Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

by Maya Angelou

A phenomenal #1 bestseller that has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three years, this memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women, Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people--and the times--that touched her... (more)

The Agony and the Ecstasy

by Irving Stone

Fictional depiction of Michelangelo. Includes bibliography, glossary and a list of the artist's works.

Click Here (to find out how i survived seventh grade)

Click Here (to find out how i survived seventh grade)

by Denise Vega

magine if all your personal thoughts about crushes, fears, enemies, and even kissing practice ended up on the internet for everyone to read! That's what happens to Erin Swift when her secret blog lands on the school Web site. As if navigating the treacherous waters of seventh grade weren't enough! Writing with warm, knowing humor, first-time novelist Denise Vega perfectly captures life from a seventh grade girl's... (more)

A Dirty Job

by Christopher Moore

Charlie Asher is a pretty normal guy. A little hapless, somewhat neurotic, sort of a hypochondriac. He's what's known as a Beta Male: the kind of fellow who makes his way through life by being careful and constant -- you know, the one who's always there to pick up the pieces when the girl gets dumped by the bigger/taller/stronger Alpha Male. But Charlie's been lucky. He owns a building in the heart of San... (more)

The Stupidest Angel

A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

by Christopher Moore

'Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit. But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he's not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn't run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw... (more)

Suite Francaise

by Irene Nemirovsky

Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart.... (more)

The Pressured Child : Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life

The Pressured Child : Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life

by Teresa Barker, Michael Thompson

The push for students to excel at school and get into the best colleges has never been more intense. In this invaluable new book, the bestselling co-author of Raising Cain addresses America’s performance-driven obsession with the accomplishments of its kids–and provides a deeply humane response. “How was school?” These three words contain a world of desire on the part of parents to know what their children are... (more)

Returnable Girl

by Pamela Lowell

A young girl must choose between two mothers

The Shack

Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

by William P. Young

Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack... (more)

Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives

Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives

by Jim Sheeler

Based on his Pulitzer Prize-winning story, Jim Sheeler’s unprecedented look at the way our country honors its dead; Final Salute Is a stunning tribute to the brave troops who have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the families who continue to mourn them They are the troops that nobody wants to see, carrying a message that no military family ever wants to hear. It begins with a knock at the door.... (more)

Night Trilogy: Book 1

Night

by Elie Wiesel

In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night , a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers... (more)

Pride and Prejudice (Audio Education Study Guides)

Pride and Prejudice (Audio Education Study Guides)

by Jane Austen

Practical Demonkeeping

by Christopher Moore

Christopher Moore's demonically seductive storylines and zany, addictive brand of humor have earned him comparisons to Carl Hiaasen, Christopher Buckley, Douglas Adams, and other comic virtuosos. He's given us lovelorn vampires, marooned love goddesses, and addled sea beasts. Now discover his ingenious debut novel, in which we meet one of the most memorably mismatched pairs in the annals of literature. the... (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)

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!

by Fannie Flagg

She’s one of America’s fairest and funniest ladies. Actress and screenwriter, director and comedienne, Fannie Flagg is also a most accomplished and high-spirited author. Said Kirkus of her first book, Coming Attractions : “It’s subtitled ‘A wonderful novel’ and that’s exactly what it is.” Here is her second. Get ready, because it’s going to make you laugh (a lot), cry (a little), and care (forever). What is... (more)

The House of Sand and Fog

by Andre Dubus III

"Elegant and powerful...an unusual and volatile...literary thriller." -- Washington Post Book World In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy... (more)

A Fine Balance

by Rohinton Mistry

With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two... (more)

Family Matters

by Rohinton Mistry

Rohinton Mistry’s enthralling novel is at once a domestic drama and an intently observed portrait of present-day Bombay in all its vitality and corruption. At the age of seventy-nine, Nariman Vakeel, already suffering from Parkinson’s disease, breaks an ankle and finds himself wholly dependent on his family. His step-children, Coomy and Jal, have a spacious apartment (in the inaptly named Chateau Felicity), but... (more)

We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel (P.S.)

We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel (P.S.)

by Lionel Shriver

In this gripping novel of motherhood gone awry, Lionel Shriver approaches the tragedy of a high-school massacre from the point of view of the killer's mother.In letters written to the boy's father, mother Eva probes the upbringing of this more-than-difficult child and reveals herself to have been the reluctant mother of an unsavory son. As the schisms in her family unfold, we draw closer to an unexpected climax... (more)

Charlotte's Web

by E. B. White

What the book is about is friendship on earth, affection and protection, adventure and miracle, life and death, trust and treachery, pleasure and pain, and the passing of time. As a piece of work it is just about perfect, and just about magical in the way it is done. -- Eudora Welty, the New York Times Book Review These are the words in Charlotte's web, high in the barn. Her spiderweb tells of her... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: a must read!

by Maya Angelou

by Irving Stone

by Denise Vega

by Christopher Moore

A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

by Christopher Moore

by Irene Nemirovsky

by Teresa Barker, Michael Thompson

by Pamela Lowell

Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity

by William P. Young

by Jim Sheeler

by Elie Wiesel

by Jane Austen

by Christopher Moore

by Rick Riordan

by Fannie Flagg

by Andre Dubus III

by Rohinton Mistry

by Rohinton Mistry

by Lionel Shriver

by E. B. White