A Small Library of My Own

Discover a curated collection of must-read books in 'A Small Library of My Own.' Explore literary gems, personal favorites, and timeless classics for every reader.

Bright Lights, Big City Cover
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Bright Lights, Big City

by Jay McInerney

With the publication of Bright Lights, Big City in 1984, Jay McInerney became a literary sensation, heralded as the voice of a generation. The novel follows a young man, living in Manhattan as if he owned it, through nightclubs, fashion shows, editorial offices, and loft parties as he attempts to outstrip mortality and the recurring approach of dawn. With nothing but goodwill, controlled substances, and wit to sustain him in this anti-quest, he runs until he reaches his reckoning point, where he is forced to acknowledge loss and, possibly, to rediscover his better instincts. This remarkable novel of youth and New York remains one of the most beloved, imitated, and iconic novels in America.
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Memoirs of a Geisha Cover
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Memoirs of a Geisha

by Arthur Golden

A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel tells with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. It begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old girl with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. We witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup, and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction—at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful—and completely unforgettable.
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Ellen Foster Cover
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Ellen Foster

by Kaye Gibbons

One of the most talked-about and endearing first novels in years bears the story of a female Huck Finn and her search for a true home. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Snow Falling on Cedars Cover
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Snow Falling on Cedars

by David Guterson

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PEN/Faulkner Award Winner • A gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric masterpiece of courtroom suspense—one that leaves us shaken and changed. "Haunting .... A whodunit complete with courtroom maneuvering and surprising turns of evidence and at the same time a mystery, something altogether richer and deeper." —Los Angeles Times San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies. But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries—memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched.
Far Tortuga Cover
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Far Tortuga

by Peter Matthiessen

An adventure story and a deeply considered meditation upon the sea itself. "Beautiful and original...a resonant and symbolical story of nine doomed men who dream of an earthly paradise as the world winds down around them." —Newsweek
The Liars' Club Cover
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The Liars' Club

by Mary Karr

The author, a poet, recounts her difficult childhood growing up in a Texas oil town.
On the Road Cover
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On the Road

by Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac’s classic American novel of freedom and the search for originality that defined a generation “An authentic work of art.”—The New York Times Inspired by Jack Kerouac’s adventures with Neal Cassady, On the Road tells the story of two friends whose cross-country road trips are a quest for meaning and true experience. Written with a mixture of sad-eyed naïveté and wild abandon and imbued with Kerouac’s love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz, On the Road is the quintessential American vision of freedom and hope—a book that changed American literature and changed anyone who has ever picked it up.
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Mama Makes Up Her Mind Cover
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Mama Makes Up Her Mind

by Bailey White

Recounting life in her small Southern town, the author describes teaching first-graders to read with the help of the Titanic, her cane-wielding mother in a juke joint, and other tales. Reprint. 150,000 first printing. Tour.
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The Perfect Storm Cover
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The Perfect Storm

by Sebastian Junger

A true story of men against the sea.
Stormy Weather Cover
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Stormy Weather

by Carl Hiaasen

A hilarious new novel of greed and corruption from the bestselling author of Strip Tease. The story focuses on southern Florida at the height of the tourist season, when a ferocious hurricane hits--luring con artists, carpetbaggers, and would-be saviours like hyenas to the lion's kill. "Hiaasen (hilself is a one-man force of nature".--Variety. Major advertising, including key city radio and print ads in The New York Times Book Review and Miami Herald.