Reading the rainbow

Published in 1850, the novel is set in Puritan America.

It’s the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a child out of wedlock and is forced to wear the scarlet “A” for adultery on her clothing.

The first Sherlock Holmes novel.

Originally published in 1887, the mystery revolves around the discovery of a corpse in a London house with the word “Rache” scrawled in blood nearby.

Not for the faint of heart, Anthony Burgess’ dystopian novel is set in the not-too-distant future and centers on an extremely violent youth culture and the attempts by the state to control them.

This memoir won the National Book Award for nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for best debut.

The house is one that Broom's mother bought in East New Orleans when she was just 19.

It became a refuge for extended family, but after Hurricane Katrina, it was razed.

In Broom's capable hands, the yellow house becomes more than a home — it becomes a symbol of Black America.

Set during the Nigerian Civil War, the novel tells the story of the war through the lives of three characters.

The far-flung Madigan family returns to the family home in County Clare for Christmas, bringing angst and dissatisfaction with them.

Based on the true story of “the lone woman,” the last survivor of the native Nicoleno population, who lived on California’s San Nicolas Island alone after the rest of her people were massacred.

The novel won the Newbery Medal in 1961.

In this memoir, the author travels only the “blue highways” on a road map — the back roads and roads least traveled — looking for the real America.

Winner of a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, the novel is set in the American South in the early 1900s and tells the story of several poor Black women.

One message of this powerful book: Keep fighting. Never give up.

We're not looking for more gray, but this book is so splendid and was overshadowed by another novel of a similar name that it needs to be mentioned again.

Made into a film (“Ashes in the Snow”), the young-adult novel is the gripping, tragic story of a Lithuanian family deported to Siberia by the Soviets during World War II.