Recommendations based on "A Girl's Story"

The stunning first novel in Louise Erdrich's Native American series, Love Medicine tells the story of two families, the Kashpaws and the Lamartines. Written in Erdrich's uniquely poetic, powerful style, it is a multi-generational portrait of strong men and women caught in an unforgettable drama of anger, desire, and the healing power that is love medicine.

Teri, Maxine and Bird are as different as three sisters could be. Teri is beautiful and practical, a successful lawyer who has no patience for dreamers. Maxine is a happy, loving wife and mother, but wonders if she is doing anything important with her life. Bird, the youngest, runs a thriving business, while her husband, an ex-con, can't seem to buy a break.As widely varied as they may be, all three come together to visit their mama's home every Sunday, working to put Mother Joe's delicious soul food on the table.But when Mother Joe takes ill suddenly, her family starts to fall apart at the seams. It is up to Ahmad, Maxine's young son, who has always shared a special bond with his grandmother, to show his aunts, uncles and parents how to find the heart and soul of their extraordinary family before it is lost forever.A movie from 20th Century Fox starring Vanessa Williams and Vivica A. Fox

In an open cart Elspeth Huxley set off with her parents to travel to Thika in Kenya. As pioneering settlers, they built a house of grass, ate off a damask cloth spread over packing cases, and discovered—the hard way—the world of the African. With an extraordinary gift for detail and a keen sense of humor, Huxley recalls her childhood on the small farm at a time when Europeans waged their fortunes on a land that was as harsh as it was beautiful. For a young girl, it was a time of adventure and freedom, and Huxley paints an unforgettable portrait of growing up among the Masai and Kikuyu people, discovering both the beauty and the terrors of the jungle, and enduring the rugged realities of the pioneer life.

A #1 bestseller in Europe, CHILD OF THE JUNGLE tells the remarkable story of a childhood and adolescence spent caught between two modes of existence-jungle life and Western "civilization."Sabine Kuegler was five years old when her family-her German linguist-missionary parents and her siblings-moved to the territory of the recently discovered hunter-and-gatherer Fayu tribe of Papua New Guinea. The Fayu tribe is best known for being a Stone Age community untouched by modern times-they live an existence characterized by fear, violence, and atavistic ritual (including cannibalism in some regions)-but Sabine's family saw another side to them as well. Once the Kueglers were accepted by a clan chief, they found themselves becoming a part of a tightly knit and fiercely loyal community, and living the primal existence of the Fayu-one marked by the natural cycles of day and night, malaria and other diseases, and daily encounters with wildlife, from swims with crocodiles to dinners of worms.As the Kueglers changed, so did the Fayu people, learning from Sabine's family that there was a way out of their cycle of violence and that forgiveness can be sweeter than revenge.At the age of 17, Sabine found her life turned upside down when she left for Switzerland to attend boarding school and entered traditional society head-on. CHILD OF THE JUNGLE is the story of a life lived among the Fayu and the author's attempt to reconcile her feelings about "civilization" with those about a life she knew and loved.

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her fate is merely hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the verses of the "Book of Genesis" that recount the life of Jacob and his infamous dozen sons. The "Red Tent" is an extraordinary and engrossing tale of ancient womanhood and family honour. Told in Dinah's voice, it opens with the story of her mothers - the four wives of Jacob - each of whom embodies unique feminine traits, and concludes with Dinah's own startling and unforgettable story of betrayal, grief and love. Deeply affecting and intimate, "The Red Tent" combines outstandingly rich storytelling with an original insight into women's society in a fascinating period of early history and such is its warmth and candour, it is guaranteed to win the hearts and minds of women across the world. 'If you don't read it you'll be missing out' - Eve. 'I genuinely fell into this rich and colourful world and Dinah and Leah have stayed with me as ancestors and sisters brought to life by Anita Diamant's imaginative novel' - "Maureen Lipman".

The language and images of Carolyn Forché's poetry are so closely bound to the natural cycles of the seasons, of generations, of the body's functioning, that it is surprising to realize how many of her poems deal with uprootedness--hasty emigrations from Czechoslovakia and Kiev, the loss of grandparents and other elders, people leaving and being sent away. But this poetry is not a sentimental celebration of the goodness of nature, and harmony with the world is never something assumed. The harmony Forché seeks goes deeper than simple submission to natural processes or identification with an ethnic group, and it must be fought for with a tenuous faith, the balance that must be found between the ugliness, the harshness of her history--both natural and social--and its intense beauty, is what distinguishes Forché's poetry, gives it is depth and dimension.

Pat Conroy called Dorothea Benton Frank's debut, Sullivan's Island, "hilarious and wise," while Anne Rivers Siddons declared that it "roars with life." Now Frank evokes a lush plantation in the heart of modern-day South Carolina—where family ties and hidden truths run as deep and dark as the mighty Edisto River... Caroline Wimbley Levine always swore she'd never go home again. But now, at her brother's behest, she has returned to South Carolina to see about Mother—only to find that the years have not changed the Queen of Tall Pines Plantation. Miss Lavinia is as maddeningly eccentric as ever—and absolutely will not suffer the questionable advice of her children. This does not surprise Caroline. Nor does the fact that Tall Pines is still brimming with scandals and secrets, betrayals and lies. But she soon discovers that something is different this time around. It lies somewhere in the distance between her and her mother—and in her understanding of what it means to come home...

In This Bitter Earth, Sugar Lacey is on her way out of Bigelow, Arkansas, where she'd come to break with the past. With her worn leopard-print suitcase and her head held high, she walks past the prying eyes of its small-minded, cruel-hearted townsfolk, praying for the strength to keep going. She doesn't stop until she arrives at her childhood home in Short Junction. Here she learns the truth about her parentage: a terrible tale of unrequited love, of one man's enduring hatred, and of the black magic that has cursed generations of Lacey women. A powerfully realized novel that brings back the unforgettable characters from Sugar, McFadden's bestselling debut, This Bitter Earth is a testament to the ultimate triumph of the human spirit.

Called together by their aged grandmother Arab, the four McLeod cousins come to Jazz Age Hollywood and become caught in the whirl of Hollywood social life and tempted by the allure of the silver screen

Follows the experiences of Caroline Quiner, who will become Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother, and her family on their farm on the Wisconsin frontier during the year in which Caroline turns twelve.