If F. Scott Fitzgerald was the hero of the Jazz Age, Edna St. Vincent Millay, as flamboyant in her love affairs as she was in her art, was its heroine. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Millay was dazzling in the performance of herself. Her voice was likened to an instrument of seduction, and her impact on crowds and on men was legendary. Yet beneath her studied act, all was not well.

Discover a story of healing and personal transformation. Marlena’s childhood was full of contradictions. Her father was both a heroic doctor for people with leprosy and an abusive parent. Her Mennonite missionary community was both a devoted tribe and a controlling society. And Marlena longed to both be accepted in Paraguay and escape to somewhere new. In Nothing Bad Between Us, follow Marlena’s journey as she takes control of her life and learns to be her authentic self, scars and imperfections included.

Celie has grown up poor in rural Georgia, despised by society and abused by her own family. She strives to protect her sister, Nettie, from a similar fate, and while Nettie escapes to a new life as a missionary in Africa, Celie is left behind without her best friend and confidante, married off to an older suitor, and sentenced to a life alone with a harsh and brutal husband. In an attempt to transcend a life that often seems too much to bear, Celie begins writing letters to God. The letters, spanning 20 years, record a journey of self-discovery and empowerment guided by the light of a few strong women.

With all of the pluck and charm of its eponymous young hero, Rachel McAdams (The Notebook, Spotlight, Midnight in Paris) delivers a spectacular reading of Montgomery's beloved bildungsroman. In moments both funny and bittersweet, McAdams' voice is imbued with the spark that has made Anne a much-loved symbol of individualism and cheer for over a century.

When Misty was six years old, her family started to live and dress like the Amish. Misty and her sister were kept as slaves on a mountain ranch where they were subjected to almost complete isolation, sexual abuse, and extreme physical violence. When Misty reached her teens, her parents feared she and her sister would escape and took them to an Amish community where they were adopted and became baptized members. Misty was devastated to once again find herself in a world of fear, animal cruelty, and sexual abuse.

One wrong move can undercut your message. Believe it or not, our bodies speak louder than our words. Postures, gestures, and expressions convey reams of information - and often not what you'd expect. A smile, for example, is usually considered welcoming. But crook one corner of your mouth higher, and you project superiority, subconsciously chasing other people away. Without Saying a Word explains how even the subtlest motions have meaning.

What They Meant for Evil is the account of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and purity of a child, Rebecca recalls how she endured fleeing from gunfire, suffering through hunger and strength-sapping illnesses, dodging life-threatening predators - lions, snakes, crocodiles, and soldiers alike - that dogged her footsteps, and grappling with a war that stole her childhood. Her story is a lyrical, captivating portrait of a child hurled into wartime, and how through divine intervention, she came to America and found a new life full of joy, hope, and redemption.

Cornelia Copley's plans to finish college and get her degree in interior decoration are thwarted when she is unexpectedly called home due to her mother's illness. Heartbroken at the interruption and not understanding why her father can't see how important her education is, Cornelia soon finds there is plenty of trouble at home: Her mother has had a breakdown and is in a sanitarium; her father has lost his job and taken a lower position; and her brother Carey is going with a wild crowd.

For more than 30 years, Nikki Giovanni's poetry has inspired, enlightened, and dazzled readers and listeners. As sharp and outspoken as ever, this artist long hailed as a healer and a sage returns with this profound book of poetry in which she continues to call attention to injustice and give listeners an unfiltered look into the most private parts of herself. In Make Me Rain, she celebrates her loved ones and unapologetically declares her pride in her Black heritage, while exploring the enduring impact of the twin sins of racism and white nationalism.

Garrison Keillor is the consummate storyteller, gifted with the rare ability, both in print and in performance, to hold an audience spellbound with his tales of ordinary people whose lives contain extraordinary moments of humor, tenderness, and grace. This exclusive recording of Garrison Keillor reading a carefully edited abridgement of the book also includes a few segments taken from live performances recorded during a fundraising tour for public radio stations in 1985.

Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness.

Dust Tracks on a Road is the bold, poignant, and funny autobiography of novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, one of American literature's most compelling and influential authors. Hurston's powerful novels of the South - including Jonah's Gourd Vine and, most famously, Their Eyes Were Watching God - continue to enthrall readers with their lyrical grace, sharp detail, and captivating emotionality.

Ireland, 1924. For 13-year-old Nora Doyle every day is a fight for survival in Ballybun, the rural Irish village she calls home. Each night, as she feels the cold wind blowing through the cracks of her family’s cramped cottage, Nora longs to escape the poverty surrounding her and find her place in the world. When she meets Edward, from the grand house that looms over her tiny village, she feels an unlikely kinship that is impossible to explain, and as she grows from an impulsive child into a beautiful woman, Nora spends every moment she can with him.

Rain of Gold is a true-life saga of love, family and destiny that pulses with bold vitality, sweeping from the war-ravaged Mexican mountains of Pancho Villa's revolution to the days of Prohibition in California.

Fannie Flagg gives us a story of richly human characters, the saving graces of the once-maligned middle classes and small-town life, and the daily contest between laughter and tears.

Fans of L. M. Montgomery's Anne Shirley rejoice! Collected here are six of the original Anne Shirley books in the order they were published. This collection includes Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne's House of Dreams, Rainbow Valley, and Rilla of Ingleside. Published between 1908 and 1921, these heartwarming tales of hidden hopes and cherished dreams will enchant fans and new listeners alike.

Jules Verne’s classic science fiction fantasy carries its hero - Professor Aronnax of the Museum of Paris - on a thrilling and dangerous journey far below the waves to see what creatures live in the ocean’s depths. In the process, Verne imagined a vessel that had not yet been invented: the submarine.

Two sisters, small-town Ontario, 1934. Canadian author Richard Wright tells their story, from the ordinary to the extraoridinary with an eye for the commonplace and poignant sense of the larger undercurrents that change people's lives.

One of Shaw's most enduring works, Pygmalion is an insightful comedy of class relations and perceptions, as played out between a Cockney flower girl and the irascible speech professor who has taken her on as a pet project.

Raised in post-Revolution Granville, Massachusetts, James Gould could only imagine the beauty and warmth of the lands to the south. It was there that he longed to build bridges and lighthouses from his very own designs and plans. His gripping story unfolds as Gould follows his dream to the raw settlement of Bangor on the Penobscot River, St. Simons Island off the coast of Georgia, lawless Spanish East Florida, and back - at last and finally - to St. Simons.

Aunt Crete has spent a lifetime of toil catering to the needs of her family, especially her waspish sister, Carrie, and social-climbing niece, Louella. When a telegram from a nephew from out west announces his imminent arrival, mother and daughter hasten a trip to the shore to escape the "country cousin" who they are sure will shame them.

Sara Stanley is only 14, but she can weave tales that are impossible to resist. In the charming town of Carlisle, children and grown-ups alike flock from miles around to hear her spellbinding narratives. And when Bev King and his younger brother, Felix, arrive for the summer, they, too, are captivated by the Story Girl.

Anne's House of Dreams is a novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It was first published in 1917 by McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart. The novel is from a series of books written primarily for girls and young women, about a young girl named Anne Shirley. The books follow the course of Anne's life. It is set principally on Canada's Prince Edward Island, Montgomery's birthplace and home for much of her life.

First published in 1912, Daddy-Long-Legs is an epistolary novel that follows orphan Jerusha "Judy" Abbott through her college years through a series of letters written to her anonymous benefactor, whom she nicknames "Daddy-Long-Legs." As Judy learns to navigate the complex world of studies, social life, and romance, her letters convey her growth and address the increasingly complex questions that preoccupy her.

In Brooklyn's unforgiving urban jungle, Maggie Moore is torn between answering her own needs and catering to the desirous men who dominate her life. Confronted by her quarrelsome Irish immigrant father, the feckless lover who may become her husband, and others, Maggie must learn to navigate a cycle of loss, separation, and hope as she forges her own path toward happiness.

Rain of Gold is a true-life saga of love, family and destiny that pulses with bold vitality, sweeping from the war-ravaged Mexican mountains of Pancho Villa's revolution to the days of Prohibition in California.

Instructed to abandon her intellectual life and avoid stimulating company, she sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness.

Near the end of her life, Mary Mann Hamilton (1866-c.1936) was encouraged to record her experiences as a female pioneer. The result is the only known firsthand account of a remarkable woman thrust into the center of taming the American South - surviving floods, tornadoes, and fires; facing bears, panthers, and snakes; managing a boardinghouse in Arkansas that was home to an eccentric group of settlers; and running a logging camp in Mississippi that blazed a trail for development in the Mississippi Delta.

Freckles, a plucky young man, lands a job as a watchman for a lumber company that logs timber in a mysterious forest swamp called the Limberlost.

A biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. Paul, Minnesota to marry Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town.