J. Courtney Sullivan's celebrated debut novel is a sparkling tale of friendship and a fascinating portrait of the first generation of women who have all the opportunities in the world, but no clear idea about what to choose. Assigned to the same dorm their first year at Smith College, Celia, Bree, Sally, and April couldn't have less in common. Celia, a lapsed Catholic, arrives with a bottle of vodka in her suitcase; beautiful Bree pines for the fiancé...

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche...

Engrossed in a new relationship to the point that her studies begin to suffer, college junior Veronica is devastated when a plea for help goes unheeded, but a surprising request from her mother teaches her about family, love, and independence.

"The short story, Franny, takes place in an unnamed college town and tells the tale of an undergraduate who is becoming disenchanted with the selfishness and inauthenticity she perceives all around her. The novella, Zooey, is named for Zooey Glass, the second youngest member of the Glass family. As his younger sister, Franny suffers a spiritual and existential breakdown in her parents' Manhattan living room-leaving Bessie, her mother, deeply concerned-Zooey...

"Detective Manon Bradshaw is 39, single, and miserable as sin. She has endured some of the worst dates in internet history. But she loves her job and performs it brilliantly; all she needs to rise up in the ranks is a big break. Edith Hind is a gorgeous, intrepid graduate student at Cambridge University who seems to have it all: a doting boyfriend, a devoted friend named Helena, a loving mother and a father who is a surgeon to the Royal Family. When...