Letters Literature

Henry and Julean couldn't be happier. With a new baby, a new home and Henry's new job, everything is turning out perfectly for the young couple. Or is it? No matter what he does, Henry can't seem to shake the memory of Jenny from his mind or the love he still feels for her from his heart. Little does he know, his wife is all-too-aware of Henry's hidden thoughts and feelings for his first love.

When a tornado rips through town, 12-year-old Ivy Aberdeen's house is destroyed, and her family of five is displaced. Ivy feels invisible and ignored in the aftermath of the storm - and what's worse, her notebook filled with secret drawings of girls holding hands has gone missing. Mysteriously, Ivy's drawings begin to reappear in her locker with notes from someone telling her to open up about her identity.

Centered on recently discovered, authenticated correspondence between two famous 19th-century Masonic leaders, Confederate General Albert Pike and British Colonel James Wilson Bury MacLeod Moore, this modern-day thriller follows Thomas, a direct descendant of Col. Moore, and Janet Rose, a direct descendant of the Merovingian Kings and House of David, as they risk their lives to protect the letters and the Templar and Rosicrucian secrets encoded within them.

Arrested in 1962 as South Africa's apartheid regime intensified its brutal campaign against political opponents, 44-year-old lawyer and African National Congress activist Nelson Mandela had no idea that he would spend the next 27 years in jail. During his 10,052 days of incarceration, Mandela wrote hundreds of letters to unyielding prison authorities, fellow activists, government officials, and, most memorably, his courageous wife, Winnie, and his five children. Now, 255 of these letters, a majority of which were previously unpublished, provide the most intimate portrait of Mandela since Long Walk to Freedom.

A disgraced former detective walks into a bar and . . . gets funding for a private investigation agency? If it didn't happen to Jazz Callender, she wouldn't believe it either. All she has to do is partner up with a national security risk known as Lucia Garza, accept one-hundred thousand dollars, and take on assignments that seem to have no purpose. Easy-peasy.

Matt found a way to erase his past regrets. He was an average guy who was pissing and moaning his way toward retirement. Like many people before him, he often wished things had gone differently for him. Be careful what you wish for!

No one could have predicted even two years ago that an African American would take the oath of office as president of the United States in January of 2009. For many, the occasion marks the climax to the civil rights movement and the fulfillment of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream that Americans could be judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. This collection, with about 400 letters from Americans of all walks of life, is being created to stand as a symbol of this exciting moment in history.

Paul Celan (1920-70) is one of the best-known German poets of the Holocaust; many of his poems, admired for their spare, precise diction, deal directly with its stark themes. Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-73) is recognized as one of post-World War II German literature’s most important novelists, poets, and playwrights.

At odds with love, Matthew Northcott has firmly decided that he will never marry, much to the dismay of his relatives . . . and nearly every young lady he meets. Rather than seek a marriage for himself, he attempts to find matches for others, grateful to see that love is not entirely cruel—just cruel to him. When a letter arrives from Matthew's friend Jack, asking an immense favor from him, Matthew undertakes a new challenge: Find a husband for Jack's spinster sister, Miss Cassandra Warwick, before the end of the season.

Author of many novels and short stories, best-selling writer Lee Smith has received numerous awards for her works, including two O. Henry Awards. Fair and Tender Ladies is an epistolary novel that traces the life of Ivy Rowe, born in the isolated Virginia mountain community of Sugar Fork.

In the bitter winds of autumn 1963, Tove Jansson, helped by Brunström, a maverick fisherman, raced to build a cabin on a treeless island in the Gulf of Finland. The island was Klovharun, where for thirty summers Tove and her beloved partner, the visual artist, Tuulikki “Tooti” Pietilä, lived, painted, and wrote, energized by the solitude and shifting seascapes. The island's flora, fauna, and weather patterns provided deep inspiration which can be seen reflected in all of Jansson's work, most famously in her novel The Summer Book and her longstanding comic strip and novels for children, Moomin.

From the creator of The New York Times best seller Boing! comes the riotous story of a cat gone berserk -- four times over an in alphabetical order each time. Kitty is not happy hen she's told that her favorite foods are all gone and all that's left are Asparagus, Beets, Cauliflower, Dill...and 22 other equally unappealing vegetables. So she: Ate my homework, Bit grandma, Clawed the curtains, Damaged the dishes, and so on, through Z.

A memoir of self-discovery and the dilemma of connection in our time, The Odd Woman and the City explores the rhythms, chance encounters, and ever-changing friendships of urban life that forge the sensibility of a fiercely independent woman who has lived out her conflicts, not her fantasies, in a city (New York) that has done the same.

Letters of a Woman Homesteader is a frontier classic by Elinore Pruitt Stewart, a widowed young mother who accepted an offer to assist with a ranch in Wyoming. In Stewart's delightful collection of letters, she describes her homesteading experiences to her former employer, Mrs. Coney.

Henry is once again faced with the possibility of losing the love of his life. While Jenny is lying in a coma, much like his first wife Julean was, Henry struggles with the formidable task of deciding whether to terminate the child Jenny is carrying in her womb or risk delivering the baby at Jenny's peril. He knows only too well what Jenny would want him to do, but the thought of losing Jenny again is unthinkable. The entire gamut of emotions run so high and deep it will be as if you are in the character's skin.

Easily one of the most towering figures of Bengali literature of the 20th century, Buddhadeva Bose was as prolific as he was versatile. A poet of renown, Bose was also an accomplished playwright, novelist, essayist and short-story writer. His prose is marked by invention, refreshing modernity and an easy yet deep engagement with timeless themes: love, the nature of memory, and the complexity of the relationship between man and woman - qualities which keep Bose’s work enduringly relevant.

One of France's greatest writers, Voltaire was frequently persecuted for his ideas and as a result, spent time in the famed Bastille. He fled his native land for England in 1726, at which time he witnessed the differences between the two countries. His celebrated Letters on England was first published in that nation in 1733 and contained 24 succinct letters on subjects ranging from religion and politics, to trade, the arts, philosophy, and science.

A collection of poems written by someone who is no stranger to everyday struggles of love and mayhem. These poems vary in topics and length. Judith understands struggles and that with hope a little faith that strengthen our beliefs, there is always a brighter day tomorrow. With faith and understanding, the bitter realities of human relations makes us stronger today.

Third-grader Clementine constantly has brilliant ideas popping into her brain, but sometimes they get her into trouble. Only a few people really understand her - her parents, of course, and her favorite teacher, Mr. D'Matz. When he receives an opportunity to do research in Egypt, Clementine hatches a plan to keep him at her school - but as usual, it doesn't quite work out the way she wants.

Seventeen-year-old Ellie had no hope left. Yet the day after she dies by suicide, she finds herself in the midst of an out-of-body experience. She is a spectator, swaying between past and present, retracing the events that unfolded prior to her death. But there are gaps in her memory, fractured pieces Ellie is desperate to reassemble.