Irving is a masterful storyteller, and has a knack for drawing compelling characters. This novel, which gently addresses heavy themes of fate and faith, is widely believed to be his finest. Read it and see why it’s on so many readers’ desert island lists.

From <em>The Daily Telegraph</em>: "The Cider House Rules is difficult to define and impossible not to admire." The coming of age story of Homer Wells, who is raised in a Maine orphanage by founder and obstetrician Dr. Wilbur Larch. Homer studies under Larch's tutelage, but the men disagree about performing abortions, bringing two different perspectives to their practice. Homer gets an opportunity to leave and experience the world outside of the orphanage, and we follow his journey throughout the novel.

Irving is known for writing big Dickensian novels; this is no exception. Irving pulls in some truly wacky plot elements: circus bears, taxidermy, weightlifting, and a run-down hotel. But at its heart this is the story of a messy, unusual family as they grow up and learn about love and death, success and failure, and (this being a John Irving novel) sex. Irving has a knack for distilling wisdom out of the strangest situations, and this exuberant novel gives him ample opportunity to exercise his talent.

From the publisher: "In A Widow for One Year, we follow Ruth Cole through three of the most pivotal times in her life: from her girlhood on Long Island (in the summer of 1958) through the fall of 1990 (when she is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career), and at last in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth is a forty-one-year-old widow and mother (and she’s about to fall in love for the first time). Both elegiac and sensual, A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force."

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