The narrator of Atwood's riveting novel calls himself Snowman. When the story opens, he is sleeping in a tree, wearing an old bedsheet, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. He searches for supplies in a wasteland where insects proliferate and pigoons and wolvogs ravage the pleeblands, where ordinary people once lived, and the Compounds that sheltered the extraordinary. As he tries to piece...

City banker Andy Dufresne arrived at Shawshank Prison in 1947. Convicted of two brutal murders, he received a double life sentence. Within the confines of the prison, Andy forms an unlikely friendship with the prison "fixer" Red. He also becomes popular with the Warden and the prison's guards, as Andy is able to use his banking experience to help the corrupt officials amass personal fortunes. With the extraordinary twist in the tale, Andy finds that...

Instead of retiring to enjoy his loving and beautiful wife and large and happy family, Bill Bryson challenges himself to hike the Appalachian Trail: 2,200 miles of America's most unspoiled, spectacular, and rugged countryside from Georgia to Maine. The peace and tranquility he hopes to find, though, is anything but, when the only person he can find willing to join him on the trek is his long-lost former friend Katz, a down-on-his-luck serial philanderer....

Another collection of tales about Penrod Schofield and his playmate Sam. Together, the two of them get into more trouble than Dennis the Menace and the Little Rascals combined.

This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance. When Paul meets Noah, he thinks he’s found the one his heart is made for. This is a happy-meaningful romantic comedy about finding love, losing...

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Richard Russo--in his first stand-alone novel in a decade--comes a new revelation: a gripping story about the abiding yet complex power of friendship. One beautiful September day, three sixty-six-year old men convene on Martha's Vineyard, friends ever since meeting in college circa the sixties. They couldn't have been more different then, or even today--Lincoln's a commercial real estate broker, Teddy a tiny-press...

"In the 1970s, Larry Ott and Silas "32" Jones were boyhood pals in a small town in rural Mississippi. Their worlds were as different as night and day ... But then Larry took a girl to a drive-in movie and she was never seen or heard from again. He never confessed ... and was never charged. More than twenty years have passed. Larry lives a solitary, shunned existence, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion. Silas has become the town constable....

When Daniel Musgrove's troubled family moves to Mississippi just before his junior year, he is appalled. On top of the usual teenage humiliations, he now has to learn to say "y'all" and "Co-Cola" or risk being ostracized as a Yankee. But Daniel's loneliness fades when he meets fellow outsider Tim Cousins. You only need one best friend, he figures, to make it through high school alive. Daniel and Tim become inseparable, sharing a fascination with ridicule,...

Twenty-five years after an unsolved rape and murder, four friends, having been falsely accused of the crime, find themselves targeted by someone who still believes that they are guilty, prompting a search for the real killer.

David Dunn is the sole survivor of an horrific train crash that killed 131. Everyone, especially David, is wondering how it could be possible. Soon, David is approached by comic book specialist Elijah Prince, who confronts David with an incredible theory that just might explain the situation.