Jane Smiley
Author
Language
English
Description
"From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author: a rollicking murder mystery set in Gold Rush California, as two young prostitutes follow a trail of missing girls. Monterey, 1851. Ever since her husband was killed in a bar fight, Eliza Ripple has been working in a brothel. It seems like a better life, at least at first. The madam, Mrs. Parks, is kind, the men are (relatively) well behaved, and Eliza has attained what few women have:...
2) Some luck
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different yet equally remarkable children: Frank, the brilliant, stubborn first-born; Joe, whose love of animals makes him the natural heir to his family's land; Lillian, an angelic child who enters a fairy-tale marriage with a man only she will fully know; Henry, the bookworm who's not afraid to be different; and Claire, who...
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Description
In 1953, the Langdon family at a crossroads. Their stalwart patriarch, Walter, who with his wife, Rosanna, sustained their farm for three decades, has suddenly died, leaving their five children, now adults, looking to the future. Only one will remain in Iowa to work the land, while the others scatter to Washington, D.C., California, and everywhere in between. As the country moves out of post-World War II optimism through the darker landscape of the...
Author
Series
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"From the Pulitzer Prize-winner: the much-anticipated final volume of her magnificent, best-selling American trilogy, which brings the beloved Langdon family into our present times and beyond. A lot can happen in 100 years, as Jane Smiley has shown to dazzling effect in her astonishing, critically acclaimed Last Hundred Years Trilogy. When Golden Age, its last installment, opens in 1987, the next generation of the Langdon family is facing economic,...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres and the New York Times best-selling Last Hundred Years Trilogy, a captivating, brilliantly imaginative story of three extraordinary animals--and a young boy--whose lives intersect in Paris Paras is a spirited racehorse at a racetrack west of Paris. At dusk, one afternoon she pushes open the door of her stall--she's a curious filly--and, after traveling through the night, arrives by chance...
6) True Blue
Author
Series
Horses of Oak Valley Ranch volume 3
Pub. Date
2011
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 5.1 - AR Pts: 11
Language
English
Formats
Description
In 1960s California, eighth-grader Abby Lovitt has trouble with True Blue, the newest horse on her family's ranch, a beautiful dappled gray who is so often spooked, Abby wonders if he is haunted by the ghost of his deceased former owner.
8) Moo
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A satire on university life, describing the rackets and the intellectual dishonesty that goes on. The setting is the U of Moo where research into the destruction of rain forests is tailored to suit the corporation funding the project. By the author of A Thousand Acres.
9) Twenty yawns
Author
Publisher
Two Lions
Pub. Date
[2016]
Accelerated Reader
IL: LG - BL: 2.7 - AR Pts: 1
Language
English
Description
As her mom reads a bedtime story, Lucy drifts off. But later, she awakens in a dark, still room, and everything looks mysterious. How will she ever get back to sleep?
10) Lucky
Author
Pub. Date
2024.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Before Jodie Rattler became a star, she was a girl growing up in St. Louis. One day in 1955, when she was just six years old, her Uncle Drew took her to the racetrack, where she got lucky - and that roll of two-dollar bills she won has never since left her side. Jodie thrived in the warmth of her extended family, and then - through a combination of hard work and serendipity - started a singing career, which catapulted her from St. Louis to New York...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Essays that show how Smiley draws inspiration from across literary history to invigorate her own writing. Among the authors she examines are Marguerite de Navarre, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, Franz Kafka, Halldor Laxness, and Jessica Mitford"--
12) A good horse
Author
Series
Horses of Oak Valley Ranch volume 2
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
2010
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 5.3 - AR Pts: 10
Language
English
Description
On her family's California horse ranch in the 1960s, eighth-grader Abby Lovitt faces the possibility of giving up her beloved colt, Jack, when it comes to light that his dam might have been stolen.
13) Riding lessons
Author
Series
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
[2018]
Accelerated Reader
IL: MG - BL: 5 - AR Pts: 6
Language
English
Description
When Ellen meets Ned, a beautiful colt who hurt his leg on his way to becoming a racehorse, she becomes determined to behave at school and at home so she can have more time at the ranch.
Author
Publisher
Knopf
Pub. Date
2007
Language
English
Description
On the morning after the 2003 Academy Awards, Max -- an Oscar-winning writer/director whose fame has waned -- and his lover, Elena, are in bed, still groggy from last night's red-carpet festivities. They are talking about movies, talking about love, talking about the just-begun war in Iraq. But a house full of guests demands attention. They share their stories of Hollywood past and present; they watch films in Max's luxe screening room; they gossip...