Girl With a Pearl Earring Javier Marías and the roller-coaster of growing

and the roller-coaster of growing up

Nineteen Minutes can seem tediously stereotypical-- jocks versus nerds

In "At Home"

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of today's most admired and controversial political figures

In the final installment of the Harry Potter series

Girl With a Pearl Earring Javier Marías and the roller-coaster of growingA brilliant historical novel on the corruption of innocence, using the famous painting by Vermeer as an inspiration. Griet, the young daughter of a tilemaker in seventeenth century Holland, obtains her first job, as a servant in Vermeer's household. Tracy Chevalier shows us, through Griet's eyes, the complicated family, the society of the small town of Delft, and life with an obsessive genius. Griet loves being drawn into his artistic life, and