On Oprah's Summer Reading List for 2010 Howard Norman, widely regarded as one of this country's finest novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his major books -- The Bird Artist, The Museum Guard, and The Haunting of L -- in this erotically charged and morally complex story set during WWII. Orphaned by the sudden suicides of both his parents (who discovered they were in love with the same woman), seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is taken in by his aunt and uncle in the small town of Middle Economy, Novia Scotia, where he is apprenticed to his uncle's toboggan business and falls in love with his ravishing adopted cousin, Tilda. Setting in motion the novel's chain of life-altering passions is the arrival of German student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical incidents, including a German U-boat's sinking of the Nova Scotia-Newfoundland ferry Caribou, lend intense narrative power to Norman's uncannily layered story of wartime perfidy and prejudice. Tilda's feelings for Hans stir up tensions that will test the bonds of love, family, and community to its limits. Wyatt's personal account of the astonishing events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It's a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one. An utterly stirring novel, this is Howard Norman at his celebrated best.

An eloquent study of love, hate, human relationships, and emotional upheaval examines the causes of a violent quarrel between David Kozel and his new father-in-law, William, a gentle man who cares for a Nova Scotia estate and its swans, as well as David's new wife Maggie's belief that David has been unfaithful to her on their honeymoon. Reprint.

The author recalls his experiences among the Inuit of Alaska as he attempted to record and translate their 'flood' narratives into English, working with an Anglo-Japanese woman who had come to Alaska independently to accomplish the same task. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.

An evocative portrait of the landscape and eccentric characters who have shaped his literary work by the critically acclaimed author of The Bird Artist and The Northern Lights captures the the world of Nova Scotia in a collection of folklore, poetry, reflections, anecdotes, stories, and essays based on his more than thirty years of visits to the island province.

A rich portrait, set during World War II, of the seductions of danger and the vagaries of identity follows DeFoe Russett, a Nova Scotia museum guard, who steals a painting special to Imogen Linny, caretaker of the Jewish cemetery. Reprint. 35,000 first printing. Tour. NYT. PW. K.

The author of The Bird Artist, a finalist for the National Book Award, explores the darkening world of Europe in the 1930s through the story of a Jewish woman who comes under the spell of an unusual painting.