Melanie Hazen's Library
Montgomery Central High
| ISBN | Title | Author | Description | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9780143037149 | The Memory Keeper's Daughter: A Novel | Edwards, Kim | award-winning Writer Kim Edwards's the Memory Keeper's Daughter Is A Brilliantly Crafted Family Drama That Explores Every Mother's Silent Fear: What Would Happen If You Lost Your Child And She Grew Up Without You? On A Winter Night In 1964, Dr. David Henry Is Forced By A Blizzard To Deliver His Own Twins. His Son, Born First, Is Perfectly Healthy. Yet When His Daughter Is Born, He Sees Immediately That She Has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing It As A Need To Protect Norah, His Wife, He Makes A Split Second Decision That Will Alter All Of Their Lives Forever. He Asks His Nurse To Take The Baby Away To An Institution And Never To Reveal The Secret. But Caroline, The Nurse, Cannot Leave The Infant. Instead, She Disappears Into Another City To Raise The Child Herself. So Begins This Beautifully Told Story That Unfolds Over A Quarter Of A Century In Which These Two Families, Ignorant Of Each Other, Are Yet Bound By David Henry's Fateful Decision That Long-ago Winter Night. A Rich And Deeply Moving Page-turner, the Memory Keeper's Daughter Captures The Way Life Takes Unexpected Turns And How The Mysterious Ties That Hold A Family Together Help Us Survive The Heartache That Occurs When Long-buried Secrets Burst Into The Open. It Is An Astonishing Tale Of Redemptive Love.publishers Weeklyedwards's Assured But Schematic Debut Novel (after Her Collection, The Secrets Of A Fire King) Hinges On The Birth Of Fraternal Twins, A Healthy Boy And A Girl With Down Syndrome, Resulting In The Father's Disavowal Of His Newborn Daughter. A Snowstorm Immobilizes Lexington, Ky., In 1964, And When Young Norah Henry Goes Into Labor, Her Husband, Orthopedic Surgeon Dr. David Henry, Must Deliver Their Babies Himself, Aided Only By A Nurse. Seeing His Daughter's Handicap, He Instructs The Nurse, Caroline Gill, To Take Her To A Home And Later Tells Norah, Who Was Drugged During Labor, That Their Son Paul's Twin Died At Birth. Instead Of Institutionalizing Phoebe, Caroline Absconds With Her To Pittsburgh. David's Deception Becomes The Defining Moment Of The Main Characters' Lives, And Phoebe's Absence Corrodes Her Birth Family's Core Over The Course Of The Next 25 Years. David's Undetected Lie Warps His Marriage; He Grapples With Guilt; Norah Mourns Her Lost Child; And Paul Not Only Deals With His Parents' Icy Relationship But With His Own Yearnings For His Sister As Well. Though The Impact Of Phoebe's Loss Makes Sense, Edwards's Redundant Handling Of The Trope Robs It Of Credibility. This Neatly Structured Story Is A Little Too Moist With Compassion. Agent, Geri Thoma. (july) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. | Penguin Books |
| 9780618485222 | The Namesake: A Novel | Lahiri, Jhumpa | Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies established this young writer as one the most brilliant of her generation. Her stories are one of the very few debut works—and only a handful of collections—to have won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Among the many other awards and honors it received were the New Yorker Debut of the Year award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the highest critical praise for its grace, acuity, and compassion in detailing lives transported from India to America. In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection an international bestseller: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations. Here again Lahiri displays her deft touch for the perfect detail—the fleeting moment, the turn of phrase—that opens whole worlds of emotion. The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves. The New York Times has praised Lahiri as "a writer of uncommon elegance and poise." The Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity. | Mariner Books |
| 9781250080400 | The Nightingale: A Novel | Hannah, Kristin | In Love We Find Out Who We Want To Be. In War We Find Out Who We Are. France, 1939 In The Quiet Village Of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac Says Goodbye To Her Husband, Antoine, As He Heads For The Front. She Doesn't Believe That The Nazis Will Invade France...but Invade They Do, In Droves Of Marching Soldiers, In Caravans Of Trucks And Tanks, In Planes That Fill The Skies And Drop Bombs Upon The Innocent. When A German Captain Requisitions Vianne's Home, She And Her Daughter Must Live With The Enemy Or Lose Everything. Without Food Or Money Or Hope, As Danger Escalates All Around Them, She Is Forced To Make One Impossible Choice After Another To Keep Her Family Alive. Vianne's Sister, Isabelle, Is A Rebellious Eighteen-year-old Girl, Searching For Purpose With All The Reckless Passion Of Youth. While Thousands Of Parisians March Into The Unknown Terrors Of War, She Meets Gäetan, A Partisan Who Believes The French Can Fight The Nazis From Within France, And She Falls In Love As Only The Young Can...completely. But When He Betrays Her, Isabelle Joins The Resistance And Never Looks Back, Risking Her Life Time And Again To Save Others. With Courage, Grace And Powerful Insight, Bestselling Author Kristin Hannah Captures The Epic Panorama Of World War Ii And Illuminates An Intimate Part Of History Seldom Seen: The Women's War. The Nightingale Tells The Stories Of Two Sisters, Separated By Years And Experience, By Ideals, Passion And Circumstance, Each Embarking On Her Own Dangerous Path Toward Survival, Love, And Freedom In German-occupied, War-torn France--a Heartbreakingly Beautiful Novel That Celebrates The Resilience Of The Human Spirit And The Durability Of Women. It Is A Novel For Everyone, A Novel For A Lifetime. | St. Martin's Griffin |
| 9780679728832 | The Optimist's Daughter | Eudora Welty | This Pulitzer Prize–winning novel tells the story of Laurel McKelva Hand, a young woman who has left the South and returns, years later, to New Orleans, where her father is dying. After his death, she and her silly young stepmother go back still farther, to the small Mississippi town where she grew up. Along in the old house, Laurel finally comes to an understanding of the past, herself, and her parents. | Vintage |
| 9780439224062 | The Raven and Other Poems | Edgar Allan Poe, Philip Pullman | Samples of Poe's best poetry include "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "The Bells." | Scholastic Paperbacks |
| 9780486297651 | The Taming Of The Shrew (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays) | William Shakespeare | Passion divides and unites a spirited pair of lovers in a 16th-century battle of the sexes. Witty dialogue and slapstick humor abound in this ever-popular comedy. Inexpensive, unabridged edition perfect for students. | Dover Publications |
| 9780062107329 | The Valley Of Amazement | Tan, Amy | Ecco | |
| 9781565125605 | Water For Elephants: A Novel | Gruen, Sara | Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski's ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell. Jacob was there because his luck had run out—orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on this locomotive "ship of fools." It was the early part of the Great Depression, and everyone in this third-rate circus was lucky to have any job at all. Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, was there because she fell in love with the wrong man, a handsome circus boss with a wide mean streak. And Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was, Rosie didn't have an act—in fact, she couldn't even follow instructions. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival. Surprising, poignant, and funny, Water for Elephants is that rare novel with a story so engrossing, one is reluctant to put it down; with characters so engaging, they continue to live long after the last page has been turned; with a world built of wonder, a world so real, one starts to breathe its air. | Algonquin Books |
| 9780571198771 | Wit: A Play | Edson, Margaret | Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the Oppenheimer Award Margaret Edson’s powerfully imagined Pulitzer Prize–winning play examines what makes life worth living through her exploration of one of existence’s unifying experiences—mortality—while she also probes the vital importance of human relationships. What we as her audience take away from this remarkable drama is a keener sense that, while death is real and unavoidable, our lives are ours to cherish or throw away—a lesson that can be both uplifting and redemptive. As the playwright herself puts it, “The play is not about doctors or even about cancer. It’s about kindness, but it shows arrogance. It’s about compassion, but it shows insensitivity.” In Wit, Edson delves into timeless questions with no final answers: How should we live our lives knowing that we will die? Is the way we live our lives and interact with others more important than what we achieve materially, professionally, or intellectually? How does language figure into our lives? Can science and art help us conquer death, or our fear of it? What will seem most important to each of us about life as that life comes to an end? The immediacy of the presentation, and the clarity and elegance of Edson’s writing, make this sophisticated, multilayered play accessible to almost any interested reader. As the play begins, Vivian Bearing, a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the intricate, difficult Holy Sonnets of the seventeenth-century poet John Donne, is diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. Confident of her ability to stay in control of events, she brings to her illness the same intensely rational and painstakingly methodical approach that has guided her stellar academic career. But as her disease and its excruciatingly painful treatment inexorably progress, she begins to question the single-minded values and standards that have always directed her, finally coming to understand the aspects of life that make it truly worth living. | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |