"Wendy W. Fairey grew up among books. Her mother, the famous Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham, was F. Scott Fitzgerald's last love--he died in her living room in 1940. As part of a 'College of One' education, Fitzgerald would bring Graham literary classics from Charles Dickens to William Thackeray, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James. The protagonists of these books later became Fairey's intimates. Leaving her glamorous Hollywood world as a young girl,...

"A literary discovery: an extraordinary account, in the tradition of The House on Mango Street and Angela's Ashes, of a Colombian woman's harrowing childhood. This astonishing memoir of a childhood lived in extreme poverty in Latin America was hailed as an instant classic when first published in Colombia in 2012, nine years after the death of its author, who was encouraged in her writing by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Comprised of letters written over...

Three brothers and a wheelchair bound sister gather to bury their mother in their hometown of Glasgow.

"As she builds her own life anew, an Italian writer embarks on an all-consuming search for the true story of the mysterious princess H. H. Amrit Kaur of Mandi"-- "On a sweltering day in 2007, having just lost her brother to illness, Livia Manera Sambuy finds herself at a museum in Mumbai, enthralled by a 1924 photograph of a stunningly elegant Indian princess. What she reads in the picture's caption will change her life forever. This alluring Punjabi...

When a two-day-old Hawaiian monk seal pup is found abandoned on a Kauai beach, officials decide that as a newborn member of the most endangered marine mammal species in U.S. waters, Kauai Pup 2 is too precious to lose. The Odyssey of KP2 is an inside look at the life of a scientist, the role of her research, and a Hawaiian monk seal whose unforgettable personality never falters, even as his fate hangs in the balance. This book is an inside look at...

It is an intoxicating portrait of life and love on the margins. Fresh out of prison, Kermit, a mostly good kid mixed up with local drug dealers, returns home to his rural Mississippi trailer park. As he struggles to keep his nose clean, he falls for Rachel, his sultry neighbor who's turned to dancing in a club to support her sick mother. Determined to overcome their inauspicious circumstances, they make a desperate effort to escape their dead end...

"Mork, a misfit on Ork because of his sense of humor, was sent off to study Earthlings, whose "crazy" customs the "Orkans" had never been able to understand. Mork landed in a giant eggshell near Boulder, Colorado and was befriended by pretty Mindy McConnell, a music store clerk. Mork looked human but his strange mix of Orkan and Earthling customs led most people to think of him as just some kind of nut. Aware of his origins, Mindy helped him adjust...

No generation is spared the catastrophic consequences of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. From newborn babies of HIV-positive mothers to elderly caregivers, the disease does not discriminate. One of the most tragic consequences is the toll on children. In 2003, more than 15 million children under age 18 had lost one or both parents to AIDS. Along with grief and abandonment, children in affected families face the added burdens of responsibilities far beyond...