As the Reverend John Ames approaches the hour of his own death, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets.

The tragic story of Tess, who is victimized by lust, poverty, and Victorian hypocrisy.

Marilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, returns to the world of Gilead with Jack, the latest novel in one of the great works of contemporary American fiction Marilynne Robinson's mythical world of Gilead, Iowa'the setting of her novels Gilead, Home, and Lila, and now Jack'and its beloved characters have illuminated and interrogated the complexities of American history, the power of our emotions, and the...

Betsy Nelson reluctantly returns to her childhood home to care for her failing father, a faithful minister who served the town for years. William Covington, a confirmed bachelor, comes to town to become the new pastor. Can Betsy and William find common ground on which to work?

Originally published in Great Britain in 1978, the novel describes Margaret Marsh's coming of age one summer between the world wars. Caught in the backwash of a fervently religious father, a mother bitterly nostalgic for what might have been, the tea and sympathy of some thoroughly secular neighbors and the bawdy jokes of her nanny Lydia, Margaret's world hurtles towards a shattering moment of truth. Drama, tragedy and a touch of farce lend themselves...

Includes discussion questions.

"Curtis Black is no stranger to scandal. Throughout the decades, he has done much in the public eye, both good and evil. But what most people don't realize is that Curtis has been hiding a horrific childhood, which has affected him in countless, unspeakable ways. His buried past returns in an unwelcome visit when his estranged sister becomes alarmingly ill and his youngest child, twelve-year-old Curtina, becomes the kind of problem daughter that he...