A forerunner of psychological fiction, and considered a landmark work for its innovative use of narrative devices, Tristram Shandy was both celebrated and vilified when first published in 1759. While the narrative's endless digressions drew criticism, the novel's bawdy humor made it a cause for celebration in eighteenth-century London. Originally released in nine separate volumes, it is literature's famed "cock and bull" story, reveling in parody...

"A hero with Huck Finn's heart and charm, lighting by El Greco and jokes by Punch and Judy. . . . Riddley Walker is haunting and fiercely imagined and—this matters most—intensely ponderable." —Benjamin DeMott, The New York Times Book Review

"This is what literature is meant to be." —Anthony Burgess

"Russell Hoban has brought off an extraordinary feat of imagination and style. . . . The conviction and consistency

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From one of the most important writers of the twentieth century comes a stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime—"a moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless" (The New York Times Book Review).

"One of the best books Baldwin has ever written—perhaps the best of all." —The...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A New York Times Notable Book • This fiery and provocative novel from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult.

At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused...

An irresistible story of faith and perseverance, Life Is Short But Wide follows two families as they prove that no matter who you are or what you do, you are never too old to chase your dreams.
Like the small towns J. California Cooper has so vividly portrayed in her previous novels, Wideland, Oklahoma, is home to ordinary Americans with big hearts. Among them are newlyweds Irene and Val, who graciously allow their neighbors,...

A stunning, cinematic debut novel set at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Moon's Crossing explores a unique time in American history, when the romantic heritage of the nineteenth century merged with the industrial temperament of the modern age. Jim Moon, an idealistic Union Army veteran, leaves his young wife and son to visit the World's Columbian Exposition, which has attracted America's greatest artists and thinkers as well as its drifters and schemers....

When sixteen-year-old Bri, an aspiring rapper, pours her anger and frustration into her first song, she finds herself at the center of a controversy.

"Compelling, tragic, comic, tender and mystical... Combines the historical significance of Kathryn Stockett's The Help with the wisdom of Toni Morrison's Beloved." —Minneapolis Star Tribune

Rich in mood and atmosphere, The Healing is a warmhearted novel about the unbreakable bonds between three generations of female healers and their power to restore the body, the spirit, and the soul.
In Antebellum

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This gripping bestseller, first published in 1966, has continued to captivate readers with its wide-ranging yet intimate portrait of an America sundered by racial conflict. David Champlin is a black man born into poverty in Depression-era New Orleans who makes his way up the ladder of success, only to sacrifice everything to lead his people in the civil rights movement. Sara Kent is the white girl who loves David from the moment she first sees him,...

God's Grace (1982), Bernard Malamud's last novel, is a modern-day dystopian fantasy, set in a time after a thermonuclear war prompts a second flood, a radical departure from Malamud's previous fiction. The novel's protagonist is paleolosist Calvin Cohn, who had been attending to his work at the bottom of the ocean when the Devastation struck, and who alone survived. This rabbi's son, a "marginal error", finds himself shipwrecked with an experimental...