Returning home in the wake of his brother's death, a successful man must grapple with his coal-town roots. For four generations, Colonel Tom Owen's family has been defined by the coal business. Having pulled himself out of the mines and through college, Tom is now a celebrated army surgeon who served in Europe under General Patton. But when his younger brother dies in a mine accident, he returns to their hometown of Coalville, Pennsylvania, where...

Set in a beautifully rendered 1990s Cape Town, Windham Campbell Prize winner Zoë Wicomb's celebrated novel revolves around Marion Campbell, who runs a travel agency but hates traveling, and who, in post-apartheid society, must negotiate the complexities of a knotty relationship with Brenda, her first black employee. Caught in the narrow world of private interests and self-advancement, Marion eschews national politics until the Truth and Reconciliation...

An Italian journalist gets wrapped up in the criminality and cultural controversies of modern Turin in this satirical novel. It's October 2006. The northern Italian town of Turin has been rocked by a series of murders involving Albanians and Romanians, and journalist Enzo Laganà is determined to get to the bottom of the crime wave-even if he must invent a few sources to do so. But first he's been conscripted to mediate the issue of a pig running...

For a God whom philosophers have proclaimed dead, there's only one thing to do: drum up a little publicity "God grants you an interview. Go to 600 Madison Ave., room 3700, Monday, at 11 a.m." When a struggling writer receives this typed note in the mail one morning, curiosity wins out and he finds himself keeping this mysterious  appointment. Soon he's in an ordinary conference room with an intercom on the floor, furiously scribbling shorthand notes...

In the tradition of Anne Rivers Siddons and Pat Conroy comes this sensual, beautifully written novel of the South, about a world on the verge of change and the secrets it fears will be revealed   When you enter the town of Fawley, you take a step back to a simpler time, back to when neighbors shared potluck dinners, church socials were the only parties decent people attended, and people knew who they were and what they valued-and didn't tolerate...

This novel, about three school-aged sisters, originally published by Viking Press, was hailed by the critics, made Time magazine's "Ten Best Fiction List" in 1971, and won the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction in 1972. A British edition by Chatto and Windus in 1972 was equally praised, as the following review excerpt attests: "As formulas for happiness go, there's a lot to be said for shared adversity; and if this can be enriched with a touch of...

You can go home again. When twenty-three-year-old Maia Trieu, a curator's assistant at the Museum of Folklore & Rocks in Little Saigon, Orange County, is offered a research grant to Vietnam for the summer of 1991, she cannot refuse. The grant's sponsor has one stipulation: Maia is to contact her great-aunt to pass on plans to overthrow the current government. The expatriates did not anticipate that Maia would become involved with excursions in search...

Stung by betrayal, a sheltered woman boards a plane to find a world beyond Milwaukee: "The author writes with wit and flair... A romantic escape to savor." -Kirkus Reviews Betsy has been sheltered for a long time-by her close-knit family, Catholic school education, college in her hometown, and early marriage. It takes the discovery of her husband's serial philandering to push her out of the nest, at age thirty-two, in the summer of 1981. Betsy grabs...

Heiress Maggie Radcliffe owns three glamorous villas overlooking Lake Nemi-and one houseguest will stop at nothing to take it all   When American heiress Maggie Radcliffe relocates to the enchanting Lake Nemi, just south of Rome, she does so wishing to live in tune with ancient pagan rhythms of art and nature. Constantly surrounded by a cast of quirky characters, Radcliffe finds her latest guest in the form of old friend-and unrepentant grafter-Hubert...

Augustus Talbot has a plan as normal, but this time is different, this is the big one and he needs his family around him, he wants to show them off to the Chinese.Dexter and Elizabeth think that they are free on the high seas, but not so, trapped by the plans of the Sultan of Brunei, who is an old friend of Dexter, but whose plan is it really, Dexter has his suspicions and knows that the old man is pulling the strings again.The Western world leaders...