Fringe book club
Explore the Fringe Book Club's curated reading list, featuring compelling fiction and biography. Discover thought-provoking picks like Karleen Koen's *Now Face to Face* and Barbara Kingsolver's *The Poisonwood Bible*, alongside Arthur C. Clarke's sci-fi classic *Childhood's End* and Clive Cussler's *The Sea Hunters II*. Find your next intriguing read here.
Book
Childhood's End
by Arthur C. Clarke
The inspiration for the Syfy miniseries. Childhoodâs End is one of the defining legacies of Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and many other groundbreaking works. Since its publication in 1953, this prescient novel about first contact gone wrong has come to be regarded not only as a science fiction classic but as a literary thriller of the highest order. Spaceships have suddenly appeared in the skies above every city on the planet. Inside is an intellectually, technologically, and militarily superior alien race known as the Overlords. At first, their demands seem benevolent: unify Earth, eliminate poverty, end war. But at what cost? To those who resist, itâs clear that the Overlords have an agenda of their own. Has their arrival marked the end of humankind . . . or the beginning? Praise for Childhoodâs End âA first-rate tour de force.ââThe New York Times âFrighteningly logical, believable, and grimly prophetic . . . Clarke is a master.ââLos Angeles Times âThere has been nothing like it for years; partly for the actual invention, but partly because here we meet a modern author who understands that there may be things that have a higher claim on humanity than its own âsurvival.â ââC. S. Lewis âAs a science fiction writer, Clarke has all the essentials.ââJeremy Bernstein, The New Yorker
Book
Now Face to Face
by Karleen Koen
The unforgettable sequel to Karleen Koenâs beloved debut, Through a Glass Darkly A Book-of-the-Month Club main selection A bride at ïŹfteen, widowed at the tender age of twenty, Barbara, Countess Devane, embarks for colonial Virginia ïŹnancially ruined by the death of her husband in scandalous circumstances. Dressed in mourning as is proper for a woman, she is patronizingly described as a âfragile black butterfly,â but the fragility is deceiving. She makes a place for herself in the new world, takes lovers and friends across political divides, and questions the established traditions of slavery. Facing enemies she never suspected, she must return to England and deal face to face with the problems created by her husband, who haunts her even in death. Back in London, she quickly ïŹnds herself pulled into Jacobite plotting, and the treachery of powerful men suddenly threatens her family, her friendsâand a new love. Now Face to Face sweeps readers from eighteenth-century America to London and brings both worlds to vivid life. It is a magniïŹcent evocation of an era, from the plantations of Virginia to Hanoverian England.
Book
The Sea Hunters II
by Clive Cussler
The second thrilling account of #1 New York Times bestselling author Clive Cusslers's real-life search for lost ships, planes, and other marvels that changed history. For decades, Clive Cusslerâs real-life NUMAÂź, the National Underwater and Marine Agency, has scoured rivers and seas in search of lost ships of historic significance. His teams have been inundated by tidal waves and beset by obstaclesâboth human and naturalâbut the results, and the stories behind them, have been dramatic. In this follow-up to their bestselling first account, The Sea Hunters, Cussler and colleague Craig Dirgo provide another extraordinary narrative of their true seagoingâand landâadventures, including their searches for the famous ghost ship Mary Celeste, found floating off the Azores in 1874 with no one on board; the Carpathia, the ship that rescued the Titanic survivors and was itself lost to U-boats six years later; and LâOiseau Blanc, the airplane that almost beat The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic before disappearing in the Maine woods. All these, plus steamboats, ironclads, a seventeenth century flagship, a certain famous PT boat, and even a dirigible, are tantalizing targets as Cussler proves again that truth can be âat least as fun, and sometimes stranger, than fictionâ (Menâs Journal).
Book
The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.