Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Jhumpa Lahiri's debut story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, took the literary world by storm when it won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Fans who flocked to her stories will be captivated by her best-selling first novel, now in paperback for the first time. The Namesake is a finely wrought, deeply moving family drama that illuminates this acclaimed author's signature themes: the immigrant experience, the clash of... (more)

The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

Forced from their home, the Joad family is lured to California to find work; instead they find disillusionment, exploitation, and hunger.

Holes

by Louis Sachar

Check out the Holes tour with Louis Sachar! Monday, October 20th, 7:00 p.m. Anderson’s Bookshop, Naperville, IL Tuesday, October 21st, 7:00 p.m., Barnes & Noble, Skokie, IL Wednesday, October 22nd, 7:00 p.m., Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop, Brookfield, WI Thursday, October 23rd, 7:00 p.m., Red Balloon Bookshop, St. Paul, MN Friday, October 24th, 7:00 p.m. Wayzata Community Church, Wayzata, MN Monday, October... (more)

The Truth About Forever

by Sarah Dessen

Sixteen-year-old Macy Queen is looking forward to a long, boring summer. Her boyfriend is going away. She’s stuck with a dull-asdishwater job at the library. And she’ll spend all of her free time studying for the SATs or grieving silently with her mother over her father’s recent unexpected death. But everything changes when Macy is corralled into helping out at one of her mother’s open house events, and she... (more)

The Good Earth

by Pearl S. Buck

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP A poignant tale about the life and labors of a Chinese farmer during the sweeping reign of the country¹s last emperor. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: • A concise introduction that gives readers important background information • A chronology of the author's life and work • A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical... (more)

Anne Of Green Gables: Book 1

Anne of Green Gables

by L. M. Montgomery

Anne Shirley was a special girl with an enormous imagination, an orphan girl who dreamed of the day when she could call herself Anne of Green Gables.

Skipping Christmas

by John Grisham

Luther and Nora Krank are fed up with the chaos of Christmas. The endless shopping lists, the frenzied dashes through the mall, the hassle of decorating the tree... where has all the joy gone? This year, celebrating seems like too much effort. With their only child off in Peru, they decide that just this once, they'll skip the holidays. They spend their Christmas budget on a Caribbean cruise set to sail on... (more)

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

by David Sedaris

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is a 2004 collection of 22 autobiographical essays by American humorist David Sedaris. The essays address the author's upbringing in Raleigh, North Carolina, his relationships with family members, and his work and life in New York City and France.

Number the Stars

by Lois Lowry

Ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen and her best friend Ellen Rosen often think of life before the war. It's now 1943 and their life in Copenhagen is filled with school, food shortages, and the Nazi soldiers marching through town. When the Jews of Denmark are "relocated". Ellen moves in with the Johansens and pretends to be one of the family. Soon Annemarie is asked to go on a dangerous mission to save Ellen's life.... (more)

Love You Forever

by Robert Munsch, Robert Munsch

A young woman holds her newborn son And looks at him lovingly. Softly she sings to him: "I'll love you forever I'll like you for always As long as I'm living My baby you'll be" So begins the story that has touched the hearts of millions of Americans. Since publication in l986, "Love You Forever" has sold more than 15 million copies in paperback and the regular hardcover edition (as well as hundreds... (more)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Book 1

The Lightning Thief

by Rick Riordan

There is no such twelve-year-old boy as Perseus 'Percy' Jackson. The Greek gods are nothing more than old myths. They certainly never have children with mortals in the 21st century, nor is there any such place as Half Blood Hill, a summer camp for demigods on eastern Long Island. Percy never met a satyr or a daughter of Athena. They most emphatically did not take a quest together across the United States to reach... (more)

TheTail of Emily Windsnap

The Tail of Emily Windsnap

by Liz Kessler

"Liz Kessler makes a splash with this tightly written, highly imaginative debut." — FAMILYFUN For as long as she can remember, twelve-year-old Emily Windsnap has lived on a boat. And, oddly enough, for just as long, her mother has seemed anxious to keep her away from the water. But when Mom finally agrees to let her take swimming lessons, Emily makes a startling discovery - about her own identity, the mysterious... (more)

The Time Traveler's Wife

by Audrey Niffenegger

A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's... (more)

Maximum Ride: Book 1

The Angel Experiment

by James Patterson

In James Patterson's blockbuster series, fourteen-year-old Maximum Ride, better known as Max, knows what it's like to soar above the world. She and all the members of the "flock"--Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman and Angel--are just like ordinary kids--only they have wings and can fly. It may seem like a dream come true to some, but their lives can morph into a living nightmare at any time...like when Angel, the youngest... (more)

Ida B

...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World

by Katherine Hannigan

Who is Ida B. Applewood? She is a fourth grader like no other, living a life like no other, with a voice like no other, and her story will resonate long after you have put this book down. How does Ida B cope when outside forces—life, really—attempt to derail her and her family and her future? She enters her Black Period, and it is not pretty. But then, with the help of a patient teacher, a loyal cat and dog, her... (more)

Inkworld Trilogy: Book 3

Inkdeath

by Cornelia Funke

The Adderhead--his immortality bound in a book by Meggie's father, Mo--has ordered his henchmen to plunder the villages. The peasants' only defense is a band of outlaws led by the Bluejay--Mo's fictitious double, whose identity he has reluctantly adopted. But the Book of Immortality is unraveling, and the Adderhead again fears the White Women of Death. To bring the renegade Bluejay back to repair the book, the... (more)

A Crooked Kind of Perfect

by Linda Urban

Ten-year-old Zoe Elias has perfect piano dreams. She can practically feel the keys under her flying fingers; she can hear the audience's applause. All she needs is a baby grand so she can start her lessons, and then she'll be well on her way to Carnegie Hall. But when Dad ventures to the music store and ends up with a wheezy organ instead of a piano, Zoe's dreams hit a sour note. Learning the organ... (more)

Harry Potter: Book 1

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

by J. K. Rowling

A special library binding for the Harry Potter series

The Corrections: A Novel

by Jonathan Franzen

After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children are all making catastrophes of their own lives. Enid however, has her heart set on one last family Christmas.

Franny and Zooey

by J. D. Salinger

Franny and Zooey, a sister and brother both in their 20s, are the two youngest members of the Glass family, which was a frequent focus of Salinger's writings. The novel takes place over a long weekend in November 1955.

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by Jhumpa Lahiri, Mira Nair