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Maile Meloy’s 2011 New York Times bestseller The Apothecary is the first in her young adult trilogy, which also includes The Apprentices (2014) and The After-Room (2017). This novel merges the genres of historical fiction and magical realism, and it was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Children’s Books of 2011. In 2012, The Apothecary also won the E. B. White Read-Aloud Award and the California Book Awards YA Gold Medal. Set in London after... Read The Apothecary Summary

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Published in 2011, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach is a work of literary fiction depicting the interwoven journeys of characters at Westish, a fictional small liberal arts college in Wisconsin. Henry Skrimshander is a talented baseball shortstop whose future is jeopardized by an errant throw. His development intersects with that of his teammate Schwartz; his roommate, Owen; college president Guert; and Pella, Guert’s daughter and a newly enrolled student of Westish. The novel... Read The Art of Fielding Summary

Originally written in German and published in 2002, Jan-Philipp Sendker’s debut novel, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, was translated into English by Kevin Wiliarty in 2006. An international bestseller, the novel received the Indies Choice Honor Award for Best Fiction Novel in 2013. In response to such acclaim, Sendker penned a sequel, A Well-Tempered Heart, in 2012. The novel is international in scope—being written by a German journalist who lived in upstate New York, detailing... Read The Art of Hearing Heartbeats Summary

Published in 2008, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a New York Times bestselling novel by Garth Stein. It follows the life of race car driver Denny Swift and is told from the perspective of his dog, Enzo. Stein was inspired to write the book after watching the 1998 Mongolian documentary State of Dogs about a dog who is reincarnated as a human after death, and after seeing the poet Billy Collins read... Read The Art of Racing in the Rain Summary

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The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories (1951) is a collection of short stories and a novella by Carson McCullers. The author, a seminal part of the Southern Gothic Literature genre, rose to fame with her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), which shares many themes with the stories in the collection. Other notable works by McCullers include the novels Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941) and The Member of... Read The Ballad of the Sad Cafe Summary

The Barbarian Nurseries is a contemporary novel set in Los Angeles and other neighborhoods in Orange County. Author Héctor Tobar is a native of Los Angeles and is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and journalist, previously writing weekly columns and acting as a foreign correspondent for the LA Times. Both this novel and his previous work of fiction focus primarily on the lives of immigrants in California. The Barbarian Nurseries was a New York Times Notable... Read The Barbarian Nurseries Summary

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The Bean Trees (first published in 1988) is the first novel by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist, and poet who holds degrees in ecology and evolutionary biology, and her work often addresses biodiversity, social justice, communities, and people’s interactions with their environment. The Bean Trees is a work of realistic adult fiction that follows Taylor Greer as she leaves her rural upbringing in Kentucky, drives across the country to Tucson, Arizona, and... Read The Bean Trees Summary

The Bear and the Nightingale (2017) is a historical fantasy novel by Katherine Arden. The story is set in medieval Russia and was heavily inspired by the country’s folklore and history. It follows Vasilisa “Vasya” Petrovna, a girl who lives in an isolated village at the edge of a forest and can communicate with household spirits and other supernatural beings that others cannot see. Her life is upended when her father marries a pious woman... Read The Bear and the Nightingale Summary

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Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Beautiful Struggle, published in 2009, is the writer’s memoir of his childhood and early teenage years. It is a true bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story, but it also is a character study of Coates’s father, and secondarily, of his brother Big Bill. The book profiles Coates’s experiences growing up in various Baltimore neighborhoods with a family always somewhat in flux, attending different schools as he matures into early adulthood. Coates’s first two chapters... Read The Beautiful Struggle Summary

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994) is a historical mystery novel by American author Laurie R. King and the first installment in the best-selling Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series. King, who won an Edgar Award for her debut novel, A Grave Talent, creates a literary pastiche that re-engages with Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes canon. Set against the backdrop of World War I, the novel introduces Mary Russell, a brilliant and independent 15-year-old orphan who becomes... Read The Beekeeper's Apprentice Summary

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Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen, published in 1986, is a sequel to her award-winning debut novel, Love Medicine. The Beet Queen was followed by two other novels in the series, Tracks and The Bingo Palace. Though most of The Beet Queen’s characters are non-Indigenous, the series as a whole is concerned with issues facing Indigenous Americans, particularly those living on tribal lands in Minnesota and North Dakota. Characters and storylines are woven throughout the four... Read The Beet Queen Summary

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