This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

Calliope's friendship with a classmate and her sense of identity are compromised by the adolescent discovery that she is a hermaphrodite, a situation with roots in her grandparent's desperate struggle for survival in the 1920s.

Tolle presents readers with an honest look at the current state of humanity: he implores us to see and accept that this state, which is based on an erroneous identification with the egoic mind, is one of dangerous insanity. However, there is an alternative to this potentially dire situation. Humanity now, perhaps more than in any previous time, has an opportunity to create a new, saner, more loving world. This will involve a radical inner leap from...

The impact of a child's drowning on a black family in 1925 Washington, especially on the 12-year-old sister who was baby-sitting the girl. Told against the background of the lot of blacks at the time.

Cover reads: "20th anniversary edition with new material by the author." Includes afterward by the author, author interview, and discussion questions. "At the age of twelve, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished Haitian village to New York to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know, and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti--to the women who first...

"After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The...

Malika Oufkir tells of her upbringing in Morocco, her 20 years of imprisonment in a penal colony enduring isolation and pain until her daring escape.

"As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power--which groups have it and which do not. In this book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories...

Twenty-eight-year-old Even Grade is a Black man who was orphaned as a child. 15-year-old Valuable Korner is a white girl who might as well have been orphaned. Petal, Mississippi, circa 1956, seems an unlikely spot for these two to connect, but a friendship forged across race lines is just one of many miracles waiting to happen in this small Southern town. Their paths cross through Joody Two Sun, a seer with amazing powers. Forming something that resembles...

Just when Glennon Doyle Melton was beginning to feel she had it all figured out--three happy children, a doting spouse, and a writing career so successful that her first book catapulted to the top of the New York Times bestseller list--her husband revealed his infidelity and she was forced to realize that nothing was as it seemed. A recovering alcoholic and bulimic, Glennon found that rock bottom was a familiar place. In the midst of crisis, she knew...