Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Joyce Carol Oates's epic novel of an American family in the 1950's probes the tender division between the permissible and the forbidden, between ordinary life and the secret places of the heart. Set in an industrial, working-class town in upstate New York, this book chronicles the frustrating marriage of parents Lyle and Hannah; the idealistic political journey of son Warren, and the passionate, obsessive... (more)

What Was She Thinking?

Notes on a Scandal

by Zoe Heller

Shortlisted for The Booker Prize Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has known none but the most solitary of lifestyles until Sheba Hart joins St. George's. Starting by sharing lunches, then family events, the new art teacher draws Barbara into a touching confidence. Unbeknownst to their colleagues, however, another relationship blossoms meanwhile: Sheba has begun a passionate affair with an underage male student.... (more)

The Kiss

by Kathryn Harrison

We meet at airports. We meet in cities where we've never been before. We meet where no one will recognize us. A "man of God" is how someone described my father to me. I don 't remember who. Not my mother. I'm young enough that I take the words to mean he has magical properties and that he is good, better than other people. With his hand under my chin, my father draws my face toward his own. He touches his lips... (more)

Handyman

by Claire Thompson

Handsome, sexy and gay, Will Spencer used and discarded lovers as easily as he made his Wall Street stock trades. He was used to taking whatand whohe wanted. Jack Crawford, a recently widowed handyman, never thought of himself as gay. Frightened by an erotic encounter years before, Jack had never embraced his deepest sexual longings. In an unlikely pairing, Will and Jack explore an incendiary relationship,... (more)

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You Must Remember This

by Joyce Carol Oates