"In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowa preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle. Reverend...

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave--only to discover that the...

When her younger brother commits suicide, Sayre Lynch returns to her hometown for the funeral and finds herself drawn into a web cast by her controlling and tyrannical father.

Marilynne Robinson's mythical world of Gilead, Iowa--the setting of her novels Gilead, Home, and Lila, and now Jack--and its beloved characters have illuminated and interrogated the complexities of American history, the power of our emotions, and the wonders of a sacred world. Jack is Robinson's fourth novel in this now-classic series. In it, Robinson tells the story of John Ames Boughton, the prodigal son of Gilead's Presbyterian minister, and his...

A portrait of an American family during the middle decades of the twentieth century evokes the social, spiritual, and political turmoil of the era as seen through the experiences of a middle-class couple and their children.

A groundbreaking, revelatory portrait of the six generations that currently live in the United States and how they connect, conflict, and compete with one another--from the acclaimed author of Generation Me and iGen"--

"An epic generational saga from New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray, based on the true story of an extraordinary castle in the heart of France and the remarkable women bound by its legacy in some of humanity's darkest hours. Most castles are protected by powerful men. This one by women ... A reluctant resistor ... 1940. French schoolteacher and aspiring artist Marthe Simone has an orphan's self-reliance and wants nothing to do with war....

"1890: When Desiderya Lopez, The Sleepy Prophet, finds an abandoned infant on the banks of an arroyo, she recognizes something in his spirit and brings him home. Pidre will go on to become a famous showman in the Anglo West whose main act, Simodecea, is Pidre's fearless, sharpshooting wife, who wrangles bears as part of his show. 1935: Luz "Little Light" Lopez and her brother Diego work the carnival circuit in downtown Denver. Luz, is a tea leaf reader,...