Mary Doria Russell

Praise

One of 2011's five best novelsThe Washington Post

Filled with action and humor yet philosophically rich and deeply moving — a magnificent read.Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Top Pick in Historical Fiction 2011American Library Association

Excerpt

He began to die when he was twenty-one, but tuberculosis is slow and sly and subtle. The disease took fifteen years to hollow out his lungs so completely they could no longer keep him alive. In all that time, he was allowed a single season of something like happiness.

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Praise

This atmospheric entrée into a bygone time and place provides a first-person peek into the international political machinations that forged the contemporary Arab world. A natural for book-club discussions. — Booklist

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Excerpt

I suppose I should warn you at the outset. This is not a sweeping, epic tale. Even so, if you want to understand your own times, you must understand mine.
You must feel the hope and amazement of those years. Physics and chemistry, medicine and engineering were breaking through old boundaries. Anything seemed possible — the end of ignorance, the end of disease, the end of poverty. There was every reason to think that tomorrow would be better than today. And the day after that? Better yet! Read more »

Praise

A Thread of Grace is a powerful, gut-wrenching, human, funny and deeply moral novel that would not be out of place on a shelf next to All Quiet on the Western Front and War and Peace.— The Daily Camera, Colorado

Excerpt

This is what everyone would remember about his mother: her home was immaculate. Even in a place where cleanliness was pursued with religious zeal, Klara’s household was renowned for its faultless order. In Klara’s mind, there was no gradation between purity and filth.
She had sinned as a girl, made pregnant by her married uncle. Adultery stained her soul black, and God punished her as she deserved. Her sin-child died. Read more »

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Praise

A beautiful engine of thought and story…Children of God is almost impossible to put down… From its first words, [it] carries on at a run from The Sparrow, and this in itself is a miracle of telling… The rest is a luxury of story.— John Clute, Sci Fi Weekly

Excerpt

"I made a cloister of my body and a garden of my soul. The stones of the cloister wall were my nights, and my days were the mortar. Year after year, I built the walls. But in the center I made a garden that I left open to heaven, and I invited God to walk there. And God came to me." Sandoz turned away, trembling. Read more »

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Praise

Important novels leave deep cracks in our beliefs, our prejudices and our blinders. The Sparrow is one of them. Rating: A.— Entertainment Weekly

Excerpt

It was predictable, in hindsight. Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research. During what Europeans were pleased to call the Age of Discovery, Jesuit priests were never more than a year or two behind the men who made initial contact with previously unknown peoples; indeed, Jesuits were often the vanguard of exploration. Read more »

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