Marilynne Robinson

OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK and BESTSELLER One of Time's Must-Read Books of 2020 The long-awaited fourth and last of Marilynne Robinson's Gilead novels—one of the great works of contemporary literature. With Jack, Robinson takes her readers back to the small town of Gilead, Iowa, in 1956, to tell the story of John Ames Boughton, the godson of John Ames and the black sheep of his family. He's a ne-er do well and the beloved prodigal son who falls in love with and marries Della, a beautiful and brilliant African-American teacher he meets in segregated St. Louis. Their fraught, beautiful romance is one of Robinson's greatest achievements.

A Novel

Jack

Reading Genesis

Evlerden Uzak

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church-the only available shelter from the rain-and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister and widower, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the days of suffering that preceded her newfound security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood of itinerant work. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand-to-mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a lucky knife to protect them. But despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life is laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to harmonize the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle worldview of her husband which paradoxically judges those she loves. Revisiting the beloved characters and setting of Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead and Orange Prize-winning Home, Lila is a moving expression of the mysteries of existence.

Lila

The Gilead Novels

Housekeeping

Casa

Quando ero piccola leggevo libri

Essays

Givenness of Things

Paul Harding

10th Anniversary Edition

Tinkers

Gileadas

What Are We Doing Here?

The author of Housekeeping offers a collection of ten essays that explore a range of social, political, religious, and cultural issues of the present day, sharing her thoughts on Darwinism, McGuffey readers, and the Religious Right.

Essays on Modern Thought

The Death of Adam

Matt Haig

Barack Obama

Kristin Hannah

Brit Bennett

Anna North

Martha Nibley Beck

Stacey Abrams

Octavia Butler

Maggie O'Farrell

Marie Benedict

Sarah Pearse

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

Lauren Fox

Mateo Askaripour

Taylor Jenkins Reid

Naima Coster

Jason Mott

Maggie Shipstead

Lisa Harding

Jon Meacham

Patricia Engel

Amor Towles

Megan E. Abbott

Maria Dahvana Headley

Richard Powers

Laura Dave

Ethan Michaeli

Pip Williams

María Amparo Escandón

Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Andrea Bartz

Chibundu Onuzo

Nathan Harris

Daina Ramey Berry

Sara Nović

Miranda Cowley Heller

Tia Williams

Ellery Lloyd

Flynn Berry

Qian Julie Wang

Cicely Tyson

Nina de Gramont

Marissa Stapley

Jessamine Chan

Charmaine Wilkerson

Tara M. Stringfellow

Naomi Krupitsky

Viola Davis

Lee Cole

Kali N. Gross

Shelby Van Pelt

Thrity N. Umrigar

Kamala D. Harris

The Book Club Kindles contain selections from the library's Table Talk and Cover to Cover Book Clubs as well as celebrity book club picks from Oprah Winfrey, Jenna Bush Hager, and Reese Witherspoon.

Book Club

Kindle

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church - the only available shelter from the rain - and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. 'One of the greatest living novelists' BRYAN APPLEYARD, SUNDAY TIMES 'Robinson is frequently named as one of America's most significant writers . . . Her questioning books express wonder: they are enlightening, in the best sense, passionately contesting our facile, recycled understanding of ourselves and of our world' SARAH CHURCHWELL, GUARDIAN 'The work of an exceptional novelist' ROWAN WILLIAMS, NEW STATESMAN 'A sumptuous, graceful and ultimately life-affirming novel' JAMES KIDD, INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'Great and luminous beauty . . . a book that leaves the reader feeling what can only be called exaltation' NEEL MUKHERJEE, INDEPENDENT

An Oprah's Book Club Pick

New essays on theological, political, and contemporary themes, by the Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson has plumbed the human spirit in her renowned novels, including Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Gilead, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In this new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern political climate and the mysteries of faith. Whether she is investigating how the work of great thinkers about America like Emerson and Tocqueville inform our political consciousness or discussing the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life, Robinson’s peerless prose and boundless humanity are on full display. What Are We Doing Here? is a call for Americans to continue the tradition of those great thinkers and to remake American political and cultural life as “deeply impressed by obligation [and as] a great theater of heroic generosity, which, despite all, is sometimes palpable still.”

Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead series—Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack—is an intergenerational story about faith, race, and love radiating out from the interwoven histories of two families in a small Iowa town to encompass all of American life: our ideals and beliefs, our contradictions, failings, and hopes. Over the past sixteen years, Marilynne Robinson’s now-mythical world of Gilead, Iowa, and the beloved characters who inhabit it, have illuminated and interrogated the complexities of American history, the power of our emotions, and the wonders of a sacred world. These four novels, which have won one Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Critics Circle Awards, among many other honors, are a vital contribution to contemporary American literature and a revelation of our national character and humanity. Robinson’s meditation on the paradoxes of American life has given us “something we only occasionally find in the vastness of existence: a glimpse of eternity” (Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal).

The Gilead Novels (Oprah's Book Club)

After Gilead, At home and Lila, Marilynne Robinson returns to the world of Gilead with Jack, the fourth component of one of the most important contemporary novel cycles. Jack tells the story of John Ames Boughton, who was already one of the leads in At home. Prodigal son of Reverend Boughton, a victim of alcohol and his tendency of self-destruction, Jack lives apart from his family in St. Louis, the main city of Missouri, in the years after World War II. There he survives with small jobs, some robberies and with the help of his brother Teddy. He moves between unbelieving cynicism and suicidal tendencies. But he meets Della Miles, an African-American high school teacher, and also the daughter of a preacher, with a clear mind, a generous spirit and an independent will. Della and Jack fall in love in a society where racial discrimination prevails and laws and customs make intermarriage difficult. Deep and moving, her beautiful and tense story is one of Robinson's greatest achievements.

WINNER OF THE ORANGE PRIZE • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST Glory Boughton has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. soon her brother, Jack—the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years—comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with torment and pain. A troubled boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a job, Jack is one of the great characters in recent literature. He is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his traditionalist father, though he remains Reverend Boughton’s most beloved child. Brilliant, beguiling, lovable and wayward, Jack forges an intense new bond with Glory and engages painfully with John Ames, his godfather and namesake. Home is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets and the passing of the generations, about love and death and faith. It is arguably Marilynne Robinson’s greatest work, an unforgettable embodiment of the deepest and most universal emotions.

Home (Oprah's Book Club)

Marilynne Robinson

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