"What are you reading?"Thats the question Will Schwalbe asks his mother, Mary Anne, as they sit in the waiting room of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In 2007, Mary Anne returned from a humanitarian trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan suffering from what her doctors believed was a rare type of hepatitis. Months later she was diagnosed with a form of advanced pancreatic cancer, which is almost always fatal, often in six months or less.This...

Beth is a spirited woman with an intellectual disability who lives intensely and often joyfully, and spends most of her days riding the buses in Pennsylvania. The drivers, a lively group, are her mentors; her fellow passengers, her community-though some display less patience or kindness than others. Her sister, Rachel, a teacher and writer, camouflages her emotional isolation by leading a hyperbusy life. But one day, Beth asks Rachel to accompany...

[This book] is [an] account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played torturous, unpredictable games - games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother's games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer a boy, but an "it."--Back...

The elite academy of Vale Hall is Brynn Hilder's chance to start over, away from her mom's loser boyfriend and her rundown neighborhood. She soon learns that the school's extracurricular activities involve ridding the city of corrupt officials. Then she meets her mark-- a senator's son that she needs to con for her semester grade. But the school's headmaster has secrets he'll stop at nothing to protect, and Brynn begins to realize she's in way over...

The son of a famous radical feminist spends his life struggling with his diverse personal relationships and with his ambition to be a writer.