Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Pride of Family: Four Generations of American Women of Color (Harlem Moon Classics)

Pride of Family: Four Generations of American Women of Color (Harlem Moon Classics)

by Carole Ione

“From the moment I read the words <my great-grandmother> Frances Anne Rollin wrote in Boston on January 1, 1868—“The year renews its birth today with all its hopes and sorrows”—she became my beacon, the foremother who would finally share with me our collective past . . . —From the Preface Originally published to rave reviews, Pride of Family is the dazzling true story of an upper middle-class African... (more)

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

by Cameron Crowe, Cameron Crowe

Simple Soirees: Seasonal Menus for Sensational Dinner Parties

Simple Soirees: Seasonal Menus for Sensational Dinner Parties

by Peggy Knickerbocker

Peggy Knickerbocker lives in two of the greatest food cities in the world, Paris and San Francisco, and she loves to give dinner parties wherever she is. In Simple Soirées: Seasonal Menus for Sensational Dinner Parties, the food journalist, former caterer, and restaurateur shares her passion, her welcoming spirit, and her secrets for creating a memorable party, whether it's a romantic dinner for two, a birthday... (more)

The Favourite Game

by Leonard Cohen

In this unforgettable novel, Leonard Cohen boldly etches the youth and early manhood of Lawrence Breavman, only son of an old Jewish family in Montreal. Life for Breavman is made up of dazzling colour – a series of motion pictures fed through a high-speed projector: the half-understood death of his father; the adult games of love and war, with their infinite capacity for fantasy and cruelty; his secret experiments... (more)

Space Between the Stars

by Deborah Santana

Deborah Santana is best known for her marriage to music icon Carlos Santana–a thirty-year bond that endures to this day. But as a girl growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s, daughter of a white mother and a black father–the legendary blues guitarist Saunders King–her life was charged with its own drama long before she married. In this beautiful, haunting memoir, Deborah Santana shares for the first time her... (more)

Sweetwater: A Novel

by Roxana Robinson

In this brilliant, luminous novel, one of our finest realist writers gives us a story of surpassing depth and emotional power. Acclaimed for her lucid and compassionate exploration of the American family, Roxana Robinson sets her new work on familiar terrain—New York City and the Adirondacks—but with Sweetwater she transcends the particulars of the domestic sphere with a broader, more encompassing vision. In... (more)

Breathing Water

by T. Greenwood

Effie Greer watches the final days of summer play out from her grandparents' home in Lake Gormlaith, Vermont, with her boyfriend, Max. Despite the idyllic setting, Effie is hiding a secret. With a heated temper and shattered past, Max is headed toward self-destruction, and Effie, unwilling to let go, is close behind. Slowly, Effie begins to gain the strength necessary to leave the suffocating relationship. But on... (more)

Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights

by Susan Straight

As his friends embrace California's street life, Darnell Tucker, a young black firefighter and handyman, tries to support his fledgling family and keep himself honest, even while he finds himself drawn to the forces of destruction. Reprint.

Always Wear Joy: My Mother Bold and Beautiful

Always Wear Joy: My Mother Bold and Beautiful

by Susan Fales-Hill

From an inside peek at the inner workings of Hollywood to the backstage drama of Broadway, from a poignant look at the black upper class to an honest look at the WASP elite, this elegantly wrought memoir of an extraordinary family has something for everyone. Growing up with a black Auntie Mame-like mother (who performed with the likes of Lena Horne) and an Anglo sea-faring father, Susan Fales-Hill moved... (more)

The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up

The Mailroom: Hollywood History from the Bottom Up

by David Rensin

It’s like a plot from a Hollywood potboiler: start out in the mailroom, end up a mogul. But for many, it happens to be true. Some of the biggest names in entertainment—including David Geffen, Barry Diller, and Michael Ovitz— started their dazzling careers in the lowly mailroom. Based on more than two hundred interviews, David Rensin unfolds the never-before-told history of an American institution—in the voices of... (more)

Undressing the Moon

by T. Greenwood

Piper Kincaid has never been able to forget the summer she turned fourteen—or understand its consequences. At thirty and diagnosed with breast cancer, Piper is drawn back to that time and filled with regret. As she attempts to reassemble the fragments of her history, what emerges is the kaleidoscopic portrait of a young woman whose indefatigable spirit prevails, despite shattered dreams. An evocative, richly-told... (more)

Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?: The Truth About Female Power in Hollywood

Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?: The Truth About Female Power in Hollywood

by Rachel Abramowitz

"Women and power-perhaps no other confluence of subjects has launched as many myths, or stirred as much gossip." Eight years ago, a remarkably talented reporter named Rachel Abramowitz began interviewing the women of Hollywood to, in her words, "puncture the mythology and to circumvent the silence" of this rarefied world. At the time, women directors, agents, producers and studio executives made up only a tiny... (more)

Writers Dreaming -Naomi Epel

Writers Dreaming -

by Naomi Epel

Nearer Than the Sky

by T. Greenwood

In those days, there were no words to describe the nature of my mother's tales. No diagnosis for her tendency toward fiction. No names for women who make accidents happen to their children, no terms for imaginary heroes. And so we listened to my mother's stories in silence and tried to believe.Indie Brown is a woman haunted by a childhood she'd rather forget. As an adult, Indie has moved far away from her parents... (more)

Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time

by Rob Sheffield

What Is love? Great minds have been grappling with this question throughout the ages, and in the modern era, they have come up with many different answers. According to Western philosopher Pat Benatar, love is a battlefield. Her paisan Frank Sinatra would add the corollary that love is a tender trap. Love hurts. Love stinks. Love bites, love bleeds, love is the drug. The troubadours of our times agree: They want... (more)

Does Your House Have Lions ?

by Sonia Sanchez

Nominated for the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry Recommended Reading from Emerge An epic poem on kin estranged, the death of a brother from AIDS, and the possibility of reconciliation and love in the face of loss.

Sweet Water

by Christina Baker Kline

Both a Southern literary saga and a psychological thriller, this beautifully wrought novel recounts a daughter's search for the truth about her mother's death. "Potently evocative . . . It will grab readers from the first line."--Chattanooga News-Free Press.

Whiteness of Bones

by Susanna Moore

In her ravishing and moving second novel, the bestselling author of In the Cut tells the story of Mamie Clarke, who sets out to lose herself in New York City. Having only previously known the fragile, magical world of her childhood on the lush Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, Mamie leaves college to visit her sophisticated aunt in New York. With her beautiful and self-destructive younger sister Claire in tow, Mamie... (more)

The Writer's Desk

by Jill Krementz

Intimate, fascinating photos of famous writers at work, by the photographer who has raised author portraiture to an art form. These are rare glimpses into the mysterious, private world of the writer, putting readers closer to their favorite authors than they have ever been before. Introduction by John Updike. 58 photos.

White Shadow

by Ace Atkins

Tampa, Florida, 1955: a city pulsing with Sicilian and Cuban gangsters, cigar factories, sweet rum, and violence. The bludgeoning death of retired kingpin Charlie Wall shocks the city and sends cops and reporters and associates scrambling to discover the truth. When the old White Shadow ruled the city, plenty of his enemies tried-and failed-to kill him. Many are left wondering about the final hand of the old... (more)

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Top Books

by Carole Ione

by Cameron Crowe, Cameron Crowe

by Peggy Knickerbocker

by Leonard Cohen

by Deborah Santana

by Roxana Robinson

by T. Greenwood

by Susan Straight

by Susan Fales-Hill

by David Rensin

by T. Greenwood

by Rachel Abramowitz

by Naomi Epel

by T. Greenwood

by Rob Sheffield

by Sonia Sanchez

by Christina Baker Kline

by Susanna Moore

by Jill Krementz

by Ace Atkins