National Network for Equitable Library Service

Ha Jin's masterful new novel casts a searchlight into a forgotten corner of modern history, the experience of Chinese soldiers held in U.S. POW camps during the Korean War. In 1951 Yu Yuan, a scholarly and self-effacing clerical officer in Mao's "volunteer" army, is taken prisoner south of the 38th Parallel. Because he speaks English, he soon becomes an intermediary between his compatriots and their American captors.

An odyssey through the mind and memory of a washed-up writer, from one of Europe’s most provocative novelists, Nobel Prize winner Peter Handke. Mysteriously summoned to a houseboat on the Morava River, a few friends, associates, and collaborators of an old writer listen as he tells a story that will last until dawn: the tale of the once well-known writer’s recent odyssey across Europe. As his story unfolds, it visits places that represent stages of the narrator’s and the continent’s past, many now lost or irrecoverably changed through war, death, and the subtler erosions of time.

A family epic blending mystery and romance, set in the luxurious trappings of today's London and the turbulent economies of Eastern Europe.

Telling of the fascinating true story in history of the Tobacco Wars, in Kentucky, through the eyes of the actual participants.

The offices, penthouses, and suburban chateaux of New York are the setting for Louis Auchincloss's The Dark Lady. Spanning three decades from the 1930s to the McCarthy era, the novel chronicles a powerful woman's rise and the human toll it exacts. In a world where birth and style count nearly as much as wealth, Elesina Dart is supremely equipped to star. Lovely, well-born, bright, even moderately talented as an actress, Elesina seems perversely bent on canceling out these advantages.

Half the folks in America love reading the gunslinging tales of Granite Westwind. But nobody knows the real story behind the legend: Granite Westwind is a woman. True McCormick grew up wild and free among the Texas Rangers and Harvey Girls of the untamed West. Now she’s a famous published author, writing Wild West adventures under the name "Granite Westwind." But when her publisher wants to send Granite Westwind on tour, she has two choices. She can 'fess up to her true identity, or hire someone to play the part of the lightning-fast gunslinger.

Touted as one of Korea's most important works of fiction, Three Generations (published in 1931 as a serial in Chosun Ilbo) charts the tensions in the Jo family in 1930s Japanese occupied Seoul. Yom's keenly observant eye reveals family tensions with profound insight. Delving deeply into each character's history and beliefs, he illuminates the diverse pressures and impulses driving each.

America and the catastrophic world of twentieth-century war, mass murder, and horror are the backdrop of this story of Annie Gianfala, a young woman who finds herself cast adrift in Hollywood with World War II looming. Defending herself with despairing stubbornness against personal catastrophe, she is able to save her life and escape. "Enormously touching and wholly believable." -Washington Post Book World.

In a stunning work of feminist historical fiction for readers who loved Dawn Tripp's Georgia and Whitney Scharer's The Age of Light, Jude Berman brings painter Angelica Kauffman to life. Accused of dressing as a boy to study in the prestigious galleries of eighteenth-century Italy, child prodigy Angelica Kauffman has set high goals for herself. She is determined to become a history painter, a career off-limits to women. To ensure her success, she has vowed never to marry.

This third installment in the Chronicles of Arundel is set during the War of 1812. The Lively Lady follows the fortunes of Richard Nason, an American sailing master and privateer who is captured and imprisoned by the British.