Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Once again Jean M. Auel opens the door of a time long past to reveal an age of wonder and danger at the dawn of the modern human race. With all the consummate storytelling artistry and vivid authenticity she brought to The Clan of the Cave Bear and its sequel, The Valley of Horses , Jean M. Auel continues the breathtaking epic journey of the woman called Ayla. Riding Whinney with Jondalar, the man she... (more)

Poet: Book 1

The Poet

by Michael Connelly

Jack McEvoy is a Denver crime reporter with the stickiest assignment of his career.His twin brother, homicide detective Sean McEvoy, was found dead in his car from a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head--an Edgar Allen Poe quote smeared on the windshield.Jack is going to write the story.The problem is that Jack doesn't believe that his brother killed himself, and the more information he uncovers, the more it... (more)

A River Runs through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition

A River Runs through It and Other Stories, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition

by Norman MacLean, Joel Snyder, Barry Moser

Just as Norman Maclean writes at the end of "A River Runs through It" that he is "haunted by waters," so have readers been haunted by his novella. A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It and Other Stories now celebrates its... (more)

Lives of the Monster Dogs : A Novel

by Kirsten Bakis

A postmodern Mary Shelley, taking the parable of Frankenstein's monster several giant steps farther, might have written this fable of a novel about a tragic race of monster dogs--in this case, genetically and biomechanically engineered dogs (of several major breeds). Created by a German mad scientist in the 19th century, the monster dogs possess human intelligence, speak human language, have prosthetic humanlike... (more)

Hocus Pocus

by Kurt Vonnegut

This novel tells the story of a devilish pair of twins whose enormous intellect is hidden behind a facade of idiocy.

The Once and Future King

by T. H. White

A novel about the court of King Arthur, which was the basis for the movie "Camelot".

As I Lay Dying

by William Faulkner

As I Lay Dying is the harrowing, darkly comic tale of the Bundren family's trek across Mississippi to bury Addie, their wife and mother, as told by each of the family members--including Addie herself.

The Library Policeman: Three Past Midnight (Four Past Midnight)

The Library Policeman: Three Past Midnight (Four Past Midnight)

by Stephen King, Ken Howard

In Junction City, Iowa, a middle-aged businessman who returns his overdue library books is faced with a malevolent monster of a librarian. 6 cassettes.

Quitters, Inc.

by Stephen King, Eric Roberts

Read by Eric Roberts Dick Morrison's life has become a nightmare of addictions, filling his days with overeating, overworking, and smoking way too much. When an old friend tells him about a surefire way to quit, he's more than willing to give it a shot. But what Dick doesn?t know is that Quitters, Inc. demands a high price from anyone who strays from their rigid rules?like a few volts of electricity for the... (more)

The Man in the Black Suit : 4 Dark Tales

The Man in the Black Suit : 4 Dark Tales

by Stephen King

THE MAN IN THE BLACK SUIT FOUR UNABRIDGED DARK TALES FROM STEPHEN KING The Man in the Black Suit Read by John Cullum "...the face of the man in the black suit grows ever clearer, ever closer, and I remember every word he said. I don't want to think of him, but I can't help it, and sometimes at night my old heart beats so hard and so fast I think it will tear itself right clear of my chest." A... (more)

Into Thin Air

A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster

by Jon Krakauer

A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more--including Krakauer's--in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the... (more)

Heart of Darkness

by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was first published in 1899 in serial form in London’s Blackwood’s Magazine. Loosely based on Conrad’s firsthand experience of rescuing a company agent from a remote station in the heart of the Congo, the novel is considered a literary bridge between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With its modern literary approach to questions such as the ambiguous nature of good and... (more)

The King of Torts

by John Grisham

The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week. As he digs into the background of... (more)

A Canticle for Leibowitz

by Walter M. Miller

Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered one of the most accomplished, powerful, and enduring classics of modern speculative fiction, Walter M. Miller, Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz is a true landmark of twentieth-century literature -- a chilling and still-provocative look at a post-apocalyptic future. In a nightmarish ruined world slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in... (more)

In the Lake of the Woods

by Tim O'Brien

First published to critical acclaim by Houghton Mifflin, Tim O’Brien’s celebrated classic In the Lake of the Woods now returns to the house in a gorgeous new Mariner paperback edition. This riveting novel of love and mystery from the author of The Things They Carried examines the lasting impact of the twentieth century’s legacy of violence and warfare, both at home and abroad. When long-hidden secrets about the... (more)

The Secret History (Vintage Contemporaries)

The Secret History (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Donna Tartt

Truly deserving of the accolade a modern classic, Donna Tartt’s novel is a remarkable achievement—both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful. Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond... (more)

The Poisonwood Bible

by Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it--from garden seeds to Scripture--is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic... (more)

The Liars' Club: A Memoir

by Mary Karr

When it was published in 1995, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, as well as bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at twelve, and an... (more)

A Widow for One Year

by John Irving

Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character--a "difficult" woman. By no means is she conventionally "nice," but she will never be forgotten. Ruth's story is told in three parts, each focusing on a crucial time in her life. When we first meet her--on Long Island, in the summer of 1958--Ruth is only four. The second window into Ruth's life opens in the fall of 1990, when Ruth is an unmarried woman... (more)

The English Patient

by Michael Ondaatje

The Booker Prize-winning novel, now a critically acclaimed major motion picture, starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe and Kristin Scott Thomas. With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the... (more)

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by Jean M. Auel