Read These By The Camp Fire
Discover the best books to read by the campfire! Explore our curated list of captivating reads perfect for cozy nights under the stars. Find your next adventure today.
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What Was Lost
by Catherine O'Flynn
'What Was Lost' is a poignant tale of changing times at Green Oaks shopping centre, and the balancing of love and loss.
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The Garden of Last Days
by Andre Dubus
Explosive elements coverge one early September night in a Florida men's club revealing the seamy underside of American life at the moment before the world changed.
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The Art of Racing in the Rain
by Garth Stein
Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing, isn't simply about going fast. Using the techniques needed on the race track, one can successfully navigate all of life's ordeals. On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling all that he and his family have been through: the sacrifices Denny has made to succeed professionally; the unexpected loss of Eve, Denny's wife; the three-year battle over their daughter, ZoË, whose maternal grandparents pulled every string to gain custody. In the end, despite what he sees as his own limitations, Enzo comes through heroically to preserve the Swift family, holding in his heart the dream that Denny will become a racing champion with ZoË at his side. Having learned what it takes to be a compassionate and successful person, the wise canine can barely wait until his next lifetime, when he is sure he will return as a man. A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a beautifully crafted and captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it.
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Tangerine Dream
by Ken Douglas
"Oh, Lord!" Gayle jerks the wheel to the right, but too late. "Dylan," she cries as the oncoming car strikes them head on. Within minutes fire and rescue have her out of the car and on the way to surgery, but tragically her daughter Dylan dies in the hospital. Dylan's father can't be located. He's running for the Presidency of the United States and supposedly somewhere on the campaign trail, but actually he's I the arms of a teenage prostitute. Gayle decides to recover in New Zealand to avoid the media, but Nick Nesbitt, television newscaster, senses a story and will stop at nothing to get it.
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Love the One You're With
by Emily Giffin
Believing her marriage to Andy to be perfect in every way, Ellen runs into former flame Leo and wonders why she has been unable to forget him even though they brought out the worst in each other.
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America America
by Ethan Canin
Corey Sifter is befriended by the wealthy Metarey family, a politically powerful dynasty in New York, and becomes an aide to New York senator Henry Bonwiller as he runs for the Democratic presidential nomination during the Nixon era.
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Netherland
by Joseph O'Neill
Abandoned amid the offbeat inhabitants of the Chelsea Hotel when his English wife and son return to London following September 11th, Hans, a banker originally from the Netherlands, struggles to find himself in his adopted country, until he stumbles upon a vibrant New York cricket subculture and the charismatic Chuck Ramkissoon. 40,000 first printing.
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The Enchantress of Florence
by Salman Rushdie
"The Enchantress of Florence" is the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man's world. Vivid, gripping, and profoundly moving, this dazzling book is by one of the world's most important living writers.
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The Plague of Doves
by Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich's mesmerizing new novel, her first in almost three years, centers on a compelling mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives. Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory. In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth revealed in the novel's final pages. The Plague of Doves is one of the major achievements of Louise Erdrich's considerable oeuvre, a quintessentially American story and the most complex and original of her books.
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Church of the Dog
by Kaya McLaren
An unforgettable debut novel about finding a home, a safe haven, and family Deep in Oregon farm country, Edith and Earl McRae are looking down the barrel of their fiftieth anniversary with none of the joy such a milestone should hold. Instead, they are stuck in a past that holds them to heartbreak and tragedy. Enter the mysterious and ever-so-slightly magical Mara O’Shaunessey who appears on their ranch with the power to mend long broken fences and show them how to recognize the enchantment of their everyday lives. Gracefully capturing the strange alchemy of people and places, Kaya McLaren’s story of redemption and rediscovery will inspire readers to find the magic and power in every day shared with the people they love.
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World Without End
by Ken Follett
#1 New York Times Bestseller In 1989, Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, a sweeping epic novel set in twelfth-century England centered on the building of a cathedral and many of the hundreds of lives it affected. World Without End is its equally irresistible sequel—set two hundred years after The Pillars of the Earth and three hundred years after the Kingsbridge prequel, The Evening and the Morning. World Without End takes place in the same town of Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building the exquisite Gothic cathedral that was at the heart of The Pillars of the Earth. The cathedral and the priory are again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge, but this sequel stands on its own. This time the men and women of an extraordinary cast of characters find themselves at a crossroads of new ideas—about medicine, commerce, architecture, and justice. In a world where proponents of the old ways fiercely battle those with progressive minds, the intrigue and tension quickly reach a boiling point against the devastating backdrop of the greatest natural disaster ever to strike the human race—the Black Death. Three years in the writing and nearly eighteen years since its predecessor, World Without End is a "well-researched, beautifully detailed portrait of the late Middle Ages" (The Washington Post) that once again shows that Ken Follett is a masterful author writing at the top of his craft.
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The Secret Scripture
by Sebastian Barry
Recording the events of her life from a mental hospital as her hundredth birthday approaches, Roseanne McNulty considers returning to society when she learns that the hospital is about to close, but her situation is complicated by the possibility that Roseanne remembers her life quite differently from what is documented in her patient records. 15,000 first printing.
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Skeletons at the Feast
by Chris Bohjalian
Capturing both the power and poignancy of romance and the terror and tragedy of war, Bohjalian's latest work puts a moving face on one of the 20th century's greatest tragedies.
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Lush Life
by Richard Price
In "Lush Life," Price tears the shiny veneer off the "new" New York to show the underground networks of control and violence beneath the glamour, in this novel that reads like a movie in prose" ("New York Times").
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Atmospheric Disturbances
by Rivka Galchen
At once a moving love story, a dark comedy, a psychological thriller, and a deeply disturbing portrait of a fracturing mind, this highly inventive debut explores the mysterious nature of human relationships.
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Mudbound
by Hillary Jordan
In 1946, Laura McAllan tries to adjust after moving with her husband and two children to an isolated cotton farm in the Mississipi Delta.
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The Cellist of Sarajevo
by Steven Galloway
"A novel of great intensity and power. The Cellist of Sarajevo explores how war can change one's definition of humanity, how music affects our emotional endurance, and how a romance with the rituals of daily life can itself be a form of resistance."--BOOK JACKET.
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Missy
by Chris Hannan
Missy is laudanum, or liquid opium. Missy is Dol McQueen, a nineteen-year-old "flash-girl" traveling the arduous wagon trail from San Francisco to the boomtowns of the Sierra Nevada. Her purpose: to fleece the silver miners and to have a marvelous time.
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A Patent Lie
by Paul Goldstein
Attorney Michael Seeley reluctantly takes on a case involving a patent infringement on an AIDS vaccine, replacing the former lead lawyer, an apparent suicide, only to discover that the vast financial stakes in the case may have led to murder.
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Tigerheart
by Peter Allen David
Growing up in London on his father's fantastical tales of a magical land called the Anyplace, Paul Dear journeys into this enchanted world after tragedy strikes the family, seeking a great hero, the Boy of Legend, only to encounter the greatest challenge of his life, in a witty and poignant tribute to J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan. 35,000 first printing.
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Johnny One-Eye
by Jerome Charyn
This comic masterpiece reimagines the American Revolution with a one-eyed spy, a heroic whorehouse madam, and a cunning George Washington.