by Hortense Calisher (1997)
One afternoon in the early seventies Carol is sent out for Chinese food, and, while she is away, the explosive device which her revolutionary student friends are busy constructing, accidentally goes off, causing enormous damage. Her friends get away - she is incarcerated. Twenty years later, she has a small, unfurnished flat in New York, a fridge stocked only with the pills supplied by her social worker and an irresistible urge to slip away and live somewhere unencumbered by memories, names and all of her other false possessions. When she finally discovers that even her social worker is taking pills in an attempt to cope with life, Carol gathers a few essential belongings into her backpack and sets off to sleep rough on the city's streets again. Turning away from her dependence on drugs, Carol finds that memories, histories and responsibilities slowly return to her. In the Slammer with Carol Smith is a tough, hip novel by one of America's most outstanding living authors. It has the steady rhythms of the street as well as the haltings and hesitations experienced by the strong yet vulnerable Carol as she rediscovers herself. In fits and starts, the wild terrain of a life spent wandering under distant, unknown stars is mapped out. Carol's journey is both a rediscovery of emotional hiding-places and a search for the path that leads back into a world of normality without illusions and of sanity devoid of compromise.
Barbara Delinsky
Emily Aulenbach is thirty, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. An idealist, she had once dreamed of representing victims of corporate abuse, but she spends her days in a cubicle talking with victims of tainted bottled water--and she's on the bottler's side.
Heather Swain
Its not often you see an elf in the middle of Brooklyn, let alone a tall, blond, gorgeous elf in the middle of one of the most prestigious performing arts high schools in the country. And yet, thats just where Zephyr Addler finds herself: smack dab in the middle of a bustling New York City school, worlds away from the secluded woodland community she knows so well. But Zephyr knows that she has to figure out how to live in the world. And dress in the world. Thanks to a little friendly advice from her new friend Mercedes, Zephyr starts to get the hang of Brooklyn. That is, until Zephyr snags a role in a commercial, beating out the most popular girl in school, Bella Dartagnan. Now with Bella and her friends out to get her, can Zephyr out-maneuver the mean girls (and catch the eye of a certain cute boy) without losing herself?
L. M. Montgomery
Valancy Stirling is 29, unmarried, and has never been in love. Living with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt, she finds her only consolation in the "forbidden" books of John Foster and her daydreams of the Blue Castle--a place where all her dreams come true and she can be who she truly wants to be. After getting shocking news from the doctor, she rebels against her family and discovers a surprising new world, full of love and adventures far beyond her most secret dreams.
Paulo Coelho
Aleph marks a return to the author's beginnings. In a frank and surprising personal story, one of the world's most beloved authors embarks on a remarkable and transformative journey of self discovery. Facing a grave crisis of faith, and seeking a path of spiritual renewal and growth, he decides to start over: to travel, to experiment, to reconnect with people and the world. On this journey through Europe, Africa, and Asia, he will again meet Hilal, the woman he loved 500 years before, an encounter that will initiate a mystical voyage through time and space, through past and present, in search of himself. Aleph is an encounter with our fears and our sins; a search for love and forgiveness, and the courage to confront the inevitable challenges of life.