Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears-through the barren streets, and the procession... (more)

Smoky Night

by Eve Bunting, David Diaz

During a night of rioting in Los Angeles, fires and looting force neighbors--who have always avoided one another--to come together. David Diaz was awarded the Caldecott Medal for his bold acrylic paint and photo-collage illustrations.

Beka Cooper: Book 2

Bloodhound

by Tamora Pierce

Beka Cooper is finally a Dog—a full-fledged member of the Provost’s Guard, dedicated to keeping peace in Corus’s streets. But there’s unrest in Tortall’s capital. Counterfeit coins are turning up in shops all over the city, and merchants are raising prices to cover their losses. The Dogs discover that gamblers are bringing the counterfeit money from Port Caynn. In Port Caynn, Beka delves deep into the gambling... (more)

Zoot Suit and Other Plays

by Luis Valdez

This collection contains three of playwright and screenwriter Luis Valdez's most important and recognized plays: Zoot Suit, Bandido! and I Don't Have to Show You No Stinking Badges. The anthology also includes an introduction by noted theater critic Dr. Jorge Huerta of the University of California-San Diego. Luis Valdez, the most recognized and celebrated Hispanic playwright of our times, is the director of the... (more)

Can you Hear the Nightbird Call

by Anita Rau Badami

Set against the tumultuous backdrop of a fragmenting Punjab and moving between Canada and India, Can you Hear the Nightbird Call? charts the interweaving stories of three Indian women – Bibi-ji, Leela and Nimmo – each in search of a resting place amid rapidly changing personal and political landscapes. The ambitious, defiant Sikh Bibi-ji, born Sharanjeet Kaur in a Punjabi village, steals her sister Kanwar’s... (more)

Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir

Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects: Islam, Rights, and the History of Kashmir

by Mridu Rai

Disputed between India and Pakistan, Kashmir contains a large majority of Muslims subject to the laws of a predominantly Hindu and increasingly "Hinduized" India. How did religion and politics become so enmeshed in defining the protest of Kashmir's Muslims against Hindu rule? This book reaches beyond standard accounts that look to the 1947 partition of India for an explanation. Examining the 100-year period before... (more)

Tall Man: The Death of Doomadgee

by Chloe Hooper

In 2004 on Palm Island, an Aboriginal settlement in the "Deep North" of Australia, a thirty-six-year-old man named Cameron Doomadgee was arrested for swearing at a white police officer. Forty minutes later he was dead in the jailhouse. The police claimed he'd tripped on a step, but his liver was ruptured. The main suspect was Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley, a charismatic cop with long experience in Aboriginal... (more)

Dead on Time

by Meghnad Desai

For the Right Honourable Harry White, Britain's charismatic and politically savvy prime minister, it is a busy day like any other at 10 Downing Street. Every minute is packed with politics, people and policies, and the odd flirtation. There is a peremptory invitation to lunch with megalomaniac media lord Matt Drummond, a parliamentary rebellion to be batted away, an urgent call from the White House about a crisis... (more)

American Pastoral

by Philip Roth

As the American century draws to an uneasy close, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all our century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Swede Levov, a legendary athlete at his Newark high school, who grows up in the booming postwar years to marry a former Miss New Jersey, inherit his father's glove factory, and move into a stone... (more)

The Merry Month of May

by James Jones

Paris. May. 1968. This is the Paris of the barricaded boulevards; of rebelling students' strongholds; of the literati; the sexual anarchists; the leftists -- written chillingly of a time in French history closely paralleling what America went through in the late 1960s. As the Revolution sweeps across Paris, the reader sees, feels, smells, and fears all the turmoil that was the May revolt, the frightening social... (more)

In an Antique Land

by Amitav Ghosh

Reprint of a classic novel that makes the reader political boundaries and cultural assumptions. Excellent on history,Egyptian and Indian culture. by the author of Shadow lines and Glass Palace.

Tulsa Burning

by Anna Myers

The day he buried his pa, Nobe Chase lost everything—his father, his home, and his dog, Rex. Worst of all, he had to move into town to live with Sheriff Leonard—dog killer, wife stealer, and secret law-breaker of all sorts. That day, Nobe found a new purpose for his life—revenge. Hate takes over his life, burning out of control inside him. Nobe learns how dangerous hate can be when it is unleashed in a fury of... (more)

Barnaby Rudge

by Charles Dickens, Hablot Knight Browne

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) Charles Dickens’s first historical novel–set during the anti-Catholic riots of 1780–is an unparalleled portrayal of the terror of a rampaging mob, seen through the eyes of the individuals swept up in the chaos. Those individuals include Emma, a Catholic, and Edward, a Protestant, whose forbidden love weaves through the heart of the story; and the simpleminded Barnaby, one of the... (more)

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (Vintage)

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (Vintage)

by Suketu Mehta

A native of Bombay, Suketu Mehta gives us an insider’s view of this stunning metropolis. He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs; following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse; opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood; and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better... (more)

On The Rock - Twenty-Five Years in Alcatraz (The prison story of Alvin Karpis as told to Robert Livesey)Alvin Karpis

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Blindness

by Jose Saramago