From the influential and hugely popular "New York Times" columnist and bestselling author of "Bobos in Paradise" comes a landmark exploration of how human beings and communities succeed.

"It's the week before her wedding, and all of Eliza's meticulous planning is about to pay off. She's become the exact type of woman who would marry into the prominent blue-blooded Walker family--Ivy League credentials, a high-powered PR job and a designer-label wardrobe. But as the big day approaches, secrets from Eliza's past attendance at an Evangelical college start to throw her true motives into question. Who exactly is Eliza Bennet and what does...

"For the past thirty years, Mr. and Mrs. Jha's lives have been defined by cramped spaces, cut corners, gossipy neighbors, and the small dramas of stolen yoga pants and stale marriages. They thought they'd settled comfortably into their golden years, pleased with their son's acceptance into an American business school. But then Mr. Jha comes into an enormous and unexpected sum of money, and moves his wife from their housing complex in East Delhi to...

"1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright. Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride...

In this historical tale of friendship, family, and the power of sisterhood, three very different girls from varying social stratums find common ground as they each make a promise not just to accept things as they are anymore. In 1936, at seven, Ginny Rose and Peggy were best friends, picking peaches on hot summer days. Peggy's family owned the farm, and Ginny Rose's were pickers, escaping the Oklahoma dust storms. Ten years, hard miles, and a world...

"Three Asian American teenagers meet in the New York suburbs in the 1980s. Drawn together by their shared sense of alienation from their conventionally domestic immigrant families, each wants to live a meaningful life. They envision a future defined by freedom and creativity, but on the brink of adulthood in New York City, their fortunes quickly diverge. Giselle Chin is a performance artist, pushing the boundaries of the form while socializing with...

"For as long as she can remember, Bronx-born Naomi Powell has had one goal: own one of the ritzy Upper East Side homes where she used to watch her mom work as a housekeeper. Now a sassy CEO of one of the biggest fashion jewelry empires in the country, Naomi has exactly what she wants, but she's learning that it'll take more than the right address to make Manhattan's elite stop treating her like an outsider. The worst of them all is Oliver Cunningham,...

"The New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker, Jennifer Chiaverini, reveals the famous First Lady's very public social and political contest with Kate Chase Sprague, memorialized as "one of the most remarkable women ever known to Washington society." (Providence Journal) Kate Chase Sprague was born in 1840 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the second daughter to the second wife of a devout but ambitious lawyer. Her father, Salmon P. Chase,...

"The year is 1911 when twenty-year-old heiress Peggy Batternberg is invited to spend the summer in America's Playground. But the invitation to Coney Island is unwelcome. Despite hailing from one of America's richest families, Peggy would much rather spend the summer working at the Moonrise Bookstore than keeping up appearances with New York City socialites and her snobbish, controlling family. But soon it transpires that the hedonism of Coney Island...