"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z, a mesmerizing story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's...

Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, is a dramatic allegory telling the journey we each must take before having the ability to live on high places. Throughout the story, the emotions and struggles of our nature are personified. It is a story of endurance, persistence, and reliance on God, which has inspired millions of people to become sure-footed in their faith even when facing the rockiest of life's terrain. Much-Afraid had been in the service...

"Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life--from...

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy's fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist...

Elderly Mrs. Threadgoode relates the story of her life and of her best friend, Ruth, who ran the Whistle Stop Cafe in Alabama in the thirties.

"Reacher takes a stroll through a small Wisconsin town and sees a class ring in a pawn shop window: West Point 2005. A tough year to graduate: Iraq, then Afghanistan. The ring is tiny; it's for a woman. Reacher wonders what unlucky circumstance made her give up something she earned over four hard years. He decides to find out. And find the woman. And return her ring, which has her initials engraved on the inside. Why not? So begins a harrowing journey...

Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts. Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer's block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious...

Friendly and bubbly, Julia Padden likes nearly everyone, but her standoffish neighbor, Cain Maddox, presents a particular challenge. No matter how hard she's tried to be nice, Cain rudely rebuffs her at every turn, preferring to keep to himself. But when Julia catches Cain stealing her newspaper from the lobby of their apartment building, that's the last straw. She's going to break through Cain's Scrooge-like exterior the only way she knows how :...

From SWO Tenure Faculty Selection: Michael Winston: "I picked this book because it helped me understand my connection to the modern literary moment and because its subject of identity and agency specifically female agency for Munro is central to this moment. It also helps that I've been in love with her writing since an advisor handed me a copy of her Selected Stories. More importantly, the title story “Too Much Happiness” is a hot, rambling mess...

Treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo are exploring the Great Pocomoke Swamp when they are shocked to discover a World War II German U-boat. Inside, they find a bottle from Napoleon's "lost cellar". And they set out to find the rest. But another connoisseur of sorts has been looking for the bottle they just found. He is a half-Russian, half-Persian millionaire who claims to be a descendant of Xerxes himself. And he wants his treasure back ...