Jane Smiley
Author
Language
English
Description
"From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author: a rollicking murder mystery set in Gold Rush California, as two young prostitutes follow a trail of missing girls. Monterey, 1851. Ever since her husband was killed in a bar fight, Eliza Ripple has been working in a brothel. It seems like a better life, at least at first. The madam, Mrs. Parks, is kind, the men are (relatively) well behaved, and Eliza has attained what few women have:...
3) Some Luck
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
1920, Denby, Iowa: Rosanna and Walter Langdon have just welcomed their firstborn son, Frank, into their family farm. He will be the oldest of five.
Each chapter in this extraordinary novel covers a single year, encompassing the sweep of history as the Langdons abide by time-honored values and pass them on to their children. With the country on the cusp of enormous social and economic change through the early 1950s, we watch as the personal...
Author
Language
English
Description
"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres and the New York Times best-selling Last Hundred Years Trilogy, a captivating, brilliantly imaginative story of three extraordinary animals--and a young boy--whose lives intersect in Paris Paras is a spirited racehorse at a racetrack west of Paris. At dusk, one afternoon she pushes open the door of her stall--she's a curious filly--and, after traveling through the night, arrives by chance...
5) Golden age
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Golden Age combines intimate drama, emotional suspense, and a full command of history, bringing to a magnificent conclusion the century-long portrait of one unforgettable family.
7) Good faith
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
New Jersey realtor Joe Stratford is 40 years old, divorced, and ready for a fresh start. Enter Marcus Burns, a former IRS agent who believes the old rules are meant to be broken. Marcus is enthusiastic about his get-rich-quick plans, but are they the right plans for Joe? And why is the local savings and loan so eager to lend Joe and Marcus the money they need to complete a huge feal estate transaction?
8) A good horse
Author
Series
Horses of Oak Valley Ranch volume 2
Language
English
Formats
Description
On her family's California horse ranch in the 1960s, eighth-grader Abby Lovitt faces the possibility of giving up her beloved colt, Jack, when it comes to light that his dam might have been stolen.
Author
Series
Horses of Oak Valley Ranch volume 1
Language
English
Formats
Description
Seventh-grader Abby Lovitt grows up on her family's California horse ranch in the 1960s, learning to train the horses her father sells and trying to reconcile her strict religious upbringing with her own ideas about life.
Author
Series
Last hundred years trilogy volume 1
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
2014.
Language
English
Description
"An epic novel that spans thirty years in the lives of a farm family in Iowa, telling a parallel story of the changes taking place in America from 1920 through the early 1950s"--Provided by publisher.
11) Duplicate Keys
Author
Language
English
Description
Jane Smiley's talent for creating emotionally-gripping tales of family relationships was celebrated when she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for A Thousand Acres. In Duplicate Keys, Smiley displays her flair for creating a haunting mystery. Everyone has keys to Susan's New York apartment: all her friends, and friends of friends. So one afternoon, when Alice unlocks Susan's door to water the plants, she isn't surprised to...
12) Lucky
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
2024
Language
English
Description
"Before Jodie Rattler became a star, she was a girl growing up in St. Louis. One day in 1955, when she was just six years old, her Uncle Drew took her to the racetrack, where she got lucky--and that roll of two-dollar bills she won has never since left her side. Jodie thrived in the warmth of her extended family, and then--through a combination of hard work and serendipity--started a singing career, which catapulted her from St. Louis to New York...
Author
Language
English
Description
"Clear, vibrant" essays on reading and writing by the Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times–bestselling author: "A reader feels smarter just taking it in" (The Boston Globe).
From the author of A Dangerous Business, A Thousand Acres, and Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, this volume "gathers essays (and two stories) composed with wit, enthusiasm, expertise, and candor" (Booklist).
Long acclaimed as a preeminent American novelist,...
14) Riding lessons
Author
Series
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
When Ellen meets Ned, a beautiful colt who hurt his leg on his way to becoming a racehorse, she becomes determined to behave at school and at home so she can have more time at the ranch.
15) Moo
Author
Language
English
Description
Jane Smiley instantly captured the admiration and laughter of readers everywhere when Moo was published. A New York Times best- seller, it is a hilarious tour through the inner sanctums of a Midwestern university. Everyone at the large agricultural college dubbed Moo U. has an agenda. Whether it's massaging data, running secret experiments, or seducing the powerful, each person is dedicated to a plan. Meet Dr. Lionel Gift, who feels that his economic...
16) Private Life
Author
Publisher
Books on Tape
Pub. Date
2010
Language
English
Description
A riveting new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winner that traverses the intimate landscape of one woman’s life, from the 1880s to World War II.
Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven in post–Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He’s the most famous man their small town has ever produced: a naval officer and a brilliant astronomer—a genius who, according to the...
Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven in post–Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He’s the most famous man their small town has ever produced: a naval officer and a brilliant astronomer—a genius who, according to the...
17) Gee Whiz
Author
Series
Horses of Oak Valley Ranch volume 5
Language
English
Description
Gee Whiz is a striking horse, and only part of that is because of his size. He is tall, but also graceful, yet his strides big but precise. At the same time, he keeps his eye on things, not as if he's suspicious, but as if he's curious. When Abby is confronted with an onslaught of reminders of just how little of the world she has seen, she finds herself connecting with Gee Whiz's calm and curious nature, and his desire to know more. Her brother receives...
Author
Language
English
Description
It is the morning after the 2003 Academy Awards. Max-an Oscar-winning writer/director whose fame has waned-and his lover, Elena, luxuriate in bed, still groggy from last night's red-carpet festivities. They are talking about movies, talking about love, and talking about the war in Iraq, recently begun. But soon their house will be full of guests, and guests like these demand attention. There is Max's ex-wife, "the legendary Zoe Cunningham," a dazzling...
19) True Blue
Author
Series
Horses of Oak Valley Ranch volume 3
Language
English
Description
True Blue is a beauty, a dappled gray, and when Abby gets to take him to her family's ranch, she can hardly believe her luck. The horse needs a home: his owner--a woman brand new to the riding stable--was tragically killed in a car crash and no one has claimed him. Daddy is wary, as always. But Abby is smitten. True Blue is a sweetheart, and whenever Abby calls out, "Blue, Blue, how are you?" he whinnies back. But sometimes True Blue seems ... spooked....
20) Pie in the Sky
Author
Series
Horses of Oak Valley Ranch volume 4
Language
English
Description
Abby Lovitt doesn't realize how unprepared she is when she takes her beloved horse, True Blue, to a clinic led by the most famous equestrian anyone knows. The biggest surprise, though, is that Sophia, the girl who never makes a mistake, suddenly makes so many that she stops riding. Who will ride her horse? Abby's dad seems to think it will be Abby. Pie in the Sky is the most expensive horse Abby has ever ridden. But he is proud and irritable, and...