Some Good Weekend Reading
Discover the perfect books for your weekend escape! Explore our curated list of must-read titles to relax, unwind, and enjoy some good weekend reading.
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All the Stars Came Out that Night
by Kevin King
In the tradition of iconic literary baseball novels such as The Natural, Bang the Drum Slowly, and The Brothers Kcomes a mythic tale about 1930s stars Dizzy Dean, Satchel Paige, and the greatest game ever played.Narrated by gossip columnist Walter Winchell, All the Stars Came Out That Nightpaints a vivid and moving portrait of Depression-era baseball'its raw joy and elegance but also its cursing, boozing, womanizing, and racism, and its odd relationships with bootleggers, racketeers, Hollywood stars, kidnappers, and even Dominican dictators. The date was October 20, 1934, just days after Diz's Cardinals won the World Series. The place was Boston's Fenway Park, under portable lights. The money behind it was Henry Ford's, who yearned to see an all-white (and non-Jewish) team defeat the black all-stars. And the force behind it all was Clarence Darrow, the legal genius who pulled the political levers to make it happen. For Diz's team there was Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Shoeless Joe Jackson (overweight and still banned from the game), and a lanky minor- leaguer named Joe DiMaggio. Paige's all-stars featured Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell (the fastest man from first to third), Turkey Stearnes, and Buck Leonard. With a gimlet eye for historical detail and a passionate love for the game, Kevin King chronicles this epic game between Diz's and Satch's all-stars'and the epic struggle to put it together. No trophies or championships were on the line, only the two most important things in life to any ballplayer'respect and redemption.
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Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
In 1959, Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist, takes his four young daughters, his wife, and his mission to the Belgian Congo -- a place, he is sure, where he can save needy souls. But the seeds they plant bloom in tragic ways within this complex culture. Set against one of the most dramatic political events of the twentieth century -- the Congo's fight for independence from Belgium and its devastating consequences -- here is New York Times-bestselling author Barbara Kingslover's beautiful, heartbreaking, and unforgettable epic that chronicles the disintegration of family and a nation.
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A Walk to Remember
by Nicholas Sparks
A high school rebel and a minister's daughter find strength in each other in this star-crossed tale of "young but everlasting love" (Chicago Sun-Times). There was a time when the world was sweeter....when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats.... Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he'd been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town's Baptist minister....Jamie, who was destined to show him the depths of the human heart-and the joy and pain of living. The inspiration for this novel came from Nicholas Sparks's sister: her life and her courage. From the internationally bestselling author Nicholas Sparks, comes his most moving story yet....
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The Pact
by Jodi Picoult
From Jodi Picoult, one of the most powerful writers in contemporary fiction, comes a riveting, timely, heartbreaking, and terrifying novel of families in anguish -- and friendships ripped apart by inconceivable violence. Until the phone calls came at 3:00 A.M. on a November morning, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily has been shot to death by her beloved and devoted Chris as part of an apparent suicide pact -- leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.
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A Wedding in December
by Anita Shreve
At an inn in the Berkshire Mountains, seven former schoolmates gather to celebrate a wedding--a reunion that becomes the occasion of astonishing revelations as the friends collectively recall a long-ago night that indelibly marked each of their lives. Written with the fluent narrative artistry that distinguishes all of Anita Shreve's bestselling novels, A Wedding in December acutely probes the mysteries of the human heart and the endless allure of paths not taken.
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Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson
In 1956, toward the end of his life, Reverend John Ames begins a letter to his young son, sharing the story of his life and explaining how his faith influenced his choices and actions.
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The Bean Trees
by Barbara Kingsolver
Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity for putting down roots. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places. Available for the first time in mass-market, this edition of Barbara Kingsolver's bestselling novel, The Bean Trees, will be in stores everywhere in September. With two different but equally handsome covers, this book is a fine addition to your Kingsolver library.
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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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The Electric Michelangelo
by Sarah Hall
Cy Parks is the Electric Michelangelo, an artist of extraordinary gifts whose medium happens to be the pliant, shifting canvas of the human body. Fleeing his mother's legacy -- a consumptives' hotel in a fading English seaside resort -- Cy reinvents himself in the incandescent honky-tonk of Coney Island in its heyday between the two world wars. Amid the carnival decadence of freak shows and roller coasters, enchanters and enigmas, scam artists and marks, Cy will find his muse: an enigmatic circus beauty who surrenders her body to his work, but whose soul tantalizingly eludes him. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
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The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
A Magical love story that is as sad as it is joyous.
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Marriage Most Scandalous
by Johanna Lindsey
For Sebastian Townshend, son of the eighth Earl of Edgewood, England is a distant and bitter memory.
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Ordinary Heroes
by Scott Turow
Stewart Dubinsky plunges into the mystery of his family's secret history when he discovers his deceased father's wartime letters to his former fiancÄ›, revealing his court-martial and imprisonment during World World II.
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On Beauty
by Zadie Smith
Struggling with a stale marriage and the misguided passions of his three adult children, long-suffering art professor Howard Belsey finds his family life thrown into turmoil by his son's engagement to the socially prominent daughter of a right-wing icon. By the author of White Teeth. 200,000 first printing.
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Rebecca
by Daphne Du Maurier
"Last Night I Dreamt I Went To Manderley Again." So the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter remembered the chilling events that led her down the turning drive past ther beeches, white and naked, to the isolated gray stone manse on the windswept Cornish coast. With a husband she barely knew, the young bride arrived at this immense estate, only to be inexorably drawn into the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but never forgotten...her suite of rooms never touched, her clothes ready to be worn, her servant -- the sinister Mrs. Danvers -- still loyal. And as an eerie presentiment of evil tightened around her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter began her search for the real fate of Rebecca...for the secrets of Manderley.
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Peace Like a River
by Leif Enger
A bag with ten copies of the title that may also include miscellaneous notes, discussion questions, biographical information, and reading lists to assist book group discussion leaders.
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Goodnight Nobody
by Jennifer Weiner
A young mother moves to a postcard-perfect Connecticut town where she unravels crime while her children are in nursery school. Investigating a death, she discovers disturbing truths.
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A Good Yarn
by Debbie Macomber
The shop on Blossom Street called The Good Yarn has now been open for a year and Lydia Hoffman is starting a new session of knitting classes.
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Until I Find You
by John Irving
Chronicles the life and times of actor Jack Burns, whose unique bond with his mother, Alice, a Toronto tattoo artist, and their search for his missing father, William, shapes his relationships with women and his Hollywood career.