Ilumina Public Library: El Paso County's All-Digital Library

In 1992, celebrated novelist Ann Patchett launched her remarkable career with the publication of her debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars. On this 25th anniversary, read the best-selling book that is "beautifully written... a first novel that second- and third-time novelists would envy for its grace, insight, and compassion" (Boston Herald). St. Elizabeth's, a home for unwed mothers in Habit, Kentucky, usually harbors its residents for only a little...

The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

Germinal, by Emile Zola, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies of contemporary...

The Palliser family comes to the forefront in a classic novel of politics and propriety from the series that inspired the BBC serial The Pallisers. With the Whigs and Tories at a standstill in attempts to form a working government, a compromise is finally reached, and the hardworking-and hardheaded-Plantagenet Palliser is installed as prime minister. But even as he gets used to the power and privilege of the high office, Palliser slowly and distressingly...

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder is a profound exploration of fate, love, and the interconnectedness of human lives, set in 18th-century Peru. The novel opens with a catastrophic event-a bridge collapses, sending five people to their deaths. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan monk, witnesses the tragedy and becomes determined to understand why these particular individuals perished, seeking answers to whether their lives held any greater significance...

Written when women-and workers generally-had few rights in England, Agnes Grey exposes the brutal inequities of the rigid class system in mid-nineteenth century Britain. Agnes comes from a respectable middle-class family, but their financial reverses have forced her to seek work as a governess. Pampered and protected at home, she is unprepared for the harsh reality of a governess's life. At the Bloomfields and later the Murrays, she suffers under...

From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel in the tradition of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere, exploring the ties and fractures of a close-knit Indian-American family in the aftermath of a violent encounter with the police. Pacific Hills, California: Gated communities, ocean views, well-tended lawns, serene pools, and now the new home of the Shah family. For the Shah parents, who came to America twenty years earlier with little more...

Charles Dickens was an English short story writer, dramatist, essayist, and the most popular novelist to come out of the Victorian era. Many of his novels, with their frequent concern for social reform, were first published in magazines in serial form under the pseudonym, Boz. Unlike authors who completed entire novels before serialization, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialized. The continuing popularity of his novels and...

The lavender fields of Provence hold more than her family's secret past . . . Somewhere in the dreamy, sun-soaked rows of herbs, she just might find the answers for her future. The lavender fields of Provence hold more than her family's secret past . . . Somewhere in the dreamy, sun-soaked rows of herbs, she just might find the answers for her future. Tempeste was only a child when her free-spirited mother died, and she has felt like an outcast...

Featured in Buzz Books 2023 Great Reads Fall/Winter"A wealth of keen insight and just the right touch of delightful humor." -Sigrid Nunez, author of The FriendA kaleidoscopic story, unspooling over the twenty-four hours of a very contemporary woman's sixtieth birthday.Nine years have passed since Ana Koehl had sex with her pot-addicted anesthesiologist husband, seven since she began an affair with a gonzo journalist. She's gratified by her work as...