Since his novel "The Alchemist" appeared three years ago, Paulo Coelho has emerged from Latin America to become one of the world's most widely-read authors. With his unique, even magical ability to meld gripping action and powerful spiritual insight, his books have become world favorites, selling more than ten million copies in 47 countries and being translated into 23 languages.

"By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept" tells of Pilar, a frustrated scholar looking for some greater meaning in the endless cycle of her days. When a childhood friend contacts her, she is surprised to learn that her former playmate is now a charismatic spiritual leader, someone revered as a miracle worker. She is even more astonished when he reveals that Pilar has always been his great love.

Confused by this sudden opportunity for a new chance at life, Pilar gradually comes to realize that the man she loves is being called upon to choose between her and his spiritual calling. As the suffering lovers travel through sacred sites in the French Pyrenees, the difficult choice they face offers a startling revelation about the divine and the redemptive power of love. Full of warmth and wisdom, joy and unexpected sorrow, their story is a magical celebration of the endless possibilities that life has to offer, and a fable about opening your heart to miracles.
Check Availability

I originally saw Fences performed at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre in the late 1990s. That was my introduction to August Wilson’s work and I was hooked. Since then I have read all of his plays and seen most of them performed. More recently Fences was produced on Broadway in a revival starring Denzel Washington. I found this play to be moving in a personal way, especially in the ways Troy attempts to relate to his son and is rejected. I also found the story to be interesting for the historical references to the great Negro League baseball player Josh Gibson and the remembrances of the old Hill District neighborhood where the play is set. I’m sure you will enjoy it too, perhaps in some of the same ways or more likely with your own appreciation of this great work. - Selected by Brian Jennings, October 25, 2011
Check Availability

In Osaka in the years immediately before World War II, four aristocratic women try to preserve a way of life that is vanishing. As told by Junichiro Tanizaki, the story of the Makioka sisters forms what is arguably the greatest Japanese novel of the twentieth century, a poignant yet unsparing portrait of a family–and an entire society–sliding into the abyss of modernity.

Tsuruko, the eldest sister, clings obstinately to the prestige of her family name even as her husband prepares to move their household to Tokyo, where that name means nothing. Sachiko compromises valiantly to secure the future of her younger sisters. The unmarried Yukiko is a hostage to her family’s exacting standards, while the spirited Taeko rebels by flinging herself into scandalous romantic alliances. Filled with vignettes of upper-class Japanese life and capturing both the decorum and the heartache of its protagonist, The Makioka Sisters is a classic of international literature.


From the Hardcover edition.
Check Availability

Henri Nouwen examines Rembrandt’s painting of the biblical parable of the prodigal son. Along the way he places himself in the role of the son who has run away and now come home, the son who stayed, and the compassionate father. Nouwen provides not only a personal examination of the parable and what it means to him, but he also delves into the life of Rembrandt and how he interpreted the parable in light of his personal experiences. The New Oxford Review says, "The Return of the Prodigal Son is a beautiful book, as beautiful in the simple clarity of its wisdom as in the terrible beauty of the transformation to which it calls us." Selected by Brian Jennings, May 2011
Check Availability