Jeannette Walls

"Most folk thought Sallie Kincaid was a nobody who'd amount to nothing. Sallie had other plans. Sallie Kincaid is the daughter of the biggest man in a small town, the charismatic Duke Kincaid. Born at the turn of the 20th century into a life of comfort and privilege, Sallie remembers little about her mother who died in a violent argument with the Duke. By the time she is just eight years old, the Duke has remarried and had a son, Eddie. While Sallie...

A true-life novel about Lily Casey Smith (the author's grandmother) who at age six helped her father break horses, at age fifteen left home to teach in a frontier town, and later as a wife and mother runs a vast ranch in Arizona where she survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy--but despite a life of hardscrabble drudgery still remains a woman of indomitable spirit.

It is 1970 in a small town in California. "Bean" Holladay is twelve and her sister, Liz, is fifteen when their artistic mother, Charlotte, takes off to find herself, leaving her girls enough money to last a month or two. When Bean returns from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz decide to take the bus to Virginia, where their widowed Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that's been in Charlotte's family for generations...An...

The Civil War rages. The formidable Confederate army cannot match the Union's mastery of technology; railroads, supply lines and the telegram become new weapons in a modern war.

The attack on Pearl Harbor brings America into World War. The war effort revitalizes the nation's economy. American innovation and manufacturing might invigorate the Allies in Europe and in the Pacific.

America becomes a global superpower; the economy and population boom. In the jet age and the space age, pioneers conquer new frontiers and run headlong into Cold War.

The colonies declare independence, taking on the might of the British Empire. Washington's army is near defeat, but new weapons and battle tactics turn the tide. Forged through revolution, a new nation is born.

The Cold War is the first test for the new superpower. The Challenger disaster and 9/11 are tragedies that challenge the nation. From the television to the credit card and the personal computer, technology drives America into the 21st Century.

The Transcontinental Railroad unites the nation and transforms the Heartland. Native American civilizations decline as farmers settle the continent.