Central Skagit Library District

"The greatest writer of his time."-Edmund Wilson "One of the great poets of the novel, a genius of his art"-Edgar Johnson "His characters are marvelous, his insights wonderful…you don't expect reality but you get something bigger and better."-Ruth Rendell The Old Curiosity Shop was initially published in a weekly serial, "Master Humphrey's Clock", between 1840 and 1841. Charles Dickens' story of the frail and innocent orphan had become such...

"It's been a year--a year of missing Nina. A year of milestones--holidays, birthdays, everything without her. Leo feels like she should remember what happened that night. But all she knows is that she left the party and got into a car with Nina and Nina's boyfriend, East. East, who once promised Nina he'd watch out for her younger sister. East, who has been trying to keep that promise every day since. But East won't give Leo the one thing she wants--the...

Deep below the University, there is a dark place. Few people know of it: a broken web of ancient passageways and abandoned rooms. A young woman lives there, tucked among the sprawling tunnels of the Underthing, snug in the heart of this forgotten place. Her name is Auri, and she is full of mysteries.

When their son Jacob, who died tragically at his 8th birthday party in 1966, arrives on their doorstep, still 8 years old, Harold and Lucille Hargrave must navigate a strange new reality as chaos erupts around the world as people's loved ones are returned from beyond.

Surviving a horrific school shooting, a six-year-old boy retreats into the world of books and art while making sobering observations about his mother's determination to prosecute the shooter's parents and the wider community's efforts to make sense of the tragedy.

Creating an algorithm to improve his internet dating employer's match success rate only to be fired for being too effective, Sam Elling develops a computer program that creates compelling human simulations that allow people to say final goodbyes to lost loved ones.

"Told in the intimate voices of complex, endearing characters, Five Tuesdays in Winter intriguingly subverts expectations as it explores desire, loss, jolting violence, and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs."--Dust jacket flap. "With Writers & Lovers and Euphoria, Lily King's books catapulted onto bestseller and best-of-the-year lists across the country, further cementing her reputation as one of the most "brilliant" (NYTBR), "wildly talented"...

Celebrity chef Deacon Rowe is struggling with addiction, depression and not one, but two scandals. As summer nears, he travels to the idyllic Eastern bluff of Nantucket, where he takes his own life. In the shocking wake of Deacon's suicide, his first wife and childhood sweetheart, Laurel Rowe, sets out to gather Deacon's far-flung family--including Deacon and Laurel's son, and Deacon's other ex-wives and children--on the island. Secrets are revealed,...

Sisters Evelyn and Philippa escape the London blitz into a magical kingdom called the Woodlands, only to return sixteen years later to find nothing has changed--except themselves--so Evelyn will do anything to go back..

After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. "I was in 'the void," she writes, "a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe." Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed...