molloy lost everything. Moran takes over in the second half, describing his hunt for Molloy. Within this simple outline, spoken in the first person, is a remarkable story, raising the questions of being and aloneness that marks so much of Beckett's work, but is richly comic as well.

Here are twelve short stories by Anton Chekhov, one of the finest masters of what is acknowledged to be a difficult genre. There is the richly comic Oh! The Public, about a hassled ticket inspector, a wry look at morals and manners in The Chorus Girl, and the melancholic tale of a cab driver in Misery. Perhaps the finest of all is the novella In The Ravine, a minutely observed look at life in a village through the eyes of one family. All the characters come to life with their foibles, their strengths, and their hopes.

Through interviews with current elders from three regions of Nunavut, Ilagiinniq: Interviews on Inuit Family Values provides a wealth of information on traditional family life. Covering relationships between siblings, elders and grandchildren, uncles and aunts, husbands and wives, and in-laws, this book is an indespensible resource of information on how Inuit families traditionally lived, and how traditional ways can be implemented in the modern world.