Jane Smiley

Seventh-grader Abby Lovitt grows up on her family's California horse ranch in the 1960s, learning to train the horses her father sells and trying to reconcile her strict religious upbringing with her own ideas about life.

Elegantly repackaged and reissued to coincide with the release of Smiley's latest novel, "At Paradise Gate" is a brilliant novel that delves into the domestic drama of an ordinary American family. While Ike Robinson lays dying, his wife is forced to defend their marriage against an ill-considered, albeit loving invasion by their three middle-aged daughters.

In "Ordinary Love" Rachel contemplates the last two decades and the remarkable fact of her children's survival. In "Good will" Bob and his life style are no bulwark against the effect his isolation begins to have on his family.

"The orphan Alfgrimur has spent an idyllic childhood sheltered in the simple turf cottage of a generous and eccentric elderly couple. Alfgrimur dreams only of becoming a fisherman like his adoptive grandfather, until he meets Iceland's biggest celebrity. The opera singer Gardar Holm's international fame is a source of tremendous pride to tiny, insecure Iceland, though no one there has ever heard him sing. A mysterious man who mostly avoids his homeland...

On its 150th anniversary, four acclaimed authors offer personal reflections on their lifelong engagement with Louisa May Alcott's classic novel of girlhood and growing up. For the 150th anniversary of the publication of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Kate Bolick, Jenny Zhang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Jane Smiley explore their strong lifelong personal engagement with Alcott's novel--what it has meant to them and why it still matters. Each takes...