Book Discussion Reads

When physical anthropologist Maureen Cole is called in to examine a mass grave that has been discovered in New Mexico, a strange series of events begins to unfold that convinces her that a murderer is stalking victims in two different centuries.

Temple Grandin examines the emotional needs of animals and explains how people can stimulate the positive emotions and banish the negative ones in order to give animals a truly good life.

"The horse Susan Richards chose to rescue wouldn't be corralled into her waiting trailer. But Lay Me Down, a former racehouse with a foal close on her heels, walked right up that ramp and into Susan's life. Weak from malnutrition, Lay Me Down had endured a rough road, but somehow her heart was still open and generous. Then fate brought her into Susan's paddock, where she taught this brokenhearted woman how to embrace the joys of life despirt the dangers...

Viktor E. Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is a classic work of Holocaust literature. Like Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl and Elie Wiesel's Night, Frankl's masterpiece is an examination of life in the Nazi death camps. At the same time, Frankl's universal lessons for coping with suffering and finding one's purpose in life offer an unforgettable message for readers seeking solace and guidance. This young adult edition features the entirety of...

"A special 25th anniversary edition of Paulo Coehlo's extraordinary international bestselling phenomenon--the inspiring spiritual tale of self-discovery that has touched millions of lives around the world. Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations. Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical...

From the author of the international bestseller "Year of Wonders" comes a powerful love story set against the catastrophe of the Civil War. From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic "Little Women, " Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, and added adult resonance to portray the moral complexity of war and a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism.

"Growing up in Alabama, Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents--her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father--and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child's transition to caregiver.--

For generations, the Wrights of southern Utah have raised cattle and world-champion saddle-bronc riders -- some call them the most successful rodeo family in history. Now Bill and Evelyn Wright, parents to 13 children and grandparents to many more, find themselves struggling to hang on to the majestic landscape where they've been running cattle for 150 years as the West is transformed by urbanization, battered by drought, and rearranged by public-land...

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from...

First published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads-driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet...