MIDWIVES by Chris Bohjalian
The following is an exerpt from the beginning of the book:
“I used the word vulva as a child the way some kids said butt or penis or puke. It wasn’t a swear exactly, but I knew it had an edge to it that could stop adults cold in their tracks. Vulva as one of those words that in every household but ours conveyed emotion and sentiments at the same time that it suggested a simple part of the basic human anatomy for one sex or an act–like vomiting–that was a pretty basic bodily function.“ (page 1)
A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR, by John Irving
“Iriving’s most entertaining and persuasive novel since his 1978 bestseller, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP.” -The New York Times
The following is an exerpt from the beginning of the book:
“One night when she was four and sleeping the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking–it was coming from ehr parents’ bedroom. It was a totally unfamiliar sound to her. Ruth had recently been ill with a stomach flu; when she first heard her mother making love, Ruth thought that her mother was throwing up.
It was not as simple as a matter as her parents having sepearte bedrooms; that summer they had seperate houses, although Ruth never saw the other house. Her parents spent alternate nights in the family house with Ruth; there was a rental house nearby, where Ruth’s mother or father stayed when they weren’t staying with Ruth….“ (page 1)
A MILLION LITTLE PIECES by James Frey
The following is an exerpt from the beginning of the book:
“I wake to the drone of an airplane engine and the feeling of something warm dripping down my chin. I lift my hand to feel my face. My front four teeth are gone, I have a hole in my cheek, my nose is broken and my nose is broken and my eyes are swollen nearly shut. I open them and I look around and I’m in the back of a plane and there’s no one near me. I look at my clothes and my clothes are covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood. I reach for the call button and I find it and I push it and I wait and thirty seconds later an Attendant arrives.” (page 1)
MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA by Arthur Golden
DROWNING RUTH by Christina Schwarz
The following is an exerpt from the beginning of the book:
“Ruth remembered drowning.
“That’s impossible,” Aunt Amanda said. “It must have been a dream.”
But Ruth maintained that she had drowned, insisted on it for years, even after she should have known better.” (page 1)
WHITE OLEANDER by Janet Fitch
“This is what you’re after when you’re browsing the shelves for something good to read. White Oleander is a siren song of a novel, seducing the reader with its story, its language, and, perhaps most of all, with its utterly believable (and remarkably diverse!) characters. The narrator is particularly memorable–there were times she made me want to cheeer and weep simultaneously. Finishing this book made me feel gratefully bereft, and I look forward to Janet Fitch’s next work.“ –Elizabeth Berg, author of DURABLE GOODS and RANGE OF MOTION
BACKROADS by Tawni O’Dell
“She smiled at me. It was a beautiful smile: one she made with her eyes, not just her mouth; one that came from her heart, not just her heat because I had touched something inside her that no one else did anymore. Id idn’t know how I knew that but I did and even though I wanted to violate her a hundred different ways physically, I didn’t want to go anywhere near her soul.“ (back cover of BACKROADS)
I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE by Wally Lamb
“This big, warm, embracing book…is all about the self and about rebirth, all about creating the family we wish to belong to and making peace with the one we were given….Filled with a generous love and understanding of women….A healing vision of the way we must learn from, possess, and then undo the past in order to make a future.“ –New Orleans Times-Picayune
“Contemporary fiction just doesn’t get much better than this….It’s the kind of book that makes you stop reading and shake your head, shocked by the insights you’ve encountered. In short, you’ll be undone.” –Hartford Advocate
“Wally Lamb can lie down with the literary lions at will: he’s that gifted….This novel does what good fiction should do–it informs our herats as well as our minds of the complexities involved in the ’simple’ act of living a human life.” –The Tennessean (Nashville)
BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA by Dorothy Allison
DAISY FAY AND THE MIRACLE MAN by Fannie Flagg
The following is an exerpt from the beginning of the book:
“Hello there…my name is Daisy Fay Harper and I was eleven years old yesterday. My Grandmother Pettibone won the jackpot at the VFW bingo game and bought me a typewriter for my birthday. She wants me to practice typing so when I grow up, I can be a secretary, but my cat, Felix, who is pregnant, threw up on it and ruined it, which is OK with me. I don’t know what is the matter with Grandma. I have told her a hundred times I want to be a tree surgeon or a blacksmith.“ (page 1)
“Side-splittingly funny!“ –Cleaveland Plain Dealer
“Sheer unbeatable entertainment!“ –Cosmopolitan
WHERE THE HEART IS by Billie Letts
“Talk about unlucky sevens. An hour ago, seventeen-year-old, seven months pregnant Novalee Nation was heading for California with her boyfriend. Now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change. But Novalee is about to discover hidden treasures in this small Southwest town–a group of down-to-earth, deeply caring people willing to help a homeless, jobless girl living secretly in a Wal-Mart. From Bible-thumping blue-haired Siste Themla Husband to eccentric librarian Forney Hull who loves Novalee more than she loves herself, they are about to take her–and you, too–on a moving, funny, and unforgettable journey to…where the heart is.” (back cover of WHERE THE HEART IS)
THE SHINING by Stephen King
BEFORE WOMEN HAD WINGS by Connie May Fowler
“So says Bird Jackson, the mesmerizing narrator of Connie May Fowler’s vivid and brilliantly written novel.
Starstruck by a dime-store picture of Jesus, Bird fancies herself ‘His girlfriend’ and embarks upon a spiritual quest for salvation, even as the chaos of her home life plunges her into a stony silence. In stark and honest language, she tells the tragic life of her father, a sweet-talking wanna-be country music star, tracks her older sister’s perilous journey into womanhood, and witnesses her mother make a courageous and ultimately devestating decisions.
Yet most profound is Bird’s own story–her struggle to sift through the ashes of her parents’ lies; her meeting with Miss Zora, a healer whose prayers over the bones of winged creatures are meant to guide their souls to heaven; and her will to make sense of a world where fear is more plentiful than hope, retribution more valued than love….“ (back cover of BEFORE WOMEN HAD WINGS)
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