Helen Plum Library

"Raised in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens--improbably smack in the middle of downtown L.A.--the narrator of The Sellout resigned himself to the fate of all other middle-class Californians: "to die in the same bedroom you'd grown up in, looking up at the crack in the stucco ceiling that had been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist at Riverside Community College, he spent his childhood as the subject in psychological...

Seventeen-year-old Tennessee Russo joins his estranged father in his search for ancient rings belonging to the Sacred Band of Thebes Seventeen-year-old Tennessee Russo's life is imploding. His boyfriend has been cheating on him, and all his friends know about it. Worse, they expect him to just accept his ex's new relationship and make nice. So when his father, a famous archaeologist and reality show celebrity whom he hasn't seen in two years, shows...

"An epic, mesmerizing debut novel set against a rapidly changing post-Cultural Revolution China that reckons with the costs of pursuing one's dreams and the lives we leave behind"-- Tang Yitian has been living in America for almost a decade when he receives an urgent phone call from his mother: his father has disappeared from the family's rural village in China. Though they have been estranged for years, Yitian promises to come home. When Yitian...

"An Army veteran and intelligence agent goes undercover as a janitor at a federal courthouse to pursue his own brand of justice in a thriller that's part John Grisham, part Robert Crais. As a young man, Paul McGrath rebelled against his pacifist father by becoming a standout Army recruit and the star of his military intelligence unit. But lingering regrets about their relationship make him return home, only to find his father dead, seemingly murdered....

"Master spy Twilight is unparalleled when it comes to going undercover on dangerous missions for the betterment of the world. But when he receives the ultimate assignment--to get married and have a kid--he may finally be in over his head! As a child, [REDACTED] lived an unremarkable life with his parents, playing war games with his friends and quarreling with his father. It never occurred to young [REDACTED] that the life he'd taken for granted might...

From a National Book Award Finalist comes a novel about a modern American family and a man on a secret mission to uncover the world's hidden truths--until his two lives come crashing together. Someone is telling the story of the life of Charlie Barnes, and it doesn't appear to be going well. Too often divorced, discontent with life's compromises and in a house he hates, this lifelong schemer and eternal romantic would like out of his present circumstances...