The classic story of a boy who makes his own rules and the small Missouri town where he and his friends experience the adventures of a lifetime. Filled with schoolyard pranks, buried treasures, spooky caves, secret gangs, and grave robbers, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is entertainment of the highest order. The clever schemes of its eponymous hero--from tricking his friends into completing his chores to sneaking into his own funeral--are the stuff...

"David Almerin Ames and his brothers, Link and Simon, believed the wild patch of Maine where they lived along the Penobscot River belonged to them. Their affinity for the natural world derives from their parents: Arnoux, a romantic artist and Vietnam War deserter who builds boats by hand, and Falon, an activist journalist who runs The Lowering Days, a community newspaper which gives equal voice to indigenous and white issues. Then a bankrupt paper...

"One Perfect Lie is an emotional thriller and a suburban crime story that will keep you guessing until you turn the very last page. On the surface, it tells the tale of the struggling single mother of a high-school pitcher, a shy kid so athletically talented that he's being recruited for a full-ride scholarship to a Division I college, with a future in major-league baseball. But the mother fears that she's losing her grip on her son because he's being...

After twelve years of wrestling with the conflicts of retirement, Father Tim Kavanagh realizes he doesn't need a steady job to prove himself. Then he's given one. As for what it proves, heaven only knows. It's life as usual in Mitford. A beloved town character lands a front-page obituary, but who was it, exactly, who died? And what about the former mayor, born the year Lindbergh landed in Paris, who is still running for office? All this, of course,...

"The untold story of the mother and daughter who opened the door to Emily Dickinson's poetry. Emily Dickinson may be the most widely read and beloved of all American poets, but the story behind her work's initial, posthumous publication in 1890 and the mother-and-daughter team most responsible for her enduring legacy are barely known. After Emily recounts the extraordinary lives of Mabel Loomis Todd and her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, and the...

Thirty-five years ago, when "searching for America" was not yet the cliche it has since become, Steinbeck hit the highways with his French poodle, Charley. In a custom-built camper he named Rosinante after Don Quixote's steed, the two traveled the country--10,000 miles and 34 states. Their varied experiences comprise several slices of small-town back-roads Americana. Steinbeck laments the rise of plastic-covered everything, the vacuousness of "sad...