Jane Smiley

"Abby Lovitt is put in charge of training the expensive and haughty horse Pie in the Sky when his owner refuses. While trying to get a hold on him, she must deal with the new challenges, both good and bad, that come with being a freshman in high school in 1970's Northern California"--

They were six friends from the Midwest who moved to New York City with the high hopes of making a big-time splash in the music industry. Though the dream faded, the bonds between the tight-knit group did not. Or so it seemed. For one brilliantly sunny day, Alice Ellis discovers the grisly murders of two of the group, shot dead in the apartment for which any number of friends, acquaintances, and strangers had an extra set of keys. Written with the depth and passion of Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Thousand Acres, Duplicate Keys is a riveting suspense story about the emotional aftermath of murder - the jealousy and hatred, the deception and rage, and the shocking secrets that lie between even the closest of friends.

Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling novelist Jane Smiley celebrates the novel--and takes us on an exhilarating tour through one hundred of them--in this seductive and immensely rewarding literary tribute.In her inimitable style--exuberant, candid, opinionated--Smiley explores the power of the novel, looking at its history and variety, its cultural impact, and just how it works its magic. She invites us behind the scenes of novel-writing, sharing her own habits and spilling the secrets of her craft. And she offers priceless advice to aspiring authors. As she works her way through one hundred novels--from classics such as the thousand-year-old Tale of Genji to recent fiction by Zadie Smith and Alice Munro--she infects us anew with the passion for reading that is the governing spirit of this gift to book lovers everywhere.From the Trade Paperback edition.

When Charles Dickens died in 1870, The Times of London successfully campaigned for his burial in Westminster Abbey, the final resting place of England's kings and heroes. Thousands flocked to mourn the best recognized and loved man of nineteenth-century England. His books had made them laugh, shown them the squalor and greed of English life, and also the power of personal virtue and the strength of ordinary people. In his last years Dickens drew adoring crowds, had met presidents and princes, and had amassed a fortune. Yet like his heroes, Dickens trod a hard path to greatness. His young life was overturned when his profligate father was sent to debtors' prison and Dickens was forced into harsh factory work--but this led to his remarkable eye for all that was absurd, tragic, and redemptive in London life. This biography gives full measure to Dickens's stature--his virtues both as a writer and as a human being--while observing his failings in both respects with an unblinking eye.--From publisher description.

Soon after her yearling, Jack, begins working with professional trainers at a nearby ranch, Abby Lovitt takes responsibility for a very large, very smart, and very curious retired racehorse named Gee Whiz.

As her husband's obsessions with science take a darker turn on the eve of World War II, Margaret Mayfield is forced to consider the life she has so carefully constructed.

The story of a man, whose wife and daughters refuse to accept the fact that he is dying.

"Moo U" is a large, Midwestern "ag and tech" school where campus politics and intrigue rule. Smiley has assembled a large, colorful group of characters who will be familiar to ivory tower dwellers: the campus secretary who controls personnel and paper flow, the faculty who plot for power and revenge, plus the dining hall worker, the students, and the administrators, all with their own agendas.

As her mom reads a bedtime story, Lucy drifts off. But later, she awakens in a dark, still room, and everything looks mysterious. How will she ever get back to sleep?

This powerful twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear centers on a wealthy Iowa farmer who decides to divide his farm between his three daughters. When the youngest objects, she is cut out of his will. This sets off a chain of events that brings dark truths to light and explodes long-suppressed emotions. Ambitiously conceived and stunningly written, A Thousand Acres takes on themes of truth, justice, love, and pride—and reveals the beautiful yet treacherous topography of humanity.

In "Ordinary Love" Rachel contemplates the last two decades and the remarkable fact of her children's survival. In "Good will" Bob and his life style are no bulwark against the effect his isolation begins to have on his family.

On her family's California horse ranch in the 1960s, eighth-grader Abby Lovitt tries to rely on her Christian faith as she faces the possibility of giving up her beloved colt, Jack.