In Horoscopes for the Dead, the verbal gifts that earned Billy Collins the title "America's most popular poet" are on full display.  With simple diction and effortless turns of phrase, Collins is at once ironic and elegiac.  Smart, lyrical, and not afraid to be funny, these new poems extend Collins's reputation as a poet who occupies a special place in the consciousness of readers of poetry, new and old alike.

Cindy is the member next in line to pick a book!  To view the our book selection "line of succession" (a.k.a. "Whose turn is it to pick a book?"), please click here.

Jon Krakauer's literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In this book, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At its center is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative.

To view the our book selection "line of succession" (a.k.a. "Whose turn is it to pick  book?"), please click here.

In the 1870s, Hans Bengler arrives in Cape Town from Sweden, driven by the desire to discover an insect no one has seen before and name it after himself. While there, he impulsively adopts a young orphan he names Daniel.  When Daniel is brought by Bengler to Sweden, he is told to call Bengler "Father," taught to knock on doors and bow, and struggles to understand this strange new land. But Daniel is haunted by visions of his murdered parents calling him home to Africa. Knowing that the only way home is by sea, he decides he must learn to walk on water if he is ever to reclaim his true place in the world.

It's January 2006, and in the Swedish hamlet of Hesjovallen, nineteen people have been massacred. The only clue is a red ribbon found at the scene. Judge Birgitta Roslin has particular reason to be shocked: her grandparents are among the victims.

Her investigation leads to Beijing, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. But the narrative also takes us back 150 years into the depths of the slave trade between China and the US, where a connection between the past and the present becomes apparent. It's a history that will ensnare Birgitta as she draws ever closer to solving the Hesjovallen murders.

Mishna Wolff grew up in a poor black neighborhood with her single father, a white man who believed he was black. Unfortunately, Mishna didn’t quite fit in with the neighborhood kids - she was shy, uncool, and painfully white.  And yet when she was suddenly sent to a rich white school, she found she was too "black" to fit in with her white classmates.  In the end, this book raises the question of what it means to be black and white in America.

Scarred by the senseless death of their son and baffled by the engulfing chaos of the 1960s, a retired literary agent and his wife have moved to a California retreat. But their quiet rural life is disrupted by a hippie who builds a treehouse on their property and a young couple who live nearby.

O Pioneers!, Willa Cather's second novel, tells the story of an immigrant family's struggle to save their Nebraska farm. Cather's placement of a strong and capable woman at the center of the story, her realistic depiction of the hardships of life on the midwestern prairie, and her vivid portrayal of the immigrant experience at the turn of the century make this book an American classic.