A monumental American novel about one man's rise from life as a penniless immigrant to the head of a family empire In the tradition of great writers like Charles Dickens and John Steinbeck, John Jakes crafts a sweeping family drama. In late-nineteenth-century Chicago, the tragedies and triumphs of the Crowns illustrate the power of the American Dream. As immigrants to America, their turbulent story spans a decade marked by the vicious Pullman Strike,...

From National Book Award-winning, New York Times-bestselling author Louise Erdrich, a profound and enchanting new novel: a richly imagined world "where butchers sing like angels." Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher's precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America. In Argus, North...

A ten-year-old girl living in middle-class America during World War II learns the painful lesson that doing what's right is not always an easy thing to do.

"Set in 1918 in the farm country at the heart of America, The Meaning of Names is the story of an ordinary woman trying to raise a family during extraordinary times. Estranged from her parents because she married against their will, confronted with violence and prejudice against her people, and caught up in the midst of the worst plague the world has ever seen, Gerda Vogel, an American of German descent, must find the strength to keep her family safe...

Teens Haruko, a Japanese American, and Margot, a German American, form a life-changing friendship as everything around them starts falling apart in the Crystal City family internment camp during World War II. 1944. The war seemed far away from Margot in Iowa and Haruko in Colorado-- until they were uprooted to dusty Texas, because of the places their parents once called home: Germany and Japan. At the high school in Crystal City, a "family internment...

They called it 'Paperclip.' Interviews with Paperclip family members, interrogators, and others reveal America's secret science programs and their dealings with former Nazis in the wake of World War II. 592pp., 75K, Auth res: Los Angeles, CA

Emmi, a German immigrant, is living in Chicago when the Great Fire breaks out on October 8, 1871, and, separated from her father, she finds herself with her neighbors, Cara and Seamus, braving the smoke and flames trying to escape the danger of the burning city, and searching for all their parents.