Central Kansas Library System

For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia. Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends,...

Presents the adventures of a boy and a runaway slave as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft. Universally acclaimed as one of the greatest creations of American fiction, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of those few books that are read over and over again, with ever increasing enjoyment.

An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present day. The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy Afghan youth and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of...

Best friends Morris, Rudi, Ivan, and Beck, having been either drafted or enlisted in the military during the Vietnam War, pledge they will come home together, and Morris, a sailor on the USS "Boston," relies on that promise to stay strong while his courage and resolve are tested under attack.

As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood...

The struggle of three brothers to stay together after their parent's death and their quest for identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society. "No one ever said life was easy. But Ponyboy is pretty sure that he's got things figured out. He knows that he can count on his brothers, Darry and Sodapop. And he knows that he can count on his friends—true friends who would do anything for him, like Johnny and Two-Bit. But not on much...

Dan and Charlie are two best friends who, together, have built a successful marketing empire, but have somehow managed to avoid ever really grown up. Their lives have been turned upside down when they are charged with the care of seven-year-old twins while on the verge of a big business deal. The clueless bachelors stumble in their efforts, leading to one debacle after another, with a gorilla and some pecking penguins. Dan and Charlie learn as much...

"At 85 years old, Alejandro "Sandy" Stern, a brilliant defense lawyer with his health failing but spirit intact, is on the brink of retirement. But when his old friend Dr. Kiril Pafko, a former Nobel Prize winner in Medicine, is faced with charges of insider trading, fraud, and murder, his entire life's work is put in jeopardy, and Stern decides to take on one last trial. In a case that will provide the defining coda to both men's accomplished lives,...

In the ocean surrounding Amity, a small tourist resort off the coast of New England, a 25-foot man-eating predator stalks any human foolish enough to get in the water. At first, the only believer in the shark's existence is the town's chief of police, Martin Brody. Brody enlists the help of scientist Matt Hooper and Quint, a crusty old seaman whose life is devoted to hunting sharks. The threesome sets off in Quint's boat to kill the leviathan. The...

"Princeton. Good Friday. 1999. On the eve of graduation, two students are a hairsbreadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Famous for its hypnotic power over those who study it, the five-hundred-year-old Hypnerotomachia may finally reveal its secrets--to Tom Sullivan, whose father was obsessed with the book, and Paul Harris, whose future depends on it. As the deadline looms, research has stalled--until an ancient diary surfaces"--Container....