Houghton: 1009 books

A “funny [and] touching” novel of an African American woman determined to triumph, by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Waiting to Exhale (Detroit Free Press). Mildred Peacock is fed up with poverty—and with the jealous rampages of her husband, Crook. When Crook runs over...

“Love blooms just as war tears two people apart” in this novel about an Armenian refugee family in Nazi-occupied Paris (The New York Times). All the Light There Was is the story of an Armenian family’s struggle to survive the Nazi occupation of Paris in the 1940s—a lyrical, finely wrought...

The New York Times–bestselling author’s “harrowing” novel about a cop and a crack dealer—the basis for the acclaimed Spike Lee film (The New York Times). Rocco Klein, a veteran homicide detective in a New Jersey city just outside Manhattan, has lost his appetite for the wild drama...

“A final book like no other” from the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Tin Drum: poetry and meditations on writing, aging, and living until the end (The Irish Times). In spite of the trials of old age, and with the end in sight, Günter Grass weaves his life’s reflections together...

The collected dramatic works of the Nobel Prize winner, from Murder in the Cathedral to The Elder Statesman. T. S. Eliot’s plays—Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, The Cocktail Party (which won a Tony Award for its Broadway production), The Confidential Clerk, and The Elder Statesman—are...

This critique of modern society argues that culture must be organic, and cannot be planned or imposed.   The word culture has been widely and erroneously employed in political, educational, and journalistic contexts. In helping to define a word so greatly misused, T. S. Eliot contradicts many of...

An indispensable collection of the Nobel Prize winner’s most renowned works. “In ten years’ time,” wrote Edmund Wilson in Axel’s Castle, “Eliot has left upon English poetry a mark more unmistakable than that of any other poet writing in English.” In 1948, Eliot was awarded the...

The legendary author’s essays and interviews explore how fellow writers from Milan Kundera to Edna O’Brien are influenced by time, place, and politics. Writers are often deeply influenced by the time and place in which they live and write. In Shop Talk, Philip Roth, winner of a National...

A “superb blend of personal essays and journalistic articles” on everything from fatherhood to writing workshops to jazz musicians (Chicago Sun-Times). “At once subtle and dazzling,” these pieces—collected from such publications as Esquire, Harper’s Magazine, and GQ—serve as both...

“A fantastical travel guide, reminiscent of Gulliver’s Travels,” from a narrator with “the eye of an anthropologist and the humor of a satirist.” —USA Today Hailed by Neil Gaiman as “a master of the craft” and Margaret Atwood as “a quintessentially American writer,” Ursula...

A Washington Post Best Book of the Year: A “hypnotic” novel of the Spanish Civil War and one man’s quest to escape it (Colm Tóibín, The New York Review of Books). October 1936. Spanish architect Ignacio Abel arrives at Penn Station, the final stop on his journey from war-torn Madrid,...

“A whole culture is imaginatively and authoritatively illuminated” in this “suspenseful, insightful, poignant” novel of prehistoric times (Publishers Weekly). Twenty thousand years ago, a courageous girl lived in Siberia near Woman Lake, a place you won’t find on any modern map. Only...

Strange changes are taking place in Village. Once a utopian community that prided itself on its welcome to new strangers, Village will soon be closed to all outsiders. As one of the few people able to travel through the dangerous Forest, Matty must deliver the message of Village’s closing and try...

Read from A to Z along with George in a condensed version of the clas-sic Curious George Learns the Alphabet.