Frank Carlson Library

When Adela Quested and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, they quickly feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced 'Anglo-Indian' community. Determined to escape the parochial English enclave and explore the 'real India', they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz, a cultivated Indian Muslim. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves with Aziz, and the well-respected...

After escaping from the dark and dismal workhouse where he was born, Oliver finds himself on the mean streets of Victorian-era London and is unwittingly recruited into a scabrous gang of scheming urchins.

"The dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people that held on have never been fully told. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, going from sod homes to new framed houses to huddling in basements with the...

In 1831, the then twenty-seven year old Alexis de Tocqueville, was sent with Gustave de Beaumont to America by the French Government to study and make a report on the American prison system. Over a period of nine months the two traveled all over America making notes not only on the prison systems but on all aspects of American society and government. From these notes, Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America", an exhaustive analysis of the successes...

Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, a young lad who grows up without any expectations, but is surprised to hear from a lawyer that he has an unknown benefactor who is sending him to London to learn to become a gentleman. But the great expectations that he has change him, leading him almost to the brink of death, and in the course of events, Pip learns a number of lessons about life, loyalty and true happiness.

Sophie Beckett never dreamed she'd be able to sneak into Lady Bridgerton's famed masquerade ball-or that "Prince Charming" would be waiting there for her! Though the daughter of an earl, Sophie has been relegated to the role of servant by her disdainful stepmother. But now, spinning in the strong arms of the debonair and devastatingly handsome Benedict Bridgerton, she feels like royalty. Alas, she knows all enchantments must end when the clock strikes...

"Coates originally set off to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell's classic Politics and the English Language, but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories -- our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking -- expose and distort our realities. The first of the book's three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist -- and named for a Nubian pharaoh...

For almost a decade, a devastating combination of drought, wind, and poor farming practices turned millions of acres of the Great Plains into a wasteland. Ceaseless "black blizzards," turned night into day, killed crops and livestock, threatened the lives of small children, and buried homesteaders' hopes under huge dunes of dirt. The authors tell the story through private letters, newspaper accounts, and vivid interviews conducted with dozens of survivors...

Princess Christiana's father, reigning prince of Liechtenstein, has plans for her life. After four years studying in the U.S. at Berkeley, life in her father's palace cannot distract Christianna from what she sees outside the kingdom--the suffering of children, the ravages of terrorism and disease. Determined to make a difference in the world, she persuades His Royal Highness, her father, to let her volunteer for the Red Cross in East Africa. And...

"Smug, geriatric politicians bring the nation to the brink of war in an effort to control the burgeoning population of young males; working-class men dream of burying the elites; and professors propound theories offering students only the bleakest future. Adjustment Day arrives, fearlessly making real the logical conclusion of every separatist, alternative, and conspiracy theory"--