Homer and Langley, set in twentieth-century America, confirms bestselling author (Ragtime, Billy Bathgate) E.L. Doctorow’s position as one of the greatest historical fiction writers of our time. Inspired by a true story, Homer Collyer, “blind and deeply intuitive, is holed up with his brother Langley in their once-grand four story mansion on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Langley has been damaged into madness—or is it greatness?—by mustard gas in the Great War.” As Homer reveals the story of his life, an odyssey of incidents unfold, bringing with it a deluge of characters who offer up the story of an entire country over the course of decades.
—R.M.

When Ren, a young boy, is swept from his orphanage by a master con man, an unexpected adventure ensues. Ren finds himself on a journey unlike any of his wildest dreams. While a chimney-climbing dwarf and a giant assassin intrigued me to keep reading this book, it was the way the story unravels really stuck with me: Ren pushes forward looking for a father and his missing hand, and ends up finding something even more strange and special. Full of magic glimmering at every turn, this story would be a great reading adventure for a family to share.
—KMS

The only possible excuse for not having read Marilynne Robinson’s acclaimed novel, Home, is that it was only available in hardback. Until now. When two grown children, Glory and Jack, return to Gilead to care for their dying father, Reverend Robert Boughton, they step into a tableau tainted with the past. Robinson’s absolute command of language is what turns what could have simply been a family drama into a powerhouse novel, so full of beauty, compassion, anger, moral cowardice, and unrepentant sin that it is almost painful to read. Thankfully, Home is impossible to put down—and even harder to forget.
—R.M.

Based on a true story, Kate Grenville tells the story of Daniel Rooke, an astronomer/navy lieutenant who is sent to the newly discovered New South Wales as part of the British colonial movement in 1788. With th picturesque wilds of old Australia as its backdrop, Grenville's book brings to life the complications and excitement of what it must have been like to be living in unmapped territory. This is one of the most beautifully written tales I have read. It speaks to how language is not made up of words and letters but relationships and meaning, and it brings to light the beauty that can be shared if we hold one another as equals rather than foreigners in a great world. —SMC

Not just a thriller, Transition is also  a classic good versus bad tale, and one which the author uses to tackle some seriously big moral and philosophical issues. The crux of Transition is that the world we live in is one of an infinite range of parallel worlds. Banks still brings that incredible imagination into play. Transition will get your blood pumping and set your brain spinning.
—Nici Smith