Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

The year is 1738; the place, Paris. A baby is born under a fish-monger’s bloody table in a marketplace, and abandoned. Orphaned, passed over to the monks as a charity case, already there is something in the aura of the tiny infant that is unsettling. No one will look after him; he is somehow too demanding, and, even more disturbing, something is missing: as his wet nurse tries to explain, he doesn’t smell the... (more)

P.S. Your Cat Is Dead

by James Kirkwood

It's New Year's Eve in New York City. Your best friend died in September, you've been robbed twice, your girlfriend is leaving you, you've lost your job...and the only one left to talk to is the gay burglar you've got tied up in the kitchen... P.S. your cat is dead. An instant classic upon its initial publication, P.S. Your Cat is Dead received widespread critical acclaim and near fanatical reader devotion. ... (more)

The Observations

by Jane Harris

An extraordinary historical novel about a peculiar friendship between the mistress of a Scottish estate and her irresistibly appealing housemaid Winner of the Book of the Month Club First Fiction Prize Scotland, 1863. In an attempt to escape her not-so-innocent past in Glasgow, Bessy Buckley-a wide-eyed and feisty young Irish girl-takes a job as a maid in a big house outside Edinburgh working for the... (more)

No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories

No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories

by Miranda July

Award-winning filmmaker and performing artist Miranda July brings her extraordinary talents to the page in a startling, sexy, and tender collection. In these stories, July gives the most seemingly insignificant moments a sly potency. A benign encounter, a misunderstanding, a shy revelation can reconfigure the world. Her characters engage awkwardly -- they are sometimes too remote, sometimes too intimate. With... (more)

Zamonia: Book 1

The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Blue Bear

by John Brownjohn, Walter Moers

"A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen and a half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest," says the narrator of Walter Moers’s epic adventure. "What about the Minipirates? What about the Hobgoblins, the Spiderwitch, the Babbling Billows, the Troglotroll, the Mountain Maggot…Mine is a tale of mortal danger and eternal love, of hair’s breadth, last-minute escapes." Welcome to the... (more)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

by Mark Haddon

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow. This improbable story of Christopher’s quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and... (more)

The Pleasure of My Company: A Novel

by Steve Martin, Steve Martin

Steve Martin's "gifts for subtlety and slyness compare to those of the finest comic novelists" ( People ) and his latest New York Times bestseller -- a witty and tender tour de force -- is now in paperback! Shopgirl revealed the novelist in Steve Martin -- witty, tender, intelligent, and passionate about his craft. And with the successful publication of The Pleasure of My Company , his reputation as one... (more)

Lives of the Monster Dogs : A Novel

by Kirsten Bakis

A postmodern Mary Shelley, taking the parable of Frankenstein's monster several giant steps farther, might have written this fable of a novel about a tragic race of monster dogs--in this case, genetically and biomechanically engineered dogs (of several major breeds). Created by a German mad scientist in the 19th century, the monster dogs possess human intelligence, speak human language, have prosthetic humanlike... (more)

The Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold

On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and... (more)

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (Penguin Classics)

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa (Penguin Classics)

by Jan Potocki

Alphonse, a young Walloon officer, is travelling to join his regiment in Madrid in 1739. But he soon finds himself mysteriously detained at a highway inn in the strange and varied company of thieves, brigands, cabbalists, noblemen, coquettes and gypsies, whose stories he records over sixty-six days. The resulting manuscript is discovered some forty years later in a sealed casket, from which tales of characters... (more)

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream

by Francesco Colonna

One of the most famous books in the world, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili , read by every Renaissance intellectual and referred to in studies of art and culture ever since, was first published in English by Thames & Hudson in 1999 in a large format that exactly matched the original in size, design, and typography. Now this classic study is made available to a wider public in a reduced-format volume that... (more)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer

Century of the Wind (Memory of Fire Trilogy, Part 3)

Century of the Wind (Memory of Fire Trilogy, Part 3)

by Eduardo Galeano

From pre-Columbian creation myths and the first European voyages of discovery and conquest to the Age of Reagan, here is "nothing less than a unified history of the Western Hemisphere . . . recounted in vivid prose."--The New Yorker . A unique and epic history, Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy is an outstanding Latin American eye view of the making of the New World. From its first English language... (more)

Genesis (Memory of Fire Trilogy, Part 1)

Genesis (Memory of Fire Trilogy, Part 1)

by Eduardo Galeano

From pre-Columbian creation myths and the first European voyages of discovery and conquest to the Age of Reagan, here is "nothing less than a unified history of the Western Hemisphere . . . recounted in vivid prose."--The New Yorker . A unique and epic history, Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy is an outstanding Latin American eye view of the making of the New World. From its first English language... (more)

Faces and Masks (Memory of Fire Trilogy, Part 2)

Faces and Masks (Memory of Fire Trilogy, Part 2)

by Eduardo Galeano

From pre-Columbian creation myths and the first European voyages of discovery and conquest to the Age of Reagan, here is "nothing less than a unified history of the Western Hemisphere . . . recounted in vivid prose."--The New Yorker . A unique and epic history, Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy is an outstanding Latin American eye view of the making of the New World. From its first English language... (more)

The Journal of Irreproducible Results: Selected Papers

The Journal of Irreproducible Results: Selected Papers

by James (compiled by) Ertel

A group of scientists in the fields of astronomy, physics, medicine, economics, chemistry, et al, poke fun at their research-challenged peers with this collection of bad scientific papers -- some authentic, some contrived.

What It Is

by Lynda Barry

“Deliciously drawn (with fragments of collage worked into each page), insightful and bubbling with delight in the process of artistic creation. A+” — Salon How do objects summon memories? What do real images feel like? For decades, these types of questions have permeated the pages of Lynda Barry’s compositions, with words attracting pictures and conjuring places through a pen that first and foremost keeps... (more)

The Arrival

by Shaun Tan

"A shockingly imaginative graphic novel that captures the sense of adventure and wonder that surrounds a new arrival on the shores of a shining new city. Wordless, but with perfect narrative flow, Tan gives us a story filled with cityscapes worthy of Winsor McCay." -- Jeff Smith, author of Bone "A magical river of strangers and their stories!" -- Craig Thompson, author of Blankets "Magnificent." -- David... (more)

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel

by David Wroblewski

Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose thoughtful companionship is epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's lifelong friend and ally. But with the unexpected return of Claude, Edgar's paternal uncle, turmoil consumes the Sawtelles' once peaceful... (more)

Secrets of the Tsil Café

by Thomas Fox Averill

A bittersweet and often funny coming-of-age story set in a cross- cultural and extended family that lives between two kitchens-one traditional, the other New World. Weston Hingler's crib was in the kitchen of BuenAppeTito, his mother's catering service. There, he learned to read while tasting all the flavors of his mother's culinary alphabet. But before he was allowed to enter the Tsil CafŽ, he had to pass his... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: unusual

The Story of a Murderer

by Patrick Suskind

by James Kirkwood

by Jane Harris

by Miranda July

by John Brownjohn, Walter Moers

by Mark Haddon

by Steve Martin, Steve Martin

by Kirsten Bakis

by Alice Sebold

by Jan Potocki

by Francesco Colonna

by Jonathan Safran Foer

by Eduardo Galeano

by Eduardo Galeano

by Eduardo Galeano

by James (compiled by) Ertel

by Lynda Barry

by Shaun Tan

by David Wroblewski

by Thomas Fox Averill