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Gentle Reads
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Novelists whose works are evocative of a polite and kindly society. Literate and often humorous, these books contain little explicit sex or violence.
30 listings found. Displaying 1 - 20 |
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Arnim, Elizabeth von The Enchanted April Set during a miserable English winter in the 1920's when four middle class English women rent San Salvatore, a medieval castle on the Italian Riviera for April. April arrives and their lives are forever changed. 1992 Adult Fiction Book ELIZABE |
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Berg, Elizabeth The Year of Pleasures Following the death of her husband, Betta Nolan fulfills her promise to him to move to a small town and build a new life for herself, as she strives to cope with her grief and find pleasure and solace in the ordinary things of everyday life. 2005 Adult Fiction Book BERG |
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Brown, Eleanor The Weird Sisters Unwillingly brought together to care for their ailing mother, three sisters who were named after famous Shakespearean characters discover that everything they have been avoiding may prove more worthwhile than expected. 2011 Adult Fiction Book |
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Dallas, Sandra The Persian Pickle Club In 1930s Harveyville, Kansas, Rita Ritter, a recent arrival, is invited to join the Persian Pickle Club, but her interest in journalism brings her dangerously close to a secret the club has sworn to keep. 1995 Adult Fiction Book DALLAS |
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Drayson, Nicholas. A Guide to the Birds of East Africa For the past three years, the widower Mr. Malik has been secretly in love with Rose Mbikwa, a woman who leads the weekly bird walks sponsored by the East African Ornithological Society. Reserved and honorable, Malik wouldn't be noticed by a bystander in a Nairobi street-except perhaps to comment on his carefully sculpted combover. But beneath that unprepossessing exterior lies a warm heart and a secret passion. But just as Malik is getting up the nerve to invite Rose to the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball (the premier social occasion of the Kenyan calendar), who should pop up but his nemesis from his school days, the good-looking jokester Harry Khan. 2008 Adult Fiction Book |
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Edgerton, Clyde Walking Across Egypt She has as much business keeping a stray dog as she would walking across Egypt-which not so incidentally is the title of her favorite hymn. She's Mattie Rigsbee, an independent, strong-minded senior citizen who, at seventy-eight, might be slowing down just a bit. When teenage delinquent Wesley Benfield drops in on her life, he is even less likely a companion than the stray dog. But, of course, the dog never tasted her mouth-watering pound cake. 1991 Adult Fiction Book EDGERTON |
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Fitzgerald, Penelope The Bookshop Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, this comic story follows a kindhearted English widow's struggle to open a bookshop in a seaside town against the polite but uncompromising opposition of the town's arbiters of culture. 1997 Adult Fiction Book FITZGERAL |
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Flagg, Fannie. Can't Wait to Get to Heaven In Elmwood Springs, Missouri, the most unlikely and surprising experiences of a high-spirited octogenarian inspire a town to ponder the age-old question: Why are we here? In this comedy-mystery, those near and dear to this woman discover something wonderful: Heaven is actually right here, right now, with people you love, neighbors you help, friendships you keep. 2006 Adult Fiction Book FLAGG |
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Frank, Dorothea Benton Sullivan's Island: A Lowcountry Tale Troubled by her unfaithful husband and difficult teenaged daughter, Susan Hayes returns home to Sullivan's Island, South Carolina in an attempt to reconnect with her past. 2000 Adult Fiction Book FRANK |
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Gibbons, Kaye Charms for the Easy Life Margaret struggles toward adulthood in a world torn apart by the Second World War and complicated by her strong-willed mother, Sophia, and grandmother, Charlie Kate, in a story about three generations of passionate, willful Southern women. 2005 Adult Fiction Book GIBBONS |
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Gulley, Philip Home to Harmony The inaugural volume of the "Harmony series" introduces readers to this beloved fictional small town in America's heartland as the new pastor in a small Indiana town experiences one humorous adventure after another as he acclimates to his new congregation and lifestyle. 2000 Adult Fiction Book GULLEY |
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Hannah, Kristin Firefly Lane Their friendship begins when both girls are fourteen in the 1970s, with a confidence. This novel covers over thirty years of friendship between Tully Hart and Kate Mularkey -- its joys, pains, and ultimately a betrayal. 2008 Adult Fiction Book HANNAH |
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Hassler, Jon A Green Journey Agatha McGee, a retiring Catholic school teacher, has not masked her disapproval of Bishop Dick Baker's diocesan reforms, but when she plans to visit her long-standing Irish pen pal, James O'Hannon, Bishop Baker heads her tour group. 1985 Adult Fiction Book HASSLER |
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Karon, Jan At Home in Mitford A romance between an Anglican priest, Father Tim, the bachelor rector, and Cynthia Coppersmith, a children's book writer who moves into his neighborhood. It is set in Mitford, North Carolina, where life is peaceful and problems are overcome with prayer and some good cooking. 1996 Adult Fiction Book KARON |
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Lipman, Elinor. The Family Man Henry is a lawyer, an old-fashioned man, gay, successful, and lonely. Thalia, his stepdaughter from a misbegotten marriage, is now twenty-nine, an actress, and estranged from her newly widowed crackpot mother. Thalia poses as the girlfriend of a former sitcom star and current horror-movie luminary who is down on his romantic luck. When Thalia and her complicated social life move into the basement of Henry's Upper West Side townhouse, she finds a champion in her long-lost father, and he finds new life--and maybe even new love--in the commotion. 2009 Adult Fiction Book |
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Livesey, Margot Eva Moves the Furniture Raised by her aunt and her grieving father, motherless Eva McEwen grows up accompanied by two otherworldly companions--a woman and a girl--whom only she can see and finds herself torn between real life, including her career as a nurse and her love for a young plastic surgeon, and the meddling of her enigmatic companions. 2001 Adult Fiction Book LIVESEY |
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McCall Smith, Alexander At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances On sabbatical at Cambridge, Professor Dr. von Igelfeld becomes embroiled in a nasty case of academic intrigue and becomes caught up in skullduggery during his visit to Colombia, in a zany novel by the author of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency." 2005 Adult Fiction Book MCCALL SM Other formats available |
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Medlicott, Joan A. The Ladies of Covington Send Their Love Grace, Amelia, and Hannah decide that the last thing they want to do is live out their lives in a group home, and so, to the dismay of their children, they pool their resources and move to Covington, North Carolina, and new lives. 2000 Adult Fiction Book MEDLICO |
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Mirvis, Tova The Ladies Auxiliary A traditional Jewish community in Memphis, Tennessee, is given a jolt with the arrival of a new art teacher from New York. A convert to Judaism, Batsheva Jacobs brings new ideas and before you know it, a rabbi's son does not want to be a rabbi anymore. 2000 Adult Fiction Book MIRVIS |
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Pilcher, Rosamunde The Shell Seekers Set in England between World War II and the present, this epic novel details the connections that bind the Keeling family together over three generations. Their family's frailties, strengths, passions and joys are explored over two generations. 1997 Adult Fiction Book PILCHER |
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