The bestselling coming-of-age classic novel by John Irving-now in a limited 40th anniversary edition with a new introduction by the author. The opening sentence of John Irving's breakout novel, The World According to Garp, signals the start of sexual violence, which becomes increasingly political. "Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theater." Jenny is an unmarried nurse; she becomes a single...

Nan, unhappy with her life as a wife and mother, leaves home at the age of fifty on an unscripted trip across the country in search of herself, chronicling her insights and adventures in letters home to her husband, and in diary entries.

A sentimental look at small-town life featuring Dena Nordstrom, a New York TV show hostess. Sent by her doctor home to Missouri to nurse her ulcer, she hopes to learn why her mother abandoned her when she was 15 years old.

Ave Maria Mulligan, a thirty-five-year-old spinster in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, is jolted out of her rut when her mother reveals a shocking secret, and things become even more exciting when Elizabeth Taylor announces plans to visit the sleepy town.

Seabiscuit was an unlikely champion. He was a rough-hewn, undersized horse with a sad little tail and knees that wouldn't straighten all the way. But, thanks to the efforts of three men, Seabiscuit became one of the most spectacular performers in sports history.

An autobiography of growing up as an Iranian-American describes the author's family's 1971 move from Iran to Southern California, the members of her diverse family, and their struggle with culture shock.

This is the story of Azar Nafisi's dream and of the nightmare that made it come true. For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. They were unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about...

In the small town of West Annett, Maine in the 1950's, the minister Tyler Caskey is still grieving two years after the death of his wife. One daughter, Jeannie is sent upstate to live with his overbearing mother. The other Katherine has become antisocial. Tyler turns to his housekeeper Connie Hatch when her teacher suggests Katherine speak to the school counselor. This starts gossip about Katherine's stability and Tyler's possible affair with the...

Mamah and her husband, Edwin, commission the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.

At the edge of the continent, in the small town of Crosby, Maine, lives Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher who deplores the changes in her town and in the world at large but doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her.