National Network for Equitable Library Service

This is the first complete English-language translation of a classic of Yiddish literature, one of the great comic novels of the 20th century. The Zelmenyaners describes the travails of a Jewish family in Minsk that is torn asunder by the new Soviet reality. Four generations are depicted in riveting and often uproarious detail as they face the profound changes brought on by the demands of the Soviet regime and its collectivist, radical secularism.

In 1812, when rugged English soldier Gabriel Forrester learns he has inherited a Scottish estate, he resists giving up the battlefield--until he meets raven-eyed Fiona Blackstock. But Fiona, like any good Highlander, despises the English. A battle of wills ensues--or is it a battle of passion?

When Lilliet Berne is finally offered an original role at the Paris Opera, she realizes with alarm that it's based on a hidden piece of her past. As she searches for clues, she recalls her life as an orphan who went to Europe and was swept up into the world of Second Empire Paris.

The young Mary Cassatt never thought moving to Paris after the Civil War to be an artist was going to be easy, but when, after a decade of work, her submission to the Paris Salon is rejected, her fierce determination wavers. Then she meets Edgar Degas, and her life changes forever.

Third Sister in the Tao family, Ailin has watched her two older sisters go through the painful process of having their feet bound. In China in 1911, all the women of good families follow this ancient tradition. But Ailin loves to run away from her governess and play games with her male cousins. Knowing she will never run again once her feet are bound, Ailin rebels and refuses to follow this torturous tradition. As a result, however, the family of her intended husband breaks their marriage agreement.

Set during World War II, two cousins face family secrets and community violence aimed at a refugee from Nazi Germany, raising questions about mob mentality, creativity and survival.

Charlotte Parkhurst was raised in an orphanage for boys, which suited her just fine. She didn't like playing with dolls, she could hold her own in a fight, and she loved to work in the stable. Charlotte had a special way with horses and wanted to spend her life training and riding them on a ranch of her own. The problem was, as a girl in the mid-1800s, Charlotte was expected to live a much different life--one without the freedoms she dreamed of. But Charlotte was smart and determined, and she figured out a way to live her life the way she wanted.

Omakayas and her family live on the land her people call the Island of the Golden-Breasted Woodpecker. Although the "chimookoman," white people, encroach more and more on their land, life continues much as it always has: every summer they build a new birchbark house; every fall they go to ricing camp to harvest and feast; they move to the cedar log house before the first snows arrive; and they celebrate the end of the long, cold winters at maple-sugaring camp.

Bo Mason, his wife, and two boys live a transient life of poverty, drifting from place to place, seeking a living. The conflict between the hardscrabble existence and Bo's pursuit of the American dream gives the book great resonance and power. 

Drawing on contemporary accounts, period photographs, dime novels and his own fund of empathy and imagination, Michael Ondaatje traces Billy the Kid's passage across the blasted landscape of 1880s New Mexico and the collective unconscious of his country.