Akron Public Library

A searing, deeply moving memoir about family, love, and loss from the critically acclaimed, bestselling National Book Award winner. When his mother passed away at the age of 78, Sherman Alexie responded the only way he knew how: he wrote. The result is this stunning memoir. Featuring 78 poems, 78 essays and intimate family photographs, Alexie shares raw, angry, funny, profane, tender memories of a childhood few can imagine--growing up dirt-poor on...

"Thelonious 'Monk' Ellison’s writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been 'critically acclaimed.' He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited 'some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days.' Meanwhile, Monk struggles...

Career-driven assistant district attorney Nina Frost knows the guilt familiar to all parents torn by the demands of home and office. But whereas most parents imagine the dangers that can befall their children. Nina witnesses them firsthand. She prosecutes child molesters and she has seen too many criminals slip through the system and walk free. Nina's husband, Caleb, is a stonemason, a methodical man who glories in his ability to construct physical...

Alisa Stewart feels like she's lost two sons: her youngest to a terrible tragedy and her eldest, Kurt, to a life ruined by addiction. But now Kurt has checked himself into rehab and found a healing faith that seems real. It's like he's been raised from the dead. Then a detective arrives at Alisa's door asking questions about a murder--the death of a drug dealer before Kurt entered rehab. Alisa fears losing her son again, and when she finds evidence...

Good news! Fannie's back in town--and the town is among the leading characters in her new novel. Along with Neighbor Dorothy, the lady with the smile in her voice, whose daily radio broadcasts keep us delightfully informed on all the local news, we also meet Bobby, her ten-year-old son, destined to live a thousand lives, most of them in his imagination; Norma and Macky Warren and their ninety-eight-year-old Aunt Elner; the oddly sexy and charismatic...

In Avas dreams, her son, Noah, looks just the way she remembers him: a sweet two-year-old in rolled-up jeans and a red sweatshirt. When Ava wakes, the agonizing truth hits her all over again. Noah went missing two years ago, and his body has never been found. Almost everyone, including Avas semi-estranged husband, Wyatt, assumes the boy drowned after falling off the dock near their Church Island home. Ava has spent most of the past two years in and...

It is every baseball kid's dream summer job: batboy for your hometown Major League team. Yet for fourteen year-old Brian, the job means more than just the chance to hang around his idols. Baseball was the job his father loved so much, in the end he couldn't leave it. Yet he could leave his family. Now Brian sees the job as the way to win back his father. There is no winning back some people, though. Just ask Hank Bishop?once the most popular player...

Drover C. Dog, faithful sidekick to Hank the Cowdog, tells the story of his life, from being the runt of the litter with dreams of being a handsome prince, to how he came to Loper and Sally May's ranch.

When Frances' husband punches her again, she believes he's crossed the line--that the next time he will kill her. She decides to put her life--and that of her son--in the hands of a network which helps women start over. She becomes Beth and begins a new life in Florida with her son. It could be wonderful ... but she lives in fear of being found by Bobbie.

Amanda, a faded southern belle, abandoned wife, and dominating mother, hopes to match her daughter Laura with an eligible "gentleman caller" while her son Tom supports the family. Laura, lame and painfully shy, evades her mother's schemes and reality by retreating to the make-believe world of her glass animal collection. Tom eventually leaves home to become a writer but is forever haunted by the memory of Laura.