Introduction by Diane Johnson • Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
Initially published under the pseudonym Currer Bell in 1847, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre erupted onto the English literary scene, immediately winning the devotion of many of the world’s most renowned writers, including William Makepeace Thackeray, who declared it a work...

"The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance, and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then from the sisters to each other, the novel draws readers into the experiences of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery, and Sofia"--

Emma is a novel written by Jane Austen. It is set in the fictional country village of Highbury and the surrounding estates of Hartfield, Randalls and Donwell Abbey, and involves the relationships among people from a small number of families. The novel was first published in December 1815, with its title page listing a publication date of 1816. As in her other novels, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian–Regency...

"Mike Muñoz is a young Mexican American not too many years out of high school--and just fired from his latest gig as a lawn boy on a landscaping crew. Though he tries time and again to get his foot on the first rung of that ladder to success, he can't seem to get a break. But then things start to change for Mike, and after a raucous, jarring, and challenging trip, he finds he can finally see the future and his place in it"--

"No matter where you go, no matter whether you succeed or fail, stand or fall, no gone is too far gone. You can always come home."At the age of eighteen, musician and songwriter Cooper O'Connor took everything his father held dear and drove 1,200 miles from home to Nashville, his life riding on a six-string guitar and the bold wager that he had talent. But his wager soon proved foolish. Five years after losing everything, he falls in love with Daley...

The story focuses on three families: the Bertrams, the Prices, and the Crawfords. The reader comes to take their measures against that of the quiet witness at the center, Fanny Price, a poor relation who is being cared for by her wealthy aunt and uncle, Lady and Sir Thomas Bertram. Though perceived as silent and passive, Fanny's wisdom, firm principles, and steadfast heart are gradually appreciated by those around her- especially Edmund Bertram, to...

Meet Ginny Moon. She's mostly your average teenager--she plays flute in the high school band, has weekly basketball practice, and reads Robert Frost poems in English class. But Ginny is autistic. And so what's important to her might seem a bit... different: starting every day with exactly nine grapes for breakfast, Michael Jackson, her baby doll, and crafting a secret plan of escape. After being traumatically taken from her abusive birth mother and...

"A powerful novel about five young people, struggling to replace the homes they have lost with the one they have created together, from the internationally bestselling author of A Long Way Gone. Hidden away from a harsh and chaotic outside world, five young people have cobbled together a home for themselves in an abandoned airplane, a relic of their country's tumult. At seventeen, Elimane, the bookworm, is as street-smart as he is wise: the group's...

"I am Comet Caldwell. And I sort of, kind of, absolutely hate my name. People expect extraordinary things from a girl named Comet. That she'll be effortlessly cool and light up a room the way a comet blazes across the sky. But from the shyness that makes her book-character friends more appealing than real people to the parents whose indifference hurts more than an open wound, Comet has never wanted to be the center of attention. She can't wait to...

Laura and Casey were inseparable, dreaming about the future and teaming up for the wild scavenger hunts in their small California lakeside town. Until one summer night when a shocking betrayal sent Laura running into a new life, leaving Casey and a first love in her wake. Seventeen years later Laura is pulled home--and into one more scavenger hunt with Casey. The twist: this time, the list of clues leads to the settings of their most cherished summer...