Xe Sands

Born in 1962 and captured as a baby, Ivan was brought to a Tacoma, Washington, mall to attract shoppers in 1964 where he lived for 27 years. Public pressure built until a better way of life for Ivan was found at Zoo Atlanta. From the Congo to America, and from a local business attraction to a national symbol of animal welfare, Ivan the Shopping Mall Gorilla traveled an astonishing distance in miles and in impact. This is the true story and includes...

"[This novel] follows a group of children and their families on summer vacation at a lakeside mansion. The teenage narrator Eve and the other children are contemptuous of their parents, who spend the days and nights in drunken stupor. This tension heightens when a great storm arrives and throws the house and its residents into chaos. Named for a picture Bible given to Eve's little brother Jack, A Children's Bible is loosely structured around events...

"An evocative new novel from the New York Times bestselling author Kristan Higgins. Beware the wrath of a woman scorned--she just might save the world. Lillie knew the empty nest would be hard when her son left for college, but she had no idea of the full extent to which her world would come crashing down--until her husband announced out of the blue that he was in love with another woman, and he would be leaving, too. Besides the fact that this announcement...

"Beneath the cover of France's most exquisite vineyards, a city of women defy an army during World War I.... Deep within the labyrinth of caves that lies below the lush, rolling vineyards of the Champagne region, an underground city of women and children hums with life. Forced to take shelter from the unrelenting onslaught of German shellfire above, the bravest and most defiant women venture out to pluck sweet grapes for the harvest. But wine is not...

"A kid walks into your bookstore and . . . Guess what? He's your son. The one you put up for adoption eighteen years ago. The one you never told anyone about. Surprise! It's a huge surprise to his adoptive mother, Monica, who thought she had a close relationship with Matthew, her nearly adult son. But apparently, he felt the need to secretly arrange a vacation to Cape Cod for the summer so he could meet his birth mother . . . without a word to either...

"A startling exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Reflecting on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the blockbuster travelling exhibition called "Auschwitz," the Jewish history of the Chinese city of Harbin, and the little known "righteous-gentile" Varian Fry, Dara Horn challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, as emblematic of...

"A personal evocation of the glory of nature, our vexed position in the animal kingdom, and the difficulty of adoring what we destroy. Acclaimed novelist Lydia Millet's first work of nonfiction, We Loved It All, is a genre-defying tour de force that makes an impassioned argument for people to see their emotional and spiritual lives as infinitely dependent on the lives of nonhuman beings. Drawing on a quarter-century of experience as an advocate for...

From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who care for him as if he were their own. Followed by his protective swarm of bees and living to deliver his adoptive family from threats, Simonopio's purpose will, in time,...

"'When they said all happy families are alike, I don't think this is what they meant...' Evelyn Caldwell's husband Nathan has been having an affair - with Evelyn Caldwell. Or, to be exact, with a genetically cloned replica. After a morning that begins with a confrontation and ends with Nathan's body bleeding out on the kitchen floor, the two Caldwell wives will have to think fast--before sharing everything includes sharing a jail cell. The Echo Wife...

"Recent widow Willa Silvester, struggling to find a future, invites three friends to her Montana homestead, where they can learn from nature and one another as they contemplate their second acts."--Publisher's description.