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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The story of modern medicine and bioethics—and, indeed, race relations—is refracted beautifully, and movingly.”—Entertainment Weekly

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL” (CNN), “DEFINING” (LITHUB), AND “BEST” (THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF ESSENCE’S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS • WINNER OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HEARTLAND PRIZE FOR NONFICTION • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, O: The Oprah Magazine, NPR, Financial Times, New York, Independent (U.K.), Times (U.K.), Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, Globe and Mail

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine: The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, which are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave.

Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits. As Rebecca Skloot so brilliantly shows, the story of the Lacks family—past and present—is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Over the decade it took to uncover this story, Rebecca became enmeshed in the lives of the Lacks family—especially Henrietta’s daughter Deborah. Deborah was consumed with questions: Had scientists cloned her mother? Had they killed her to harvest her cells? And if her mother was so important to medicine, why couldn’t her children afford health insurance?

Intimate in feeling, astonishing in scope, and impossible to put down, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Gabriel García Márquez

★★★★★

1971

Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.

The Better Angels of Our Nature

Steven Pinker

★★★★★

2011-10-04

“If I could give each of you a graduation present, it would be this—the most inspiring book I've ever read."
—Bill Gates (May, 2017)

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year

The author of Rationality and Enlightenment Now offers a provocative and surprising history of violence.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millenia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, programs, gruesom punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?

This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the esesnce of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives--the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away--and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.

Kafka on the Shore

Haruki Murakami

★★★★★

2005-01-18

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and one of the world’s greatest storytellers comes “an insistently metaphysical mind-bender” (The New Yorker) about a teenager on the run and a deceptively simple old man.

Now with a new introduction by the author.

Here we meet fifteen-year-old runaway Kafka Tamura and the elderly Nakata, who is drawn to Kafka for reasons that he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, acclaimed author Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder, in what is a truly remarkable journey.

“As powerful as The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.... Reading Murakami ... is a striking experience in consciousness expansion.”—Chicago Tribune

Now a major motion picture A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks!

#1 New York Times bestseller—more than 3 million copies sold!

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

Fredrik Backman’s beloved first novel about the angry old man next door is a thoughtful exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others. “If there was an award for ‘Most Charming Book of the Year,’ this first novel by a Swedish blogger-turned-overnight-sensation would win hands down” (Booklist, starred review).

Virginia Woolf as a Character in Michael Cunningham’s THE HOURS

Kathrin Ehlen

★★★★★

2011-07-19

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 3,0, University of Paderborn (Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Two Recent Re-Writes, language: English, abstract: In this term paper I will show how a real person - Virginia Woolf - is presented as a fictional character in Michael Cunningham’s The Hours. The title he chose for his book is the working title of Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway. Cunningham’s composed his work is composed of three interlacing parts, entitled “Mrs Woolf”, “Mrs Dalloway” and “Mrs Brown”. This fact hints at the possibility of his wanting to point out some relations between the authoress and her fictive offspring. To get a most objective picture of how Virginia Woolf really was, I also used her diary edited by Anne Oliver Bell, and gave the information derived from there priority in completing this term paper. Furthermore, I will compare Michael Cunningham’s version of Virginia Woolf with descriptions of her by people that were close to her: Virginia’s husband Leonard Woolf and her nephew Quentin Bell. When comparing Cunningham’s novel with Virginia Woolf’s diary I found that there were so many interesting points I was reluctant to suppress that I decided to shorten my inquiries into the other two books in order not to go beyond a reasonable volume of this paper.

Mrs Dalloway is a novel by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1925. The eponymous character first appeared in Woolf's novel, The Voyage Out. This book delves into one single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares for a party that evening. Using the thoughts of the characters, we get a glimpse into Clarissa's life, including her youth and marriage (and whether she married the right man or not).

Relativity, the Special and the General Theory

Albert Einstein

★★★★★

2015

"After completing the final version of his general theory of relativity in November 1915, Albert Einstein wrote a book about relativity for a popular audience. His intention was 'to give an exact insight into the theory of relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics.' The book remains one of the most lucid explanations of the special and general theories ever written." -- page 2 of cover.

The Cold Millions

Jess Walter

★★★★★

2020-10-27

“One of the most captivating novels of the year.” – Washington Post

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A Library Reads Pick • An Indie Next Pick

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins comes another “literary miracle” (NPR)—a propulsive, richly entertaining novel about two brothers swept up in the turbulent class warfare of the early twentieth century.

An intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice, and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early twentieth-century America that eerily echoes our own time, The Cold Millions offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams.

The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. While sixteen-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home, his older brother, Gig, dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment. Enter Ursula the Great, a vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar and introduces the brothers to a far more dangerous creature: a mining magnate determined to keep his wealth and his hold on Ursula.

Dubious of Gig’s idealism, Rye finds himself drawn to a fearless nineteen-year-old activist and feminist named Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. But a storm is coming, threatening to overwhelm them all, and Rye will be forced to decide where he stands. Is it enough to win the occasional battle, even if you cannot win the war?

Featuring an unforgettable cast of cops and tramps, suffragists and socialists, madams and murderers, The Cold Millions is a tour de force from a “writer who has planted himself firmly in the first rank of American authors” (Boston Globe).

La ciudad de los prodigios

Eduardo Mendoza

★★★★★

2011-11-05

En el período comprendido entre las dos Exposiciones Universales de Barcelona de 1888 y 1929, con el telón de fondo de una ciudad tumultuosa, agitada y pintoresca, real y ficticia, asistimos a las andanzas de Onofre Bouvila, inmigrante paupérrimo, repartidor de propaganda anarquista y vendedor ambulante de crecepelo, y su ascensión a la cima del poder financiero y delictivo.
Mendoza nos propone un nuevo y singularísimo avatar de la novela picaresca y un brillante carrusel imaginativo de los mitos y fastos locales. Una fantasía satírica y lúdica cuyo sólido soporte realista inicial no excluye la fabulación libérrima.