Amor Towles shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles's novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves...

During World War II, Sophia Alexander, after her mother dies and her father is sent to a concentration camp, becomes increasingly involved in the resistance and while working with the convent nuns, the Sisters of Mercy she risks everything to help those in need—no matter what the cost.

Northumbria, AD 794.Those who rule the seas, rule the land. None know the truth of this more than the Vikings. To compete with the seafaring raiders, the king of Northumbria orders the construction of his own longships under the command of oath-sworn Norseman, Runolf. When the Vikings attack for the second year, the king sends cleric turned warrior, Hunlaf, on a mission across the Whale Road to persuade the king of Rogaland into an alliance. But Runolf...

A TODAY Show Read With Jenna Book Club Pick!

A powerful novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there

It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more

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AD 838. Deep in the forests of Wessex, Dunston's solitary existence is shattered when he stumbles on a mutilated corpse. Accused of the murder, Dunston must clear his name and keep the dead man's daughter alive in the face of savage pursuers desperate to prevent a terrible secret from being revealed. Rushing headlong through Wessex, Dunston will need to use all the skills of survival garnered from a lifetime in the wilderness. And if he has any hope...

Pioneering homesteader, livestock breeder, and would-be innkeeper Hamish "Cashdown" Musgrave brings his sprawling family into the Palouse Prairie. Before they succeed, they face claim-jumpers and bandits; floods, fires, and blizzards; and diseases, locusts, and crop losses. The railroad refuses to build a line past the Musgrave stagecoach inn and store, and newcomers threaten the very existence of the Palus Indians, despite Hamish's efforts to help...

Anne is excited to be a guest at a party at Diana Barry's home. But when the dares start, mean Josie Pye dares Anne to climb the house and walk along the ridgepole! The dangerous dare ends in injury . . . and teaches Anne an important lesson. But Anne must pluck up her courage again when she is chosen to recite at a Christmas concert! And what is shy Matthew Cuthbert hiding from the family?

"Set in Syracuse, Sicily, during the Peloponnesian War but told in contemporary Irish dialect, Glorious Exploits follows Lampo and Gelon, best friends since childhood. Thrilled to have survived the Athenians' recent invasion and as shocked by the Syracusan victory as everyone else, these unemployed potters are in a mood to celebrate. Of course, they hate the Athenians. Still, that doesn't mean you can't love the theatre of their great playwright Euripides,...

People say you get one life, but I've lived three. I was born Ellen Hardy in 1900, dragged up in Queen Caroline's Yard, Norwich.There was nothing royal about our yard, and Mum was no queen. At six years old Mum sold me. I became Nellie Westrop, roaming the country in a showman's wagon, learning the art of the fair. And I've been the infamous Queenie of Norwich, moving up in the world by any means, legal or not. I've been heartbroken, abandoned, bought...

1346: For Thomas Blackstone the choice is easy - dance on the end of a rope for a murder he did not commit, or take up his war bow and join the king's invasion. As he fights his way across northern France, Blackstone learns the brutal lessons of war - from the terror and confusion of his first taste of combat, to the savage realities of siege warfare. Vastly outnumbered, Edward III's army will finally confront the armoured might of the French nobility...