Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

by Mark Twain

Mark Twain's classic novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , tells the story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious. Though some of the situations in Huckleberry Finn are... (more)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

by Mark Twain

Sparkling with mischief, jumping with youthful adventure, Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer is one of the most splendid re-creations of childhood in all of literature. It is a lighthearted romp, full of humor and warmth. It shares with its sequel, Huckleberry Finn , not only a set of unforgettable characters--Tom, Huck, Aunt Polly and others--but a profound understanding of humanity as well. Through such hilarious scenes... (more)

Enemy Women

by Paulette Jiles

For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family’s avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee. The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women’s prison. ... (more)

Finn: A Novel

by Jon Clinch

In this masterful debut by a major new voice in fiction, Jon Clinch takes us on a journey into the history and heart of one of American literature’s most brutal and mysterious figures: Huckleberry Finn’s father. The result is a deeply original tour de force that springs from Twain’s classic novel but takes on a fully realized life of its own. Finn sets a tragic figure loose in a landscape at once familiar and... (more)

In Broad Daylight

by Harry N. MacLean

FOR TEN YEARS, HE TERRORIZED THEM WITHOUT MERCY… Ken McElroy robbed, raped, burned, shot, and maimed the citizens of Skidmore, Missouri, without conscience or remorse. Again and again, the law had failed to stop him. UNTIL THEY TOOK JUSTICE INTO THEIR OWN HANDS. On July 10, 1981, Ken was shot to death on the main street of this small farming community. Forty-five people watched. No indictments were ever... (more)

The Edge of Town

by Dorothy Garlock

Julie Jones was certain life was passing her by. After her mother's death, she was left with the responsibility of taking care of her father and her five siblings. Then Julie's predictable existence is turned upside down when Evan Johnson, the mysterious, reputedly wealthy son of the town drunkard, begins to court her. But just as their romance blossoms, Evan's father is murdered and Evan is the prime suspect. And... (more)

The Story of Jonas

by Maurine F. Dahlberg

Jonas has lived all of his thirteen years on a farm in Missouri, and even though he hears whispers about freedom, he thinks he’ll never try to escape. He knows what happens to slaves who attempt to run away. Besides, Master William has promised to make Jonas his personal manservant, and Jonas thinks fine suits and special privileges sound like a dream. But this dream is put on hold when, in 1859, Master William’s... (more)

Bitter Harvest

by Ann Rule, Mary Beth Hurt

GIFTED WITH A BRILLIANT MIND, BLESSED WITH A BEAUTIFUL FAMILY -- AND CURSED WITH A DESTRUCTIVE MADNESS In this harrowing New York Times bestseller, Ann Rule is at her masterful best as she winnows horrific truths from the ashes of what seemed like paradise in Prairie Village, Kansas. Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother who seemed to epitomize the dreams of the American... (more)

The Twenty-Seventh City: A Novel (Bestselling Backlist)

The Twenty-Seventh City: A Novel (Bestselling Backlist)

by Jonathan Franzen

St. Louis, Missouri, is a quietly dying river city until it hires a new police chief: a charismatic young woman from Bombay, India, named S. Jammu. No sooner has Jammu been installed, though, than the city's leading citizens become embroiled in an all-pervasive political conspiracy. A classic of contemporary fiction, The Twenty-Seventh City shows us an ordinary metropolis turned inside out, and the American... (more)

Sharp Objects: A Novel

by Gillian Flynn

WICKED above her hipbone, GIRL across her heart Words are like a road map to reporter Camille Preaker’s troubled past. Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, Camille’s first assignment from the second-rate daily paper where she works brings her reluctantly back to her hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. NASTY on her kneecap, BABYDOLL on her leg Since she left town eight years ago, Camille... (more)

The Perfect Man

by Naeem Murr

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Europe and South Asia. Winner of the 2008 PEN Beyond Margins Award. Identity, friendship, and a long-hidden crime lie at the heart of Naeem Murr’s captivating novel about five friends growing up in a small 1950s Missouri river town. A contender for the Man Booker Prize, this exhilarating story beautifully evokes the extreme joys, as well as the dark and shameful... (more)

Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (Vintage)

Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (Vintage)

by T. J. Stiles

In this brilliant biography T. J. Stiles offers a new understanding of the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Although he has often been portrayed as a Robin Hood of the old west, in this ground-breaking work Stiles places James within the context of the bloody conflicts of the Civil War to reveal a much more complicated and significant figure. Raised in a fiercely pro-slavery household in bitterly divided... (more)

The River Wife: A Novel

by Jonis Agee

From acclaimed novelist Jonis Agee, whom The New York Times Book Review called “a gifted poet of that dark lushness in the heart of the American landscape,” The River Wife is a sweeping, panoramic story that ranges from the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 through the Civil War to the bootlegging days of the 1930s. When the earthquake brings Annie Lark’s Missouri house down on top of her, she finds herself... (more)

Playing with Matches

by Brian Katcher

SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD LEON SANDERS has a mug that looks like it should be hanging in a post office somewhere. If he didn’t have his twisted sense of humor, he’d have nothing at all. So it’s no wonder to Leon and his friends that the gorgeous Amy Green will never even look twice at him. However, there is one girl who might: Melody Hennon. Everyone at Zumner High keeps their distance from Melody because she was burned... (more)

Dark Places: A Novel

by Gillian Flynn

I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ. Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived–and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben... (more)

A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel

by Sophie Littlefield

Stella Hardesty dispatched her abusive husband with a wrench shortly before her fiftieth birthday. A few years later, she’s so busy delivering home-style justice on her days off, helping other women deal with their own abusive husbands and boyfriends, that she barely has time to run her sewing shop in her rural Missouri hometown. Some men need more convincing than others, but it’s usually nothing a little light... (more)

The Ioway in Missouri (Missouri Heritage Readers Series)

Missouri Heritage Reader Series

The Ioway in Missouri (Missouri Heritage Readers Series)

by Greg Olson

Written for a general audience, this is a useful, accessible introduction to the changing fortunes of the Ioway people in Missouri the era of exploration, colonialism, and statehood. Olson draws on interviews with contemporary tribal members to convey an understanding of Ioway beliefs, practices, and history, and he incorporates reports of Indian agents and speeches of past Ioway leaders to illuminate the changes... (more)

The Battle of Wilson's Creek

by Edwin C. Bearss

Peril on the Katy Trail

by Robert Shoop

A woman who can't remember. A man who can't forget. And a person who desperately needs to kill them both! The Katy Trail is a 225-mile long biking trail from Clinton to St. Charles, Missouri. It's one of the most beautiful in the world-just the place for Samuel to get away from it all, to heal, and to quell some of the demons from his past. Into his life, however, drops Misty-a mysterious woman with... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: missouri

by Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

by Paulette Jiles

by Jon Clinch

by Harry N. MacLean

by Dorothy Garlock

by Maurine F. Dahlberg

by Ann Rule, Mary Beth Hurt

by Jonathan Franzen

by Gillian Flynn

by Naeem Murr

by T. J. Stiles

by Jonis Agee

by Brian Katcher

by Gillian Flynn

by Sophie Littlefield

by Greg Olson

by Edwin C. Bearss

by Robert Shoop

by Mark Twain