No Ordinary Matter

Jenny McPhee's critically acclaimed debut, The Center of Things, was hailed by O, The Oprah Magazine as "a smart novel of love, lust, and life's miraculous randomness." The New York Times Book Review called it "an engaging novel about big ideas." In her delightful new novel, No Ordinary Matter, McPhee turns her razor-sharp pen on the offbeat worlds of soap operas, mistaken identities, private detectives, and sibling rivalries as she deftly navigates the territory between coincidence and fate. Veronica Moore writes for a daytime drama while secretly composing a musical and has fallen in love with Alex Drake, who plays a neurologist on her show. Lillian Moore is a neurologist who is pregnant from a one-night stand. Veronica and Lillian have hired Brian Byrd, P. I., to uncover the mystery surrounding their father's death. Before they know it, unexpected answers come crawling out of the woodwork. The sisters meet monthly at the Hungarian Pastry Shop, where they entangle their futures and unravel their pasts, setting the stage for a series of revelations that will change the course of everyone's lives. This fast-paced narrative is full of situations worthy of the steamiest of soaps, and yet McPhee renders this fantastical world delightfully ordinary. No Ordinary Matter is as addictive as a soap opera, as high-kicking as a Broadway show, as insightful as an MRI, and as satisfying as a buttery croissant. With its sly charm and witty sophistication, McPhee's new novel is another sparkling gem from a rising literary star.

In 1895 Alfred Nobel rewrote his will and left his fortune made in dynamite and munitions to generations of thinkers. Since 1901 women have been honoured with Nobel Prizes for their scientific research twenty times, including Marie Curie twice. Spanning more than a century and ranging across the world, this inventive story collection is inspired by these women whose work has altered history and saved millions of lives. From a transformative visit to the Grand Canyon to a baby washing up on a Queensland beach, a climate protest during a Paris heatwave to Stockholm on the eve of the 1977 Nobel Prize ceremony, Ordinary Matter explores the nature of ingenuity and discovery, motherhood and sacrifice, illness and legacy. Sometimes the extraordinary pivots on the ordinary.

Shortlisted for the SYRCA 2013 Diamond Willow Award, selected as an American Library Association 2012 Notable Children's Book, a Booklist Editors' Choice, nominated for the OLA Golden Oak Tree Award, and a finalist for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children's Book Awards: Young Adult/Middle Reader Award, the Governor General's Literary Awards: Children's Text and the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award There's not much that upsets young Valli. Even though her days are spent picking coal and fighting with her cousins, life in the coal town of Jharia, India, is the only life she knows. The only sight that fills her with terror are the monsters who live on the other side of the train tracks -- the lepers. Valli and the other children throw stones at them. No matter how hard her life is, she tells herself, at least she will never be one of them. Then she discovers that she is not living with family after all, that her "aunt" was a stranger who was paid money to take Valli off her own family's hands. She decides to leave Jharia ... and so begins a series of adventures that takes her to Kolkata, the city of the gods. It's not so bad. Valli finds that she really doesn't need much to live. She can "borrow" the things she needs and then pass them on to people who need them more than she does. It helps that though her bare feet become raw wounds as she makes her way around the city, she somehow feels no pain. But when she happens to meet a doctor on the ghats by the river, Valli learns that she has leprosy. Despite being given a chance to receive medical care, she cannot bear the thought that she is one of those monsters she has always feared, and she flees, to an uncertain life on the street. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.3 Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact). CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.6 Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.

Cal would rather avoid reality. He hates school, his teachers are badgering him to decide on a career and his sister Jess has moved away from the Scottish island where they live. Then he meets Kerry, an Australian girl new to the island, and over the course of a long summer they begin to fall in love.

Twelve-year-old Owen Turney died on October 24th, 2010, of unknown causes. No Ordinary Boy is Jennifer Johannesen's extraordinary story of her profoundly disabled son, his family, his caregivers and his doctors. It is a sharply evocative, sometimes humorous, never sentimental chronicle-not only of perpetual crisis management, crushing disappointments and dashed hopes, but also one of love, spiritual growth, self-understanding, acceptance and maturity.

Presents a social history of the United States in 1940, along with a moment-by-moment account of Roosevelt's leadership and the private lives of the president and First Lady, whose remarkable partnership transformed America. (This book was previously featured in Forecast.)

Nurse Trina Woods never really expected to make the reality-show cut for Rich Man, Lucky Lady. She's used to losing in love, and past believing in fairy tales. So she's sure the handsome plain-talking man she encounters on her lunch break is just a shy eccentric...Until he turns out to be reclusive award-winning musician “Art E.” Soon his unique sensitivity and gentle ways are inspiring her to stand up for herself, take risks, and try one last time for her happy ending. Tony Santangelo's special way of seeing the world helps him make connections others don't—and turn them into mega-hit songs. But he never realized how lonely he was until he got a glimpse of Trina's honesty and caring nature—and went way out of his comfort zone to find her. Suddenly they’re the media's hottest new Cinderella story. And coping with his overprotective brother and overwhelming celebrity means he and Trina must face trouble head on, insist on their dreams, and write their own one-of-a-kind forever-after song...

Collects the stories of Americans who were profiled in the author's "Everybody Has a Story" column, tracing his two decades of encounters with more than eight hundred individuals, many of whose perspectives changed his life.