Lina is a fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. She's just like any other girl. Until one night in 1941, when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother are taken slowly north to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to dig for beets and fight for...

"Slip behind the Iron Curtain into a world of smoke, secrets, and lies in this stunning novel where someone is always listening and nothing is as it seems. Noah Keller has a pretty normal life, until one wild afternoon when his parents pick him up from school and head straight for the airport, telling him on the ride that his name isn't really Noah and he didn't really just turn eleven in March. And he can't even ask them why, not because of his Astonishing...

"Federico and Loureṅo are brothers. Their father is black, a famed forensic pathologist for the police; their mother is white. Federico--distant, angry, analytical--has light skin, which means he's always been able to avoid the worst of the racism Brazilian culture has to offer. He can "pass" as white, and yet, because of this, he has devoted his life to racial justice. Loureṅo, on the other hand, is dark-skinned, easygoing, and well-liked in...

Margaret Bragg does not own a single cookbook. She measures in "dabs" and "smidgens" and "tads" and "you know, hon, just some." She cannot be pinned down on how long to bake corn bread ("about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on the mysteries of your oven"). Her notion of farm-to-table is a flatbed truck. But she can tell you the secrets to perfect mashed potatoes, corn pudding, redeye gravy, pinto beans and hambone, stewed cabbage, short ribs, chicken...

"From the lighthouse sporting a huge wreath to the Christmas Stroll along its quaint streets, holidays on Nantucket are always magical. However, while the town might be aglow like a scene from Dickens tale, unfortunately for newly married island newcomer Nicole Somerset, Christmas means a dreaded visit from her step-daughter. Headstrong Kennedy brings with her a family of her own--husband Archer and adorable 3 year old son, Maddox--but Kennedy's yet...

"Pope Francis provides an enlightening new vision of the importance of the Virgin Mary in the Church and in our lives. 'Mary is thus the universal Mother who gives total attention, care, closeness to each son, to each daughter. In her we see in fact the heart of a woman that beats like that of God, a heart that beats for all, without distinction. She is truly the human face of God's infinite goodness.' So writes Pope Francis in Ave Maria. In this...

Saturday, October 10, 1998. Fielding Marshall is hiking on the Appalachian Trail. His beloved dog --a six-year-old golden retriever mix named Gonker -- bolts into the woods. Just like that, he has vanished. And Gonker has Addison's disease. If he's not found in twenty-three days, he will die. The search begins. Fielding and his father, John, are dispatched to the field. They have the family's other dog, Uli, in tow. Combing the trails, Fielding and...

Lindy Carmichael isn't feeling particularly joyful when she returns home to Wenatchee, Washington, for Christmas. The man she thought was 'the one' has cheated on her with her best friend and she feels completely devoid of creativity in her graphic-design job. Not even carollers or Christmas cookies can cheer her up - but Lindy's mother, Ellen, remembers an old tradition that might lift her daughter's spirits. Reading through a box of childhood letters...

"A sweeping yet intimate narrative about the last hundred years of turbulent European history, as seen through one of Mitteleuropa's greatest houses--and the lives of its occupants"-- When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador's residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the...