First published in 1930, "Not Without Laughter" is the debut novel by Langston Hughes and a deeply personal, semi-autobiographical tale of an African-American family in rural Kansas. Langston Hughes, born in 1902 in Joplin, Missouri, spent much of his youth in Lawrence, Kansas and it is here that he set his first novel. "Not Without Laughter" tells the story of young Sandy Rogers as he grows from a boy to a young man and focuses on his "awakening...

"The town knew darkness ... and the awful, heavy silence of terrifying images grotesquely dancing in and out of the shadows ... and stark white faces, huge empty eyes and long gnarled hands that reached out with lustful insistence ... and the paralyzing fear of a diabolical corruption and a hideous peril more dreadful than death ... But no one living in 'Salem's Lot dared talk about the high, sweet, evil laughter of a child ..."

"Father Tim and Cynthia are pondering their retirement plans while trying to raise their young charge, Dooley. The mayoral race is heating up; the bakery may be closing; and the town's finest house may become-- a spa. Can change be coming to Mitford?"--Container.

Now at home again in Mitford, Father Tim and Cynthia find change in the air. Though Father Tim dislikes change, he dislikes retirement even more. A new challenge seems promising until an unexpected event propels him on a painful journey. For years, Father Tim has helped others find forgiveness; now he must find the courage and grace to forgive himself.

In a summer that refuses to end, in the deceiving warmth of earliest October, civil war has come to Green Town, Illinois. It is the age-old conflict: the young against the elderly, for control of the clock that ticks their lives ever forward. The first cap-pistol shot heard 'round the town is dead accurate, felling an old man in his tracks, compelling town elder and school board despot Mr. Calvin C. Quartermain to marshal his graying forces and declare...

In the 1970s, thirty years after a baby's disappearance from the community of DeClare, Oklahoma, a grown Nicky Jack Harjo mysteriously returns.

Father Tim, Mitford's most eligible bachelor, finds himself in need of divine intervention when his attention becomes focused on his attractive neighbor, while at the same time he is being pursued by a wealthy widow, and his cousin Meg moves into the rectory.

Life in a small Southeastern mountain town, centered on its colorful Episcopal minister. He is Timothy Kavanagh, 63, a lifetime bachelor who finally takes the plunge and gets married to his vivacious neighbor, Cynthia. By the author of A Light in the Window.

Mitford's Lord's Chapel seats barely two hundred souls, yet millions of Jan Karon's fans will be there for the most joyous event in years: the wedding of Father Tim Kavanagh and Cynthia Coppersmith.

Here at last is A Common Life, the sixth book in the bestselling Mitford Years series, and the long-awaited answers to these deeply probing questions: Will Father Tim fall apart when he takes his vows? Will Cynthia make it to the church on

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During the summer of 1971 in a small Texas town, thirteen-year-old Toby and his best friend Cal meet the star of a sideshow act, 600-pound Zachary, the fattest boy in the world.