Books with category 🪨 Hardship
Displaying 42 books

How to Stay Married

How to Stay Married is a shockingly candid, hilarious, voyeuristic, and inspiring account of one man's personal journey through hell and back when his wife's infidelity threatens their marriage. Written by Harrison Scott Key, winner of the 2016 Thurber Prize for American Humor, this memoir dives into the complexities of love and the challenges of maintaining a marriage.

The Growing Season

2020

by Sarah Frey

The Growing Season tells the inspiring story of how a scrappy rural childhood gave Frey the grit and resiliency to take risks that paid off in unexpected ways. Rather than leaving her community, she found adventure and opportunity in one of the most forgotten parts of our country. With fearlessness and creativity, she literally dug her destiny out of the dirt.

One tenacious woman's journey to escape rural poverty and create a billion-dollar farming business--without ever leaving the land she loves.

Survivor Song

2020

by Paul Tremblay

Survivor Song thrusts us into a chillingly prescient tale of suspense and terror. Massachusetts is overwhelmed by a rabies-like virus, spread by saliva and with a terrifyingly short incubation period. The infected are driven to bite and infect as many others as they can before succumbing to the disease. Amidst the chaos, hospitals are inundated, and society crumbles as the government's emergency protocols falter.

Dr. Ramola "Rams" Sherman, a soft-spoken pediatrician, receives a frantic call from Natalie, a pregnant friend whose husband has been killed by an infected neighbor. Bitten herself, Natalie's only hope is to reach a hospital for the rabies vaccine. The clock is ticking for her and her unborn child.

What follows is a desperate odyssey through a landscape twisted into a barely recognizable terrain of danger and terror. Survivor Song is an all-too-plausible novel that not only races through the pages but shakes readers to their core, showcasing Paul Tremblay's mastery of the horror genre.

Hidden Valley Road

2020

by Robert Kolker

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family unfolds the heartrending story of a mid-century American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand—even cure—the disease.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the dream. After World War II, Don's work with the US Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony—and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse.

By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen in one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institutes of Mental Health.

Their shocking story also offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy and the premise of the schizophrenogenic mother, to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amidst profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. Unknown to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment and even the possibility of the eradication of the disease for future generations.

With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love and hope.

American Dirt

2020

by Jeanine Cummins

Vivid, visceral, utterly compelling, American Dirt is the first novel to explore the experience of attempting to illegally cross the US-Mexico border.

Yesterday, Lydia had a bookshop. Yesterday, Lydia was married to a journalist. Yesterday, she was with everyone she loved most in the world. Today, her eight-year-old son Luca is all she has left. For him, she will carry a machete strapped to her leg. For him, she will leap onto the roof of a high speed train. For him, she will find the strength to keep running.

Largo pétalo de mar

2019

by Isabel Allende

Largo pétalo de mar es una novela escrita por Isabel Allende. La historia se desarrolla durante la Guerra Civil Española y sigue a los personajes de Víctor Dalmau y Roser Bruguera. Juntos, huyen a Francia y luego se embarcan en el Winnipeg, un barco fletado por el poeta Pablo Neruda, para llegar a Chile. En Chile, Víctor y Roser se enfrentan a los desafíos de una nueva vida, pero también encuentran amor y amistad. A medida que el tiempo pasa, la historia se entrelaza con eventos históricos como el golpe militar de 1973 y el exilio forzado de muchos chilenos. Esta novela épica es una historia de amor, pérdida, esperanza y resistencia. Isabel Allende teje hábilmente la narrativa, explorando temas de identidad, pertenencia y el poder del amor en tiempos difíciles.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

In 1936, Bluet is the last of the Kentucky Blues. In the dusty Appalachian hills of Troublesome Creek, nineteen and blue-skinned, Bluet has used up her last chance for “respectability” and a marriage bed. Instead, she joins the historical Pack Horse Library Project of Kentucky and becomes a librarian, riding up treacherous mountains on a mule to deliver books and other reading material to the poor hill communities of Eastern Kentucky.

Along her dangerous route, Bluet confronts many who are distrustful of her blue skin. Not everyone is so keen on Bluet’s family or the Library Project, and the impoverished Kentuckians are quick to blame a Blue for any trouble in their small town. Inspired by the true and historical blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek provides an authentic Appalachian voice to a story of hope, heartbreak, and raw courage and shows one woman’s strength, despite it all, to push beyond the dark woods of Troublesome Creek.

The Terror

2018

by Dan Simmons

The bestselling author of Ilium transforms the story of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition into a devastating historical adventure that will chill you to your core. The men on board Her Britannic Majesty's Ships Terror and Erebus had every expectation of triumph. They were part of Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition � as scientifically advanced an enterprise as had ever set forth � and theirs were the first steam-driven vessels to go in search of the fabled North-West Passage. But the ships have now been trapped in the Arctic ice for nearly two years. Coal and provisions are running low. Yet the real threat isn't the constantly shifting landscape of white or the flesh-numbing temperatures, dwindling supplies or the vessels being slowly crushed by the unyielding grip of the frozen ocean. No, the real threat is far more terrifying.

There is something out there that haunts the frigid darkness, which stalks the ships, snatching one man at a time � mutilating, devouring. A nameless thing, at once nowhere and everywhere, this terror has become the expedition's nemesis. When Franklin meets a terrible death, it falls to Captain Francis Crozier of HMS Terror to take command and lead the remaining crew on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Eskimo woman who cannot speak. She may be the key to survival � or the harbinger of their deaths. And as scurvy, starvation and madness take their toll, as the Terror on the ice becomes evermore bold, Crozier and his men begin to fear there is no escape.

Fresh Water for Flowers

Fresh Water for Flowers is a delightful, atmospheric, absorbing fairy tale full of poetry, generosity, and warmth. Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Random visitors, regulars, and, most notably, her colleagues—three gravediggers, three groundskeepers, and a priest—visit her as often as possible to warm themselves in her lodge, where laughter, companionship, and occasional tears mix with the coffee that she offers them. Her daily life is lived to the rhythms of their hilarious and touching confidences.

Violette’s routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of a man—Julien Sole, local police chief—who insists on depositing the ashes of his recently departed mother on the gravesite of a complete stranger. It soon becomes clear that the grave Julien is looking for belongs to his mother’s one-time lover, and that his mother’s story of clandestine love is intertwined with Violette’s own secret past.

With Fresh Water for Flowers, Valérie Perrin has given readers a funny, moving, intimately told story of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness. Perrin has the rare talent of illuminating what is exceptional and poetic in what seems ordinary.

Reclaiming the Discarded

In Reclaiming the Discarded, Kathleen M. Millar offers an evocative ethnography of Jardim Gramacho, a sprawling garbage dump on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, where roughly two thousand self-employed workers known as catadores collect recyclable materials. While the figure of the scavenger sifting through garbage seems iconic of wageless life today, Millar shows how the work of reclaiming recyclables is more than a survival strategy or an informal labor practice.

Rather, the stories of catadores show how this work is inseparable from conceptions of the good life and from human struggles to realize these visions within precarious conditions of urban poverty. By approaching the work of catadores as highly generative, Millar calls into question the category of informality, common conceptions of garbage, and the continued normativity of wage labor. In so doing, she illuminates how waste lies at the heart of relations of inequality and projects of social transformation.

Temporada de huracanes

Con un ritmo y un lenguaje magistrales, Fernanda Melchor, autora de Falsa liebre explora en esta obra las sinrazones que subyacen a los actos más desesperados de barbarie pasional. Una novela cruda y desgarradora en la que el lector quedará envuelto, atrapado por las palabras y la atmósfera de terrible, aunque gozosa, fatalidad.

Un grupo de niños encuentra un cadáver flotando en las aguas turbias de un canal de riego cercano a la ranchería de La Matosa. El cuerpo resulta ser de la Bruja, una mujer que heredó dicho oficio de su madre fallecida, y a quienes los pobladores de esa zona rural respetaban y temían. Tras el macabro hallazgo, las sospechas y habladurías recaerán sobre un grupo de muchachos del pueblo, a quienes días antes una vecina vio mientras huían de casa de la hechicera, cargando lo que parecía ser un cuerpo inerte.

A partir de ahí, los personajes involucrados en el crimen nos contarán su historia mientras los lectores nos sumergimos en la vida de este lugar acosado por la miseria y el abandono, y donde convergen la violencia del erotismo más oscuro y las sórdidas relaciones de poder. 

Illuminae

For fans of Marie Lu comes the first book in an epic series that bends the sci-fi genre into a new dimension. “A truly beautiful novel that redefines the form." —Victoria Aveyard, bestselling author of Red Queen This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do. This afternoon, her planet was invaded. The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than a speck at the edge of the universe. Now with enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to evacuate with a hostile warship in hot pursuit. But their problems are just getting started. A plague has broken out and is mutating with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a web of data to find the truth, it’s clear the only person who can help her is the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again. Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, maps, files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes. “Prepare yourselves for Illuminae.” —EW.com “[Y]ou’re not in for an ordinary novel experience. . . .” —Bustle.com “A truly interactive experience. . . . A fantastically fun ride.” —MTV.com ★ “[O]ut-of-this-world awesome.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred ★ “…stylistically mesmerizing.” —Publishers Weekly, starred ★ “[A]n arresting visual experience.”—Booklist, starred ★ “[A] game-changer.” —Shelf Awareness, starred “Brace yourself. You're about to be immersed in a mindscape that you'll never want to leave.” —Marie Lu, bestselling author of the Legend trilogy "Genre: Undefinable. Novel: Unforgettable." —Kami Garcia, bestselling coauthor of Beautiful Creatures & author of Unbreakable “An exuberant mix of space opera, romance, zombies, hackers, and political thrills.” —Scott Westerfeld, bestselling author of Zeroes and Uglies “Stunningly creative. Smart, funny, and romantic.” —Veronica Rossi, bestselling author of Under the Never Sky “This is one of those rare books that will truly keep your heart pounding.” —Beth Revis, bestselling author of Across the Universe “This book is xxxxing awesome.” —Laini Taylor, bestselling author of Daughter of Smoke and Bone

The Boy Most Likely To

Surprises abound and sparks ignite in the highly anticipated, utterly romantic companion to My Life Next Door.

Tim Mason was The Boy Most Likely To:

  • find the liquor cabinet blindfolded
  • need a liver transplant
  • drive his car into a house

Alice Garrett was The Girl Most Likely To:

  • well, not date her little brother's baggage-burdened best friend, for starters.

For Tim, it wouldn't be smart to fall for Alice. For Alice, nothing could be scarier than falling for Tim. But Tim has never been known for making the smart choice, and Alice is starting to wonder if the "smart" choice is always the right one. When these two crash into each other, they crash hard.

Then the unexpected consequences of Tim's wild days come back to shock him. He finds himself in a situation that isn't all it appears to be, that he never could have predicted... but maybe should have. And Alice is caught in the middle.

Told in Tim's and Alice's distinctive, disarming, entirely compelling voices, this return to the world of My Life Next Door is a story about failing first, trying again, and having to decide whether to risk it all once more.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

2015

by Jesse Andrews

Seventeen-year-old Greg has managed to become part of every social group at his Pittsburgh high school without having any friends, but his life changes when his mother forces him to befriend Rachel, a girl he once knew in Hebrew school who has leukemia. Greg's life is one of careful invisibility among his classmates, and he spends most of his time making mediocre films with his only friend, Earl.

Greg's mother insists he rekindle a friendship with Rachel, who is struggling with her illness. This new connection brings both awkwardness and genuine human moments. As Rachel decides to stop treatment, Greg and Earl set out to make a film for her, which leads to unexpected personal growth and emotional revelations for the boys. The story navigates the complex terrain of adolescence, illness, and self-discovery with a blend of wit and sensitivity.

We Were Liars

2014

by E. Lockhart

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. A beautiful and distinguished family. A private island. A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy. A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive. A revolution. An accident. A secret. Lies upon lies. True love. The truth.

Spend the summers on her family's private island off the coast of Massachusetts with her cousins and a special boy named Gat, teenaged Cadence struggles to remember what happened during her fifteenth summer.

Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

MaddAddam

2013

by Margaret Atwood

MaddAddam, the thrilling conclusion to Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction trilogy, weaves together the tales of characters from Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. This novel confirms the ultimate endurance of humanity, community, and love.

Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the Painballers and return to the MaddAddamite cob house, now a fortress against threats both human and animal. Amidst the Crakers, the gentle species crafted by the late Crake, Toby takes up the mantle of religious overseer. As the Crakers' reluctant prophet, Jimmy, recovers from illness, Toby grapples with her own emotions, including jealousy over her lover, Zeb.

Zeb's quest to find Adam One, the founder of the God's Gardeners, unveils his tumultuous past involving a lost brother, a hidden murder, and a bear. With the Painballers looming, the MaddAddamites and their allies must prepare for a fierce confrontation.

Combining adventure, humor, romance, and Atwood's signature inventive storytelling, MaddAddam is an extraordinary tale set in a familiar yet fantastical world, offering a satirical reflection on our own potential future.

Shatter Me

2013

by Tahereh Mafi

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war—and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior. In this electrifying debut, Tahereh Mafi presents a world as riveting as The Hunger Games and a superhero story as thrilling as The X-Men. Full of pulse-pounding romance, intoxicating villainy, and high-stakes choices, Shatter Me is a fresh and original dystopian novel—with a paranormal twist—that will leave readers anxiously awaiting its sequel.

Vita

Zones of social abandonment are emerging everywhere in Brazil's big cities—places like Vita, where the unwanted, the mentally ill, the sick, and the homeless are left to die. This haunting, unforgettable story centers on a young woman named Catarina, increasingly paralyzed and said to be mad, living out her time at Vita.

Anthropologist João Biehl leads a detective-like journey to know Catarina; to unravel the cryptic, poetic words that are part of the "dictionary" she is compiling; and to trace the complex network of family, medicine, state, and economy in which her abandonment and pathology took form. As Biehl painstakingly relates Catarina's words to a vanished world and elucidates her condition, we learn of subjectivities unmade and remade under economic pressures, pharmaceuticals as moral technologies, a public common sense that lets the unsound and unproductive die, and anthropology's unique power to work through these juxtaposed fields.

Vita's methodological innovations, bold fieldwork, and rigorous social theory make it an essential reading for anyone who is grappling with how to understand the conditions of life, thought, and ethics in the contemporary world.

Prodigy

2013

by Marie Lu

Prodigy, the second book in Marie Lu's New York Times bestselling LEGEND trilogy, is a tale perfect for fans of THE HUNGER GAMES and DIVERGENT. June and Day arrive in Vegas at a time of turmoil: the Elector Primo has died, and his son Anden steps into a nation on the brink of chaos.

Joining forces with the Patriots—a group of rebels determined to overthrow the government—June and Day are tasked with a mission that could change everything: assassinate the new Elector. As they delve deeper into the plot, June faces a haunting decision. The new Elector is nothing like his tyrant father. Is a peaceful revolution possible, and are the Patriots right in their approach?

In this gripping sequel, Marie Lu delivers a thrilling narrative with high stakes and cinematic action. Prodigy challenges the characters and the reader to consider the complexity of revolution and the nuances of change.

La ridícula idea de no volver a verte

2013

by Rosa Montero

«Éste es un libro sobre la vida... apasionado y alegre, sentimental y burlón.» ROSA MONTERO.

Cuando Rosa Montero leyó el maravilloso diario que Marie Curie comenzó tras la muerte de su esposo, y que se incluye al final de este libro, sintió que la historia de esa mujer fascinante que se enfrentó a su época le llenaba la cabeza de ideas y emociones. La ridícula idea de no volver a verte nació de ese incendio de palabras, de ese vertiginoso torbellino. Al hilo de la extraordinaria trayectoria de Curie, Rosa Montero construye una narración a medio camino entre el recuerdo personal y la memoria de todos, entre el análisis de nuestra época y la evocación íntima. Son páginas que hablan de la superación del dolor, de las relaciones entre hombres y mujeres, del esplendor del sexo, de la buena muerte y de la bella vida, de la ciencia y de la ignorancia, de la fuerza salvadora de la literatura y de la sabiduría de quienes aprenden a disfrutar de la existencia con plenitud y con ligereza.

Vivo, libérrimo y original, este libro inclasificable incluye fotos, remembranzas, amistades y anécdotas que transmiten el primitivo placer de escuchar buenas historias. Un texto auténtico, emocionante y cómplice que te atrapará desde sus primeras páginas.

Ashfall

2012

by Mike Mullin

Under the bubbling hot springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park is a supervolcano. Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.

For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to search for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.

This Is How You Lose Her

On a beach in the Dominican Republic, a doomed relationship flounders. In the heat of a hospital laundry room in New Jersey, a woman does her lover's washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a man buys his love child, his only son, a first baseball bat and glove. At the heart of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible Yunior, a young hardhead whose longing for love is equaled only by his recklessness—and by the extraordinary women he loves and loses: artistic Alma; the aging Miss Lora; Magdalena, who thinks all Dominican men are cheaters; and the love of his life, whose heartbreak ultimately becomes his own.

In prose that is endlessly energetic, inventive, tender, and funny, the stories in This Is How You Lose Her lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weakness of the human heart. They remind us that passion always triumphs over experience, and that “the half-life of love is forever.”

The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls

At the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, you will definitely learn your lesson. An atmospheric, heartfelt, and delightfully spooky novel for fans of Coraline, Splendors and Glooms, and The Mysterious Benedict Society.

Victoria hates nonsense. There is no need for it when your life is perfect. The only smudge on her pristine life is her best friend Lawrence. He is a disaster, lazy and dreamy, shirt always untucked, obsessed with his silly piano. Victoria often wonders why she ever bothered being his friend. (Lawrence does, too.)

But then Lawrence goes missing. And he is not the only one. Victoria soon discovers that The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls is not what it appears to be. Kids go in but come out different. Or they don't come out at all.

If anyone can sort this out, it's Victoria, even if it means getting a little messy.

Such a Rush

2012

by Jennifer Echols

Such a Rush is a poignant and thrilling tale of Leah Jones, a daring young pilot caught in a complex web of love, betrayal, and family dynamics. Growing up next to an airport in a South Carolina trailer park, Leah makes a life-changing decision at fourteen: rather than succumb to the difficulties of her environment, she chooses to learn to fly.

Leah has always acted as the adult in her family, with a mother who's unreliable and a life fraught with financial instability. Her job at the local airstrip and the thrill of flying provide a much-needed escape from her challenging reality. The sudden death of her flight instructor, Mr. Hall, thrusts everything into chaos when his teenage sons, Alec and Grayson, inherit the business.

Despite her longstanding crush on Grayson, Leah is wary of getting involved with the struggling business. But when Grayson uncovers Leah's deepest secret and uses it to coerce her into flying for him, she finds herself entangled in a dangerous dance with the two brothers. As the summer progresses and tensions rise, Leah must navigate her way through a maze of emotions and risks that could lead to dire consequences for everyone involved.

This Is Not a Test

It's the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High, but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won't stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self.

To Sloane Price, that doesn't sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she's failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she's forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live.

But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group's fate is determined less and less by what's happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

All These Things I've Done

2012

by Gabrielle Zevin

In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed, and New York City is rife with crime and poverty. And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city's most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and her dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.'s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend.

That is until her ex is accidentally poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she's to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight--at school, in the news, and most importantly, within her mafia family. Engrossing and suspenseful, All These Things I've Done is an utterly unique, unputdownable read that blends both the familiar and the fantastic.

Bitterblue

Eight years have passed since the young Princess Bitterblue, and her country, were saved from the vicious King Leck. Now Bitterblue is the queen of Monsea, and her land is at peace.

But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisers, who have run the country on her behalf since Leck's death, believe in a forward-thinking plan: to pardon all of those who committed terrible acts during Leck's reign; and to forget every dark event that ever happened. Monsea's past has become shrouded in mystery, and it's only when Bitterblue begins sneaking out of her castle - curious, disguised and alone - to walk the streets of her own city, that she begins to realize the truth. Her kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year long spell of a madman, and now their only chance to move forward is to revisit the past.

Whatever that past holds.

Two thieves, who have sworn only to steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, who possesses an unidentified Grace, may also hold a key to her heart.

Pandemonium

2012

by Lauren Oliver

In an alternate United States, love has been declared a dangerous disease, and the government forces everyone who reaches eighteen to have a procedure called the Cure. Living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Portland, Maine, Lena Haloway is very much looking forward to being cured and living a safe, predictable life. She watched love destroy her mother and isn't about to make the same mistakes.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena meets enigmatic Alex, a boy from the Wilds who lives under the government's radar. What will happen if they do the unthinkable and fall in love?

In this electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed New York Times bestseller Delirium, Lauren Oliver sets Lena on a dangerous course that hurtles through the unregulated Wilds and into the heart of a growing resistance movement. This riveting, brilliant novel crackles with the fire of fierce defiance, forbidden romance, and the sparks of a revolution about to ignite.

Bakuman, Vol. 6: Recklessness and Guts

Moritaka and Akito's hard work is paying off, and they start challenging their rival Eiji's popularity in Shonen Jump. But just as they plan to take the next step, the team is hit with a surprising setback. Moritaka and Akito will need the help of their manga artist friends to overcome this hurdle!

Red Glove

2011

by Holly Black

Curses and cons. Magic and the mob. In Cassel Sharpe's world, they go together. Cassel always thought he was an ordinary guy, until he realized his memories were being manipulated by his brothers. Now he knows the truth—he's the most powerful curse worker around. A touch of his hand can transform anything—or anyone—into something else.

That was how Lila, the girl he loved, became a white cat. Cassel was tricked into thinking he killed her, when actually he tried to save her. Now that she's human again, he should be overjoyed. Trouble is, Lila's been cursed to love him, a little gift from his emotion-worker mom. And if Lila's love is as phony as Cassel's made-up memories, then he can't believe anything she says or does.

When Cassel's oldest brother is murdered, the Feds recruit Cassel to help make sense of the only clue—crime-scene images of a woman in red gloves. But the mob is after Cassel too—they know how valuable he could be to them. Cassel is going to have to stay one step ahead of both sides just to survive. But where can he turn when he can't trust anyone—least of all, himself?

Love is a curse and the con is the only answer in a game too dangerous to lose.

Delirium

2011

by Lauren Oliver

In an alternate United States, love has been declared a dangerous disease, and the government forces everyone who reaches eighteen to have a procedure called the Cure. Living with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in Portland, Maine, Lena Haloway is very much looking forward to being cured and living a safe, predictable life. She watched love destroy her mother and isn't about to make the same mistake.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena meets enigmatic Alex, a boy from the Wilds who lives under the government's radar. What will happen if they do the unthinkable and fall in love?

Bakuman, Vol. 3: Debut and Impatience

After losing to manga genius Eiji Nizuma, Moritaka and Akito make it their mission to beat this rival--even going so far as to ignore their editor's wishes! But will this decision ultimately help or harm their cause?

Catching Fire

2009

by Suzanne Collins

Sparks are igniting. Flames are spreading. And the Capitol wants revenge. Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Michael Blomkvist, crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government.

But he has no idea just how explosive the story will be until, on the eve of publication, the two investigating reporters are murdered. And even more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander - the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker who came to his aid in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and who now becomes the focus and fierce heart of The Girl Who Played with Fire.

As Blomkvist, alone in his belief in Salander's innocence, plunges into an investigation of the slayings, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to visit her dark past in an effort for her to settle with it, once and for all.

Dune Messiah

2008

by Frank Herbert

Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known—and feared—as the man christened Muad’Dib. As Emperor of the Known Universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremen, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne—and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family’s dynasty...

The Book Thief

2007

by Markus Zusak

This anniversary edition of the extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller features pages of bonus content, including marked-up manuscript pages, original sketches, and pages from the author's writing notebook. “Life-changing.” —The New York Times When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. “Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.

A Countess Below Stairs

2007

by Eva Ibbotson

After the Russian revolution turns her world topsy-turvy, Anna, a young Russian Countess, has no choice but to flee to England. Penniless, Anna hides her aristocratic background and takes a job as servant in the household of the esteemed Westerholme family, armed only with an outdated housekeeping manual and sheer determination.

Desperate to keep her past a secret, Anna is nearly overwhelmed by her new duties—not to mention her instant attraction to Rupert, the handsome Earl of Westerholme. To make matters worse, Rupert appears to be falling for her as well. As their attraction grows stronger, Anna finds it more and more difficult to keep her most dearly held secrets from unraveling. And then there's the small matter of Rupert's beautiful and nasty fiancée...

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man

2005

by Tamora Pierce

"Let her prove herself worthy as a man." Newly knighted, Alanna of Trebond seeks adventure in the vast desert of Tortall. Captured by fierce desert dwellers, she is forced to prove herself in a duel to the death -- either she will be killed or she will be inducted into the tribe. Although she triumphs, dire challenges lie ahead.

As her mythic fate would have it, Alanna soon becomes the tribe's first female shaman -- despite the desert dwellers' grave fear of the foreign woman warrior. Alanna must fight to change the ancient tribal customs of the desert tribes -- for their sake and for the sake of all Tortall. Alanna's journey continues...

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

1998

by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter's summer has included the worst birthday ever, doomy warnings from a house-elf called Dobby, and rescue from the Dursleys by his friend Ron Weasley in a magical flying car! Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his second year, Harry hears strange whispers echo through empty corridors - and then the attacks start. Students are found as though turned to stone... Dobby's sinister predictions seem to be coming true.

With a plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts this year, Harry's adventures include an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls' bathroom. More torments and horrors arise, leading to the question: Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects... Harry Potter himself?

As part of a series that has become a classic of our time, the story of the Boy Who Lived continues to bring comfort and escapism. With their message of hope, belonging, and the enduring power of truth and love, the adventures of Harry Potter delight generations of new readers.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

1997

by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

With their message of hope, belonging and the enduring power of truth and love, the story of the Boy Who Lived continues to delight generations of new readers.

The Handmaid's Tale

1985

by Margaret Atwood

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now . . .

Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.

La casa de Bernarda Alba

La casa de Bernarda Alba es la obra teatral más conocida de Federico Garcíaa Lorca. Escrita en 1936, no pudo ser estrenada ni publicada hasta 1945, en Buenos Aires y gracias a la iniciativa de Margarita Xirgu. La obra expone la historia de Bernarda Alba, quien tras haber enviudado por segunda vez a los 60 años, decide vivir los siguientes ocho años en el más riguroso luto.

Con Bernarda viven sus cinco hijas (Angustias, Magdalena, Amelia, Martirio y Adela), su madre y sus dos criadas. La obra, de gran belleza lírica y fuerza dramática, describe la España profunda de principios del siglo XX, caracterizada por una sociedad tradicional en la que el papel que la mujer jugaba era muy secundario. Lorca destaca por su capacidad de aunar la tradición y la vanguardia, presentando temas, personajes y géneros de la tradición teatral desde inusitadas perspectivas y filtrándolos por el tamiz de unas modernas técnicas expresivas.

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