Walter's favorite cousin is coming to visit, but Iris is disappointed when Howie does not turn out to be so great--or friendly--after all.

Iris's first sleepover at her friend Walter's house ends early when Iris gets homesick and wants to go home.

When Iris's grandfather comes to her school as a substitute teacher, she has a hard time sharing him with the other students.

Iris's baby sister Rose breaks a necklace and then is discovered playing with Walter's missing harmonica.

Twenty-three biographical essays on writers admired by the award-winning author of The Education of Oscar Fairfax. For Louis Auchincloss, life and letters are not two things but one. It therefore comes as no surprise that when he writes about writers, their lives are considered as closely as their works. He takes what today is a refreshingly unpopular position: that the artist and his art cannot be teased apart, that biography of criticism and criticism...

"Amy Chua's debut novel, The Golden Gate, is a sweeping, evocative, and compelling historical thriller that paints a vibrant portrait of a California buffeted by the turbulent crosswinds of a world at war and a society about to undergo massive change. In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel after a drink in the bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs....