In Kansas, three families have coexisted not-so-peacefully for more than one hundred and fifty years: the Grelliers, the Fremantles, and the Schapens.

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books.

The City is inhabited by those who have departed Earth but are still remembered by the living. Meanwhile, on Earth, Laura Byrd leaves an Antarctic research station to set out across the ice. This 2006 novel alternates these two story lines to create a lyrical and haunting tale about love, loss, and the power of memory.

Part memoir, part meditation, The Cloister Walk is the movingly written and thought-provoking record of a married, Protestant woman's time spent in a community of men in a traditional Benedictine monastery in Minnesota.  This 1996 memoir is written by an award-winning poet.

James McBride grew up one of twelve siblings in the all-black housing projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn, the son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white. In her son's remarkable 1996 memoir, she tells in her own words the story of her past.