Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

“Ruby, where is your mother?” Ruby knows that the game is up. For the past few months, she’s been on her own in the yellow house, managing somehow, knowing that her mother will probably never return. That’s how she comes to live with Cora, the sister she hasn’t seen in ten years, and Cora’s husband Jamie, whose down-to-earth demeanor makes it hard for Ruby to believe he founded the most popular networking Web... (more)

Bloom

by Elizabeth Scott

There's a difference between falling and letting go. Lauren has a good life: decent grades, great friends, and a boyfriend every girl lusts after. So why is she so unhappy? It takes the arrival of Evan Kirkland for Lauren to figure out the answer: She's been holding back. She's been denying herself a bunch of things (like sex) because staying with her loyal and gorgeous boyfriend, Dave, is the "right" thing to... (more)

Peaches

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Three Georgia peaches are in for one juicy summer . . . . . . but Birdie would rather eat Thin Mints and sulk in the A/C. Leeda would prefer to sneak off with her boyfriend, Rex. And Murphy would much rather cause a little mischief. Together these three very different girls will discover the secret to finding the right boy, making the truest of friends, and picking the perfect Georgia peach.

The Secrets of Peaches

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Last summer, three very different girls—wild Murphy, perfect Leeda, and shy Birdie—etched their initials on a Magnolia tree at Darlington Peach Orchard to symbolize that they're friendship will last forever. But can it survive the less-than-peachy year ahead? Murphy, more in love with Rex than ever, is torn between her big-city dreams and following her heart . . . all the way across the railroad tracks and... (more)

Nihongo Notes 1: Speaking and Living in Japan (Nihongo Notes) (Nihongo Notes)Osamu Mizutani, Nobuko Mizutani

Nihongo Notes 1: Speaking and Living in Japan (Nihongo Notes) (Nihongo Notes)

by Osamu Mizutani, Nobuko Mizutani

Chasing Tail Lights

by Patrick Jones

Break free. Before he died, Christy’s daddy used to say that when you feel lost, follow the tail lights of the truck in front of you, and they’ll get you somewhere safe. Christy keeps chasing those tail lights, but somehow, she’s always still lost in Flint, Michigan. Like most teens in Flint, she’s dying to leave this dying city. But she’s got a secret that she’s never told anyone, and it’s keeping her chained... (more)

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil

by Deborah Rodriguez

Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for... (more)

Songs Without Words

by Ann Packer

Ann Packer’s debut novel, The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, was a nationwide best seller that established her as one of our most gifted chroniclers of the interior lives of women. Now, in her long-awaited second novel, she takes us on a journey into a lifelong friendship pushed to the breaking point. Expertly, with the keen introspection and psychological nuance that are her hallmarks, she explores what happens when... (more)

The Final Judgment by Richard North Patterson

The Final Judgment by Richard North Patterson

by Richard North Patterson

A cleverly assembled murder mystery told with rich prose ("Moonlight refracted on the still, obsidian waters of the lake and traced the pines and birches and elms surrounding it. The only sound Brett heard was the rise and fall of James's breathing.") and filled with a cast of quirky small-town New Englanders, the novel ultimately succeeds through Patterson's talents as a writer, not just as a plotter. As in... (more)

Hail Caesar

by Thu Huong Ha

Caesar thinks he can't be touched by anything or anyone. Boys idolize him. Girls lust after him. And he has power over them, because he doesn't care about any of them . . . until the new girl comes along, and turns Caesar's world upside down. A funny, honest, in-your-face portrait of a guy who has to learn to stop being a legend in his own mind.

All About Katakana (Power Japanese Series)

All About Katakana (Power Japanese Series)

by Anne Matsumoto Stewart

Katakana should be the easiest way to approach the Japanese written language since it is used to write all kinds of loanwords that the reader is already familiar with. However, until recently katakana has been taught as if students of the language were all Japanese kindergarten or elementary school kids--ready, more-or-less willing, and having the time and motivation to learn the traditional katakana chart by... (more)

The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth

The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth

by Shuyun Sun

The Long March is Communist China’s founding myth, the heroic tale that every Chinese child learns in school. Seventy years after the historical march took place, Sun Shuyun set out to retrace the Marchers’ steps and unexpectedly discovered the true history behind the legend. The Long March is the stunning narrative of her extraordinary expedition. The facts are these: in 1934, in the midst of a brutal civil... (more)

Heyday: A Novel

by Kurt Andersen

Heyday is a brilliantly imagined, wildly entertaining tale of America’s boisterous coming of age–a sweeping panorama of madcap rebellion and overnight fortunes, palaces and brothels, murder and revenge–as well as the story of a handful of unforgettable characters discovering the nature of freedom, loyalty, friendship, and true love. In the middle of the nineteenth century, modern life is being born: the... (more)

Sweet Hush

by Deborah Smith

Hush McGillen, a young widow and single mother running a successful family orchard, finds her life turned upside down when her college student son Davis elopes with and marries the rebellious daughter of the President of the United States. Reprint.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

by Mohsin Hamid

At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful meeting . . . Changez is living an immigrant’s dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by the elite "valuation" firm of Underwood Samson. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his infatuation with... (more)

Water for Elephants

A Novel

by Sara Gruen

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was there that he met... (more)

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)

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West

by Cotter Smith, Stephen Ambrose

In this sweeping adventure story, Stephen E. Ambrose, the bestselling author od D-Day, presents the definitive account of one of the most momentous journeys in American history. Ambrose follows the Lewis and Clark Expedition from Thomas Jefferson's hope of finding a waterway to the Pacific, through the heart-stopping moments of the actual trip, to Lewis's lonely demise on the Natchez Trace. Along the way,... (more)

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex

by John Gray

Once upon a time Martians and Venusians met, fell in love, and had happy relationships together because they respected and accepted their differences. Then they came to Earth and amnesia set in: they forgot they were from different planets. Based on years of successful counseling of couples and individuals, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus has helped millions of couples transform their relationships. Now... (more)

The Pearl

by John Steinbeck

A fisherman finds the great pearl, only to lose it again.

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: summer 2008

by Sarah Dessen

by Elizabeth Scott

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

by Osamu Mizutani, Nobuko Mizutani

by Patrick Jones

by Deborah Rodriguez

by Ann Packer

by Richard North Patterson

by Thu Huong Ha

by Anne Matsumoto Stewart

by Shuyun Sun

by Kurt Andersen

by Deborah Smith

by Mohsin Hamid

A Novel

by Sara Gruen

by Mark Twain

by Cotter Smith, Stephen Ambrose

The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex

by John Gray

by John Steinbeck