Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

In simple words and radiant collages, Debra Frasier celebrates the natural miracles of the earth and extends an exuberant welcome to each member of our human family. Accompanied by a detailed glossary explaining such natural phenomena as gravity, tides, and migration, this is an unforgettable book. “A book filled with reverence for the natural order of the world and the place of the individual in it.”--School... (more)

Cold Mountain

by Charles Frazier

In 1997, Charles Frazier’s debut novel Cold Mountain made publishing history when it sailed to the top of The New York Times best-seller list for sixty-one weeks, won numerous literary awards, including the National Book Award, and went on to sell over three million copies. Now, the beloved American epic returns, reissued by Grove Press to coincide with the publication of Frazier’s eagerly-anticipated second... (more)

The House of the Scorpion

by Nancy Farmer

Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium -- a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster... (more)

Quarantine

by Jim Crace

Winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year and a Booker finalist: a controversial novel of faith and mystery about a group of desert travellers and their encounter with Jesus Quarantine is Jim Crace's imaginative and powerful retelling of Christ's fabled 40-day fast in the desert. In Crace's account, Jesus travels to a cluster of arid caves where he crosses paths with a small group of exiles who are on a... (more)

SALARYMAN'S WIFE (REI SHIMURA, NO 1)

by Sujata Massey

Japanese-American Rei Shimura is a 27-year-old English teacher living in one of Tokyo's seediest neighborhoods. She doesn't make much money, but she wouldn't go back home to California even if she had a free ticket (which, thanks to her parents, she does.) Her independence is threatened however, when a getaway to an ancient castle town is marred by murder. Rei is the first to find the beautiful wife of a... (more)

Old Dog

by Teresa Cardenas

Perro Viejo was taken away from his mother at birth and has known no other life than that of servitude on a sugar plantation. His name, which means "Old Dog," was given to him by the plantation master because, like the bloodhounds that chased fugitive slaves, Perro Viejo is always searching for the scent of his long lost mother. The only thing that keeps him alive is the memory of Asunción, a beautiful girl he... (more)

Finding Nouf: A Novel

by Zoe Ferraris

Zoë Ferraris’s electrifying debut of taut psychological suspense offers an unprecedented window into Saudi Arabia and the lives of men and women there. When sixteen-year-old Nouf goes missing, along with a truck and her favorite camel, her prominent family calls on Nayir al-Sharqi, a desert guide, to lead a search party. Ten days later, just as Nayir is about to give up in frustration, her body is discovered by... (more)

The Black Riviera (Wesleyan Poetry)

by Mark Jarman

Bold narrative poems that recreate the past.

The Boat

by Nam Le

A stunningly inventive, deeply moving fiction debut: stories that take us from the slums of Colombia to the streets of Tehran; from New York City to Iowa City; from a tiny fishing village in Australia to a foundering vessel in the South China Sea, in a masterly display of literary virtuosity and feeling. In the magnificent opening story, “Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice,” a young... (more)

Wabi Sabi

by Mark Reibstein

Wabi Sabi, a little cat in Kyoto , Japan , had never thought much about her name until friends visiting from another land asked her owner what it meant. At last, the master Says, "That's hard to explain." And That is all she says. This unsatisfying answer sets Wabi Sabi on a journey to uncover the meaning of her name, and on the way discovers what wabi sabi is: a Japanese philosophy of seeing... (more)

The Seconds

by Linda Bierds

Scarcely more than a decade ago, Publishers Weekly wrote in its review of the work of a little-known poet, "This haunting, evocative showcase marks Linda Bierds as a poet to follow with anticipation." They could not have been more prescient. In the years since, Bierds has gone from strength to strength. "Bierds's poems occupy a brilliant geography of landscape and imagination, expressed as passion and... (more)

Human Dark with Sugar

by Brenda Shaughnessy

“Brenda Shaughnessy’s poems bristle with imperatives: ‘confuse me, spoon-feed me, stop the madness, decide.’ There are more direct orders in her first few pages than in six weeks of boot camp...Only Shaughnessy’s kidding. Or she is and she isn’t. If you just want to boss people around, you’re a control freak, but if you can joke about it, then your bossiness is leavened by a yeast that’s all too infrequent... (more)

Books for the Journey: A Guide to the World of Reading

Books for the Journey: A Guide to the World of Reading

by Pamela J. Fenner

Yikes! With 1,892,729 books out there, how do I pick the right ones? Start here with "Books for the Journey: A Guide to the World of Reading." Nearly 1,500 of the 'best books ever', selected by teachers, curriculum directors, librarians with help from high school students themselves are organized by category, marked for appropriate high school grade levels, and include a two to six line description of each... (more)

Liars Anonymous

by Louise Ure

“Hands On Emergency. This is Jessie. Is there an emergency in the vehicle?” Roadside Assistance Operator, Jessie Dancing, knows what it’s like to take a life, and she’s trying to put that memory behind her. But when the call comes in from real estate tycoon Darren Markson, she thinks she hears him being killed while she’s on the phone with him. This can’t be, but she knows the world of violence and death is... (more)

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays

Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays

by Eula Biss

EULA BISS EXPLORES RACIAL IDENTITY FROM THE HEART OF IOWA TO THE HALLS OF NEW YORK CITY'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS Where is America in terms of race? In a book that begins with a series of lynchings and ends with a series of apologies, Eula Biss explores race in America. Her response to the topic is informed by the experiences chronicled in these essays--teaching in a Harlem school on the morning of 9/11, reporting... (more)

Physics Foundation Double Award (GCSE Success Guides)

Physics Foundation Double Award (GCSE Success Guides)

Success Guides are powerful learning/revision tools designed to help students remember key information easier and better. The books present GCSE content in a new highly visual approach, using unique non-linear designs. Each topic is presented on a double page spread using: - Full size diagrams with integrated text - Spider diagrams - Mind Maps - Flow charts The books also contain GCSE-style questions for exam... (more)

SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW

by WILLIAM MAXWELL

Death of a Salesman : Text and Criticism (Viking Critical Library)

Death of a Salesman : Text and Criticism (Viking Critical Library)

by Arthur Miller

The tragedy of a typical American--a salesman who at the age of sixty-three is faced with what he cannot face; defeat and disillusionment.

Somewhere towards the end

by Diana Athill

An esteemed memoirist examines aging with the grace of Elegy for Iris and the wry irreverence of I Feel Bad About My Neck . Diana Athill is one of the great editors in British publishing. For more than five decades she edited the likes of V. S. Naipaul and Jean Rhys, for whom she was a confidante and caretaker. As a writer, Diana Athill has made her reputation for the frankness and precisely ... (more)

Diasporadic : poemsPatty Seyburn

Diasporadic : poems

by Patty Seyburn

The Notable Books Council of the Reference and User Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, selected Diasporadic for its significant contribution to the expansion of knowledge or for the pleasure it can provide to readers

Shelfari Book Activity

Browse Subjects: award

Top Books

by Debra Frasier