Inspired by the Vermeer painting of the same title, Girl with Pearl Earring, this novel takes the reader inside the world of the 17th century Delft. In seventeenth-century Delft, there's a strict social order -rich and poor, Catholic and Protestant, master and servant -and all know their place. When Griet becomes a maid in the household of the painter Johannes Vermeer, she thinks she knows her role: housework, laundry, and the care of his six children....

For the townspeople of Union Grove, New York, the future is nothing like they thought it would be. Transportation is slow and dangerous, so food is grown locally at great expense of time and energy, and the outside world is largely unknown. There may be a president, and he may be in Minneapolis now, but people aren't sure. Their challenges play out in a world of abandoned highways and empty houses, horses working the fields, and rivers no longer polluted...

"Ashford, Vermont, might look like your typical sleepy New England college town, but to the shadowy residents who live among the remains of its abandoned mills and factories, it's known as "Burntown." Eva Sandeski, known as "Necco" on the street, has been a part of this underworld for years, ever since the night her father Miles drowned in a flood that left her and her mother Lily homeless. A respected professor, Miles was also an inventor of fantastic...

In the ninety-ninth district of a sprawling reeducation compound, freethinking artists and academics are detained to strengthen their loyalty to Communist ideologies. They are forced to carry out grueling physical work and are encouraged to inform on each other for dissident behavior. The prize: winning the chance at freedom. They're overseen by preadolescent supervisor, the Child, who delights in reward systems and excessive punishments. When agricultural...

A young college student falls in love with a Syrian refuge. An unhappy sales manager has an affair with a Swedish executive. A German retiree romances a wistful housewife. Their worlds collide in present day Greece against the backdrop of a ruinous financial collapse.

"When Cuba lost access to Soviet oil in the early 1990s, the country faced an immediate crisis, feeding the population, and an ongoing challenge; how to create a new low-energy society. Cuba transitioned from large, fossil-fuel intensive farming to small, less energy-intensive organic farms and urban gardens, and from a highly industrial society to a more sustainable one"--Back cover. "Quand Cuba a perdu l'accès au pétrole soviétique au début...

Elsa, a young woman of Italian descent, struggles to make ends meet in economically depressed Buenos Aires. She aspires to go to Italy to visit a former lover.

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence,...