Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel

by Susanna Clarke

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, two very different magicians emerge to change England’s history. In the year 1806, with the Napoleonic Wars raging on land and sea, most people believe magic to be long dead in England—until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers, and becomes a celebrity overnight. Soon, another practicing magician comes forth: the young, handsome, and daring Jonathan Strange. He... (more)

The Blooding

by Patricia Windsor

Maris' summer job as an au pair in England starts out well. But when she discovers the truth about her employer, the truth about his transformations and his plans for her, Maris must make the most terrifying decision of her life.

Overboard

by Elizabeth Fama

Fourteen-year-old Emily boards an over-crowded ferry in Sumatra. When the boat sinks, she’s trapped by hundreds of panicked people. She finds Isman, a terrified young Muslim boy, floating in a life vest. Together, with Emily’s physical strength and Isman’s quiet faith, they swim for their lives. “Fama conveys the elemental struggle and shows how Emily finds strength she didn’t know she had.”—Booklist “Each... (more)

Devil May Care

by S. Faulks

Bond is back. With a vengeance. Devil May Care is a masterful continuation of the James Bond legacy–an electrifying new chapter in the life of the most iconic spy of literature and film, written to celebrate the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth on May 28, 1908. An Algerian drug runner is savagely executed in the desolate outskirts of Paris. This seemingly isolated event leads to the recall of Agent 007 from... (more)

The Great Eight: How to Be Happy (Even When You Have Every Reason to be Miserable)

The Great Eight: How to Be Happy (Even When You Have Every Reason to be Miserable)

by Scott Hamilton

Olympic Gold Medal figure skater Scott Hamilton shares his eight secrets to finding happiness in the face of a life filled with challenges, difficulties, and career-canceling odds. With never-been-told, behind-the-scenes stories from the skating world, personal challenges including testicular cancer and a brain tumor, as well as divine miracles, Olympic Gold Medal figure skater Scott Hamilton shares the... (more)

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

A Novel

by Kim Edwards

Kim Edwards’s stunning family drama evokes the spirit of Sue Miller and Alice Sebold, articulating every mother’s silent fear: what would happen if you lost your child and she grew up without you? In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He... (more)

Emma

by Jane Austen

New chronology and further reading; Tony Tanner's original introduction reinstated Edited with an introduction and notes by Flora Stafford.

Callie's Mountain

by Veda Boyd Jones

Callie's grandmother taught her to respect her Carolina mountain upbringing based on faith and love. But awestruck by a benefactor who is also one of Nashville's rising stars, Callie struggles between old teachings and new yearnings. Can she trust her heart to lead her to truth?

The Broken Shore

by Peter Temple

Peter Temple is currently being hailed as the finest crime writer in Australia, but it won’t be long before he is recognized as what he really is—one of the nation’s finest writers, period. Born in South Africa, Temple is writing a dynamic kind of literary thriller that ultimately defies classification. The Broken Shore , his eighth novel, revolves around big-city detective Joe Cashin. Shaken by a scrape with... (more)

The Weekend

by Peter Cameron

In the woods of upstate New York, three friends gather on the anniversary of a man's death who was related to them by blood or love. Their idyll is disturbed by the presence of two outsiders, an Italian dinner guest and a young gay man, now involved with the dead man's lover. Thus each event is charged with the tension of trying to recapture something lost.

The God of Small Things

by Arundhati Roy

Southern India 1969. Here, armed only with the invincible innocence of children, Rahel and Esthappen fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family: their lonely, lovely mother, who loves by night the same man her children adore by day...their blind grandmother, who plays Handel on her violin...their beloved uncle, A Rhodes Scholar pickle baron, radical Marxist,... (more)

Life of Pi

A Novel

by Yann Martel

The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal... (more)

Death of a Salesman

by Arthur Miller

The tragedy of a typical American--a salesman who at the age of sixty-three is faced with what he cannot face; defeat and disillusionment.

Cookoff: Recipe Fever in America

by Amy Sutherland

Competitive cooking isn’t limited to Iron Chef . Across America, amateur chefs cross spatulas at more than a thousand competitions covering numerous states and a pantry full of ingredients. Following a small group of contestants for a year on the contest circuit, journalist Amy Sutherland introduces us to well-known cookoff luminaries as well as some of the most bizarre cooks and recipes at local and... (more)

Utopia

by Thomas More

First published in 1516, Saint Thomas More's Utopia is one of the most important works of European humanism. Through the voice of the mysterious traveler Raphael Hythloday, More describes a pagan, communist city-state governed by reason. Addressing such issues as religious pluralism, women's rights, state-sponsored education, colonialism, and justified warfare, Utopia seems remarkably contemporary nearly... (more)

In a Sunburned Country

by Bill Bryson

Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods . In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest,... (more)

Eat, Pray, Love

One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

by Elizabeth Gilbert

This beautifully written, heartfelt memoir touched a nerve among both readers and reviewers. Elizabeth Gilbert tells how she made the difficult choice to leave behind all the trappings of modern American success (marriage, house in the country, career) and find, instead, what she truly wanted from life. Setting out for a year to study three different aspects of her nature amid three different cultures,... (more)

Saturday

by Ian McEwan

In his triumphant new novel, Ian McEwan, the bestselling author of Atonement, follows an ordinary man through a Saturday whose high promise gradually turns nightmarish. Henry Perowne–a neurosurgeon, urbane, privileged, deeply in love with his wife and grown-up children–plans to play a game of squash, visit his elderly mother, and cook dinner for his family. But after a minor traffic accident leads to an... (more)

Villette

by Charlotte Bronte

"Villette ! Villette ! Have you read it?" exclaimed George Eliot when Charlotte Brontë's final novel appeared in 1853. "It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power." Arguably Brontë's most refined and deeply felt work, Villette draws on her profound loneliness following the deaths of her three siblings. Lucy Snowe, the narrator of Villette, flees... (more)

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Book 1

The Pox Party

by M. T. Anderson

A gothic tale becomes all too shockingly real in this mesmerizing magnum opus by the acclaimed author of FEED. It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother — a princess in exile from a faraway land — are the only persons in their household assigned... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: slow

by Susanna Clarke

by Patricia Windsor

by Elizabeth Fama

by S. Faulks

by Scott Hamilton

A Novel

by Kim Edwards

by Jane Austen

by Veda Boyd Jones

by Peter Temple

by Peter Cameron

by Arundhati Roy

A Novel

by Yann Martel

by Arthur Miller

by Amy Sutherland

by Thomas More

by Bill Bryson

One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

by Elizabeth Gilbert

by Ian McEwan

by Charlotte Bronte

by M. T. Anderson