Akron Public Library

Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer. Late in the afternoon the sun slanted down into the mossy yard belonging to Francie Nolan's house,...

The story of a farm family's Depression-era journey from the Dustbowl of Oklahoma to the California migrant labor camps in search of a better life.

In the thousands of miles of rugged rangeland around Medicine Bow, Wyoming, the only law that rules is the law of the gun. A man has to have an iron jaw and a fast trigger to stay alive. And no one is tougher than the ranch foreman known only as the Virginian. A peaceable man by nature, slow to anger and soft-spoken, fair and just, nonetheless he brooks nonsense from no man. Once wronged, he is a judge with a gavel forged of cold steel. Frontier justice...

A series of events aboard a U.S. destroyer during World War II culminate in an alleged mutiny, which leads to a court martial. Misery begins when a paranoid commander, Captain Queeg takes charge. In a matter of days he has alienated everybody -- & all on board believe Queeg to be insane. In a tense situation during a critical period of the war, Queeg loses all self-control. In the better interest of the ship & the nation, the second-in-command, Lieutenant...

Four people are transported to the dream-like world of Shangri-La where life is eternal and civilization refined.

A man's life can change in an instant. For Ben-Hur, a young Jewish aristocrat, that time comes when he accidentally knocks a roof tile onto a Roman official's head. He is condemned to the galleys, but the most fateful moment of his life is yet to come: the day he meets Jesus.

Rudyard Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India is also his greatest long work. Born in India and growing into early manhood, Kim is the son of an Irish soldier born under British Imperial rule in 19th century India. Left in the care of a half-caste woman, Kim is free to explore the back allies and bazaars of Lahore. But when he meets with his father's old regiment he trades his native clothes for European suits and abandons his...

Contains Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first twelve stories and includes such famous cases as "The Red-headed League," in which Holmes uncovers a well-concealed, devilishly clever criminal plot "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," in which Holmes must trap a jewel thief--with astonishing results "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," in which Holmes and Watson find themselves dealing with treachery, violence, and deadly snakes and nine more equally thrilling...

Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer prize-winning novel of a China that is now in a contemporary classics edition. Though more than sixty years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer prize, it has retained its popularity and become one of the great modern classics. "I can only write what I know, and I know nothing but China, having always lived there," wrote Pearl Buck. In the Good Earth she presents a graphic view of a China when the...