Central Skagit Library District

Charles Morrow, a high school English teacher who finds it difficult to connect with his autistic son, his college-bound daughter, or his ex-wife, begins to rise out of the rut his life has fallen into with the help of an art student and an Italian-speaking nun.

"It was a beautiful, breezy, yellow-and-green afternoon." This is the way Abby Whitshank always begins the story of how she fell in love with Red that day in July 1959. The whole family--their two daughters and two sons, their grandchildren, even their faithful old dog--is on the porch, listening contentedly as Abby tells the tale they have heard so many times before. And yet this gathering is different too: Abby and Red are growing older, and decisions...

"A literature professor tries to rediscover who she is after the sudden death of her husband, even as a series of family and political jolts force her to ask what we owe those in crisis in our families, biological or otherwise"-- Antonia Vega has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening...

Widely considered the masterpiece of the fascinating and mysterious man known as Stendahl, "The Red and the Black" is a two volume novel first published in 1830. It follows the ambitious desires of Julien Sorel, a young man raised in the French countryside who wishes to rise above his station and explore Paris and its society. Through a series of events, Julien's talent and hard work give way to deception and hypocrisy when he loses the will to believe...

"The finale to the New York Times bestselling Tearling trilogy, in which Kelsea is imprisoned by the Red Queen and her guard must find a way to set her free"--

"The acclaimed, bestselling author--winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize--tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families' lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating's christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny's mother, Beverly--thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining...

Originally published in 1859, "Adam Bede" is the first novel by George Eliot, which was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. Eliot was one of the leading British writers of the Victorian era, as well as a noted journalist, poet, and translator. "Adam Bede" concerns a small, tight-knit, and fictional rural community called Hayslope and the romantic drama that develops between four of its young residents: the title character Adam, a young carpenter, the...

Presents an idiosyncratic compilation of introductions and afterwords from classic works of literature to explore how they influenced the author's literary life.

A former prison guard and talented fiddler returns to his Montana hometown to bury his wife and confront the inmate who, twenty years ago, held him hostage during a prison riot.

"1928. Riffling through a cupboard, Matilda Simpkin comes across a small wooden club--an old possession that she hasn't seen for more than a decade. Immediately, memories come flooding back to Mattie--memories of a thrilling past, which only further serve to remind her of her chafingly uneventful present. During the Women's Suffrage Campaign, she was a militant who was jailed five times and never missed an opportunity to return to the fray. Now in...