Millennium Book Maven

Explore the Millennium Book Maven's curated list of timeless reads. Discover top book recommendations and literary gems for every avid reader.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short Cover
Book

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

by Terry McMillan

“Without question, this is McMillan’s best. A glorious novel....A moving tapestry of familial love and redemption.”—The Washington Post With her hallmark exuberance and a cast of characters so sassy, resilient, and full of life that they breathe, dream, and shout right off the page, Terry McMillan has given us a tour-de-force novel of family, healing, and redemption. A Day Late and a Dollar Short takes us deep into the hearts, minds, and souls of America—and gives us six more friends we never want to leave.
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ID: 0743482441
(Type: books)
The Emperor of Ocean Park Cover
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The Emperor of Ocean Park

by Stephen L. Carter

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • INSPIRATION FOR THE MGM+ ORIGINAL SERIES • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • In his triumphant fictional debut, Stephen Carter combines a large-scale, riveting novel of suspense with the saga of a unique family. The Emperor of Ocean Park is set in two privileged worlds: the upper crust African American society of the Eastern seabord—families who summer at Martha’s Vineyard—and the inner circle of an Ivy League law school. “Beautifully written and cleverly plotted. A rich, complex family saga, one deftly woven through a fine legal thriller.” —John Grisham Talcott Garland is a successful law professor, devoted father, and husband of a beautiful and ambitious woman, whose future desires may threaten the family he holds so dear. When Talcott’s father, Judge Oliver Garland, a disgraced former Supreme Court nominee, is found dead under suspicioius circumstances, Talcott wonders if he may have been murdered. Guided by the elements of a mysterious puzzle that his father left, Talcott must risk his marriage, his career and even his life in his quest for justice. Superbly written and filled with memorable characters, The Emperor of Ocean Park is both a stunning literary achievement and a grand literary entertainment.
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ID: 0767912128
(Type: books)
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ID: 0060007788
(Type: books)
Sula Cover
Book

Sula

by Toni Morrison

In clear, dark, resonant language, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison brilliantly evokes not only a bond between two lives, but the harsh, loveless, ultimately mad world in which that bond is destroyed, the world of the Bottom and its people. Unabridged. 5 CDs.
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ID: 159448192X
(Type: books)
A Raisin in the Sun Cover
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A Raisin in the Sun

by Lorraine Hansberry

"Never before, in the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of Black people's lives been seen on the stage," observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959. This edition presents the fully restored, uncut version of Hansberry's landmark work with an introduction by Robert Nemiroff. Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of Black America—and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up/like a raisin in the sun." "The events of every passing year add resonance to A Raisin in the Sun," said The New York Times. "It is as if history is conspiring to make the play a classic."
Their Eyes Were Watching God Cover
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Their Eyes Were Watching God

 

No summary available.
One Hundred Years of Solitude Cover
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One Hundred Years of Solitude

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The rise and fall, birth and death, of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the BuendĂ­a family.
Black, White & Jewish Cover
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Black, White & Jewish

 

No summary available.
Love Cover
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Love

by Toni Morrison

From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner—a spellbinding symphony of passion and hatred, power and perversity, color and class that spans three generations of Black women in a fading beach town. “A marvelous work, which enlarges our conception not only of love but of racial politics.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review In life, Bill Cosey enjoyed the affections of many women, who would do almost anything to gain his favor. In death his hold on them may be even stronger. Wife, daughter, granddaughter, employee, mistress: As Morrison’s protagonists stake their furious claim on Cosey’s memory and estate, using everything from intrigue to outright violence, she creates a work that is shrewd, funny, erotic, and heartwrenching.
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ID: 0312423616
(Type: books)
The Dew Breaker Cover
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The Dew Breaker

by Edwidge Danticat

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A "brilliant book, undoubtedly the best one yet by an enormously talented writer” (The Washington Post Book World), about love, remorse, and hope; of personal and political rebellions; and of the compromises we make to move beyond the most intimate brushes with history. In this award-winning, bestselling work of fiction that moves between Haiti in the 1960s and New York in the present day, we meet an unusual man who is harboring a vital, dangerous secret. He is a quiet man, a good father and husband, a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a landlord and barber with a terrifying scar across his face. As the book unfolds, we enter the lives of those around him, and his secret is slowly revealed. Edwidge Danticat’s brilliant exploration of the “dew breaker”—or torturer—is an unforgettable story from one of America’s most essential writers.
Breath, Eyes, Memory Cover
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Breath, Eyes, Memory

by Edwidge Danticat

Oprah's Book Club.
The Joy Luck Club Cover
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The Joy Luck Club

by Amy Tan

Encompassing two generations and a rich blend of Chinese and American history, the story of four struggling, strong women also reveals their daughters' memories and feelings
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ID: 0451530454
(Type: books)
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ID: 0393964582
(Type: books)
I Know why the Caged Bird Sings Cover
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I Know why the Caged Bird Sings

by Maya Angelou

The moving and beautiful autobiography of a talented black woman. ". . . I have no words for this achievement, but I know that not since the days of my childhood . . . have I found myself so moved . . . Her portrait is a Biblical study of life in the midst of death".--James Baldwin. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
The Shadow of the Wind Cover
Book

The Shadow of the Wind

by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The New York Times bestseller “The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) “One gorgeous read.” —Stephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.
Things Fall Apart Cover
Book

Things Fall Apart

by Chinua Achebe

“A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world.” —Barack Obama “African literature is incomplete and unthinkable without the works of Chinua Achebe.” —Toni Morrison Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
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ID: 0786888598
(Type: books)
What Looks Like Crazy On an Ordinary Day Cover
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What Looks Like Crazy On an Ordinary Day

by Pearl Cleage

Oprah's Book Club.
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ID: 0345481119
(Type: books)
Nineteen Eighty-four Cover
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Nineteen Eighty-four

by George Orwell

Eternal warfare is the price of bleak prosperity in this satire of totalitarian barbarism.
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ID: 0140449116
(Type: books)
The House on Mango Street Cover
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The House on Mango Street

by Sandra Cisneros

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Told in a series of vignettes-sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous-Sandra Cisneros' masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers. “Cisneros draws on her rich [Latino] heritage ... and seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one.” —The New York Times Book Review
Night Cover
Book

Night

by Elie Wiesel

Presents a true account of the author's experiences as a Jewish boy in a Nazi concentration camp.
The Hours Cover
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The Hours

by Michael Cunningham

Winner of the pulitzer Prize.
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ID: 0590331256
(Type: books)
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ID: 0689878451
(Type: books)
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ID: 1592640559
(Type: books)
Beloved Cover
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Beloved

by Toni Morrison

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author. This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story” (People) is an unflinchingly look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. “A masterwork.... Wonderful.... I can’t imagine American literature without it.” —John Leonard, Los Angeles Times
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ID: 0451201000
(Type: books)
The Other Woman Cover
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The Other Woman

by Eric Jerome Dickey

With their marriage dissipating in the face of their conflicting work schedules, an African-American couple finds their relationship tested by extramarital affairs. By the author of Liar's Game and Sister, Sister. Reprint. 200,000 first printing.
God's Gift to Women Cover
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God's Gift to Women

by Michael Baisden

A smooth talker. An even better listener. And handsome as heaven on earth. He is God's Gift to Women. Julian Payne gets into bed with millions of women every night. As an after-hours radio talk-show host, Julian captivates his female audience with his deep voice and sensitive spirit. Women can't get enough: They call in, begging for his advice about love, lust, commitment, and betrayal. Julian provides his listeners with the blunt male perspective, and he always has the right thing to say. But when it comes to his own romantic life, or lack thereof, he's at a loss for words. A widower and father to ten-year-old Samantha, Julian wants nothing more than to settle down again with the right woman. Just when he thinks he's found her in Dr. Terri Ross -- smart, stunning, and with her own counseling practice -- Julian is confronted by a ghost from the past: Olivia Brown, a woman with whom he had a one-night stand. Suddenly Julian finds himself in a situation with a woman who's determined to win him over...or make his life a living hell. Michael Baisden's hottest offering yet, God's Gift to Women is a compelling tale about the consequences of sex with a stranger.
The Devil Wears Prada Cover
Book

The Devil Wears Prada

by Lauren Weisberger

A small-town girl fresh out of an Ivy League college lands a job at a prestigious fashion magazine, but wonders if the glamorous perks are worth working for the editor from hell.
Douglass' Women Cover
Book

Douglass' Women

 

No summary available.
Liar's Game Cover
Book

Liar's Game

by Eric Jerome Dickey

In this sensational New York Times bestseller, Eric Jerome Dickey explores how real people come together and fall apart in a story about a love that starts with a lie.... Dana Ann Smith has ditched New York—and a relationship gone bad—for Los Angeles, looking for a new man, a new career, and some stability. She thinks she's found it in Vincent Calvalry Browne Jr., a handsome, hardworking aerospace tech. They've offered just enough of themselves to make it the perfect romance. And they've withheld just enough to ruin it. When their secrets come to light, Dana and Vince come face-to-face with the fact that the passionate game between lovers and liars has just begun....