Thomas Hardy's first masterpiece, The Mayor of Casterbridge opens with a scene of such heartlessness and cruelty that it still shocks readers today. A poor workman named Michael Henchard, in a fit of drunken rage, sells his wife and baby daughter to a stranger at a country fair. Stricken with remorse, Henchard forswears alcohol and works hard to become a prosperous businessman and the respected mayor of Casterbridge. But he cannot erase his past....

"I'll never forget that day. It was blisteringly hot, and I begged our mother for an ice cream. As we left you with Dad, I didn't know it would be the last time I saw your face. Minutes later, we returned to the end of the pier where we had parked your pushchair. Dad was asleep on a bench, and your little pink blanket was empty. You had vanished. Twenty-five years later. The morning of the anniversary of Jess's disappearance starts like every other...

The Today show co-anchor shares the inspirational stories of six individuals who persevered and thrived in the face of devastating life challenges, from a woman who became a health advocate after losing 340 pounds to a civilian hero who saved a burn victim on September 11 only to discover that two family members died in the tragedy.

This backpack contains books about Minnesota State Parks, trails, and animals. Check this backpack out from the library and bring the library receipt to the Blue Mounds State Park to receive a free day pass.

"In present-day New York City, five women meet in a basement support group to process their traumas. Bernice grapples with the fallout of dating a psychopathic, blue-bearded billionaire. Ruby, once devoured by a wolf, now wears him as a coat. Gretel questions her memory of being held captive in a house made of candy. Ashlee, the winner of a Bachelor-esque dating show, wonders if she really got her promised fairy-tale ending. And Raina's love story...

"The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement of Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster. As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn't exist before--and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating...

Three years after a horrible tragedy took her son and tore her family apart, artist Kate Monroe is beginning to pick up the pieces of her life. At a gala showcasing her return to the art world, Kate's world is rocked when the daughter she gave up for adoption twenty-two years ago introduces herself. Pree is the child Kate never knew and never forgot. But Pree has questions that Kate isn't sure she's ready to answer.

Tender is the night is a story of Americans living on the French Riviera in the 1930s is a portrait of psychological disintegration as a wealthy couple supports friends and hangers-on financially and emotionally at the cost of their own stability. The last tycoon centers on the life of fictional film executive Monroe Stahr, circa Hollywood in the 1930s. Stahr is modeled loosely on the life of film executive Irving Thalberg.

Ella, seventeen, has a very dark side--Bad Ella, or Bella--but when she is whisked away to Brazil and learns she is adopted, she questions everything she thought she knew about herself.