Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her... (more)

Time Quintet: Book 1

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L'Engle

Rediscover one of the most beloved children's books of all time: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle: Meg Murray, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their mother are having a midnight snack on a dark and stormy night when an unearthly stranger appears at their door. He claims to have been blown off course, and goes on to tell them that there is such a thing as a "tesseract," which, if you didn't know,... (more)

Southern Vampire Mysteries: Book 1

Dead Until Dark

by Charlaine Harris

Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. Until the vampire of her dreams walks into her life-and one of her coworkers checks out.... Maybe having a vampire for a boyfriend isn't such a bright idea. A fun, fast, funny, and wonderfully intriguing blend of vampire and mystery that's hard to put down, and should not be missed. (Susan Sizemore) Praise for Charlaine Harris: ... (more)

The Bonesetter's Daughter

by Amy Tan

““As compelling as Tan’s first bestseller, The Joy Luck Club. . . No one writes about mothers and daughters with more empathy than Amy Tan.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer “<An> absorbing tale of the mother-daughter bond . . . this book sing<s> with emotion and insight.” –People Ruth Young and her widowed mother, LuLing, have always had a tumultuous relationship. Now, before she succumbs to... (more)

On Beauty

by Zadie Smith

Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for fiction and from the celebrated author of White Teeth comes another bestselling masterwork Having hit bestseller lists from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle , this wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, ... (more)

The Kitchen God's Wife

by Amy Tan

With the same narrative skills and evocative powers that made her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, a national bestseller, Tan now tells the story of Winnie Louie, an aging Chinese woman unfolding a life's worth of secrets to her suspicious, Americanized daughter.

Anne Of Green Gables: Book 1

Anne of Green Gables

by L. M. Montgomery

Anne Shirley was adopted by Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert who wanted to adopt a boy, but by accident recieved a girl. Anne is a very talkative and energetic girl who is always positive and optimistic. Anne gets into a lot of problems with her behavior because she talks a lot and she is very outspoken. Anne meets a girl named Diana Barry. Diana and she become very good close friends who are hard to separate. ... (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 Vampire Chronicles: Book 2

The Vampire Lestat

by Anne Rice

After the spectacular debut of Interview with the Vampire in 1976, Anne Rice put aside her vampires to explore other literary interests--Italian castrati in Cry to Heaven and the Free People of Color in The Feast of All Saints . But Lestat, the mischievous creator of Louis in Interview , finally emerged to tell his own story in the 1985 sequel, The Vampire Lestat . As with the first book in the... (more)

The Left Hand of Darkness

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin's award-winning, groundbreaking science fiction classic takes us to the world of Winter, and introduces us to its inhabitants, the Gethenians-whose society is not based on gender roles.

Wide Sargasso Sea

by Jean Rhys

The fortieth anniversary reissue of the best-selling "tour de force" (Walter Allen, New York Times Book Review ). Jean Rhys's reputation was made upon the publication of this passionate and heartbreaking novel, in which she brings into the light one of fiction's most mysterious characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. A sensual and protected young woman, Antoinette Cosway... (more)

Sula

by Toni Morrison

Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies. In this brilliantly imagined novel, Toni Morrison tells the story of Nel Wright and Sula Peace, who meet as children in the small town of Medallion, Ohio. Their devotion is fierce enough to withstand bullies and the burden of a dreadful secret. It endures even after Nel has grown up to be a pillar of the black community and... (more)

The House of Mirth

by Edith Wharton

From the esteemed author of The Age of Innocence--a black comedy about vast wealth and a woman who can define herself only through the perceptions of others. Lily Bart's quest to find a husband who can satisfy her cravings for endless admiration and all the trappings of the rich comes to a scandalous end when she is accused of being a wealthy man's mistress. (Literature/Classics)

Middlemarch

by George Eliot

Vast and crowded, rich in irony and suspense, Middlemarch is richer still in character, with two of the era's most enduring characters, Dorothea Brooke, trapped in a loveless marriage, and Lydgate, an ambitious young doctor.

Fledgling: A Novel

by Octavia E. Butler

"Octavia E. Butler is one of the finest voices in fiction--period. . . . A master storyteller, Butler casts an unflinching eye on racism, sexism, poverty, and ignorance and lets the reader see the terror and beauty of human nature."- The Washington Post Book World "Readers familiar with . . . Parable of the Sower and Bloodchild will recall that <Butler> never asks easy questions or settles for easy... (more)

Possession: A Romance (Vintage International)

Possession: A Romance (Vintage International)

by A. S. Byatt

Actual Book Cover May Vary -- There are two covers available and orders are filled at random. An exhilarating novel of wit and romance, an intellectual mystery, and a triumphant love story. This tale of a pair of young scholars researching the lives of two Victorian poets became a huge bookseller favorite, and then on to national bestellerdom.

Little House: Book 2

Little House on the Prairie

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The adventures continue for Laura Ingalls and her family as they leave their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin and set out for Kansas. They travel for many days in their covered wagon until they find the best spot to build their little house on the prairie. Soon they are planting and plowing, hunting wild ducks and turkeys, and gathering grass for their cows. Sometimes pioneer life is hard, but Laura and... (more)

Oryx and Crake

by Margaret Atwood

With the same stunning blend of prophecy and social satire she brought to her classic The Handmaid’s Tale , Margaret Atwood gives us a keenly prescient novel about the future of humanity—and its present. Humanity here equals Snowman, and in Snowman’s recollections Atwood re-creates a time much like our own, when a boy named Jimmy loved an elusive, damaged girl called Oryx and a sardonic genius called Crake.... (more)

Little House: Book 6

The Long Winter

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family continue as Pa, Ma, Laura, Mary, Carrie, and little Grace bravely face the hard winter of 1880-81 in their little house in the Dakota Territory. Blizzards cover the little town with snow, cutting off all supplies from the outside. Soon there is almost no food left. so voting Almanzo Wilder and a friend make a dangerous trip across the prairie to find some wheat.... (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

Shelfari Book Activity

Browse Subjects: women writers

Top Books

by Betty Smith

by Madeleine L'Engle

by Charlaine Harris

by Amy Tan

by Zadie Smith

by Amy Tan

by L. M. Montgomery

by Barbara Kingsolver

by Anne Rice

by Ursula K. Le Guin

by Jean Rhys

by Toni Morrison

by Edith Wharton

by George Eliot

by Octavia E. Butler

by A. S. Byatt

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

by Margaret Atwood

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

by J. K. Rowling