When Black Beauty is trained to carry a rider on his back, or to pull a carriage behind him, he finds it hard at first. But he is lucky-his first home is a good one where his owners are kind people, who would never be cruel to a horse.

Set in an industrial city in Northern England during the Victorian era, Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy and retired man, devotes his life to the rationalist philosophy, and raises his children, Louisa and Tom, to never engage in any imaginative activity. The two grow up feeling confused, like something is missing in their lives, yet are unable figure out what exactly that is and affected differently by their upbringing. Louisa struggles to feel joy, and...

"Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country. The decline of white working-class Americans, a demographic that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm -- but never before written about as searingly from the inside. Former marine and Yale Law School graduate J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social,...

The bestselling author of "Devil in the White City" turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler's rise to power. The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.

Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.

In a time of drought and economic depression in 1934, Ella Barron runs her boardinghouse in Texas while caring for her son, Solly, and responds to the calm influence of one of her boarders, David Rainwater, while facing the tension and uncertainty around her.

"1970s Mexico City. Maite is a secretary who lives for one thing: the latest issue of Secret Romance. While student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite escapes into stories of passion and danger. Her next-door neighbor, Leonora, a beautiful art student, seems to live a life of intrigue and romance that Maite envies. When Leonora disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman--and journeying...

"For Ta-Nehisi Coates, history has always been personal. At every stage of his life, he's sought in his explorations of history answers to the mysteries that surrounded him--most urgently, why he, and other black people he knew, seemed to live in fear ... In [this book], Coates takes readers along on his journey through America's history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings--moments when he discovered some new truth...

Recounts the story of a pivotal cultural year in the United States when mainstream pursuits and historical events were marked by contributions by such figures as Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and Al Capone.

In North Kensington three orphaned mixed-race children are bounced from one home to another. The middle child Joel takes care of the youngest, Toby, who isn't quite right. When a local gang threatens Toby, Joel makes a pact with the devil that ends in the murder of Thomas Lynley's wife.