San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose...

June 12, 2030 started out like any other day, until a massive earthquake devastated Los Angeles, and the government, always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, was unable to respond. The fallout from the earthquake sets in motion a sweeping novel of ideas that pits national hope for the future against assurances from the past, in this all-too-believable imagining of where today's challenges could lead us tomorrow.

Explores the world of volcanoes and earthquakes, including their effects, causes, study, and prevention.

Ten-year-old Leo loves being a newsboy in San Francisco - not only does he get to make some money to help his family, he's free to explore the amazing, hilly city as it changes and grows with the new century. Horse-drawn carriages share the streets with shiny new automobiles, new businesses and families move in every day from everywhere, and anything seems possible. But early one spring morning, everything changes. Leo's world is shaken - literally...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR BY
Slate • Daily Candy • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Guardian (U.K.)
“Novelists get called master storytellers all the time, but Sittenfeld really is one. . . . What might be most strikingly excellent about Sisterland is the way Sittenfeld depicts domesticity and motherhood.”—Maggie Shipstead, The...

As a series of earthquakes start tearing apart Los Angeles, scientist Emily theorizes that it's all building to a super quake that will drop the entire city into a lava-filled chasm. Engineer Jack, whose company is responsible for the quakes due to their deep fracking, feels obligated to help, and races with Emily through the ruined city with the hopes of diverting the epicenter to a less populated area and potentially save millions of lives.

Edgar, an eleven-year-old orphan, finds a book that reveals significant secrets about Atherton, the strictly divided world on which he lives, even as geological changes threaten to shift the power structure that allows an elite few to live off the labor of others.

Magnitude 8 is the archetypal natural disaster defined. To understand the cataclysmic earthquake that will tear California apart one day, Philip L. Fradkin has written a dramatic history of earthquakes and an eloquent guide to the San Andreas Fault, the world's best-known tectonic landscape. The author includes vivid stories of earthquakes elsewhere: in New England, the central Mississippi River Valley, New York City, Europe, and the Far East. Always,...

After a devastating earthquake hits, a little girl and her neighbors help each other rebuild their city. Includes author's note.