We all have secrets, every one of us. Some secrets are so precious we dare not lay them aside even for a moment, holding onto them tightly wherever we go, like the sound of trailing footsteps, as close as your own shadow. Then there are those secrets that forever haunt a place, intertwined with the soil, water, and buildings, and sometimes, even a few wild orange groves. Fleeing from such places is pointless; there is no escape- not really. Traditions are a sacred, sometimes too sacred, way of life in the South, invoked to purify or shroud all manner of sin. The murky waters of history surge with deep-rooted families and prominent citizens as if a part a great river, with currents, eddies, and backwashes. The sleepy town of Bedlam, located in rural Harrison County, Florida, is a place of such secrets. On the outskirts of town towers a high school. For three quarters of a century, it stood as a threshold of the wild orange groves beyond; but its days were numbered. After a politician's death and a notable act of God, the closing of Orange Groves High School becomes the harbinger of things best left undisturbed. For those that sit in the classrooms, or walk the halls, from teacher to student alike, it's not a time that would be easily forgotten. When the indulgences of the past catch up with the indulgences of the present, there comes a reckoning. Sometimes the past is only a few feet under the surface.

A classic of reportage, Oranges was first conceived as a short magazine article about oranges and orange juice, but the author kept encountering so much irresistible information that he eventually found that he had in fact written a book. It contains sketches of orange growers, orange botanists, orange pickers, orange packers, early settlers on Florida's Indian River, the first orange barons, modern concentrate makers, and a fascinating profile of Ben Hill Griffin of Frostproof, Florida who may be the last of the individual orange barons. McPhee's astonishing book has an almost narrative progression, is immensely readable, and is frequently amusing. Louis XIV hung tapestries of oranges in the halls of Versailles, because oranges and orange trees were the symbols of his nature and his reign. This book, in a sense, is a tapestry of oranges, too—with elements in it that range from the great orangeries of European monarchs to a custom of people in the modern Caribbean who split oranges and clean floors with them, one half in each hand.

A moving tale of desire, burning secrets and forbidden love under the Cypriot sun. From Nadia Marks, the bestselling author of Among the Lemon Trees and Secrets Under the Sun, comes Between the Orange Groves, the perfect read for fans of Victoria Hislop and Santa Montefiore. In a small village, set among the wild mountains of Cyprus, two families of different faiths share a seemingly unbreakable friendship based on mutual respect and deep affection. Mothers and daughters share their daily secrets, fathers and sons support each other as they live their lives between the fragrant pine trees and orange groves. It’s here that two boys, Lambros and Orhan, grow up side by side, as close as brothers. Their lives are inextricably linked, but as their fortunes shift and time passes, an unforgivable act of betrayal takes place, setting in motion a chain of events that tears the two friends and their entire families apart . . . Many decades later and now an old man living in London, Lambros decides to share his painful memories with his daughter Stella; transporting her back to an island brimming with passion and at its heart a scandal that still haunts those involved. Is it too late for forgiveness? Or can the next generation embark on a journey of their own to help mend the damage done all those years ago? Poignant, uplifting tale of faith and forgiveness under [a] Cypriot sun - Woman Here's what readers are saying: 'A fabulously touching story, that spans history, in-depth family drama, fantastic characters and a wonderful setting. Loved it' 'The book is moving, engaging, entertaining and will keep you hooked till the last page. I look forward to reading other books by this author. Recommended!'

“Hypnotic and tender, this book reminds us that even if we leave our homes, our homes never leave us.” —Oprah Daily “[Hull] has that sly eye for sublime details, but also a killer instinct for tight storytelling.” —Carl Hiaasen, New York Times Book Review A richly evocative coming-of-age memoir set in the Florida orange groves of the 1960s by a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Anne Hull grew up in rural Central Florida, barefoot half the time and running through the orange groves her father’s family had worked for generations. The ground trembled from the vibrations of bulldozers and jackhammers clearing land for Walt Disney World. “Look now,” her father told her as they rode through the mossy landscape together. “It will all be gone.” But the real threat was at home, where Hull was pulled between her idealistic but self-destructive father and her mother, a glamorous outsider from Brooklyn struggling with her own aspirations. All the while, Hull felt the pressures of girlhood closing in. She dreamed of becoming a traveling salesman who ate in motel coffee shops, accompanied by her baton-twirling babysitter. As her sexual identity took shape, Hull knew the place she loved would never love her back and began plotting her escape. Here, Hull captures it all—the smells and sounds of a disappearing way of life, the secret rituals and rhythms of a doomed family, the casual racism of the rural South in the 1960s, and the suffocating expectations placed on girls and women. Vividly atmospheric and haunting, Through the Groves will speak to anyone who’s ever left home to cut a path of their own.

"Douglas Sackman peels an orange and finds inside nothing less than an American agricultural-industrial culture in all its inventive, exploitative, transformative, and destructive power. A beautifully researched and intellectually expansive book."—Elliott West, author of The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, & the Rush to Colorado

A profoundly human take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, seen through the eyes of six families, three Arab and three Jewish. The millennia-old port of Jaffa, now part of Tel Aviv, was once known as the "Bride of Palestine," one of the truly cosmopolitan cities of the Mediterranean. There Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived, worked, and celebrated together—and it was commonplace for the Arabs of Jaffa to attend a wedding at the house of the Jewish Chelouche family or for Jews and Arabs to both gather at the Jewish spice shop Tiv and the Arab Khamis Abulafia's twenty-four-hour bakery. Through intimate personal interviews and generations-old memoirs, letters, and diaries, Adam LeBor gives us a crucial look at the human lives behind the headlines—and a vivid narrative of cataclysmic change.